AP Top News at 1:22 a.m. EST

Will Trump's hush money conviction stand? A judge will rule on the president-elect's immunity claim

NEW YORK (AP) — A gut punch for most defendants, Donald Trump turned his criminal conviction into a rallying cry. His supporters put "I'm Voting for the Felon" on T-shirts, hats and lawn signs. "The real verdict is going to be Nov. 5 by the people," Trump proclaimed after his conviction in New York last spring on 34 counts of falsifying business records. Now, just a week after Trump's resounding election victory, a Manhattan judge is poised to decide whether to uphold the hush money verdict or dismiss it because of a U.S. Supreme Court decision in July that gave presidents broad immunity from criminal prosecution.

Trump pressures candidates for Senate GOP leader to fill his Cabinet right away

WASHINGTON (AP) — Days before Senate Republicans pick their new leader, President-elect Donald Trump is pressuring the candidates to change the rules and empower him to appoint some nominees without a Senate vote. Republican Sens. John Thune of South Dakota, John Cornyn of Texas and Rick Scott of Florida are running in a secret ballot election Wednesday to lead the GOP conference and replace longtime GOP leader Mitch McConnell, who is stepping aside from the job after almost two decades. All three have courted Trump's support in the race, vying to show who is the closest to the president-elect as they campaign to become majority leader.

Trump breaks GOP losing streak in nation's largest majority-Arab city with a pivotal final week

DEARBORN, Mich. (AP) — Faced with two choices she didn't like, Suehaila Amen chose neither. Instead, the longtime Democrat from the Arab American stronghold of Dearborn, Michigan, backed a third-party candidate for president, adding her voice to a remarkable turnaround that helped Donald Trump reclaim Michigan and the presidency. In Dearborn, where nearly half of the 110,000 residents are of Arab descent, Vice President Kamala Harris received over 2,500 fewer votes than Trump, who became the first Republican presidential candidate since former President George W. Bush in 2000 to win the city. Harris also lost neighboring Dearborn Heights to Trump, who in his previous term as president banned travel from several mostly-Muslim countries.

Traumatized by war, hundreds of Lebanon's children struggle with wounds both physical and emotional

BEIRUT (AP) — Curled up in his father 's lap, clinging to his chest, Hussein Mikdad cried his heart out. The 4-year-old kicked his doctor with his intact foot and pushed him away with the arm that was not in a cast. "My Dad! My Dad!" Hussein said. "Make him leave me alone!" With eyes tearing up in relief and pain, the father reassured his son and pulled him closer. Hussein and his father, Hassan, are the only survivors of their family after an Israeli airstrike last month on their Beirut neighborhood. The strike killed 18 people, including his mother, three siblings and six relatives.

Israeli strikes kill dozens in Lebanon and isolated northern Gaza while Netanyahu and Trump speak

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli strikes killed dozens of people including children on Sunday in Lebanon and isolated northern Gaza, as the world watched for signs of how the U.S. election might affect the wars between Israel and Iranian-backed militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that he has spoken three times with Donald Trump since Tuesday's election and they "see eye-to-eye regarding the Iranian threat and all of its components." Israeli President Isaac Herzog is scheduled to meet with U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday. The Israeli airstrike in Lebanon killed at least 23 people, including seven children, in Aalmat village north of Beirut, far from the areas in the east and south where Hezbollah has a major presence.

Fire crews on both US coasts battle wildfires; 1 death in New York-New Jersey fire

POMPTON LAKES, N.J. (AP) — Fire crews on both coasts of the United States continued battling wildfires on Sunday, including a blaze in New York and New Jersey that killed a parks employee and another in Southern California that destroyed more than 130 structures and damaged dozens more. Firefighters continued making progress against a wildfire northwest of Los Angeles in Ventura County that broke out Wednesday and quickly exploded in size due to dry, warm and gusty Santa Ana winds. The Mountain Fire prompted thousands of residents to flee their homes and was 26% contained as of Sunday, up from 21% the previous day.

UN climate talks to focus on money to help poor nations cut carbon pollution

BAKU, Azerbaijan (AP) — A complex international two-week-long game of climate change poker is convening. The stakes? Just the fate of an ever-warming world. Curbing and coping with climate change's worsening heat, floods, droughts and storms will cost trillions of dollars and poor nations just don't have it, numerous reports and experts calculate. As United Nations climate negotiations started Monday in Baku, Azerbaijan, the chief issue is who must ante up to help poor nations and especially how much. The numbers are enormous. The floor in negotiations is the $100 billion a year that poor nations — based on a categorization made in the 1990s — now get as part of a 2009 agreement that was barely met.

A person is dead and 16 are hurt after a shooting at Tuskegee University; 1 arrest made

ATLANTA (AP) — A shooting early Sunday during homecoming weekend at Tuskegee University in Alabama left one person dead and injured 16 others, a dozen of them by gunfire, authorities said. One arrest was announced hours later. The Alabama Law Enforcement Agency said Jaquez Myrick, 25, of Montgomery, was taken into custody while leaving the scene of the campus shooting and had been found with a handgun with a machine gun conversion device. The agency said in a statement that Myrick faces a federal charge of possession of a machine gun. It did not accuse him of using the gun in the shooting or provide additional details.

Amsterdam police detain pro-Palestinian protesters at banned demonstration

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Police detained dozens of people Sunday for taking part in a demonstration in central Amsterdam that had been outlawed following violence targeting fans of an Israeli soccer club. Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema banned all demonstrations over the weekend in the aftermath of the grim scenes of youths on scooters and on foot attacking Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters on Thursday and Friday in what was widely condemned as a violent outburst of antisemitism in the Dutch capital. Late Sunday afternoon, the municipality, together with Amsterdam police and public prosecutor's office, extended the ban on demonstrations until Thursday morning.

Satellite images and documents indicate China working on nuclear propulsion for new aircraft carrier

BANGKOK (AP) — China has built a land-based prototype nuclear reactor for a large surface warship, in the clearest sign yet Beijing is advancing toward producing its first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, according to a new analysis of satellite imagery and Chinese government documents provided to The Associated Press. China's navy is already the world's largest numerically, and it has been rapidly modernizing. Adding nuclear-powered carriers to its fleet would be a major step in realizing its ambitions for a true "blue-water" force capable of operating in seas far from China in a growing global challenge to the United States. "Nuclear-powered carriers would place China in the exclusive ranks of first-class naval powers, a group currently limited to the United States and France," said Tong Zhao, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, D.C.