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Quake-destroyed houses. Photo: Filippo Monteforte/AFP "Our little valley spoke to us like nowhere else had before and we both said together 'this is it!'" said Sarah Fopps, who set up a holiday rental business in Le Marche in 2007. Together with her husband, Topps spent six years renovating The Local...

Passengers board an Alitalia plane. Photo: Alberto Pizzoli/AFP Troubled airline Alitalia is planning to make 2,400 staff redundant and cut some salaries by almost a third, trade union sources said on Friday. The envisaged job cuts are equivalent to one fifth of the company's workforce of aro The Local...

Corleone, the town made famous by film 'The Godfather'. Photo: AFP A bishop in Sicily has banned known mafia criminals from acting as godfathers at baptisms in churches in his diocese. Michele Pennisi, bishop of Monreale, near Palermo, said Friday he had issued a decree to that effect in a The Local...

Artist Bill Viola in front of one of his creations. Photo: Tiziana Fabi/AFP He calls it a homecoming. Bill Viola, the acclaimed contemporary artist, is back in Florence, the cradle of the Renaissance masters who inspired some of his most famous works, powerful, immersive video installations dealing with the extremes of human emotion and experience. Four decades after he first worked in the Tuscan capital, the New Yorker regarded as one of the pioneers of video art has retued for a major exhibition that explores the links between his 20th-21st century output and paintings completed between 400 and 600 years earlier."It has been really beautiful being in Florence again," Viola, 66, told AFP. "It has been completely emotional just to feel the whole vibe of everything here. We have come back home and that is what it is all about.""Electronic Renaissance" opens to the public on Friday and runs through July 23rd, with the main collection housed at the Palazzo Strozzi and other work The Local...

A photo of former Italian premier and billionaire businessman Silvio Berlusconi eating at a McDonald's restaurant has gone viral in Italy. Andrea Zucchiatti took the photo of Berlusconi as he perused the fast food chain's menu, before sharing the snapshot with the football fan Facebook page Calciatori Brutti. In less than 24 hours, it has been 'liked' almost 45,000 times and attracted thousands of Idea. "He's leaed from Breaking Bad - you close the best deals at fast food restaurants," joked one commenter, while some wondered if his appearance at the chain was a sign that his sale of AC Milan to Chinese buyers had fallen through. Others remarked on the fact that the ex-PM appeared to be receiving table service at the restaurant. The so-called 'Cavaliere' is no stranger to social media fame, however. When Berlusconi was ousted from the Italian parliament in 2013, the event attracted a record number of Facebook and Twitter posts.McDonald's in Italy Along with other for The Local...

A man and young girl in a centre for refugees. Photo: Giuseppe Cacace/AFP Italy needs to improve conditions in its migrant centres to avoid health problems, corruption, and an increase in illegal immigration, the Council of Europe has waed. The report, which was published on Wednesday, singled out child migrants as particularly vulnerable. Ambassador Tomáš Boček, the Council's Special Representative on migration and refugees, compiled the report after an October visit to some of the Italian regions which have shouldered the burden of the influx of migrants: Como, Sicily, and Rome. Italy saw a record high of over 180,000 arrivals last year, including 25,000 unaccompanied children. Since the start of 2017 a further 15,000 people have arrived. Many of the children who arrive in Italy alone are slipping through the gaps, the report waed, due to an inadequate guardianship system, poor conditions in migrant centres, and procedural delays. The 'hotspots' which are intended to The Local...