First war crime trial starts as Ukraine accuses Russia of bombing schools
A 21-year-old Russian soldier went on trial Friday in Kyiv for the killing of an unarmed Ukrainian civilian, The Associated Press reports. This marks the first war crime prosecution of a member of the Russian military from 11 weeks of bloodshed in Ukraine.
The AP’s Oleksandr Stashevskyi and Richard Lardner write that the soldier, a captured member of a tank unit, is accused of shooting a 62-year-old Ukrainian man in the head through an open car window in the northeastern village of Chupakhivka during the first days of the war.
“Scores of journalists and cameras packed inside a small courtroom at the Solomyanskyy district court in Ukraine’s capital, where the suspect, Sgt. Vadim Shyshimarin, sat in a glassed-off area wearing a blue and grey hoodie, sweatpants and a shaved head,” Stashevskyi and Lardner report.
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Parents swap, sell baby formula as Biden focuses on shortage
President Joe Biden stepped up his administration’s response to a nationwide baby formula shortage Thursday, The AP reports.
The president discussed with executives from Gerber and Reckitt how they could increase production and how his administration could help, and talked with leaders from Walmart and Target about how to restock shelves and address regional disparities in access to formula, the White House said.
“The administration plans to monitor possible price gouging and work with trading partners in Mexico, Chile, Ireland and the Netherlands on imports, even though 98% of baby formula is domestically made,” The AP’s Josh Boak and Pat Eaton-Robb write.
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Elon Musk tweets $44B deal to buy Twitter ‘temporarily on hold’
Elon Musk took to Twitter early Friday to say his $44 billion deal to buy the social network is “temporarily on hold,” The Associated Press is reporting.
“Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users,” the Tesla and SpaceX CEO wrote shortly before 6 a.m. EDT, linking to a Reuters article published earlier this month. Twitter had said in filings that phony accounts comprised “fewer than 5% of its monetizable daily active users” in the first months of 2022, according to Reuters.
Musk later tweeted that he is “still committed to (the) acquisition.”
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