NEWS OF THE DAY

From Around the World

1 Lebanon unrest: Protesters dug in behind roadblocks they had set up in and outside the capital of Beirut on Saturday as security forces struggled to drag them out of the way. The campaign of civil disobedience was aimed at reinforcing their calls for the government to step down as nationwide protests entered their 10th day. The demonstrations were sparked by proposals for new taxes that came on the heels of recently passed austerity measures. The protests escalated into a call for the overthrow of the postcivil war political system, seen by many as corrupt and incompetent. The protests have paralyzed the country, which is already grappling with a severe fiscal crisis. Banks, universities and schools have been closed since last week.

2 Hong Kong protests: Authorities won a temporary court order banning anyone from posting personal details or photos of police officers online, in their latest effort to clamp down on the city’s protest movement. The government said Saturday that the High Court granted the Department of Justice’s request for the interim injunction to “restrain doxing and harassment of police officers and their families.” At a rally Saturday night, some protesters jeered and cursed several police officers observing from a footbridge. Medical workers organized the event to oppose what they called “violent repression” by police in response to protesters. The protests erupted in June over an extradition bill and snowballed into wider calls for full democracy and an inquiry into alleged police brutality. Police have responded with tear gas, pepper spray and water cannons. On a few occasions they have also fired live rounds from their pistols, wounding a teenager in the chest.

3 Russian agent: The woman convicted of being a covert Russian agent returned to her homeland Saturday, deported by the United States after serving a prison sentence. Maria Butina, a gun rights activist who sought to infiltrate conservative U.S. political groups and promote Russia’s agenda around the time that Donald Trump rose to power, was released Friday from a lowsecurity facility in Florida. She had been in custody since her arrest in July 2018. In brief comments to journalists at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport after arriving on a flight from Miami, Butina thanked her supporters. The former American University graduate student pleaded guilty last December to conspiring to act as an unregistered agent for Russia.

4 Bodies found: Volunteer searchers have found 12 skeletons and one decomposed body in a shallow pit near the Mexican resort of Puerto Penasco. The bodies were found by a group of women known as the Searchers of Puerto Penasco. The group is made up of relatives of missing people who investigate reports of clandestine burial sites. Such volunteer groups have been responsible for discovering mass graves and burial pits in many parts of Mexico. Drug and kidnapping gangs use such pits to dispose of the bodies of victims or rivals. Puerto Penasco has been known for Sinaloa drug cartel activity.

5 Vatican conference: Catholic bishops from across the Amazon have called for the ordination of married men as priests to address the clergy shortage in the region, in an historic proposal that would upend centuries of Roman Catholic tradition. The majority of 180 bishops from nine Amazonian countries also called Saturday for the Vatican to reopen a debate on ordaining women as deacons. The proposals were contained in a final document approved Saturday at the end of a threeweek synod on the Amazon, which Pope Francis called in 2017 to focus attention on saving the rain forest and better ministering to its indigenous people. Some conservatives and traditionalists have warned that any papal opening to married priests or women deacons would lead the church to ruin.