Tuesday morning news: April 1, 2025

Russia sees ending Ukraine War as drawn-out process » Russia is now calling its efforts to end its war with Ukraine ‘a drawn-out process.’ A Kremlin spokesman says Russia is working to implement some elements of a potential peace deal with Ukraine, and the work is ongoing.

But the EU says Ukraine’s allies need to find a way to turn up the pressure on Vladimir Putin.

KALLAS: Russia is playing games and not really wanting peace.

That’s EU Foreign Policy Chief Kaja Kallas.

Over the weekend, President Trump called out Russian leader Putin for questioning Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s credibility.

ZELENZSKYY: [SPEAKING RUSSIAN]

Meantime, Zelenskyy says there’s been no letup in Russian attacks, which he says shows Putin couldn’t care less about diplomacy.

Russia has effectively rejected a U.S.-brokered plan for a 30-day ceasefire.

Three U.S. soldiers killed in Lithuania » The U.S. Army says the bodies of three of the four U.S. soldiers who went missing in Lithuania, have been discovered.

SOUND: [Lithuania search]

They were found dead in their armored vehicle, after it was pulled from a swampy area Monday.

The soldiers were on a tactical training exercise in Lithuania when they and their vehicle were reported missing last week.

Lieutenant Junior Grade Eric Costello is part of the U.S. Navy dive team involved in the search. He says environmental factors have made diving in the area difficult.

COSTELLO: Just the amount of mud diving in a peat bog. You know, just complete zero vis, hard to move kind of diving. It's been an interesting experience for us.

Crews are still looking for the fourth missing soldier.

Myanmar quake death toll eclipses 2,000 » The death toll from last week’s earthquake in Myanmar has now passed 2,000. That’s according to the country’s state media.

Aid groups are worried hunger and disease outbreaks will only get worse in a country already struggling with civil war.

Michael Dunford with the World Food Programme says the WFP has just begun its relief efforts.

DUNFORD: And that’s the start of an operation which we expect we will need to scale up dramatically over the course of the next days and weeks. The devastation caused by this earthquake is immense.

In addition to over 2,000 dead, Myanmar’s government says about 4,000 people are hurt and another 270 missing. Relief groups expect all those numbers to rise sharply, since access is slow to remote areas where communications are down.

Trump causes stir with third term talk » President Trump is raising eyebrows with talk of running for a third term. After broaching the topic over the weekend, he talked about it again with reporters in the Oval Office Monday.

TRUMP: People are asking me to run, and there’s a whole story about running for a third term. I don’t know. I’d never looked into it. They do say there’s a way you can do it, but I don’t know about that.

The 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution forbids Trump from running for a third term. And the 12th Amendment bars Trump from even running for vice president, meaning he couldn’t run as the number two and then be handed the baton by his running mate after the election, as Trump suggested this weekend.

Trump brought this idea up as a joke before, so it’s not clear how serious he is. But the only way he could legally win a third term would be if Congress and the states amended the Constitution.

Florida special elections preview » Republicans are hoping to protect their slim margin in the House of Representatives today, during two special elections in Florida.

The races are to fill the seats vacated by National Security Adviser Mike Waltz and Matt Gaetz, who was originally President Trump’s nominee for Attorney General.

Polls show tight races, but Republican National Committee Chair Michael Whatley projected confidence to FOX News’s The Story with Martha McCallum.

WHATLEY: Republicans are going to hold both of those seats in Florida. It’s going to be a hold, and we’re going to continue the work that we’re doing in Congress to work on the president’s agenda.

The GOP has a razor thin 218 to 213 seat margin in the House over the Democrats.

There’s also a big election in Wisconsin today to fill the seat of a retiring state Supreme Court justice. An in-depth look at that race is just a few minutes away.

Rescued astronauts speak publicly for first time » Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are speaking out, after their extended stay aboard the International Space Station.

They were only supposed to visit the station for eight days. But they wound up stuck there for more than nine months, after problems surfaced with their Boeing Starliner capsule.

Wilmore told reporters there's plenty of blame to go around.

WILMORE: And I'll start with me. There were questions that I, as the commander of the spacecraft, that I should have asked, and I did not.

But he says he'd be more than happy to climb aboard the spacecraft again.

WILMORE: Because we're going to rectify all the issues that we encountered. We're going to fix them, we're going to make it work.

Williams said she was more than happy to set her personal goals aside for nine months to see the mission through to its end...regardless of when that turned out to be.

WILLIAMS: We came, as Butch has mentioned before, prepared, and we were ready to do that pivot and be part of that bigger thing that’s not just about us.

Both agreed space travel is inherently complex and difficult, and astronauts have to be prepared to roll with the punches.

I’m Mark Mellinger.

Straight ahead: South Korea admits its adoption program after the Korean War harmed many children and families. Plus, the rise of non-alcoholic social drinking.

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