Declining competitiveness in France and Italy due to high debt and labor costs is threatening to cause grave economic problems for the rest of the euro area, the European Commission warned on Wednesday.

 A bishop from the earthquake-stricken province of Modena in central Italy said Tuesday he was surprised to find himself having an informal chat at breakfast recently with Pope Francis.

 Many of the woes that have marred Italian soccer in recent years, including violence, racism and ill-tempered rows about refereeing, were on display in the last round of Serie A fixtures.

 Evidence was seized from a school on Tuesday for probes into the alleged severe mistreatment of a 14-year-old autistic boy by two teachers caught on hidden surveillance cameras in the northern city of Vicenza.

 Senators belonging to the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement (M5S) started a sit-in inside the Senate Tuesday to protest against the failure to launch the Italian parliament's commissions after February's inconclusive general election.

 A year after passing a nationwide plastic bag ban, the Italian government has identified the technical characteristics of plastic bags that can legally be used in a decree published in the Official Journal in March.

 With the mountainous Slovenian border on one side and the uncharacteristically grey Adriatic Sea on the other, I gazed out over the crumbling terracotta roof tiles of Trieste, taking shelter from the howling wind and driving rain behind a battlement on the Castle of San Giusto.

 Italian center-left leader Pier Luigi Bersani met his center-right rival Silvio Berlusconi on Tuesday to discuss the election for the next president of the Republic, offering hope of a breakthrough in the deadlock left by elections in February.

 Interior Minister Annamaria Cancellieri on Monday hailed an initiative to combat the mafia through art involving the display of a famous Michelangelo sketch at a school in the Naples area.

  Ambulance crews were forced to flee after their vehicle was pelted with sticks, stones and firecrackers Monday during clashes between soccer fans in the area around Rome's Olympic Stadium before a high-profile match between hometown rivals Roma and Lazio.