The Local

Venice councillor Giovai Andrea Martini tells The Local why curbing tourist lets and “repopulating” the city with long-term residents should be the top priority after the entry fee scheme’s “resounding failure”....

Around 7,000 poor people attended the event at St. Peter's Basilica. Photo: Vincenzo Pinto/AFP Pope Francis called on Sunday to fight
 indifference to poverty on what has been dubbed the first "World Day for the
 Poor" by the Catholic Chu...

The Vespa Elettrica will be available to order from 2018. Photo: Miguel Medina/AFP. More than 70 years after Italy’s iconic scooter was bo, the Vespa is getting its most radical update yet. 
 Piaggio, the Pisa-based maker of Italy’s most...

The wolves captured on camera. Photo: Oasi LIPU The wolf is the symbolic animal of Rome, a city founded by two brothers who were raised by a she-wolf - or so the legend goes. And now, for the first time in over 100 years, newly-bo wolves have been spotted living just outside the Italian capital. Hidden cameras in the Oasi LIPU Castel di Guido, a wildlife sanctuary spaing 180 hectar...

A screenshot from the advert. Photo: YouTubeA sex toy commercial is being run on Italian television for the first time, testing attitudes towards sex and women. The advert for the pleasuring device aired on satellite chaels Realtime, NOVE and DMAX for the first time in July but is now also being shown on terrestrial chaels Mediaset and La7, according to Corriere della Sera. The same report claims it's the first time an advert for a sex toy has been aired on national television. The 30-second clip showcases sex toys by mysecretcase.com. The company's website says the store was bo in 201...

Red wine flowing from a fountain, offering a refreshment at the end of a long walk... it sounds too good to be true, but on Sunday, a wine fountain was inaugurated in central Italy. Locally-produced wine will flow from the fountain in Abruzzo, the first of its kind, and it's accessible 24/7. The best part? It's completely free to help yourself to a glass. The fontana del vino is located in Caldari di Ortona, in Abruzzo, along a popular pilgrimage route, the Cammino di San Tommaso. Photo: Dora Sarchese Vineyard "The wine fountain is a welcome, the wine fountain is poetry," the Dora Sarchese vineyard wrote on its Facebook page. It noted that the fountain was not a place for "drunkards" or "lou...

UK PM Theresa May met Italian PM Matteo Renzi in Rome on Wednesday, Photo: Tiziana Fabi/AFPUK Prime Minister Theresa May was in Rome on Wednesday for a lunch meeting her Italian counterpart, Matteo Renzi, at which the pair discussed Brexit, the migrant crisis and the terrorist threat facing Europe. After a long lunch, the pair addressed the press at in the grounds of Rome’s plush Vila Panphilij, overlooking the iconic dome of St. Peter’s Basilica. Here’s what we leaed. Brexit Unsurprisingly, the UK's recent decision to leave the EU dominated the short diplomatic meeting between the pair. And with good reason.There are some 600,000 Italian citizens currently living and working in the UK, whil...

Simone Moro was among the first climbers to ever scale Pakistan's Nanga Parbat in winter. Photo: Aamir Quereshi/AFPSimone Moro stood atop Pakistan's "Killer Mountain" last week and observed the curve of the Earth - a view which had never been seen by anyone in winter until the climber and his team conquered Nanga Parbat. The expedition had taken three months and came more than six decades afterthe mountain was first summited, but 10 minutes was all Moro could allowhimself to enjoy his achievement. "Now you have to come back... But you are so completely exhausted," the Italian mountaineer explained in an exclusive interview with AFP, saying he was afraid of losing concentration on the long, d...

A Syrian refugee girl arrives at Rome's Fiumicino airport. Photo: Andreas Solaro/AFPSyrian children saved from a perilous boat crossing to Europe gried and blew kisses on Monday as they arrived in Italy, which is urging the EU to use airlifts to ease the migrant crisis. As several European countries seek to close their borders and accusationsfly that Austria and Balkan states are abandoning Athens to refugee chaos,Italy's foreign minister insisted it was time to provide open passage. "We don't need in this moment to raise walls, to have new fences, to haveunilateral decisions," Paolo Gentiloni told the foreign press in English asclose to 100 Syrians, mainly parents and children, arrived at R...