The Body Count: At least 42 bodies have now been found  in the smoldering remains left by the Camp fire north of Sacramento, making it the deadliest wildfire in California history. About 200 people are reported missing and authorities are still searching.

The retirement community of Paradise burned to the ground in a fire last week. The fire is listed as the most destructive in state history, having burned about 6,000 homes and structures.

Gov. Jerry Brown dubbed the state’s year-round fire season as “the new abnormal.”

Don’t Forget to Vote: Now under mandatory recounts, statewide elections in Florida have devolved into lawsuits and accusations of voter fraud and vote suppression. The votes for both governor and senator are being examined.

Gov. Rick Scott said his opponent for a Senate seat, Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson, is “clearly trying to commit voter fraud to win this election.”

“Senator Nelson has gone to court to say that fraudulent ballots, fraudulent ballots that were not properly delivered… should be counted,” Scott said. “Senator Nelson is clearly trying to find… to try and commit fraud to try to win this election. That’s all this is.”

Republican Sen. Marco Rubio said, “Democrat lawyers… are here to change the results of the election and Broward (County) is where they plan to do it.”

Scott leads Nelson by just over 12,000 votes.

All 67 Florida counties are recounting ballots with a Thursday deadline to get it done. Palm Beach County authorities say their old voting machines make an efficient recount impossible and they might not make it. In that case the election night results stand.

Gov. Rick Scott called for the impounding of vote machines in Broward County, but according to a county judge and election monitors, there is no evidence of fraud.

President Trump said the elections should be called according to election day results, in which case the Republicans would win. They’ll probably win anyway. But that would eliminate the votes of overseas service members — the military Trump says he loves — because they had until election day to postmark their ballots and 10 days for them to be received.

Flipped:Democrat Krysten Sinema has been declared the winner of Arizona’s Senate seat left open by the retiring Jeff Flake. She’s the state’s first female senator and she says she’s bisexual. We don’t know if that helped her with the male vote, the female, or both.

It was a nasty race, but Republican Martha McSally was gracious in her concession, demonstrating that there a smidgen of decency left in American politics.

For the moment, Sinema’s victory means the Republicans have gained only one additional seat in the Senate.

Homeland Insecurity: President Trump is preparing to fire Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, The Washington Postreports. He’s been unhappy with her performance on immigration enforcement.

Send To: Amazon has decided to split its new eastern headquarters between Queens, NY and Arlington, Va. They’re talking about hiring as many as 50,000 people, many of them computer engineers.

Tell Your Boss:Shortly after the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi a member of the hit squad made a phone call in which he said “tell your boss” the job is done, The NY Times reports.

“The Boss,” the Times says according to three sources, was  Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, but that is not officially confirmed. Turkish authorities, who managed to make an audio recording of the murder, say they can’t be certain that Salman was the man who ordered the job.

What Goes Up: The Dow Jones fell 602 points yesterday, investors frightened by news that Apple had cut orders for iPhone parts. Sales of the smartphone are softening and Apple stock dropped 5 percent. Because everything is all about him, President Trump tweeted, “The prospect of Presidential Harassment by the Dems is causing the Stock Market big headaches!”

Permawar: Israel is trading fire with Hamas militants in Gaza. Hamas has fired about 400 rockets in the past two days and Israel hit back at 100 targets.

The Obit Page: Comic book creator Stan Lee, whose Marvel Comics characters were superheroes with human flaws, has died at age 95.

Lee was instrumental in creating Spider-Man, the X-Men, the Fantastic Four, Iron Man, the Hulk, and Thor. Until Lee, comic book heroes like Batman and Superman were one-dimensional with no human doubts or neuroses. Lee said he made his heroes “real flesh-and-blood characters with personality.”

Spiderman was a lonely soul-searcher bitten by a radioactive spider. Bruce Banner was a physically weak and socially withdrawn physicist who in moments of rage turned into the Hulk, a giant muscled green monster.

In the late 1950s and early 60s, when comic book sales had dropped two-thirds from their Depression-era peak,  Lee revolutionized and revived the comics. His creations eventually became a goldmine of characters for animation and movies. He liked to appear in cameo walk-ons.

Lee was also known for fights about ownership to the rights of characters. While encouraging collaborators to invent characters, he wasn’t good about paying royalties. — Canadian actor Douglas Rain, who provided the hauntingly monotone voice of Hal 9000, the computer in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, has died at age 90. Hal was a supposedly foolproof computer that makes a mistake leading to the deaths of all members of a space crew except one. It turns out Hal could read lips. As the survivor deals with a rebellious Hal, the computer says, “I know you and Frank were trying to disconnect me, I can’t let that happen.” It was chilling.

Rain was actually a Shakespearian actor.

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