President-elect Joe Biden is nominating former rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, Pete Buttigieg, as secretary of transport.
The decision leaves the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, poised to become the first openly gay person confirmed by the Senate to a US Cabinet post.
The nomination will help Mr Biden to meet calls for further diversity in his Cabinet.
Mr Buttigieg, 38, would also add a young dynamic to an administration that is so far dominated in large part by leaders with decades of Washington experience.
"“Mayor Pete Buttigieg is a patriot and a problem-solver who speaks to the best of who we are as a nation," Mr Biden said.
"I am nominating him for secretary of transportation because this position stands at the nexus of so many of the interlocking challenges and opportunities ahead of us."
Mr Buttigieg had been rumoured to be a contender for several different spots in Mr Biden’s administration.
He was surprisingly competitive in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination this year, winning the first-in-the-nation caucuses in Iowa.
He became a leading figure in national politics but when Mr Biden took control of the race in February, he dropped out and endorsed him, helping to consolidate support for the moderate wing of the party.
The Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest advocacy group for the LGBTQ community, praised the nomination, saying Mr Buttigieg "was open and honest" about his identity and gave a voice to the community.
"His voice as a champion for the LGBTQ community in the Cabinet room will help president-elect Biden build back our nation better, stronger and more equal than before," HRC president Alphonso David said.
Mr Biden and Mr Buttigieg became close during the primary, chatting before debates and other campaign events.
He was active in supporting Mr Biden's campaign on television in the election’s final weeks.
The president-elect has said that Mr Buttigieg reminds him of his late son, Beau, who was Delaware’s attorney general before dying from brain cancer at 46 in 2015.
“To me, it’s the highest compliment I can give any man or woman,” Mr Biden said in March. “Like Beau, he has a backbone like a ramrod.”
Mr Buttigieg will play a central role in shaping some of Mr Biden’s policies.
Mr Biden has pledged to spend billions making major infrastructure improvements and on retrofitting initiatives that can help the US to battle climate change.
He also wants to immediately make mandatory wearing masks on planes and public transport to slow the spread of the coronavirus.
Infrastructure spending can be a bipartisan issue, and President Donald Trump spent years promising to push a major bill through Congress, although it never materialised.
Instead, his administration moved to soften carbon emissions standards that Mr Biden’s team will probably work to undo as part of the broader commitment to slow global warming.
Despite having governed a city of barely 100,000, Mr Buttigieg was credited with changing traffic with his Smart Streets initiative, a three-year project to convert 12.9 kilometres of multilane roads into two-way routes that enhanced South Bend’s downtown.
The project received awards for environmental protection.
Though on a far smaller scale than the nation’s transport systems, the project, and Mr Buttigieg’s initiative to convert the city’s sewers to a smart-flow system, demonstrates what supporters have called his next-generation infrastructure vision.
Know your cyber adversaries
Cryptojacking: Compromises a device or network to mine cryptocurrencies without an organisation's knowledge.
Distributed denial-of-service: Floods systems, servers or networks with information, effectively blocking them.
Man-in-the-middle attack: Intercepts two-way communication to obtain information, spy on participants or alter the outcome.
Malware: Installs itself in a network when a user clicks on a compromised link or email attachment.
Phishing: Aims to secure personal information, such as passwords and credit card numbers.
Ransomware: Encrypts user data, denying access and demands a payment to decrypt it.
Spyware: Collects information without the user's knowledge, which is then passed on to bad actors.
Trojans: Create a backdoor into systems, which becomes a point of entry for an attack.
Viruses: Infect applications in a system and replicate themselves as they go, just like their biological counterparts.
Worms: Send copies of themselves to other users or contacts. They don't attack the system, but they overload it.
Zero-day exploit: Exploits a vulnerability in software before a fix is found.
VEZEETA PROFILE
Date started: 2012
Founder: Amir Barsoum
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: HealthTech / MedTech
Size: 300 employees
Funding: $22.6 million (as of September 2018)
Investors: Technology Development Fund, Silicon Badia, Beco Capital, Vostok New Ventures, Endeavour Catalyst, Crescent Enterprises’ CE-Ventures, Saudi Technology Ventures and IFC
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Sri Lanka-India Test series schedule
- 1st Test India won by 304 runs at Galle
- 2nd Test India won by innings and 53 runs at Colombo
- 3rd Test August 12-16 at Pallekele
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
The National Archives, Abu Dhabi
Founded over 50 years ago, the National Archives collects valuable historical material relating to the UAE, and is the oldest and richest archive relating to the Arabian Gulf.
Much of the material can be viewed on line at the Arabian Gulf Digital Archive - https://www.agda.ae/en
Married Malala
Malala Yousafzai is enjoying married life, her father said.
The 24-year-old married Pakistan cricket executive Asser Malik last year in a small ceremony in the UK.
Ziauddin Yousafzai told The National his daughter was ‘very happy’ with her husband.
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8.50pm: Balanchine Group 2 (TB) | $250,000 (T) | 1,800m
Winner: Poetic Charm, William Buick, Charlie Appleby
9.25pm: Handicap (TB) | $135,000 (D) | 1,200m
Winner: Lava Spin, Richard Mullen, Satish Seemar
10pm: Handicap (TB) | $175,000 (T) | 2,410m
Winner: Mountain Hunter, Christophe Soumillon, Saeed bin Suroor
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'Top Gun: Maverick'
Rating: 4/5
Directed by: Joseph Kosinski
Starring: Tom Cruise, Val Kilmer, Jennifer Connelly, Jon Hamm, Miles Teller, Glen Powell, Ed Harris
Brief scoreline:
Manchester United 0
Manchester City 2
Bernardo Silva 54', Sane 66'
New schools in Dubai
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KILLING OF QASSEM SULEIMANI
KILLING OF QASSEM SULEIMANI
THE SPECS
2020 Toyota Corolla Hybrid LE
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Power: 121hp
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Monster
Directed by: Anthony Mandler
Starring: Kelvin Harrison Jr., John David Washington
3/5
Specs
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Range: 400km
Power: 134bhp
Torque: 175Nm
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