Flagship

Trump presses for security control

US President-elect Donald Trump appointed a Fox News veteran as defense secretary and a former top intelligence official as the head of the CIA, indicating that he wants to tighten control over the country’s security establishment. Trump had a tumultuous relationship with the Pentagon in his first term, going through five defense secretaries, but his choice of a supportive former Army captain points to Trump’s desire to have a strong ally in a crucial post, with the US a key player in wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. His team is also considering an executive order that would empower him to quickly “purge generals,” The Wall Street Journal wrote.

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Trump’s tighter focus

US President-elect Donald Trump’s appointments suggest his second term will be characterized by greater coherence and loyalty than his often chaotic first, analysts said. Beyond the choices of businessmen Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to run a Department of Government Efficiency — a not-so-subtle meme reference — many of Trump’s selections have been from Florida and New York, his two homes, and he has so far drawn heavily from the legislature in a sign that he is placing greater emphasis on getting his priorities through Congress. “The first Trump administration was plagued by appointment delays, shady characters, and advisers entering and exiting the White House often within a few days,” Wolfgang Münchau’s Eurointelligence noted. “The current operation has started with discipline.”

Trump win splits female opinion

US women are divided over the coming Donald Trump presidency. To left-leaning women, it is “clear that [Trump-voting women] voted against their own self-interest,” The New York Times reported, and yet 45% did so, as “women don’t speak with one voice,” one academic said. Some women remain uncomfortable with a female president: “We need a man to deal with foreign countries,” one told The Times. Still, many are unnerved by the change in administration, and are taking steps to prepare for it: Abortion pill suppliers told The Washington Post that they had received many more orders than usual since the election, as women stockpile the drugs ahead of possible future restrictions on reproductive rights.

Xi readies Latam push

Chinese leader Xi Jinping will today arrive in Peru for an Asia-Pacific summit where he is expected to inaugurate a $1.3 billion megaport that will underscore Beijing’s growing regional clout. After APEC, Xi will travel to the G20 summit in Brazil, which some analysts believe President Luíz Inácio Lula da Silva could use to announce his country joining the Belt and Road Initiative, China’s massive infrastructure investment program. The US had previously warned Brasília to “really think about what the best pathway” forward was for the economy. In South America, “the incoming Donald Trump White House will find itself already on the losing side in a trade battle with China,” Reuters reported.

China’s South China Sea push

China held military drills in parts of the South China Sea claimed by the Philippines, one of a number of allegedly revanchist moves condemned by Asian nations. The maneuvers came soon after Beijing published new documents it said cemented its control of the Scarborough Shoal, amid persistent tensions with Manila over maritime territory. Palau’s recently reelected president — seen as pro-US and whose country is among only a dozen that officially recognize Taiwan — meanwhile slammed China for infringing on his nation’s waters, and Indonesia said it did not recognize Beijing’s territorial claims after its president signed a maritime development deal with China while on a visit there.

Volkswagen bets big on EVs

Volkswagen increased its investment in EV maker Rivian to $5.8 billion as both companies attempt “to rescue each other,” as The Wall Street Journal put it. The world’s second-largest car manufacturer and the Silicon Valley startup see their partnership as essential for survival in an increasingly competitive market: VW wants Rivian to help it make up lost ground in EV technology, while the latter is looking to expand its manufacturing capacity. Meanwhile the EV market is booming: Despite trade restrictions on Chinese-made cars, global sales of EVs rose by 35% in October from the same month last year, buoyed by a 54% jump in sales in China.

South Africa’s water crisis

South Africa’s constitutional court said it was working remotely this month because of unreliable water supplies, the latest evidence of infrastructure shortfalls in Africa’s biggest economy. The country has for years grappled with poor electricity supply, and Cape Town in particular has struggled with low water levels, both of which have hampered economic growth, creating a vicious cycle in which the problems are ultimately harder to resolve. In Gauteng province, home to Johannesburg, almost half of all utility-supplied water is lost due to aging infrastructure, leaks, and theft. South Africa’s water minister insisted this week the country was not facing a crisis — but warned that availability of potable water could “rapidly deteriorate.”

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Moscow’s war on childlessness

The Russian Parliament backed a law banning “child-free propaganda” as the Kremlin grows increasingly concerned about the country’s aging and shrinking population. Exactly what constitutes “propaganda” is ill-defined, but the law could stop TVs and movies depicting childless people as happy or mothers sharing their struggles with parenthood, The Washington Post reported. Deaths have outnumbered births in Russia since the 1990s, and President Vladimir Putin has called for a return to “traditional Russian values,” including large families, while ministers have pressed women to start having children at 18 or suggested taxes on childlessness. State-run advice hotlines and billboards exhort women not to have abortions. One feminist activist told The Post that in Russia, “a woman is like an incubator that delivers new warriors.”

First amber found in Antarctica

Amber was found in Antarctica for the first time. The semiprecious stone is formed from fossilized tree sap, and had been found in every continent except the southernmost one. The 90-million-year-old samples are little bigger than sand grains, but scientists are excited: Amber preserves its content extremely well, and it is likely to contain ancient tree bark fragments and other remains. Research in 2020 showed that Antarctica had forests when the world was warmer, and the new discovery should reveal more about those forests — including, perhaps, insect life and other details. One researcher said it would give “a better understanding of the swampy, conifer-rich, temperate rainforest environment identified near the South Pole.”

Migratory birds’ magnetic GPS

Migratory birds use Earth’s magnetic field not just as a compass but as a sort of GPS system, research suggested. Eurasian reed warblers fly from Europe to Africa and back each year. Scientists have long known that migrants use the magnetosphere, as well as the sun and stars, as cues for their journey, but it wasn’t clear whether the magnetic field simply told them what direction they were going. Scientists interrupted 21 warblers’ flights in Austria, then used an electromagnetic coil to alter the local magnetic field so that it corresponded to a position in Russia. The birds then flew in the direction they would have if they’d been there, implying that they used the field to establish location.

• US President Joe Biden meets with his elected successor Donald Trump in the White House.
• Somalia’s breakaway region of Somaliland holds a presidential election.
• US actress Whoopi Goldberg turns 69.

The age in years of the oldest inscribed tablet of the Ten Commandments, which will be auctioned at Sotheby’s next month. The 115-pound, two-foot-tall tablet was made during the late Roman era and found in Israel in 1913. It only lists nine of the best-known commandments — the one about not taking the Lord’s name in vain is left off, to make room for an order to worship at a particular sacred mountain — but that sort of thing seems to be expected: There are, depending on how you count them, between 12 and 15 instructions given to Moses in the original passage in the Book of Exodus.

Orbital by Samantha Harvey. This novel about six astronauts on the International Space Station just won the Booker Prize, a unanimous decision from the judges who praised its “beauty and ambition”: The Guardian called it a “finely crafted meditation on the Earth, beauty and human aspiration.” At 136 pages, it is the second-shortest Booker winner ever. Buy Orbital from your local bookstore.

Makan Delrahim, a top antitrust cop in Donald Trump’s first administration, has talked to the Trump transition team about running the Federal Trade Commission, Semafor’s Liz Hoffman and Shelby Talcott scooped. Delrahim’s track record in blocking some megamergers while supporting others “could bridge two Republican camps starkly divided over corporate competition,” they wrote.