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  Three doses of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine offer strong protection for children younger than 5, the company announced Monday. Pfizer plans to give the data to U.S. regulators later this week in a step toward letting the littlest kids get the shots. The news comes after months of anxious waiting by parents desperate to vaccinate their babies, toddlers and preschoolers, especially as COVID-19 cases once again are rising. The 18 million children under 5 are the only group in the U.S. not yet eligible for COVID-19 vaccination. The Food and Drug Administration has begun evaluating data from rival Moderna, which hopes to begin offering two kid-sized shots by summer. Pfizer has had a bumpier time figuring out its approach. It aims to give young children an even lower dose — just one-tenth of the amount adults receive — but discovered during its trial that two shots didn’t seem quite strong enough for preschoolers. So researchers gave a third shot to more than 1,600 youngsters — from 6 months

  Three months after the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, judges in Kyiv on Monday handed down the first guilty verdict for a Russian soldier tried for war crimes. Sgt. Vadim Shishimarin, 21, was convicted of shooting a 62-year-old civilian, Oleksandr Shelipov, in the northern region of Sumy in the first days of the war. Shishimarin, who had pleaded guilty at the start of the trial last week, was sentenced to life in prison. Judge Serhiy Ahafonov pronounced Shishimarin guilty of violating the laws and customs of war and of committing premeditated murder. The verdict can be appealed. “The defendant admitted his guilt in part, arguing that he had no intention of killing Mr. Shelipov,” Ahafonov said. “The court cannot recognize the sincerity of repentance.” The defendant sat in a glass cage, wearing the same blue-and-gray hoodie he has worn for every trial appearance, his head bowed as an interpreter whispered to him in Russian through an opening in the glass. After t