The Smoking Ruins: Searchers have now found 63 bodies among the burned ruins in and around Paradise, Calif. north of Sacramento. Possibly more astounding is the number of people still reported missing or unaccounted for — 631.

It is slowly unfolding into an historic disaster that may force reconsideration of how and where people live in the burnable wilds of the West.

The Camp Fire in Butte County, which started on Nov. 8, has burned over 138,000 acres and destroyed more than 10,000 buildings. San Francisco is in a cloud of smoke. The fire is not expected to be fully contained until Nov. 30^th.

Gridlock: New York City was crippled by an early season snowstorm last night that stretches from Missouri to Massachusetts. With three to six inches of snow falling, cars crunched into each other, buses slipped, and bridges were choked. Bus and train terminals were jammed with delayed commuters.

Wikileaked:The Justice Department accidentally revealed in a court filing that it is preparing criminal charges against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. Assange has been holed up since 2012 in the Ecuadorean embassy in London, avoiding sex crimes charges in Europe.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller is investigating the relationship between Wikileaks and Russian election interference. The nature of the charges against Assange were not described.

The Long Count: Florida officials ordered a manual recount of votes in the state’s contested US Senate race. Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican, holds a 12,603-vote lead over incumbent Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson. That’s only a 0.15 percentage point margin.

Scott has called on Nelson to concede and showed up in Washington for orientation as a new senator even though it’s not officially over. The elections are to be certified on Nov. 20^th.

The entire state ran a machine recount and three counties missed the 3 pm deadline. Broward County, which includes Miami, missed the deadline by two minutes.

Andrew Gillum, the 39-year-old Democratic mayor of Tallahassee, trails in the Florida governor’s race by just 0.41 percentage points, enough to avoid a manual recount. Nevertheless, Gillum is holding out to have every vote counted, including those with signatures that don’t match the registration.

“A vote denied is justice denied — the State of Florida must count every legally cast vote,” Gillum said in a statement. “As today’s unofficial reports and recent court proceedings make clear, there are tens of thousands of votes that have yet to be counted. We plan to do all we can to ensure that every voice is heard in this process.”

Art News:The most famous painting by artist David Hockney of one man watching another swim underwater in a sparkling Los Angeles swimming pool, sold at auction yesterday for $90.3 million. It’s the biggest price ever paid for a work by a living artist.

The picture features Hockney’s former boyfriend standing at the right end of the pool and the artist swimming. The pool is against a background of blue sky and green mountains.

Born and raised in a dingy British industrial city, Hockney became the artist who most notably captured the pastel color and light of Los Angeles on canvas. The pool painting is called, “Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures).” Hockney’s New York dealer originally sold it in 1972 for $18,000.

Brexit Exit:After what seemed like a done deal, prime Minister Theresa May’s chief Brexit negotiator resigned in protest over the agreement she favors to get out of the European Union. A second British cabinet member also resigned.

The resignations throw doubt on what had appeared to be settled, at least within the cabinet. It puts May’s tenure in doubt even though she has vowed to see Britain through its exit from the EU.

With no real arrangement with the EU, Britain might just “crash out” in the spring, throwing the British economy into turmoil. Some members of Parliament are calling for a new national vote in hopes that Brits will change their minds.

Cool It:In an attempt to discourage smoking among young people, the Food and Drug Administration announced it will seek a ban on menthol-flavored cigarettes. Menthol makes smoke more palatable. The FDA also wants to restrict flavored e-cigarettes, and flavored cigars.

The Obit Page:Roy Clark, the singer and musician who brought country music to Americans as host of the television variety show “Hee Haw” for 20 years, has died at age 85.

The show was a cornpone copy of the famous “Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-in,” which delivered jokes and skits at a lightning pace. It was a mainstream success despite doubts that many Americans would be entranced by twang. As a solo artist, Clark had a hit that crossed the country lines with “Yesterday When I was Young.”

Weighty Issue:Probably few people know that since the 19th century, the standard unit of measurement for the kilogram has been a platinum iridium cylinder stored in a vault deep in the International Bureau of Weights and Measures in Sevres, France.

The cylinder is exactly one kilo and if for some odd reason it loses weight, so does the kilogram.

Today representatives of more than 60 countries are expected to meet in Versailles, France, to vote on a new scientifically immutable definition of the kilogram. They plan to define the kilo according to Planck’s constant, a fundamental formula of quantum mechanics that we are inadequate to explain. But relax because America is not going metric.

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