President-elect Donald Trump has nominated Dave Weldon to be director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, tapping a former Florida politician and physician to lead the nation’s public health agency.

Weldon will replace Mandy Cohen, who took on the role last year. For the first time in its 78-year history, the nominee for ...Read more

ATHENS, Ga. — Barring an appeal, the case against Jose Ibarra is closed. This week, the 26-year-old Venezuelan was convicted of killing nursing student Laken Riley on the University of Georgia campus and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The fate of his brothers, Diego and Argenis, is less clear. Both were ...Read more

WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump said he was naming Fox News medical contributor Janette Nesheiwat as his surgeon general, elevating another personality from the conservative network to a top role in his incoming administration.

“Dr. Nesheiwat is a fierce advocate and strong communicator for preventive medicine and public health,�...Read more

LOS ANGELES — A magnitude 3.8 earthquake brought weak shaking to Malibu and Los Angeles’ Westside Friday.

The epicenter was about 4.6 miles north of Point Dume, in the mountains above Malibu’s city limits. It’s the seventh earthquake so far this year to rumble in this area.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey, “weak” shaking �...Read more

WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump said he will nominate Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer to be secretary of the Department of Labor.

“Together, we will achieve historic cooperation between Business and Labor that will restore the American Dream for Working Families,” Trump said in a statement. “Lori’s strong support from both the ...Read more

Controversial billionaire Elon Musk responded to speculation that MSNBC could be put up for sale, asking on Friday how much the cable news network would set him back.

The Comcast media conglomerate announced Wednesday it planned to spin some of its NBCUniversal properties — including MSNBC, CNBC, USA, Oxygen and E! — into “a new publicly ...Read more

NEW YORK — Cheating on your spouse is no longer a crime in New York.

Gov. Kathy Hochul signed a bill Friday repealing an obscure and rarely-enforced law that made adultery punishable by up to three months in prison.

“While I’ve been fortunate to share a loving married life with my husband for 40 years — making it somewhat ironic for me...Read more

Russian President Vladimir Putin said his forces may use a new missile again after targeting Ukraine in retaliation for Kyiv’s use of American and British-made weapons on Russian territory this week.

Russia said it launched an Oreshnik missile on the city of Dnipro on Thursday, the latest escalation of hostilities in the long-running war. ...Read more

BALTIMORE — Baltimore prosecutors are still mulling what to do with the case of Adnan Syed, whose decades-old convictions were reinstated earlier this year.

At a status conference in Syed’s case Friday, prosecutor Clara Salzberg, chief of the Baltimore State’s Attorney’s Office’s Post Conviction Litigation Unit, said her team needed ...Read more

ORLANDO, Fla. — Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo, a health care skeptic who has been mentioned for possible jobs in the Trump administration, issued an advisory Friday calling on Florida communities to stop fluoridating their water supplies.

Ladapo, citing controversial studies about the potential negative health consequences of ...Read more

WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump said Friday he would nominate hedge fund manager Scott Bessent to be Treasury secretary in his second term, a critical role in tax policy, global finance and managing the U.S. debt load.

To become the presumptive nominee, the founder of Key Square Group overcame scrutiny from the right over ties early...Read more

WASHINGTON — Russ Vought, the hard-driving budget director from President-elect Donald Trump’s first administration, will be nominated for a second stint in the job.

An unapologetic fiscal and social conservative, Vought is an aggressive advocate of cutting nondefense spending — but not what he calls the earned entitlements, Social ...Read more

WASHINGTON — Sen. Bernie Sanders announced he’d be bringing his brand of populism to the powerful Senate Finance Committee next year, with a wide remit over tax, trade, Social Security, social safety net programs and health care policy.

But no final decisions have been made, despite the Vermont independent’s assertion late Friday that he�...Read more

BALTIMORE — After facing criticism for not standing with concerned citizens in Baltimore, Carroll and Frederick counties over the controversial Maryland Piedmont Reliability Project, Gov. Wes Moore announced plans Friday to take a more proactive approach with the power companies behind the initiative.

Moore plans to meet with leadership from ...Read more

NEW YORK — Federal prosecutors on Friday urged a judge to deny Sean “Diddy” Combs’ latest bid for release from jail, arguing his consistent rule-breaking shows he “cannot be trusted.”

In Manhattan federal court, Assistant U.S. Attorney Christy Slavik said Combs had demonstrated he could not abide by “any conditions” of release. ...Read more

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Six Alaska House seats currently held by men are set to be held by women next year, bringing the overall number of women in the chamber to 21. This will be the first time in the state’s history that one of the legislative chambers is majority women.

The women elected to the Alaska House bring a variety of experiences and...Read more

WASHINGTON — It can be tough starting a new job; there’s all the new co-workers to meet, loads of paperwork to fill out, a new office layout to learn and a new commute to figure out.

But those challenges grow exponentially when you’re the delegate for the Northern Mariana Islands, and your new commute is roughly 8,000 miles.

“It’s ...Read more