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President-elect Barack Obama is expected to nominate Hilda Solis as labor secretary. The Democratic congresswoman was just elected to her fifth term representing heavily Hispanic portions of eastern Los Angeles County and east L.A. She is the daughter of Mexican and Nicaraguan immigrants.

Grace Go, a 17-year-old rising senior at Mercer Island High School outside Seattle, is the winner of the first-ever Best Mental Health Podcast Prize from NPR's Student Podcast Challenge.

Caroline Kennedy has ended her bid to win appointment to the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Hillary Clinton and once held by her late uncle, Bobby Kennedy. In a statement released early Thursday, Kennedy says she told New York Gov. David Patterson she is withdrawing for personal reasons. She was considered a favorite for the New York Senate seat, though she has never held elective office.

Attorney General-designate Eric Holder says "waterboarding is torture." He spoke about it at his confirmation hearing Thursday. The Senate Judiciary Committee is expected to hear from other witnesses Friday.

The playful second book in the author's Harlem Trilogy shows Ray Carney scheming how to get his teenage daughter into the concert of her dreams. Alarming capers ensue.

In the wake of the financial scandal that destroyed Enron, Congress created an independent board to watch over the accounting of all publicly traded firms. In order that the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board have total independence from political influence, Congress deemed that its members be appointed by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The court heard arguments Monday that challenge whether Congress went too far and overstepped the Separation of Powers clause of the Constitution.

The joke used to be that some women went to college to get their M.R.S. — that is, a husband. But a study by the Pew Research Center finds that women today are more likely to marry men who have lower education levels and lower income levels than they do.

With the bursting of the economic bubble in Iceland at the end of 2008, many people have been thrown out of work. Lines now form every week at a soup kitchen that hands out free food, and there is a growing acknowledgment that Icelanders need to get back to their core industries such as fishing and agriculture.

U.S. skier Lindsey Vonn won an Olympic gold in Vancouver on Wednesday despite a painful shin injury. But Thursday, she wiped out in the super combined. Vonn, who had the day off Friday, criticized the course on Whistler Mountain.

Gen. David Petraeus, who once led U.S. troops in Iraq, becomes head of the U.S. Central Command Friday. That position includes responsibility for the war in Afghanistan. Petraeus already has endorsed reaching out to less-extreme Taliban elements. He also is expected to send more troops and air power to support the war in Afghanistan.