THE RUSSIA HOUSE: Russian authorities have not yet turned over the body of dissident Alexei Navalny to his family nor given the cause of his death. If they do not allow an independent autopsy, or even turn over the body, it’s as good as proof that Navalny was murdered on the orders of Vladimir Putin.

  Today Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, indicated that she might step up to continue her husband’s fight against corruption and dictatorship. “I am going to continue the work of Aleksei Navalny and continue to fight for our country,” Navalnaya said. “I call on you to stand beside me, to share not only in the grief and endless pain that has enveloped us and won’t let go. I ask you to share my rage — to share my rage, anger, and hatred of those who have dared to kill our future.”

  Over the weekend, Lynne Tracy, the United States Ambassador to Russia, laid flowers at Moscow’s Solovetsky Stone in memory of Navalny, but such displays are not welcome by the authorities. At another memorial known as the “Wall of Grief,” which remembers Soviet-era repression, authorities erected barriers to deter mourners.

  Unidentified men around Russian cities have been seen collecting and throwing away the flowers left at spontaneous memorials in mourning for Navalny. As many as 400 people have been detained for public displays of protest or even just appearing at the memorial sites. 

ORANGE ALERT: Demonstrating how shocked he is by the $355 million fraud penalty levied on him in New York last Friday, Donald Trump went on another rambling rant Saturday night in Michigan, whining about the “weaponization of this horrible legal system,” the “crooked judge,” and a “lawless and unconstitutional atrocity that sets fire to our laws like no one has ever seen in this country before.” 

THE WAR ROOM: The US ambassador to the United Nations said this country will not support an upcoming Security Council resolution that will call for an immediate cease-fire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, arguing that it could jeopardize talks on the return of hostages held in the territory.

  The US is pressing for a deal that would “bring an immediate and sustained period of calm to Gaza for at least six weeks,” US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said in a statement.

  Talks about a ceasefire continue at the same time Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is resisting pressure from the United States and other governments to call off a planned ground invasion of the city of Rafah in southern Gaza, where more than one million people have taken refuge after being displaced from the north.

  In Gaza itself, one of the last functioning hospitals is no longer capable of taking care of dozens of patients amid a continuing incursion into the premises by the Israeli military, according to the World Health Organization.

  “Nasser hospital in #Gaza is not functional anymore, after a weeklong siege followed by the ongoing raid,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the head of the World Health Organization, on social media. “The cost of delays will be paid by patients’ lives. Access to the patients and hospital should be facilitated.”

SPEED: High-altitude winds over the Mid-Atlantic THAT peaked at about 265 mph sped up air traffic on Saturday night, causing at least two passenger jets to hit supersonic speeds topping 800 mph. Of course they arrived early, but there was no report on whether the baggage made it.

THE OBIT PAGE: Charles V. Hamilton, a moving force in the Black Power movement of the 1960s who wrote and spoke about the “institutional racism” of the US, died on November 18th in Chicago, it was only recently announced. He was 94.

  Together with Stokely Carmichael, a leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, Hamilton upset the more staid multiracial anti-discrimination crusade that was spreading from the South to Northern cities by publishing the manifesto “Black Power: The Politics of Liberation.” Their conclusion that racism was embedded in the nation’s institutions further stiffened the resistance of some white people to the elimination by government edict of discrimination in housing, jobs, public accommodations, and education.

THE SPIN RACK: Two police officers and a firefighter paramedic were shot and killed yesterday in a suburban Minneapolis incident involving a man who had barricaded himself in his home with family, including seven children. A third police officer was wounded and the suspect in the shooting also died. — The Navy says it destroyed an unmanned underwater vessel in the Red Sea that had been deployed by Houthi rebels. In plain language, it seems to have been an underwater drone. — Another atmospheric river has formed across the West Coast and nearly the entire population of California remains under flood and mudslide alerts. 

BELOW THE FOLD: Donald Trump revealed his branded $399 sneakers at Sneaker Con in Philadelphia on Saturday. His shoes are gold high-tops with an American flag motif at the ankle. The website that sells the limited-edition sneakers describes them as “Bold, gold, and tough, just like President Trump.”

  Hmm. Real gold or fake?

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