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Published by Reuters WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Joe Biden’s administration plans to rescind a rule devised under his predecessor Donald Trump that was intended to make it easier for healthcare providers including doctors and nurses to avoid performing abortions or other medical services on religious or moral grounds, Politico reported on Tuesday. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in 2018 unveiled what it called the “conscience rule,” but it never took effect due to litigation. States including California and New York and abortion providers filed suit to challenge it, leading a federal court to block the measure in 2019. The rule enabled the federal government to punish hospitals, clinics, universities and other healthcare providers that stopped healthcare workers from doing what their “conscience” dictated and refusing to carry out certain procedures. Trump’s HHS said the rule fulfilled his “promise to promote and protect the fundamental and unalienable rights of conscience and religious liberty.” Religious conservatives were a key constituency for Trump. Politico, quoting sources familiar with the matter, reported that HHS could act to rescind the rule as soon as the end of this month. HHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Some states and municipalities argued that the rule could undermine their ability to provide effective healthcare and upend their efforts to accommodate workers’ beliefs. Critics also have said the rule could deprive gay, transgender and other patients of needed healthcare because some providers, citing religious beliefs, might deem them less worthy of treatment. Biden, a Democrat, promised during his 2020 election campaign to reverse many of the measures restricting reproductive rights introduced or backed by Trump, a Republican. Republican-governed states have passed a series of laws in recent years restricting abortion rights. The U.S. Supreme Court is due to rule by the end of June in a case from Mississippi that gives its conservative majority a chance to overturn its landmark 1973 ruling legalizing abortion nationwide. (Reporting by Ahmed Aboulenein; Editing by Will Dunham) View the full article

Published by Reuters By Valerie Volcovici WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The White House announced on Tuesday that it has finalized regulations guiding environmental reviews of major infrastructure projects like highways and pipelines that would consider their climate impacts and other factors. The White House Council for Environmental Quality has now officially restored key provisions of National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) regulations that had been in place before the Trump administration overhauled the rules last year for the first time in decades. The change will require federal agencies to consider the “direct,” “indirect,” and “cumulative” impacts of proposed projects or actions, including a full evaluation of climate change impacts and assessment of the impact of releasing additional pollution in communities that are already choked by polluted air or dirty water. “Restoring these basic community safeguards will provide regulatory certainty, reduce conflict, and help ensure that projects get built right the first time,” said CEQ Chair Brenda Mallory. In addition to requiring an analysis of climate impacts, the final rule empowers federal agencies to consider alternative designs or approaches for a company’s proposed projects and allows agencies to adopt reviews that are more stringent than CEQ’s regulations. The council also announced on Tuesday that it plans to propose a “phase 2” NEPA rulemaking in the coming months that will improve the efficiency of the review processes. Former President Donald Trump in 2020 revamped NEPA in an effort to fast-track major projects like the now-cancelled Keystone XL oil pipeline that he said got caught up in red tape and interfered with his focus on U.S. “energy dominance.” His NEPA overhaul allowed federal agencies to exclude the climate impact of a project, allowing major fossil fuel projects to sail through the approval process and avoid legal challenges. Over the last few years, however, federal courts had ruled that NEPA required the federal government to consider a project’s carbon footprint in decisions relating to leasing public lands for drilling or building pipelines. (Reporting by Valerie Volcovici; Editing by Bernadette Baum) View the full article

Published by AFP In his new series, Fox News host Tucker Carlson (pictured March 2019) worries about 'the total collapse of testosterone levels in American men' Washington (AFP) – Tucker Carlson, star Fox News anchor and bow-tied darling of the American right, has become a laughingstock among Twitter users for his new series on masculinity, which according to him is under growing threat. In the trailer for “The End of Men,” Carlson worries about “the total collapse of testosterone levels in American men,” which he says is “a huge story that no one covers.” The short clip, set to the grandiose theme music from “2001: A Space Odyssey,” shows muscular young white men wrestling shirtless, milking a cow, preparing a barbecue, doing push-ups and drinking what appears to be raw eggs. Others chop wood or carry tractor tires, always bare-chested. In the midst of these images appears a naked man, arms outstretched, standing high on a rock at sunset in front of a small machine that is emitting an orange light on his crotch. The voiceover, meanwhile, talks about “men who are tough, men who are resourceful, men who are strong enough to survive.” The excerpt has triggered an avalanche of mockery on social networks, with many users commenting on what they call the “homoeroticism” of the footage, in stark contrast to the professed traditional family values widely propounded on Fox News. “You could literally just change the voiceover and make this an ad for Grindr,” the gay hook-up site, commented one Democratic activist. In another teaser clip, Carlson talks to a sports coach from Ohio who is the promoter of “red light therapy,” a practice that, he says, includes “testicle tanning.” Without explicitly defending this practice, which has not been endorsed by medical professionals, Carlson insists on the need to “seek a solution” to the drop in testosterone levels. View the full article

Published by AFP Alex Jones, a promoter of multiple debunked conspiracy theories, has been sued for years by parents of victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting in Connecticut New York (AFP) – Alex Jones, the US conspiracy theorist who faces multiple defamation lawsuits by parents of victims of a massacre that he called a hoax, has declared bankruptcy for his far-right website Infowars, documents seen Monday showed. The filing for bankruptcy protection, also known as “Chapter 11,” is intended to freeze the civil court proceedings while recovery plans are prepared for the company, which can continue to operate. The well-known but deeply controversial figure on America’s rightwing fringe and promoter of multiple debunked conspiracy theories has been sued for years by parents of victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting in Connecticut. Jones claimed the massacre, which left 26 people dead including 20 children, was a fake event staged by anti-gun activists. The parents had demanded Jones produce accounting documents which they say would show that he made millions of dollars by spreading such disinformation. Jones has since acknowledged that the Sandy Hook murders were real. The 48-year-old, accused by many as a provocative disinformation agent and huckster, is being sued in courts in Texas and Connecticut, where he has suffered legal setbacks. In November a judge in Connecticut ruled he was civilly liable and could be subject to damages. The bankruptcy, filed in a Texas bankruptcy court, also involves Jones’s companies IWHealth and Prison Planet TV. View the full article

Published by Radar Online Mega Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has a stark warning for the world. The leader warned his nation and the rest of the world to “prepare” for a possible Russian nuclear attack at any moment, Radar has learned. In a grim message issued Saturday night, the 44-year-old actor-turned-politician expressed his concern regarding what Vladimir Putin might do in retaliation after Ukrainian forces reportedly sunk a major Russian naval vessel. Mega Zelenskyy shared the frightening revelation on Saturday during an interview with the Ukrainian media that was subsequently broadcast across not just the nation, but the world as a whole. “We shouldn’t wait for the moment when Russia decides to use nuclear weapons…We must prepare for that,” the Ukrainian leader said before expressing interest in gathering anti-radiation medicine and building air-raid shelters in preparation for a possible nuclear attack. Mega Making Zelenskyy’s message even more jarring is the fact that the Kremlin has already reportedly started their retaliation for the sinking of the Russian vessel last week, as eight Ukrainian towns have been bombed, it’s claimed. This is just the latest development in the ongoing fight between the two nations that started nearly two months ago when Russian forces invaded Ukraine, an invasion that is reportedly stalling as Putin becomes ever-more desperate to finish his “special military operation” sooner rather than later. As Radar reported, beyond just sinking Russia’s flagship naval vessel, there are also fears that the sunken ship contained two nuclear warheads that would have perished with the rest of the wreckage. “On board the Moskva could be nuclear warheads – two units,” Mykhailo Samus, the director of a Lviv-based military think-tank, said on Friday while calling upon Black Sea nations like Turkey, Romania, Georgia, and Bulgaria to help with the recovery of the nuclear weaponry. “Where are these warheads? Where were they when the ammunition exploded?” Mega Mere hours after the sinking of the Moksva, Russian forces carried out eight separate attacks on specific Ukrainian targets – including the city of Kharkiv, which is nation’s second-largest city after the capital city of Kyiv. Other targets hit in retaliation include the city of Lviv, as well as a tank factory in the Kyiv suburb Darnyts’kyi. Zelenskyy has since claimed that upwards of 2,500 to 3,000 Ukrainian troops have perished in the ongoing war, while more than 10,000 have reportedly been injured since the invasion started on February 24. View the full article

Published by Reuters SHANGHAI (Reuters) – The tensions of lockdown have exposed divisions among Shanghai residents, pitting young against old, locals against outsiders, and above all, COVID-negative against COVID-positive people. Shanghai’s 25 million people, most of whom live in apartment blocks, have forged new communal bonds during the city’s coronavirus outbreak, through barter and group buying and setting up food-sharing stations. But with no end in sight to a lockdown that for some has lasted four weeks, frustrations are also mounting behind the shuttered gates of the city’s tower blocks, often playing out within WeChat message groups. In one, conflict erupted when a woman who had been taken to centralised quarantine – where she tested negative – accused her neighbour of reporting her to authorities. It is not unusual for test results to be shared and positive cases announced in building WeChat groups, as authorities try to get to grips with China’s largest outbreak since the virus was first identified in Wuhan in late 2019. One U.S. citizen was told she would be sent to a quarantine centre after results from a mixed test, including hers, came back positive last week, sparking panic. Three others whose samples were in the batch were taken to quarantine, but her own at-home tests continued to be negative. “In the group chats, they were saying things like, ‘oh are the positive people still here, are the positive people still here?’,” she said, declining to give her name. Older residents, more vulnerable to COVID-19, have also been more likely to call for the immediate expulsion of positive cases from their compound. “Because of the media’s exaggeration about the disease, and since old people have weaker immune systems, they are more afraid of the virus than young people,” said one resident who had seen this happen. Another foreign resident, who only wanted to be identified as Alexy, was suspected by neighbours of being COVID-positive when his test result failed to upload to his health app. His building’s management tried to block his family’s food deliveries unless they shared home test results with the rest of the residents – a demand that several Shanghai residents have said is widespread and violates privacy. “They have no guidelines and CDC (Center for Disease Control) services are overwhelmed,” he said. “They felt invested with the most important mission of their life, being able to play doctor, policeman and judge at the same time.” LOCKED-OUT Some people were refused entry into their homes and ordered to stay in hotels after release from central quarantine, violating state guidelines. Another foreign resident who tested positive said she was confined in her apartment rather than sent to central quarantine, much to the chagrin of her neighbours, who asked her to leave, tried to exclude her from group grocery orders and even demanded she make a formal apology. One neighbour called her “foreign trash” while another spread lies about her mental health, and the residential committee was no help, she said. “I saw screenshots of them telling the residents to continue calling to get me out,” she said, adding that she would move out as soon as she could. (Reporting by David Stanway, Josh Horwitz, Andrew Galbraith, Engen Tham and the Shanghai newsroom; Editing by Stephen Coates) View the full article

Published by Reuters LONDON (Reuters) – Days after Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine, Andrei Shestakov opened a set of files in a WhatsApp group chat for history teachers like himself in his town in east Russia. The files – which Reuters reviewed and contain dozens of pages of documents and presentations as well as video links – are instructions on how to teach teenage school children about the conflict. It’s unclear who shared the files to the group chat, but many of the documents carry the crest of the education ministry in Moscow. The material includes lesson guides stating that Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine were heroes, that Ukraine’s rulers made common cause with people who collaborated with World War Two Nazis, that the West was trying to spread discord in Russian society, and that Russians must stick together. Shestakov said he leafed through the files during one of his lessons. The slim-built 38-year-old said that before becoming a teacher in January he had spent 16 years as a police officer. But he had growing doubts in recent years, he said, about whether Russia’s rulers were living up to the values they professed about democracy, influenced in part by prominent Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny. He decided not to teach the modules to his pupils at the Gymnasium No. 2 school where he worked in Neryungri, a coal-mining town in eastern Siberia, some 6,700 km (4160 miles) east of Moscow. Instead, Shestakov told his pupils about the contents of the teaching guide and why they were historically inaccurate, he told Reuters. For instance, he said he explained that the materials claimed Ukraine was an invention of Bolshevik communist Russia yet history textbooks discussed Ukrainian history going back centuries. He went further. On March 1, he told pupils during a civics class he would not advise them to serve in the Russian army, that he opposed the war against Ukraine, and that Russia’s leaders exhibited elements of fascism even while saying they were fighting fascism in Ukraine, according to a signed statement taken by police and reviewed by Reuters. In the following days, the local police and the Federal Security Service, known as the FSB, summoned Shestakov for questioning, according to the March 5 signed statement about his classroom comments. He said he has not been charged in relation to those comments. The FSB and local police didn’t respond to requests for comment. A court did fine him 35,000 roubles (about $420) on March 18 for discrediting the Russian armed forces after he re-posted videos online of interviews with Russian soldiers captured in Ukraine, according to a court ruling seen by Reuters. He said he quit his job last month because he believed he would be fired anyway for his public opposition to the war, he told Reuters. The local education authority and the education ministry didn’t respond to requests for comment on Shestakov and the teaching guide. When Reuters reached the school by phone, a woman who identified herself as acting head teacher said she declined to comment on Shestakov’s case and ended the call. Teachers across Russia have received the same or similar teaching guides, according to two teacher’s union officials, two other teachers and social media posts from two schools reporting they had taught the modules. Olga Miryasova, an official with a trade union called Teacher, said regional education authorities circulated the teaching guide Shestakov received to multiple schools around the country. Reuters was unable to determine independently how many schools received the modules. One of the teachers said they received a different teaching pack from the one Shestakov did, though it contained similar content. The initiative shows how the Russian state — which has been intensifying its grip on the mainstream media — is now extending its propaganda effort about the Ukraine war into schools as the Kremlin seeks to shore up support. Since the war started, many Russian schools have posted images on social media showing pupils sending messages of support to troops fighting in Ukraine and standing in formation to spell out the letter “Z,” a symbol of support for the war in Russia. Teachers who disagree with the war are now joining the ranks of opposition activists, non-governmental organisation campaigners, and independent journalists in feeling the pressure of the Russian state, with fines, prosecutions, and the prospect of forfeiting their jobs. President Vladimir Putin in early March signed into law legislation that makes the spread of “fake” information about the Russian armed forces, an offence punishable with fines or jail terms of up to 15 years. Even before the invasion, the Kremlin had been tightening the screws on its opponents using a combination of arrests, internet censorship and blacklists. The Kremlin didn’t respond to requests for comment about its handling of opposition to the war, the teaching guide and Shestakov’s case. Russia’s Education Minister Sergei Kravtsov told a parliamentary committee in March that his ministry had launched a nationwide drive to discuss Russian-Ukrainian relations with pupils, amid questions from children about the situation in Ukraine and sanctions. The Kremlin has said it is enforcing laws to thwart extremism and threats to stability. It says it is conducting what it calls a “special operation” to destroy its southern neighbour’s military capabilities and “denazify” Ukraine and prevent genocide against Russian speakers, especially in the east of the country. Kyiv and its Western allies have dismissed this as a baseless pretext for war, and accuse Russian forces of killing civilians. WEST’S ‘HYBRID WARFARE’ The teaching guide that Shestakov received says it is aimed at pupils aged between 14 and 18 years. It comprises detailed lesson plans for teachers, links to videos of speeches by President Putin and short films to illustrate the lessons. According to the teaching materials, the West is waging information warfare to try to turn public opinion against Russia’s rulers, and that all Russian people need to stand firm against that. One lesson plan explains Russia was fighting a cultural war against the West which had destroyed “the institute of the traditional family” and was now trying to foist its values on Russia. It says that since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine had conducted an anti-Russian policy. “There were attacks on the Russian language, our common history was falsified, war criminals and criminal groups from World War Two were turned into heroes,” according to the document, which refers to Ukrainian nationalists who made an alliance with Germany during that war. Another lesson says that the West is deploying “hybrid warfare” — a mixture of propaganda, economic sanctions, and military pressure — to try to defeat Russia by fomenting internal conflict. “That is precisely why they urge us to attend unsanctioned demonstrations, they incite us to break the law, and try to scare us,” it reads. “We must not succumb to provocation,” the document says. The modules include a game where pupils have 15 seconds to decide if a statement is true or false. One statement reads: “The organisation of protests, provocations of the authorities and mass gatherings are an effective way of resolving a hybrid conflict.” According to the lesson guide, the correct answer is “false.” Reuters found social media posts from a school in Samara, on the Volga river, and a school in Minusinsk, southern Siberia, showing slides from the same presentations being used. Danil Plotnikov, a math teacher in Chelyabinsk, the Ural mountains, told Reuters he had been asked by his bosses to teach similar content but from a different teaching pack than the one Shestakov received; Plotnikov didn’t identify who the bosses were. Tatyana Chernenko, a math teacher in Moscow, said colleagues in other schools told her they had been asked to teach similar modules but they had not been taught in her school. The teachers Reuters spoke to said that some regions and schools pushed the lessons harder than others. None of the five teachers said they had heard of cases where teachers were explicitly ordered to teach the modules. They said it was usually framed as a request, or a recommendation by a school or regional education authorities. Some had said no, and faced no consequence, said Daniil Ken, chair of an independent teachers’ trade union called Teachers’ Alliance. Others did not teach the lessons but told bosses they had, said Ken. He added refusing was a risk, with teachers not knowing if their head teachers would pressure them to quit. Ken said his union has heard from about half a dozen teachers a week who say they are quitting because they didn’t want to promote the Kremlin’s line – something Reuters wasn’t able to independently verify. POLITICAL AWAKENING Shestakov wears his hair close cropped and practices sambo, a martial art developed in the Soviet army. He said his career in the police included a one-year stint in the interior ministry special forces, an arm of law enforcement whose officers are now fighting in Ukraine. The interior ministry didn’t respond to a request for comment. By 2018, when he was a community officer working with juvenile offenders, he had a political awakening, according to Shestakov. He said he started watching videos put out by Navalny, the opposition figure who is now in a Russian jail, alleging corruption by Kremlin leaders. “I became a real opposition person,” Shestakov said. He said when the war in Ukraine started, the images of casualties disturbed him and he spent hours watching videos of the fighting on social media. Under a pseudonym, he re-posted the videos of interviews with Russian soldiers captured in Ukraine to the comments section of a local media outlet that has about 5,200 subscribers, according to Shestakov and the March 18 court ruling seen by Reuters. The court said his actions were a violation of a law forbidding the discrediting of the Russian armed forces. Shestakov said he suspects the FSB has in recent weeks been eavesdropping on his phone conversations, though he did not have evidence of that. He also said that he has seen people he recognises as undercover FSB officers three times in recent days. The FSB didn’t respond to requests for comment on whether it is monitoring him. Now, Shestakov plans to leave Russia because he says he fears further penalties from authorities. He would join tens of thousands of Kremlin opponents who have also fled the country since Putin began cracking down hard on opposition in 2018. He said he planned to go to Turkey, unless the authorities bar him from leaving the country. Staying and dropping his public opposition to the war was not an option for him, Shestakov said. “It will be hard for me to keep my mouth shut,” he said. (Editing by Christian Lowe and Cassell Bryan-Low) View the full article

Published by DPA A nun stands among Ukrainian refugee children at the train station on Easter Sunday as a long line of people waits to leave the station. Poland's border guard counted more people leaving Polish territory for Ukraine on Sunday than entering Poland from its war-torn neighbour. Amy Katz/ZUMA Press Wire/dpa Poland’s border guard counted more people leaving Polish territory for Ukraine on Sunday than entering Poland from its war-torn neighbour. The border guard said on Twitter on Monday that some 19,300 people had left Poland for Ukraine in 24 hours. Some 17,300 people entered Poland from Ukraine in the same period, 10% fewer than the previous day. According to UN figures, more than 2.81 million people have fled Ukraine for neighbouring Poland since the beginning of the Russian invasion on February 24. Ukrainian returnees mostly travel to areas that the Ukrainian army has recaptured as Russian forces have retreated east. There is no official information on how many refugees have stayed in Poland and how many have travelled on to other EU states. Ukraine had more than 44 million inhabitants before the Russian invasion. Poland and Ukraine are connected by a border more than 500 kilometres long. View the full article

Published by Reuters By Philip Pullella ROME (Reuters) – A Ukrainian mayor described hours of “hard” interrogations when held for almost a week by Russian forces last month and said he had appealed to the pope for help to stop a war that had wrecked swathes of his city in southern Ukraine. “It was a dangerous six days because I understood that for Russians my life and the lives of civilians were worth zero,” Ivan Fedorov, mayor of Melitopol which is now under Russian control, said in an interview in Rome a month after his release. Ukraine said Fedorov was abducted on March 11 after Russian forces seized Melitopol, which lies west of the besieged city of Mariupol in a southern region that Russia seeks to control. Kyiv announced Fedorov’s release in a prisoner exchange on March 16. Russia, which calls its actions in Ukraine a “special military operation”, has made no comment about the mayor’s detention or the prisoner swap reported by Ukraine. Fedorov, who met Pope Francis and Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin on Saturday before attending an Easter eve service, said he had asked the Vatican to intercede with Russian President Vladimir Putin to guarantee humanitarian corridors for Mariupol, which has faced devastating bombardment. Describing his detention by Russian forces in Melitopol’s police department, Fedorov said: “They came to me at night with five or seven soldiers and spoke for about four or five hours, hard dialogue.” “They wanted to make an example of me about what would happen if we did not agree to what the Russians wanted,” the mayor told Reuters and the Italian newspaper Il Messaggero, saying he had faced “psychological” but not physical torture. “Russian soldiers assumed that they would be welcomed but they were not … and that is why the Russians were very, very angry,” he said, speaking on Sunday night. “There is no food in my city. There is no pharmacy. Half of my city is wrecked. More than 200 people have been kidnapped. It is not safe to walk the streets,” he said. Russia denies targeting civilians and rejects what Ukraine says is evidence of atrocities, saying Kyiv has staged them to undermine peace talks. Moscow says it launched its military action almost two months ago to demilitarise Ukraine and eradicate what it calls dangerous nationalists. Seizing Melitopol, Mariupol and the southern coast would give Russian forces a land link between pro-Russian separatists in east Ukraine and the Crimea, which Moscow annexed in 2014. Russia has said it almost has full control of Mariupol. Fedorov, who said he remained in regular contact with the people of Melitopol, said he had invited the pope to visit Ukraine because “maybe he can stop this war”. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has also invited the pope, promising to guarantee his security. Pope Francis has implicitly criticised Russia, calling for an end to a war that involved unjustified aggression and invasion. Addressing Fedorov and other Ukrainians in the Easter eve service, the pope said: “Have courage, we accompany you”. (Reporting by Philip Pullella; Editing by Edmund Blair) View the full article

Published by Reuters By Richard Cowan WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Then-President Donald Trump attempted a coup on Jan. 6, 2021, and that will be a centerpiece of committee hearings in Congress next month, said Democrat Jamie Raskin, a committee member who led the prosecution of Trump’s second impeachment. On that day in 2021, Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol building, encouraged by the Republican president in a speech outside the White House to protest formal congressional certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s victory over Trump in a November 2020 election. “This was a coup organized by the president against the vice president and against the Congress in order to overturn the 2020 presidential election,” Raskin said in an interview with Reuters, National Public Radio and The Guardian newspaper, when asked what he has learned so far from the committee’s probe. U.S. Representative Bennie Thompson, who chairs the special House of Representatives committee organized by Democrats to look into events leading up to the Jan. 6 assault, has told reporters he expects public hearings to resume in May. “We’re going to tell the whole story of everything that happened. There was a violent insurrection and an attempted coup and we were saved by (then-Vice President) Mike Pence’s refusal to go along with that plan,” said Raskin, a member of the House special committee. It was unclear whether Raskin, during the interview, was expressing only his thoughts or the thinking also of fellow lawmakers serving on the special committee made up of seven Democrats and two Republicans. In July 2021, a new book said senior uniformed military leaders had been concerned about a potential coup, but in a statement then Trump said he had never threatened or spoken to anyone about a coup. Shortly after organizing last year, the House panel held an initial hearing with testimony from four police officers who said they were beaten and taunted with racial insults as they tried to defend the Capitol from attackers. The violence capped months of Trump arguing the election had been stolen from him through massive voter fraud, a claim he still asserts despite its rejection by numerous court rulings, Trump’s own Justice Department and recounts sanctioned by his fellow Republicans. ‘TO SEIZE THE PRESIDENCY’ Raskin said the hearings will lay out for the public the steps the former president and his associates took to try to stay in power despite a clear-cut defeat. Had the rioters succeeded in preventing the certification, Raskin said, Trump “was prepared to seize the presidency” and likely declare martial law. He said the committee had yet to decide whether to try to seek testimony from Trump or Pence. Every four years, the vice president is charged with overseeing the formal count in Congress of presidential elections. Pence rejected pleas to set aside the November 2020 result, which would have paved the way for the House of Representatives to in effect conduct a second election, with Republicans holding an advantage that could have installed Trump for a second term. The attack left four people dead on Jan. 6. One Capitol Police officer who fought with rioters died the next day. About 800 people have been charged with crimes relating to the attack. The House panel has collected more than 100,000 documents, with investigators conducting more than 800 interviews, according to lawmakers. “We don’t have a lot of experience with coups in our own country and we think of a coup as something that takes place against a president,” Raskin said. But Jan. 6, 2021, was different, he said, because it did not involve the military or other faction attacking the president. “It’s what the political scientists call a self-coup … it’s a president fearful of defeat, overthrowing the constitutional process,” Raskin said. The House of Representatives twice impeached Trump, the second time following the Capitol assault. The U.S. Senate acquitted Trump both times. At political rallies since then, the former president has dropped hints he might run again in 2024. (Reporting by Richard Cowan; Editing by Howard Goller) View the full article

Published by Reuters By Philip Pullella VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – Pope Francis implicitly criticised Russia for dragging Ukraine into a “cruel and senseless” conflict and urged leaders to strive for peace as he marked what he called an “Easter of war” on Sunday. The 85-year-old pope made the comments in his “Urbi et Orbi” (to the city and the world) address – traditionally an overview of world conflicts – to about 100,000 people in St. Peter’s Square. It was the first Easter since 2019 that the public was allowed into the square to hear the twice-yearly address following two years of COVID-19 restrictions. Francis dedicated much of the message to Ukraine, comparing the shock of another war in Europe to the shock of the apostles when the gospel says they saw the risen Jesus. “Our eyes, too, are incredulous on this Easter of war. We have seen all too much blood, all too much violence. Our hearts, too, have been filled with fear and anguish, as so many of our brothers and sisters have had to lock themselves away in order to be safe from bombing,” he said. “May there be peace for war-torn Ukraine, so sorely tried by the violence and destruction of the cruel and senseless war into which it was dragged,” he said. Moscow describes the action it launched on Feb. 24 as a “special military operation”. Francis, who did not mention Russia by name, has already rejected that terminology, calling it a war and previously using terms such as unjustified aggression and invasion. “Let there be a decision for peace. May there be an end to the flexing of muscles while people are suffering,” Francis said on Sunday, going on to thank those who had taken in refugees from Ukraine, most of whom have gone to Poland. Earlier this month in Malta, Francis implicitly criticised Russian President Vladimir Putin over the invasion, saying a “potentate” was fomenting conflict for nationalist interests. NUCLEAR SPECTRE Francis again raised the spectre of the war leading to a nuclear conflict, something he has spoken of several times since the Russian invasion began. This time, he quoted the 1955 manifesto by philosopher Bertrand Russell and physicist Albert Einstein: “Shall we put an end to the human race, or shall mankind renounce war?” Francis, who suffers from leg pain, appeared comfortable during the long Mass that preceded the “Urbi et Orbi” address, and then toured the crowd in the square and a nearby street while sitting in an open white pope mobile. Afterwards, he read most of the address from the balcony sitting down, standing only at the start and for the final blessing. On Saturday night, he attended but did not preside at an Easter vigil service, apparently to rest up for Sunday, the most important day in the Christian liturgical calendar. “Please, let us not get used to war,” Francis said, looking down on the square bedecked by tens of thousands of flowers donated by the Netherlands. “Let us all commit ourselves to imploring peace, from our balconies and in our streets. May the leaders of nations hear people’s plea for peace.” “I hold in my heart all the many Ukrainian victims, the millions of refugees and internally displaced persons, the divided families, the elderly left to themselves, the lives broken and the cities razed to the ground,” he said. He also called for reconciliation among Israelis and Palestinians and among the people of Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Libya, Myanmar, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, which he is due to visit in July. (Reporting by Philip Pullella; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky and Helen Popper) View the full article