Hello, Australia! – The Kurds are poised to hand Islamic State a major tactical defeat – A US airstrike purportedly takes out a big terrorist – Two kids are mauled by a shark or sharks within 30 minutes of each other – And more in your CareerSpot World News Briefs:

Kurdish fighters are reportedly closing in on a town along Syria’s border with Turkey that has been under the control of Islamic State.  They’ve got the roads and supply lines cut to Tal Abyad, which IS has used as the main port from which it smuggles oil into Turkey to move on the black market.  But now, it is refugees – about 13,500 of them from Tal Abyar and surrounding villages – that are pouring into Turkey at that point, with more massing at the border to escape the fighting.

A US airstrike has reportedly killed Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a notorious Algerian militant who has fought for jihadist causes since the 1980s.  The government of Libya says Belmokhtar was with other terrorists in the eastern Libyan city of Ajdabiya when the US aircraft struck.  Belmokhtar fought the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, and two years ago led an attack on a gas plant in Algeria, taking 800 people hostage and killing some 40 foreigners.

Did you check out the CareerSpot AM News Briefs?  We have links to the best video clips of zoo animals on the loose in Tbilisi, Georgia after a flood swept through the city’s zoo.  More than 20 people were killed.

France has asked garden centers to stop selling Monsanto’s Round-Up weedkiller, which a growing body of research indicates causes cancer.  Environment and Energy Minister Segolene Royal did not specify any enforcement measures, but did say that, “France must be offensive on stopping pesticides.”  The World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer said in March that Roundup’s key ingredient glyphosate “probably carcinogenic to humans”.

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi is suggesting retaliation if European Union nations don’t share the burden of taking care of Middle Eastern and African immigrants who’ve been coming across the Mediterranean by the thousands.  Renzi wants the EU to approved his his plan to send split up the multitudes and relocate them to other EU members while their asylum pleas are decided.  Italy also wants the EU’s help repatriating migrants who don’t qualify for asylum.  Renzi didn’t specify what would happen, but he said that the EU would be dealing with “a different Italy” if his plan was rejected. 

Ummm.. that is totally not how you’re supposed to throw a Frisbee.

Two teens lost their left arms in separate shark attacks at a single beach at Oak Island, North Carolina, on the US East Coast.  Both occurred within 30 minutes.  The 16-year old boy’s arm was amputated below the shoulder, while the 13-year old girl’s arm was lost below the elbow and her leg is damaged as well.  It’s not clear if it was the same shark.  Town Manager Tim Holloman said that Oak Island is still safe and the beaches will be open on Monday – because someone has to be the mayor from “Jaws”.  BTW, why wasn’t the beach immediately closed after the first attack?  Why did a second teen have to be mauled?

South Korea reports five new cases of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and one more fatality.  That brings the total number of infection in this outbreak to 150, with 16 dead.  There’s no cure or vaccine for MERS, which is believed to have jumped from camels to humans on the Arabian Peninsula.