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Italian tour bus plunges off highway bridge and into a ravine killing at least 37 people
• ROME (AP) -- Rescuers wielding electric saws cut through the twisted wreckage of an Italian tour bus for survivors of a crash in southern Italy that killed at least 37 people after it crashed into traffic and plunged into a ravine on Sunday night.
• Reports said as many as 49 people -- mostly Italians -- had been aboard the bus when it ripped through a guardrail, then plunged some 30 meters (100 feet) off a viaduct near a wooded area. In its plunge, the bus tore away whole sections of concrete barriers as well as guardrail. The concrete lay in large chunks in a clearing in a wooded area where the bus landed. State radio quoted Avellino police as saying the bus driver was among the dead.
• The bus lost control near the town of Monteforte Irpino in Irpinia, a largely agricultural area about 40 miles (60 kilometers) inland from Naples and about 250 kilometers (160 miles) south of Rome.
• The radio report said 11 people were hospitalized with injuries, two of them in critical condition. It was not immediately known if there were other survivors or any missing.
• Flashing signs near Avellino, outside Naples, had warned of slowed traffic ahead along a stretch of a major highway crossing southern Italy, before the crash occurred, said highway police and officials, speaking on state radio early Monday.
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New Zealand government says no evidence of unlawful spying on journalist in Afghanistan
• WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) -- New Zealand said Monday there is no evidence that either the U.S. or the New Zealand military spied on a journalist in Afghanistan who was freelancing for American news organization McClatchy.
• But Prime Minister John Key said it's theoretically possible that reporters could get caught in surveillance nets when the U.S. spies on enemy combatants.
• The comments came in response to a report in the Sunday Star-Times newspaper that the New Zealand military, assisted by U.S. spy agencies, collected phone metadata to monitor journalist Jon Stephenson, a New Zealander. The story by journalist Nicky Hager said the military became unhappy at Stephenson's reporting on how it treated Afghan prisoners.
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