• On Wednesday, Republican leaders moved closer to resolving some major differences between the House and Senate tax bills, though several big issues, including the size of the corporate tax cut, remained in flux.

A chorus of “Franken should resign.”

• Senator Al Franken of Minnesota has scheduled an announcement for today, after a sixth woman accused him of making an improper advance.

Dozens of his Democratic colleagues, led by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, have asked him to step down, though his office said, “No final decision has been made.”

Separately, the editor of The Paris Review, Lorin Stein, resigned. And New York Public Radio placed two of its longtime hosts, Leonard Lopate and Jonathan Schwartz, on leave.

• Time Magazine named “the silence breakers” its person of the year for 2017, honoring those who came forward to accuse powerful men of sexual harassment.

Flames enter heart of L.A.

• Part of the busiest highway in the U.S. was closed most of Wednesday, as a fast-moving wildfire in Los Angeles burned tens of thousands of acres and destroyed hundreds of buildings.

Here’s a map of the blazes in Southern California.

• What’s making the fires particularly large and destructive this year is the amount of bone-dry vegetation. “Normally by this time of year we would have had enough rainfall to where this wouldn’t be an issue,” a meteorologist with the U.S. Forest Service said.