BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union’s top court ruled Monday that national maritime authorities cannot impound ships involved in search-and-rescue work on suspicion that they might be overloaded due to the number of migrants they plucked from the sea.
MILAN (AP) — Italian vessels have recovered five bodies and rescued 674 people packed on a fishing boat adrift in the Mediterranean off the Libyan coast, the Italian Coast Guard said Sunday, while European charities reported saving more than 500 more.
BERLIN (AP) — People flocked to parks and pools across Western Europe on Saturday for a bit of respite from an early heat wave that saw the mercury rise above 40 C (104 F) in France and Spain.
In Germany, where highs of 38 C (100.4 F) were expected, the health minister urged vulnerable groups to stay hydrated.
MILAN (AP) — Even as the European Union decided to reduce Russian crude oil imports by 90% by the end of the year, Italy has become the only country in Europe to increase them, an unintended consequence of EU sanctions against Russia.
MESSINA, Sicily (AP) — French cyclist Arnaud Démare won a bunch sprint at the end of the fifth stage of the Giro d’Italia on Wednesday and Juan Pedro López kept hold of the leader’s pink jersey.
Démare, who rides for Groupama–FDJ, edged Fernando Gaviria at the end of the 174-kilometer (108-mile) route from Catania to Messina after sprint favorites Mark Cavendish and Caleb Ewan had been dropped earlier in the day.
ETNA-NICOLOSI, Sicily (AP) — German cyclist Lennard Kämna won the fourth stage of the Giro d’Italia on the slopes of Mount Etna while Juan Pedro López moved into the overall lead on Tuesday as the Italian grand tour returned to home soil.
BERLIN (AP) — Scientists say last summer was the hottest summer on record in Europe, with temperatures a full 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than the average for the previous three decades.
ROME (AP) — Letizia Battaglia, an Italian photographer who documented the arrests of Mafia bosses and the bodies of their victims, has died in her native Sicilian city of Palermo. She was 87.
Among the authorities announcing her death was Palermo Mayor Leoluca Orlando, who stood vigil next to her coffin during her wake in city hall on Thursday, a day after her death.
PALERMO, Sicily (AP) — European champion Italy will miss the World Cup. Again.
The unthinkable happened in Palermo on Thursday as the Azzurri were beaten 1-0 by North Macedonia following a last-gasp goal by Aleksandar Trajkovski in their playoff semifinal.
MILAN (AP) — With Italy’s worst soccer moment on many people’s minds, coach Roberto Mancini is not thinking about the unthinkable but about winning the World Cup in Qatar.
MILAN (AP) — Roberto Mancini called up Juventus defender Mattia De Sciglio on Sunday to replace the injured Giovanni Di Lorenzo in the Italy squad for the World Cup playoffs.
Di Lorenzo, who has been a regular under Mancini and was part of the European Championship-winning team last year, was forced to withdraw from the squad after the Napoli full back sprained his right knee during Saturday’s 2-1 victory over Udinese in Serie A.
ROME (AP) — Mario Balotelli was left off Italy’s squad for the World Cup playoffs, and the European champion was also without midfielder Manuel Locatelli, who tested positive for COVID-19.
Italy faces North Macedonia in Palermo, Sicily, on Thursday.
ROME (AP) — Mount Etna has roared back to spectacular action after a few months of relative quiet, sending up a 12-kilometer (7.5-mile) high volcanic ash cloud over eastern Sicily.
The lava flow from Etna, one of Europe’s most active volcanoes, was centered around the crater on the mountain’s southeast slope, Italy’s National Institute of Geophysics and Vulcanology said Monday.
ROME (AP) — A particularly powerful eruption of Mount Etna has created a volcanic storm that sent bolts of lightning dramatically across the sky over eastern Sicily.
A volcano expert with Italy’s National Institute for Geophysics and Volcanology, said Friday that such volcanic storms are rare but can happen in particularly violent eruptions or with volcanoes located near the sea.
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Troops have been deployed to London hospitals. Health care workers infected with COVID-19 are treating patients in France. The Netherlands is under a lockdown, and tented field hospitals have gone up in Sicily.
ROME (AP) — An Italian museum is lending a fragment of the Parthenon Sculptures to Greece, in what both sides hope will become a permanent return that might encourage others — the British Museum, in particular — to send their own pieces of the works back, too.
MILAN (AP) — Rescue workers in Sicily have recovered four more bodies in the rubble of buildings that collapsed following a gas leak explosion, bringing to seven the number of confirmed dead, firefighters said Monday.
MILAN (AP) — Firefighters in Sicily were digging through the rubble of a collapsed apartment building Sunday in the search for six missing people after an explosion apparently caused by a gas leak killed at least three, authorities said.
ROME (AP) — A Roman Catholic diocese in Sicily publicly apologized to outraged parents after its bishop told a group of children that Santa Claus doesn’t exist.
In a Facebook post and subsequent comments Friday, the diocese of Noto insisted that Bishop Antonio Stagliano didn’t mean to dash the dreams of the youngsters two weeks before Christmas.
ROME (AP) — After days of waiting in the choppy central Mediterranean, a charity rescue ship with 306 migrants aboard on Wednesday received permission by Italy to disembark the passengers just as a storm approached, the humanitarian organization said.
ROME (AP) — A German humanitarian ship with more than 800 rescued migrants, including 15 very young children, steamed into a Sicilian port on Sunday after being granted permission by Italian authorities following days of waiting in the Mediterranean Sea.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis on Sunday made an impassioned plea to end the practice of returning migrants rescued at sea to Libya and other unsafe countries where they suffer “inhumane violence."
MILAN (AP) — Harrison Ford lost his credit card during a stay in a beach town near Palermo, Sicily, but got it back thanks to a German tourist, police in Sicily said Saturday.
The tourist found a credit card with Ford’s name emblazoned on it Thursday, and turned it in to the local police station in the beach town of Mondello.
PALERMO, Italy (AP) — Italy’s right-wing former interior minister, Matteo Salvini, went on trial Saturday charged with kidnapping for refusing in 2019 to allow a Spanish migrant rescue ship to dock in Sicily, keeping the people onboard at sea for days.
LAMPEDUSA, Sicily (AP) — Survivors of a 2013 capsizing, one of the Mediterranean's more deadly migrant tragedies, on Sunday joined residents of a tiny Italian isle in an anniversary ceremony to honor the 368 people who died.
LAMPEDUSA, Sicily (AP) — A rusty, overloaded fishing boat carrying 686 people docked on the island of Lampedusa in the single biggest arrival of migrants in Italy in years, amid new diplomatic efforts by Mediterranean governments to seek more European help in handling migrant flows.
In the market squares of Sicily and Calabria, street vendors baste thick swordfish chops with a bright blend of lemon juice and olive oil, grilling them over smoldering coals and filling the air with an alluring mix of char and sweet.
ROME (AP) — A tornado on a small Italian island in the Mediterranean Friday evening swept up several cars, killing two people and injuring several others, firefighters said.
In a tweet, the firefighters said the twister struck on Pantelleria, which is south of Sicily, shortly before 7 p.m.
MADRID (AP) — Spain set a new provisional heat record of 47.2 degrees Celsius (116.96 Fahrenheit) on Saturday as Southern Europe sweltered under a relentless summer sun. Italy put 16 cities on red alert for health risks and Portugal warned 75% of its regions that they faced a “significantly increased risk” of wildfires.
ROME (AP) — A German charity boat carrying 257 migrants rescued from the Mediterranean docked Saturday in Sicily after Italian authorities granted permission, and hours later a French humanitarian vessel with 549 migrants aboard received a similar port assignment.
ROME (AP) — Italy on Thursday agreed to allow the disembarking of 572 rescued migrants following a charity ship's desperate plea that food was running short and tensions rising on the crowded Ocean Viking.
LAMPEDUSA, Sicily (AP) — The tiny Mediterranean island of Lampedusa is in the throes of yet another season of migrants arriving by sea, and Ibrahima Mbaye and Waly Sarr can only watch from shore as their fellow Africans risk their lives to get here via unsafe smugglers’ boats.
MILAN (AP) — A judge in Sicily has dismissed a case against right-wing leader Matteo Salvini for keeping rescued migrants on board a coast guard ship in 2019, saying no crime had been committed.
Salvini had faced a possible indictment in the Sicilian port of Catania on charges of kidnapping for not allowing the migrants to disembark for five days that summer while he was interior minister.