ROME—Italian authorities have seized a record 5.3 tonne cocaine haul being transferred between ships off the southern coast of Sicily, police said on Friday. The consignment had an estimated value of 850 million euros ($946 million) and five people have been arrested, the Guardia di Finanza said in a statement. Police had been tracking a…

ROME—A wing of a three-story apartment building collapsed Sunday in a seaside suburb of Naples, and three people were pulled out alive from the rubble, Italian officials said. “As of now, there are no indications of people missing,’ said Luca Cari, a spokesperson for Italy’s national firefighters’ corps, of the collapse of the building in…

MILAN—An overnight fire in a retirement home in Milan killed six people and injured around 80, including three who are in a critical condition, Italian authorities said on Friday. The fire started in a first-floor room of the facility. It was put out quickly and did not spread to the rest of the building, yet…

Enter into Italy’s wasteland of ancient ghost towns, long abandoned and left to slowly crumble and fade under the hot southern sun. There are more than 6,000 vacant villages in Italy, and Craco is just one of them. It’s hard to imagine that this eerily quiet medieval village once buzzed with life. Once known as “Golden…

ROME—Italy’s culture and tourism ministers have vowed to find and punish a tourist who was filmed carving his name and that of his apparent girlfriend in the wall of the Colosseum in Rome, a crime that resulted in hefty fines in the past. The message reading “Ivan+Haley 23” appeared on the Colosseum at a time…

ROME—Four temples from ancient Rome, dating back as far as the 3rd century B.C. stand smack in the middle of one of the modern city’s busiest crossroads. But until Monday, practically the only ones getting a close-up view of the temples were the cats that prowl the so-called “Sacred Area,” on the edge of the…

Italy has approved measures to limit the control of a Chinese state-owned shareholder over the Italian tiremaker Pirelli, citing reasons of national security. Rome’s decision comes after Sinochem, Pirelli’s largest shareholder with a 37 percent stake, notified the Italian government in March of plans to update an existing shareholder pact with Camfin, which is controlled…

MILAN—Silvio Berlusconi, the boastful billionaire media mogul who was Italy’s longest-serving premier despite allegations of corruption, died Monday, according to his television network. He was 86. Mediaset announced his death with a smiling photo of the man on its homepage and the headline: “Berlusconi is dead.” Berlusconi was admitted to the San Raffaele Hospital in…

MILAN—Silvio Berlusconi, the boastful billionaire media mogul who was Italy’s longest-serving premier despite allegations of corruption, died Monday, according to his television network. He was 86. Mediaset announced his death with a smiling photo of the man on its homepage and the headline: “Berlusconi is dead.” Berlusconi was admitted to the San Raffaele Hospital in…

Commentary China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is an ill-defined international development program that includes export activities and political influence operations by the regime in Beijing. With a reported $1 trillion of spending, which could eventually become $8 trillion, BRI has hit major speed bumps of late. Italy, which is the only G-7 country involved…