CNN has named Indra Petersons as its new weather anchor and correspondent. Petersons will primarily contribute to “New Day” with Chris Cuomo, Kate Bolduan and Michaela Pereira which begins June 17, but will also appear across all CNN shows and platforms. With the devastating tornado in Oklahoma, Petersons is starting her field work early for CNN, and will be reporting from Moore this week.

Petersons joins CNN from KABC Los Angeles, where she was a meteorologist and general assignment reporter. Before KABC she worked at KEYT Santa Barbara and KVIA El Paso, also as a meteorologist.

She is effectively replacing Rob Marciano, who left as CNN’s weather anchor in November of 2012 to become the co-anchor of “Entertainment Tonight.”

First on TVNewser: Fusion, the upcoming cable news channel from ABC News and Univision, is adding HuffPost Live host Alicia Menendez to its lineup, TVNewser has learned.

Menendez is joining Fusion as an anchor based in Miami, and will host her own show on the channel when it launches later this year.

Menendez, the daughter of U.S. Senator Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), has long been a regular commentator on cable news, and is the former co-host of “Power Play” on SiriusXM’s Cristina Radio, which targets “Modern Latina” listeners. She is also a former contributor to NBCLatino.com.

She joined HuffPost Live before it launched in the Summer of 2012, and has become one of the faces of the burgeoning video channel, which recently secured a TV foothold on Mark Cuban’s AXS TV. She drew particular acclaim for her live coverage of the Boston bombings last month.

Update: internal memo from Fusion’s Beau Ferrari, after the jump.

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NBC News has officially named Deborah Turness as its new president. Turness will start her new role in August, reporting to NBCUniversal News Group chairman Pat Fili-Krushel.

“It is quite simply the greatest imaginable honor to be named as the next President of NBC News,” said Turness in a statement. “I am hugely excited by the opportunities that lie ahead and look forward to working with the talented journalists and technicians who make it one of the great global news operations.”

Turness is the editor of ITV News in the UK, a role she has held since 2004. She will remain that role until July, helping to select her successor at the British broadcaster. ITV and NBC News have long been partners, sharing bureaus and correspondents across the globe.

“Deborah has built an outstanding reputation as both a journalist and business executive with a proven track record for innovation and collaboration,” said Fili-Krushel in a statement. “She is a leader with a global perspective, who is also very familiar with NBC News, having worked closely with us through our partnership with ITN. Her passion for the news business, combined with her creativity and vision, will be a tremendous asset to NBC News, and I’m very pleased to welcome her to the team.”

The announcement was expected, as multiple outlets reported that Turness was the pick a week and a half ago. Her name was first floated back in April.

More information, below.

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At the end of a CBS Evening News story about where he got his start, it was announced that CBS News correspondent Randall Pinkston would be leaving the network. Pinkston, 63, joined CBS in 1980. He spent 10 years as a reporter at WCBS and, since 1990, has been a correspondent for CBS News, including a stint at the White House.

Pinkston’s final story was about where he got his start — at WLBT in Jackson, MS in 1971 — and why. It was due, in part, to the fact that 50 years ago tomorrow civil rights leader Medgar Evers asked for, and received equal time — unheard of at the time for a black man to appear on TV in the segregated South. Less than month later, Evers was assassinated.

At the end of that story, anchor Jim Axelrod announced Pinkston is leaving CBS. “He’s always been one of the true gentleman in this business and we will miss his warmth, his grace and his class,” said Axelrod. It’s not known if Pinkston is leaving for another opportunity or leaving the business.

After the jump, watch Pinkston’s last story for CBS News, which focused on civil rights leader and broadcaster Medgar Evers.
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As TVNewser first heard back in April, CNBC has named Kelly Evans as a new co-anchor on “Squawk on the Street,” the business channel’s 9 AM-12 PM program. Evans will effectively be replacing Melissa Lee, who cut back her hours on the morning program last month. She will be joining the current “Squawk” team, which includes Carl Quintanilla, Jim Cramer, David Faber and Simon Hobbs.

Evans is moving to CNBC’s headquarters in New Jersey from London, where she has been the co-host of ‘Worldwide Exchange,” which airs from 4-6 AM on the east coast. She joined CNBC in February, 2012 from the Wall Street Journal, adding co-anchor duties to “Worldwide Exchange” in May of that year.

CNBC senior VP Nik Deogun made the Evans announcement in a note to staff this morning. Read it below.
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Just a few short months after the program debuted, NBC Sports Network is completely shaking up its early-evening show “The Crossover,” according to The Big Lead.

Dave Briggs, who joined NBC Sports from Fox News in January specifically to host the program, is being removed as co-host. Starting Monday, the show will have a new set, and Michelle Beadle will host alone, joined by a rotating cast of regulars. Briggs is expected to get hosting duties on another NBCSN program.

Update: Briggs tells TVNewser “I’m ecstatic about the recent developments & very much looking forward to this opportunity.”

“The Crossover” was one of NBCSN’s highest-profile launches in recent memory, as Beadle was poached from ESPN (which wanted badly to keep her) and Briggs came from “Fox & Friends” weekend edition, which, while not as popular as the weekday edition, still does very well for FNC.

Telemundo has named María Celeste Arrarás as the co-anchor of evening newscast “Noticiero Telemundo.” Arrarás, known as “María Celeste” on her Telemundo newsmagazine “Al Rojo Vivo con María Celeste,” will appear alongside current anchor José Díaz-Balart. She will continue to host “Al Rojo Vivo.”

The addition of María Celeste is meant to help bolster Telemundo’s evening newscast, which–while growing–is still a distant second among Spanish-language viewers behind Univision’s “Noticiero Univision.”

Univision’s newscast also has a two-person anchor team, led by Jorge Ramos and María Elena Salinas. Until the addition of María Celeste, Diaz-Balart was flying solo on Telemundo’s evening newscast.

María Celeste has also appeared on NBC News programming, including “NBC Night;y News,” “Today” and “Dateline.” NBC is the parent company of Telemundo.
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NBC News is expected to name Deborah Turness as its new president, a source tells TVNewser. News of her likely appointment was reported this morning in The New York Times and The Guardian.

TVNewser hears an official announcement from NBC News could come as early as next week.

Turness, 45, is the editor of ITV News, the news arm of UK broadcaster ITV. Turness drew acclaim at ITV for keeping it competitive, even against the well-funded and iconic BBC News. Her appointment will end a three-month search for Steve Capus‘ successor.

She was the first female to hold the editor position, equivalent to a network news division president here in the U.S. She assumed that role in 2004, and before that served as deputy editor at both ITV News and Five News. She also served as a producer in ITV News’ Washington DC bureau earlier in her career.

ITV News and NBC News actually have a business relationship, sharing facilities and even correspondents with the British broadcaster.

Capus–an NBC News lifer–announced that he would leave NBC News in February. His last day was in early March.

Since that time NBCUniversal News Group chairman Pat Fili-Krushel has been overseeing the search for a replacement. Turness’ name first came up as a possibility last month in an article from the Los Angeles Times.

First On TVNewser: CNN senior VP of current programming Bart Feder is leaving the cable news channel, TVNewser has learned. His last day at the company will be May 24.

“Bart Feder and I have been in discussions over the last couple of weeks about his role in the company and he has decided that it is time to move on and take his career in a new direction,” CNN Worldwide president Jeff Zucker wrote in a note to staff this afternoon.

As is the case at most companies, with a new boss comes a new leadership team. Zucker has made a number of personnel changes since taking over earlier this year, both on-air and off-air.

We hear that Feder’s responsibilities will primarily be absorbed by trusted Zucker deputy Michael Bass, who joined CNN last month from syndicated talk show “Katie,” which Zucker helped launch.

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TheWrap’s Sharon Waxman weighs in on Al Jazeera America, which is currently on the lookout for a chief executive to run the new channel, which will take over the channel space of Current TV later this year.

Waxman has a list of names that she says are in consideration, and there are many familiar faces. Current TV chief David Bohrman is said not to be in the running, while Steve Capus is said to be “skeptical.”

One of the leading candidates, according to Waxman, is former CNN/U.S. chief Jonathan Klein:

Klein, who was fired in 2010, has the news experience and is believed to want the job. According to an individual with knowledge of his thinking, Klein believes there is a ripe opportunity for a news network to occupy the niche that CNN used to — in other words, hard-core reporting with serious journalists.

Others on the list include former CNN managing editor Mark Whitaker, former ABC News president David Westin and former CBS News president Andrew Heyward.