Italy

26 February 2020; AFP: Two US students appeared in an Italian court on Wednesday on the first day of their trial over the fatal stabbing last year of a policeman during a botched drugs bust.

Finnegan Lee Elder and Gabriel Natale-Hjorth are charged with killing newlywed Mario Cerciello Rega, 35, who was stabbed 11 times last July.

The Californians, who had been on holiday in Rome and were teenagers at the time, face life sentences if convicted.

24 February 2020; AFP: Two US students go on trial in Italy on Wednesday over the fatal stabbing last year of a policeman in Rome during a botched drug bust.

Finnegan Lee Elder and Gabriel Natale-Hjorth, teenagers at the time of the attack last July, have been charged with killing newlywed Mario Cerciello Rega, 35, who was stabbed 11 times. They face a life sentence if convicted.

ROME, Feb 24 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Italy scrambled to check the spread of Europe’s first major outbreak of the new viral disease amid rapidly rising numbers of infections and a third death, calling off the popular Venice Carnival, scrapping major league soccer matches in the stricken area and shuttering theaters, including Milan’s legendary La Scala.

CODOGNO, Italy (AP) — Italy scrambled Sunday to check the spread of Europe’s first major outbreak of the new viral disease amid rapidly rising numbers of infections and a third death, calling off the popular Venice Carnival, scrapping major league soccer matches in the stricken area and shuttering theaters, including Milan’s legendary La Scala.

23 Feb 2020; MEMO: Pope Francis on Sunday warned against “inequitable solutions” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, saying they would only be a prelude to new crises, in an apparent reference to US President Donald Trump’s Middle East peace proposal, reports Reuters.

Francis made his comments in the southern Italian port city of Bari, where he travelled to conclude a meeting of bishops from all countries in the Mediterranean basin.

Codogno (Italy), Feb 23 (AP) A dozen towns in northern Italy effectively went into lockdown Saturday after the deaths of two people infected with the new virus from China and a growing cluster of cases with no direct links to the origin of the outbreak abroad.

The secondary contagions prompted local authorities in the Lombardy and Veneto regions to close schools, businesses and restaurants and to cancel sporting events and Masses.

ANTHOLZ /Italy/, February 22. /TASS/: Russian biathlete Alexander Loginov is suspected of repeatedly violating anti-doping rules, Italian police said in a warrant to search a hotel in the town of Antholz, where the Russian team is staying.

Searches at the hotel took place on Saturday morning.

ROME (AP) — Authorities in northern Italy arrested the captain of a Lebanese-flagged cargo ship on suspicion of international arms trafficking Wednesday while they investigate if the vessel transported tanks, rockets and other weapons from Turkey to Libya.

The captain is under investigation for allegedly transferring military goods to Libya with as-yet unidentified Turkish military officials in violation of a United Nations arms embargo, Italian prosecutor Franceso Pinto told The Associated Press.

19 Feb 2020; MEMO: Italian dock workers have refused to load electricity generators onto a notorious Saudi cargo ship suspected of carrying arms to be used in the war in Yemen.

MILAN (Reuters) - Former Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said the government could collapse after his small centrist party boycotted a cabinet meeting over a contested justice reform and the prime minister suggested he was ready to resign.

Italy’s cabinet on Thursday approved a reform of the statute of limitations, which wipes out trials if a verdict is not reached within a set limits.