Storm Ciarán kills at least 15 across western Europe as floods strike Italy

Tuscany is in a state of emergency and three people died when their sailing boat capsized off Portugal

At least six people have died in severe flooding in Tuscany, central Italy and three in Portugal, bringing to 15 the provisional death toll across western Europe from the torrential rain and record winds brought by Storm Ciarán.

Eugenio Giani, the president of Tuscany, announced a state of emergency on Friday, describing the situation as “really very serious”. It had been “a long and complex night for the entire regional civil protection system”, he said.

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‘Tiredness on all sides’ over war in Ukraine, Italian PM tells prank caller

Giorgia Meloni ‘misled’ into phone conversation reportedly with Russian comedian posing as African political leader

The Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, told a prank caller posing as an African leader there was “a lot of tiredness” over the war in Ukraine and that she had some ideas up her sleeve on how to “find a way out”.

Meloni’s office confirmed that she had been “misled” into the phone call – reportedly by two Russian comedians – that took place on 18 September “by an impostor who passed himself off as the president of the African Union Commission”.

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Michelangelo’s secret sketches under church in Florence open to public

Artist spent months in a chamber below the Medici Chapels to evade Pope Clement VII’s death sentence

Michelangelo Buonarroti left behind a trail of artistic marvels, including his statue of David and the sublime frescoes that adorn the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

Now a “secret” room in Florence whose walls are sketched with doodles that the Italian Renaissance master is believed to have created while evading a death sentence ordered by Pope Clement VII amid his falling out with the powerful Medici family is to officially open to the public for the first time.

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Bologna seals off ‘leaning tower’ over fears it is tilting too far

Italian city’s mayor says square around 12th-century structure will shut for ‘a few years’ for repairs

The square surrounding Bologna’s medieval “leaning tower” is to be closed off for “a few years” amid concerns that the 12th-century structure is tilting a little too precariously.

The Italian city’s mayor, Matteo Lepore, said the closure of Piazza di Porta Ravegnana was necessary in order to “save” the Garisenda tower. “We’re not intervening because we think it could collapse at any moment,, we’re intervening because we want to make it safe and restore it,” he said.

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Italian woman wins court case to evict her two sons, aged 40 and 42

The bamboccioni (big babies) refused to fly nest and ‘did not contribute’ – in country where most under-35s still live with parents

The proportion of Italian adults still living with their parents has long been high but one mother was forced to take drastic action after her two sons – both in their 40s – refused to abandon the comforts of the family home.

The woman, 75, from the northern city of Pavia, had grown weary of having to maintain her sons, 40 and 42, and on several occasions tried to convince them to find a more autonomous living arrangement, especially as each had a job. “But neither of them wanted to know,” she said, according to a report in the local newspaper La Provincia Pavese.

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Young Europeans more likely to quit driving and have fewer children to save planet

Exclusive: Poll shows young people willing to make big lifestyle changes but baulk at smaller gestures

They are willing to have smaller families, stop using cars and – albeit in smaller numbers – go vegan for the planet, but abandoning single-use plastics and growing a few more plants could be a step too far.

Across Europe, according to a seven-country survey, it seems young people are more willing than older generations to make big lifestyle changes that would help combat the climate crisis – but are less convinced by smaller gestures.

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‘Pervasive and relentless’ racism on the rise in Europe, survey finds

Poll of 6,752 people of African descent in 13 countries finds almost half have experienced discrimination

Racism is “pervasive and relentless” and on the rise in Europe, with nearly half of black people in member states surveyed by the EU reporting discrimination, from the verbal abuse of their children to being blocked by landlords from renting homes.

In every walk of life, from schools to the job market, housing and health, a survey by the EU’s rights agency of people of African descent found high levels of discrimination, with some of the worst results recorded in Austria and Germany, where far-right parties have been on the rise.

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‘They have this ferocious loyalty’: Trudie Styler on the people of Naples

Her new documentary, Posso Entrare? An Ode to Naples, explores the lives of residents in mafia-ridden backstreets

If people think of Trudie Styler and her association with Italy, they are most likely to conjure up an image of the wine-making estate she owns with her husband, Sting, in Tuscany.

Few people would know her as a woman raised on a council estate in the English Midlands who wandered through the labyrinthine, mafia-ridden backstreets of Naples for her latest documentary, Posso Entrare? An Ode to Naples, which draws on the lives of a host of city residents.

The documentary starts in the evocative Sanità district, where Styler meets Antonio Loffredo, a priest transforming the lives of young people who might otherwise have fallen prey to the Camorra mafia organisation, and where she visits multigenerational families living in case bassiground-floor homes that usually have just one room – and a door opening on to the street that provides the only source of air and light.

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‘A lot of pain’: Europe’s Jews fear rising antisemitism after Hamas attack

Protection of Jewish sites increased in towns and cities across continent after outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas

In the usually bustling “Little Jerusalem” area of Sarcelles, north of Paris, the popular falafel and grill restaurant was eerily quiet. “People are not going out,” said Jérémy, the 33-year-old restaurant owner. Lunchtime and evening crowds are common in one of the largest Jewish communities on the Paris outskirts. But many thought it wiser to stay at home, fearing a growing number of antisemitic incidents in France and across Europe since the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October and the ensuing bombardment of Gaza.

In France, home to Europe’s largest Jewish community, police recorded more than 320 physical acts of antisemitism, and made more than 180 arrests, in the first 10 days of the war.

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Italian PM Giorgia Meloni splits from partner after his sexist comments

TV journalist Andrea Giambruno was recorded making suggestive comments towards a female colleague

Italy’s far-right prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, has split from her partner, Andrea Giambruno, a television journalist who has made several embarrassing, sexist comments.

“My relationship with Andrea Giambruno, which lasted almost 10 years, ends here,” Meloni wrote on social media, two days after two off-air recordings emerged of Giambruno, a presenter on Mediaset’s news talkshow Diario Del Giorno, making foul remarks and suggestive comments towards a female colleague.

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Silvio Berlusconi heirs weigh up fate of his mostly worthless art collection

Italian former PM estimated to have spent €20m on artworks, often buying through TV auctions

The heirs of Silvio Berlusconi inherited billions from his empire but now they are faced with a dilemma: what to do with his vast collection of mostly worthless artwork, including paintings of nude women and the Madonna, stored in a warehouse opposite his home near Milan.

The former prime minister, who died in June at the age of 86, reportedly amassed the 25,000 works during the final years of his life, buying the majority from late-night shopping channels in his quest to become a top collector.

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Neomelodica star Tony Colombo arrested in Naples mafia swoop

Singer, whose music has been linked to crime gangs, and his wife are among 27 held in police raids targeting the Di Lauro clan

Before announcing his retirement from singing in 2020, Antonio “Tony” Colombo was arguably the most acclaimed singer of neomelodico, an Italian pop genre that resonates strongly within mafia strongholds in the southern regions of Italy.

His songs were so highly praised among the underworld that when he married Tina Rispoli, the widow of the slain Neapolitan mafia boss Gaetano Marino, in 2019, dozens of members of the Camorra attended their wedding.

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Killing of two Swedish football fans in Brussels ‘probably lone wolf’ attack

Sweden and Italy called for tighter security at Europe’s borders after shooting by man identified in reports as Abdesalem Lassoued

A Tunisian man who killed two Swedish citizens in a terrorist attack in Brussels was “probably a lone wolf”, the Belgian prime minister has said, as Sweden and Italy called for security at Europe’s borders to be tightened.

Sweden’s prime minister said the country was suffering “unfathomable sadness” after the fatal shooting of two Swedish football fans, one in his 60s and one in his 70s, and the wounding of a taxi driver.

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Sexism lingers beneath surface of film industry like magma, says Rome festival chief

Paola Malanga and assistant put together a programme of more than 160 films showcasing female talent

Prejudice towards women in the film industry lingers beneath the surface like “magma” in a volcano, the artistic director of the Rome film festival has said, before she opened the 18th edition of an event that will showcase more female talent than ever.

Paola Malanga, a former Rai Cinema executive who was hired last year in an effort to remould a festival that over its history has had its highs and lows, said that although women were becomingly increasingly present in “all levels” of the industry, sexist attitudes remained.

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Seagulls force Venice’s Marco Polo airport to close briefly

A number of flights delayed or redirected after unusually large number of birds ‘invade’ the runway

Venice’s Marco Polo airport has been forced to close briefly after an unusually large number of seagulls “invaded” the runway, leading flights to be delayed or redirected.

Various tools were deployed to ward off the gulls on Friday morning, including a falconer and an acoustic deterrent, according to Save, the airport’s management company.

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Amanda Knox to face new trial in Italy over slander conviction

Knox had been found guilty of defamation for wrongly accusing Patrick Lumumba of murdering Meredith Kercher

Italy’s top court has ordered a retrial after Amanda Knox appealed for the dropping of the slander conviction she received for wrongly accusing a bar owner of murdering the British student Meredith Kercher.

Knox, an American who, along with her Italian ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, spent four years in prison after initially being convicted of the murder, made the request on the basis of a ruling by the European court of human rights in 2019 that found that her defence rights had been violated during police questioning in 2007.

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Researchers use AI to read word on ancient scroll burned by Vesuvius

University of Kentucky challenged computer scientists to reveal contents of carbonised papyrus, a ‘potential treasure trove for historians’

When the blast from the eruption of Mount Vesuvius reached Herculaneum in AD79, it burned hundreds of ancient scrolls to a crisp in the library of a luxury villa and buried the Roman town in ash and pumice.

The disaster appeared to have destroyed the scrolls for good, but nearly 2,000 years later researchers have extracted the first word from one of the texts, using artificial intelligence to peer deep inside the delicate, charred remains.

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EU forges plan with UK and Albania to combat people smuggling

Five-point plan seeks to tackle organised crime across Europe as well as criminals operating boats

The EU has joined forces with the UK and Albania to extend the fight against people smugglers across the wider continent, after forceful interventions by Giorgia Meloni and Rishi Sunak at a summit of 47 European leaders in Spain.

The plan was forged at the sidelines of the European Political Community (EPC) summit in Granada with the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, and the leaders of France, the Netherlands and Albania – Emmanuel Macron, Mark Rutte and Edi Rama – joining the Italian and UK prime ministers.

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Italian police investigate Indian tycoon over fatal supercar collision

Vikas Oberoi named as suspect after Swiss couple die in collision between Lamborghini and Ferrari

An Indian billionaire is under investigation in Italy after his Lamborghini collided with a Ferrari during a supercar tour in Sardinia, leaving two people dead.

Vikas Oberoi was driving the car accompanied by his wife, Gayatri Joshi, a model and actor, when the collision occurred on Monday in southern Sardinia, an official from the carabinieri told Agence France-Presse.

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