Top Eight

Your Tuesday night briefing from the staff of Courthouse News

Top eight stories for today including California Governor Gavin Newsom appointed the state’s first Latino senator to fill Vice President-elect Kamala Harris’ seat; President-elect Joe Biden will name Connecticut’s education chief Miguel Cardona as the U.S. Secretary of Education; Texas and eight other Republican-controlled states urged a federal judge to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, and more.

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National

1.) President-elect Joe Biden will name Connecticut’s education chief Miguel Cardona as the U.S. Secretary of Education, maintaining a commitment to a diverse cabinet while tapping someone who pushed to keep schools open amid the coronavirus pandemic.

FILE - In this Jan. 28, 2020 file photo, Connecticut State Commissioner of Education Miguel Cardona speaks with Berlin High School students while on a tour of the school. President-elect Joe Biden has chosen the education commissioner for Connecticut and a former public school teacher to serve as education secretary. (Devin Leith-Yessian/Berlin Citizen/Record-Journal via AP)

2.) Not 24 hours out from mounting its defense to one of three federal antitrust suits it faces, Google was thrust in the headlines Tuesday upon the leak of a draft version of the suit in Texas that accuses the search engine of secret dealings with Facebook.

Google headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez, File)

3.) Texas and eight other Republican-controlled states urged a federal judge Tuesday to end Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, sticking to their claims the Obama administration overstepped its authority in creating the program.

FILE - In this Nov. 12, 2019, file photo people rally outside the Supreme Court over President Trump's decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA), at the Supreme Court in Washington. A Tuesday, Dec. 22, 2020 federal court hearing in Houston over a U.S. program shielding immigrants brought to the country illegally as children highlights the peril the program still faces even under an incoming Democratic president who has pledged to protect it. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)

4.) Pharmaceutical companies are holding out hope that the mRNA technology used to develop breakthrough Covid-19 vaccines is flexible enough to provide for seasonal shots in case immunity gained from initial vaccination is short-lived.

FILE - In this Tuesday, Dec. 8, 2020 file photo, a nurse prepares a shot of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine at Guy's Hospital in London. Research released on Wednesday, Dec. 16 in the U.K. suggests that people from ethnic minority backgrounds or with lower incomes are less likely to take the coronavirus vaccine being rolled out in Britain. That has raised concerns about whether the jab would reach the communities that have been hit disproportionately hard by the pandemic. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein, file)

5.) President-elect Joe Biden forecast a bipartisan approach to solve problems created by the pandemic in the beginning stages of his presidency during a speech Tuesday while reserving a sharp rebuke of President Donald Trump for his failure to guard against and respond to a cybersecurity breach of federal agencies.

President-elect Joe Biden speaks about jobs at The Queen theater, Friday, Dec. 4, 2020, in Wilmington, Del. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Regional

6.) Although nearly 40% of California’s 40 million residents are Latino or Hispanic, the state has never had a Latino or Hispanic U.S. senator. Until Tuesday, when Governor Gavin Newsom tapped Secretary of State Alex Padilla to fill Vice President-elect Kamala Harris’ seat.

FILE - California Secretary of State Alex Padilla talks during a news conference Monday, Jan. 28, 2019, at the Capitol in Sacramento, Calif. “It is appalling that Congress has not provided the needed resources for state and local elections officials during the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Padilla. “Elections officials’ ability to fill the gap is nearly impossible given the already strained state and local government budgets.”(AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli, File)

7.) The Democratic candidate for Iowa’s 2nd Congressional District filed a challenge to her six-vote loss with the U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday, saying not all votes in her favor have been counted.

FILE - In this Oct. 8, 2020, file photo, Rita Hart answers a question during a debate with Mariannette Miller-Meeks in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Iowa officials on Monday, Nov. 30, 2020, were expected to certify a Republican candidate as a six-vote winner for an open seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, in what is shaping up to be the closest congressional election in decades.Republican Miller-Meeks finished ahead of Democrat Hart in Iowa's 2nd Congressional District after a recount saw her 47-vote lead steadily dwindle to single digits but never be overcome. (Rebecca F. Miller/The Gazette via AP, File)

International

8.) Europe’s top rights court found that Russia was wrong to revoke a man’s nationality for not listing all of his siblings on a citizenship form.

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