Caesar Rodney, who signed the declaration of independence, is described by the History Channel’s website as “the founding father you’ve probably never heard of”

His victory speech at the Chase Center on the Riverfront, and his transition events unveiling cabinet picks at the Queen theatre, have drawn thousands of supporters and journalists. Suddenly thrust centre stage, the city and state are emerging – at least momentarily – from the daunting shadow of New York, Washington and neighbouring Philadelphia.

“I’m sure he’s proud of this state and he’s going to show it off the best he can. At a time that things seem so dark and so bleak, it’s nice to have a little light shone on the place that you live and work. Not everyone has that.”

The aura of the presidency can lift small-town America out of obscurity.

Now it is the turn of Biden’s modest home to get name-checked on the nightly news.

“Joe’s being elected has created this curiosity about Wilmington that people just never had before.

It might be said to be fitting that Donald Trump – whose brash personality is reflected by garish Trump Tower in New York and opulent Mar-a-Lago in Florida – is about to be supplanted by a man who honed his common touch in Delaware, a low-key state whose riches are less instantly obvious

“Our train station is small, our convention space is much smaller than you find in the big cities. We have an intimate scale to the city, which I think is a pretty accurate reflection of Joe Biden.”

Owens said: “Because we’re a small city, I feel as though we’re connected. We have a very strong sense of self and unity. Everyone knows each other. In some neighbourhoods in the big cities you grew up on your block so you know people on your block. In the city of Wilmington, you know people throughout the city and that’s one of the unique things.

we don’t have an Empire State building, we don’t have a Rockefeller. In Washington you have the monuments; we don’t have that here.

Local tourism officials are also hoping for a post-pandemic boom courtesy of their local hero.

Many of the plant's 2,800 employees are immigrants and refugees.

Black Hawk County Sheriff Tony Thompson visited the plant along with health officials in April. He told The New York Times that working conditions there — workers crowded elbow to elbow, not wearing face coverings — "shook me to the core."

The complaint says Tyson offered $500 "thank you bonuses" to employees who showed up for every scheduled shift for three months — a policy that the plaintiffs argue incentivized sick workers to keep working.

Tyson had employees move between a different Iowa plant where an outbreak was occurring and the Waterloo plant, and did not adequately test or quarantine them before they entered the Waterloo facility.

The lawsuit also alleges that supervisors outwardly denied there were cases of the virus at the Waterloo plant but began avoiding the plant floor because they were afraid of contracting the virus.

It was around this time, according to a complaint from the family of one employee who died, that the manager of the Waterloo facility organized a "cash buy-in, winner-take-all betting pool for supervisors and managers to wager how many employees would test positive for COVID-19."

"We're saddened by the loss of any Tyson team member and sympathize with their families. Our top priority is the health and safety of our workers, and we've implemented a host of protective measures at our facilities that meet or exceed CDC and OSHA guidance for preventing COVID-19," Mickelson said, pointing to investments the company has made in testing, temperature scanners, workspace dividers and other safety measures.

Tyson eventually announced on April 22 it would suspend operations at the plant. It reopened two weeks later.

Those students, he says, "ought to be benefited. And by the way, a majority of those students are African American, and that's an issue that can't be ignored in this discussion either."

Popular sports bring in money for other athletic programs But at the same time, Roberts notes the NCAA system has benefited students who have scholarships to play other sports

The case before the Supreme Court involves 126 teams that play big-time football and men's and women's basketball. But for all of college sports, Roberts and other sports law experts say, the lower courts have left these issues in a legal mess.

California, for instance, passed a law last year effectively requiring schools to allow athletes to profit from their names, images, and likenesses. After the law was enacted, the NCAA abruptly reversed its long-held opposition to such benefits, and said it would issue new policies early next year.

its long-held opposition to such benefits, and said it would issue new policies early nex

images

A Supreme Court decision siding with the NCAA would likely fortify the NCAA's effort to maintain tighter restrictions on benefits for big-time college and basketball players. A decision holding that the NCAA has gone too far would likely lead to more benefits for players whose hard work and frequent injuries allow the schools they play for to reap billions in TV and other revenue.

While that revenue sometimes benefits lesser-known sports and players at those schools, many experts say it more often benefits coaches and assistant coaches who are paid tens of millions of dollars, and allows schools to spend millions on mammoth stadiums and lavish locker rooms.

Last week 60 minutes reported that "at least 30 universities have cut almost 100 programs: soccer, squash, golf, gymnastics. Football powerhouse Clemson cut men's track and field. Stanford eliminated 11 sports. Schools are honoring existing scholarships, but more than 1,500 student-athletes, both men and women, will no longer have a team to compete for."

Zig-zagging through this legal minefield will be difficult for the Supreme Court, to say the least. And it may well issue a narrow opinion that still leaves most of these questions unresolved. But the fact that the justices decided to take on the this case, when it has dodged similar ones in the past, indicates they are at least serious about the issues.

Another issue in the current talks: How can the EU retaliate if the U.K. decides to depart from the bloc's regulations in a way that gives British businesses a competitive advantage?

Brexit deadlines have come and gone, but leaders of the main political groups in the European Parliament say they will not be able to ratify a deal unless they have it by midnight Sunday.

What happens if the EU and the U.K. can't agree on a new trade deal? The U.K. will begin trading under World Trade Organization rules, which means both sides will be free to slap tariffs on a variety of products the other produces.

Why is this so difficult? Is this about something bigger? It's about different values and different visions.

Why should Americans or anyone outside Europe care about this? The EU has many flaws. Its critics see it as hopelessly bureaucratic and something of a gravy train of sinecures for Eurocrats. But it is also a pillar — along with NATO — of the post-World War II architecture that America played a major role in designing.

How will U.K. travel, work and immigration change next year? Brexit was won, in part, on the pledge to take back control of borders and immigration from the EU. Britons will still be able to travel visa-free to most EU countries for up to 90 days in any 180-day period next year, but in 2022, they will have to apply for visa waivers.

"I cannot tell you whether there will be a deal or not, but I can tell you that there is a path to an agreement," she said Wednesday. "The path may be very narrow, but it is there and it is therefore our responsibility to continue trying."

What if there is a deal? That would be a relief to most U.K. businesses as there would be less disruption. But there would still be customs checks for the first time in decades, which is expected to slow trade across the English Channel.

Are the U.K. government and businesses ready for this fundamental change in the relationship? No. British businesses are furious that the government has not spelled out exactly how they need to prepare for these two possibilities.

The University of Oxford-AstraZeneca and Novavax vaccines will add to New Zealand's previously agreed upon purchases of vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and Janssen Pharmaceutica. The new agreements secures access to 7.6 million doses from AstraZeneca – enough for 3.8 million people, and 10.72 million doses from Novavax– enough for 5.36 million people, according to the government. Both vaccines require two doses.

If the vaccines are proven to be safe and effective, the vaccination process is expected to begin early next year with border-control personnel and later other essential workers, with the general population getting the vaccines in the second half of the year.

"no-one misses out, even if it means we've purchased more than we need. It's an investment worth making."

Ardern said New Zealand is also working with Australia to support vaccination across the wider Pacific.

Government officials reminded the public that the start of COVID-19 vaccines doesn't mean a quick lifting of the nation's border lockdown.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services in the U.S. is also taking steps to ensure all Americans have access to the COVID-19 vaccines at no cost once it becomes widely available.

Serious adverse reactions were uncommon. There were three reports of a facial paralysis called Bell's palsy in the vaccine group and one in the placebo group. The FDA said there wasn't enough information to determine if the vaccine caused the cases.

Most everyone experienced pain at the injection site — 92%. Other common reactions included fatigue (69%), headache (63%) and muscle pain (60%).

The FDA analysis supports a case that the Moderna vaccine should be authorized for emergency use, a quicker approach than the standard for full licensure.

Authorization of Moderna's vaccine will be considered only for adults, so the meeting may go more smoothly.

Permission to use the additional portions means the limited supply could increase by up to 40%, Politico reported.

Leading health experts say that even if all goes well, the vaccine will not be available to the general public until the end of March or beginning of April.

Inoculations began in the U.S. on Monday with health care workers and the elderly being the first in line to get it.

Meanwhile, The New York Times reported that a second allotment of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine may not be available to the U.S. until next June, given the combination of short supply and global demand.

"It's pretty unusual to have a full extra dose or more though — but it does seem to be there!" Erin Fox, a pharmacist at University of Utah who monitors drug shortages, told the news outlet.

However, because there are no preservatives in the vaccines, partial doses from separate vials shouldn't be combined.

There are conflicting reports about when the U.S. is poised to receive another batch of the medicine from Pfizer.

A vaccine developed by Moderna is expected to get emergency use authorization from the FDA as early as this week. Clinical data shows it is nearly as effective as the Pfizer injections.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's senior official for infectious diseases, told NPR this week that half of all Americans would need to be vaccinated before seeing an impact on the spread of the virus, and that 75% to 85% of the population would need to be vaccinated to create herd immunity. He predicted the U.S. could begin to see early stages of herd immunity by late spring or summer.

SolarWinds has some 300,000 customers but says "fewer than 18,000" installed the version of its Orion products earlier this year that now appears to have been compromised.

The intruders were careful to cover their tracks, Gerstell said. "You couldn't tell that they came in, you couldn't tell that they left the back door open. You couldn't even tell necessarily when they came in, took a look around and when they left."

Many U.S. national security agencies made major efforts to prevent Russia from interfering in this year's election. But those same agencies seem to have been blindsided by news that hackers — suspected to be Russia's foreign intelligence service, the SVR — were digging around inside U.S. government systems, possibly since the spring.

Microsoft has now taken control of the domain name that hackers used to communicate with systems that were compromised by the Orion update, according to security expert Brian Krebs. The company's analysis, he added, should help reveal the scope of the affected companies and agencies.

"We believe this is nation-state activity at significant scale, aimed at both the government and private sector," the company said as it shared some details about what it called "the threat activity we've uncovered over the past weeks."

So far, some U.S. government departments and agencies have acknowledged they are investigating the breaches but have provided few details. The White House has been silent about the suspected Russian hack.

"This SolarWinds hack is very problematic, very troublesome, because it's not at all clear exactly how we should respond," Gerstell said. Part of the problem, he added, is that it's not clear what the hackers did after gaining access.

The intrusion could simply be a case of espionage, he said, of one government trying to understand what its adversary is doing.

The company said, "We have been advised that this incident was likely the result of a highly sophisticated, targeted, and manual supply chain attack by an outside nation state, but we have not independently verified the identity of the attacker."

The cybersecurity firm announced last week that a "highly sophisticated state-sponsored adversary" stole its "red team" tools, which are used to test security vulnerabilities in its customers' computer networks. FireEye's clients include government agencies.

The incident is the latest in what has become a long list of suspected Russian electronic incursions into other nations – particularly the U.S. – under President Vladimir Putin.

The agency said Sunday that it "is aware of active exploitation of SolarWinds Orion Platform software" that was released between March and June. The agency is urging any affected organizations to take steps to detect intrusions and to take countermeasures.

"The removal of Timnit has had a demoralizing effect on the whole of our team."

Since Gebru's termination earlier this month, more than 2,600 Googlers have signed an open letter expressing dismay over the way Gebru exited the company and asking executives for a full explanation of what prompted her dismissal.

Gebru's firing happened "without warning rather than engaging in dialogue."

Google has maintained that Gebru resigned, though Gebru herself says she never voluntary agreed to leave the company.

They say Jeff Dean, senior vice president of Google Research, and other executives involved in Gebru's firing need to be held accountable.

Gebru helped establish Black in AI, a group that supports Black researchers in the field of artificial intelligence.

At Google, Gebru's former team wrote in the Wednesday letter that studying ways to reduce the harm of AI on marginalized groups is key to their mission.

Last month, Google abruptly asked Gebru to retract a research paper focused on the potential biases baked into an AI system that attempts to mimic human speech. The technology helps power Google's search engine. Google claims that the paper did not meet its bar for publication and that Gebru did not follow the company's internal review protocol.

However, Gebru and her supporters counter that she was being targeted because of how outspoken she was about diversity issues, a theme that was underscored in the letter.

The letter says Google's top brass have committed to advancing diversity, equity and inclusion among its research units, but unless more concrete and immediate action is taken, those promises are "virtue signaling; they are damaging, evasive, defensive and demonstrate leadership's inability to understand how our organization is part of the problem," according to the letter.

She also was the co-author of pioneering research into facial recognition technology that demonstrated how people of color and women are misidentified far more often than white faces. The study helped persuade IBM, Amazon and Microsoft to stop selling the technology to law enforcement.

saying such "gaslighting" has caused harm to Gebru and the Black community at Google.

Google has a history of striking back against employees who agitate internally for change. Organizers of the worldwide walkouts at Google in 2018 over sexual harassment and other issues were fired by the company. And more recently, the National Labor Relation Board accused Google of illegally firing workers who were involved in union organizing.

France underwent a strict monthlong lockdown in November and was able to reduce the infection rate from a record high of more than 60,000 confirmed cases in a single day, down to 14,000.

News of the president's infection comes just weeks before France is set to receive 1.16 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.

Since 2019, French law provides a waiver to the 40% rule if the new hires do not lead to an overall gender imbalance, Le Monde explains. That's the case for the city of Paris, according to the newspaper: Women still make up just 47% of senior executives on its government. And female city officials are paid 6% less than their male counterparts.

"It is paradoxical to blame us for appointments that make it possible to catch up on the backlog we had," Antoine Guillou, the mayor's deputy in charge of human resources, told Le Monde.

the aim is to resolve an existing imbalance toward men

"In Paris, we are doing everything to make it a success, and I am very, very proud of a large team of women and men who carry together this fight for equality," Hidalgo added.

Amélie de Montchalin, France's Minister of Public Service, lamented the fine and called the provision "absurd."

Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg said Aguirre "crossed the line from dirty politics to commission of a violent crime and we are lucky no one was killed."

"His alleged investigation was backward from the start — first alleging a crime had occurred and then trying to prove it happened," Ogg said.

Claims of voter fraud during this year's election — by President Trump, Aguirre and others — have been debunked. Evidence that President-elect Joe Biden won the election hasn't stopped Trump and others from challenging the results in court — an effort that has also repeatedly failed. This week, the Electoral College made Biden's victory official.

Aguirre's scheme was reportedly part of a paid investigation by the Liberty Center group, whose CEO is Republican activist Steven Hotze. It was later discovered that Aguirre was paid $266,400 by the organization for this involvement.

Liberty Center for God and Country's Facebook page says the organization's goal "is to provide the bold and courageous leadership necessary to restore our nation to its Godly heritage by following the strategy that our pilgrim forefathers gave us."

hould be "tarred and feathered" for coronavirus lockdown measures in the state.

ould be "

state

tarred

he had raised more than $600,000 over a three-week period

That fundraising push, Hotze said, "prevented the Democrats from carrying out their massive election fraud scheme in Harris County, and prevented them from carrying Texas for Biden. Our efforts saved Texas."

Aguirre and two other unidentified companions with the Liberty Center watched the victim for four days prior to the Oct. 19 attack, according to police records. They were convinced that there were 750,000 fraudulent ballots in the man's vehicle and home.

Aguirre said the victim was using Hispanic children to sign the ballots because children's fingerprints wouldn't appear on any database, according to the affidavit. He also claimed Facebook's founder gave $9.37 billion for "ballot harvesting."

The victim was driving his box truck during the early morning hours of Oct. 19, when he noticed a black SUV pull into his lane, almost hitting him. A few seconds later, the driver of the SUV later identified as Aguirre, allegedly slammed into the back of the man's vehicle. When the victim pulled over and got out to check on Aguirre, the former police officer allegedly pointed a gun at the victim and demanded he get on the ground.

While Aguirre had his knee into the man's back, according to the affidavit, he ordered two other people arrived on the scene to search the victim's truck. One of them then drove the truck as Aguirre kept the man pinned to the ground. The truck was found abandoned a few blocks away about 30 minutes after the incident. When police searched the victim's truck, only air-conditioner parts and tools were found. No ballots were discovered in the truck or in the man's home. Aguirre was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, a second-degree felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

Ex-Houston Police Officer

An ex-captain in the Houston Police Department was arrested Tuesday for allegedly running a man off the road and assaulting him in an attempt to prove a bizarre voter-fraud conspiracy pushed by a right-wing organization.

Gray is the first person in the United States to be successfully treated for a genetic disorder with the help of CRISPR, a revolutionary gene-editing technique that makes it much easier to make very precise changes in DNA.

All the patients appear to have responded well. The only side effects have been from the intense chemotherapy they've had to undergo before getting the billions of edited cells infused into their bodies.

The New England Journal of Medicine published online this month the first peer-reviewed research paper from the study, focusing on Gray and the first beta thalassemia patient who was treated.

"I'm very excited to see these results," says Jennifer Doudna of the University of California, Berkeley, who shared the Nobel Prize this year for her role in the development of CRISPR

But the results from the first 10 patients "represent an important scientific and medical milestone," says Dr. David Altshuler, Vertex's chief scientific officer.

The treatment boosted levels of a protein in the study subjects' blood known as fetal hemoglobin. The scientists believe that protein is compensating for defective adult hemoglobin that their bodies produce because of a genetic defect they were born with.

showed the gene-edited cells had persisted the full year — a promising indication that the approach has permanently altered her DNA and could last a lifetime.

"This gives us great confidence that this can be a one-time therapy that can be a cure for life," says Samarth Kulkarni, the CEO of CRISPR Therapeutics.

Gray has also been able to wean off the powerful pain medications she'd needed most of her life.

haven't needed the regular blood transfusions that had been required to keep them alive.

For the treatment, doctors remove stem cells from the patients' bone marrow and use CRISPR to edit a gene in the cells, activating the production of fetal hemoglobin. That protein is produced by fetuses in the womb but usually shuts off shortly after birth. The patients then undergo a grueling round of chemotherapy to destroy most of their bone marrow to make room for the gene-edited cells, billions of which are then infused into their bodies.

Doctors have already started trying to use CRISPR to treat cancer and to restore vision to people blinded by a genetic disease. They hope to try it for many other diseases as well, including heart disease and AIDS.

"This is really a life-changer for me," she says. "It's magnificent."

And moving into 2021, officials said, the company may start placing labels or warnings on messages containing "unsubstantiated rumors, disputed claims, as well as incomplete or out-of-context information about vaccines."

Among the posts that will be flagged are those making false conspiracy claims suggesting immunizations and vaccines are used as tools to control or harm the population at large. Others alleging that the global coronavirus pandemic is made up and those that are dismissive of the gravity of the virus will also be taken down.

Officials said Twitter will use a combination of technology and people who will be consulting with health experts around the world to enforce the changes on such posts.

Pence will be the highest-ranking person yet to receive a COVID-19 vaccine publicly as distribution begins.

Trump has credited his administration with fast-tracking vaccine development and has hailed it as among his greatest accomplishments in office.

the same week the U.S. began the rollout of its COVID-19 vaccination program and surpassed 300,000 deaths from the virus.

comes on the heels of the Thanksgiving holiday, when many Americans gathered with family and friends against health officials' warnings. Authorities are concerned about a similar spike following the Christmas and New Year's holidays.

"We are still at a dangerous and critical part of this pandemic and tens of thousands of American lives are at stake really every week,"

called the charges "historic" and vowed to apply the law evenly "no matter what the color of your skin....or whether you wear a uniform to work."

"For far too long we have seen the failure of our legal system to hold police accountable for violence committed against the very members of the public that they have sworn to serve and protect,"

the case was in its earliest stages

Prosecutors do not consider him a flight risk and are not seeking a pre-trial detention of the former officer.

An attorney representing the O'Neil family told the station they were bracing for an extended legal battle, but also said, in their opinion, it was "obvious" a crime had been committed against O'Neil.

"Officer Samayoa pointed his gun and shot Mr. O'Neil through the passenger side window of the patrol car, killing Mr. O'Neil," the district attorney's office said in a statement. "Mr. O'Neil had no weapon on him. His cause of death was determined to be a homicide."

But the persistence of the president and loyal Republicans has alarmed Black leaders, civil rights activists and historians who see an unprecedented attempt to disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of voters, many of them Black.

But Bob Bauer, a senior legal adviser to the Biden campaign, said the Trump campaign's "targeting of the African American community is not subtle. It is extraordinary" and that "it's quite remarkable how brazen it is."

A group of Michigan voters has also filed a lawsuit against Trump and his campaign, arguing that "defendants are openly seeking to disenfranchise Black voters,"

The plaintiffs, who are represented by lawyers from the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, allege that the Trump campaign has attempted mass voter suppression by pressuring election officials into not certifying the election results in their state, and that Trump's apparent attempt to pressure Michigan election officials and state lawmakers was a violation of the provision against voter intimidation included in the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Trump and his allies have made similar efforts in Pennsylvania, with false claims about widespread voter fraud in Philadelphia.

To many civil rights advocates, this is another grim chapter in what they see as an expansive, decades-long effort by Republicans to gain more power by suppressing the votes of people of color.

"It is difficult for me to think of another president in modern time who has literally driven a national scheme to disenfranchise Black voters and other voters of color en masse, in the way that we see with these post-election lawsuits," said Kristin Clarke, president and executive director of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. S

the Trump campaign was aided by supporters and allies across the country in his failed efforts to reverse Biden's victory.

"It's only because of the environment that was created by this president to defy the rule of law, to destroy customs and practices, and to really push people toward a sense of tribalism that's not in our economic interest, that's not in the interest of democracy, for his own selfish and self-reflecting outcome,"

The effort that Trump is undertaking, she said, is a new type of attempted voter suppression in which the president is attempting to invalidate ballots that have already been counted.

"I think he has targeted heavily African American cities because they happen to be heavily Democratic cities, and if he's going to invalidate enough votes to turn the election in his favor, this would actually be the best place to do it," Gillespie said.

voters of color, faced unprecedented obstacles to cast ballots due to the coronavirus pandemic.

With the election challenges serving as a sort of punctuation mark on all of that, Clarke said, "I think this will stand out in the history books as one of the darkest moments in our nation's history."

However, the U.S. is telling a different story. It says that the McCain "asserted navigational rights and freedoms in the vicinity of Peter the Great Bay in the Sea of Japan."

The 106-nautical mile closing line at the mouth of the bay is "inconsistent with the rules of international law as reflected in the Law of the Sea Convention," according to the Navy.

Although not uncommon during the Cold War, the U.S. and Russian naval forces have had close encounters on the sea and air even in recent years. Russian ships and planes regularly challenge U.S. naval vessels.

Last year, the Admiral Vinogradov came within 50 to 100 feet of the USS Chancellorsville as the American ship was busy recovering a helicopter. The Chancellorsville had to take evasive action to avoid the Russian warship, the Navy says.

Robert Dunham of the Death Penalty Information Center said the Trump Justice Department had behaved in ways that are "historically anomalous."

"In a normal presidency that followed the traditional norms of civility, you wouldn't see executions during a transition period," Dunham said. "The outgoing administration would defer to the incoming administration in matters like this."

Their legal teams say Bourgeois and Johnson suffer from intellectual disabilities and that Higgs didn't pull the trigger to kill the women. Instead, the man who admitted firing the weapon was tried separately and was sentenced to life in prison.

"The federal government has already presided over the executions of eight people so far this year," said Hannah Riley, a spokeswoman at the Southern Center for Human Rights. "The death penalty is always unconscionable, but it is especially egregious to carry out executions as hundreds of people are dying of COVID-19 in this country every day."

Dunham said the unusual moves by the Justice Department also extended to an announcement about a decision to seek capital punishment against a defendant who has not yet gone to trial.

The Biden transition team didn't comment directly on the Justice Department plan. But during the campaign, candidate Biden pledged to eliminate the death penalty, citing 160 people who were sentenced to capital punishment and were later exonerated.

Biden said he wanted to work with Congress to pass a law to eliminate federal capital punishment and "incentivize" states to follow that example.

Lawyers who follow federal capital punishment trends said they hoped that Biden, who supported expanding the death penalty 30 years ago, only to reverse course, had learned from hard experience that informal moratoriums don't solve the problem.