Russia detains more than 800 people in opposition crackdown

Russian police arrested more than 800 people in Moscow on Saturday. That is one of the biggest crackdowns of recent times against an increasingly defiant opposition decrying President Vladimir Putin's tight grip on power. The detentions came before and after a protest to demand that opposition members be allowed to run in a local election.

Authorities had declared it illegal and sought to block participation, but several thousand people turned up anyway in one of the longest and most determined protests of recent years. Jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny had called for Saturday's protest to persuade officials to allow opposition-minded candidates to run in a Sept. 8 vote. Authorities say they were barred because they failed to collect sufficient genuine signatures in their support.