USA

LOS ANGELES (AP) — California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday set a mid-March special election date to fill the U.S. House seat vacated by former Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

In a statement, Newsom set the March 19 primary date for the 20th Congressional District contest. If no candidate wins a majority of the vote, the top two vote-getters would advance to a May 21 matchup to fill the seat.

NEW YORK (AP) — Sotheby’s defended itself at a trial Monday against accusations that it helped defraud a Russian oligarch out of tens of millions of dollars, saying it knew nothing of wrongdoing by an art buyer who advised the billionaire on buying works by famed artists like Amedeo Modigliani and Leonardo da Vinci.

Sotheby’s attorney Sara Shudofsky told a jury in an opening statement in Manhattan federal court that billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev was “trying to make an innocent party pay for what somebody else did to him.”

FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) — An explosion at a historic Texas hotel in Fort Worth on Monday blew out windows, littered downtown streets with large sections of debris from the building and injured 21 people, including one who was in critical condition, authorities said.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Federal investigators say a door panel slid up before flying off an Alaska Airlines jetliner last week, and they are looking at whether four bolts that were supposed to help hold the panel in place might have been missing when the plane took off.

The comments Monday from the National Transportation Safety Board came shortly after Alaska and United Airlines reported separately that they found loose parts in the panels — or door plugs — of some other Boeing 737 Max 9 jets.

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Attorneys for a former Los Angeles-area gang leader charged with orchestrating the killing of hip-hop music legend Tupac Shakur in 1996 say prosecutors are wrong — that their client is facing danger, not witnesses — and he should be released from jail to house arrest ahead of his trial in June.

WASHINGTON (AP) — With Donald Trump present for the first time in months, federal appeals court judges in Washington expressed deep skepticism Tuesday that the former president was immune from prosecution on charges that he plotted to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

The panel of three judges also also questioned whether they had jurisdiction to consider the appeal at this point in the case, raising the prospect that Trump’s effort could be dismissed.

WASHINGTON, Jan 8 (Reuters) - The cockpit voice recorder data on the Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 9 jet which lost a panel mid-flight on Friday was overwritten, U.S. authorities said, renewing attention on long-standing safety calls for longer in-flight recordings.

National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) chair Jennifer Homendy said on Sunday no data was available on the cockpit voice recorder because it was not retrieved within two hours - when recording restarts, erasing previous data.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday rejected Alaska’s bid to revive a proposed copper and gold mine that was blocked by the Environmental Protection Agency.

The justices did not comment in turning away the state’s attempt to sue the Biden administration directly in the high court over its desire to revive the proposed Pebble Mine in the state’s Bristol Bay region.

A year ago, the EPA stopped the mine proposal, citing concerns with potential impacts on a rich aquatic ecosystem that supports the world’s largest sockeye salmon fishery.

NORTH LIBERTY, Iowa (AP) — When Donald Trump launched his 2024 presidential campaign after a disappointing midterm election for Republicans, his trajectory was something of a mystery. But seven days before Iowa’s kick-off caucuses, his standing among the GOP faithful is hardly in doubt.

Voters, campaign operatives and even some of the candidates on the ground here overwhelmingly agree that the Republican former president is the prohibitive favorite heading into the Jan. 15 caucuses — whether they like it or not.

WASHINGTON (AP) — White House infrastructure coordinator Mitch Landrieu is leaving his post after two years and is expected to help push publicly for President Joe Biden’s reelection.

The Democratic president tasked the former New Orleans mayor with setting up a system to invest more than $1 trillion over the coming years on roads, bridges, sewer systems, fiberoptic cable, ports and an array of other projects tied to the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law.