AP News Summary at 11:42 p.m. EST

By The Associated Press

Trump builds out national security team with picks of Hegseth for Pentagon, Noem for DHS

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump is moving to build out his national security team, announcing he is nominating Fox News host and Army veteran Pete Hegseth to serve as his defense secretary and former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe to lead the Central Intelligence Agency. In a flurry of announcements, Trump said he had chosen former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee as ambassador to Israel and his longtime friend Steven Witkoff to be a special envoy to the Middle East. Trump also said he would nominate South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem to run the Department of Homeland Security and named Bill McGinley, his Cabinet secretary in his first administration, as his White House counsel.

Trump says Musk, Ramaswamy will form outside group to advise White House on government efficiency

WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump says Elon Musk and former GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy will lead a new “Department of Government Efficiency.” Despite the name, the new organization will not be a government agency. Trump says it will be an outside group that will offer the White House advice on how to “drive large scale structural reform” and create an entrepreneurial approach to government. The president-elect says he wants to shock government systems. The acronym for the new organization is DOGE, which is a nod to Musk’s favorite cryptocurrency, dogecoin. Musk has been a constant presence at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort since the presidential election.

Certifying this year’s presidential results begins quietly, in contrast to the 2020 election

ATLANTA (AP) — Local officials are beginning to certify the results of this year’s presidential election in a process that so far has been playing out quietly, in stark contrast to the tumultuous certification period four years ago that followed then-President Donald Trump’s loss. Georgia is the first of the presidential battleground states to start certifying, with local election boards scheduled to vote throughout the day Tuesday. The lack of certification drama so far is a return to how the typically ministerial process worked before Trump lost his bid for reelection four years ago. As he sought then to overturn the will of the voters, he and his allies pressured Republican members of certification boards in Michigan to delay or halt the process — a strategy that caught on among some Republicans.

Why is only limited aid getting to Palestinians inside Gaza?

JERUSALEM (AP) — A month has passed since Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin delivered an ultimatum to Israeli officials, calling on them to ramp up aid to Gaza within 30 days or risk them reconsidering arms shipments. Humanitarian groups say Israel has failed, with aid falling to its lowest levels this year. Food security experts and rights groups caution that famine may already be underway in north Gaza. The Biden administration says that Israel has made some good but limited progress in increasing the flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza and it will not limit arms transfers to Israel as threatened. Israel says it is committed to delivering humanitarian assistance and has scrambled to ramp up aid.

Explosion at Kentucky business injures 11 workers, shatters windows in surrounding neighborhood

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — At least 11 employees were taken to hospitals after an explosion at a Louisville, Kentucky, business that produces natural color for foods and drinks. The explosion on Tuesday happened at Givaudan Sense Color. News video footage showed an industrial building with the middle section burned and partially collapsed. The cause of the explosion remains unknown. Louisville Metro Emergency Services had urged people within a mile of the business to shelter in place, but that order was lifted about two hours after the explosion. The University of Louisville Hospital treated seven of the people injured and two of them are in critical condition.

Women suing over Idaho’s abortion ban describe dangerous pregnancies, becoming ‘medical refugees’

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Four women suing over Idaho’s strict abortion ban told a judge Tuesday how excitement over their pregnancies turned to grief and fear after they learned their fetuses were not likely to survive to birth — and how they had to leave the state to get abortions amid fears that pregnancy complications would put their own health in danger. The women, represented by the Center for Reproductive Rights, are not asking for the state’s abortion ban to be overturned. Instead, they want the judge to clarify and expand the exceptions to the strict ban so that people facing serious pregnancy complications can receive abortions to protect their health. The law currently only allows abortions to prevent death.

Amid Earth’s heat records, scientists report another bump upward in annual carbon emissions

BAKU, Azerbaijan (AP) — Even as Earth sets new heat records, humanity this year is pumping 330 million tons (300 million metric tons) more carbon dioxide into the air by burning fossil fuels than it did last year. This year the world is on track to put 41.2 billion tons (37.4 billion metric tons) of the main heat-trapping gas into the atmosphere. That’s a 0.8% increase from 2023, according to Global Carbon Project, a group of scientists who track emissions. The continued rise is mostly from the developing world and China. Scientists say the world has to cut emissions by 42% by 2030 to have a chance to limit warming to an internationally agreed threshold and stave off the worst effects of climate change.

A diminished Biden heads to APEC summit in Peru, overshadowed by China’s Xi

LIMA, Peru (AP) — If things had gone differently last week, U.S. President Joe Biden could have arrived at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Peru on Thursday projecting confidence and pledging his successor’s cooperation with eager Latin American partners. No longer. Just as in 2016, the last time that Lima hosted APEC, Donald Trump’s election victory has pulled the rug out from under a lame-duck Democrat at the high-profile summit attended by over a dozen world leaders. The renewed prospect of Trump’s “America First” doctrine hampers Biden’s ability to reinforce the U.S. profile on his first presidential trip to South America, experts say, leaving China and its leader, Xi Jinping, to steal the limelight in America’s proverbial backyard.

US prohibits airlines from flying to Haiti and UN suspends flights after planes were shot by gangs

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — The Federal Aviation Administration is prohibiting U.S. airlines from flying to Haiti for 30 days after gangs shot two planes. The United Nations also said Tuesday that it temporarily suspended flights to the capital, limiting humanitarian aid coming into the country. Bullets hit a Spirit Airlines plane when it was about to land Monday in the capital, injuring a flight attendant and forcing the airport to shut down. JetBlue and American Airlines also said their planes had been shot while leaving the airport. The shootings were part of a wave of violence that erupted in Haiti as the country swore in its new prime minister after a politically tumultuous process.

Welcome to China’s underground raves, from street techno to quotes from Chairman Mao

CHANGCHUN, China (AP) — By day, Xing Long works in an office for a state-owned company in Changchun, an industrial city in the northeastern rust belt of China. By night, he’s a DJ and underground rave organizer, a side gig that offers an escape from the humdrum of reviewing corporate contracts. For a growing number of Chinese young people, techno dance parties are an escape from the intense pressure and high expectations of the society around them. In recent years, even as space for culture and creativity has been shrinking in China, underground rave culture is growing in hidden corners of the nation’s cities like air raid shelters.