Category: Italy

3 Die, 2 Missing After Tugboat Sinks Off Southern Italy

ROME—Three people died and two were still missing after a tugboat sank off the southern Italian coast while pulling a pontoon on a route between Italy and Albania, the coastguard said on Thursday. The Franco P tugboat sent an alarm signal on Wednesday evening, while sailing some 50 nautical miles (92.6 km) off the city…


Italy Seizes Mega-Yacht With Reported Russia Links

The Italian finance minister has adopted a decree that will impede a mega-yacht from sailing away from a Tuscan port, after an investigation indicated that the luxury vessel Scheherazade has links to “prominent elements of the Russian government.” The finance ministry also said in a statement Friday evening that the probe, carried out by Italy’s…


US Army ‘Returns’ Cake to Italian Woman for 90th Birthday

ROME—With a round of “Happy Birthday” in Italian and English, the U.S. Army toasted an Italian woman with a birthday cake Thursday to replace the one that U.S. soldiers ate as they entered her hometown during one of the final battles of World War II. Meri Mion, who turns 90 on Friday, wiped away tears…


World Bank to Provide $600 Million to Assist Crash-Strapped Sri Lanka

The World Bank has agreed to provide Sri Lanka with $600 million in financial aid to help cover the cost of essential imports as the country’s economic crisis deepened, the Sri Lankan President’s Media Division said Tuesday. The first tranche of $400 million would be released “shortly,” it stated, adding that the World Bank had…


Rome and its Microstates: Three Countries in One Day

On any given day, thousands of tourists, and probably most of the locals, walk right by this place, unaware that there’s a sovereign country, just inside. The street, broad and lined with fashionable boutiques, today was busy with a crush of foot traffic, and everyone pushing their way through to the Spanish Steps, just a…


Padua: Students, Saints, and Scarpette

Nicknamed “the Brain of Veneto,” Padua is home to the prestigious university (founded in 1222) that hosted Galileo, Copernicus, Dante, and Petrarch. Pilgrims know this city for the Basilica of St. Anthony, where the faithful assemble to touch his tomb and marvel at his holy relics. It’s a great place to experience Italy: to make…


Guista

This film is only available in North America because of territorial licensing. In the third century AD, five Christian missionaries arrive in Abruzzo from Apulia in Southern Italy. Their task is to spread the Christian message in that region heavily oppressed by the pagan Romans. To curb the proliferation of Christianity, the Roman priest of…


Disaster Again as Italy Fails to Qualify for World Cup

When Italy missed out on the last World Cup, it was a disaster for soccer in the country. Missing another? There are really no words to accurately describe it. “NOOOOOOOOO!” screamed the headline on Friday in the Tuttosport newspaper, with all nine of those Os stretching all the way across the front page. The Italians,…


Don’t Send Son Back to Italy for Custody Hearing, American Mother Urges Supreme Court

An appeals court misinterpreted an international child abduction treaty in a custody dispute by ordering that a child who is a dual citizen of the U.S. and Italy, and had been living in Italy, should be returned to that country for the courts there to decide custody, the Supreme Court heard March 23. The case…


Bus Full of Ukrainian Refugees Overturns in Italy; One Woman Dead

ROME—A bus carrying Ukrainian refugees overturned on a major highway in northern Italy at dawn on Sunday, killing a young mother, Italian firefighters and news reports said. Italian state TV said there were also five people injured, but none of the injuries was serious, in the crash on the A14 highway near Forli’, a town…