Putin opponent loses complaint about prison confinement

MOSCOW (AP) — Russia’s most prominent opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, lost another court battle in his effort to push back against the Kremlin’s widening crackdown on him and other dissenters. Russian news agencies reported Wednesday that a court rejected the latest in a series of lawsuits that Navalny has brought against prison authorities regarding his confinement. The 46-year-old politician and activist is serving a nine-year sentence in a maximum security prison 155 miles east of Moscow. Video of a hearing showed Navalny addressing the court remotely from a small room in the prison, standing, gesturing with his hands and speaking in an animated tone to protest authorities’ decision to put him in a punishment cell, in solitary confinement.