When teens with guns go on a carjacking spree.
MOSCOW — Russian police arrested more than 3,000 people Saturday in nationwide protests demanding the release of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, President Vladimir Putin’s most prominent foe, according to a group that counts political detentions.
The protests in scores of cities in temperatures as low as 58 degrees below zero highlighted how Navalny has built influence far beyond the political and cultural centers of Moscow and St. Petersburg.
In Moscow, an estimated 15,000 demonstrators gathered in and around Pushkin Square in the city center, where clashes with police broke out and demonstrators were roughly dragged off by helmeted riot officers to police buses and detention trucks. Some were beaten with batons.
Navalny’s wife was among those arrested. Police eventually pushed demonstrators out of the square. Some later went to protest near the jail where Navalny is held. Police made an undetermined number of arrests there.
The protests stretched across Russia’s vast territory, from the island city of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk north of Japan and the eastern Siberian city of Yakutsk to Russia’s more populous European cities.
“The situation is getting worse and worse; it’s total lawlessness,” said Andrei Gorkyov, a protester in Moscow. “And if we stay silent, it will go on forever.”
Navalny was arrested Jan. 17 when he returned to Moscow from Germany, where he had spent five months recovering from a severe nerve-agent poisoning that he blames on the Kremlin and which Russia denies.
Judge: Kenosha shooter can’t associate with supremacists
An 18-year-old Illinois teen charged with fatally shooting two people during a protest in southeastern Wisconsin last year is prohibited from associating with known white supremacists under a judge’s recently modified bail conditions.
Kyle Rittenhouse was 17 during the Aug. 25 demonstration in Kenosha, Wisconsin, as hundreds were protesting the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man. Prosecutors had requested the modifications after Rittenhouse allegedly posed for a photo outside a Wisconsin bar with two men as they made the “OK” sign with their hands, a symbol used by white supremacists.
Michigan Mega Millions ticket wins $1.05 billion jackpot
DETROIT — Someone in Michigan bought the winning ticket for the
$1.05 billion Mega Millions jackpot, which is the third-largest lottery prize in U.S. history. The winning numbers for Friday night’s drawing were 4, 26, 42, 50 and 60, with a Mega Ball of 24. The winning ticket was purchased at a Kroger store in the Detroit suburb of Novi, the Michigan Lottery said.