Latest Giorgia Meloni News

Italy vows to push ahead with dormant migrant vetting centers in Albania

Dec. 23, 2024 11:04 AM EST

MILAN (AP) — Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni’s government vowed on Monday to open controversial migrant processing centers in Albania that have remained dormant after Italian courts refused to validate the transfer of the first two groups of migrants. Government ministers...

Italian court clears Vice Premier Salvini of illegally detaining migrants on a rescue ship in 2019

Dec. 20, 2024 13:57 PM EST

ROME (AP) — A court in Sicily Friday found Vice Premier Matteo Salvini not guilty of illegally detaining 100 migrants aboard a humanitarian rescue ship when he was interior minister. The court dropped all the charges against Salvini in relation an incident in 2019, when he refused...

Italian court set to issue verdict in Salvini's kidnapping trial over migrants blocked at sea

Dec. 20, 2024 04:29 AM EST

ROME (AP) — A court in Sicily is expected to announce its verdict Friday on whether Italy's vice premier, Matteo Salvini, was guilty of illegally detaining 100 migrants aboard a humanitarian rescue ship when he was interior minister. Salvini faces up to six years in jail if...

White House says Biden will visit Pope Francis, Meloni in final international trip of his presidency

Dec. 19, 2024 18:35 PM EST

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden will travel to Italy next month to meet with Pope Francis and top Italian officials for what is expected to be the final international trip of his presidency. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Thursday that Biden will also...

Italy's Salvini faces verdict for blocking migrants at sea. Case weighs limits of stemming migration

Dec. 19, 2024 12:48 PM EST

MILAN (AP) — Italy’s deputy premier, Matteo Salvini, has sounded defiant ahead of Friday’s court verdict in Sicily for blocking some 100 migrants at sea on a humanitarian rescue boat in 2019 when he was interior minister. Salvini, who leads the Euroskeptic, anti-migrant League,...

Italy's premier defends her friendship with Musk and asserts her independence

Dec. 18, 2024 07:44 AM EST

MILAN (AP) — Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni on Wednesday defended her friendship with U.S. tech billionaire and Trump confidant Elon Musk, telling Italian lawmakers that she would not be influenced in areas where he has economic interests. “I can be a friend of Elon Musk and at...

Europe's anti-torture watchdog slams Italy over migrant detention abuses

Dec. 13, 2024 12:28 PM EST

ROME (AP) — The Council of Europe's anti-torture committee on Friday released a report criticizing Italy’s treatment of migrants in local detention centers, citing cases of physical ill-treatment, excessive force and the use of psychotropic drugs on detainees. The report by the...

Middle East latest: Israeli strikes in Gaza kill more than 50 people, including kids

Dec. 12, 2024 19:20 PM EST

An Israeli airstrike flattened a multistory building in central Gaza, killing at least 25 people and wounding dozens more, according to Palestinian medical officials, after strikes Thursday across the Gaza Strip killed at least 28 others. The latest deadly strike hit the urban...

La Scala's gala season premiere vanquished bad-luck vibes around long-absent Verdi opera

Dec. 07, 2024 17:46 PM EST

MILAN (AP) — Milan’s storied Teatro alla Scala presented Giuseppe Verdi’s “La Forza del Destino” for its gala season premiere Saturday for the first time in 59 years, determined to shake the opera's reputation for bringing bad luck. The production conducted by Riccardo...

Italy's Meloni and Hungary's Orbán pledge deeper cooperation on migration and Ukraine

Dec. 04, 2024 13:31 PM EST

ROME (AP) — Italy’s Premier Giorgia Meloni met her Hungarian counterpart Viktor Orbán on Wednesday in Rome, where the two discussed the situation in the Middle East, their support for a just and lasting peace in Ukraine and their commitment to the eastern country’s reconstruction. ...