Earthquake at same time as eruption could have caused Pompeii deaths – study

Research argues tremors occurred as Vesuvius erupted in AD79, causing buildings to collapse on to people

Victims who perished in Pompeii after the devastating AD79 eruption of Mount Vesuvius may have been killed by a simultaneous earthquake, research has suggested.

Scholars have debated for decades whether seismic activity occurred during the eruption of Vesuvius in southern Italy nearly 2,000 years ago, and not just before it, as reported by Pliny the Younger in his letters.

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UK ready to build ‘closer, more mature’ trade links with EU

New business secretary set to tell international counterparts at G7 meeting ‘Britain is back on world stage’

Britain is taking its first steps towards forging closer trading links with the EU in meetings between the new business secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, and international counterparts in Italy.

In his first overseas visit since Labour’s election landslide, Reynolds will tell a G7 meeting of trade ministers in the Italian city of Reggio Calabria that the new UK government wants to foster a “closer, more mature relationship with our friends in the EU”.

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Widow ‘totally shocked’ as US tourist granted house arrest in Rome murder case

Gabriel Natale-Hjorth, initially given life over killing of a police officer, to be detained at his grandmother’s home

An American tourist convicted and jailed for the murder of a police officer in Rome has been moved to house arrest, in a decision that has left the victim’s widow “totally shocked”, her lawyer said.

Gabriel Christian Natale-Hjorth and his friend Finnegan Lee Elder were given life sentences for the 2019 murder of Mario Cerciello Rega, 35, a Carabinieri police officer who was stabbed to death after a botched drug deal.

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Disinformation networks ‘flooded’ X before EU elections, report says

Analysis by Dutch researchers shows coordinated activity in France, Germany and Italy in run-up to ballot

Coordinated networks of accounts spreading disinformation “flooded” social media in France, Germany and Italy before the elections to the European parliament, Dutch researchers have found.

After an in-depth analysis of disinformation on the platform X in four EU countries, the researchers concluded that many of the accounts had been set up after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine but were cranked up in the weeks and days before the vote, with growth in their numbers of followers rocketing.

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Intruder climbs up to dome of Florence Cathedral overnight for selfie

Local media reports say 17-year-old is suspected of stunt, which was posted on Instagram

A teenager has been reported to police after allegedly sneaking around Florence’s Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore overnight and climbing up to its Cupola del Brunelleschi to take a selfie.

Wearing a black hoodie, jeans and trainers, a person filmed himself walking up an inside stairwell of the world heritage site before reaching the dome level, stepping on to a small platform outside and taking a picture of himself.

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Coffee prices will rise even higher, says Giuseppe Lavazza

For UK consumers the cost of beans could increase by up to 25% over the coming year

The price of coffee is set to remain “very high” and is unlikely to drop until the middle of next year amid intense pressure on supply chains, the Italian coffee company Lavazza has said.

“We have never seen such a spike in price as the trend right now,” said Giuseppe Lavazza, who chairs the company. He admitted that he had been wrong to predict last year that prices would begin to fall this year. On Monday, prices reached $4,300 (£3,356) a tonne.

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Plan to rename Milan airport after Berlusconi sparks outrage in Italy

Mayor describes transport minister’s decision to honour former prime minister, who died last year, as ‘crazy’

A backlash is growing in Italy against a decision to rename Milan’s main airport after the controversial late former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, with the city’s mayor describing the decision as “crazy”.

More than 35,000 people have signed a petition calling on Giorgia Meloni’s government to stop the plan after the transport minister, Matteo Salvini, said he would give the final go-ahead to a decision by Enac, the Italian civil aviation authority, to rename Malpensa airport “in memory of my friend Silvio”.

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Milan’s Brera Modern gallery to open in December after 50 years of delays

Museum has been plagued by numerous delays and has seen off almost 40 Italian governments

More than half a century and 39 Italian governments after it was first envisioned, a new museum will open later this year to house modern art from Milan’s Pinacoteca di Brera gallery.

The Brera Modern, just a few doors from the main gallery, has been plagued by numerous delays, most recently the discovery of asbestos and problems with the conditioning system.

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‘Defending democracy is paramount’: Rula Jebreal warns against Meloni rule

The journalist, and critics, accuse the Italian PM of leading the country towards authoritarianism

The first time Rula Jebreal came face to face with Giorgia Meloni was for a TV debate in November 2016.

It was the day after the US presidential election, six years before Meloni became prime minister, and the pair were invited on to Piazzapulita, a talkshow broadcast on the privately owned television channel, La7, to discuss the victory of Donald Trump.

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Italian court upholds murder convictions of two Americans over death of police officer

Court of appeal reduces sentences of Finnegan Lee Elder, 24, and Gabriel Natale-Hjorth, 23 over killing of Mario Cerciello Rega

An Italian court of appeal has upheld the murder convictions of two American men over the death of an Italian plainclothes police officer during a botched sting operation but reduced their sentences. The new trial was ordered after Italy’s highest court threw out their original convictions.

The court convicted Finnegan Lee Elder and sentenced him to 15 years and two months in prison and gave a sentence of 11 years to Gabriele Natale-Hjorth.

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Banksy-funded migrant rescue boat detained in Italy after saving 37 people

Artist calls impounding of MV Louise Michel ‘vile and unacceptable’ after rescue of 17 unaccompanied children

A rescue boat financed by Banksy has been seized by Italian authorities after being involved in an effort to rescue 37 people from the central Mediterranean sea, the British street artist and the vessel’s crew have said on social media.

The move comes just days after an inflatable boat carrying dummy refugees was launched into the crowd during a set by the British rock band Idles at the Glastonbury festival, a stunt masterminded by the anonymous graffiti artist and criticised by the UK home secretary, James Cleverly, as “vile”.

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Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice Beetlejuice to open Venice film festival

The much-anticipated sequel to the director’s 1988 hit Beetlejuice will get its world premiere at the festival in August

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Tim Burton’s sequel to his 1988 hit Beetlejuice, has been selected as the opening film of the Venice film festival. The screening will be the world premiere of the film, which reunites original stars Michael Keaton and Winona Ryder with Burton.

Festival director Alberto Barbera said in a statement that it “marks the long-awaited return of one of the most iconic characters of Tim Burton’s cinema, but also the happy confirmation of the extraordinary visionary talent and the masterly realisation of one of the most fascinating auteurs of his time”.

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Five dead after storms lash France, Switzerland and Italy

Three people died when tree crushed car they were travelling in, while torrential rains triggered landslides

Ferocious storms and torrential rains that lashed France, Switzerland and Italy this weekend have left five people dead, local authorities said.

Three people in their 70s and 80s died in France’s north-eastern Aube region on Saturday when a tree crushed the car in which they were travelling during fierce winds, the local authority told Agence France-Presse.

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French poll puts far-right National Rally in clear lead at 36% – Europe live

Macron’s allies trailing at 21% as leaders of political groups gear up for a televised debate this evening

Daniel Freund, a German Green MEP, has sent a letter with 20,000 signatures to the European Council president calling for the upcoming Hungarian presidency of the Council of the EU to be suspended.

“Together with 20.000 citizens, we, the undersigned Members of the European Parliament, ask you to officially suspend the Hungarian Presidency of the Council, which is currently set to begin on July 1st, 2024,” he wrote.

It would be extremely harmful for the reputation of our Union, if the current Hungarian government would represent us Europeans in any capacity, just after the European elections. The EU has officially frozen funds under the Rule of Law Conditionality Mechanism due to the high levels of corruption in Hungary. Over the years, the Orbán government has also undermined their elections, the Rule of Law, and media freedom in Hungary.

On the European level, the Orbán government has compared the European Union with a dictatorship. They published posters across the country with bombs bearing the EU flag, when sanctions against Russia were passed. At the time when imperialist dictator Putin is bombing Ukraine, an EU candidate country, Orbán went out of his way to China just to be able to shake hands with him.

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Italian PM criticised by opposition after fascist chants by party’s youth wing

Meloni has not yet commented on revelation of Nazi salutes and antisemitic rants by members of National Youth

Italian opposition parties have rounded on the prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, after an investigative outlet published video clips and messages showing members of her far-right party’s youth wing engaging in fascist chants, Nazi salutes and antisemitic rants.

Undercover reporters from the investigative website Fanpage infiltrated groups and chat forums used by members of National Youth, the youth wing of Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party.

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Police bust gang using luxury cars to smuggle Chinese migrants into Italy

Victims were made to pose as well off but once in Europe they were confined to workplaces and severely exploited

Italian police have busted a trafficking network that used luxury cars to smuggle Chinese migrants into Italy before confiscating their passports and treating them like enslaved people.

The smugglers had the migrants pose as “unsuspecting Asian citizens, well-dressed, with little luggage, travelling in powerful and expensive cars driven by Chinese citizens who had lived in Italy for years and spoke Italian”, police said in a statement.

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Giorgia Meloni rails against pro-Europe parties’ deal on top commission jobs

Italian PM says deal that cut out her Eurosceptic block ignores EU’s rightward shift

Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, has condemned a deal to divide the EU’s top jobs between mainstream pro-European parties, saying it ignored the bloc’s rightward shift.

In an angry speech to the Italian parliament, Meloni said the top jobs deal reflected a view that “citizens are not mature enough to make certain decisions” and had been taken by those who believe “that oligarchy is basically the only acceptable form of democracy”.

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‘It was a very tough period’: Italian antifascist MEP Ilaria Salis on her 15-month detention in Hungary

Activist says threat of up to 11 years in prison ‘still scares me a lot’ and she intends to speak up for prisoners’ rights

An Italian activist who was released from house arrest in Hungary after she was elected as an MEP has spoken of her gratitude to the voters who gave her back her freedom and vowed to continue to fight for the rights of prisoners and against the rise of neofascist groups in Europe.

The case of Ilaria Salis, a teacher from Monza, near Milan, sparked anger and diplomatic protests in Italy when she brought to court in Hungary in chains in January. She had been arrested nearly a year earlier at a counter-demonstration to a neo-Nazi rally in Budapest and charged with three counts of attempted assault and membership of an extreme leftwing organisation – charges that carry a potential prison sentence of 11 years.

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British man dies of suspected heart attack on Mount Vesuvius in heatwave

The 56-year-old tourist was visiting the volcano near Naples with his family as temperatures in Italy reached 40C

A British man has died of a suspected heart attack after ascending to the crater of Mount Vesuvius during a family holiday.

The tourist, named by Italian media as Mark John Irwin, died on Sunday after climbing the volcano near Naples, in southern Italy, during the visit with his wife and two children.

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Capri lifts ban on tourists after resolving problems with water supply

Ferries from Naples and Sorrento had been forced to return to port as mayor described situation as ‘real emergency’

The Italian island of Capri has lifted a ban on tourists after problems with the water supply to the holiday hotspot were resolved.

The ban had been announced early on Saturday, forcing several morning ferries from Naples and Sorrento to return to port.

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