Report: Montenegro seeks ex-CIA agent in failed coup

Montenegro on Thursday issued an international arrest warrant for a former CIA agent for alleged involvement in what the government said was a failed pro-Russia coup designed to prevent the Balkan country’s NATO membership.

Montenegro’s state TV said that prosecutors want the extradition of Joseph Assad, a U.S. citizen born and raised in Egypt, on charges of participating in a criminal enterprise led by two Russian military spy agency officers.

The Russians and 12 others, mostly Serbs, are on trial in Montenegro over the alleged election day plot in 2016 that included plans to assassinate then-Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic, storming parliament and taking over power.

France: 1,600 evacuated as floods threaten camp sites

Hundreds of rescuers backed by helicopters evacuated about 1,600 people, most of them campers, in three regions of southern France where heavy rain caused flash flooding and transformed rivers and streams into torrents, the interior minister said Thursday.

Hardest hit was the Gard region, where 119 children, many of them from Germany, were evacuated from their campsite at Saint-Julien-de-Peyrolas, Interior Minister Gerard Collomb said in a statement.

About 750 people in all were evacuated in Gard, mainly from campsites, a top district official, Thierry Dousset, told France’s BFM-TV news channel.

Inquiry: Monks hid abuse to protect church reputation

A British inquiry concluded Thursday that sexual abuse at two leading Roman Catholic schools in England was considerably higher than is reflected by conviction figures, with monks hiding allegations to protect the church’s reputation.

The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse issued a scathing report saying that monks at Ampleforth in northern England and Downside in the southwest hid allegations of “appalling sexual abuse” against pupils as young as 7. Ten people linked to the schools have been cautioned over or convicted of sexual activity or pornography offenses involving a “large number of children.”

Yemen rebels say Saudi coalition airstrike kills 50

An airstrike by the Saudi-led coalition fighting Shiite rebels hit a bus driving in a busy market in northern Yemen on Thursday, killing least 50 people including children and wounding 77, Yemen’s rebel-run Al Masirah TV said citing rebel Health Ministry figures.

The Saudi-led coalition, meanwhile, said it targeted the rebels, known as Houthis, who had fired a missile at the kingdom’s south on Wednesday, killing one person who was a Yemeni resident in the area.

Al Masirah TV aired dramatic images of wounded children, their clothes and schoolbags covered with blood as they lay on hospital stretchers.

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS