  We find that if general relativity is modified at the Planck scale by a
Ricci-squared term, electrically charged black holes may be nonsingular. These
objects concentrate their mass in a microscopic sphere of radius
$r_{core}\approx N_q^{1/2}l_P/3$, where $l_P$ is the Planck length and $N_q$ is
the number of electric charges. The singularity is avoided if the mass of the
object satisfies the condition $M_0^2\approx m_P^2 \alpha_{em}^{3/2} N_q^3/2$,
where $m_P$ is the Planck mass and $\alpha_{em}$ is the fine-structure
constant. For astrophysical black holes this amount of charge is so small that
their external horizon almost coincides with their Schwarzschild radius. We
work within a first-order (Palatini) approach.
