NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- A major chunk of the stimulus plan dealing with transportation is drawing fire for focusing too much on building new highways and not enough on regular maintenance projects and public transport.

The House has budgeted $30 billion for roads and bridges and $10 billion for mass transport as part of a $550 billion spending plan designed to boost the economy.

Supporters of the plan say most of that money will be spent on repair, and that such projects can be allocated quickly to jolt the economy. But critics say the plan short-changes public transportation, focusing too much on the types of mega-highway projects that got the nation into its energy and environmental mess in the first place.

"This is a pretty big disappointment," Robert Puentes, a fellow with the Brookings Institution's Metropolitan Policy Project, said of the plan. "There was all this momentum for some kind of reform, but when you look at what's in there, it just doesn't do that."

Read more: Stimulus: Stuck on cars

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) -- California's unemployment rate jumped to 9.3% in December from 8.4% in November and 5.9% a year earlier as job cuts swept across most industries, with recession tightening its grip on the most populous U.S. state, officials said Friday.

California's December jobless rate marked a 14-year high for the state and was significantly higher than the month's national average of 7.2%, underscoring a surge in job losses over the last three months of 2008, said Patti Roberts, a spokeswoman for the state's Employment Development Department.

California has for some time been contending with one of the worst housing markets in the nation, with some areas posting some of the nation's highest foreclosure rates, and its effects have spilled over into the state's broader economy.

Read more: California jobless rate hits 9.3%

The cast and crew for Marvel Studios' 2011 film The Avengers is coming together quite nicely. Iron Man himself Robert Downey Jr. and Don Cheadle, whose deal to replace Terrence Howard in the Iron Man movies has been finalized, have signed for the actioner, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Downey has signed a four-picture deal with Marvel Studios, which will see him reprise the character of Tony Stark not only for Iron Man 2 and "Iron Man 3," but also for the Avengers movie.

Jon Favreau, who is directing Iron Man 2, will exec produce Avengers. Cheadle will play Jim Rhodes, Stark's best friend, who becomes the suit-wearing hero "War Machine."

Read more: 'Iron Man 2' Trio to Team Again for 'Avengers'

Jack Black, who starred in the summer hits Kung Fu Panda (now on DVD!) and Tropic Thunder, will toplone a new version of Gulliver's Travels for 20th Century Fox.

The latest take on the Jonathan Swift classic will be directed by Rob Letterman from a script adapted by Joe Stillman, with a rewrite by Nicholas Stoller (Forgetting Sarah Marshall).

Gulliver's Travels -- better known by its shorter, catchier title than the original mouthful "Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, in Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of several Ships" -- was first published in 1726. Among its multiple filmed incarnations are an Emmy-winning telefilm starring Ted Danson, a partially animated film with Richard Harris and a trippy 1960 movie starring Kerwin Matthews.

Read more: Black Embarks on 'Gulliver's Travels'