Mike Pence has called on the Justice Department to not prosecute Donald Trump for his handling of classified documents but refused to say he would pardon the former president if he won the White House. The former vice president told a CNN town hall in Des Moines, Iowa, that he viewed the handling of classified material as “a very serious matter” but told host Dana Bash that federal prosecutors should leave Mr Trump alone. “I would hope not, I really would,” he said when asked if the DoJ special counsel Jack Smith should indict Mr Trump over the documents found at his Mar-a-Lago estate. “I think it would be terribly divisive to the country at a time when the American people are hurting. This kind of action by the DoJ would only fuel further division in the country and send a terrible message to the wider world…I hope the DoJ thinks better of it and resolves this in a better way than an indictment,” he continued. Mr Pence told the audience that “no one is above the law” and admitted that he himself had no business having some classified documents at his home in Indiana. “I took full responsibility for it. I would hope there would be a way to move forward without the dramatic, drastic steps of indicting a former president of the United States.” Bash then directly asked Mr Pence, who earlier in the day officially launched his campaign for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, if as president he would pardon Mr Trump if he was convicted. “I don’t want to speak about hypotheticals. I am not sure I am going to be elected president of the United States but I believe we have a fighting chance,” he said. Mr Pence was also asked to respond to Mr Trump’s claim he would pardon anyone convicted of taking part in the violent January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol. “You know on January 6 I issued a tweet demanding that people leave the Capitol and end the violence and said those who didn’t should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and I believe that today,” he said. “We cannot ever allow what happened on January 6 to ever happen again. I have no interest or intention of pardoning those who assaulted police officers or vandalized the capitol.” Read More Mike Pence news – live: At CNN town hall Pence says he won’t pardon Jan 6 protesters who called for his death Mike Pence isn’t even a contender for 2024. Why are we pretending? Pence accuses Trump of treating abortion issue as an ‘inconvenience’

WASHINGTON The World Bank will support Ukraine by conducting a rapid assessment of damages and needs after the

War-torn Ukraine is reeling from the collapse of the Nova Kakhovka hydroelectric dam, which saw its reservoir burst causing chaos for miles around. The catastrophe on Tuesday forced thousands of residents of nearby towns and villages to evacuate their homes as the floodwater barrelled towards them and left some climbing onto rooftops or into trees to escape the raging torrents. Hundreds of thousands more have been left without access to clean drinking water in the region as a result of the eco-disaster on the Dnipro River, prompting relief workers to rush fresh supplies to the area as they struggle with the problems of mass resettlement. While the official tallies report that over 2,700 people have fled from flooded areas on both the Ukrainian and Russian-controlled sides of the river, a true picture of the disaster has yet to emerge given that more than 60,000 people live in the vicinity. Kyiv has blamed Russia for deliberately destroying the Soviet-era infrastructure, with Moscow, inevitably, protesting its innocence and contemptuously suggesting that Ukrainian saboteurs are responsible. Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky has called the incident “a war crime” and the “largest man-made environmental disaster in Europe in decades”. Russia would certainly appear to have the most to gain from the disaster and President Zelensky did warn as long ago as last November that he believed enemy soldiers had mined the dam and were plotting its destruction. He reiterated that stance in a tweet on Tuesday: “It is physically impossible to blow it up somehow from the outside, by shelling. It was mined by the Russian occupiers. And they blew it up.” For now though, the priority remains coming to the aid of the stricken people of Kherson. Ukraine’s deputy prime minister Oleksandr Kubrakov has warned of the threat to their wellbeing posed by hazardous chemicals and infectious diseases carried by the water as well as from landmines previously placed near the war’s frontline, which have been disturbed by the floods and are now likely to explode. The water in the reservoir feeds a wide area of southern Ukrainian farmland, including the annexed peninsula of Crimea, as well as providing all-important cooling water to the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, lying nearby as indicated on the map below. A United Nations nuclear watchdog has attempted to reassure the public by saying that there is “no immediate risk” to the plant, even if it were to run out of water for its cooling systems. There is no such good news for the region’s farmers, however, with the flooding expected to spell instant disaster for this year’s harvest: crops are likely to be washed away, fields left waterlogged and livestock drowned in water that is at serious risk of being contaminated by machine oil, already seen gushing into the Dnipro. The depleted reservoir is also considered unlikely to be able to supply adequate irrigation to the surrounding fields for several years to come, a huge setback for Ukraine’s eventual hopes of economic recovery. All of which is also likely to have consequences for a global food market that has increasingly relied upon Ukraine for the supply of agricultural produce since the end of the Cold War. “There is no doubt that this will lead to large-scale environmental, economic and human consequences,” Mykhailo Podolyak, a chief adviser to President Zelenksy, told The Independent. “The instantaneous death of a large number of fish and animals, the waterlogging of drained lands, and the change in the climatic regime of the region, will later be reflected in the food security of the world. “A one-time reduction of water in a huge reservoir will lead to unpredictable ecological consequences.” Mr Podolyak warned that he expected the floodwaters to reach Mykolaiv, lying 56 miles from the dam and decried the drowning of the entire population of animals at the Kazkova Dibrova zoo on the Russian-held eastern bank of the river as particularly tragic. President Zelensky has already rebuked the officials installed by Moscow to run occupied territories along that bank for failing to respond adequately to the emergency. The Russian authorities he criticised have conceded that they have evacuated fewer than 1,300 people so far in an area where as many as 40,000 people were said to be affected. That compared unfavourably with the estimated 1,700 evacuated on the Ukrainian side to the west, where the population was reportedly around 42,000. According to the independent Russian news outlet Vyorstka, residents of the Moscow-run village of Oleshky, for one, remain stranded, the publisher quoting one woman as saying that her mother, who could not make it to the roof, was in the water clutching a ladder. A volunteer confirmed to Vyorstka that those still awaiting evacuation included children and disabled people. Civilians in Kherson itself were seen clutching personal belongings as they waded through knee-deep water in the streets and rode rubber rafts. Video on social media showed rescuers carrying others to safety and what looked like the triangular roof of a building floating downstream. Aerial footage showed flooded streets in the Russian-controlled city of Nova Kakhovska itself, where Mayor Vladimir Leontyev said seven people were missing, although they were believed to be alive. But perhaps most striking of all has been the aerial shots of the region captured by Maxar Technologies, which give the fullest picture of the damage done seen so far. Additional reporting by agencies Read More Ukraine-Russia war news – live: Exploding mines float through floodwater after Kherson dam attack Massive destruction after Ukraine dam collapse revealed in new satellite images Watch view of flooding in Kherson after destruction of Dnipro river dam The Body in the Woods | An Independent TV Original Documentary The harrowing discovery at centre of The Independent’s new documentary

Javier Salazar, the sheriff of Bexar County, Texas, is recommending criminal charges against those involved with flights that sent 49 mostly Venezuelan migrants from El Paso to Martha’s Vineyard last year, what was widely derided as a political stunt orchestrated by Florida governor Ron DeSantis. A statement from the sheriff’s office says it has completed an investigation launched last September and recommended several counts of unlawful restraint, both misdemeanours and felonies, to the office of the Bexar County district attorney. Meanwhile, Casey DeSantis, Florida’s first lady and the wife of the aspiring Republican presidential candidate, has been branded a “Walmart Melania” after she wore a leather jacket emblazoned with a map of the Sunshine State, an alligator and the legend “Where woke goes to die” during a campaign stop in Iowa to promote her husband. Elsewhere, a Vice documentary about the candidate’s earlier career as a US Navy lawyer serving at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility in Cuba has been mysteriously dropped from Showtime’s schedules, according to The Hollywood Reporter, with no explanation given. Read More Federal judge blocks DeSantis ban on gender-affirming care for Florida trans youth: ‘Gender identity is real’ Chris Christie gave Trump legitimacy. Now he can’t stop Trump in 2024 Mike Pence suffered the wrath of Trump. Now the ex-vice president wants his old boss’s job in 2024

Former vice president Mike Pence on Wednesday announced that he is entering the running for the 2024 presidential election, setting up a heated competition for the Republican nomination with former president Donald Trump. In a launch video for his campaign, Mr Pence said a “different leadership” could turn the country around to prevent the American dream from being “crushed”. “Today our party and our country need a leader that will appeal, as Lincoln said, to the better angels of our nature,” Mr Pence continued. While the video highlights Mr Pence’s work as vice president, it avoids making a single mention of the man he served during that period – Mr Trump. In an increasingly crowded GOP field, Mr Pence faces competition from fellow ex-Trump administration figures, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley. Mr Pence served as a member of the House of Representatives between 2001 and 2013 and as Indiana’s governor between 2013 and 2017, but rose to international attention as Mr Trump’s running-mate in 2016. He is the first vice president in modern US history to run against his former running mate.

Doug Burgum, the little-known governor of North Dakota, announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination for president on Wednesday morning, further crowding the Republican field. Mr Burgum, who won re-election in staunchly Republican North Dakota last year, will make his announcement official on Wednesday morning. In a preview video released on Tuesday, he mostly focused on the economy, with a tagline saying “a new leader for a changing economy.” The governor did not mention President Joe Biden in his announcement video, nor did he mention former president and current candidate Donald Trump in the video. “Anger yelling and fighting,” he said. “That's not gonna cut it anymore. Let's get things done.” Mr Burgum’s entrance into the 2024 Republican presidential primary field makes him the third candidate to throw his hat into the thing during the last week alone. On Monday, former vice president Mike Pence and ex-New Jersey governor Chris Christie filed the requisite paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to be counted as candidates in next year’s GOP primary. Mr Christie, a former ally of Mr Trump who is recasting himself as a critic this time around, kicked off his campaign at St Anslem’s College in New Hampshire on the night of 6 June. Mr Pence is set to hold a kickoff rally on Wednesday and follow that up with a CNN town hall appearance that evening. The three candidates who’ve jumped in this week are joining a primary field as diverse as any the GOP has ever had. Three primary candidates — Sen Tim Scott (R-SC), former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy — are persons of colour, as is right-wing talk show host Larry Elder. The two frontrunners in the race, Mr Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, both hail from the Sunshine State, while little-known businessman Perry Johnson is a resident of Michigan. Read More Mike Pence announces 2024 run with video calling for ‘different leadership’ Trump ridicules Chris Christie’s weight in edited 2024 campaign launch video

Luci Baines Johnson was a somewhat impatient 18-year-old on Aug. 6, 1965, when she happened to be on what she called “daddy duty,” meaning “I was supposed to accompany him to important occasions.” The occasion that day was President Lyndon Johnson’s scheduled signing of the Voting Rights Act, which Congress had passed the day before. She assumed the ceremony would be in the East Room of the White House, where the Civil Rights Act had been signed the previous year. “And that would probably take an hour and then I could be on my way,” she recalled in a recent interview from the LBJ Presidential Library in Austin, Texas. Instead, her father met her and guided her to the South Portico, where the presidential motorcade was waiting. They were going to Congress. Knowing a trip to Capitol Hill would take more time than she anticipated, she asked why. “‘We are going to Congress because there are going to be some courageous men and women who may not be returning to Congress because of the stand they have taken on voting rights,’” she recalled her father telling her. ”‘And there are going to be some extraordinary men and women who will be able to come to the Congress because of this great day. That’s why we’re going to Congress.’” Johnson, who stood behind her father during the signings, knew the significance of the law and asked him afterward why he had presented the first signing pen to Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen, a Republican from Illinois, when so many civil rights champions were on hand. “Luci Baines, I did not have to say or do anything to convince one of those great civil rights leaders to be for that legislation,” she recalled him saying. “If Everett Dirksen hadn’t been willing to be so courageous to support it, too, and more importantly brought his people along ... we’d never have had a law.” Johnson said personal relationships and events in her father’s life influenced his thinking on civil rights and voting rights, as well as many of the social programs he helped establish. Some of that can be traced to his life before politics when he was a teacher in Cotulla, Texas, where most of his students were Mexican American. They were wonderful and eager, but often hungry and very poor, she said. “He thought he’d grown up poor so he would understand what their plight was like,” she said. “But he had never gone without a toothbrush. He had never gone without toothpaste. He had never gone without shoes. He had never known the kind of discrimination that they had known.” “He swore if he ever got in a position to change the trajectory of the lives of people of color” he would, she said. Johnson said she was saddened in 2013 when the Supreme Court released its ruling in Shelby County v. Holder, which essentially ended a provision of the Voting Rights Act mandating the way states were included on the list of those needing to get advance approval for voting-related changes. “I cried because I knew what was coming. I knew that there were parts of this country, including my home state, my father’s home state, that would take advantage of the fact that there would no longer be an opportunity to have the federal government ensure that everyone in the community had the right and equal access to the voting booth,” she said. “I have seen over a lifetime so much take place that has tried to close the doors on all those rights,” she said. “I’m 75 years old now, and my energies are less than they once were, but for all of my days I will do all I can to try to keep those doors open to people of color, people who are discriminated against because of their age, or their ethnicity or their physical handicaps.” With the Supreme Court due to rule on another major pillar of the Voting Rights Act, Johnson said she wants to keep fighting to try to maintain her father’s legacy and protect voting rights. “I don’t want to get to heaven one day, and I hope I do, and have to say to my father, it was gutted to death on my watch,” she said. ___ The Associated Press coverage of race and voting receives support from the Jonathan Logan Family Foundation. See more about AP’s democracy initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Donald Trump fired off a nasty buffet video of Chris Christie after the former governor attacked Ivanka Trump at his 2024 campaign launch. The former president shared a video created by Twitter users @NautPoso and @drefanzor which was crudely edited to make it appear as if the ex-New Jersey governor was starting his campaign at an all-you-can-buffet holding a plate of food. Mr Trump shared the video not long after taking another shot at Mr Christie’s weight. “How many times did Chris Christie use the word SMALL? Does he have a psychological problem with SIZE? Actually, his speech was SMALL, and not very good,” Mr Trump wrote on Truth Social. “It rambled all over the place, and nobody had a clue of what he was talking about. Hard to watch, boring, but that’s what you get from a failed Governor (New Jersey) who left office with a 7% approval rating and then got run out of New Hampshire. This time, it won’t be any different!” Mr Christe has faced a litany of jokes about his weight in the last few weeks from outlets such as Newsmax and Fox News. Fox host Greg Gutfeld took part in the mockery, as did network anchor John Roberts who said the former governor “could drink a lot the milkshake if he wanted to” because of his “physical stature”. Mr Roberts apologized on Tuesday, Mediaite noted. This is not the first time Mr Trump has mocked the weight of Mr Christie, who became the first establishment Republican to endorse Mr Trump after dropping out of the 2016 primary. Mr Christie was for a time of Mr Trump’s presidential transition and was also considered for roles such as vice president and attorney general, ideas which were vetoed by Mr Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. After being an ally of the president and supporting him in both the 2016 and 2020 elections, Mr Christie has now become one of his harshest critics. Last year, Mr Trump posted an image of Mr Christie at a buffet with the caption “Chris Christie at a Roy Rogers at 11 PM in the evening trying to console himself”. More follows... Read More Chris Christie gave Trump legitimacy. Now he can’t stop Trump in 2024 Trump news – live: Trump lashes out at ‘boring’ presidential rival as charges expected in Mar-a-Lago documents case Chris Christie news – live: Ex-governor lashes out at Trump family’s ‘breathtaking grift’ in fiery 2024 launch

Former vice president Mike Pence on Wednesday announced that he is entering the running for the 2024 presidential election, setting up a heated competition for the Republican nomination with former president Donald Trump. More follows

Pope Francis is hospital for surgery on his intestine, the Vatican has said. The pontiff, 86, is to be put under general anesthesia for the operation this afternoon and will be hospital for several days. The operation at the Gemelli hospital in Rome is due to an “incarcerated incisional hernia”. It comes two years after he had 33 centimeters (13 inches) of his colon removed because of an inflammation and narrowing of the large intestine.

Former New Jersey governor Chris Christie launched his campaign for president on Tuesday at a town hall in Manchester, New Hampshire. This is the second time Mr Christie has made a bid for the White House, the first being in 2016 when he lost to former president Donald Trump. Though Mr Christie lent his support to Mr Trump in 2016 when he dropped out of the race, he has since changed his opinion of the former president and become a vocal critic of Mr Trump. That was evident on Tuesday, as he denounced his former ally as a corrupt narcissist and vowed to draw blood in his quest for the Republican nomination. He did so several times during the town hall event, including at one point when he tore into the former president’s family for “breathtaking” levels of corruption and “grift” that he said followed them through the White House and beyond. The former New Jersey governor plans to position himself as a moderate Republican alternative to both Mr Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, while promising an aggressive campaign unafraid to punch at his rivals. Read More Chris Christie gave Trump legitimacy. Now he can’t stop Trump in 2024 Chris Christie targets his ‘divisive’ former friend Donald Trump as he sets up bitter 2024 battle Mike Pence suffered the wrath of Trump. Now the ex-vice president wants his old boss’s job in 2024

Ukraine has accused Russia of destroying a sprawling dam in the Russian-occupied Kherson region, triggering a wave of evacuations as flood water poured from the Nova Kakhovka hydro-electric plant. Footage circulating on social media appears to show large blocks of the dam wall washed away. Moscow and Kyiv have blamed each other for the breach at the Russian-controlled dam, an event which coincided with intensified efforts by Ukrainian forces to retake territory seized by Vladimir Putin’s troops. Ukraine has condemned the Kremlin of acting like a “terrorist state” and said its aim was to prevent Ukrainian troops crossing the Dnipro River to attack Russian occupying forces. President Volodymyr Zelensky tweeted: “Russian terrorists. The destruction of the dam only confirms for the whole world that they must be expelled from every corner of Ukrainian land.” Sergei Aksyonov, the Russian-backed head of Crimea, said on Tuesday there was no immediate threat to the peninsula's water supply or any risk of flooding due to the dam breach, but flagged a potentially serious threat ahead. "There is a risk that the Northern Crimean Canal will get more shallow," he said, an event that could reduce water supplies in time. Read More He fled Ukraine under the barrel of a gun. Now his invention could turn the tide of Putin’s war Russia's most famous icon handed over from museum to church despite protests Ukraine piles on pressure after Russia declares victory in Bakhmut