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

Biden authorizes Ukraine to use US-supplied longer range missiles for deeper strikes inside Russia

MANAUS, Brazil (AP) — President Joe Biden has authorized Ukraine to use U.S.-supplied missiles to strike deeper inside Russia, easing limitations on the longer range weapons as Russia deploys thousands of North Korean troops to reinforce its war, according to a U.S. official and three other people familiar with the matter. The decision allowing Kyiv to use the Army Tactical Missile System, or ATACMs, for attacks farther inside Russia comes as President Vladimir Putin positions North Korean troops along Ukraine’s northern border to try to reclaim hundreds of miles of territory seized by Ukrainian forces. Biden’s move also follows the presidential election victory of Donald Trump, who has said he would bring about a swift end to the war and raised uncertainty about whether his administration would continue the United States’ vital military support for Ukraine.

Russia launches one of its fiercest missile and drone attacks at Ukraine’s infrastructure

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A Russian strike on a nine-story building in the city of Sumy in northern Ukraine killed eight people and wounded dozens, an official said Sunday, as Russia launched a massive drone and missile attack described by officials as the largest in recent months. Among the eight killed in Sumy, 40 kilometers (24 miles) from the border with Russia, were two children, said Ukraine’s Minister of Internal Affairs Ihor Klymenko. More than 400 people were evacuated from the building. The rescuers were checking every apartment looking for people who might be still in the damaged building. “Every life destroyed by Russia is a big tragedy,” said Klymenko.

Donald Trump Jr. says pushback against Cabinet picks proves they’re the disrupters voters wanted

PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Donald Trump Jr. said Sunday that any pushback from the Washington establishment around his father’s unconventional choices for Cabinet proves they are just the kind of disruptors that voters are demanding. The younger Trump insisted the team now around the president-elect knows how to build out an administration, unlike when his father first took office. “The reality this time is, we actually know what we’re doing. We actually know who the good guys and the bad guys are,” he told Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures. “And it’s about surrounding my father with people who are both competent and loyal.

Trump names Brendan Carr, senior GOP leader at FCC, to lead the agency

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump on Sunday named Brendan Carr, the senior Republican on the Federal Communications Commission, as the new chairman of the agency tasked with regulating broadcasting, telecommunications and broadband. Carr is a longtime member of the commission and served previously as the FCC’s general counsel. He has been unanimously confirmed by the Senate three times and was nominated by both Trump and President Joe Biden to the commission. The FCC is an independent agency that is overseen by Congress, but Trump has suggested he wanted to bring it under tighter White House control, in part to use the agency to punish TV networks that cover him in a way he doesn’t like.

An Israeli strike in Beirut kills Hezbollah’s spokesman, while a strike in Gaza kills at least 30

BEIRUT (AP) — A rare Israeli strike in central Beirut killed the Hezbollah militant group’s chief spokesman on Sunday, while an Israeli strike in northern Gaza ’s Beit Lahiya killed at least 30 people, a hospital director there told The Associated Press. Mohammed Afif al-Naboulsi was killed in a strike on the Arab socialist Baath party’s office in Beirut, Hezbollah confirmed in a statement. He had been especially visible after all-out war erupted between Israel and Hezbollah in September. Israel’s military in a statement said he “wielded significant influence over Hezbollah’s military operations” and “glorified and incited” attacks on Israel. It was the latest targeted killing of a senior Hezbollah official.

From the Amazon rainforest, Biden declares nobody can reverse US progress on clean energy

MANAUS, Brazil (AP) — Speaking from the Amazon rainforest, President Joe Biden declared Sunday that there’s no going back in America’s “clean energy revolution” even as the incoming Trump administration vows to spur fossil fuel production and scale back efforts against climate change. Biden, the first sitting U.S. president to visit the world’s largest tropical rainforest, saw up close the ravages of deforestation. The Amazon, which is about the size of Australia, stores huge amounts of the world’s carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas driving climate change. But development is rapidly depleting the long-verdant region, where rivers have been running dry.

45 pro-democracy activists face sentencing in Hong Kong. Here’s who some of them are

HONG KONG (AP) — Dozens of prominent Hong Kong pro-democracy activists are scheduled to be sentenced Tuesday in the largest case under a national security law that critics say crushed political activism in the semi-autonomous Chinese city. The convictions of the 45 activists under the Beijing-imposed law are widely seen as part of a crackdown by China that destroyed hopes for a more democratic Hong Kong. They face sentences of up to life imprisonment. The activists were among 47 people charged with conspiracy to commit subversion in 2021 for their involvement in an unofficial primary election to pick opposition candidates. They were accused of agreeing to veto government-proposed budgets indiscriminately after securing a legislative majority to force a dissolution of the legislature and then the ouster of the city’s leader.

Bangladesh tribunal will hear updates from police on their moves to arrest ousted premier Hasina

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — A special tribunal in Bangladesh will hear updates from police on Monday about what the country’s security agencies have done to arrest ousted former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her close aides who face charges over hundreds of deaths in a mass uprising this summer. Hasina has been living in exile in India since Aug. 5 when she fled the country amid the student-led protests. The Dhaka-based International Crimes Tribunal on Oct. 17 issued arrest warrants for Hasina and 45 others including former Cabinet ministers, advisors and military and civil officials. The country is now being run by an interim government headed by Nobel Peace laureate Muhammad Yunus.

Wildfire threat continues in much of the US Northeast as dry conditions persist

Firefighters in New York said Sunday that a voluntary evacuation overnight helped them protect more than 160 homes from a stubborn wildfire near the New Jersey border as officials in much of the Northeast coped with hundreds of brush fires in tinder-dry and windy conditions. Communities in New England dealt with a similar surge in late fall fires, and many parts of the Northeast remained under red flag alerts this weekend. Across the country, California made good progress against a 32-square-mile (83-square-kilometer) fire in Ventura County that has destroyed more than 245 structures, most of them houses. The Mountain fire was 95% contained.

2 killed, 10 wounded in shootings near New Orleans parade route

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Two people were killed and 10 others were wounded in two separate shootings along a New Orleans parade route and celebration attended by thousands on Sunday, authorities said. There were no immediate arrests. Officers responding to reports of gunfire shortly after 3:30 p.m. on an avenue in the city’s St. Roch neighborhood found eight victims with gunshot wounds, according to a news release from the New Orleans Police Department. All eight were taken to hospitals in unknown condition. Police later said a ninth wounded person arrived at a hospital via a private car. About 45 minutes later, police received another report of gunfire as revelers were crossing the Almonaster Avenue Bridge, just over half a mile (.8 km) to the north.