NATION IN BRIEF: Solis confirmed for Labor

California Rep. Hilda Solis won confirmation Tuesday as President Barack Obama’s labor secretary. The 80-17 vote ended more than a month of delays prompted by GOP concerns over Solis’ work for a pro-union organization, and later, revelations about her husband’s unpaid taxes. Solis, 51, will manage an agency with an annual budget of about $53 billion and nearly 17,000 employees. Obama intends to nominate former Washington Gov. Gary Locke to be commerce secretary today. Locke, a Democrat, became the nation’s first Chinese-American governor in 1997 and served two terms.

Prostate drug has preventive uses

For the first time, leading medical groups are advising millions of healthy men who are regularly screened for prostate cancer to consider taking a drug to prevent it. The advice stops short of saying men should take the drug finasteride, sold in generic form and as Proscar. It has not been widely prescribed as a cancer preventive, and may carry some risks. The new advice tells men to talk to their doctors and decide for themselves if the good outweighs the bad. The findings were published in two medical journals and discussed in a news briefing in connection with a cancer conference in Florida. They were written by doctors with American Society of Clinical Oncology and the American Urological Association.

Copter crash kills 1, injures 1

Authorities said one person is dead and a second seriously injured following a helicopter crash on the North Carolina campus of the private security contractor Xe, about 30 minutes south of Norfolk, Va. Xe is the security and training company formerly known as Blackwater Worldwide. Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen said the aircraft’s skid caught on an object and flipped over.

Burris refuses to step down

Sen. Roland Burris refused to resign, rebuffing a call from fellow Illinois Democrat Sen. Richard Durbin after the two met in Washington. Burris was appointed by disgraced former Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who was driven from office after he was accused of trying to sell the Senate seat. Burris has repeatedly changed his story about how he was appointed and recently admitted trying to raise money for Blagojevich.

Palin agrees to pay for travel

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin will reimburse the state nearly $7,000 for costs associated with nine trips taken by her children, her attorney said. A settlement agreement was filed by a special investigator hired by the Alaska Personnel Board to investigate an ethics complaint. There is no state law prohibiting the governor’s family from traveling with her. But the investigator, Timothy Petumenos, interpreted the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act to require that state only pay if the first family serves an important state interest. Petumenos said “some of the travel raised by the Complaint does not meet this standard,” according to the agreement.