Donald Trump, Indonesia, Aleppo: Your Wednesday Evening Briefing
1. President-elect Donald J. Trump picked a retired Marine general, an advocate of China and a close ally of the fossil fuel industry for three crucial posts.
Gen. John F. Kelly, above, a retired Marine general, will be nominated as secretary of homeland security, and Gov. Terry E. Branstad of Iowa was named ambassador to China. Mr. Branstad is close to President Xi Jinpingof China, whom he has known since 1985.
Scott Pruitt, the Oklahoma attorney general, was chosen to run the Environmental Protection Agency.
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2. Mr. Trump, who was named Time magazine’s person of the year, said in a wide-ranging interview on NBC’s “Today” show that Mitt Romney remained a candidate for secretary of state.
Mr. Trump did not dispute the interviewer’s comparison of his campaign promises to crack down on undocumented immigrants he considers dangerous to comments made by the Philippine president, Rodrigo Duterte, about annihilating drug dealers and users.
A Times photojournalist documented 57 homicides over 35 days in Mr. Duterte’s bloody crackdown. (Warning: graphic images.)
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3. An earthquake on the Indonesian island of Sumatra killed scores of people while they slept.
Rescue teams are searching for victims and survivors, but the death toll is nearing 100, and more are feared dead. The quake, which struck after 5 a.m., had a preliminary magnitude of 6.5, and at least five aftershocks followed.
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4. We talked to Edgar Welch, the 28-year-old who is in jail after firing a gun inside a Washington pizzeria.
Mr. Welch said he first learned about the fake news story suggesting Hillary Clinton was linked to a child trafficking ring being run out of the restaurant through word of mouth, then looked it up online.
“The intel on this wasn’t 100 percent,” he said. He has two kids and said that he didn’t vote for Mr. Trump or Mrs. Clinton.
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The Twitter account shared by a 7-year-old girl in Aleppo, Bana al-Abed, and her mother has captured global attention with posts about bombs, death and despair. It has also raised questions about authenticity.
Syrian government forces appear to be pushing deeper into the city.
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6. For the first time in decades, powerful rival law firms have joined forces to file suits nationwide on a polarizing social issue: gun control.
“There is an epidemic of gun violence in this country, and the law can save innocent lives without infringing constitutional rights,” a partner at one of the firms said.
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7. This is the 75th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States naval base in Hawaii, where more than 2,000 Americans were killed.
We spoke with John Morris, above, a photojournalist whose 25th birthday was underway when editors called to tell him of the attack.
Now celebrating his 100th birthday, he reflected on a career largely defined by war, saying, “Mankind is not as bright as one would hope.”
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8. A cancer patient who was twice rejected from a study may hold the key to new treatment options for thousands of people.
Celine Ryan, above, had advanced colon cancer that spread to her lungs when she was accepted for an experimental treatment that used cells from her own immune system. Today, she has no signs of cancer.
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9. The gadget age is over, our tech columnist declares.
The little electronic things that did stuff for you — from transistor radios to the Walkman, iPods and GoPros and Fitbits — have been replaced by the “Thing That Does Everything” (better known as a smartphone).
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10. Phil Jackson, president of the New York Knicks, has a nickname: Zen Master.
The team has been taking part in mindfulness exercises since Mr. Jackson took over in 2014. This year, he began leading the sessions himself.
Players told us that they found the exercises useful, even if they were not quite sure what they were doing.
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11. Finally, we’ve gathered our film critics and asked them to share their picks for the best movies of the year. Their selections veer away from box office hits.
Only two movies made the lists of all three critics: “Moonlight,” above, and “O.J.: Made In America.”
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P.C: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/07/briefing/donald-trump-indonesia-aleppo.html
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