US drone strike kills 4 IS militants
AP, Kabul
An Afghan official says a U.S. drone strike has killed four Islamic State militants, including a senior commander.
Waheedullah Kalimzai, the governor of the eastern Kunar province, said the strike on Monday killed Hazrat Gul and three other fighters in a mountainous area controlled by the militants. He said authorities learned of the deaths from intelligence reports.
Italian police launch anti-mafia sweep
AFP, Rome
Italy on Tuesday launched a crackdown on organised crime in the south of the country, deploying more than a thousand police in a hunt for members of the ‘Ndrangheta mafia, local media said.
Helicopters, sniffer dogs and teams specialising in detecting bunkers and other hideaways joined the operation, they said.
It targeted 116 individuals from 24 crime families, sought for criminal association, extortion, fraud, illegal possession of arms and other offences.
Thousands of chickens block Austrian
motorway
AFP, Vienna
Emergency workers in Austria had an egg-stremely unusual operation on Tuesday removing an estimated 7,000 chickens which were blocking a busy motorway.
The birds’ unexpected break for freedom came after the lorry transporting them lost its load on the A1 autobahn near Linz in the north of the country.
Trump, Merkel plan to meet Thursday
AFP, Berlin
US President Donald Trump and German Chancellor Angela Merkel plan to meet in Hamburg on Thursday, the eve of a Group of 20 summit, Merkel’s spokesman said.
“Indeed a meeting with the US president is planned before the G20 summit, most probably in the early evening of Thursday,” Merkel’s spokesman Steffen Seibert said at a press briefing on Monday.
