Israelis shoot 24 Palestinians during Gaza border clashes
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Israeli gunfire on Saturday wounded 24 Palestinians, including a 13-year-old boy who was shot in the head, health officials said. An Israeli policeman was critically wounded by Palestinian gunfire during the clashes along Gaza’s border with Israel.
The violence erupted after hundreds of Palestinians took part in a demonstration Saturday organized by Gaza’s Hamas rulers to draw attention to a stifling Israeli blockade of the territory. The demonstration grew violent after dozens of people approached the fortified border fence and threw rocks and explosives toward Israeli soldiers from behind a black smoke screen spewing from burning tires.
The Israeli military said that hundreds of demonstrators approached one area of the fence in northern Gaza and attempted to climb over while throwing explosives at troops. It said that troops fired tear gas and live rounds toward the protesters.
It also said a member of the paramilitary border police was hospitalized in grave condition after being shot. Amateur video from the Palestinian side showed a protester running up to the concrete barrier and firing a pistol into a hole used by an Israeli sniper.
In Gaza, the Hamas-run Health Ministry said 24 Palestinians were wounded by Israeli fire. Two of them, including the 13-year-old boy, were in critical condition.
The violent confrontations were reminiscent of the weekly border demonstrations organized by Gaza’s Hamas rulers in 2018 and 2019 to draw attention to Israel’s stifling blockade over the tiny seaside territory. Israel and Hamas are bitter enemies that have fought four wars and countless skirmishes since the Islamic militant group seized control of Gaza in 2007, a year after winning a Palestinian election. The most recent war, in May, ended in an inconclusive cease-fire after 11 days of fighting.
8 killed as hurricane hits Mexico:
Hurricane Grace swept onto Mexico’s Gulf coast as a major Category 3 storm and moved inland Saturday, drenching coastal and inland areas in its second landfall in the country in two days. At least eight people died, authorities said.
The storm had lost power while crossing over the Yucatan Peninsula on Thursday, swirling through Mexico’s main tourist strip, but it rapidly drew strength from the relatively warm Gulf of Mexico before reaching the Mexican coast again late Friday.
At least eight people, including children, died and three were missing after mudslides and flooding, said Cuitláhuac García, governor of Mexico’s Veracruz state. García said 330,000 people lost power in the storm but it was gradually being restored.
China allows 3rd child:
China will now allow couples to legally have a third child as it seeks to hold off a demographic crisis that could threaten its hopes of increased prosperity and global influence.
The ceremonial legislature on Friday amended the Population and Family Planning Law as part of a decades-long effort by the ruling Communist Party to dictate the size of families in keeping with political directives. It comes just six years
after the last change.
From the 1980s, China strictly limited most couples to one child, a policy enforced with threats of fines or loss of jobs, leading to abuses including forced abortions. A preference for sons led parents to kill baby girls, leading to a massive imbalance in the sex ratio.
The rules were eased for the first time in 2015 to allow two children as officials acknowledged the looming consequences of the plummeting birthrate. The overwhelming fear is that China will grow old before it becomes wealthy.
Ky. governor’s COVID19 powers curbed:
The Kentucky governor’s efforts to aggressively combat COVID-19 suffered a legal defeat Saturday as the state’s high court cleared the way for new laws to rein in his emergency powers.
In a landmark separation-of-powers case, the Kentucky Supreme Court said the legislature wields
policymaking authority to limit the emergency powers granted to the governor by state law.
The ruling ordered a lower court to dissolve an injunction that for months had blocked the Republican-backed laws from curbing Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear’s executive authority.
The order could dramatically alter the state’s response to the pandemic at a time when virus cases and hospitalizations have surged because of the highly contagious delta variant. The Supreme Court order will dissolve Kentucky’s pandemic-related state of emergency, Beshear spokesperson Crystal Staley said Saturday. The next step is to determine whether lawmakers are willing to extend the state of emergency in a potential special session, she said.
A California law that ensures many gig workers are
Calif. gig workers law:
considered independent contractors, while affording them some limited benefits, is unconstitutional and unenforceable, a California Superior Court judge ruled Friday evening.
The decision is not likely to immediately affect the new law and is certain to face appeals from Uber and other so-called gig economy companies. It reopened the debate about whether drivers for ride-hailing services and delivery couriers are employees who deserve full benefits, or independent contractors who are responsible for their own businesses and benefits.
Last year’s Proposition 22, a ballot initiative backed by Uber, Lyft, DoorDash and other gig economy platforms carved out a third classification for workers, granting gig workers limited benefits while preventing them from being considered employees of the tech giants. The initiative was approved in November with more than 58% of the vote.
But drivers and the Service Employees International Union filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the law. The group argued that Prop. 22 was unconstitutional because it limited the State Legislature’s ability to allow workers to organize and have access to workers’ compensation.
Russian journalists detained: Russian police on Saturday detained several journalists who protested authorities’ decision to label a top independent TV channel as a “foreign agent.”
The journalists held individual pickets outside the main headquarters of the country’s top domestic security agency, the FSB, on Moscow’s Lubyanka Square.
They were protesting the Justice Ministry’s move Friday to add the Dozhd (Rain) TV channel and the online investigative outlet Vazhnye Istorii (Important Stories) to the list of “foreign agents.”