Comment on Smith: Three local literary stars walk into a museum...

By KATE PAYNE and STEPHANY MATAT, Associated Press TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody will take Marco Rubio ’s seat in the U. S. Senate, Gov. Ron DeSantis announced Thursday, making Moody only the second woman to represent Florida in the chamber. Elected as the state’s top law enforcement officer in 2018, Moody campaigned on a pledge to voters that she’d be a prosecutor, not a politician.

Lawmakers on Capitol Hill are set to question Scott Bessent’s stance on taxes, tariffs, trade and other issues during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Finance Committee. The treasury secretary is responsible for serving as the president’s fiscal policy adviser and managing the public debt. He would also be a member of the president’s National Economic Council. If confirmed, Bessent will oversee massive agencies within the Treasury Department, including the Internal Revenue Service.

In June, the writer Lore Segal, who had started hospice at her home in Manhattan, sent an email to her friends. “I am not sad or angry or afraid,” she wrote, according to a lovely profile in the New York Times Magazine. “Why aren’t I? It seems that having had a good 96 years will do very well.” Starting in June 2023, I edited a weekly obituary newsletter for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

By CHRISTOPHER SHERMAN and OLGA R. RODRIGUEZ, Associated Press TRACY, Calif. (AP) — Michel Bérrios left the United States a few days before the new year, giving President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign for mass deportations a small victory before they even started. A former leader of a Nicaraguan student uprising, Bérrios had been in the U.

New Hurricanes defensive coordinator Corey Hetherman will have the opportunity to mold his defensive staff to meet his ideas now that several assistant coaching positions have opened. Three defensive position coaches have left since Miami fired defensive coordinator Lance Guidry on New Year’s Eve. Defensive line coach Joe Salave’a took a similar position at his alma mater, Arizona, the team announced. Cornerbacks coach Chevis Jackson is going to Wake Forest to coach defensive backs, according to a report from 247Sports.

Doug Burgum, Interior Department The former governor of North Dakota and businessman appears before members of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, who will consider his nomination as interior secretary, the chief steward of U. S. public lands. Burgum, who endorsed Trump after ending his own 2024 presidential bid and campaigned for Trump, has also been tapped to lead the National Energy Council.