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Italy

This Month

Why Lake Como has become a hot ticket in winter

These palatial family-run retreats in northern Italy pride themselves on making the festive season magical.

  • Jane Cornwell
Expatriate Syrians gather in Berlin this week to celebrate the fall of the Assad regime.

‘We need time’: Syrians in Europe resist calls to return home

Those who fled the 13-year civil war pointed to the political uncertainty after a rebel offensive swept into Damascus over the weekend.

  • Laura Pitel, Eleni Varvitsioti and Amy Kazmin
Pope Francis during the ceremony in  St. Peter’s Basilica at The Vatican at the weekend.

Australian-based bishop among Pope’s new cardinal picks

At 44 years of age, Mykola Bychokthe, head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in Melbourne, is also the youngest cardinal.

  • Nicole Winfield

So, you want to retire to Tuscany?

The idea of moving to Italy is alluring for retirees – la dolce vita, the food, the wine, the beauty, the prices. Just check these practicalities first.

  • Sian Powell
Carlos Tavares, chief executive of Stellantis, alongside a Peugeot EV on the assembly line at the Stellantis plant in Sochaux, France.

Why this ‘extraordinary’ global CEO was axed

Carlos Tavares was forced from major carmaker Stellantis, which has brands like Jeep, Peugeot and Maserati, as global EV sales slump and cost-cutting ramps up.

  • Silvia Sciorilli Borrelli, Kana Inagaki and Ian Johnston
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Carlos Tavares (left) with a Ram electric pickup truck in Las Vegas.

Boss of Jeep, Maserati, Peugeot quits as sales plunge

The world’s fourth-largest car maker, with brands like Fiat and Ram, has suffered a sharp decline in profits this year.

  • Wyatte Grantham-Philips and Albertina Torsoli

November

Engineering vehicles for export wait for transportation from a port in Yantai in eastern China’s Shandong province.

Trump’s tariffs mean crony capitalism is coming

The tariffs pledged are far higher than anything seen the first time around – and the potential for political favouritism will be far greater.

  • Paul Krugman
The “Club dei 27” (Club of 27) pays tribute and places a bouquet of flowers on Maestro Verdi’s bed after singing “Va, pensiero” during the celebration of the 210th anniversary of Giuseppe Verdi’s birth in Roncole, Busseto, Parma, Italy

Only 27 men can be in Verdi’s exclusive fan club

Gaining a coveted membership requires a proven passion for the Italian composer, and an existing member to die. You also have to be male.

  • Elisabetta Povoledo

October

Silvio Berlusconi pictured in 2015 with Giorgia Meloni leader of Fratelli d’Italia political party, now Italian prime minister.

Silvio Berlusconi died. But the ‘Bunga Bunga’ scandal lives on.

Italy just can’t shake off its former prime minister. And that’s tough for the women who were still girls when they were swept up by scandal.

  • Emma Bubola
Property owners assess damage after Milton passed through Manasota Key, Florida.

Americans are moving closer to climate risk. This is why

Individuals and businesses have been willing to ignore the longer-term financial and human risk of extreme weather in favour of the short-term gains.

  • Rana Foroohar
German police check a tramway arriving from France at the German-French border in Kehl, Germany.

Germany ‘reopens old wounds’ with border checks

There are fears for the future of Schengen and the freedom of movement it symbolises – regarded by EU citizens as one of the greatest accomplishments of European unity.

  • Guy Chazan, Laura Dubois and Raphael Minder

September

Nick Bolton.

Magellan raider Nick Bolton’s assets frozen by Supreme Court

A rather extraordinary freezing order has been placed over Bolton, after his investment vehicle loaned nearly $5 million to an Italian entity associated with him.

  • Myriam Robin
Australia’s coronavirus commissioners (from left) Robyn Kruk, Professor Catherine Bennett and Angela Jackson.

Australia’s new pandemic playbook

On the eve of the release of the national COVID-19 review, 10 key actions have emerged for when a similar pathogen hits Australia.

  • Tom Burton
New York Mets owner Steve Cohen.

How this billionaire ran his hedge fund like a baseball team

Steve Cohen’s decision to step back from trading and focus on running Point72 underlines a redemption since an insider trading scandal.

  • Costas Mourselas and Harriet Agnew

August

Tourists swarm the Trevi Fountain in Rome in July.

Italy considers hefty tax on visitors after over-tourism backlash

The government proposes a levy of up €25 a night for the most expensive hotel rooms to help cash-strapped cities.

  • Updated
  • Amy Kazmin and Giuliana Ricozzi
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Italian firefighter divers bring ashore in a plastic bag the body of one of the victims of a shipwreck, in Porticello, Sicily.

Manslaughter, negligence investigation in Lynch yacht sinking

Authorities in Sicily have opened a manslaughter and negligent shipwreck probe into the August 19 sinking of British tech tycoon Mike Lynch’s yacht.

  • Updated
  • Donato Paolo Mancini
Hannah and Mike Lynch, who both died when the superyacht Bayesian sank in a storm.

Final body recovered from sunken superyacht off Sicily

Hannah Lynch, the teenage daughter of British IT tycoon Mike Lynch, was the last person unaccounted for after her family’s superyacht sank four days ago.

Rescue divers arrive back with a fifth body from the luxury yacht.

Bodies recovered from superyacht wreckage include Morgan Stanley exec

Divers continue to search for the final missing person, thought to be the technology entrepreneur’s 18-year-old daughter, who may have been swept out to sea.

  • Updated
  • Guglielmo Mangiapane and Giselda Vagnoni
Scuba divers at the harbour of Porticello, southern Italy.

Divers find five bodies in superyacht, but questions remain

Among the recovered were reportedly technology entrepreneur Mike Lynch and his daughter, as questions intensified over why the vessel sank so quickly.

  • Nicole Winfield, Danica Kirka and Andrea Rosa
Rescue teams and divers returned to the site of the storm-sunken superyacht.

Investigation into ‘open hatches’ on doomed superyacht

One expert at the scene in Sicily told Reuters that an early focus would be on whether the yacht’s crew had failed to close access hatches into the vessel.

  • Updated
  • Connor Stringer, Albert Tait and Josephine McKenna

Original URL: https://www.afr.com/topic/italy-b01