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Ten newborn babies have been killed in a fire at a hospital in India as members of staff rushed to evacuate the ward in the early hours of Saturday (local time). Photo: 123RF Seven infants were rescued from the blaze before firefighters arrived at the Bhandara District Hospital in the western state of Maharashtra. India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi described the incident as a "heart-wrenching tragedy". The cause of the fire is not yet known and an investigation is under way. The fire started at about 2am local time, according to hospital officials. Rescue efforts were hampered by continuous blasts inside the ward, local media report. One nurse on duty said she alerted the authorities after seeing smoke streaming out of the hospital's Newborn Care Unit. "Hospital authorities have rescued seven babies but 10 have died in an unfortunate incident," district civil surgeon Pramod Khandate told reporters. In a tweet, Modi said his thoughts were with the bereaved families. India's Home Affairs Minister, Amit Shah, said he was "pained beyond words" over the "irreparable loss". Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said he was "deeply saddened" by the deaths, adding: "My heartfelt condolences to the bereaved families." Bhandara is 62km from the north-eastern city of Nagpur - one of the largest cities of Maharashtra. - BBC

New Zealand environmentalist Pete Bethune is close to leaving hospital, after being bitten by a venomous snake in the jungle in Costa Rica. Pete Bethune Photo: Supplied / Earthrace Conservation He has spent nearly a fortnight being treated after his encounter with the Fer De Lance snake. In a video posted to his Facebook account, Bethune said he had final blood tests today and was awaiting the results. He was hopeful he'd be discharged tomorrow and was excited by the prospect of returning to his boat. It was touch and go for a time, as to whether he would survive. "It's amazing how the first three or four days is a blur. So when I first came in here they put me on morphine and funny, I think I've had it once before, but your lucid in the sense you're aware of what's going on but it's very dream-like and it definitely dulls things down," he said. "They do this thing where they put in anti-venom and see how your body's reacting and they're monitoring your heart pressure and your blood pressure really closely, so that was how they sort of monitor how much anti-venom they need to put in. "The doctor said he put 15 in me, which is the most he's ever done. So a record there, I'm quite proud of that one." Bethune said his body was "on the mend", but he was still having difficulty with his ankle and had a rash on his back. He said it would be "amazing" to go home.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un called for more advanced nuclear weapons and said the United States was the country's "biggest enemy", state media said on Saturday, presenting a stark challenge to President-elect Joe Biden just days before he takes office. File photo of Kim Jong Un released by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency on January 7, 2021 Photo: AFP/ KCNA VIA KNS Washington's hostile policies would not change regardless of who occupies the White House but dropping those policies would be key to North Korea-US relations, Kim said, according to state news agency KCNA. "Our foreign political activities should be focused and redirected on subduing the US, our biggest enemy and main obstacle to our innovated development," Kim said during nine hours of remarks over several days at a rare party congress in Pyongyang. "No matter who is in power in the US, the true nature of the US and its fundamental policies towards North Korea never change," Kim said, vowing to expand ties with "anti-imperialist, independent forces." North Korea would not "misuse" its nuclear weapons, Kim said but the country is expanding its nuclear arsenal, including "preemptive" and "retaliatory" strike capabilities and warheads of varying sizes. Kim called for developing equipment including hypersonic weapons, solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), spy satellites, and drones. North Korea is preparing for the test and production of various new weapons, including a "multi-warhead rocket" and "supersonic gliding flight warheads for new type ballistic rockets," while research on a nuclear submarine is nearly complete, he said. "Kim pretty much showed what's on his mind - submarine missiles, better ICBMs and other advanced arms," said Yoo Ho-yeol, professor of North Korean studies at Korea University in Seoul. "He is saying that's basically what Washington will see going forward, which could escalate tension or open doors for talks." Kim's remarks were one of the most ambitious outlines of North Korean national defence and nuclear matters in some time, said Ankit Panda, a senior fellow at the US-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It could presage a return to nuclear testing, which is now on the table given that Kim renounced his April 2018 moratorium," he said. US President-elect Joe Biden Photo: AFP There was no immediate comment from the US State Department. A spokesman for the Biden campaign declined to comment. Kim criticised South Korea for offering cooperation in "non-fundamental" areas such as coronavirus aid and tourism, and said Seoul should stop buying arms from and conducting military drills with the United States. South Korea's Unification Ministry said it still hopes for a better North Korea-US relations, and will continue to pursue the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula. "The inauguration of the new US administration can be a good opportunity to improve US-North Korea relations, and we expect relations to swiftly resume," the ministry said in a statement after Kim's comments were released. Biden, who was vice president under President Barack Obama, called Kim a "thug" during the election campaign. In 2019 North Korea called Biden a "rabid dog" that needed to be "beaten to death with a stick". Kim had three unprecedented meetings with President Donald Trump and the two corresponded in a series of letters, but those efforts failed to lead to a denuclearisation deal or official change in the countries' relations. "North Korea is declaring the window for cooperation is much, much smaller for the Biden administration," Yoo said. Biden said in October that he would meet Kim only on the condition that North Korea agreed to draw down its nuclear capacity. Last month Kurt Campbell, the top US diplomat for East Asia under Obama and considered a contender for a top Asia policy position under Biden, said the incoming US administration would have to make an early decision on what approach it will take with North Korea and not repeat the delay of the Obama era. 'Self reliance' Besides US and defence policy, Kim spoke at greater length on proposals for a five-year economic plan due to be announced at the congress, which he said would continue a focus on building an independent economy. "The basic seeds and themes of the new five-year economic development plan are still self-reliance and self-sufficiency," he said. Among the plans are building energy-saving steel plants, significantly increasing chemical goods, boosting electricity production, and securing more coal mines, Kim said. The congress took steps toward "strengthening the united guidance and strategic management of the state over the economic work". North Korea faces growing crises caused by international sanctions over its nuclear programme, as well as self-imposed lockdowns to prevent a coronavirus outbreak. "In practical terms, there's a disconnect between North Korea's dire internal economic situation and this ambitious nuclear and military modernisation agenda," Panda said. - Reuters

An increasingly isolated President Donald Trump has sought to stave off a new drive to impeach him and Twitter permanently suspended his account, two days after his supporters stormed the US Capitol in an assault on American democracy. Photo: AFP Twitter, long Trump's favourite way to communicate with his supporters and a way to share his false claims of election fraud with his nearly 90 million followers, had been under increasing pressure to take action after Wednesday's (local time) mayhem in Washington. Trump exhorted thousands of followers to march on the Capitol as Congress met to certify his defeat to Democrat Joe Biden, prompting chaos in which crowds breached the building, forced the evacuation of both chambers and left a police officer and four others dead in their wake. "After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence," Twitter said. Plans for future armed protests were proliferating on and off Twitter, the company added, including a proposed secondary attack on the Capitol on 17 January. Photo: AFP There was no immediate response from the White House to the move by Twitter. While he remains in office, Trump would still have access to the official @POTUS presidential account. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Friday (local time) that if Trump did not resign, she had instructed the House Rules Committee to move ahead with a motion for impeachment and legislation on the US Constitution's 25th Amendment, which provides for removal of a president who is unable to discharge his official duties. Democrats, who said a House vote on impeachment could come next week, hope the impeachment threat can intensify pressure on Vice President Mike Pence and the Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment before Trump's term ends in less than two weeks. "Impeaching President Donald Trump with 12 days remaining in his presidency would only serve to further divide the country," said White House spokesman Judd Deere. Rioters breeched security and entered the Capitol as Congress debated the a 2020 presidential election Electoral Vote Certification. Photo: AFP or licensors A Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted Thursday and Friday (local time) found 57 percent of Americans want Trump to be removed immediately from office following the violence on Wednesday. Nearly 70 percent also disapproved of Trump's actions in the run-up to the Capitol rampage. Trump's role in encouraging Wednesday's chaos has opened a growing rift within the Republican Party. Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska, a frequent Trump critic, told CBS News he would "definitely consider" impeachment because the president "disregarded his oath of office." 'I want him out' Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski said Trump should resign immediately and that if the party cannot separate itself from him, she is not certain she has a future with it. "I want him to resign. I want him out. He has caused enough damage," the Alaska Senator told the Anchorage Daily News. It is unclear whether lawmakers would be able to remove Trump from office, as any impeachment would prompt a trial in the Senate, where his fellow Republicans still hold power and two-thirds of the 100 members must vote to convict for his removal. Articles of impeachment, which are formal charges of misconduct, have been crafted by Democratic representatives David Cicilline, Ted Lieu and Jamie Raskin. A copy circulating among members of Congress charges Trump with "inciting violence against the government of the United States" in a bid to overturn his loss to Biden in the 2020 presidential election. The articles also cite Trump's hour-long phone call last week with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, in which Trump asked the official to "find" enough votes to overturn Biden's victory in that state. Lieu said on Twitter the draft had 150 co-sponsors. The House impeached Trump in December 2019 for pressuring the Ukrainian president to investigate Biden, but the Senate acquitted him in February 2020. Law professor Brian Kalt said on Twitter that Pelosi's call for legislation on the 25th Amendment is unlikely to happen before the end of Trump's presidency. For the 25th Amendment to be invoked, Pence and the majority of Trump's Cabinet would need to declare that Trump is unable to perform the duties of the presidency and remove him. Pence is opposed to the idea of using the amendment, an adviser said. Pelosi also said she had spoken with the nation's top general, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley, about preventing Trump from initiating military hostilities or launching a nuclear weapon. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi Photo: GETTY via AFP Pelosi told members on a Democratic conference call that she had gotten assurances from Milley that there are safeguards in place, a source familiar with the situation said. "Sadly the person that's running executive branch is a deranged, unhinged, dangerous president of the United States," she said in an excerpt of an interview on CBS's "60 Minutes" program. Republican defections from Trump The FBI and prosecutors are investigating and criminally charging people who took part in violence at the Capitol. A handful of Republicans, including Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker and US Representative Adam Kinzinger, have said Trump should leave office immediately. Numerous senior Trump administration officials have resigned including two Cabinet members: Elaine Chao, the transportation secretary and Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's wife, and Betsy DeVos, the education secretary. But Trump allies, including Senator Lindsey Graham and the House Republican leader, Kevin McCarthy, had urged Democrats to shelve talk of impeachment to avoid further division. McConnell has not commented on a possible impeachment. An uncharacteristically subdued Trump finally denounced the violence in a video on Thursday and promised to ensure a smooth transition. But a more familiar, pugilistic tone returned on Friday, as he said on Twitter that his supporters would never be "disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!" He also said he would not attend Biden's inauguration, departing from a time-honoued tradition that typically sees the outgoing president escort his successor to the ceremony. Alan Dershowitz, who helped represent Trump during his impeachment trial last year, said he would be honoured to stand up for the president again, if asked. He said he did not think Trump committed an impeachable offence, and his statement to supporters was not incitement. "Impeaching this president for making a speech would do more damage to the Constitution than the rioters, horrible as they were, did last Wednesday," Dershowitz, a professor emeritus from Harvard Law School, said. Biden told reporters he viewed Trump as "unfit" for office but said he would let Congress decide what to do. - Reuters

Twitter has announced that it has permanently suspended the account of US President Donald Trump due to "the risk of further incitement of violence". Photo: AFP Trump's account was locked for 12 hours following the mayhem at the US Capitol on Thursday, but has now been permanently taken off line. All of the president's tweets are no longer available. Photo: Twitter "In the context of horrific events this week, we made it clear on Wednesday that additional violations of the Twitter Rules would potentially result in this very course of action," Twitter said. After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence.https://t.co/CBpE1I6j8Y — Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) January 8, 2021 The White House did not immediately comment. Facebook said earlier this week it was suspending Trump's account through until at least the end of his presidential term. He is due to hand over to President-elect Joe Biden on 20 January. Earlier today, Twitter said it would permanently suspend accounts pushing QAnon content, banning prominent right-wing boosters of its conspiracy theories including Michael Flynn and Sidney Powell. Flynn, a former national security adviser to Trump, and Powell, a former Trump campaign lawyer, have both been close allies of the president and promoted efforts to cast doubt about his defeat in the 2020 presidential election. Twitter also suspended Ron Watkins, the administrator of fringe message board 8kun, which effectively serves as home base for the QAnon conspiracy movement. "Given the renewed potential for violence surrounding this type of behavior in the coming days, we will permanently suspend accounts that are solely dedicated to sharing QAnon content," Twitter said in a statement. QAnon followers espouse an intertwined series of far-fetched beliefs based on anonymous web postings from "Q", who claims to have insider knowledge of the Trump administration. At the core of the baseless conspiracy theories embraced by QAnon is the idea that Trump is secretly fighting a cabal of child-sex predators that includes prominent Democrats, Hollywood elites and "deep state" allies. QAnon has been amplified on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, the video streaming service of Alphabet Inc's Google. Its adherents were among those who participated in the Capitol siege that left five people dead. - more to come

Last year tied with 2016 as the world's warmest on record, rounding off the hottest decade globally as the impacts of climate change intensified, the European Union's Copernicus earth observation service said yesterday. A view of a park close to Nijmegen, in The Netherlands last August during a heatwave. Photo: AFP In the United States, the warmer temperatures contributed to a record 22 separate disasters that each caused more than a billion dollars of damage, including wildfires and hurricanes, according to a new US government report. Meanwhile, the fingerprints of climate change were also starkly visible in Europe, which experienced its hottest year on record in 2020, and in the Arctic and northern Siberia, which suffered extreme heatwaves and fires, Copernicus said. The Arctic Circle is under increasing pressure from a warmer climate. Photo: AFP / Raphael Sane / Biosphoto With governments due to meet for a climate summit in Glasgow in November, the latest data prompted renewed calls for faster action to slash greenhouse gas emissions in line with the 2015 Paris Agreement to avoid catastrophic climate change. "The key here is to - for every year and as quickly as possible - reduce the amount we emit, thus reducing the amount we actually add into the atmosphere," said Freja Vamborg, senior scientist at Copernicus. In 2020, temperatures globally were an average of 1.25 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than in pre-industrial times, Copernicus said. The Paris accord aims to cap the rise in temperatures to "well below" 2C and as close as possible to 1.5C to avoid the most devastating impacts of climate change. The Arctic and northern Siberia continued to warm more quickly than the planet as a whole in 2020, with temperatures in parts of these regions averaging more than 6C above a 30-year average used as a baseline, Copernicus said. The region also had an "unusually active" wildfire season, with fires poleward of the Arctic Circle releasing a record 244 million tonnes of CO2 in 2020, over a third more than in 2019. A forest fire in the republic of Buryatia in eastern Siberia last August. Photo: AFP / Valeriy Melnikov / Sputnik Arctic sea ice continued to deplete, with July and October setting records for the lowest sea ice extent in that month. In August, instruments documented the highest temperature ever reliably recorded, when a California heatwave pushed the temperature at Death Valley in the Mojave Desert up to 54.4C. Death Valley in the Mojave Desert. Photo: AFP Record spate of disasters Scientists said the latest data were consistent with growing evidence that climate change is likely to result in more intense hurricanes, fires, floods and other disasters. In the United States, the 22 separate billion-dollar disasters comprised seven tropical cyclone events, 13 severe storm events, one drought and one wildfire event, according to the report published on Friday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The San Francisco skyline is obscured in orange smoke and haze as their seen from Treasure Island in San Francisco, California on 9 September, 2020. Photo: AFP / Brittany Hosea-Small That total smashed the previous annual record of 16 such disasters in 2011 and 2017. The combined costs for 2020 were $US95 billion ($NZ131.3b) in the United States - the fourth-highest total annual cost since 1980. The three most costly events were Hurricane Laura ($US19b); record wildfires in the US West ($16.5b); and the August 'derecho,' a storm in the Midwest packing hurricane-force winds ($11b). "We need another dictionary to help us describe how these extremes continue to play out and unfold year after year," said Adam Smith, a NOAA climate scientist who tracks billion-dollar disasters. The extreme year in the US helped push up damages from natural disasters globally to $210b in 2020 from $166b the previous year, German reinsurer Munich Re said in a report published on Thursday. The impacts were particularly punishing in developing countries, where the majority of losses from weather-related disasters are not covered by insurance, said Ernst Rauch, chief climate scientist at Munich Re. "The consequence is that economic development, with all these economic shocks, is set back, is pushed back for years," Rauch said. Although Covid-19 lockdowns meant global emissions of CO2 dipped in 2020 compared with recent years, the concentration of the gas accumulated in the atmosphere continued to rise. Britain's Met Office forecast on Friday that CO2 concentrations in spring 2021 would hit levels 50 percent higher than before the industrial revolution, breaching a symbolic threshold for human impact on the climate. "This is another grim milestone in the unrelenting rise of atmospheric CO2 concentration," Heather Graven, a climate scientist at Imperial College London, said. - Reuters

Indian fashion designer Satya Paul, whose prints helped to modernise the traditional sari, has died at 78. Satya Paul, centre, "worked with his colours like a painter". Photo: Getty Images A favourite of many Bollywood stars, the designer made his name with his use of contemporary colours, patterns and materials. He set up India's first sari boutique in 1980 and launched his own label six years later. One of Satya Paul's designs is showcased at a fashion show in New Delhi in 2013. Photo: AFP Paul died on Wednesday after suffering a stroke last month, his son Puneet Nanda said. "Those who have been with him at any point in life would recall him as one who showered his love without hesitation or any barriers," Nanda wrote on Facebook. "It is the greatest testament to him as he went joyously, without fear." After making his breakthrough with the launch of the L'Affaire boutique, he went on to produce saris adorned with polka dots, zebra prints and more, as well as championing the trouser sari. "I always thought of him as an artist," designer Kaushik Velendra told The Guardian. "He worked with his colours like a painter." Masaba Gupta, who served as a creative director for the brand, said his label "will stand the test of time". "Fashion schools - please introduce young Indian design aspirants to this brand," she said. "We can be inspired by the story of Chanel etc but we must learn what happened on our soil first." Paul's retail empire, which covered eight Indian cities and online, also made scarves and ties. Models wear saris designed by Satya Paul at a fashion show in Kolkata, India, in 2009. Photo: AFP - BBC

Film director Michael Apted, best known for the Up series of TV documentaries following the lives of 14 people every seven years, has died aged 79. British film director Michael Apted has died age 79. Photo: Getty Images He also directed Coal Miner's Daughter, Gorillas In The Mist and the 1999 Bond movie The World Is Not Enough. The original 7 Up in 1964 set out to document the journeys of a range of children from all walks of life. The show was inspired by the Aristotle quote "give me a child until he is seven and I will show you the man". The first 7 Up show was followed by 14 Up at the start of the next decade, which interviewed the same children as teenagers - and the pattern was set right up until 63 Up in 2019. Throughout all those intervening years ITV viewers became engrossed with the stories of private school trio Andrew, Charles and John, of Jackie who went through two divorces, of Nick who went from jobless and homeless to Liberal Democrat councillor, and of working class chatterbox Tony, whose life ambition was to become a jockey. [embedded content] Apted's shows have often been described as the forerunner of modern-day reality TV series, giving its participants the time to tell their own stories on screen. But unlike their modern counterparts, the original Up children tended to fade away from the limelight in the seven years between each chapter. 'Remarkable' career Thomas Schlamme, president of the Directors Guild of America, said Apted was a "fearless visionary" whose legacy would live on. He said Apted "saw the trajectory of things when others didn't and we were all beneficiaries of his wisdom and lifelong dedication". ITV's managing director Kevin Lygo said the director's six-decade career was "in itself truly remarkable". He said the Up series "demonstrated the possibilities of television at its finest in its ambition and its capacity to hold up a mirror to society and engage with and entertain people while enriching our perspective on the human condition". "The influence of Michael's contribution to film and programme-making continues to be felt and he will be sadly missed," Lygo added. - BBC

President Donald Trump would face impeachment on a single article of incitement of insurrection, according to a draft document obtained by NBC news. Photo: AFP Democrats plan to introduce misconduct charges on Monday that could lead to a second impeachment of Trump, US media are reporting. The draft of the article of impeachment against Trump drawn up by Democratic members of the House of Representatives after the storming of the US Capitol accuses him of engaging in high crimes and misdemeanors by inciting insurrection. The draft says the Republican president willfully made statements that encouraged imminent lawless action at the Capitol. It says Trump threatened the integrity of democratic system, interfered with a peaceful transition and imperilled a branch of government, betraying his trust as president and 'gravely endangering' US security and government institutions. The draft says Trump has demonstrated he will remain a threat if he is allowed to stay in office. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi had yet to endorse the language of the draft. With a majority in the House, Democrats appear poised for a historic first: No president has ever been impeached twice. But it is unclear if lawmakers would be able to remove Trump from office, as any impeachment would prompt a trial in the Senate, where his fellow Republicans hold sway. Top Democrats have called on Vice President Mike Pence and Trump's Cabinet to invoke the US Constitution's 25th Amendment, which allows them to remove the president if he is unable to discharge his official duties. But Pence is opposed to the idea, an adviser said. Democrats, who said a House vote on impeachment could come later in the week, hope the threat of impeachment could intensify pressure on Pence and the Cabinet to act to remove Trump before his term ends in less than two weeks. US Vice President Mike Pence is reportedly opposed to using the 25th Amendment to remove Donald Trump from office. Photo: AFP The sources said the articles of impeachment, which are formal charges of misconduct, were crafted by Democratic Representatives David Cicilline, Ted Lieu and Jamie Raskin. A copy of the measure circulating among members of Congress charges Trump with "inciting violence against the government of the United States" in a bid to overturn his loss to President-elect Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election. The articles also cite Trump's hour-long phone call last week with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, in which he asked him to "find" enough votes to overturn Biden's victory in that state. Fifty-seven percent of Americans want Trump to be immediately removed from office, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll. The national public opinion survey, conducted Thursday and Friday, also showed that seven out of ten of those who voted for Trump, a Republican, in November opposed the action of the hardcore supporters who broke into the Capitol while lawmakers were meeting to certify the election victory of Democrat Joe Biden. Nearly 70 percent of Americans surveyed also said they disapprove of Trump's actions in the run-up to Wednesday's assault. Donald Trump speaks at the rally that preceded the storming of Capitol Hill. Photo: 2021 Getty Images Pelosi called Trump "unhinged" on Friday and said Congress must do everything possible to protect Americans, even though Trump's term in office will end on 20 January when Biden is sworn in. She also said she had spoken with the nation's top general, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley, about preventing Trump from initiating military hostilities or launching a nuclear weapon. The extraordinary developments came two days after Trump exhorted thousands of followers to march to the Capitol, prompting a chaotic scene in which crowds breached the building, sent lawmakers into hiding and left a police officer and four others dead in their wake. At least one Senate Republican, Ben Sasse of Nebraska, said he would consider supporting an impeachment proceeding. Sasse, a frequent Trump critic, told CBS News on Friday he would "definitely consider" any articles of impeachment because the president "disregarded his oath of office". Trump allies, including Senator Lindsey Graham and the House Republican leader, Kevin McCarthy, had urged Democrats to shelve talk of impeachment to avoid further division. "If Speaker Pelosi pushes impeachment in the last days of the Trump presidency it will do more harm than good," Graham said on Twitter. Senator Lindsey Graham Photo: AFP If the House impeaches Trump, the decision on whether to remove him would fall to the Republican-controlled Senate, which has already acquitted him once before. With Trump's term ending a day after the Senate is scheduled to return from recess on 19 January, the chances of an actual ouster appear slim. Removing a US president requires a two-thirds majority in the Senate. Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has not commented on a possible impeachment. Biden has blamed Trump for inciting Wednesday's violence but has not signalled whether he supports impeachment. Pelosi told members on a Democratic conference call that she would speak to Biden on Friday afternoon, according to a source who listened in. She also said she had gotten assurances from Milley that there are safeguards in place for the use of nuclear weapons, the source said. Milley's office said Pelosi had initiated the call and that the general "answered her questions regarding the process of nuclear command authority". Federal charges being laid A West Virginia state lawmaker and a man pictured sitting at Pelosi's desk are among those facing federal charges stemming from the siege, federal prosecutors said on Friday. In addition, Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen announced the FBI would team up with Washington's police department to jointly investigate the death of Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, who died from injuries sustained while defending the US Capitol. Brian Sicknick Photo: AFP "Just because you've left the DC region, you can still expect a knock on the door if we find out you were part of the criminal activity at the Capitol," Steven D'antuono, the FBI Washington Field Office's assistant director in charge, said at a telephone news briefing. D'antuono declined to characterize the probe into Sicknick's death as a homicide investigation during the call, saying the circumstances of the officer's death were still being reviewed. "We're not going to go into it at this point because it's an active investigation," he said. Late on Thursday evening, the Capitol Police confirmed Sicknick had died after sustaining injuries while on duty at the US Capitol during the riot. After being injured by protesters, the officer returned to his office where he collapsed. He died at a hospital. The Capitol Police have said the Washington police's homicide unit is probing the death. "Our thoughts and prayers are with the family and fellow officers of US Capitol Police Officer Brian D Sicknick, who succumbed last night to the injuries he suffered defending the US Capitol, against the violent mob who stormed it on January 6th," Rosen said in a statement. Ken Kohl, a prosecutor in the US Attorney's Office, told the news briefing that West Virginia delegate Derrick Evans now faces criminal charges after he apparently "recorded himself storming the Capitol". Kohl said the department is also charging Richard Barnett of Arkansas in connection with his entering Speaker Pelosi's office where he "left a note and he removed some of the speaker's mail". - Reuters

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has spoken to the top US military commander about taking precautions to ensure that Donald Trump cannot initiate hostilities or order a nuclear strike in his remaining 12 days in office. Donald Trump and Nancy Pelosi. Photo: AFP / AP Pelosi said in a letter to Democratic lawmakers that she spoke to Army General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, about what measures are available to rein in the Republican president. Trump, angry about his election loss, incited supporters in the days before an invasion of the US Capitol on Wednesday (US time). "The situation of this unhinged president could not be more dangerous, and we must do everything that we can to protect the American people from his unbalanced assault on our country and our democracy," Pelosi said in a letter to colleagues. While Pelosi's letter highlights the concern among lawmakers about what Trump may try to do during his remaining time in office, there are questions about what Milley or anyone could actually do to stop a president from using nuclear weapons. "There is no legal way to do this. The president has sole, unfettered authority to order the use of nuclear weapons with no 'second vote' required," said Jeffrey Lewis, a professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey in California. Milley's office said that Pelosi had initiated the call and Milley "answered her questions regarding the process of nuclear command authority". Army General Mark Milley Photo: AFP A US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that any use of nuclear weapons is a highly deliberative process. Democratic President-elect Joe Biden takes office on 20 January. Trump said earlier today he would not attend the inauguration, breaking with long-standing tradition in American presidential transitions. Read more: Pelosi, the top Democrat in Congress, also said she had not heard back from Vice President Mike Pence about whether he would agree to top Democrats' request that he invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office "for his incitement of insurrection and the danger he still poses". She said "we still hope to hear from him as soon as possible with a positive answer." Pelosi and Senator Chuck Schumer, the top Democrat in the Senate have said that if Pence does not agree to the request, Democrats were prepared to impeach Trump a second time. Democrats in the US House of Representatives plan to introduce new articles of impeachment against Trump on Monday, calling for his removal from office, two people familiar with the matter said on Friday. The sources said the articles, which are formal charges of misconduct, were crafted by Democratic Representatives David Cicilline, Ted Lieu and Jamie Raskin. Biden promises accountability Brian Sicknick Photo: AFP US President-elect Joe Biden has expressed sympathy to the family of the US Capitol police officer killed in Wednesday's invasion of Congress by pro-Trump supporters, and said those responsible would be held accountable. "The people responsible should be held accountable, and they will be," Biden told reporters. Federal prosecutors are opening a murder investigation after the officer, Brian Sicknick, died on Thursday in the aftermath of Wednesday's events, CNN reported on Friday, citing a law enforcement official. - Reuters