WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — President-elect Joe Biden is summoning Americans to overcome their divisions and join in common purpose against the coronavirus pandemic and the raw divisions left by the election. In a Thanksgiving-eve address to the nation, Biden put the surging pandemic front and center, pledging to tap the “vast powers” of the federal government and to “change the course of the disease” once in office. But for that to work, he said, Americans also must step up for their own safety and that of their fellow citizens. President Donald Trump was not on board with unity. He made a futile call “to turn the election over.”

Pennsylvania judge orders halt to further vote certification
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — A Pennsylvania appeals court judge ordered state officials on Wednesday to halt any further steps toward certifying election results. The ruling comes a day after Gov. Tom Wolf said he had certified Democrat Joe Biden as the state’s winner of the presidential election. It wasn’t immediately clear if the order from Commonwealth Court Judge Patricia McCullough could hold up the certification of state and local contests on the ballot or interrupt the scheduled Dec. 14 meeting of the state’s 20 electors. Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly and others are challenging approximately 2.5 million mail-in ballots that were predominantly cast by Democrats.

NEW YORK (AP) — The pandemic may have upended most traditions this holiday season, but the annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade will march on with balloons, dancers, floats, Broadway shows and Santa all heavily tweaked for safety. The biggest change this year is that the usual 2 1/2-mile route through crowded Manhattan has been scrapped in favor of concentrating events to a one-block stretch of 34th Street in front of the retailer’s flagship Manhattan store. Many performances have been pre-taped and most of the parade’s performers will be locally based to cut down on travel.

HARRISBURG—Attorney General Josh Shapiro today announced that his office, along with the Attorneys General of 45 other States and the District of Columbia have obtained a $17.5 million-dollar settlement against Georgia-based retailer The Home Depot, resolving a multistate investigation of a 2014 data breach which exposed the payment card information of approximately 40 million Home Depot consumers nationwide. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania will collect $686,575.43 through this settlement.

The breach occurred when hackers gained access to The Home Depot’s network and deployed malware on The Home Depot’s self-checkout point-of-sale system. The malware allowed the hackers to obtain the payment card information of customers who used self-checkout lanes at The Home Depot stores throughout the U.S. between April 10, 2014 and Sept 13, 2014.

In addition to the $17.5 million total payment to the states, The Home Depot has agreed to implement and maintain a series of data security practices designed to strengthen its information security program and safeguard the personal information of consumers.

Attorney General Shapiro noted, “Tens of millions of people have their data compromised every year, and a large number of those breaches come from preventable security flaws at retail stores,” said AG Shapiro. “We need to drill the idea into these large companies that if you plan to do business in Pennsylvania, you need to protect our consumers’ data, and I’m confident that this settlement will help prevent similar breaches in the future.”

Specific information security provisions agreed to in the settlement include:

Employing a duly qualified Chief Information Security Officer reporting to both the Senior or C-level executives and Board of Directors regarding Home Depot’s security posture and security risks;
Providing resources necessary to fully implement the company’s information security program;
Providing appropriate security awareness and privacy training to all personnel who have access to the company’s network or responsibility for U.S. consumers’’ personal information;
Employing specific security safeguards with respect to logging and monitoring, access controls, password management, two factor authentication, file integrity monitoring, firewalls, encryption, risk assessments, penetration testing, intrusion detection, and vendor account management; and
Consistent with previous state data breach settlements, the company will undergo a post settlement information security assessment which in part will evaluate its implementation of the agreed upon information security program.

Other states participating in this settlement include: Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia,

NEW YORK (AP) — To avoid any traces of the coronavirus that might be lurking on surfaces, Americans have been wiping down groceries, wearing surgical gloves in public and leaving mail packages out for an extra day or two. But experts say the national fixation on scrubbing can sometimes be overkill. Health officials say it’s become clearer the main way the virus spreads is between people, through the respiratory droplets they spray when talking, coughing, sneezing or singing. It’s why officials emphasize the importance of wearing masks and social distancing. That doesn’t mean surfaces don’t pose any risk. Cleaning is still recommended, especially frequently touched spots like door knobs or elevator buttons that infected people might have recently touched.