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Top Eight

Top eight stories for today including the Electoral College is poised to officially certify Joe Biden as President-elect and Kamala Harris as Vice President-elect; A nursing director in Long Island became the first American to receive a vaccination for Covid-19; Early voting began in Georgia for a pair of Senate primary runoffs, and more.

Your Monday night briefing from the staff of Courthouse News

Top eight stories for today including the Electoral College is poised to officially certify Joe Biden as President-elect and Kamala Harris as Vice President-elect; A nursing director in Long Island became the first American to receive a vaccination for Covid-19; Early voting began in Georgia for a pair of Senate primary runoffs, and more.

Sign up for the CNS Top Eight, a roundup of the day’s top stories delivered directly to your inbox Monday through Friday.

National

1.) The Electoral College is poised Monday to officially certify Joe Biden as President-elect and Kamala Harris as Vice President-elect of the United States, closing one of the last chapters of the Trump presidency.

Vermont's three members of the electoral college cast their ballots Monday, Dec. 14, 2020 in Montpelier, Vt. The electors signed their ballots in the House chamber in the Vermont Statehouse during a brief ceremony. (AP Photo/Wilson Ring)

2.) The first dose of a vaccine for Covid-19 was administered Monday morning to a front-line medical worker on Long Island.

Nurse Annabelle Jimenez, left, congratulates nurse Sandra Lindsay after she is inoculated with the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, Monday, Dec. 14, 2020, at the Jewish Medical Center, in the Queens borough of New York. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, Pool)

3.) Citing Major League Baseball’s long history of corked bats, spitballs and steroids, the Second Circuit on Monday appeared unlikely to revive a class action that says a coverup of the 2017 electronic sign-stealing scandal cheated fans out of an honest fantasy baseball competition.

A fan holds a sign criticizing a sign-stealing scandal during a spring training baseball game between the Houston Astros and the Washington Nationals in West Palm Beach, Fla., on Feb. 23, 2020. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)

4.) The U.S. Supreme Court was nearly unanimous Monday in clearing New Mexico over the evaporation of precious Pecos River water on its watch when the hurricane-hit Texas needed storage help.

Pecos River near the Rio Grande (Image via Wikipedia)

Regional

5.) Campaign season is finally drawing to a close in Georgia, as polling precincts opened Monday morning for early voters casting ballots to determine the state’s senators in Washington and the balance of power during the Biden administration.  

Voters pass through security at the State Farm Arena in Atlanta on Monday, Dec. 14, 2020, on their way to vote on the first day of early voting for the state’s U.S. Senate runoff elections. (Courthouse News photo/Kayla Goggin)

6.) Three men who plotted to blow up an apartment building inhabited by Muslim immigrants in Garden City, Kansas, asked a 10th Circuit panel on Monday to toss their 25- to 30-year sentences.

The Byron White Federal Courthouse in Denver, home of the 10th Circuit. (Amanda Pampuro/Courthouse News)

International

7.) The Trump administration announced sanctions against two Iranian intelligence officials Monday, blaming them for the 2007 disappearance of retired FBI agent Bob Levinson, who is now believed to be dead.

FILE - In this March 6, 2012, file photo, an FBI poster showing a composite image of former FBI agent Robert Levinson, right, of how he would look like now after five years in captivity, and an image, center, taken from the video, released by his kidnappers, and a picture before he was kidnapped, left, displayed during a news conference in Washington. A U.S. judge ordered Iran on Thursday, Oct. 1, 2020, to pay $1.45 billion to Levinson's family, who is believed to have been kidnapped by the Islamic Republic while on an unauthorized CIA mission to an Iranian island in 2007. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, File)

8.) The Trump administration took Sudan off a federal terrorism blacklist Monday, less than two months after the country agreed to normalize its relations with Israel. 

President Donald Trump reacts after hanging up a phone call with the leaders of Sudan and Israel, as Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, second from left, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, National Security Adviser Robert O'Brien, and others applaud in the Oval Office of the White House, Friday, Oct. 23, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
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