U.S. contractor killed in Iraq rocket attack

A U.S. defense contractor was killed and several American and Iraqi troops were wounded Friday in a rocket attack in northern Iraq, U.S. officials said.

According to officials, the attack involved as many as 30 rockets fired at the Iraqi military compound near Kirkuk, where U.S. service members are also based.

Officials did not provide the exact number of troops wounded in the attack or the severity of the injuries.

Such attacks have taken place on several occasions over the past few months, with U.S. officials for the most part blaming Iranbacked fighters.

Oil refineries blocked amid France strike

French union activists disrupted two of the country’s eight oil refineries Friday as part of nationwide strikes against a higher retirement age that have lasted for 23 days, the longest such walkout in France in decades.

The action, at more than three weeks, is longer than a 1995 transport workers strike that looms large in the nation’s modern history.

President Emmanuel Macron appears determined to push through the retirement overhaul and raise the official pension eligibility age to 64.

The most determined unions are keeping up the pressure. Protests caused disruptions at oil refineries Friday in a region southeast of Paris and in the region that includes the major Mediterranean port of Marseille. France’s interior minister insisted the disruptions would not cause gasoline shortages.