ROME, Nov 12: Italy, one of the European countries hit hardest by COVID-19, surpassed the one-million infections mark on Wednesday, leap-frogging Mexico to become one of the top 10 worst-affected countries globally, according to a Reuters tally.

ROME, July 10: Italy will likely extend a state of emergency beyond its current deadline of July 31 due to the new coronavirus crisis, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said on Friday.

Release of the payment a major financial reprieve for the Nepali commercial bank that would otherwise required huge provisioning for losses

The Uffizi Galleries, the most-visited museum in Italy, is open after three months of COVID-19 lockdown, delighting art lovers who don’t have to jostle with throngs of tourists thanks to new social distancing rules.

ROME, May 20: The Italian government will decide on May 28 if and when the Serie A season can resume, Sports Minister Vincenzo Spadafora said on Tuesday as he also announced that teams could start full group training immediately.

ROME, March 29: Italy’s government will “inevitably” extend beyond April 3 the containment measures it had approved to stem the coronavirus outbreak in the country, the regional affairs minister said on Sunday.

MILAN, March 29: The death toll from an outbreak of coronavirus in Italy barrelled past 10,000 on Saturday, a figure that made an extension of a national lockdown almost certain.

ROME, March 26: The death toll from an outbreak of coronavirus in Italy has grown by 662 to 8,165, the Civil Protection Agency said on Thursday.

ROME, March 20: The death toll from an outbreak of coronavirus in Italy has leapt by 627 to 4,032, officials said on Friday, an increase of 18.4% - by far the largest daily rise in absolute terms since the contagion emerged a month ago.

LONDON/MILAN, March 20: The world’s richest nations poured unprecedented aid into the global economy on Thursday as coronavirus cases ballooned in the new epicentre Europe, with the number of deaths in Italy outstripping those in mainland China, where the virus originated.

ROME, March 9: Italian penitentiary police said Monday that six inmates protesting virus containment measures at a northern Italian lock-up have died after they broke into the infirmary and overdosed on methadone.

ROME, March 9: Italy took a page from China’s playbook Sunday, attempting to lock down 16 million people — more than a quarter of its population — for nearly a month to halt the relentless march of the new coronavirus across Europe.

ROME, March 5:  Italy closed all schools and universities and took other emergency measures on Wednesday to try to slow the spread of the coronavirus in Europe’s worst-hit country as the death toll and number of cases jumped.

KATHMANDU, March 3: Amidst fear of the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak in Nepal, the government is taking precautionary measures to prevent the spread of coronavirus from travelers.

WASHINGTON, March 2: Amazon.com Inc said late on Sunday that two employees in Milan, Italy, have contracted the coronavirus and are under quarantine.

A planned three-week shoot in Italy for Tom Cruise’s new “Mission: Impossible” film has been postponed due to the coronavirus outbreak, movie studio Paramount Pictures said on Monday.

MILAN, Jan 24: Italy’s competition watchdog has launched proceedings against Facebook for non-compliance with a previous request it had made regarding improper commercial practices in the group’s treatment of user data, the agency said on Friday.

ROME, Jan 14: Rome banned all diesel vehicles from its roads for the first time on Tuesday to try to combat rising pollution, with numerous other cities in central and northern Italy also imposing curbs to cut harmful emissions.

BRESCIA, Italy, Jan 6: Two goals from Serie A’s leading scorer Ciro Immobile, the second in stoppage time, gave third-placed Lazio a dramatic 2-1 win at 10-man Brescia on Sunday as they chalked up their ninth successive league victory.

MILAN, Dec 17: Italy’s top-flight Serie A soccer league launched a new anti-racism campaign on Monday by presenting artwork featuring three side-by-side paintings of apes but the move has been described by campaign group Fare as a sick joke.The league said the paintings by Italian artist Simone Fugazzotto would be exhibited permanently at the entrance to its main hall “to underline the commitment of the world of football against all forms of discrimination.”

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.