Gov. Brown Releases Restrained State Budget

“An unpaid group of billionaires, tech executives and some disciples of Peter Thiel, a powerful Republican donor, are preparing to take up unofficial positions in the U. S. government in the name of cost-cutting,” the New York Times reports. “As President-elect Donald Trump’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency girds for battle against ‘wasteful’ spending, it is preparing to dispatch individuals with ties to its co-leaders, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, to agencies across the federal government.” “After Inauguration Day, the group of Silicon Valley-inflected, wide-eyed recruits will be deployed to Washington’s alphabet soup of agencies.

“President-elect Donald Trump offered fresh criticism early Sunday of the officials in charge of fighting the Los Angeles wildfires, calling them ‘incompetent’ and asking why the blazes were not yet extinguished,” the New York Times reports. Said Trump: “The fires are still raging in L. A. The incompetent pols have no idea how to put them out.” Washington Post: Winds to strengthen as blaze heads toward major highway.

“To serve as an economic adviser to Trump, it helps to share his belief that tariffs make the U. S. richer. Not many economists meet that criterion,” the Wall Street Journal reports. “Stephen Miran has made just that case. Miran, nominated to chair Trump’s Council of Economic Advisers, has written that the U.

This story was originally published by Atlas Obscura and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Sado Island perches like a butterfly with its wings outstretched just off the curved west coast of Japan. Yet this land mass is better known as the home of another winged creature: the crested ibis, called toki in Japanese. Hop on a shinkansen (a high-speed train) from Tokyo to Niigata, then board a ferry, and you will arrive at the port of Ryotsu, where a Welcome to Sado sign awaits above a larger-than-life photo of a toki mid-flight.

Justice must be equal to the crime if it is to be just.

The Milwaukee Jewish establishment fails to back two Jewish heroes.