Russian opposition leader Navalny freed from jail
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny walked free Thursday after spending 30 days in custody for staging an unsanctioned protest.
Soon after his release Thursday, Navalny said in an Instagram post that the jail where he was held had received a massive face-lift ahead of the World Cup, apparently in anticipation of arresting rowdy foreign fans.
Later, in a later live broadcast on Youtube, he apologized to the “great number of mass media that reported the claim.”
“All of it, from the first word to the last, was a fabrication,” he said, laughing.
LONDON — In the shadow of London’s Grenfell Tower, the pain is as fresh as the newly laid flowers for the dead.
One year ago, the residential highrise was destroyed by a fire that killed 72 people. It was the greatest loss of life in a fire on British soil since World War II, a horror that left the neighborhood and the country in shock.
On Thursday, survivors, bereaved families and people around Britain marked the anniversary of a local tragedy that’s also a national shame — one for which blame still is being assigned and traded. Was Grenfell a tragic accident, the product of government cost-cutting and lax safety standards, or authorities’ disregard for people who lived in public housing?
“I don’t see this as a tragedy. I see it as an atrocity,” Hissam Choucair, who lost six members of his family in the fire, told a public inquiry last month.
In the west London neighborhood around Grenfell the victims were remembered at vigils and church services, before a silent march and an evening meal hosted by local Muslims. Relatives of the dead laid flowers by a memorial wall near the base of the tower, joined by survivors, London Mayor Sadiq Khan and music stars Adele, Stormzy and Marcus Mumford.
The tower and other London buildings were lit up overnight in green, which has been adopted as a color of remembrance. At noon, Queen Elizabeth II, wearing green,