Italy

Stories 1021 - 1040 | << Prev   Next >>

Berlusconi Blocks Release of Topless Photos

Images from New Year's party violate privacy, PM says

(Newser) - Silvio Berlusconi can rest easy: Racy photos allegedly showing young, bikini-clad and topless women frolicking at his villa will be sealed, BBC reports. The Italian prime minister said the 700 images, furtively snapped by a photographer on the island of Sardinia, violated his guests’ privacy. Meanwhile pressure is mounting on...

Berlusconi Denies Affair With Teen

Italian PM says he will resign if caught lying about relationship with model

(Newser) - Silvio Berlusconi has fiercely denied having sex with a teenage girl and says he will resign if caught lying, the BBC reports. The 72-year-old Italian prime minister's alleged relationship with model Noemi Letizia, now 18, was cited by his wife as her reason for divorcing him and the issue has...

Roman Soccer Fans Will Kick, Er, Stab Your Butt

Anyway you slice it, extreme fans like to attack from behind

(Newser) - People who attend soccer games in Rome have to watch their backsides, warns the BBC. That's because Romans are particularly fond of stabbing rival fans in the butt. Stabbings are "now so frequent they're hardly reported in the press," said a professor who has studied the attacks. "...

Flush Mafia Invests Big in Recession Italy

It's buying up struggling companies

(Newser) - As banks spurn borrowers, Italian mafiosi are lending out their cash stockpiles to profit from the global recession, Bloomberg reports. Long invested in cash-intensive businesses like food distribution, the mafia is using its liquidity to take control of other legitimate businesses—and as a bonus, the three main mob outfits...

Runaway Bride Flees Before Reception
Runaway Bride Flees Before Reception
May 27, 2009 12:19 PM CDT

Runaway Bride Flees Before Reception

After ceremony, Italian newlywed skips out with groom's buddy

(Newser) - As a newlywed groom and the wedding guests waited at a restaurant in Trieste, Italy, the bride was speeding away with the driver, a friend of her husband, ANSA reports. After an hour and a half, the groom got through to his new wife, who said that she had "...

Italy's $4M 'Michelangelo' Triggers Furor

(Newser) - Did Michelangelo actually create a small (16-inch) wooden carving of a crucified Jesus or did the Italian government get taken for a $4 million ride? Some experts believe passionately that the piece, now on exhibit in Naples, is the work of the master. But as the BBC reports, others blast...

Berlusconi Irate Over Pesky Media Questions

Italian PM walks out of interview when asked about teen model

(Newser) - Silvio Berlusconi owns nearly half of Italy’s television stations—but not La Repubblica, the Italian daily that has incensed the PM with questions about his connection to an 18-year-old model, the Guardian reports. When a reporter asked about Berlusconi's appearance at her birthday party, Berlusconi took offense, saying “...

Prosecutors Unveil DNA Evidence Against Knox

American student's DNA found on weapon allegedly used to kill British student in Italy

(Newser) - Italian prosecutors began presenting forensic evidence in Amanda Knox's murder trial yesterday, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports. Experts testified that the American's DNA was identified on the knife allegedly used to kill British student Meredith Kercher—who was found with her throat cut in the flat the two shared—and that...

'Showgirl' Crack Is Berlusconi's Latest Gaffe

Italian business leader disturbed at PM's characterization of her

(Newser) - Emma Marcegaglia runs Italy’s industrialist association and just might be the country’s most powerful woman. But that didn’t stop Silvio Berlusconi from likening her to a showgirl today, Reuters reports. Speaking to Marcegaglia’s organization, the gaffe-prone Italian premier recalled when “an usher told me a...

Bribed Lawyer Lied to Protect Berlusconi

Italian PM faces calls to resign after court ruling in corruption case

(Newser) - Silvio Berlusconi is facing calls to resign as Italy's prime minister, reports the Times of London, after an Italian court found his lawyer guilty of accepting a bribe to protect him from corruption charges. In a 400-page verdict released yesterday, the judges said that attorney David Mills—the estranged husband...

Stand By Your Man (So You Can Drag Him Through Mud)

Elizabeth Edwards exacted an 'exquisite' form of revenge against her cheating hubby

(Newser) - Veronica Lario, the scorned wife of Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi, has much to learn from Elizabeth Edwards about revenge American style, Alessandra Stanley writes in the New York Times. When Lario filed for divorce and publicly griped about his caddish ways, Berlusconi just turned the tables by demanding a public...

Berlusconi's Mystery Girl Could Be His Kid

Divorce scandal gets even stranger with rumors flying

(Newser) - Rumors are flying in Italy that the 18-year-old entangled in Silvio Berlusconi’s divorce drama—who calls him “Papi”—is his daughter, the New York Post reports. The prime minister sparked his wife’s ire by attending Noemi Letizia’s 18th birthday party and claims to be friends...

Catholic Church Scolds Playboy Berlusconi

(Newser) - Silvio Berlusconi’s penchant for flirting isn’t just annoying his wife—it bothers the Vatican, too. In an editorial, church officials warned Italy’s prime minister to adopt a more “sober and somber” lifestyle, the Telegraph reports. The front-page piece in the church's official newspaper decried his “...

Berlusconi Demands Apology From Wife

Lario slammed PM for surrounding himself 'with children'

(Newser) - Silvio Berlusconi is demanding an apology from his wife for her public complaints over the PM’s appreciation of young women, the Times of London reports. Berlusconi alleged that Veronica Lario had been “put up” to discredit him before June elections by his political enemies. Berlusconi said this marriage...

Howard: Vatican Blocked Permits for Angels & Demons

(Newser) - Director Ron Howard claimed today that the Vatican interfered with efforts to get permits to shoot certain scenes of his Angels & Demons religious thriller in Rome—a charge the Vatican said was purely a publicity stunt. "It was explained to us that through back channels and so forth...

Flirty Berlusconi's Wife to Divorce Him

Has previously attacked his philandering

(Newser) - Reports of Silvio Berlusconi attending an 18-year-old woman's birthday party proved too much for the missus, and the BBC says Veronica Lario will file for divorce from the faux pas-ridden Italian PM. "That's enough," Lario said in Italian reports. "I cannot remain with a man who consorts...

Press Freedom Declines Worldwide

New report sees losses in all regions for first time ever

(Newser) - Press freedom declined worldwide last year for the seventh year in a row, and for the first time suffered losses in all regions, according to a new report by Freedom House. Slipping from “free” to “partially free” were Israel, Italy and Hong Kong, while Cambodia fell to “...

Berlusconis Row Over PM's Wandering Eye

Soap opera of feuding first couple grips Italy

(Newser) - Silvio Berlusconi's wife is taking her complaints of philandering and dishonesty to the press—and it's not the first time she's done so, the New York Times reports. The Italian first lady was angry that Berlusconi went to the 18th birthday party of a business associate's daughter, who has been...

Pope Visits Quake-Struck Central Italy

Pontiff's visit comes as 65,000 remain homeless

(Newser) - Pope Benedict has arrived in central Italy to visit survivors of the earthquake that killed nearly 300 people earlier this month and left 65,000 homeless, reports the BBC. The pontiff began his visit with greetings to victims in a village where all the buildings have become uninhabitable; later today,...

Italian Cruise Ship Shoots Back at Pirates, Foils Attack

Captain's use force wards off buccaneers

(Newser) - An Italian cruise ship with 1,500 passengers survived a pirate attack yesterday when the ship's captain ordered his security crew to fire back, CNN reports. The six armed men fled in their speedboat after drawing fire from the Melody, which was sailing off the coast of Somalia on the...

Stories 1021 - 1040 | << Prev   Next >>
Most Read on Newser