Navalny defiant as russian court rejects his bid for freedom Two of three officers at Blake shooting in Wisconsin back on duty.

MOSCOW» A Russian court on Thursday rejected an appeal by opposition leader Alexei Navalny for his release from jail, while authorities detained several of his allies and warned social media companies about promoting more protests after tens of thousands rallied across the country last weekend demanding his freedom.

Appearing in court by video link from jail, Navalny denounced the criminal proceedings against him as part of a government campaign to intimidate the opposition.

“You won’t succeed in scaring tens of millions of people who have been robbed by that government,” he said. “Yes, you have the power now to put me in handcuffs, but it’s not going to last forever.”

The 44-year-old Navalny, the best-known critic of President Vladimir Putin’s government, was arrested Jan. 17 upon returning from Germany, where he spent five months recovering from nerve-agent poisoning that he blames on the Kremlin.

Liquid nitrogen leak at Georgia poultry plant kills six.

GAINESVILLE, GA.» A liquid nitrogen leak at a northeast Georgia poultry plant killed six people Thursday, with others taken to the hospital, officials said.

At least three of those injured at the Foundation Food Group plant in Gainesville were reported in critical condition.

Poultry plants rely on refrigeration systems that can include liquid nitrogen. Sheriff’s deputies, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the state fire marshal were investigating the deaths and the cause of the leak.

When leaked into the air, liquid nitrogen vaporizes into an odorless gas that’s capable of displacing oxygen.

That means leaks in enclosed spaces can become deadly by pushing away breathable air, according to the U.S. Chemical Safety Board.

KENOSHA, WIS.» Two police officers who were on the scene when a white officer shot and partially paralyzed a Black man in Wisconsin, triggering several nights of violent protests, have returned to duty, according to police officials.

The update announced Wednesday comes as Officer Rusten Sheskey, who shot Jacob Blake seven times on Aug. 23 in Kenosha, remains on administrative leave while a police review board examines the case.

Sheskey was placed on administrative leave after Blake’s shooting along with Officers Vincent Arenas and Brittany Meronek. Arenas and Meronek returned to duty Jan. 20, according to a police statement issued Wednesday.

German neo-Nazi sentenced to life for murder of Merkel ally.

BERLIN» A court in Frankfurt convicted a German neo-Nazi of murdering a local politician and sentenced him to life in prison Thursday for what the prosecutor called the country’s first political assassination by far-right extremists since the end of

World War II.

The court found Stephan

Ernst, 47, guilty of the 2019 murder of Walter Lübcke, a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s center-right party who had defended her welcoming refugee policy. Ernst was sentenced to life with no possibility of parole — the sentence the prosecutor had sought because of the severity of the crime, which he argued was motivated by “racism and xenophobia.”

The assassination marked a turning point in postwar Germany’s reckoning with the extent of the threat posed by domestic neo-Nazis, coming after years of attacks by far-right extremists on migrants or their descendants Over the past year, Germany has been grappling with revelations that far-right networks extensively penetrated its security services, including its elite special forces as well as the ranks of its police.