Good morning.
For the first time since Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine, a court in Kyiv will hear a war crime trial – of a Russian soldier accused of murdering a 62-year-old civilian.
Vadim Shysimarin, a 21-year-old commander of the Kantemirovskaya tank division, is accused of shooting the unarmed man after being ordered “to kill a civilian so he would not report them to Ukrainian defenders”, according to prosecutors. Shysimarin, who is in custody, is also accused of shooting at a civilian car after his convoy of military vehicles came under attack from Ukrainian forces. He then drove the car away with four other soldiers as he sought to flee Ukrainian fighters.
Two other cases are likely to be heard in court within days, including an in-absentia trial of Mikhail Romanov, who is accused of breaking into a house in the Brovarsky region near Kyiv, murdering a man and then repeatedly raping his wife in front of her child.
The trial comes as the Kremlin bristled at Finland seeking to join Nato, with Sweden moving to follow suit.
In the US, $40bn in aid for Ukraine has been held up because of one libertarian lawmaker, Rand Paul.
Even in California, an abortion ‘safe haven’, the system is strained
In the aftermath of the leak of a supreme court document foretelling the end to federal abortion protections, Gavin Newsom, California’s governor, vowed that his state “will not stand idly by”. He proposed a new reproductive health spending plan, dedicating an additional $57m to prepare for an influx of people seeking abortions from other states.
But while no other state does more to protect abortion access, abortions have long been inaccessible for many in California: 40% of counties in the state have no clinics providing abortions.
Eleven people killed as boat capsizes near Puerto Rico
Eleven people were killed and dozens were rescued after a boat capsized near Puerto Rico yesterday – the latest in a string of incidents across the region as people from Haiti and the Dominican Republic flee violence and poverty.
Authorities said people on the boat were believed to be migrants. At least eight Haitians were taken to the hospital.
What you need to know about the US baby formula shortage
Stores around the country are running out of baby formula because of a combination of short- and long-term problems that have affected most of the larger US brands. Here’s everything you need to know about why it’s happening and what to do if you can’t find any in your local stores.
US secretly issued subpoena to access Guardian reporter’s phone records
The US justice department secretly issued a subpoena to gain access to details of the phone account of Stephanie Kirchgaessner, the Guardian’s investigations correspondent in Washington, in an attempt to uncover the source of articles about a review of family separation at the southern border conducted by the Department of Justice’s inspector general, Michael Horowitz.
The move was carried out without notifying the newspaper or its reporter. Katharine Viner, the Guardian’s editor-in-chief, decried the action as “an egregious example of infringement on press freedom and public interest journalism by the US Department of Justice”.
In other news …
The House select committee investigating the 6 January attack on the US Capitol has issued unprecedented subpoenas to five Republican members of Congress.
Nearly 150 people have been killed in gang battles in Haiti in an increase in gun violence that has paralysed much of the capital, Port-au-Prince.
Cuban rescue workers recovered the body of the 45th and last person believed missing after an explosion at a luxury hotel in Havana.
The Grammy-award winning country musician Naomi Judd died last month by suicide, her daughter Ashley Judd confirmed yesterday.
Stat of the day: a dozen oil refineries exceeded the federal limit on average benzene emissions last year
Benzene is a highly toxic carcinogen that is volatile when exposed to air. New analysis by the Environmental Integrity Project revealed yesterday that 12 US oil refineries last year exceeded the federal limit on average benzene emissions: five in Texas, four in Louisiana, and one each in Pennsylvania, Indiana and the US Virgin Islands.
Don’t miss this: the 61-year-old Ukrainian who walked 140 miles to safety from Mariupol
Igor Pedin made a perilous 140-mile journey through the besieged port city of Mariupol, into Russian-occupied territories and on to the relative safety of the Ukrainian-held city of Zaporizhzhia – all while keeping Zhu-Zhu, his nine-year-old mongrel terrier, safe.
Climate check: woman power
In the past years, Mexico has felt the full impact of the climate crisis. But across the country, women are leading projects to build water harvesting and filtration tanks, helping their communities conserve what little rain there is, and make it safe to drink.
Want more environmental stories delivered to your inbox? Sign up to our new newsletter, Down to Earth, to get original and essential reporting on the climate crisis every week.
Last Thing: Everything, everywhere
The martial arts queen Michelle Yeoh went in-depth with the Guardian about her new movie, Everything Everywhere All At Once, which includes everything from a kung fu butt-plug scene, downing a bottle of orangeade then copiously throwing up, having hotdogs instead of fingers, and spanking one of the co-directors in an S&M get-up. “I was doing things that I never dreamed of doing!” the actor said of starring in the surreal comedy and family drama that zips across alternate universes.
“When we were doing the butt-plug fight sequences, I was just on the ground, laughing my head off, going like: ‘Oh my god! Would I have ever thought that one day I would be doing this kind of martial arts?’”
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