• Today is Thursday, Dec. 12, the 346th day of 2013. There are 19 days left in the year.
• Today's Highlight in History:
• On Dec. 12, 2000, George W. Bush was transformed into the president-elect as a divided U.S. Supreme Court reversed a state court decision for recounts in Florida's contested election.
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• On this date:
• In 1787, Pennsylvania became the second state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.
• In 1870, Joseph H. Rainey of South Carolina became the first black lawmaker sworn into the U.S. House of Representatives.
• In 1897, "The Katzenjammer Kids," the pioneering comic strip created by Rudolph Dirks, made its debut in the New York Journal.
• In 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt nominated Oscar Straus to be Secretary of Commerce and Labor; Straus became the first Jewish Cabinet member.
• In 1911, Britain's King George V announced during a visit to India that the capital would be transferred from Calcutta to Delhi.
• In 1917, Father Edward Flanagan founded Boys Town outside Omaha, Neb.
• In 1925, the first motel - the Motel Inn - opened in San Luis Obispo, Calif.
• In 1937, Japanese aircraft sank the U.S. gunboat Panay on China's Yangtze River. (Japan apologized, and paid $2.2 million in reparations.)
• In 1946, a United Nations committee voted to accept a six-block tract of Manhattan real estate offered as a gift by John D. Rockefeller Jr. to be the site of the U.N.'s headquarters.
• In 1963, Kenya gained its independence from Britain.
• In 1972, Irwin Allen's all-star disaster movie "The Poseidon Adventure" was released.
• In 1985, 248 American soldiers and eight crew members were killed when an Arrow Air charter crashed after takeoff from Gander, Newfoundland.
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• Ten years ago: Paul Martin succeeded Jean Chretien (zhahn kreh-TYEN') as Canada's prime minister. Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger was knighted by Britain. Keiko, the killer whale made famous by the "Free Willy" movies, died in the Nor

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