The Guardian reports: The Obama administration has agreed to pay €1m to the family of an Italian aid worker who was killed in a US drone strike in 2015.

Giovanni Lo Porto, 37, was being held hostage by al-Qaida at the time of his death and his family had been led to believe a month before the strike that he was close to being released.

Last year, the US president, Barack Obama, acknowledged that Lo Porto and an American named Warren Weinstein, 73, had accidentally been killed in a secret counter-terrorism mission.

The payment was confirmed by the US embassy in Rome and Lo Porto’s brother, Daniele. Details of the agreement were first reported by the Italian newspaper La Repubblica.

A spokesman for the US embassy in Rome said the government had confirmed at the time the deaths were announced that it would be providing a condolence payment to both families. [Continue reading…]