ITALY, Oct 4:  Former Juventus midfielder Claudio Marchisio has announced his retirement from professional soccer at the age of 33 after a short spell with Russian side Zenit St Petersburg.

MILAN, ITALY, Sept 23: FIFA president Gianni Infantino has urged Italian soccer authorities to hand out stadium bans for supporters guilty of racism after another incident in a Serie A match between Atalanta and Fiorentina on Sunday.

ROME, Aug 18: Seeking to end a humanitarian crisis, Spain says a Spanish rescue boat with 107 migrants in the southern Mediterranean can sail to Spain and disembark its passengers in Algeciras.

GENOA, June 28: A spectacular planned explosion on Friday knocked down the remaining spans and supporting pillars of the Italian bridge that collapsed last year with the loss of 43 lives.

KATHMANDU, June 16: Police have arrested two members of a notorious gang accused of trafficking as many as 15 Nepalis via various routes to Libya and Italy where they were held captive by armed groups.

KATHMANDU, May 16: The Honorary Consul General of Italy in Kathmandu Pratima Pande has said that she had put all her efforts to further bolster Nepal-Italy ties.

ROME, March 24: Italy signed a preliminary accord with China on Saturday that makes it the first country of the Group of Seven industrialized nation to join the Chinese Belt and Road infrastructure project.

MILAN, March 21: Italian police on Wednesday rescued 51 children taken hostage by their school bus driver, who doused the vehicle in petrol and set it alight apparently in protest at migrant deaths in the Mediterranean.

PARIS, Feb 7: France is recalling its ambassador to Italy amid mounting tensions after Italy’s deputy prime minister met with French yellow vest protesters and a string of critical Italian comments toward French President Emmanuel Macron’s government.

It is tempting to compare Italy’s criticism of France to the Yellow Vests’ hostility toward French elites

Italy is considering merging troubled banks Monte dei Paschi and Banca Carige with healthier rivals such as UBI Banca as it scrambles to avert a new banking crisis, sources familiar with the matter said.

CORINALDO, Dec 9: Teenagers panicked before a rap concert at a jammed Italian disco, setting off a stampede that killed five of them and a mother who had brought her daughter to the event, authorities and survivors said. Fifty-three people were reported injured, including 13 in very serious condition.

ROME, Dec 8: Six people, all but one of them minors, were killed and about 35 others injured in a stampede of panicked concertgoers early Saturday at a disco in a small town on Italy’s central Adriatic coast, authorities said.

Brussels has rejected Italy’s 2019 budget, setting its governing coalition on a collision course with the commission. Rome has three weeks to submit a new spending plan or face millions of euros in fines.

The European Commission, the European Central Bank, and the German government have erred in insisting on rigid enforcement of the EU Stability and Growth Pact, particularly the three percent of-GDP cap on fiscal deficits

ROME, Aug 20: The Italian engineer who designed the Genoa bridge that collapsed and killed dozens warned four decades ago that it would require constant maintenance to remove rust given the effects of corrosion from sea air and pollution on the concrete.

MILAN, Aug 19: The search operation for those missing after a motorway bridge collapsed in the Italian port city of Genoa ended overnight after the last three bodies were found, bringing the official death toll to 43.

ITALY, Aug 18: Italian President Sergio Mattarella is due to preside over a state funeral for 18 of the victims of Tuesday's bridge collapse in Genoa.

ITALY, Aug 17: Serious questions were being raised Friday in Italy over how one of Genoa’s main motorways gave away without warning on Tuesday, causing the death of 39 people.

GENOA, Aug 15: Italian emergency workers pulled two more bodies out of tons of broken concrete and twisted steel Wednesday after a highway bridge collapsed in Genoa, raising the death toll in the disaster to at least 39 people.

ITALY, Aug 15: Firefighters searched into the night on Tuesday for survivors and bodies amid the rubble of a motorway bridge that collapsed in the northern Italian port city of Genoa, killing at least 26.

MILAN, Aug 14: A bridge on the main highway linking Italy with France collapsed Tuesday in the Italian port city of Genoa during a sudden, violent storm, sending vehicles plunging 90 meters into a heap of rubble below.

The rest of Europe tends to ignore Italy when things go well and to underestimate the potential consequences when things go badly

PARIS, June 2: France underlined their World Cup credentials with their three forwards all involved in the goals that secured an impressive 3-1 friendly victory over Italy on Friday.

MILAN, Feb 27: Italy goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon is prepared to go back on his decision to retire from international football if he is picked for the friendlies against England and Argentina next month.

MILAN, Feb 4: An Italian gunman with extreme right-wing sympathies shot and wounded six African immigrants Saturday in a two-hour drive-by shooting spree, authorities said, terrorizing a small Italian city where a Nigerian man had been arrested days earlier in a teenager’s gruesome killing.

Italy is experiencing its fastest economic growth in more than a decade, though unemployment remains stubbornly high, at more than 11 percent

MUMBAI, Dec 11: After a long speculation of will they-won’t they, Anushka Sharma and Virat Kohli have finally tied the knot in Italy on Monday.

MILAN, Nov 24: An Italian court sentenced former AC Milan and Brazil forward Robinho in absentia to nine years in prison on Thursday after convicting him of taking part in a gang rape of an Albanian woman in 2013.

MILAN, Nov 14: Italian football boss Carlo Tavecchio said recently that failure to qualify for the World Cup would be the apocalypse and his worst fears came true on Monday as they missed out on the finals for the first time in 60 years.

MADRID, September 3: Two brilliant strikes from Isco and a late goal from Alvaro Morata gave Spain a spectacular 3-0 win over Italy, their nearest challengers in Group G, to move into the driving seat for automatic qualification to the 2018 World Cup.

MILAN, April 2: Italy could soon become the first Western country to offer paid “menstrual leave” to female workers.

Italy recovered from an early own goal to beat the Netherlands 2-1 away in a friendly on Tuesday and cap a miserable few days for the hosts who sacked manager Danny Blind at the weekend.

PALERMO,  March 25: Italy survived some first-half scares on the way to a 2-0 win over Albania in a World Cup qualifier marred by crowd trouble caused by away fans on Friday.

Rescuers workers have pulled five more bodies from the wreck of a hotel in central Italy that was razed by an avalanche one week ago, bringing the death toll to 23, the national fire brigade said on Wednesday.

MILAN, Jan 17: An avalanche buried a mountain hotel in an earthquake-hit region of central Italy, leaving at least 30 people missing, authorities said Thursday.

ROME,  Jan18:  A series of three strong earthquakes hit central Italy in the space of an hour Wednesday, shaking the same region that suffered a series of deadly quakes last year and has been buried under more than a meter (three feet) of snow in recent days.

Yet another significant earthquake shook central Italy last week, adding to the two experienced only four days previously.

ROME, Oct 30: A powerful earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.6 has rocked the same area of central and southern Italy hit by quake in August and a pair of aftershocks last week, sending already quake-damaged buildings crumbling after a week of temblors that have left thousands homeless.

ROME, Oct 27: A pair of strong aftershocks shook central Italy late Wednesday, crumbling churches and buildings, knocking out power and sending panicked residents into the rain-drenched streets just two months after a powerful earthquake killed nearly 300 people.

TURIN, Oct 7: Italy forward Graziano Pelle has been removed from the team's squad for refusing to shake coach Gian Piero Ventura's hand after a substitution.

ROME, Oct 1: There is still no place for Mario Balotelli in the Italy squad as coach Gian Piero Ventura named a largely unchanged 26-man list for the upcoming World Cup qualifiers against Spain and Macedonia.

MADRID, Sept 30: Andres Iniesta will lead Spain in its World Cup qualifying matches against Italy and Albania after returning from injury.

AMATRICE, Italy, Aug 28: Bulldozers with huge claws and other heavy equipment rolled through Italy's quake-devastated town of Amatrice on Sunday, pulling down dangerously overhanging ledges and clearing rubble as investigators tried to figure out if negligence in enforcing building codes added to the quake's high death toll.

ACCUMOLI, Aug 24: Rescue crews using bulldozers and their bare hands raced to dig out survivors from a strong earthquake that reduced three central Italian towns to rubble Wednesday.

AMATRICE, Italy , Aug 24: Italy's civil protection agency says the death toll from the magnitude 6 earthquake in central Italy has reached 73.

ROME, Aug 24: A minute of silence will be observed before all professional football matches in Italy this week to mourn the victims of an earthquake that rocked the central part of the country early Wednesday.

AMATRICE, Italy, Aug 24: A devastating earthquake rocked central Italy early Wednesday, collapsing homes on top of residents as they slept. At least 37 people were reported dead in three hard-hit towns where rescue crews raced to dig survivors out of the rubble, but the toll was expected to rise as crews reached homes in more remote hamlets.

ROME, Aug 24: An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude estimated at 6.1 has rattled Rome and central Italy in the middle of the night.

MILAN, FRANCE, July 12: Two Italian commuter trains collided head-on Tuesday in the southern region of Puglia, killing at least 20 people and injuring scores more, officials said. At least two passengers were pulled alive from the crumpled wreckage as the rescue operation took place in the scorching heat.