Australian football club Sydney FC reportedly plans to try and sign former Juventus and Italy forward Alessandro del Piero as its marquee player for the next A-League season.Sydney FC chief executive Tony Pignata is quoted as saying in Wednesday's edition of the Sydney Morning Herald that his club had already approached Del Piero through his management and was ''going to go for it as hard as we can.''

AFFILE, Italy — This village in the rolling hills east of Rome is known for its fresh air, olive oil and wine — and its residual appreciation of Benito Mussolini, whose image adorns some wine bottles on prominent display in local bars.

The Venice film festival opens on Wednesday with "The Reluctant Fundamentalist", based on a novel of the same name which traces a young Pakistani's journey from Wall Street high flyer to suspected Islamist radical targeted by American intelligence.

BERLIN — German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Thursday she is confident that Italy’s reform drive will help push down the country’s borrowing costs, but underlined her resistance to another idea that could drive them lower — giving the region’s permanent rescue fund a banking license.

This morning, I grabbed a bowl from the cabinet, went outside and picked my breakfast of fresh Figs. No, I’m not vacationing near the Mediterranean coast. Nor am I in California or the South. I’m at home in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, where the fig tree in my tiny garden is covered in ripening fruit.

 ROME - A trio of thieves aboard a train stole a priest's backpack containing a vial of the late Pope John Paul II's blood on Tuesday, but police recovered the relic a few hours later, authorities said. The relic was found in a stand of reeds and grass near the railway station in the seaside town of Marina di Cerveteri, where the thieves had gotten off the train, said state railways police official Domenico Ponziani.  

VENICE, Italy — The Venice Film Festival is focusing on its artistic roots this year, courting celebrated directors and not flashy Hollywood blockbusters. Festival director Alberto Barbera trimmed the number of movies premiering at the world's oldest film festival, which opens Wednesday, to just 18 in competition for the coveted Golden Lion, Venice's top prize. 

 Italy's ban on screening embryos for diseases before they are implanted in a womb violates the rights of a couple whose first child was born with cystic fibrosis, the European Court of Human Rights ruled Tuesday.