By Dan Whitcomb

(Reuters) -U.S. intelligence agencies found no direct evidence that the COVID-19 pandemic stemmed from an incident at China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology, a report declassified on Friday said.

The four-page report by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) said the U.S. intelligence community still could not rule out the possibility that the virus came from a laboratory, however, and had not been able to discover the origins of the pandemic.

“The Central Intelligence Agency and another agency remain unable to determine the precise origin of the COVID-19 pandemic, as both (natural and lab) hypotheses rely on significant assumptions or face challenges with conflicting reporting,” the ODNI report said.

The report said that while “extensive work” had been conducted on coronaviruses at the Wuhan institute (WIV), the agencies had not found evidence of a specific incident that could have caused the outbreak.

“We continue to have no indication that the WIV’s pre-pandemic research holdings included SARSCoV-2 or a close progenitor, nor any direct evidence that a specific research-related incident occurred involving WIV personnel before the pandemic that could have caused the COVID pandemic,” the report said.

The origins of the coronavirus pandemic have been a matter of furious debate in the United States almost since the first human cases were reported in Wuhan in late 2019.

U.S. President Joe Biden in March signed a bill declassifying information related to the origins of the pandemic.

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

The debate was refueled by a Wall Street Journal report in February that the U.S. Energy Department had assessed with “low confidence” in a classified intelligence report that the pandemic most likely arose from a Chinese laboratory leak, an assessment Beijing denies.

FBI director Christopher Wray said on Feb. 28 his agency had assessed for some time that the origins of the pandemic were “most likely a potential lab incident” in the Chinese city of Wuhan. China said this claim had “no credibility whatsoever”.

As of March 20, four other U.S. agencies still judged that COVID-19 was likely the result of natural transmission, while two were undecided.

(Reporting by Dan Whitcomb, Editing by Rosalba O’Brien and Jacqueline Wong)

By Andrew Osborn and Kevin Liffey

MOSCOW/KYIV (Reuters) – Russian mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin said on Saturday his Wagner fighters had crossed the border into Russia from Ukraine and were prepared to go “all the way” against Moscow’s military, hours after the Kremlin accused him of armed mutiny.

As a long-running standoff between Prigozhin and the military top brass appeared to come to a head, Russia’s FSB security service opened a criminal case against him, TASS news agency said. It called on the Wagner private military company forces to ignore his orders and arrest him.

Wagner fighters had entered the southern Russian city of Rostov, Prigozhin said in an audio recording posted on Telegram. He said he and his men would destroy anyone who stood in their way.

Prigozhin earlier said, without providing evidence, that Russia’s military leadership had killed a huge number of his troops in an air strike and vowed to punish them.

He said his actions were not a military coup. But in a frenzied series of audio messages, in which the sound of his voice sometimes varied and could not be independently verified, he appeared to suggest that his 25,000-strong militia was en route to oust the leadership of the defence ministry in Moscow.

Security was stepped up on Friday night at government buildings, transport facilities and other key locations in Moscow, TASS reported, citing a source at a security service.

Russian President Vladimir Putin was getting around-the-clock updates, TASS said, while the White House said it was monitoring the situation and would consult with allies.

Kyiv, meanwhile, said the major thrust in its counteroffensive against Moscow’s invasion had yet to be launched. “The main blow is still to come,” Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar told Ukrainian television.

A top Ukrainian general reported “tangible successes” in advances in the south – one of two main theatres of operations, along with eastern Ukraine.

‘OBEY PRESIDENT,’ GENERAL SAYS

The deputy commander of Russia’s Ukraine campaign, General Sergei Surovikin, told Wagner fighters to obey Putin, accept Moscow’s commanders and return to their bases. He said political deterioration would play into the hands of Russia’s enemies.

“I urge you to stop,” Surovikin said in a video posted on Telegram, his right hand resting on a rifle.

The standoff, many of the details of which remained unclear, looked like the biggest domestic crisis Putin has faced since he sent thousands of troops into Ukraine in February last year.

Prigozhin, a one-time Putin ally, in recent months has carried out an increasingly bitter feud with Moscow. Earlier on Friday, he appeared to cross a new line, saying the Kremlin’s rationale for invading Ukraine, which it calls a “special military operation,” was based on lies by the army’s top brass.

Wagner led Russia’s capture of the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut last month, Russia’s biggest victory in 10 months, and Prigozhin has used its battlefield success to criticise the leadership of the defense ministry with seeming impunity – until now.

For months, he has openly accused Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and Russia’s top general, Valery Gerasimov, of incompetence.

Army Lieutenant-General Vladimir Alekseyev issued a video appeal in which he asked Prigozhin to reconsider his actions. “Only the president has the right to appoint the top leadership of the armed forces, and you are trying to encroach on his authority,” he said.

UKRAINE SAYS MAJOR THRUST AHEAD

On the ground in Ukraine, at least three people were killed in Russian attacks on Friday, including two who died after a trolleybus company came under fire in the city of Kherson, regional officials said.

Addressing the pace of the Ukrainian advances, several senior officials on Friday sent the clearest signal so far that the main part of the counteroffensive has not yet begun.

“I want to say that our main force has not been engaged in fighting yet, and we are now searching, probing for weak places in the enemy defences. Everything is still ahead,” the Guardian quoted Oleksandr Syrskyi, the commander of Ukraine’s ground forces, as saying in an interview with the British newspaper.

General Oleksandr Tarnavskyi, commander of Ukraine’s “Tavria,” or southern front, wrote on Telegram: “There have been tangible successes of the Defence Forces and in advances in the Tavria sector.”

Tarnavskyi said Russian forces had lost hundreds of men and 51 military vehicles in the past 24 hours, including three tanks and 14 armoured personnel carriers.

Although the advances Ukraine has reported this month are its first substantial gains on the battlefield for seven months, Ukrainian forces have yet to push to the main defensive lines that Russia has had months to prepare.

(Reporting by Reuters; Writing by Cynthia Osterman; Editing by Daniel Wallis)

By Sarah N. Lynch

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland on Friday denied allegations by an Internal Revenue Service whistleblower, who said the high-ranking federal prosecutor tasked with investigating President Joe Biden’s son Hunter was hindered by the Justice Department from pursuing more aggressive criminal tax charges.

Speaking publicly for the first time since Hunter Biden was criminally charged on Tuesday with two misdemeanor counts of willfully failing to pay income taxes, Garland told reporters at a press conference that U.S. Attorney David Weiss, the top federal prosecutor in Delaware, “was given complete authority” to make charging decisions on his own.

“David Weiss was appointed by President Trump as the U.S. attorney in Delaware and assigned this matter during the previous administration,” Garland said.

“He was given complete authority to make all decisions on his own,” the attorney general added.

Weiss’ office on Tuesday revealed in a court filing that Biden has agreed to plead guilty to the two misdemeanor tax charges. He has also agreed to enter into a pretrial diversion program to avoid facing a more serious felony count of possessing a firearm while a drug addict.

Republicans have since attacked the charging decision, calling it a sweetheart deal that will likely allow the younger Biden to avoid prison time.

On Thursday, lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives released the transcript of an interview with Gary Shapley, an IRS criminal supervisory agent who worked on the Hunter Biden probe.

Shapley said that the Justice Department slow-walked the case, starting during the Trump administration and continuing through Garland’s tenure.

Most notably, Shapley said investigators uncovered evidence of more serious tax crimes that could only be pursued in either Washington, D.C., or California, but not in Delaware.

But when Weiss sought permission from Garland to be designated as special counsel, so he could bring charges from anywhere in the country, his request was denied, Shapley said.

Garland denied that claim on Friday. “Mr. Weiss never made that request to me,” he said, adding that Weiss actually had “more authority” than a special counsel.

In a statement, Hunter Biden’s attorney Chris Clark said that “any suggestion the investigation was not thorough, or cut corners, or cut my client any slack, is preposterous and deeply irresponsible.”

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

By Andrew Osborn and Kevin Liffey

LONDON (Reuters) – Russia accused mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin of armed mutiny on Friday after he alleged, without providing evidence, that the military leadership had killed a huge number of his fighters in an air strike and vowed to punish them.

The standoff, many of whose details remained unclear, looked like the biggest domestic crisis President Vladimir Putin has faced since he ordered a full-scale invasion of Ukraine – something he called a “special military operation” – in February last year.

As the standoff between Prigozhin, founder of the Wagner mercenary force, and the defence ministry appeared to come to a head, the ministry issued a statement saying Prigozhin’s accusations were “not true and are an informational provocation”.

Prigozhin said his actions were not a military coup. But in a frenzied series of audio messages, in which the sound of his voice sometimes varied and could not be independently verified, he appeared to suggest that 25,000 fighters were en route to oust the leaders of the defence establishment in Moscow.

He said: “Those who destroyed our lads, who destroyed the lives of many tens of thousands of Russian soldiers, will be punished. I ask that no one offer resistance …

“There are 25,000 of us and we are going to figure out why chaos is happening in the country,” he said, promising to tackle any checkpoints or air forces that got in Wagner’s way.

At about 2 a.m. on Saturday morning, Moscow time (2300 GMT), Prigozhin issued a new message saying his forces had crossed the border from Ukraine, and were in the southern Russian city of Rostov.

He said they were ready to “go all the way” against the top brass, and to destroy anyone who stood in their way.

At around the same time, the state news agency TASS quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying all Russia’s main security services were reporting to Putin “round the clock” on the fulfilment of his orders with respect to Prigozhin.

Security was being tightened in Moscow, TASS said, focusing on what it called the capital’s most important government sites and infrastructure.

Earlier on Friday, Prigozhin had appeared to cross a new line in his increasingly vitriolic feud with the ministry, saying that the Kremlin’s rationale for invading Ukraine was based on lies concocted by the army’s top brass.

The FSB domestic security service said it had opened a criminal case against him for calling for an armed mutiny, a crime punishable with a jail term of up to 20 years.

“Prigozhin’s statements are in fact calls for the start of an armed civil conflict on Russian territory and his actions are a ‘stab in the back’ of Russian servicemen fighting pro-fascist Ukrainian forces,” the FSB said.

“We urge the … fighters not to make irreparable mistakes, to stop any forcible actions against the Russian people, not to carry out the criminal and traitorous orders of Prigozhin, to take measures to detain him.”

GENERALS URGE PRIGOZHIN TO BACK DOWN

Army Lieutenant-General Vladimir Alekseyev issued a video appeal asking Prigozhin to reconsider his actions.

“Only the president has the right to appoint the top leadership of the armed forces, and you are trying to encroach on his authority,” he said.

Army General Sergei Surovikin, the deputy commander of Russian forces in Ukraine whom Prigozhin has praised in the past, in a separate video said that “the enemy is just waiting for our internal political situation to deteriorate”.

“Before it is too late … you must submit to the will and order of the people’s president of the Russian Federation. Stop the columns and return them to their permanent bases,” he said.

Prigozhin, whose men spearheaded the capture of the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut last month, has for months been openly accusing Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and Russia’s top general, Valery Gerasimov, of rank incompetence and of denying Wagner ammunition and support.

An unverified video posted on a Telegram channel close to Wagner showed the purported scene of an air strike against Wagner forces. It showed a forest where small fires were burning and trees appeared to have been broken by force. There appeared to be one body, but no more direct evidence of any attack.

It carried the caption: “A missile attack was launched on the camps of PMC (Private Military Company) Wagner. Many victims. According to eyewitnesses, the strike was delivered from the rear, that is, it was delivered by the military of the Russian Ministry of Defence.”

Prigozhin has tried to exploit Wagner’s battlefield success, achieved at enormous human cost, to publicly berate Moscow with seeming impunity, while carefully avoiding criticism of Putin.

But on Friday he for the first time dismissed Putin’s core justifications for invading Ukraine on Feb. 24 last year, something for which many Russians have been fined or jailed.

“The war was needed … so that Shoigu could become a marshal … so that he could get a second ‘Hero’ [of Russia] medal,” Prigozhin said in a video clip. “The war wasn’t needed to demilitarise or denazify Ukraine.”

Marat Gabidullin, a former Wagner commander who moved to France when Russia invaded Ukraine, told Reuters that Wagner’s fighters were likely to stand with Prigozhin.

“We have looked down on the army for a long time … Of course they support him, he is their leader,” he said.

“They won’t hesitate (to fight the army), if anyone gets in their way.”

(Reporting by Reuters; Writing by Andrew Osborn and Kevin Liffey; Editing by Daniel Wallis)

By Gram Slattery

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Several Republican presidential candidates praised restrictions on abortion rights at a conference of Christian conservatives on Friday, illustrating how the issue still animates the party one year after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down nationwide constitutional protections for the procedure.

Former Vice President Mike Pence, who has emerged as one of the party’s most vocal and high-profile opponents of abortion rights, called on all candidates to support a federal ban on abortions after 15 weeks of gestation if elected.

“I want to say from my heart, every Republican candidate for president should support a ban on abortion before 15 weeks as a minimum nationwide standard,” he told the Faith & Freedom Coalition in Washington.

The event, which former President Donald Trump will address on Saturday, coincides with the first anniversary of the Supreme Court’s landmark Dobbs decision, which overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that had legalized abortion.

The June 24, 2022, decision was widely celebrated among Republicans at the time and led to 14 states imposing near-total bans on abortions.

Public opinion polls show the public supports legal abortion. The Dobbs decision has been cited as a major reason for Republicans’ underperformance in the 2022 congressional elections, when the Democrats won the Senate and lost fewer seats in the House of Representatives than expected.

Many Republicans want to soften the prevailing stance on the issue to try to win over swing voters in competitive elections.

That trepidation was hardly on display at Friday’s large gathering of evangelicals, a group that will be a key voting bloc for Republicans in early voting states such as Iowa and South Carolina.

Apart from Pence, the other Republican candidates did not plunge deeply into policy specifics.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who is second in opinion polls to the front-runner Trump, referred to a six-week abortion ban that he signed in his state earlier this year. That ban upset some prominent donors, and Trump later said in an interview that “many people within the pro-life movement feel that was too harsh.”

“It was the right thing to do,” DeSantis said of his decision to sign the bill.

South Carolina Senator Tim Scott criticized Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who said in May that eliminating women’s access to abortion would have “very damaging effects” on the U.S. economy by keeping some women from completing their education.

Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson pledged to sign federal legislation restricting abortion access should it pass Congress.

Trump has attempted to ally himself with opponents of abortion rights, while also dodging specific questions on legislation he would or would not support.

While Trump was not at the conference on Friday, he was by many measures the most looming presence.

Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who has been the most consistent critic of Trump among major candidates, was met with boos at several points in his speech, particularly when he took swipes at the leading Republican in the 2024 primary race.

“We love Trump!” members of the crowd started chanting at one point.

(Reporting by Gram Slattery; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Grant McCool)

By Daniel Trotta

(Reuters) – A U.S. judge on Friday blocked a new Florida law restricting drag performances, the third time this month that federal courts have enjoined laws backed by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis that concern gender or LGBTQ matters.

In all three cases, the issues supported by DeSantis, a Republican presidential candidate, lost on grounds that the laws appear to infringe on people’s constitutional rights.

In Friday’s decision, U.S. District Judge Gregory Presnell of the Middle District of Florida granted an injunction preventing the state from enforcing a law that bans minors from attending obscene live performances, calling it too broad.

The judge refused to dismiss the law entirely, meaning the underlying lawsuit challenging it will go forward.

The governor’s office said the judge was “dead wrong” and predicted the state would win on appeal.

“Of course it’s constitutional to prevent the sexualization of children by limiting access to adult live performances,” governor’s spokesperson Jeremy Redfern said in an email.

Hamburger Mary’s, an Orlando bar and restaurant that presents drag show performances, comedy sketches and dancing, filed the lawsuit in response to the law that DeSantis signed in May.

Hamburger Mary’s argued the law was written so broadly as to have a “chilling effect” on First Amendment rights to free speech as guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. The judge agreed, finding the plaintiff was likely to succeed at trial on First Amendment grounds.

“Florida already has statutes that provide such protection (from obscene performances). Rather, this statute is specifically designed to suppress the speech of drag queen performers,” Presnell wrote.

While many drag performers are gay, the genre has grown increasingly mainstream. Opponents of drag have associated it with wider LGBTQ issues that conservatives consider contrary to traditional values.

DeSantis has been at the forefront of a conservative campaign restricting LGBTQ rights.

On Wednesday, another judge struck down a Florida rule and a statute that banned state Medicaid payments for transgender healthcare.

That same judge on June 6 partially blocked Florida from enforcing its recent ban on people under 18 receiving gender-affirming care such as puberty blockers and hormone therapy.

In both of those cases, U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle of the Northern District of Florida cited 14th Amendment guarantees to equal protection under the law.

(Reporting by Daniel Trotta; Editing by David Gregorio)