AFP

The FBI arrested the leading Republican candidate for governor in Michigan Thursday on charges of participating in the January 6, 2021 assault on the US Capitol by supporters of then-president Donald Trump.

The Justice Department said Ryan Kelley took part in the violent attack on the Capitol that aimed to halt the certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s victory over Trump in the presidential election two months earlier.

Kelley, a planning commission member in Allendale, Michigan and founder of the far-right American Patriot Council, was charged with illegally entering the Capitol and engaging in physical violence against property.

An affidavit filed in Washington federal court detailed his participation in the January 6 unrest, using video, photographs and other information posted on social media, as well as phone records, to identify him.

Some showed him urging the crowd to enter the Capitol. 

A video from the day posted online by the Michigan Tea news site allegedly depicts Kelley yelling, “Come on, let’s go! This is it! This is, this is war baby!”

Kelley was arrested at his Allendale home early Thursday, according to the FBI.

A poll in May showed him leading a crowded field of candidates hoping to win the Republican nomination for Michigan governor.

Raising his profile in the state, he and the American Patriot Council have led protests against Covid-19 containment policies including masking and vaccination over the past two years.

It was not immediately known how the arrest would affect his gubernatorial campaign.

His Facebook page posted a two-word statement saying: “Political Prisoner.”

Kelley is one of more than 840 people who have been arrested for taking part in the attack on the seat of the US Congress that day.

Most, including Kelley, have been charged with misdemeanor counts of illegally entering the Capitol and obstructing an official meeting of Congress. 

But around 255 face criminal charges of assault, theft and conspiracy. 

On Monday, five members of the far-right Proud Boys group, which had an organizing role in the January 6 events, were charged with seditious conspiracy, which carries a sentence of up to 20 years in prison.

Pro-Russian rebels sentenced to death two British fighters and a Moroccan who were captured while fighting for Ukraine, as a Ukrainian governor called for western arms on Thursday to win the battle for a crucial eastern city.

The death sentences come as Moscow concentrates its firepower on the strategic industrial hub of Severodonetsk, where Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says the fierce fighting could determine the fate of the entire Donbas area.

Separatist authorities in the Donetsk region, which is part of the Donbas, ordered the death penalty for Aiden Aslin, Shaun Pinner and Saaudun Brahim after they were accused of acting as mercenaries for Kyiv, Russian media reported.

Britain said it was “deeply concerned” by the sentences.

“Under the Geneva Convention, prisoners of war are entitled to combatant immunity,” said a spokesman for Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

The two Britons surrendered in April in Mariupol, the southern port city that was captured by Russian troops after a weeks-long siege. They later appeared on Russian TV calling on Johnson to negotiate their release.

Brahim surrendered in March in the eastern town of Volnovakha.

During a trial that lasted three days, the men pleaded guilty to committing “actions aimed at seizing power and overthrowing the constitutional order of the Donetsk People’s Republic”, Russian news agency Interfax said.

– ‘Fate of Donbas’ –

Western countries have provided weapons and aid for Ukraine since the February 24 invasion, while a number of people from abroad have come to fight against Russian forces.

The fiercest fighting is now focused on Severodonetsk in the Lugansk region, where Ukrainian officials say their outgunned forces are still holding out amid street battles despite the city being mostly under Russian control. 

The regional governor of Lugansk — also part of the Donbas — said Western artillery would quickly help secure a Ukrainian victory for the bombarded city.

“As soon as we have long-range artillery to be able to conduct duels with Russian artillery, our special forces can clean up the city in two to three days,” governor Sergiy Gaiday said.

In his evening address to the Ukrainian people on Wednesday, Zelensky said the battle for the city was “probably one of the most difficult throughout this war.

“In many ways, the fate of our Donbas is being decided there.”

Up to 100 Ukrainian soldiers were being killed every day in frontline fighting and as many as 500 wounded, Defence Minister Oleksiy Reznikov said.

The city of Lysychansk, which is separated from Severodonetsk by a river, is still in Ukrainian hands but under fierce Russian bombardment.

– ‘Foreign mercenaries’ –

After being repelled from Kyiv following their February 24 invasion, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s troops have refocused their offensive on the Donbas. 

Pro-Russian separatists have held part of that region since 2014.

Moscow, which has repeatedly warned the West against getting involved in the conflict, said it had targeted a Ukrainian training centre for “foreign mercenaries” in the Zhytomyr region, west of Kyiv.

The Ukrainian presidency said four people were killed in a Russian air strike on Toshkivka, a village around 25 kilometres (14 miles) south of Severodonetsk.

Four more people were killed in fighting in Donetsk and shelling killed two in the north-eastern city of Kharkiv, it said. Another person was killed in the Mykolayiv region in the south. 

The war’s shockwaves are spreading around the world. At the United Nations, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres added his voice to increasingly dire warnings. 

“For people around the world, the war is threatening to unleash an unprecedented wave of hunger and destitution, leaving social and economic chaos in its wake,” he said.

Zelensky on Thursday called for Russia to be expelled from the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), blaming Moscow for “causing hunger” and spurring the global grain crisis by invading his country.

– ‘Nobody to help’ –

Ukraine’s Black Sea ports usually export millions of tonnes of grain each year but have been blocked since the invasion, while western sanctions on Russia have prevented Moscow selling much of its grain abroad, sending food prices soaring.

The FAO warned that poor countries will suffer the most from the crisis as they were “paying more but receiving less food.”

Russia and Turkey made little headway during talks on Wednesday in striking a deal to secure safe passage for grain exports stuck in Ukraine.

The situation on the ground is increasingly desperate. 

In Severodonetsk’s twin city Lysychansk, residents who had chosen to stay were facing fierce Russian bombardments. 

“Every day there are bombings and every day something burns. A house, a flat… There is nobody to help me,” 70-year-old Yuriy Krasnikov told AFP.

“I tried to go to the city authorities, but nobody’s there, everyone has run away.”

Separately, English football’s Premier League suspended its six-year deal with a Russian broadcaster following the Ukraine invasion.

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The investigation into last year’s assault on the US Capitol by a mob of Donald Trump’s supporters is entering a public phase, with two weeks of blockbuster televised hearings slated to start Thursday.

The seven Democrats and two Republicans who make up the House of Representatives committee probing the insurrection will set out exactly what happened on January 6, 2021 and who they believe aided the ringleaders.

A final hearing in September is expected to reveal the committee’s finished report, outlining its findings and recommendations to prevent such attacks in the future.

Republicans including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy say the committee is partisan and “not conducting a legitimate investigation” — an argument that has been rejected by a Trump-appointed federal judge.

– What has the committee been doing? –

The panel has issued around 100 subpoenas and has conducted around 1,000 interviews, with star witnesses including two of Trump’s children — Ivanka and Don Jr. — as well as his son-in-law and senior advisor Jared Kushner.

Investigators have collected more than 100,000 documents, including emails, texts and official White House photographs allowing the committee to dig into the goings-on in and around the Oval Office.

– What have we learned? –

Revelations around who knew what and when have largely dripped out via court filings in civil cases involving potential committee witnesses and separate criminal cases against the insurrectionists.

Among the most explosive was a trove of text messages between Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows and lawmakers, media allies and the Trump family urging the then-president to call on his supporters to end the riot. 

Other texts among more than 2,000 handed over by Meadows show Ginni Thomas, the wife of US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, agitating for the election results to be overturned.

– What will the hearings reveal? –

The committee will seek to distill a sprawling, multi-faceted year-long probe into a compelling narrative that will “paint a picture as clear as possible as to what occurred,” chairman Bennie Thompson told reporters.

Investigators hope to set out through public testimony the role the Trump White House played in the campaign to overturn his 2020 election defeat by Democrat Joe Biden.

Those efforts allegedly include an illegal scheme to send fake “electors” — the people appointed to vote for president in the state-by-state “Electoral College” — to Congress.

They also take in an authoritarian plan to seize voting machines and the alleged plot to delay the certification of Biden’s win through the violence at the Capitol.

Investigators want to get to the bottom of a 187-minute delay before law enforcement was beefed up to protect the Capitol and learn why there is a gap of almost eight hours in White House logs of Trump calls as the violence played out.

– Will anyone face charges? –

A federal judge ruled in March that Trump more likely than not committed a crime in the run-up to January 6, 2021.

While the Justice Department is prosecuting more than 800 suspects for alleged lawbreaking at the Capitol, the committee itself has no powers to issue indictments.

The panel is expected to turn over evidence to federal prosecutors but has not announced whether it will recommend charges, a largely symbolic gesture.

– How will the hearings work? –

The committee will hold prime-time hearings at 8:00 pm (0000 GMT) on June 9 and 23, bookending 10:00 am hearings on June 13, 15, 16 and 21. 

Testimony is expected to be accompanied by visual illustrations such as text messages, photographs and videos.

Thursday’s hearing is set to feature testimony from US Capitol Police officer Caroline Edwards, the first to be injured by rioters, and filmmaker Nick Quested, who recorded the first moments of violence.

J. Michael Luttig, a former federal judge who advised Trump’s vice president Mike Pence, is expected to testify.

Other witnesses could include Marc Short, a chief of staff to Pence, Justice Department official Richard Donoghue and Jeffrey Rosen, Trump’s last attorney general.

All four were party to much of the relevant discussion between Trump’s election defeat and the insurrection two months later, investigators say.

– Will they change any minds? –

Supporters see the committee’s work as vital in ensuring one of the darkest episodes in the history of US democracy is never repeated.

Yet Democrats worry the hearings could be seen as another “partisan” attack on Trump, imperiling bipartisan efforts at reform and obscuring the broader story of a slow-moving coup attempt aided by a violent insurrection.

“The top issues for most US voters have nothing to do with the January 6 insurrection, unfortunately,” Democratic analyst Mike Hernandez told AFP as his party faces tricky midterm elections later this year. 

“Inflation, gas prices, school shootings, school safety and reproductive rights are all issues that more Americans care about.”

The White House on Thursday said it had an operational plan to deliver 10 million doses of Covid vaccine for the nation’s youngest children by June 20, pending clearance by regulators.

The Food and Drug Administration will convene a panel of experts on June 15 to weigh recommending the Pfizer vaccine for children aged six months through four years given in three doses, and Moderna’s vaccine for those aged six months through five years given in two shots.

Both appear safe and effective, according to results announced by the companies, though the FDA’s independent analysis of the data should be posted in a few days’ time.

Children under five are the only age group not yet eligible for immunization against Covid in most countries, a source of concern for many parents. FDA authorization is widely considered the global gold standard.

Severe disease from Covid is very rare among under-fives but can occur, with 482 US deaths in this age group since the start of the pandemic, or about 0.1 percent of all deaths, according to official data.

Children can also contract a rare post-viral condition called multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C), which has affected some 8,525 US children and killed 69. 

Like adults, some children who get Covid may go on to develop long Covid, with new, ongoing or returning symptoms, including brain fog and fatigue.