By Steve Gorman

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The latest spate of harsh wintry weather churning from the Pacific bore down on storm-weary California on Tuesday, with forecasters warning of wind gusts reaching hurricane force, accompanied by torrential rain and heavy mountain snow.

    Southern and central California, still sodden from storms that have swept ashore one after another since late December – one just days ago – were expected to be hardest hit by the newest onslaught, arriving early on the second official day of spring.

High-wind warnings and advisories were posted for a vast stretch of California from the Mexico border through Los Angeles to the San Francisco Bay area. Winter storm warnings were in effect for high mountains, where several feet of snowfall was possible.

The National Weather Service (NWS) also issued an excessive- rainfall notice for much of the Southern California coast, warning of an at least a 40% chance of showers exceeding flash-flood conditions.

A region that is home to more than 17 million people, extending well into central Arizona and including most of the greater Los Angeles area, was placed under flood watches.

    Tuesday’s storm was expected to spread beyond California across the Southwest and into the central Great Basin and Rockies by late on Tuesday, carrying with it a mix of heavy showers, snow and high winds.

The storm marks the 12th so-called atmospheric river to hit the U.S. West Coast since December, the product of an immense airborne current of dense water vapor carried aloft from the ocean and funneled overland in bouts of heavy rain and snow.

The storm was driven by a Pacific cyclone swirling around an intense low-pressure system, drawing up vast quantities of moisture and steering it at the coast, according to meteorologist William Churchill of the NWS Weather Prediction Center.

Unlike many of the earlier atmospheric rivers, the latest storm is packing a cooler load of moisture, meaning more of it will fall as snow in the higher coastal mountains and Sierra Nevada range.

As much as 2 to 5 feet (0.6-1.5 meters) were forecast at elevations above 6,000 feet, where some alpine areas remain blanketed in snow left by winter storms last month. The weather service warned that the additional snowfall would heighten avalanche hazards in those areas.

Up to 3 inches (7.6 centimeters) of rain were expected in coastal regions and valleys of Southern California, and as much as 6 inches in lower mountains and foothills, the NWS said.

Forecasts also called for howling winds across much of the state, with gusts expected to reach nearly 75 miles per hour (121 kilometers per hour) in Southern California’s mountains and deserts, and 55 mph along coasts and through inland valleys.

Sustained winds blowing at or near gale force were predicted throughout the storm zone, Churchill said.

(Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles. Editing by Gerry Doyle)

By Jack Queen

(Reuters) – Lawyers for Dominion Voting Systems are set on Tuesday to ask a Delaware judge to find Fox Corp liable for defamation over airing debunked vote-rigging claims, while Fox lawyers fighting a $1.6 billion lawsuit counter that the network’s 2020 election coverage was constitutionally protected speech.

Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis is scheduled to preside over a hearing in Wilmington ahead of the scheduled April 17 start of the high-profile defamation trial. Both sides are seeking to convince Davis that he should rule in their favor without the need for the case to go to trial.

Dominion sued Fox Corp and Fox News in 2021, accusing them of ruining its reputation by airing false claims by Republican former President Donald Trump and his lawyers that the Denver-based company’s voting machines were used to rig the outcome of the election against him and in favor of Democrat Joe Biden.

It is one of the most closely watched defamation cases involving a major U.S. media organization in years, pitting the influential cable news network that features conservative commentators against a voting-technology company that claims Fox’s coverage destroyed its business.

If the judge finds Fox liable for defamation at this stage of the litigation, the trial would concern only how much it must pay Dominion in damages.

Fox has argued in court papers that coverage of election-rigging claims by Trump and his lawyers was inherently newsworthy and protected by the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment guarantee of freedom of the press.

Both sides are seeking summary judgment – asking the judge to decide the case in their favor before it goes to a jury trial. Davis is expected to hear arguments on several issues including whether the claims that Fox News aired were defamatory, protected as newsworthy reporting and commentary and whether Fox is responsible for Dominion’s claimed damages.

Dominion has said in court filings that a trove of documents unearthed in the case’s discovery process prove Fox executives and news staff knew the election-rigging claims were false but aired them anyway in pursuit of ratings. Dominion argues this meets the “actual malice” standard to win a defamation case under which plaintiffs must prove a defendant knowingly spread false information or acted with reckless disregard for the truth.

A filing by Dominion in the case last month was replete with references to emails and statements in which Fox Corp Chairman Rupert Murdoch and other top Fox executives say the claims made about Dominion on-air were false.

Fox has accused Dominion of cherry-picking from internal communications and deposition testimony to paint a misleading picture. Fox also has said Dominion’s $1.6 billion damages claim is disproportionate to the company’s actual value.

(Reporting by Jack Queen in New York; Additional reporting by Helen Coster; Editing by Will Dunham and Amy Stevens)

By Jack Queen

(Reuters) – Lawyers for Dominion Voting Systems are set on Tuesday to ask a Delaware judge to find Fox Corp liable for defamation over airing debunked vote-rigging claims, while Fox lawyers fighting a $1.6 billion lawsuit counter that the network’s 2020 election coverage was constitutionally protected speech.

Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis is scheduled to preside over a hearing in Wilmington ahead of the scheduled April 17 start of the high-profile defamation trial. Both sides are seeking to convince Davis that he should rule in their favor without the need for the case to go to trial.

Dominion sued Fox Corp and Fox News in 2021, accusing them of ruining its reputation by airing false claims by Republican former President Donald Trump and his lawyers that the Denver-based company’s voting machines were used to rig the outcome of the election against him and in favor of Democrat Joe Biden.

It is one of the most closely watched defamation cases involving a major U.S. media organization in years, pitting the influential cable news network that features conservative commentators against a voting-technology company that claims Fox’s coverage destroyed its business.

If the judge finds Fox liable for defamation at this stage of the litigation, the trial would concern only how much it must pay Dominion in damages.

Fox has argued in court papers that coverage of election-rigging claims by Trump and his lawyers was inherently newsworthy and protected by the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment guarantee of freedom of the press.

Both sides are seeking summary judgment – asking the judge to decide the case in their favor before it goes to a jury trial. Davis is expected to hear arguments on several issues including whether the claims that Fox News aired were defamatory, protected as newsworthy reporting and commentary and whether Fox is responsible for Dominion’s claimed damages.

Dominion has said in court filings that a trove of documents unearthed in the case’s discovery process prove Fox executives and news staff knew the election-rigging claims were false but aired them anyway in pursuit of ratings. Dominion argues this meets the “actual malice” standard to win a defamation case under which plaintiffs must prove a defendant knowingly spread false information or acted with reckless disregard for the truth.

A filing by Dominion in the case last month was replete with references to emails and statements in which Fox Corp Chairman Rupert Murdoch and other top Fox executives say the claims made about Dominion on-air were false.

Fox has accused Dominion of cherry-picking from internal communications and deposition testimony to paint a misleading picture. Fox also has said Dominion’s $1.6 billion damages claim is disproportionate to the company’s actual value.

(Reporting by Jack Queen in New York; Additional reporting by Helen Coster; Editing by Will Dunham and Amy Stevens)

By Patricia Zengerle

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden on Monday signed a bill that requires declassification of information related to the origins of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, the White House said.

Biden said he shared Congress’ goal of releasing as much information as possible about the origin of COVID-19.

“In implementing this legislation, my administration will declassify and share as much of that information as possible, consistent with my constitutional authority to protect against the disclosure of information that would harm national security,” Biden said in a statement. 

The bill sailed through the Senate and House of Representatives without opposition before being sent to the White House.

Washington has been conducting a highly politicized debate about the origins of the coronavirus pandemic almost since the first human cases were reported in the Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019, amid calls from both Biden’s fellow Democrats and Republicans to push back harder against a rising China.

The debate was refueled last month, when the Wall Street Journal reported that the U.S. Energy Department had assessed with that the pandemic likely arose from a Chinese laboratory leak, an assessment Beijing denies.

The department made its judgment with “low confidence” in a classified intelligence report. The FBI has also assessed that the pandemic likely originated from a lab leak. Four other U.S. agencies still judge that COVID-19 was likely the result of natural transmission, while two are undecided.

Many U.S. officials have said the pandemic’s origins may never be known. China said claims that a laboratory leak likely caused the pandemic have no credibility.

Biden noted that he had directed intelligence agencies to investigate COVID-19’s origins in 2021, that work is ongoing and his administration would continue to review all classified information, including potential links to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

“We need to get to the bottom of COVID-19’s origins to help ensure we can better prevent future pandemics,” he said.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; additional reporting by Kanishka Singh and Costas Pitas; Editing by Tim Ahmann and Bill Berkrot)

(Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday will create two new national monuments, in Nevada and Texas, and launch an effort to consider expanding protections for all waters around remote Pacific islands southwest of Hawaii.

The moves, which will be announced at a White House summit on conservation, are aimed at delivering on Biden’s goal to conserve at least 30% of federal lands and waters by 2030.

The two new national monuments will conserve 514,000 acres (208,008 hectares) of public land. They include Avi Kwa Ame, the Mojave name for Spirit Mountain, in Southern Nevada. The site is sacred to tribes including the Paiute and Chemehuevi, and provides habitat for species such as desert bighorn sheep, desert tortoise and a Joshua tree forest.

Biden will also name Castner Range in El Paso, Texas as a national monument. Castner is a former training and testing location for the U.S. Army and has more than 40 known archeological sites with pottery remnants, petroglyghs and living structures.

The location is also rich in desert species including spring blooms of the Mexican Poppy and provides habitat for wildlife like the golden eagle, Texas horned lizard and western burrowing owl. The designation will provide communities that have historically had less access to public lands with opportunities to experience nature and explore, the White House said.

Biden will also direct the Commerce Secretary to consider initiating a new marine sanctuary designation for all U.S. waters around the Pacific Remote Islands.

The designation would expand on the existing Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument established by former President George W. Bush in 2009 and expanded by former President Barack Obama in 2014.

Biden will also direct the secretaries of Commerce and Interior to begin a process to consider renaming the monument and islands to honor the area’s native heritage and recognize the native Hawaiians who secured U.S. territorial claim to the islands.

(Reporting by Nichola Groom; Editing by Stephen Coates)

By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Transportation Department will announce on Tuesday it is awarding $94.8 million to 59 projects on advanced technology projects to boost road safety, improve transit reliability and use drones and sensors for transportation projects.

The $1 trillion November 2021 infrastructure law dedicates $500 million over five years for “Smart” mobility projects.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said the grants would “foster innovations that improve people’s day-to-day lives, making transportation safer, more reliable, more efficient, and more sustainable.”

Detroit is getting $2 million for sensors to create smart intersections by using existing traffic cameras to deploy artificial intelligence software solutions to “predict and prevent traffic accidents” in the city, Michigan’s largest.

Traffic deaths jumped 10.5% to 42,915 in 2021, the highest number killed on American roads since 2005. After declining for years, traffic deaths jumped sharply after COVID-19 lockdowns expired in 2020 and more drivers engaged in unsafe behavior.

New Jersey has won $2 million for sensors to address wrong-way driving events while New York is receiving $2 million for an app to allow visually impaired New York subway and bus customers to safely navigate their transit trips.

Los Angeles is receiving $2 million to integrate transit trip planning with event ticketing for major activities, including the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games

Cleveland, Ohio will get $1.8 million for smart traffic signals to provide the right of way to emergency vehicles, and Harris County, Texas is receiving $2 million for sensors for a new flood warning system.

Three tribal nations in North Dakota are receiving $2 million for drone technology for medical care and equipment deliveries, while a project to use drones to deliver medical supplies in Virginia’s Eastern Shore will get $1.9 million.

Massachusetts is receiving $2 million to use drones and sensors to monitor and analyze railroad infrastructure threatened by ground water variability while New York will use $1.5 million for drones to inspect infrastructure along a major highway.

Many projects relate to “connected vehicle” technology to avoid crashes by using cellular transmissions.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Bradley Perrett)

(Reuters) – A major fire burned a large church in Burlington, New Jersey to the ground on Monday, its roof collapsing as more than 100 firefighters and emergency personnel battled the flames, local media reported.

The blaze erupted at about 6 p.m. eastern time at the Fountain of Life Center in Florence Township, New Jersey, northeast of Philadelphia, local ABC-6 reported. Dark plumes of smoke could be seen for several miles around.

“It’s a devastating loss,” Russell Hodgins, a senior pastor at the Fountain of Life Center, told the station.

Hodgins told local media that crews were still attempting to save an attached school building. More than 100 firefighters and other emergency responders were at the scene.

“Firefighters did a tremendous job of trying to stop the fire interiorly. It was just the size of the building the amount of fire that was here – we had to switch our operation to a defensive operation,” Robert Tharp, the administrator of the Florence Township Fire District, told CBS-6.

There were no immediate reports of injuries and it was not clear what ignited the blaze.

The Cherry Hill Courier Post said the church, which opened in 1974, has 1,000 members. Its campus includes a school, worship space and family life center, the newspaper said. A cause has not yet been determined, the newspaper said.

(Reporting by Dan Whitcomb and Sharon Bernstein; Editing by Sonali Paul)

By Karen Freifeld and Luc Cohen

NEW YORK (Reuters) -Workers erected barricades around a Manhattan courthouse on Monday as New York City braced for a possible indictment of Donald Trump over an alleged hush-money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels during his 2016 campaign.

It would be the first-ever criminal case against any U.S. president. On Saturday, Trump urged followers on social media to protest what he said was his looming arrest.

In his call for protests, Trump raised concerns for law enforcement that supporters might engage in violence similar to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol in Washington.

Fearing a trap, however, several far-right grassroots groups have opted not to heed his call, security analysts said.

A grand jury, which heard further testimony on Monday, could bring charges as soon as this week. Trump, who is seeking the Republican nomination for the White House again in 2024, had predicted he would be arrested on Tuesday.

On Monday the grand jury heard from a witness, lawyer Robert Costello, who said Trump’s former fixer Michael Cohen had handled the hush-money payments without Trump’s involvement.

“Michael Cohen decided on his own – that’s what he told us – on his own, to see if he could take care of this,” Costello told reporters after testifying to the grand jury at Trump’s lawyers’ request.

Cohen, who testified twice before the grand jury, has said publicly Trump directed him to make the payments on Trump’s behalf.

An indictment could hurt Trump’s comeback attempt. Some 44% of Republicans say he should drop out of the presidential race if he is indicted, according to a seven-day Reuters/Ipsos poll that concluded on Monday.

The investigation by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is one of several legal challenges facing Trump. His office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to federal campaign finance violations tied to his arranging payments to Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford, and another woman in exchange for their silence about affairs they claimed with Trump.

Trump has denied that any such affairs took place

The Manhattan District Attorney’s office had asked that Cohen be available as a rebuttal witness, but he was told on Monday afternoon that his testimony was not needed, according to his lawyer Lanny Davis. Cohen told MSNBC he had not been asked to return on Wednesday.

NO SIGN OF UNREST

New York Mayor Eric Adams told reporters police were monitoring social media and keeping an eye out for “inappropriate actions” in the city. The New York Police Department said there were no known credible threats.

If charged, Trump would likely have to travel from his Florida home for fingerprinting and other processing. Law enforcement officials met on Monday to discuss the logistics, several media outlets reported.

Sources have said Bragg’s office was presenting evidence to a grand jury about a $130,000 payment made to Daniels in the final weeks of the 2016 campaign.

Trump’s fellow Republicans have widely criticized the probe as politically motivated.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Trump’s rival for the Republican presidential nomination, said on Monday Bragg was imposing a “political agenda” that compromised the rule of law, but he also took a veiled swipe at Trump.

“I don’t know what goes into paying hush money to a porn star to secure silence over some type of alleged affair,” he told reporters.

Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives launched an investigation of Bragg’s office with a letter seeking communications, documents and testimony related to the probe.

Trump and other Republicans have also said the Manhattan District Attorney’s office should focus more on tackling crime.

Asked to comment on the letter, a spokesperson for the DA’s office, citing statistics that homicides and shootings were down this year, said:

“We will not be intimidated by attempts to undermine the justice process, nor will we let baseless accusations deter us from fairly applying the law.”

Trump was impeached twice by the House during his presidency, once in 2019 over his conduct regarding Ukraine and again in 2021 over the attack on the U.S. Capitol by his supporters. He was acquitted by the Senate both times.

SEVERAL MORE LEGAL CHALLENGES REMAIN

Bragg won a conviction last December against Trump’s business on tax fraud charges.

But legal analysts say the hush-money case may be more difficult. Bragg’s office will have to prove that Trump intended to commit a crime, and his lawyers will likely employ a range of counterattacks to try to get the case dismissed, experts say.

Trump, meanwhile, has to contend with other legal challenges, raising the possibility he will have to shuttle between campaign stops and courtrooms before the November 2024 election.

Trump’s lawyers on Monday asked a Georgia court to quash a special grand jury report detailing its investigation into his alleged efforts to overturn his 2020 statewide election defeat.

The filing in Fulton County Superior Court also seeks to have the county district attorney, Fani Willis, recused from the case, arguing her media appearances and social media posts demonstrated bias against Trump.

Trump is also seeking to delay a civil fraud trial, scheduled for Oct. 2, brought by the New York attorney general that alleges a decade-long scheme to manipulate the value of his assets to win better terms from bankers and insurers.

Trump faces two civil trials involving former magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll, who claims that Trump defamed her by denying he raped her. A federal judge on Monday denied a request from both sides to combine the two cases into one.

(Additional reporting by Kaniska Singh, Jason Lange, David Morgan and Costas Pitas; Writing by Andy Sullivan; Editing by Scott Malone, Howard Goller and Lincoln Feast.)

(Reuters) – A major fire burned a large church in Burlington, New Jersey to the ground on Monday, its roof collapsing as more than 100 firefighters and emergency personnel battled the flames, local media reported.

The blaze erupted at about 6 p.m. eastern time at the Fountain of Life Center in Florence Township, New Jersey, northeast of Philadelphia, local ABC-6 reported. Dark plumes of smoke could be seen for several miles around.

“It’s a devastating loss,” Russell Hodgins, a senior pastor at the Fountain of Life Center, told the station.

Hodgins told local media that crews were still attempting to save an attached school building. More than 100 firefighters and other emergency responders were at the scene.

“Firefighters did a tremendous job of trying to stop the fire interiorly. It was just the size of the building the amount of fire that was here – we had to switch our operation to a defensive operation,” Robert Tharp, the administrator of the Florence Township Fire District, told CBS-6.

There were no immediate reports of injuries and it was not clear what ignited the blaze.

The Cherry Hill Courier Post said the church, which opened in 1974, has 1,000 members. Its campus includes a school, worship space and family life center, the newspaper said. A cause has not yet been determined, the newspaper said.

(Reporting by Dan Whitcomb and Sharon Bernstein; Editing by Sonali Paul)

By Karen Freifeld and Luc Cohen

NEW YORK (Reuters) -Workers erected barricades around a Manhattan courthouse on Monday as New York City braced for a possible indictment of Donald Trump over an alleged hush-money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels during his 2016 campaign.

It would be the first-ever criminal case against any U.S. president. On Saturday, Trump urged followers on social media to protest what he said was his looming arrest.

In his call for protests, Trump raised concerns for law enforcement that supporters might engage in violence similar to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol in Washington.

Fearing a trap, however, several far-right grassroots groups have opted not to heed his call, security analysts said.

A grand jury, which heard further testimony on Monday, could bring charges as soon as this week. Trump, who is seeking the Republican nomination for the White House again in 2024, had predicted he would be arrested on Tuesday.

On Monday the grand jury heard from a witness, lawyer Robert Costello, who said Trump’s former fixer Michael Cohen had handled the hush-money payments without Trump’s involvement.

“Michael Cohen decided on his own – that’s what he told us – on his own, to see if he could take care of this,” Costello told reporters after testifying to the grand jury at Trump’s lawyers’ request.

Cohen, who testified twice before the grand jury, has said publicly Trump directed him to make the payments on Trump’s behalf.

An indictment could hurt Trump’s comeback attempt. Some 44% of Republicans say he should drop out of the presidential race if he is indicted, according to a seven-day Reuters/Ipsos poll that concluded on Monday.

The investigation by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is one of several legal challenges facing Trump. His office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to federal campaign finance violations tied to his arranging payments to Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford, and another woman in exchange for their silence about affairs they claimed with Trump.

Trump has denied that any such affairs took place

The Manhattan District Attorney’s office had asked that Cohen be available as a rebuttal witness, but he was told on Monday afternoon that his testimony was not needed, according to his lawyer Lanny Davis. Cohen told MSNBC he had not been asked to return on Wednesday.

NO SIGN OF UNREST

New York Mayor Eric Adams told reporters police were monitoring social media and keeping an eye out for “inappropriate actions” in the city. The New York Police Department said there were no known credible threats.

If charged, Trump would likely have to travel from his Florida home for fingerprinting and other processing. Law enforcement officials met on Monday to discuss the logistics, several media outlets reported.

Sources have said Bragg’s office was presenting evidence to a grand jury about a $130,000 payment made to Daniels in the final weeks of the 2016 campaign.

Trump’s fellow Republicans have widely criticized the probe as politically motivated.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Trump’s rival for the Republican presidential nomination, said on Monday Bragg was imposing a “political agenda” that compromised the rule of law, but he also took a veiled swipe at Trump.

“I don’t know what goes into paying hush money to a porn star to secure silence over some type of alleged affair,” he told reporters.

Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives launched an investigation of Bragg’s office with a letter seeking communications, documents and testimony related to the probe.

Trump and other Republicans have also said the Manhattan District Attorney’s office should focus more on tackling crime.

Asked to comment on the letter, a spokesperson for the DA’s office, citing statistics that homicides and shootings were down this year, said:

“We will not be intimidated by attempts to undermine the justice process, nor will we let baseless accusations deter us from fairly applying the law.”

Trump was impeached twice by the House during his presidency, once in 2019 over his conduct regarding Ukraine and again in 2021 over the attack on the U.S. Capitol by his supporters. He was acquitted by the Senate both times.

SEVERAL MORE LEGAL CHALLENGES REMAIN

Bragg won a conviction last December against Trump’s business on tax fraud charges.

But legal analysts say the hush-money case may be more difficult. Bragg’s office will have to prove that Trump intended to commit a crime, and his lawyers will likely employ a range of counterattacks to try to get the case dismissed, experts say.

Trump, meanwhile, has to contend with other legal challenges, raising the possibility he will have to shuttle between campaign stops and courtrooms before the November 2024 election.

Trump’s lawyers on Monday asked a Georgia court to quash a special grand jury report detailing its investigation into his alleged efforts to overturn his 2020 statewide election defeat.

The filing in Fulton County Superior Court also seeks to have the county district attorney, Fani Willis, recused from the case, arguing her media appearances and social media posts demonstrated bias against Trump.

Trump is also seeking to delay a civil fraud trial, scheduled for Oct. 2, brought by the New York attorney general that alleges a decade-long scheme to manipulate the value of his assets to win better terms from bankers and insurers.

Trump faces two civil trials involving former magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll, who claims that Trump defamed her by denying he raped her. A federal judge on Monday denied a request from both sides to combine the two cases into one.

(Additional reporting by Kaniska Singh, Jason Lange, David Morgan and Costas Pitas; Writing by Andy Sullivan; Editing by Scott Malone, Howard Goller and Lincoln Feast.)