Author: Reporter

World leaders and Russian opposition activists wasted no time on February 16 in blaming the reported death of imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny on Russian dictator Vladimir Putin and his authoritarian government. Alexei Navalny, who crusaded against official corruption and staged massive anti-Kremlin protests as Putin’s fiercest foe, died in the Arctic penal colony where he was serving a 19-year sentence, Russia’s prison agency said. He was 47. “It is obvious that he was killed by Putin,” said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who was visiting Germany for the Munich Security Conference as he sought aid for his country’s efforts...

The attacks range from the exotic, poisoned by drinking polonium-laced tea or touching a deadly nerve agent, to the more mundane of getting shot at close range. Some take a fatal plunge from an open window. Over the years, Kremlin political critics, turncoat spies, and investigative journalists have been killed or assaulted in a variety of ways. On February 16, Russian authorities said President Vladimir Putin’s key political challenger, Alexei Navalny, died in an Arctic prison colony. The details of what happened are unknown; Navalny’s team says it has no official confirmation of his death and Russian authorities say...

As Goodhue Police Chief Josh Smith struggled this summer to fill vacancies in his small department, he warned the town’s City Council that unless pay and benefits improved, finding new officers would never happen. When nothing changed, Smith quit. So did his few remaining officers, leading the Minnesota town of 1,300 residents to shutter its police force in late August. America is in the midst of a police officer shortage that many in law enforcement blame on the two-fold morale hit of 2020 — the coronavirus pandemic and criticism of police that boiled over with the murder of George...