Newsletter: Today: Trump’s League of Conservative Gentlemen. Wet State, Dry State.

I’m Davan Maharaj, editor-in-chief of the Los Angeles Times. Here are some story lines I don’t want you to miss today.

TOP STORIES

Trump’s League of Conservative Gentlemen

Donald Trump has chosen one of the most consistently conservative presidential cabinets in recent history — one whose presumed members’ views don’t always align with what Trump promised on the campaign trail. In Washington circles, the biggest guessing game is how it will all play out. Somehow, you have to think tweeting is involved.

More Politics

-- Democrats say Trump must sell his interest in his new Washington hotel or else be in breach of a federal lease.

-- When Silicon Valley executives went to Trump Tower, the president-elect told them, “We’re going to make it a lot easier for you to trade across borders.”

-- Kanye West says his and Trump’s conversation was about “bullying, supporting teachers, modernizing curriculums, and violence in Chicago.”

Wet State, Dry State

We don’t want to jinx it, but … all of California should be in for some rain today. For our friends in Northern California, that in and of itself is not such big news, as the drought picture has dramatically improved there over the last two months. For a vast swath of Southern and Central California that remains exceptionally dry, it could bring some relief — and, unfortunately, flooding. Still, the state is a picture of drought disparity.

The Fed Piques Our Interest

By historical standards, interest rates are still low. (Anyone remember the early ’80s?) Yet for the first time in a year and only the second time in a decade, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates. For 2017, more increases could be on the way. Here’s what went into the decision and how it could affect real estate, the stock market and more.

More Soldiers’ Bonus Money, More Problems

One former Army reservist from Missouri tells the story of how, after getting hurt in Iraq and being discharged, the Pentagon ordered him to repay $5,000 of his $20,000 enlistment bonus. For many who served in the California National Guard, that’s a familiar tale. But unlike them, he’s not eligible for a waiver under a new federal law designed to help out those who served — it applies only to the California Guard. And he’s not alone: Army auditors have revealed bonus errors in all four of the other states they’ve looked at.

San Diego and Oakland Get a Two-Minute Warning

Things aren’t looking good for fans of the San Diego Chargers and Oakland Raiders hoping the teams will stay in their current cities. NFL team owners met in Texas and laid the groundwork for the Chargers to come to L.A., an option that expires in a month. Meanwhile, Las Vegas may have some potential as a destination for the Raiders.

CALIFORNIA

-- Hours after Uber added a small number of self-driving cars to its ride-hailing service in San Francisco, state regulators ordered the company to stop using the vehicles on public roads until it gets a permit.

-- The family of an unarmed 73-year-old man who was killed by a Bakersfield police officer is demanding state and federal investigations into the shooting.

-- An octogenarian jewel thief with a long rap sheet in Southern California has been arrested on larceny charges in an Atlanta suburb.

-- Never mind: Less than three months after reaching a compromise to start the school year later, L.A. Unified officials have changed course again and will keep the schedule they’re using this year.

HOLLYWOOD AND THE ARTS

-- Felicity Jones on her role in “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story”: “I’m asked a lot, ‘Oh, my God. It’s a female lead.’ I sort of feel like, if it was a giraffe leading it, then that would be a weird point of conversation.”

-- Director Pablo Larraín is this awards season’s double threat with “Jackie” and the poet caper “Neruda.”

-- The Screen Actors Guild nominations: “Moonlight,” “Fences” and “Manchester by the Sea” came up big; “La La Land” got the snub.

-- The Times’ music writers have picked their favorite songs of 2016. Discuss.

-- Bob Krasnow, an uncanny spotter of musical talent and a co-founder of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, has died at age 82.

NATION-WORLD

-- A tenuous and deadly situation in Aleppo continues to play out.

-- On Day 2 of Bill Cosby’s pretrial hearing in Pennsylvania, prosecutors portrayed him as a serial abuser, while Cosby’s lawyers said he was being targeted by opportunists.

-- India has a new law requiring moviegoers to stand while the national anthem is played before screenings. Now, people are being arrested for not observing it.

-- Nigeria is planning a six-lane superhighway through a remote rainforest. You can imagine that environmentalists are not happy about it.

-- Seahorses are some of the strangest fish in the sea. Can their genome tell us why?

BUSINESS

-- Might be time to change that password: Yahoo says hackers stole information from more than 1 billion accounts.

-- Alaska Airlines’ parent has finished buying Virgin America, but the airlines will operate separately for now.

-- Yesterday, columnist Michael Hiltzik said he didn’t understand the point of his Amazon Echo. Today, columnist David Lazarus fires back.

SPORTS

-- At age 51, boxer Bernard Hopkins is preparing for his final fight Saturday at the Forum.

-- The Rams have ramped up their coaching search, but Pete Carroll doesn’t want to be on their list of candidates.

OPINION

-- How do you ease traffic in Los Angeles? Make it harder to park.

-- David Horsey: Vladimir Putin got what he want for Christmas. See the cartoon here.

WHAT OUR EDITORS ARE READING

-- Dallas wants to hire hundreds of police officers, but 99 have left in just 10 weeks. (Dallas Morning News)

-- “I felt my heart pounding”: Patti Smith writes about performing at the Nobel ceremony honoring Bob Dylan. (The New Yorker)

-- Australia’s word of the year is “democracy sausage.” (BBC)

ONLY IN CALIFORNIA

Like the McRib, Disneyland’s Main Street Electrical Parade is coming back — and it’s kind of hard to say how many times that’s been. As Ronald Miziker, then director of show development, tells it, the first parade in 1972 barely got off the ground. That included hand-tinting 500,000 white miniature lightbulbs. As things continued to go wrong, Miziker was convinced he was going to be fired. But he wasn’t, thanks to a bit of magic in the kingdom.

Please send comments and ideas to Davan Maharaj.

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