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The Federal Reserve Board of Governors voted Dec. 18 to reduce its bond-buying in the first major step to taper the quantitative easing it has conducted to prop up the U.S. economy during the recession.

President Obama nominated Janet Yellen, the Federal Reserve’s vice chairwoman, to be the first female chairwoman of the nation’s central bank, the Associated Press reported.

The U.S. economy started the year “expanding at a modest to moderate pace,” and transportation and trucking activity were mixed as tonnage increased, the Federal Reserve said.

The Federal Reserve Wednesday said it was holding a key interest rate at a record low as “economic activity paused in recent months.”

Manufacturing activity in the Philadelphia region contracted this month, the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia said Thursday.

Federal Reserve officials boosted their projections for 2013-2014 economic growth and said they would begin a third round of asset purchases to spur the U.S. economy, Bloomberg reported.

The Federal Reserve will expand its program to replace short-term bonds with longer-term debt by $267 billion through the end of the year in a bid to reduce unemployment and protect the economy’s expansion, Bloomberg reported.

The Federal Reserve said Wednesday it “expects economic growth to remain moderate over coming quarters and then to pick up gradually.”