Senate confirms Biden's pick Robert Califf as FDA commissioner
CBSN
Washington — The Senate on Tuesday approved Dr. Robert Califf as the next commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), filling a critical role at the public health agency that has been without a Senate-confirmed leader for more than a year.
The final vote was 50 to 46, with six GOP senators voting to confirm Califf and five Democrats voting against. GOP Senator Mike Rounds changed his vote to "present" as a courtesy to Democratic Senator Ben Ray Luján, who is still recovering from a stroke. Luján and two other senators did not vote.
It took the president nearly 10 months to nominate Califf, despite the ongoing and deadly COVID-19 pandemic. The FDA is, among many other things, in charge of approving COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutics.
Albertsons on Wednesday called off its $24.6 billion merger with Kroger, a day after a judge temporarily blocked the union, and sued the rival grocery chain for breach of contract.
A hiker was rescued Sunday from an Oregon state park where she had been missing almost two full days, the U.S. Coast Guard said. The 64-year-old woman's calls for help caught the attention of search and rescue crews that had been looking for her.
Inflation rose 2.7% on an annual basis in November, according to the latest government report on the Consumer Price Index, or CPI.
A southeast Georgia man was arrested and charged in the 1985 killing of a couple at a Black church after the original suspect — who spent 20 years behind bars — was exonerated on DNA evidence, authorities said.
Washington — Secretary of State Antony Blinken is set to testify Wednesday before the Republican-led House Foreign Affairs Committee, which has long sought to question him over the deadly evacuation from Afghanistan.
A federal judge on Tuesday night rejected the sale of the conspiracy platform Infowars to The Onion satirical news outlet after Alex Jones claimed that a recent bankruptcy auction was fraught with illegal collusion.
A group of House Democrats Tuesday called for action from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, days after CBS News published an investigation which found dozens of law enforcement officials illegally sold firearms, even weapons of war, across 23 states, Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C.
President-elect Donald Trump made another flurry of job announcements on Tuesday, selecting Andrew Ferguson as the next chair of the Federal Trade Commission, Ronald Johnson was nominated to be ambassador to Mexico, and Kimberly Guilfoyle to be ambassador to Greece.
President-elect Donald Trump announced Monday he is nominating Kimberly Guilfoyle to be U.S. ambassador to Greece. Guilfoyle, a former Fox News host-turned-political fundraiser, was dating Trump's eldest son, Donald Trump Jr.
A federal judge on Tuesday blocked Kroger's $24.6 billion acquisition of Albertsons, ruling that the proposed union would lessen competition for grocery shoppers.