(AP) – The Latest on California Gov. Jerry Brown’s appointment to a group focused on nuclear threats (all times local):

1:15 p.m.
California Gov. Jerry Brown says the Trump administration’s plan to withdraw from a nuclear arms agreement with Russia is wrong, dangerous and stupid.

Brown’s comments to The Associated Press came Thursday after he was announced as the new executive chairman of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists which manages the Doomsday Clock.

President Donald Trump recently announced the United States will leave the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty signed in 1987 with the former Soviet Union.

Trump says Russia has violated the terms of the treaty, which Russia denies.

Brown says there is “bipartisan blindness” toward the need for a better dialogue with Russia on nuclear nonproliferation. He says he has discussed the topic with Russian ambassadors to the U.S. and United Nations.

He says “ending civilization is a bigger problem than any of the other problems we have with Russia.”
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8 a.m.
California Gov. Jerry Brown has been named executive chairman of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, a group that measures manmade threats to human existence.

The group manages the Doomsday Clock. It’s a visual representation of how close the Bulletin believes the world is to catastrophe brought on by nuclear weapons, climate change and new technologies.

The Chicago-based group announced Brown’s appointment as executive chairman Thursday. Brown leaves office in January.
It says Brown and group members will generate information “to reduce manmade existential threats.”

Brown says in a statement provided by the group that the planet is in one of its most dangerous eras since the atomic bomb was dropped.

He says it is “crucial to wake people up to the dangers that still persist.”
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This story and headline has been corrected to show Brown is joining the organization, not leading it.