Free Republic

KABUL, Afghanistan, June 5 — The Afghan Defense Ministry said Tuesday that a boat full of fleeing Taliban fighters had been fired upon by NATO helicopters and sunk in the Helmand River, in southern Afghanistan. All on board, between 20 and 30 guerrillas, drowned, said Gen. Zaher Azimi, a ministry spokesman. It was the second sinking on the river reported in recent days. Another boat, carrying about 60 people, sank Saturday in the same area, although there were conflicting reports as to whether those aboard had been civilians or Taliban fighters. General Azimi said that in Tuesday’s episode, NATO helicopters...

Officials in Venice — as well as the handful of actual Italians still living in the lagoon city — have declared themselves fed up with a certain category of tourist: the pot-bellied, bare-chested, food-chomping, trash-spewing hordes that peak from now until autumn. To combat what they see as a scourge, Venice authorities are distributing leaflets and posting posters with a new set of rules. In St. Mark's Square, it is now forbidden to sit or recline under the porticos and on the steps along the Procuratie Nuove and the Ala Napoleonica, the buildings that ring the city's iconic St. Mark's...