AP News Summary at 6:03 a.m. EST

By The Associated Press

Trump chooses Bessent to be treasury secretary, Vought as budget chief, Chavez-DeRemer for Labor

WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump has chosen hedge fund manager Scott Bessent, an advocate for deficit reduction, to serve as his next treasury secretary. Bessent, 62, is founder of hedge fund Key Square Capital Management. He previously had worked on and off for Soros Fund Management since 1991. Trump also said he would nominate Russell Vought, 48, to lead the Office of Management and Budget, a position he held during Trump’s first term. And Trump chose Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer, an Oregon Republican, as his labor secretary, and Scott Turner, a former football player who worked in Trump’s first administration, as his housing secretary.

Trump raced to pick many Cabinet posts. He took more time to settle on a treasury secretary

WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump launched a blitz of picks for his Cabinet, but he took his time settling on billionaire investor Scott Bessent as his choice for treasury secretary. The Republican not only wanted someone who jibes with him, but an official who can execute his economic vision and look straight out of central casting while doing so. With his Yale University education and pedigree trading for Soros Fund Management before establishing his own funds, Bessent will be tasked with a delicate balancing act. Trump expects him to help reset the global trade order, enable trillions of dollars in tax cuts, ensure inflation stays in check, manage a ballooning national debt and still keep the financial markets confident.

Voters rejected historic election reforms across the US, despite more than $100M push

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Election reform advocates had hoped for a big year at the ballot box. That’s because a historic number of states were considering initiatives for ranked choice voting or to end partisan primaries. Instead, voters dealt them big losses in the November elections. Voters in Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, Oregon and South Dakota all rejected proposed changes to their voting systems. In Alaska, a proposal to repeal ranked choice voting appears to have narrowly fallen short. The losses in many states came even though election reform supporters raised more than $100 million, easily outpacing opponents. Supporters say they aren’t giving up but plan to retool their efforts.

At least 11 killed and dozens injured in Israeli strikes in Beirut as diplomats push for cease-fire

BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) — Lebanese officials say Israeli airstrikes have killed at least 11 people and injured dozens in central Beirut as diplomats scramble to broker a cease-fire. The Lebanese Health Ministry said Saturday’s death toll could rise as emergency responders dug through the rubble looking for survivors. DNA tests are being used to identify the victims. The ministry said 63 people were wounded in the fourth wave of strikes in the Lebanese capital in less than a week. Strikes also continued in Gaza on Saturday. AP reporters and Nasser Hospital officials say at least six people, half of them children and including two women, were killed in the southern city of Khan Younis.

Fighting between armed sectarian groups in restive northwestern Pakistan kills at least 33 people

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — A senior Pakistani police officer says fighting between armed sectarian groups in the country’s restive northwest has killed at least 33 people. The overnight violence was the latest to rock Kurram, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, and comes days after a deadly gun ambush killed 42 people. The senior police officer said Saturday armed men torched shops, houses and government property overnight. Gunfire is ongoing between rival tribes. Although Sunnis and Shiites generally live together peacefully in Pakistan, tensions remain in some areas, especially Kurram.

Laos government pledges justice in mass alcohol poisoning case that has killed 6 tourists

VANG VIENG, Laos (AP) — The Laotian government on Saturday officially acknowledged the mass poisoning that has killed at least six tourists, pledging it would bring perpetrators to justice. Two Australian teenagers and a British woman died from suspected methanol poisoning after drinking tainted alcohol in Laos. An American man and two Danes also died, though their exact causes of death have not been released. A New Zealander also has been sickened. In a short statement released to the media, the Lao government said it was “profoundly saddened over the loss of lives of foreign tourists” in the town Vang Vieng and offered its condolences to the families of the victims.

Negotiators work through the night at UN climate talks to try to reach a cash deal for poor nations

BAKU, Azerbaijan (AP) — The United Nations’ annual climate talks pushed into overtime Saturday as negotiators pressed on to get a deal on money for developing nations to curb and adapt to climate change. Several countries were left angry and disappointed at the latest proposed deal from the talks on Friday afternoon. That draft pledged $250 billion annually by 2035, more than double the previous goal of $100 billion set 15 years ago but far short of the annual $1 trillion-plus that experts say is needed.

Storm dumps record rain in Northern California, while US Northeast deals with winter storms

HEALDSBURG, Calif. (AP) — A major storm continues to drop heavy snow and record rain in California, causing small landslides and flooding some streets. Meanwhile on the opposite coast blizzard or winter storm warnings were in effect Saturday for areas spanning from the Northeast to central Appalachia. The storm on the West Coast arrived in the Pacific Northwest earlier this week, killing two people and knocking out power to hundreds of thousands, before moving through Northern California. Forecasters predicted that both coasts would begin to see a reprieve from the storms as the system in the northeast moves into eastern Canada and the one in the West heads south.

Japan will hold first memorial for ‘all workers’ at Sado gold mines but blurs WWII atrocity. Why?

SADO, Japan (AP) — Japan will hold a memorial ceremony near the Sado Island Gold Mines, which were listed this summer as a UNESCO World Heritage site after the country moved past years of disputes with South Korea and reluctantly acknowledged the dark side of their history. At these mines, hundreds of Korean laborers were mobilized during World War II. Japanese officials say Sunday’s ceremony will pay tribute to “all workers” at the mines, but without spelling out who they are — part of what critics call a persistent policy of whitewashing Japan’s history of sexual and labor exploitation before and during the war. On Saturday, South Korea’s government said it will boycott the memorial service due to unspecified disagreements with Tokyo over the event.

NATO and Ukraine to hold emergency talks after Russia’s attack with new hypersonic missile

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — NATO and Ukraine will hold emergency talks Tuesday after Russia attacked a central city with a hypersonic ballistic missile that escalated the nearly 33-month-old war. Ukraine’s parliament canceled a session Friday over the security threat. In a stark warning to the West, President Vladimir Putin said in a nationally televised speech Thursday that the attack with the intermediate-range Oreshnik missile was retaliation for Kyiv’s use of U.S. and British longer-range missiles capable of striking deeper into Russian territory. Putin said Russia is launching production of the Oreshnik, saying it’s so powerful that several of them fitted with conventional warheads could be as devastating as a strike with strategic — or nuclear — weapons.