NEW YORK (AP) — Dr. Peter Attia, a medical influencer whose emails with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein were revealed in the latest U.S. Justice Department release of files, has resigned a post with CBS News.

Attia, podcast host and author of “Outlive: The Science & Art of Longevity,” was one of a group of people named last month by CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss as a contributor to network programming. He was the subject of a “60 Minutes” profile that ran on the network last October.

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But shortly after the appointment, Attia’s name surfaced in hundreds of Epstein documents. While Attia said he was guilty of no wrongdoing and did not attend any of Epstein’s sex parties, he admitted in an apology earlier this month that some of his emails were “embarrassing, tasteless and indefensible.”

Despite some public pressure, CBS News did not cut ties with Attia after the documents surfaced. Instead, Attia resigned from the network on his own, according to published reports confirmed by CBS News on Monday.

Attia is one of several public figures, including some in the corporate and public sectors, whose relationships with Epstein have surfaced in recent weeks, causing resignations.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. military said it killed three people Monday in a strike on an alleged drug-smuggling vessel in the Caribbean Sea as part of the Trump administration’s monthslong campaign against alleged traffickers.

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Monday’s attack brought the death toll to at least 151 people since the Trump administration began targeting those it calls “narcoterrorists” in small vessels in early September.

As with most of the military’s statements on the more than 40 known strikes, U.S. Southern Command said it targeted alleged drug traffickers along known smuggling routes. The military did not provide evidence that the vessel was ferrying drugs but posted a video on X that showed a small boat with outboard engines being destroyed.

“Intelligence confirmed the vessel was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Caribbean and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations,” Southern Command stated in a post on X. “Three male narco-terrorists were killed during this action.”

President Donald Trump has said the U.S. is in “armed conflict” with cartels in Latin America and has justified the attacks as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs into the United States. But his administration has offered little evidence to support its claims of killing “narcoterrorists.”

Critics have questioned the overall legality of the strikes as well as their effectiveness, in part because the fentanyl behind many fatal overdoses is typically trafficked to the U.S. over land from Mexico, where it is produced with chemicals imported from China and India.

The boat strikes also drew intense criticism following the revelation that the military killed survivors of the very first boat attack with a follow-up strike. The Trump administration and many Republican lawmakers said it was legal and necessary, while Democratic lawmakers and legal experts said the killings were murder, if not a war crime.

By ANNIE MA

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Education Department is handing over more of its programs and grants to other federal agencies, announcing a pair of new agreements Monday that move the Trump administration closer to its goal of shutting down the department.

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Under one interagency agreement, the Health and Human Services Department will take over grant programs that send millions of dollars to schools for safety and community engagement efforts. Another calls for the State Department to take over a portal that tracks foreign gifts to universities.

“As we continue to break up the federal education bureaucracy and return education to the states, our new partnerships with the State Department and HHS represent a practical step toward greater efficiency, stronger coordination, and meaningful improvement,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a statement.

Republican President Donald Trump and McMahon have acknowledged only Congress has authority to close the Education Department fully, but both have suggested its core functions could be parceled out to different federal agencies.

The agreement with HHS moves a small subset of grants to the health agency without touching the Education Department’s special education work. McMahon has long suggested that special education programs should be moved to HHS too, and as recently as December she told advocates that she still intends to move those programs out of the department.

Yet the issue has proved to be politically volatile for McMahon, who has been grilled over her plans for special education even by some in her party. The latest agreements make no mention of the department’s Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, which manages billions of dollars in grants and oversees state compliance with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

Last year, the department signed seven similar agreements, transferring a sweeping slate of work to the Department of Labor and the Interior Department, in addition to the State Department and HHS. Those agreements covered billions in federal funding streams that went to programs like Title I, which supports low-income students.

The union representing department workers said the latest agreements would shift work to agencies with no educational expertise.

“This isn’t efficiency — Secretary McMahon is creating confusion for schools and colleges, eroding public trust, and harming students and families,” AFGE Local 252 President Rachel Gittleman said in a statement.

“This is an insult to the tens of millions of students who rely on the Department to safeguard access to quality education and to the taxpayers who depend on federal oversight to prevent waste.”

Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington state said the agreements would hurt students and families.

“These illegal agreements aren’t just creating pointless new bureaucracy that burdens our already-overworked teachers and schools; they are actively jeopardizing resources and support that students and families count on and are entitled to under the law,” Murray said.

Under the new agreements, the State Department will take an increased role in data collection, reporting and enforcement of Section 117, which requires colleges and universities to disclose gifts of $250,000 or more each year.

The agreement with HHS will send six programs to the Administration for Children and Families, which will take over grant competitions and technical assistance for these grants.

But the future of those programs is already uncertain. In its 2026 budget request, the Trump administration said it wanted to zero out the budget of five of the six programs it is transferring to HHS. And in December, some recipients of the Promise Neighborhoods and Full-Service Community Schools grants, which pay for academic and afterschool enrichment opportunities for students, were notified that their funding would not continue in 2026, bringing much of their work to a sudden halt.

Associated Press writer Collin Binkley contributed to this report.

The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

“When unhealthy options dominate and nutrition information is limited, families face steeper barriers to making healthier choices or finding better options at all.”

(Photo Credit: Shutterstock.com/Dontree_M)

It’s hard to find political consensus on many issues in the United States in 2026, but there is one area where we still largely agree: junk food is bad for kids. As a millennial pediatrician, I’ve seen the consequences of our broken food system play out in real time. Growing up, the hidden dangers of junk food were already part of the conversation. Over time, that concern has expanded to include the ultraprocessed products now dominating our food supply.

But today, the problem isn’t just what’s in the food—it’s also the aggressive marketing aimed at children, who are especially vulnerable to colorful branding and animated characters. The reality is that kids are growing up in an increasingly unhealthy food environment, with the odds stacked against them.

Every day, I see families doing their best to make healthy choices, often without the information and agency to succeed. With fewer wholesome, affordable options available, junk food remains the cheapest and most accessible option for many families shopping paycheck-to-paycheck. This year, Albany has a chance to protect New York families and children by advancing two public health bills: the Sodium Warning Bill (S428)and Sweet Truth Act (S427), sponsored by Senate Health Committee Chair Gustavo Rivera and Assemblymember Karines Reyes.

Chronic disease has many causes, but Big Food’s influence—combined with a lack of transparency—continues to play a major role in driving poor health outcomes statewide. Heart disease and stroke remain leading killers nationwide, while Americans consume excessive amounts of sodium and added sugars without clear information about what’s on their plates.

New York faces the same crisis, compounded by the face that residents eat out 130 percent more than other Americans. As a result, more than 10 percent of adults statewide—around 1.7 million people—live with diabetes. Weight-related care costs New York $5.2 billion annually, while hypertension and diabetes cost more than $40 billion. I became a pediatrician to help children and families make healthier decisions early in life—before these statistics become inevitable decades later. Yet current policies fail to provide basic nutrition transparency, leaving families in the dark.

The Sodium Warning Bill and Sweet Truth Act represent an important step forward. These bills would require clear warning labels for high-sodium and high-added sugar menu items at chain restaurants statewide—a straightforward transparency measure that can help families reduce their risk of heart disease, diabetes, and even certain cancers. Over time, better health outcomes would also mean lower healthcare costs, delivering a meaningful affordability benefit for New Yorkers. 

The food environment families are navigating makes these protections especially urgent. At fast casual restaurants, meals routinely exceed the FDA’s daily recommendations of 50 grams of added sugar and 2,300 milligrams of sodium. Even single fountain drinks often contain more than a day’s worth of added sugars. Research shows that diets high in added sugar and sodium are linked to developmental delays, endocrine dysfunction, cancer, obesity, and diabetes in children, setting young people on a path toward chronic disease before they even finish high school. 

Still, these harms are not distributed equally. New York City’s 2,000-plus chain restaurants are disproportionately concentrated in Black and Latino neighborhoods—including where I live in the Bronx. Residents in these neighborhoods are twice as likely to have diabetes as white New Yorkers. When unhealthy options dominate and nutrition information is limited, families face steeper barriers to making healthier choices or finding better options at all. 

In my practice, I remind families that even small changes can lead to big health gains over time. Transparency is a simple but powerful tool in that process. It can look like a child choosing water over a sugary soda, and picking up mango slices instead of spicy tortilla crisps at their bodega; or a family opting for grilled chicken over the breaded cutlet after seeing a sodium warning.

Providing clear information gives families agency and empowers New Yorkers to make safer choices when dining out—choices that add up to fewer chronic illnesses and fewer trips to the doctor’s office. 

The public is ready. Nearly 80 percent of New Yorkers already support warning labels for menu items high in added sugars—a demand that pushed the New York City Council to pass the Sweet Truth Act in 2023. Now it’s time for the state to follow the city’s lead and extend this public health protection to all New Yorkers. 

New York has long been a national leader in public health. For the sake of our children, our communities, and our shared future, the legislature should prioritize these bills and give families the truth about what’s on their plates.

Dr. Charles Moon, MD, FAAP is the chair of the New York State Chapter 3 of the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Environmental Health & Climate Change, as well as co-chair of the NYS AAP’s Public Public and Advocacy Committee. He lives in the Throggs Neck neighborhood of the Bronx. 

The post Opinion: Give New York Families The Truth About What’s On Their Plates appeared first on City Limits.