Biden expected to announce record release from US strategic oil

It also emerged during the Nancy Pelosi press conference that she is planning a House hearing on the ethics of the US supreme court, in the wake of the insurrection scandal involving Justice Clarence Thomas’s wife Ginni.

Thomas has been silent amid calls for his resignation over his wife’s supportive texts to Donald Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows on the day of the 6 January Capitol riot, and Pelosi pointed to a lack of standards governing supreme court justices’ behavior.

“They have no code of ethics,” she said, noting that the House had already passed the For the People act seeking to introduce one, but it was blocked in the US Senate.

“Really, it’s the supreme court of the United States. They’re making judgments about the air we breathe and everything else and we don’t even know what their ethical standard is.

“Why should they have lower standards and members of Congress in terms of reporting and the rest?”

Pelosi added: “I would like to have a hearing, not the whole bill, but taking out that piece, to focus on the supreme court ethics standard legislation.

“People say it’s a personal decision of a judge as to whether he should recuse himself. Well, if your wife is an admitted and proud contributor to a coup of our country, maybe you should weigh that in your ethical standards.”

The House speaker Nancy Pelosi has called for an investigation into Russia’s “crimes against humanity” over its treatment of children in the Ukraine conflict.

At her weekly press conference on Thursday morning, Pelosi said she was horrified at what she learned from five female members of Ukraine’s parliament who visited with House members on Wednesday.

“To hear the stories of the children, you know, children are my reason to be here,” Pelosi said. “When some of these parents are killed by the Russians, the children have been sent to Russia. I think we should get more evidence and documentation about the crimes against humanity that the Russians are…