Good morning. We’re covering uncertain election results in Kenya and a possible prisoner swap between Russia and the U.S. |
 | | Supporters of William Ruto celebrated yesterday, despite uncertainty.Simon Maina/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images |
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Ruto gained 50.5 percent of the vote, narrowly defeating Raila Odinga, a former prime minister, said a top official. That percentage is enough to avert a runoff vote, but a majority of election commissioners refused to verify the results. Here are live updates. |
An official, speaking on behalf of four of the seven electors, said the panel could not take ownership of the results because of the “opaque nature” of the election’s handling. Kenyan law allows for an election result to be challenged within one week — a prospect that many observers viewed as a near certainty. |
 | | “He is very thin in the photo,” Darya Shepets, 19, said of her detained brother, pictured.Mauricio Lima for The New York Times |
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Ukrainians share detention stories |
Hundreds of Ukrainian civilians, mainly men, have gone missing in the five months of the war in Ukraine. |
They have been detained by Russian troops or their proxies and held with little food in basements, police stations and filtration camps in Russian-controlled areas of Ukraine. Many said they had suffered beatings and sometimes electrical shocks, though Russia has denied torturing or killing Ukrainian civilians. The U.N. says hundreds have disappeared into Russian jails. |
One 37-year-old auto mechanic, Vasiliy, was seized by Russian soldiers when he was walking in his home village with his wife and a neighbor. That was the beginning of six weeks of “hell,” he said. |
Shunted from one place of detention to another, he was beaten and repeatedly subjected to electrical shocks under interrogation, with little understanding of where he was or why he was being held. “It was shaming, maddening, but I came out alive,” he said. “It could have been worse. Some people were shot.” |
Prisoners: Brittney Griner, the U.S. basketball star, appealed her conviction. A senior Russian diplomat spoke of a possible prisoner swap. |
Economy: Ukrainian factories are moving west, away from Russian bombs, causing a land rush. |
 | | Aung San Suu Kyi was forced from power and placed under house arrest in February 2021, after the military took control. Aung Shine Oo/Associated Press |
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Aung San Suu Kyi faces 17 years |
The verdict adds six years to the ousted civilian leader’s imprisonment — she is already serving 11 years on half a dozen counts — for a total of 17 years. Still ahead are trials on nine more charges with a potential maximum sentence of 122 years. At 77, the Nobel Peace laureate and onetime democracy icon has spent 17 of the past 33 years in detention, mainly under house arrest. |
Yesterday’s charges centered on land and construction deals related to an organization she ran until her arrest. Defenders say they are trumped up to silence her. In recent weeks, a Japanese journalist and two well-known models have also been detained. |
Conditions: Aung San Suu Kyi is kept by herself in a cell measuring about 200 square feet (about 18 square meters). Daytime temperatures can surpass 100 degrees Fahrenheit (about 38 Celsius), but there is no air conditioning. |
Context: An estimated 12,000 people are in detention for opposing military rule. Many have been tortured or sentenced in brief trials without lawyers. Last month, the junta hanged four pro-democracy activists. It has promised more executions. |
 | | China recently deployed its largest-ever military exercises to intimidate Taiwan and its supporters.Aly Song/Reuters |
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- Anthony Albanese, Australia’s prime minister, said he would investigate reports that his predecessor, Scott Morrison, secretly held three ministerial roles, the BBC reports.
- The government of the Solomon Islands is seeking to delay its national elections from May 2023 to the end of December that year, The Guardian reports.
- Australia found a red panda that had escaped from the Adelaide Zoo, The A.P. reports.
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 | | Illustration by The New York Times |
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Worker productivity tools, once common in lower-paying jobs, are spreading to more white-collar roles. |
India became independent from Britain 75 years ago yesterday. But trouble was already afoot. Britain had haphazardly left the subcontinent after nearly three centuries of colonial rule and had divided the land into Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan. |
The bloody partition caused one of the biggest migrations in history, as once-mixed communities rushed in opposite directions to new homelands. As many as 20 million people fled communal violence. Up to two million people were killed. |
Now, 75 years later, nationalist fervor and mutual suspicion have hardened into rigid divisions. Despite a vast shared heritage, India and Pakistan remain estranged, their guns fixed on each other and diplomatic ties all but nonexistent. |
 | | David Malosh for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Rebecca Jurkevich. |
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Stephen Hiltner, a Times journalist, lived in Budapest as a child. He just spent three months relearning Hungary’s defiant capital. |
That’s it for today’s briefing. See you next time. — Amelia |
The latest episode of “The Daily” is about a U.S. tax loophole. |
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