Nearly 2,000-year-old artifact handed over by FBI matches piece missing from museum near Rome for decades
A nearly 2,000-year-old Roman grave marker discovered in a New Orleans backyard has now been returned to Italy.
The marble epitaph – dating back roughly 1,900 years – was officially handed over to Italian officials in Rome on Wednesday during a ceremony led by the FBI. The event also marked the repatriation of another antiquity recovered in the US, the agency said.
Continue reading...Decision follows backlash from Italian government and European Commission
The jury of the Venice Biennale has quit just days before the prestigious art exhibition is due to begin, amid a row over the decision to allow Russia to participate.
The resignation of the five-member international jury was announced late on Thursday in a brief statement by the Venice Biennale organisers, and came a day after the Italian culture ministry sent inspectors to Venice in search of information about the decision to allow Russia to have a pavilion at the event.
Continue reading...Dublin scholars find 1,200-year-old manuscript of Caedmon’s Hymn composed by Northumbrian cattle herder
A lost copy of a poem composed in the seventh century by a Northumbrian cattle herder – the earliest surviving poem in the English language – has been discovered in Rome.
Scholars from Trinity College Dublin (TCD) uncovered the manuscript that contains Caedmon’s Hymn at the National Central Library of Rome.
Continue reading...Italian newspapers claim singer and actor, who is tipped to be next James Bond, are planning ‘wedding of the year’ in the city
Last July, Dua Lipa shared a series of photos on Instagram while on holiday in Palermo with Callum Turner, the British actor she had become engaged to weeks earlier. In these photos, the pair appeared radiantly in love with each other – and the Sicilian capital.
There were pictures of the couple strolling through the city’s vibrant baroque alleys, admiring the ceiling frescoes in its striking cathedral and enjoying sunset boat trips. In another, a smiling Turner is holding a pair of ricotta-filled cannoli, the Sicilian dessert. One photo even captured the word ‘“amore” scrawled on a wall.
Continue reading...Sabrina Crawford among those refused citizenship because of new law stopping access via distant ancestry
In 2025, after a long and arduous journey in her attempts to gain Italian citizenship, including a pivotal genealogical research trip to a village in Calabria, US-born Sabrina Crawford was hoping to fulfil her lifelong dream of building a life in Italy as she edged towards the final hurdle of the bureaucratic process.
But her plans were scuppered when Giorgia Meloni’s far-right government enacted a law stopping access to Italian citizenship via distant ancestry. Since May last year, only those with a parent or grandparent who was an Italian citizen at birth, and who did not take on dual nationality, are eligible to apply.
Continue reading...Police catch woman, 28, climbing colossal 16th-century statue of Neptune to touch its genitals as a dare
A tourist has been charged after allegedly climbing a colossal marble statue in Florence to touch its genitals for a pre-wedding prank.
Experts said the woman caused thousands of euros of damage to the Neptune fountain in Piazza della Signoria.
Continue reading...Giorgia Meloni’s far-right government to ask MPs to back controversial voluntary repatriation scheme
Italian lawyers will be paid bonuses if they successfully convince their immigrant clients to return home under a government plan that has been compared to a “wild west-style bounty”.
The incentive is in the latest security bill from Giorgia Meloni’s far-right government and goes to the lower house of parliament for final approval this week. It was passed by the upper house after fiery debate.
Continue reading...Silvia Salis, the leftwing mayor of Genoa and former Olympian, is described as ‘a breath of fresh air’ and potential unifier
It has been a turbulent month in Italian politics.
A failed referendum on a judicial overhaul pierced prime minister Giorgia Meloni’s aura of invincibility, triggering government resignations and leaving her scrambling to restore credibility. At the same time, her once special relationship with Donald Trump has frayed after the US president publicly scolded her this week for criticising his broadside against Pope Leo and for not supporting the US-Israeli war on Iran.
Continue reading...Accumulations of up to 3cm deep reported as severe thunderstorms also bring heavy downpours to central Italy
Severe thunderstorms have affected the Mediterranean this week. On Monday, a surface low-pressure system in the Mediterranean in conjunction with an upper air cut-off low, led to thunderstorms over north Africa. Their intensity was aided by the hot precursor conditions.
Algeria and Tunisia were notably affected by the thunderstorms, with some hail accumulation layers as a result. When so much hail forms, it starts to lay down sheets of hail, covering the ground like snow. Hail accumulations of up to 3cm were reported in Oum Ladjoul and Hammam Sokhna in Algeria, and there were hailstones of up to 3cm in diameter in Makthar, Tunisia. Thunderstorms continued in the region through the following day, with further hail accumulations, notably in Ouled Bousmir, Tunisia, where there was a layer about 2cm deep.
Continue reading...Thieves believed to have escaped into sewers after holding staff and customers in Crédit Agricole branch for two hours
Armed robbers held 25 people hostage at a bank in Naples for two hours on Thursday, before fleeing through a tunnel.
The three thieves entered a branch of Crédit Agricole in the southern Italian city at about 11.30am, taking hostage staff and customers, who were freed by police a couple of hours later.
Continue reading...Remarks come as Italian PM suspends defence agreement with Israel amid growing domestic pressure over conflict
Donald Trump lashed out at one of his closest allies on Tuesday, saying Italy’s Giorgia Meloni lacked courage in light of her failure to join the US in attacking Iran.
“I’m shocked at her. I thought she had courage, but I was wrong,” the US president said in an interview with the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera.
Continue reading...Riccione’s leftwing mayor, Daniela Angelini, says public purchase is victory for town and ‘act of love and vision’
An Italian council has bought a villa where Benito Mussolini spent his summer holidays, partly to avoid the property falling into the hands of “fascist nostalgics”.
Daniela Angelini, the leftwing mayor of Riccione, a town close to Rimini along Italy’s Adriatic coast, said the acquisition of Villa Mussolini through an auction was “an act of love and vision” and that bringing it back into public hands was a victory for the entire town.
Continue reading...Fifty-eight other people found alive during rescue involving inflatable craft in early hours of Wednesday
The bodies of 19 people have been recovered from an inflatable boat south of the island of Lampedusa by the Italian coastguard, a spokesperson told AFP.
Fifty-eight other people, including five children, were found alive during the rescue in the early hours of Wednesday and transported to Lampedusa by the coastguard, according to Roberto D’Arrigo.
Continue reading...Thieves made a break for 413,793 units of the company’s new F1 line bars which could cause shortage before Easter
A large shipment of KitKat candy bars was stolen while in transit to distributors, a major candy crime right before the Easter holiday that could cause shortages for customers.
The truck carrying 413,793 units of a “new chocolate range”, about 12 tons of chocolate bars, was pilfered while driving through Europe on 26 March, Agence France-Presse reported.
Continue reading...Prime minister is scrambling to clean up her government after youth vote powered a damaging referendum defeat
Filippo Michelini was having a drink at San Calisto, a popular bar in Rome’s Trastevere neighbourhood on Wednesday night. As he chatted to his friends, Giorgia Meloni’s far-right government was reeling from a failed referendum, and her beleaguered tourism minister, Daniela Santanchè, had just resigned.
Michelini, a 29-year-old computer scientist who lives in Brussels, was spending a few days in the Italian capital after returning home last weekend to cast his ballot in the plebiscite on judicial changes.
Continue reading...Regulator fears use of ‘covert marketing strategies’ by Sephora and Benefit might fuel compulsive habits
Italian regulators are investigating Sephora and Benefit Cosmetics over the apparent use of “covert marketing strategies” to sell beauty products to young girls that might be fuelling an unhealthy skincare obsession known as “cosmeticorexia”.
The Italian Competition Authority said it was looking into promotions for skincare products such as face masks, serums and anti-ageing creams that in some cases appeared to target girls under 10.
Continue reading...Giorgia Meloni made public request for Daniela Santanchè to quit in effort to restore credibility after voters rejected judicial reform
Italy’s embattled tourism minister has resigned, heeding a call to step down as the prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, strives to restore credibility after a bruising defeat in a referendum that has thrown her far-right government into turmoil.
The resignation on Wednesday of Daniela Santanchè, a prominent and brash member of Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party, came after the prime minister took the unusual step of calling in a public statement for her to go.
Continue reading...France’s National Rally missed key targets in local elections ahead of next year’s seismic presidential vote – and the mainstream is doing OK elsewhere, too
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The Rassemblement National is not invincible. A year out from a make-or-break presidential vote, that might be the main lesson (though there are others, which may prove more significant) from last weekend’s local elections in France. What’s more, news elsewhere – Giorgia Meloni’s referendum defeat in Italy, Janez Janša beaten in Slovenia, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán in trouble, the left bloc largest in Denmark – might suggest the rest of Europe’s far right are not having it all their own way, either.
But let’s focus first on France – if only because while local elections are rarely a wholly accurate guide to future national outcomes, these ones seem to provide some pointers – and the stakes in the country’s next major election are vertiginously high.
Continue reading...Referendum result could tarnish PM’s reputation and make winning next year’s general election more challenging
Italian voters have rejected an overhaul of the country’s judiciary pushed by the prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, an outcome that is expected to tarnish her reputation and make winning next year’s general election more challenging.
In a two-day referendum, almost 54% of voters said no to the plans to reorganise the judiciary, compared with about 46% for the yes camp.
Continue reading...National referendum is being seen as a de facto confidence vote on the government – and the polls are neck and neck
In the run-up to a referendum in Italy on a government quest to overhaul the judiciary, a campaign flyer circulated online quoting Giorgia Meloni, the prime minister, taking aim at judges and feminists. “Judges block the deportations of rapists. Where are the feminists? Vote yes – there will not be another opportunity,” it read.
The flyer, posted on the Facebook page of Meloni’s Brothers of Italy, a party with neofascist roots, was subsequently removed. But its tone has defined a campaign dominated by inflammatory rhetoric rather than meaningful debate.
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