Prosecutors in the northern city of Forlì are investigating a 27-year-old man, currently suspended from the Italian Red Cross
Prosecutors in the northern Italian city of Forlì are investigating an ambulance driver on suspicion of murdering five elderly patients.
All the suspicious deaths occurred while or soon after the patients were transported in an ambulance driven by the 27-year-old man, lawyers of the victims told the Guardian.
Continue reading...Cosa Nostra leader, who controlled most of eastern Sicily, dies while serving multiple life sentences for murder
Benedetto “Nitto” Santapaola, a Sicilian mafia boss and one of the most dangerous figures in Italian criminal history, has died aged 87.
Santapaola, who was widely believed to have been the architect of a campaign of bloodshed that scarred Italy in the 1980s and 1990s, died on Monday in a Milan prison where he was serving multiple life sentences. An autopsy has been ordered.
Continue reading...Regional authorities withdraw permit after citing risk of organised crime infiltration linked to a subcontractor
It is one of Europe’s most celebrated shorelines, framed by mountains and 19th-century villas and famed for its Caribbean-blue water and white sand.
But Mondello beach in Palermo, Sicily, has also been mired in controversy, the subject of complaints stretching back a century from residents and tourists who say its private lidos, cabins and deckchairs have left scant room for public access.
Continue reading...Investigation under way after vehicle ploughs into building
A tram derailed and crashed into a building in Milan on Friday, killing two people and injuring 38 others.
One of the dead was hit by the tram as it derailed while the second victim was a passenger, the city’s mayor, Giuseppe Sala, told reporters at the scene.
Continue reading...Designer’s first catwalk for the brand in Milan flirts with bad taste with short, tight dresses and a diamante G-string
Demna is fashion’s dark lord of apocalyptic streetwear. Gucci is the glossy sex kitten of Milan. Put the two together, and what do you get? Sex appeal that flirts with bad taste.
At Demna’s first Gucci catwalk show, staged in Milan on Friday afternoon in front of an audience including Donatella Versace and Paris and Nicky Hilton, dresses were so short and tight that Emily Ratajkowski periodically yanked down a handful of disco-ball sequins to cover her bottom as she walked. There were lapdance-bar tinsel hair extensions, and Kate Moss in a diamante G-string. A certain sketchiness in the roll of the hips, a model who pulled his phone out of his bumbag and scrolled his way down the catwalk.
Continue reading...Landslide in Niscemi in January tore away entire slope of town and carved 4km chasm
Firefighters in Sicily have rescued about 400 rare books from a library in Niscemi that hangs on the edge of a mudflow, after a devastating landslide in January tore away an entire slope of the town and carved a 4km chasm.
The library stands on the lip of the precipice gouged out by the landslide, with part of the building in effect hanging in mid-air. The recovery operation, which began on Monday, was preceded by a detailed study of floor plans and interior photographs to map the position of the books.
Continue reading...Landslide in Niscemi in January tore away entire slope of town and carved 4km chasm
Firefighters in Sicily have rescued about 400 rare books from a library in Niscemi that hangs on the edge of a mudflow, after a devastating landslide in January tore away an entire slope of the town and carved a 4km chasm.
The library stands on the lip of the precipice gouged out by the landslide, with part of the building in effect hanging in mid-air. The recovery operation, which began on Monday, was preceded by a detailed study of floor plans and interior photographs to map the position of the books.
Continue reading...University of Padua employee fractured ankle when getting up to fetch documents during video meeting
An Italian woman who fell and broke her ankle while working from home has obtained compensation in an unprecedented court ruling hailed a victory for workers’ rights.
In April 2022, the woman, an employee in the University of Padua’s law department, fractured her ankle in two places. The injury, which happened during a Zoom meeting where she fell after she got up from her desk to fetch documents, required surgery and treatment lasting more than four months.
Continue reading...Four arrests over Camorra’s alleged infiltration of San Giovanni Bosco to carry out lucrative criminal activity
Italian police on Wednesday arrested four people over an alleged Camorra plot to infiltrate a Naples hospital, stage fake crashes for insurance payouts and spirit corpses away on oxygen-masked stretchers to profit from private ambulance transfers.
The investigation, prompted by the testimony of a state witness, uncovered a web of lucrative criminal activity allegedly carried out by members of the Contini clan of the Camorra, the Neapolitan mafia, inside San Giovanni Bosco hospital. Prosecutors said the “operations were made possible by the organisation’s capacity for intimidation, a force that bent public officials and private citizens alike to its will”.
Continue reading...Deadliest start to a year in more than a decade, according to the International Organization for Migration
A least 606 people trying to reach Europe in search of refugee have been reported dead or missing in the Mediterranean since the beginning of 2026, marking the “deadliest start to a year” in more than a decade, the UN’s migration agency said on Monday.
The figure includes at least 30 people who are feared dead or missing after their boat capsized in severe weather off the coast of Greece on Saturday. Authorities rescued 20 people, including four minors, and recovered the bodies of three men and one woman, the International Organization for Migration (IOM), said.
Continue reading...City of Catania calls ruse to avoid CCTV cameras installed to stop fly-tipping ‘as cunning as it is doubly wrong’
A man in Catania, Sicily, trained his dog to dump bags of rubbish by the roadside in an attempt to evade surveillance cameras installed to combat fly-tipping, municipal police have said.
The episode was detailed in a post on the city of Catania’s official Facebook page. Accompanying a video of the dog was a remark from the police that “inventiveness can never become an alibi for incivility”.
Continue reading...Political tensions rise after fatal attack at protest in Lyon as Emmanuel Macron hits out over remarks by Italian PM
A French prosecutor is seeking murder charges against seven suspects in the fatal beating of a far-right activist that has fuelled political anger beyond France’s borders, prompting Emmanuel Macron to tell Italy’s Giorgia Meloni to keep out of French affairs.
Quentin Deranque, 23, died from head injuries after being attacked by at least six people on the sidelines of a far-right protest in Lyon on 12 February. Most of the 11 suspects who have been detained are from far-left movements.
Continue reading...Italian government urges IPC to reconsider its stance
Russian and Belarusian athletes to compete under flags
Italy, the Winter Olympic hosts, has called for a reversal of the decision to let 10 Russian and Belarusian athletes compete with national flags and anthems at next month’s Paralympic Games.
The foreign minister Antonio Tajani and sports minister Andrea Abodi urged the International Paralympic Committee to reconsider its stance due to Russia’s four-year-old invasion of Ukraine, saying it contradicted the Olympic spirit.
Continue reading...Prior of hermitage says digital technologies are designed to be addictive and present ‘challenge for monastic life’
The prior of a hermitage in Tuscany has urged monks living in the secluded retreat to avoid the use of social media and streaming services, arguing that their rooms are sacred places for prayer and “not for Netflix or other platforms”.
Father Matteo Ferrari, the prior general of the Camaldolese congregation and of the Camaldoli monastery and hermitage in Arezzo, Tuscany, said such digital technologies were “specifically designed to create addiction” and “should absolutely be avoided”.
Continue reading...Group beaten in early hours of morning in village where they volunteered to help protect Palestinians from settler violence
Italy and Canada have raised concerns about the treatment of their citizens who were beaten and robbed by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank.
Three Italians and a Canadian were attacked early on Sunday morning in the village of Ein al-Duyuk, near Jericho, where they had volunteered to help protect the Palestinian population from intensifying settler violence.
Continue reading...Parliament delays debate over law defining sex without consent as rape, after comments by far-right deputy PM
Italy’s parliament has delayed a debate over a landmark law that would define sex without consent as rape amid a rift within the ruling coalition.
The measure, the result of a rare pact between the far-right prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, and her main political opponent, the centre-left leader, Elly Schlein, passed in the lower house last week and had been expected to get final approval in the senate this week.
Continue reading...Man from Borgo Virgilio investigated for benefit fraud and hiding body since woman’s death in 2022
An Italian man is under investigation for benefit fraud and hiding a body after allegedly dressing up as his dead mother – including mimicking her hairstyle with a wig and wearing makeup and jewellery – in order to claim her pension.
The man, from Borgo Virgilio close to the northern Italian city of Mantua, allegedly claimed thousands of euros in pension payments after the death of his mother in 2022. Instead of reporting her death, he allegedly hid her body in his home.
Continue reading...Decision to remove children comes after they and their parents ate poisonous mushrooms and ended up in hospital
The decision by an Italian court to remove three children being brought up in the woods from their British-Australian parents has sparked a fierce debate in the country over alternative lifestyles.
Nathan Trevallion, a former chef from Bristol, and his wife, Catherine Birmingham, a former horse-riding teacher from Melbourne, bought a dilapidated property in a wooded area in Palmoli, in the central Italian region of Abruzzo, in 2021.
Continue reading...German pop duo who last year said their wish was ‘to leave together’ had joint assisted death at their home in Grünwald
Alice and Ellen Kessler, the pop singing sisters who were famous in Europe in the 1960s, especially in Italy where they were credited for bringing glamour to the country’s TV network, have died aged 89.
The identical twins had chosen to have a joint assisted death at their home in Grünwald, close to Munich, on Monday, said Wega Wetzel, a spokesperson for Deutsche Gesellschaft für Humanes Sterben (DGHS), a Berlin-based assisted dying association.
Continue reading...Ipsos survey reveals fake news, lack of accountability, extremism and corruption seen as biggest threats
Satisfaction with democracy is below 50% in eight out of nine western countries surveyed in a poll, and majorities in all but one fear for its future, with fake news, lack of political accountability, extremism and corruption seen as the biggest threats.
An Ipsos survey of almost 10,000 people in Croatia, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Sweden, the UK and the US found satisfaction with democracy low in all except Sweden, with deep concerns about the future state of electoral politics.
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