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NEW YORK -- A Senate hearing for President Donald Trump's surgeon general pick, Dr. Casey Means, has been postponed because she went into labor, a spokesperson for the Senate health committee said Thursday. The news came just hours before the 38-year-old Means, who has been pregnant with her first child, was set to appear virtually with the committee for her confirmation hearing. It was not immediately clear when the hearing would be rescheduled. "Everyone's happy for Dr. Means and her family," said Emily Hilliard, deputy press secretary for the Health and Human Services Department. "This is one of the few times in life it's easy to ask to move a Senate hearing." Means was expected to share a vision for ending chronic disease by targeting its root causes, an idea that aligns with the Make America Healthy Again message of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. She has no government experience, and her license to practice as a physician is inactive. Though she went to medical school at Stanford University, she dropped out of her surgical residency program at Oregon Health and Science University in 2018. She later co-founded Levels, a nutrition-, sleep- and exercise-tracking app that can also give users insights from blood tests and continuous glucose monitors. Financial disclosures show she has made hundreds of thousands of dollars promoting health and wellness products. An Associated Press investigation found that while recommending these products, she at times failed to disclose that she could profit or benefit from the sales. US strikes boat in east Pacific, killing 4 WASHINGTON -- Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced Wednesday that the U.S. military carried out another strike on a boat he said was carrying drugs in the eastern Pacific Ocean, killing all four people aboard. Hegseth said on social media intelligence determined the craft was "transiting along a known narco-trafficking route, and carrying narcotics." He said the strike was conducted in international waters and no U.S. forces were harmed. A video posted by Hegseth shows a boat exploding into flames and smoke. It was the 14th strike since the campaign began in early September, while the death toll has grown to at least 61. President Donald Trump has justified the attacks on the boats as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs into the United States. He has asserted the U.S. is engaged in an "armed conflict" with drug cartels, relying on the same legal authority used by the Bush administration when it declared a war on terrorism after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The attacks have occurred without any legal investigation or a traditional declaration of war from Congress. The Trump administration has shown no evidence to support its claims about the boats that have been attacked, their connection to drug cartels, or even the identity of the people killed in the strikes. Virginia candidate's bus catches fire NORFOLK, Va. -- Virginia Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears' campaign bus caught on fire Thursday afternoon. She posted on X that while on the way to an event, her bus caught on fire, but everyone is safe. She did not say what had caused the fire. "Thank you to the first responders who got to the scene quickly -- we are so grateful for you," Earle-Sears said. Earle-Sears, the Republican candidate in Virginia's gubernatorial race, takes on Democrat Abigail Spanberger in Tuesday's general election. "I'm grateful to our first responders for their quick action -- and I'm thinking of the Lt. Governor and her team after this scary incident," Spanberger said on social media. 20 indicted in bribery case in Mississippi JACKSON, Miss. -- Federal authorities on Thursday announced indictments against 20 people, including 14 current or former Mississippi Delta law enforcement officers, that claim the officers took bribes to provide safe passage to people they believed were drug traffickers. The yearslong investigation swept across multiple counties in the Mississippi Delta region of Mississippi and Tennessee. Two Mississippi sheriffs, Washington County Sheriff Milton Gaston and Humphreys County Sheriff Bruce Williams, were among those arrested. Some bribes were as large as $20,000 and $37,000, authorities said at a news conference. The indictments say law enforcement officers provided armed escort services on multiple occasions to an FBI agent posing as a member of a Mexican drug cartel. The indictments claim the officers understood they were helping to transport 55 pounds of cocaine through Mississippi Delta counties and into Memphis. Some of the officers also provided escort services to protect the transportation of drug proceeds.
