With Pope Francis a few weeks away from his 88th birthday, the plotting for his successor is well underway at the Vatican.

Workers in Italy’s troubled automotive sector are holding a national strike for the first time in 20 years, with a massive demonstration crossing the center of Rome.

Italy on Wednesday criminalized citizens who go abroad to have children through surrogacy, while opponents slam it as “medieval” and discriminatory to same-sex couples.

There were snipers on the roof of the stadium and a heavy police presence throughout the city of Udine for Italy’s home match against Israel on Monday.

Italian lawmakers on Friday questioned the head of troubled French-Italian automaker Stellantis over the group’s strategy, one day after it announced a management shakeup in an effort to revive sales.

Crowds are taking part in pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli protests and memorial events across the world on the eve of the first anniversary of the Hamas attacks on Israel.

Police used tear gas and water cannons to disperse violent demonstrators in Rome as tens of thousands pro-Palestinian protesters took to the streets in European cities and around the globe, calling for a cease-fire as the first anniversary of the Hamas attacks on Israel approached.

Italy's main metalworkers union says workers in the automotive sector will go on strike on Oct. 18 in protest of declining output from Stellantis, the biggest carmaker in the country.

A man has smashed a sculpture by Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei during the private opening of his exhibition in the northern Italian city of Bologna.

British tech magnate Mike Lynch and several other people are missing after their luxury superyacht sank during a freak storm off Sicily, Italy’s civil protection and authorities said.

Rome’s mayor and several others have denounced the defacing of a street-art celebration of Paola Egonu.

Fashion house Dolce & Gabbana has launched a new alcohol-free perfume for dogs called ‘Fefé’ in honor of Domenico Dolce’s poodle, but not all vets and pet owners agree it’s safe or appropriate.

A pair of Syrians have created a community that provides support to migrants and vulnerable people in Rome, by sharing the flavors of a homeland torn by civil war.

A tornado that touched down in the small, upstate New York city of Rome ripped roofs from houses, reduced brick buildings to rubble and toppled steeples from two historic churches.

Much of the U.S. and Canada is cleaning up or still dealing with a new wave of severe storms that have caused deaths and damage this week from the Plains to New England.

An aid group that rescues migrants in the Mediterranean says one of its missions has been interrupted by armed bandits.

Pope Francis has decreed that an area of northern Rome long used by Vatican Radio will now house a field of solar panels to fuel Vatican City.

Italy is celebrating the return of around 600 antiquities from the U.S. They were looted years ago, sold to U.S. museums and collectors and recovered as a result of criminal investigations.

Tadej Pogacar has won the Giro d’Italia with the race’s biggest margin of victory in nearly six decades.

The big news in Naomi Osaka’s life has nothing to do with the French Open or clay-court tennis: Her 10-month-old daughter, Shai, is taking her first steps.

Top-ranked Novak Djokovic hasn’t won a tournament all year.

Alexander Zverev put on a serving clinic in a 6-4, 7-5 win over 24th-ranked Nicolas Jarry to claim his second Italian Open title and earn his biggest trophy since tearing his ankle apart two years ago.

The long-sought upgrade for the tennis tournaments in Madrid and Rome has been a bonanza for the organizers by expanding them from one to nearly two weeks.

While many of the migrants who reach Europe are escaping war, conflict and poverty, an increasing number are fleeing possible prison terms and death sentences because they are gay.

Top-ranked Iga Swiatek remains on course for an uncommon Madrid-Rome double after beating Angelique Kerber to reach the Italian Open quarterfinals.

Novak Djokovic put on one of his worst performances at one of his favorite tournaments as he was upset by 29th-seeded Alejandro Tabilo in the third round of the Italian Open.

Novak Djokovic needed medical attention after accidentally getting knocked on the head by a water bottle after a win at the Italian Open.

Novak Djokovic took a little while to get going in his first match in nearly a month.

Also in this week’s Olympic notebook, torch arrives in France, U.S. archery trials taking place next week in Florida.

Rafael Nadal rallied for a 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 win over Belgian qualifier Zizou Bergs in the first round of the Italian Open.

Bayer Leverkusen silenced the Stadio Olimpico with a 2-0 win at Roma in the first leg of the Europa League semifinals to extend its record unbeaten streak to 47 matches across all competitions.

Italy’s Culture Ministry has banned loans of works to the Minneapolis Institute of Art, following a dispute with the U.S. museum over an ancient marble statue believed to have been looted from Italy almost a half-century ago.

Tech giant Cisco Systems has joined Microsoft and IBM in signing onto a Vatican-sponsored pledge to ensure artificial intelligence is developed and used ethically.

The collective group of Summer Games sports has criticized World Athletics for promising to pay $50,000 for each track and field gold medal won at the Paris Olympics.

The Holy See has formally protested to France after a court there ruled that a former high-ranking Vatican official was liable for what the court determined to be the wrongful dismissal of a nun from a religious order.

The Vatican says Pope Francis has skipped the traditional Good Friday procession at Rome’s Colosseum to protect his health, adding to concerns about his frail condition during a particularly busy liturgical period.

Pope Francis has washed and kissed the feet of 12 women inmates at a Rome prison.

A study raises more questions than it answers about how tiny specks of plastic might affect the heart.

The Tirelli atelier in Rome's Prati neighborhood has woven itself into the fabric of Italian and international film history, with its costume designs behind 17 Academy Awards for costume design.

Pope Francis was taken briefly to a hospital in central Rome after the papal audience on Wednesday.

Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani was on hand Tuesday for the arrival in Rome of an Italian family of three just hours after their release from two years of captivity in the African nation of Mali.

The Vatican says that Pope Francis has canceled an audience as a precaution after coming down with mild flu.

Pope Francis has met with Argentine pilgrims who are in town for this weekend’s canonization of the first female saint from his home country.

Emperor Constantine now has a reconstructed statue befitting his larger-than-life role in history.

A leading Catholic charity is making an urgent appeal to the U.S. state of Alabama to halt a planned execution this week using nitrogen gas.

As artificial intelligence's impact on society receives more scrutiny, a Franciscan friar who preaches a message of ethics in technology has gained some powerful listeners.

Roma has announced that José Mourinho is leaving the club “with immediate effect.”.

The Vatican says Nicaraguan Bishop Rolando Álvarez and 18 Catholic clergy members from the Latin American country have arrived in Rome and are guests of the Holy See.

The leaders of Italy and the U.K. have agreed to tackle irregular migration to Europe.

Pope Francis has made his first public appearance outdoors since being stricken by bronchitis two weeks ago, which forced him to cancel a planned trip to the COP-28 climate conference in Dubai.

Pope Francis is hosting a special lunch for more than 1,000 poor people to mark the Catholic Church's World Day of the Poor.

An 8-month-old terminally ill British girl has been granted Italian citizenship after a court in Britain authorized the withdrawal of life-supporting invasive treatment.

Pope Francis’ big meeting on the future of the Catholic Church is heading into its final stretch.

When Giorgia Meloni took office a year ago as the first far-right premier in Italy’s post-war history, many in Europe worried about the prospect of the country’s democratic backsliding and resistance to European Union rules.

Italian authorities say at least 21 people have been killed and 18 injured in a bus crash in Venice.

Clergy sexual abuse survivors have unveiled a proposed new church law calling for the permanent removal of abusive priests and superiors who covered for them.

A flotilla of flimsy boats, crowded with migrants and launched from Tunisia, is overwhelming a tiny Italian island south of Sicily.

Researchers have discovered new documentation that substantiates reports that Catholic convents and monasteries in Rome sheltered Jews during World War II.

Forty-one people are believed dead after a migrant boat capsized off Tunisia.

The Italian finance ministry is defending a proposed 40% tax on some bank profits as being in line with “already existing rules in Europe on extra bank margins.”.

Officials are warning residents and tourists packing Mediterranean destinations to stay indoors during the hottest hours as the second heat wave in as many weeks hits the region and Greece, Spain and Switzerland battle wildfires.

Italian health authorities are intensifying heat warnings as southern Europe enters a brutally hot week.

A U.S.-based group that tracks how the Catholic hierarchy deals with allegations of sexual abuse by clergy says Pope Francis made a “troubling” choice in appointing an Argentine archbishop to a powerful Vatican office.

Italian police say they believe the man filmed while engraving his name last week on the ancient Roman Colosseum is a tourist who lives in Britain.

Italy’s Parliament is poised to open a bicameral commission of inquiry into the 1883 disappearance of the teenage daughter of a Vatican employee.

Exactly 40 years after the teenage daughter of a Vatican employee disappeared, the Vatican announced new leads “worthy of further investigation” have surfaced.

Four temples from ancient Rome stand smack in the middle of one of the modern city's busiest crossroads.

The Vatican says Pope Francis is going to be discharged from the hospital on Friday.

The Vatican spokesman says Pope Francis is expected to be released from the hospital “in the coming days.”.

Pope Francis has followed his doctors' advice and skipped his customary Sunday noon public blessing as he convalesces from abdominal surgery.

Silvio Berlusconi's doctors say the former Italian premier was admitted to a Milan hospital for planned medical checks related to his chronic leukemia.

The Vatican says Pope Francis is “progressively improving” and sitting in an armchair working.

A special Italian court has shut down a probe into whether the country’s former premier and former health minister caused unnecessary deaths by failing to extend a lockdown zone in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic.

Pope Francis has made a quick trip to a hospital for tests and returned to the Vatican, two months after he was hospitalized with an acute case of bronchitis.

Italy is displaying hundreds of antiquities that were looted from Italian territory and were recovered from a London dealer.

Pope Francis has asked aides to get to the bottom of how at least $17 million was transferred from the Vatican’s U.S.-based missionary fundraising coffers into an impact investing vehicle run by a priest.

A remarkable perfect record in European soccer must fall Wednesday when Sevilla faces José Mourinho's Roma in the Europa League final.

The archbishop of Chicago is urging the Illinois attorney general to provide information about newly uncovered cases of priests who sexually abused minors that were included in a statewide investigative report.

Twenty-year-old Danish player Holger Rune recorded his second victory over Novak Djokovic in little more than six months by beating the 22-time Grand Slam champion 6-2, 4-6, 6-2 to reach the Italian Open semifinals.

Novak Djokovic had to overcome a mid-match lapse before beating Grigor Dimitrov 6-3, 4-6, 6-1 to reach the fourth round of the Italian Open.

Novak Djokovic was tested by 61st-ranked Tomas Martin Etcheverry in a 7-6 (5), 6-2 opening win at the Italian Open.

A top Vatican cardinal is defending Pope Francis’ “drastic” leadership firings at the Holy See’s preeminent charity.

Italy is starting to come to terms with its Fascist-era colonial past and the loot it has in its museums.

A morning pep talk from European Ryder Cup captain Luke Donald in the locker room.

Sandro Botticelli's iconic goddess of love in his 15th-century masterpiece “Birth of Venus” has now become a “virtual influencer” in a new Italian tourism campaign.

Former Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte has been physically attacked during an official appearance in Tuscany by a man protesting against Italy’s lockdowns and other measures to contain the pandemic.

Napoli has won its first Italian soccer league title since the days when Diego Maradona played for the club.

A reconstructed Pompeii bridal chariot that eluded modern-day thieves in the ancient city is a star of a new exhibition in Rome.

A Canadian lawyer who found his vocation caring for AIDS patients in Harlem has been elected the grand master of the Knights of Malta.

There won’t be any more arguing with line judges over calls at tennis tournaments on the ATP men’s tour as of 2025 — because there won’t be any more line judges at those events by then.

Former Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi is now stable after three weeks in the hospital being treated for a lung infection.

A Texas-born princess has been evicted from a historic villa in Rome containing the only known ceiling painted by Caravaggio.

A Texas-born princess is facing a court-ordered eviction from a Rome villa containing the only known ceiling painted by Caravaggio.

Hundreds of remnants of ancient Roman life — from dice to rain gutter decorations to burial offerings 3,000 years old — have long been hidden from public view.

Italian media say former Premier Silvio Berlusconi has been transferred from an intensive care unit to a regular ward at a Milan hospital.

Excavations in the ancient city of Paestum in southern Italy have unearthed seven terracotta bull heads and a figurine of the Greek god Eros riding a dolphin.

Italy is vowing a host of investments in Tunisia and help negotiating an International Monetary Fund bailout for the North African country.

Italy will push for stiff, five-figure fines on vandals who damage monuments or other cultural sites.

Italy's right-wing government has declared a state of emergency to help it cope with a surge in migrants arriving on the country's southern shores.

Pope Francis, hospitalized recently with bronchitis, has skipped the traditional Good Friday nighttime procession at the Colosseum because of chilly weather in Rome.