MATTEO SALVINI

Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni has announced a crackdown on people smugglers, from a southern town near where a boat crowded with migrants broke apart, killing scores of people.

Heavy rainfall triggered landslides early Saturday on the southern Italian island of Ischia. It cut a muddy swath through a port town, collapsing buildings and sweeping cars into the sea.

12 people were reported missing and over 100 stranded after rainfall led to landslides and collapsed at least 10 buildings on the Italian Island of Ischia.

Firefighters and the Coast Guard were working on rescue efforts.

Italy’s vice premier says at least eight people have died following a landslide triggered by heavy rain on the southern island of Ischia

Heavy rainfall triggered landslides early Saturday on the southern Italian island of Ischia that collapsed buildings and left as many as 12 missing.

Lines have formed at one of Italy’s northern border crossings with France following Paris’ decision to reinforce border controls over a diplomatic standoff with Italy about migration policy and humanitarian rescue ships.

Italy’s new government has blocked humanitarian rescue ships from accessing its ports, resulting in a standoff with charities that patrol the deadly central Mediterranean Sea, used by people desperate to reach Europe for a new life.

The captain of a charity-operated migrant rescue ship has refused Italian orders to leave a Sicilian port after authorities refused to let 35 migrants disembark.

Two German-run migrant rescue ships carrying nearly 300 rescued people are waiting off the eastern coast of Sicily.

France and Germany are asking Italy’s new far-right-led government to grant a safe port to nearly 1,000 people rescued by humanitarian groups in the central Mediterranean, some of whom have been stuck at sea for more than two weeks

Italy’s new far-right led government has adopted a measure formalizing the closure of its ports to rescue ships run by humanitarian groups as four vessels with more than 1,000 migrants continue to press for a safe port.

Humanitarian groups caring for 1,000 rescued migrants aboard three ships in the central Mediterranean are sounding an alarm about deteriorating conditions on board.

New far-right Premier Giorgia Meloni has used her first visit to European Union headquarters to declare that Italy will be a force to reckon with in EU affairs.

Several thousand black-clad fascist sympathizers chanted and sang in praise of Benito Mussolini as they marched to the slain Italian dictator’s crypt Sunday, 100 years after Mussolini entered Rome and completed a bloodless coup that gave rise to two decades of fascist rule.

Italy’s new far-right-led government of Giorgia Meloni has won the first of two required confidence votes in Parliament by a comfortable margin.

Italy’s new premier, Giorgia Meloni, on Tuesday laid out her government’s policy plans, firing back at critics at home and abroad alarmed that her far-right politics might undermine European unity or citizens' civil rights. In a speech to Parliament’s lower Chamber of Deputies ahead of a confidence vote required of all new governments, Meloni criticized the European Union for not always being ready for challenges, notably the dramatic energy crisis now threatening households and businesses. “To pose these questions doesn't mean being an enemy or a heretic but a practical” person, Meloni said in a 70-minute speech.

Giorgia Meloni has become the first woman installed as Italy's premier.

As Giorgia Meloni becomes Italy’s first female premier, the world is watching closely to see if she will emerge as a firebrand leader of a far-right party with neo-fascist roots or the more moderate right-wing politician who succeded in capturing 26% of the vote.

Giorgia Meloni has formed Italy’s new ruling coalition, giving the country its first far-right-led government since the end of World War II.

Italy’s presumed next premier, Giorgia Meloni, and former Premier Silvio Berlusconi are seeking to put days of acrimony behind them over possible Cabinet picks.

The resounding victory by far-right leader Giorgia Meloni in last month's Italian election isn't sitting well with Silvio Berlusconi.

The honeymoon is finished even before any marriage of political convenience in Italy could be formalized. Meloni is expected to be asked next week by Italy's president to try to create a governing coalition with campaign allies Berlusconi and right-wing leader Matteo Salvini and become premier. Behind-the-scenes divvying up of ministries in what would be Italy's first far-right-led government since the end of World War II started after her Brothers of Italy party took 26% of the ballots cast, more than those won by the forces of Salvini and Berlusconi combined.

Forming a new government in Italy involves time and decades-old rituals.

Far-right leader Giorgia Meloni is vowing to put Italy's national interests first in tackling soaring energy costs.

The country has chosen its most right-wing government since the Second World War. Will political dysfunction temper extremism?

Italy’s former premier Silvio Berlusconi is making his return to Italy’s parliament nearly a decade after being banned from holding public office over a tax fraud conviction.

The shift in Italy follows a similar right-wing victory in Sweden and recent gains by the far right in France and Spain.

Italy’s European Union partners are signaling discomfort and vigilance after one of the bloc’s founding members swung far to the political right.

Near-final results show a party with neo-fascist roots, the Brothers of Italy, has swept Italy’s national elections.

A party with neo-fascist roots has won the most votes in Italy’s national election, setting the stage for talks to form the country’s first far right-led government since World War II, with Giorgia Meloni at the helm as Italy’s first female premier.

An alliance of right-wing parties in Italy, led by Georgia Meloni's Brothers of Italy party, was set to win Sunday's election, according to exit polls.

Italy held elections on Sunday which may move the country to the Right, politically.

Italians were voting on Sunday in an election that could move the country's politics sharply toward the right during a critical time for Europe.

Italians were voting on Sunday in an election that could move the country's politics sharply toward the right during a critical time for Europe.

A Sunday parliamentary election will determine who next governs major industrial economy and key NATO member Italy.

Italian voters cast ballots on Sunday in an election that has been billed as crucial as Europe reels from the repercussions of war in Ukraine.

After Sunday elections, Giorgia Meloni could be the next politician to move from the fringes to a position of power.

The main candidates in Italy's general election on Sunday to elect a new Parliament and determine who next governs the country include both familiar names and lesser-known ones.

With Italy's election looming, the main leader of the Italian center-left alliance says the gains of a Swedish populist party with neo-Nazi roots is one more indication that fear is driving the far-right's growth in Europe.

Far-right leader Giorgia Meloni’s is gathering momentum in her push to become Italy’s first female premier.

Italy’s Democratic Party leader is galvanizing center-left voters, trying to confound opinion polls that indicate a right-wing alliance is headed to triumph in this month’s parliamentary elections

Italian far-right leader Giorgia Meloni has led her first election campaign rally in the Adriactic port city of Ancona.

The far-right candidate who aspires to be Italy’s first female premier has come under fire from opponents for posting a pixelized video that purports to show a woman being raped by an asylum-seeker.

Giorgia Meloni is riding a wave of popularity that next month could see her become Italy’s first female prime minister and its first far-right leader since World War II.

The country’s right-wing coalition unveiled a policy manifesto that can essentially be summed up as patriotic talk and a cocktail of misguided tax cuts.

The leader of Italy's Democratic Party is warning of the threats to European democracy posed by Italy's right-wing nationalistic parties.

Italy's far-right leader Giorgia Meloni, who is leading in opinion polls ahead of next month's elections, is insisting she won't be a danger to democracy if she becomes the country's next premier.

The implosion of the center-left coalition in Italy isn’t likely to ease the tensions between the right-wing leaders.

Italy’s firebrand former interior minister, Matteo Salvini, has put migration at the center of his electoral campaign during a visit to Lampedusa.

A judge in Italy has ordered the suspect in the death of a Nigerian street vendor to remain jailed as an investigation continues.

The European Union’s top court says maritime authorities cannot impound ships involved in search-and-rescue work just because they think the vessels might be overloaded due to the number of migrants aboard.

Italians are debating whether a Nigerian street vendor could have been saved from a fatal attack by an enraged Italian man that played out in public as bystanders watched.

Police in Italy arrested an Italian man in the slaying of a Nigerian vendor whose brutal beating death on a busy beach town thoroughfare was filmed by onlookers without any apparent attempt to intervene physically. Video footage of the attack has circulated widely on Italian news websites and social media, eliciting outrage as Italy enters a parliamentary election campaign in which the right-wing coalition has already made immigration an issue. Right-wing leader Matteo Salvini, who is making security a plank of his campaign, also expressed outrage over the death, saying “security has no color and ... needs to return to being a right.”

A humanitarian organization’s maritime rescue ship is sailing to the Italian mainland to disembark 438 migrants who were rescued in the Mediterranean Sea off Libya

Italy's president is urging Italians to reinvigorate their democracy as the country notes the 100th anniversary of an attack that paved Benito Mussolini's path to power.

The Italian political class has had a long, controversial dalliance with Moscow. This is not the time to rekindle that affair.

Italian Premier Mario Draghi’s decision to turn in his resignation after his “unity” coalition broke apart dramatically in Parliament was the latest step in a political crisis that could take months before a new government is solidly in place to lead the European Union’s third-largest economy

Italian Premier Mario Draghi's decision to turn in his resignation after his “unity” coalition broke apart dramatically in Parliament was the latest step in a political crisis that could take months before a new government is solidly in place to lead the European Union's third-largest economy.

Italy is headed for an early election after its president accepted Premier Mario Draghi’s resignation and decided there was no possibility for cobbling together another government.

PM Mario Draghi's government nears collapse after a populist coalition party withdraws support.

Italy’s political landscape has shifted after Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio formalized his departure from the 5-Star Movement.

As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine grinds into its fourth month, officials in Kyiv have expressed fears that the specter of “war fatigue” could erode the West’s resolve to help the country push back Moscow’s aggression.

Italian Premier Mario Draghi meets with U.S. President Biden this week in Washington as Europe faces another “whatever it takes” moment, with war raging on its eastern flank in Ukraine.

French far-right leader Marine Le Pen is gathering her party’s troops, not to mourn her loss in the presidential election but to plot out a victory in France's parliamentary election in June.

The mayor of a Polish town has called out the leader of Italy’s right-wing League party for his pro-Kremlin views, derisively calling Matteo Salvini a “friend" of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The mayor of a Polish town bordering Ukraine publicly called out the leader of Italy’s right-wing League party for his pro-Kremlin views on Tuesday, derisively calling Matteo Salvini a “friend” of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Przemysl Mayor Wojciech Bakun challenged Salvini during a news conference at the train station in Przemysl, where hundreds of thousands of refugees have arrived since Russia launched its war against Ukraine on Feb. 24. The mayor pulled a T-shirt from his jacket showing Putin's face and the words: “Army of Russia.”

The war in Ukraine has forced Rome to re-examine its entanglements with powers inimical to Europe.

Leaders now face the challenge of squaring their previously stated admiration for the Russian leader with an attack that’s being broadly condemned.

Italian President Sergio Mattarella has been elected to a second seven-year term as the country’s head of state, ending days of political impasse as party leaders struggled to pick his successor.

Insistence by Italy's center-right bloc that their candidate becomes the nation's president has backfired.

Leaders across Italy's political spectrum have been struggling to nail down an agreement on who should be the country's next president.

Former premier Silvio Berlusconi has bowed out of Italy’s presidential election set for next week.

Italy is poised to elect a new president, a figure who is supposed to serve as the nation’s moral compass and foster unity by being above the political fray.

The Italian Coast Guard has rescued more than 550 migrants, many of them young men and boys from Egypt, from traffickers boats in storm-tossed waters off the southern “toe” of Italy's mainland.

Matteo Salvini goes on trial for allegedly illegally blocking over 100 migrants in dire sanitary conditions from disembarking from a rescue ship.

Abandoned by her father and bullied by other children for being chubby, life was not too rosy for Giorgia Meloni when she was growing up in a scruffy working-class district of Rome. Thirty years on, she is having the last laugh. The leader of the hard-Right Brothers of Italy party could, conceivably, become Italy’s first ever woman prime minister, which would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. Brothers of Italy, which is the modern-day heir to Italy’s fascist movement, was then a fringe

Italy’s government is under huge pressure to staunch the arrivals of migrants from the coast of North Africa as the country recorded a nine-fold increase in the number of asylum seekers reaching its shores since 2019. Latest figures show the migration landscape shifting with many more attempts to reach Spain and Italy than Greece, which has adopted hardline policies. On Friday, Greece’s migration minister said the government had adopted the measures so “we don’t send the wrong message of incenti

Giovanni Brusca was a key figure within the Cosa Nostra, the Sicilian mafia group.

The situation on the tiny Mediterranean island of Lampedusa is “explosive” after more than 2,000 migrants landed in just 24 hours, as smugglers switch away from rubber dinghies in favour of steel-hulled fishing boats that can carry hundreds of asylum seekers. It was the largest number of migrants to arrive on Italian shores in a single day so far this year. The surge was seized on by Matteo Salvini, the head of the nationalist League party, who criticised the ruling coalition despite being a part of it. He demanded an emergency meeting with Mario Draghi, Italy’s prime minister, to discuss ways to deter migrant boats from arriving. He said Italians, exhausted by the pandemic, successive lockdowns and a drop in GDP of around nine per cent in the last year, were in no mood to be welcoming. “With millions of Italians in economic difficulty, we cannot look after thousands of clandestine migrants, with 12,000 already having arrived so far this year,” Mr Salvini said. Giorgia Meloni, the head of the hard-Right Brothers of Italy party, which is fast catching up with the League in popularity, called for Italy to organise a “naval blockade” to prevent smugglers’ boats reaching land. “The situation on Lampedusa is literally explosive,” said Domenico Pianese, the secretary-general of a police union.

Several hundred more migrants reached a tiny Italian island before dawn on Monday, swelling to past 2,100 the number of arrivals in around 24 hours and fueling calls from across the political spectrum for the Italian government to strengthen its migration policies. Italian state radio said four boats arrived at Lampedusa island after being escorted the last miles to port early Monday by Italian coast guard or custom police vessels. The 635 latest arrivals followed more than 1,400 who arrived on Sunday.

More than 1,200 migrants in several decrepit, overcrowded fishing boats on Sunday reached a tiny Italian island in a span of 12 hours, as human traffickers exploited calm seas and warm weather to launch multiple vessels, the mayor said. The first of the migrants arrived at 5 a.m., Lampedusa Mayor Salvatore Martello told Sky TG24 TV at 5 p.m. It was the biggest number of migrants to come ashore this year in a single day at an Italian port this year. Italian news reports said Italian coast guard and customs police boats escorted the vessels to Lampedusa after they were spotted in the Mediterranean a few miles offshore.

Italy's Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte attends RAI's broadcast talk Show Porta a Porta on January 08, 2019 in Rome, Italy. Alessandra Benedetti - Corbis | Corbis News | Getty ImagesIn June 2018, Giuseppe Conte — a lawyer and academic with no political experience — became Italy's prime minister because of a compromise. The move backfired, however, with the M5S and Democratic Party agreeing to form a new government and Conte remaining prime minister. Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte (R), flanked by Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Matteo Salvini (L), delivers a speech at the Italian Senate, in Rome, on August 20, 2019, as the country faces a political crisis. Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte holds a press conference on July 7, 2020 in Rome, Italy.

Stephanie Keith | Getty Images News | Getty ImagesThe upcoming U.S. election is being keenly watched by world leaders who have looked to President Donald Trump for favor and friendship, and who share his political ethos. "Populist leaders seek to alter their country's status in the international order by challenging systemic constraints, and they need allies to do this," she added. The election of Donald Trump in 2016 seemed to come at the height of a populist wave through global politics. Bolsonaro, a Trump admirer who fashioned his successful election campaign after the American president's, traveled to Florida to meet with business leaders and Trump himself. 'Friend in the White House'While an election loss for Trump could put a brake on a populist trend in global politics, it's unlikely to derail it.

Italians are heading to the polls this weekend for regional elections, and to vote on changes to the constitution, in what is seen as a key test of public support for the government after the country was ravaged by the coronavirus. It's the regional elections — that will see 35% of Italy's electorate go to the polls — that are more unpredictable, according to experts. Four out of seven regions — Apulia, Marche, Tuscany and Campania — are currently governed by the center-left Partito Democratico (PD), the party currently in a national coalition government with the Five Star Movement (M5S) and junior partner, Italia Viva. The vote is currently too close to call, polls suggest. BNP Paribas' analysts noted that a loss for the PD could have repercussions on the leadership of the party.

Italy's center-left Democratic Party (PD) has faced down a strong challenge from the right-wing Lega party during a widely-watched regional election that firebrand Lega leader Matteo Salvini had hoped could collapse the country's precarious coalition government and precipitate fresh national elections. At the time, his effort to scupper the government was intended to provoke fresh national elections in which his party looked likely to triumph. But a surprising pact that formed between the M5S and center-left Democratic Party obviated the need for fresh polls. Last year Umbria, another traditionally PD-supporting region, was indeed swayed by Salvini's campaign arguments and voted in favor of Lega. And a Democratic Party loss of Emilia-Romagna, which has voted reliably left of center since World War II, might have prompted some national lawmakers to seriously rethink their already tenuous partnership with M5S.

MIGUEL MEDINA | AFP | Getty ImagesItaly's fragile coalition government is breathing a sigh of relief after Matteo Salvini, a prominent right-wing politician, failed to win a closely-watched regional election at the weekend. But the vote has exposed the weak dynamics underpinning the government in Rome. The opposition anti-immigration Lega party, led by Salvini, lost in the vote in Emilia-Romagna to the incumbent center-left Democratic Party (PD) on Sunday. The candidate for the populist Five Star Movement (M5S) had secured less than 5% of the vote, according to preliminary results from the region. "However, the likely thin margin of the center-left win in this traditionally leftist stronghold shows once again that Conte's PD-Five Star Movement (M5S) coalition government rests on rather shaky foundations," he noted.

Sky News via CNN(CNN) - Spain said on Tuesday that it was dispatching a ship to collect migrants on a rescue vessel that has been stranded off Italy for 19 days, after at least 10 people jumped overboard in an attempt to swim ashore. The rescue ship is moored 800 meters off the coast awaiting permission to dock. According to the NGO, Proactiva Open Arms, the man was rescued by the Italian coast guard. Italian Transport Minister Danilo Toninelli said on Tuesday the country was "working to unblock the Open Arms situation as soon as possible" because the situation on board has become "unsustainable." But Proactiva Open Arms said it was not possible for the rescue ship to sail to a further port for another three days with adverse weather conditions.

The Open Arms has been at sea for more than two weeks. ROME - The 27 unaccompanied minors aboard a Spanish humanitarian ship will be allowed to disembark in Italy following a bitter political standoff between Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte and far-right Interior Minister Matteo Salvini. But ... changing a clear position of your Prime Minister ... is a clear example of disloyal collaboration, yet another to tell the truth, which I cannot accept." The Spanish charity that operates the Open Arms confirmed it has been allowed to dock at the Lampedusa port. The conflict over the Open Arms has intensified the divide between Salvini's far-right League and Conte's Five Star Movement, which together comprise Italy's coalition government.

Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Matteo Salvini defended the ban that placed a $57,000 fine for migrant rescue ships in Italy, saying that he only targets ships at risk for trafficking. ROME - An Italian court ruled Wednesday that a ship carrying 147 rescued migrants should be allowed to dock in Italy -- in defiance of a ban by Italy's far right Interior Minister Matteo Salvini. The ruling has drawn the ire of Salvini, whose office said the Interior Ministry would propose an urgent appeal. The Spanish humanitarian ship Open Arms, which was waiting off the Italian island of Lampedusa and has been at sea for 13 days, has been appealing for a place to dock. "There is a plan to go backward and open Italian ports, to make Italy return to being Europe's refugee camp," he said on Facebook.

Political turmoil has returned to Rome with one of the country's deputy prime ministers calling for snap elections and declaring that the coalition government is unworkable. The coalition has been on a rocky path since it first came to power in June 2018. There has been clear confrontation between the two-party coalition formed of the leftist, anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S) and the anti-immigration, populist Lega party. "Let's quickly give the say back to the voters," Matteo Salvini, deputy prime minister and Lega leader, told the media Thursday evening. M5S has, meanwhile, seen its support drop and is currently polling third at 17%.

Two 19-year-old Americans have been arrested while on vacation in Rome over the death of an Italian police officer, Italian police told CNN. General Francesco Gargaro, of the Provincial Carabinieri Command, said the weapon was brought to the country by the 19-year-old suspect, Finnegan Lee Elder. Deputy Italian Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, who has called for life-long prison sentences for the accused teens, attended the service. After being sold crushed aspirin instead of cocaine, officers allege that the Americans stole a backpack off the man. Both Americans are accused of assaulting the policemen, who reportedly identified themselves as law enforcement officers during the meeting early on Friday morning.

CNN image(CNN) - Italian police have launched an investigation into a shocking image that shows one of the two young Americans arrested over the killing of an Italian police officer, blindfolded at a police station in Rome. The provincial Carabinieri command of Rome is quickly carrying out investigations to locate who is responsible," police said in a statement Sunday. Officer Rega, 35, was stabbed eight times at 2 a.m. local time on Friday, in the Prati neighborhood of Rome, near the hotel where the two young men were staying, police said. The two Americans, both from San Francisco, were arrested inside their hotel room in Rome. Slain police officer Rega had only recently returned to work from his honeymoon after getting married on June 13 in his hometown of Somma Vesuvianna, near Naples.

Two Americans arrested in connection with the death of an Italian paramilitary officer had blamed each other for committing murder, court documents sent to reporters show. The dispatcher agreed to send an officer to meet the victim. A detention order says Natale-Hjorth, who can understand Italian, confirmed that Rega identified himself as a Carabiniere officer. Elder, who doesn't speak the language, denies the officer revealed who he was. Italy's Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini tweeted that anyone concerned about the treatment of those arrested should remember the only real victim is the officer who died.

ROME (Reuters) - A 19-year-old U.S. student has confessed to killing a policeman in central Rome, in a crime that has shaken Italy, national news agency ANSA reported on Friday. ANSA reported that one of the two had confessed to the killing. Police murders are rare in Italy and politicians of all parties expressed their horror and outrage. The person being followed accused the two men of later stealing his bag, containing his phone and a small amount of cash, police said. One of the two men pulled a knife and stabbed Cerciello Rega, the 35-year-old policeman, who was in civilian clothes and had married less than two months ago.

LAMPEDUSA, Italy - The rescue vessel Alex docked Saturday in the Italian port of Lampedusa, carrying more than 40 shipwrecked migrants despite being banned by Matteo Salvini, the country's far-right Interior Minister. Mediterranea said it was pleased the rescued migrants were finally receiving medical attention after several hours waiting in port, but called the investigation "baseless." The Alex was the second migrant boat to arrive in Lampedusa in recent days. Last week, a migrant boat belonging to Sea-Eye entered Italian waters in defiance of the ban applied by Italian authorities. Germany is ready to welcome some of the migrants who are on board the two German NGO ships, German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said.

The migrant rescue vessel Sea-Watch 3 was stopped outside the island of Lampedusa by Italian authorities on Wednesday after it defied an order from Rome blocking it from coming ashore. LAMPEDUSA, Italy - Italian police have arrested the captain of a rescue ship carrying dozens of migrants rescued near Libya, after a weeks-long standoff between the vessel and authorities came to a climax off the island of Lampedusa. Carola Rackete, the German captain of Sea-Watch 3, was led off the ship in handcuffs after forcing the vessel into the Italian port without permission in the early hours of Saturday morning. Sea-Watch 3 was one of the first migrant rescue vessels to test new Italy's newest hardline migration laws. Under Salvini, the country closed its ports to migrant rescue vessels in June 2018.