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Save this story for later. At the Hennepin County Government Center on Tuesday afternoon, Judge Peter Cahill opened a yellow envelope and read out the verdict against Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer who, last May, kneeled on the neck of George Floyd for nine minutes and twenty-nine seconds, killing Floyd and igniting a nationwide uprising against police abuse and systemic racism. Chauvin wore a pale-blue face mask. His eyes darted from side to side. The verdict was guilty on charges of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter...

Save this story for later. Alexey Navalny, the Russian opposition politician, has been in prison for almost two months and on hunger strike for two weeks. His lawyers’ regular updates chronicle his steady physical decline. After visiting Navalny in prison on Monday, the attorney Olga Mikhailova said that he had lost fifteen kilograms (thirty-three pounds). He is losing sensation in his hands; he has already lost partial use of his legs. He is coughing and running a fever. Navalny continues to refuse food and other nutrients until his demand to be seen by a medical specialist of his choice�...

Save this story for later. The Russian state is making a slow spectacle of crushing Alexey Navalny and his organization. The opposition politician is in prison, serving a two-and-a-half-year sentence for “violating his parole” while he recovered from a near-fatal poisoning attack by his own government. Last week, Navalny’s lawyers and his wife, Yulia, said that he has developed health problems for which prison authorities are denying adequate treatment. He is also facing torture by sleep deprivation. (The prison service has denied mistreating Navalny.) On Wednesday, Navalny declared a h...

For the second time in a week, the President has failed to confront the murderous act of an authoritarian regime.

Save this story for later. Andrei Konchalovsky’s “Dear Comrades!,” Russia’s entry this year for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film (streaming on Hulu), opens with the chords of the Russian national anthem. The director was five or six years old when his father, Sergei Mikhalkov, first co-wrote the lyrics for the anthem, which included praise for Lenin and Stalin. Decades later, Mikhalkov rewrote the lyrics to remove Stalin, and, in 2000, immediately after Vladimir Putin became President, Mikhalkov, then in his eighties, rewrote the lyrics yet again, omit...