Palestinians clash with Israel police at Jerusalem holy site

Palestinians clash with Israel police at Jerusalem holy site

JERUSALEM

Palestinians clashed with Israeli security forces near a contested Jerusalem shrine after Muslim worshippers massed outside for evening prayers Thursday as tensions over the holy site escalated further.

Israel police spokeswoman Luba Samri said Palestinians hurled stones and glass bottles at officers after the prayers outside the site, referred to by Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary and by Jews as the Temple Mount.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said it treated at least 22 people for injuries. Police said no officers were injured; they had no information about injured protesters.

The Palestinians were protesting Israel’s placement of metal detectors at the entrance to the holy site after a deadly attack there last week in which three Israeli Arab gunmen killed two Israeli police officers before they were shot and killed at the entrance to the site.

Massive blaze threatens town near Yosemite

MARIPOSA, Calif.

The town of Mariposa, with its century-old saloons and covered streets, normally bustles with summer visitors on their way to Yosemite National Park but Thursday the Gold Rush-era hamlet was mostly empty as ash rained down and heavy smoke from a nearby blaze darkened the sky.

The five-day blaze in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada threatened hundreds of homes and historic buildings, including a wood courthouse founded in 1854 and touted as the oldest active courthouse west of the Rocky Mountains.

93-year-old woman dragged 20 feet during carjacking

DELAND, Fla.

A 93-year-old woman in Florida was dragged 20 feet as she tried to stop two carjackers in a church parking lot.

The Daytona Beach News-Journal reported that Marquita Steinmetz only had cuts and bruises from the Thursday ordeal.

DeLand police say Steinmetz was in the parking lot of a church when 20-year-old Darius Matthews and 21-year-old David Leo Perkins III approached her and pushed her to the ground. Authorities say the men grabbed the keys out of her hand and got into the car.

Steinmetz reached into her car to try to stop them and was dragged 20 feet before she let go.

Police officers pursued the suspects, who were arrested after crashing the car. Matthews and Perkins were being held on carjacking charges.

US says ban on laptops in airplane cabins lifted

DALLAS

The ban on laptops in the cabins of planes flying from the Middle East to the U.S. is over, as federal officials say that large airports in the region have taken other steps to increase security.

Those measures include checking electronic devices to make sure they don’t contain a bomb and pulling more people out of airport lines for additional screening.

A spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security said Thursday that all airlines and airports with flights departing for the U.S. had met the agency’s first phase of new security measures, which were announced in late June but not described in any detail.

In March, the U.S. imposed a ban on laptops in the cabins of planes coming into the country from 10 Middle Eastern airports.

Associated Press