The Sicilian mafia is a powerful organized crime syndicate known across the globe, but its origins are murky. A surge in demand for citrus fruits in the 1800s could provide clues as to how it first emerged. Economic lecturers Alessia Isopi and Arcangelo explain. The Sicilian mafia is arguably one of...

Far-right demonstrators clash with anti-riot police in Macerata. Photo: Tiziana Fabi/AFP Police clashed with extreme-right protesters on Thursday evening in the central Italian town of Macerata, where tension is currently high following a shooting attack by a far-right sympathizer who targeted dark-...

M5S leader Luigi Di Maio delivers a speech during the presentation of the movement's parliamentary candidates. Photo: Tiziana Fabi/AFP Italy's Five Star Movement (M5S), the country's most popular party according to polls, has been accused of plagiarizing a variety of sources in its programme for the...

People queue for entry during last year's edition of the festival. Photo: Marco Ravagli/AFP One of the biggest events in the Italian music calendar, the Sanremo Music Festival, has kicked off with a song about the subjunctive, and Sting singing in Italian. A total of 11.6 million people tuned into p...

The investigation into the death of cyclist Linas Rumsas, son of former professional rider Raimondas Rumsas, led on Thursday to sweeping arrests at his former Altopack Eppela amateur team, Italian prosecutors said. Police raided several premises in the Tuscan town of Lucca early on Thursday and deta...

Nearly 23 percent of Italy's population is over 65. Photo: Olivier Morin/AFP Italy's population is older than ever after another drop in the number of babies bo here last year. Some 464,000 babies were bo in Italy in 2017, according to the latest figures from national statistics bureau Istat. That w...

UniCredit's headquarters in Milan. Photo: Marco Bertorello/AFP Italian bank UniCredit said on Thursday that it retu ed to the black in 2017 as an ambitious reorganisation it embarked upon 18 months ago starts to pay off. UniCredit said in a statement that it chalked up net profit of €5.47 billionxa0...

Around 200 people participated in a torchlit march in Macerata, central Italy on Tuesday, in honour of an 18-year-old woman whose dismembered body was found there last week. Police found the body of 18-year-old Pamela Mastropietro in two suitcases on January 31st, though the cause of her death has n...

Eni's headquarters near Milan. Photo: Marco Bertorello/AFP Fifteen people have been arrested in Italy on suspicion of having "adjusted" lawsuits in favour of Italian energy giant Eni, according to judicial sources. Italian financial police on Tuesday raided the offices of Massimo Mantovani, a member...

An anti-tetanus vaccine. Photo: Fred Tanneau/AFP Prosecutors in Turin are considering charging a couple with injury by negligence after they failed to vaccinate their daughter against tetanus and she went on to contract the infection. The girl, seven, was rushed to the Regina Margherita Paediatric H...

One of the goats of Palmaria. Photo: Gabriele Ferreri/Flickr, CC BY-NC 2.0 In what's been called the "biggest rescue operation ever attempted in Italy", animal lovers have begun removing around 100 stray goats from the island of Palmaria. The goats are considered an invasive species on the island – ...

Former pope Benedict XVI celebrating his 90th birthday in 2017. Photo: Osservatore Romano/AFP Pope emeritus Benedict XVI hinted on Wednesday that he is nearing death and ready for his final "pilgrimage" at the age of 90. "In the slow decline of my physical strength, inte ally, I am on a pilgrimage t...

Carlo Tavecchio resigned in November. PHOTO: ALBERTO PIZZOLI / AFP The head of the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) has called for Monday's vote to elect a new president of the Italian Football Federation (FIGC) to be postponed for three months. CONI president Giovanni Malago believes the conditions...

An undated file photo showing French Trappist monks from the Priory of Our Lady of Atlas in Tibehirine, including those recognised by the Vatican as martyrs in view of their beatification. Photo: AFP The Vatican on Saturday declared seven French Trappist monks beheaded by Islamists in Algeria in 199...

File photo of migrants being transferred to the Aquarius ship in December. PHOTO: FEDERICO SCOPPA / AFP Two women died and many others are presumed drowned after a migrant boat carrying dozens of people sank in the Mediterranean, rescue services in Italy said on Saturday. Among the 83 people rescued...

Etna pictured during a previous eruption. Photo: Controluce/AFP When and how seriously will Italy's Mount Etna next erupt? Two volcanologists explain how they're using crystals to lea more about what's going on in the depths of Europe's most active volcano. Predicting when a volcano is going to expl...

File photo of a nurse preparing a syringe to vaccinate a young boy. Photo: Sergei Supinsky/AFP There were almost 5,000 cases of measles in Italy last year, and four people died of the disease, according to newly-released data from the Italian health ministry. The number of cases is almost six times ...

Benito Mussolini (R) and King Vittorio Emanuele III (L) in 1938. Photo: France Presse Voir/AFP Eighty years after Mussolini began persecuting Jews, Italy is putting the dead king who backed his racial laws on trial. The setting may be a theatre, but the prosecutor, witnesses and three judges meeting...

Laura Boldrini, the speaker of Italy's Chamber of Deputies. Photo: Andreas Solaro/AFP House Speaker Laura Boldrini has demanded an apology from the far-right Northe League after a regional youth wing of the far-right party bu ed a model of her in a public bonfire. The figure was set alight on Thursd...

The Local [email protected] @thelocalitaly 26 January 201817:52 CET+01:00 Share this article A metro station in Rome. Photo: jovannig/[email protected] @thelocalitaly 26 January 2018 17:52 CET+01:00 Police in Rome are investigating whether a woman seriously injured by an underground train on Friday co...