The arrests were made at Rome's Fiumicino airport. Photo: Tiziana Fabi/AFPDubai airport has become a transit point for smugglers bringing high-value narcotics into Europe, the Italian police said on Monday. Two smugglers have been arrested in recent days at Rome's Fiumicino airportxa0after arriving ...

Comedian and Five Star founder Beppe Grillo is famed for his outbursts against the political system. Photo: Giuseppe Cacace/AFPItaly's acerbic Beppe Grillo may have hung up his political gloves to retu to the comedy circuit, but backlash over a bomb joke targeting London's new mayor has aggravated a...

A Roman villa buried eight metres below an Italian church will open to the public this July. Photo: Vassili CasulaA fresco-covered Roman villa, found unde eath a church on Italy's sunk-kissed Amalfi coast, is set to open to the public for the first time in July. The opening of the villa was announce...

The Rome-bound Monarch airlines flight was delayed for two hours. Photo: Andy Mitchell/FlickrTwo passengers were removed from a Rome-bound flight on Sunday after a couple complained that they “looked suspicious”. The Monarch flight, which had been due to leave the British city of Birmingham at 5.30p...

Italy coach Antonio Conte was accused of sporting fraud. Photo: Andrea Solaro/AFPItaly coach Antonio Conte has been cleared of accusations of sporting fraud following a hearing in Cremona on Monday at which which prosecutors had requested a six-month prison sentence, Italian media reports said. Cont...

Political opponents have criticized a joke by Beppe Grillo (L) suggesting London's new mayor Sadiq Khan is a suicide bomber. Photo: Giuseppe Cacace/Leon Neal/AFPBeppe Grillo, the founder of Italy's Five Star Movement (MS5), has sparked controversy after joking that London's new mayor, Sadiq Khan, is...

The runner was killed by a lightning strike in Italy's Friuli-Venezia Giulia region on Sunday. Photo: John Fowler/FlickrA 42-year-old runner was killed on Sunday after being struck by lightning during a mountain race in Gemona del Friuli, in the northe Italian province of Udine. Mario Pantanali, fro...

Italy will not be sending soldiers to protect UN structures in Libya. Photo: Marcello Pate ostro/AFPItaly will not send troops to protect UN structures in conflict-hit Libya, according to reports in the Italian media on Monday. In late April, reports suggested Italy would send up to 900 troops to th...

Brenner train station. Photo: Angela Giuffrida/The Local ItalyAustria on Friday backtracked on plans to tighten border controls at the Brenner Pass. But the mayor of Brenner is not so convinced. He tells The Local why. For Franz Kompatscher, the mayor of the South Tyrolean town of Brenner, the frict...

“If we carry on as we are and fail to reverse the trend, there will be fewer than 350,000 births a year in 10 years’ time, 40 percent less than in 2010 — an apocalypse,” the minister, Beatrice Lorenzin, said in an interview published on Sunday by daily La Repubblica. Lorenzin told the paper she want...

Parolin invoked an article of the Vatican's penal code allows him to decline to testify for professional reasons. Photo: AFPTop cardinal Pietro Parolin and two close associates of Pope Francis have sidestepped giving evidence in the controversial and increasingly embarrassing Vatican trial of five p...

Migrant arrivals to Italy have overtaken arrivals to Greece for the first time since June 2015, according to EU borders' association Frontex. The agency reported on Friday that 8370 migrants had landed in the central Mediterranean in April, compared to just 2,700 for Greece – figures which mark a st...

Brenner Pass. Photo: A ulf zu Linden/WikimediaAustria said Friday it would no longer seek to resume controversial checks on its frontier with Italy after tougher measures by Rome have led to a huge drop in migrant numbers. Vienna had threatened to re-impose controls on the Brenner Pass in the Alpsxa...

Antinori has also attracted controversy with his advocacy of the use of cloning technology. Photo: AFPA pioneering Italian gynaecologist best known for helping women in their 60s to have babies has been arrested on suspicion of removing eggs from a patient without her consent. Severino Antinori, 70,...

Eurovision presenters Måns Zelmerlöw and Petra Mede at the second semi-final. Photo: Maja Suslin/TTThe Local is reporting live from Stockholm's Globe Arena, where the Eurovision Song Contest final is about to kick off. 8.00pm It's Eurovision time! Good evening everyone and welcome to a night full of...

Antinori has also attracted controversy with his advocacy of the use of cloning technology. Photo: AFPA pioneering Italian gynaecologist best known for helping women in their 60s to have babies has been arrested on suspicion of removing eggs from a patient without her consent. Severino Antinori, 70,...

Brenner Pass. Photo: A ulf zu Linden/WikimediaAustria said Friday it would no longer seek to resume controversial checks on its frontier with Italy after tougher measures by Rome have led to a huge drop in migrant numbers. Vienna had threatened to re-impose controls on the Brenner Pass in the Alpsxa...

Migrant arrivals to Italy have overtaken arrivals to Greece for the first time since June 2015, according to EU borders' association Frontex. The agency reported on Friday that 8370 migrants had landed in the central Mediterranean in April, compared to just 2,700 for Greece – figures which mark a st...

One of the men released was arrested in Milan. Photo: AFPTwo men have been released from police custody in Bari, where they were being held on suspicion of plotting terrorist attacks. Their lawyer said the case had been "blown out of proportion". The arrest of the men had been widely reported and th...

Katherine Wilson, one of the three expats, cooking with her Italian mother-in-law. Photo: Tara CrossleyLiving in Italy, cooking and eating Italian food… for a living. It sounds like a dream, but here are three women who made it happen. They tell The Local how they fell for Italy and its cuisine, and...