Why it’ll be hard to prosecute Putin for war crimes

Good morning! It's Thursday, April 14th. I'm Shumita Basu.

And I’m Duarte Geraldino. This is "Apple News Today." Each morning, hear about some of the most fascinating stories in the news, and how the world's best journalists are covering them.

There's an intense focus on whether Russia is committing war crimes in Ukraine. A prosecutor with the International Criminal Court visited Bucha yesterday, where some of the worst scenes of civilian death have been reported. Leaders of neighboring countries visited Ukraine yesterday, calling for Russian troops and commanders to be held accountable.

Earlier this week, President Biden used a word that is loaded with legal and political meaning to describe what Russia is doing.

Yes, I called it genocide because it had become clearer and clearer that Putin is just trying to wipe out the idea of even being able to be a Ukrainian.

He said the evidence is mounting.

We'll let the lawyers decide internationally whether or not it qualifies, but it sure seems that way to me.

But letting the lawyers decide is much easier said than done. "Vox" takes a close look at the International Criminal Court and the limitations on what it can do to hold Putin and Russia accountable. The ICC can't try whole countries for war crimes, only people, and it has never tried a sitting head of state, only former leaders, so it's unlikely Putin himself would be on trial.

And it's unlikely Putin would even show up. Russia is not a party to the ICC. For that matter, neither is the United States. Previous U.S. administrations have only expressed support for the ICC up to a point. In the past, the U.S. government has taken steps to prevent Americans from facing trial in the court. That complicates Washington's ability to press the ICC to hold Moscow accountable.

War crimes cases are difficult to build and can take years to prosecute. In the International Criminal Court's 20-year history, it has only tried 30 cases. Ten ended in convictions. Justice for civilian victims may be a long time coming.

Former Trump chief-of-staff Mark Meadows has been removed from the voter rolls in North Carolina. The "Asheville Citizen Times" reports on the state's investigation into whether he committed election fraud. A county election official found evidence Meadows was registered in both Virginia and North Carolina. He was a North Carolina Congressman before working for Trump. A Meadows spokesperson declined to comment.

This is the latest development after investigative reporting published by "The New Yorker" in early March. The journalist went down to North Carolina, to the property Meadows recently listed as his address, and talked to people in the area. But there was no evidence Meadows ever lived there.

Now, it's a federal crime to give false information to register to vote in a federal election, but to prove the crime, someone needs to challenge the information submitted and provide evidence. The burden of proof initially rests with the challenger, and as "The New Yorker" points out, these kinds of challenges can be tough to win and are not frequently brought.

Meadows is under scrutiny in other ways right now. He's one of the key figures in the January 6th committee's investigation into the attack on the Capitol. After Trump lost the election in 2020, Meadows was one of the most prominent Republicans claiming, without evidence, that there was widespread voter fraud.

It was once called "the most glamorous murder case of the 1980s." A woman with supermodel looks, a former Playboy Bunny turned police officer, convicted of murdering her husband's ex-wife.

Laurie Bembenek, whose nickname was Bambi, was one of the massive tabloid stars of the 1980s and '90s. She was, like, almost a fixation.

That's journalist Vanessa Grigoriadis. She's out with an Apple Original podcast called "Run, Bambi, Run." It's all about re-examining this woman's story through today's lens of understanding how misogyny, media bias, and public perception can outweigh the facts.

Bembenek was in her early twenties when the trial took place in 1982, and Grigoriadis told us her appearance, her attractiveness, seemed to work against her…

In terms of the media, I think that throughout the trial she was painted as this femme fatale. People wanted to believe that somebody this beautiful had to be rotten at her core, and they were extremely willing to believe what seemed like a lot of far-fetched evidence.

And the media frenzy didn't end with her trial and imprisonment. In 1990, she managed to escape from prison by squeezing out of the laundry room, scaling a seven-foot fence, and making off in a getaway car. Bembenek was on the lam. That's when the phrase "Run, Bambi, Run" got popularized. She was eventually found and arrested.

Grigoriadis told us there are so many podcasts out right now about true crime, especially cases centering women who the tabloids unfairly villainized. She says there are a lot of reasons to believe Bembenek was not taken seriously as a police officer and, ultimately, was not given a fair trial.

She was a feminist. She was fighting the Milwaukee police department for gender discrimination. And even with all that, she was painted by the media as yet another drop-dead gorgeous blonde femme fatale who was a man eater. And so even with the fact that she was an activist who would've been participating in #MeToo today, if she was alive, she was still painted with this very broad brush. So, I think it's fascinating to look at, you know, somebody who's so on the progressive end of the spectrum and the way she was treated anyway.

You can hear "Run, Bambi, Run" on Apple Podcasts.

The pandemic turned the wedding industry upside-down. The past two years were filled with postponements and cancellations. This year, Americans are expected to hold close to 2.5 million weddings. That's the most in nearly four decades. But couples that are part of this surge are being hit with huge price tags everywhere they turn. Everything from inflation to labor shortages to supply chain backlogs are making weddings more expensive.

Wedding vendors are getting more inquiries than they can handle. One planner says she gets dozens of couples begging to book her every week. Meanwhile, she's dealing with a confetti vendor that went out of business and go-to venues that have closed. It's a lot harder to get the flowers and wine her clients want.

Yeah, you've got wedding singers booking three events a day, venues hosting receptions every single day of the week. Some people are so eager to lock in the place that they're booking before there's even a proposal.

And dress shortages mean brides have to get creative. Around 80% of wedding dresses come from China, where COVID lockdowns have meant work is not getting done and deliveries are delayed. Because of all this, some brides are borrowing dresses from their mothers and grandmothers. And tailors, they're busy making alterations to these old dresses to make them look more contemporary.

All of these factors taken together are driving prices way up. The average wedding cost rose by 25% in 2021 to $27,000. Planners say that number is gonna continue to climb with demand and inflation both running high. One wedding planner warns couples to budget around 30% more than they normally would've.

Some couples are trying to save where they can, switching from imported foods and flowers to local goods. One couple balked at a photographer's thousand-dollar price hike, so get this: the groom convinced his ex-girlfriend to take pictures instead. Most couples tell the "Post" they're just trying to go with the flow. They've had enough waiting. It's time to finally celebrate and move forward.

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We'll talk with you again tomorrow.