ROME-- Regional councils will be given the right to impose a tax on pet ownership in a new series of measures soon to go into effect.

LONDON -- As every day goes by, Greece, the birthplace of democracy, looks more likely to exit the eurozone.

ROME –Tens of thousands of struggling migrants, many providing services for tourists in the Eternal City, live in squalid windowless basements, some rented by landlords linked to the Vatican bank,

ROME -- From May. 30-Oct. 21, The Academy of France –- the Villa Medici -– is to present an exhibition entitled ‘Tapis Volants’ (‘Flying Carpets’).

ROME -- The cemetery for non-Catholics in Rome rivals Highgate in London and the Père Lachaise in Paris as an assembly of extraordinary figures, with John Keats the most renowned.

ROME – Dr Richard Hodges was warmly welcomed at a lecture he delivered on Butrint in his first American University of Rome appearance ahead of his inauguration as the university's President in July

ROME – The MAXXI Foundation, home to some of the capital’s most prestigious examples of contemporary art, is to pass into compulsory administration.

SARAJEVO-- The sickening crack from a Serbian sharpshooter's rifle made my American colleague jump bolt upright in the driver's seat.

ROME – A renowned Caravaggio scholar claims the great 16th century artist was killed with the "tacit consent of the Roman Curia."

LONDON -- Sterling hit a 13-month peak against world currencies at the start of April after surprisingly upbeat manufacturing data suggested the UK could avoid slipping into recession.

ROME – The Keats-Shelley House, on the Spanish Steps, has a new exhibit bringing the works of John Keats to life in the place he died, through illustration.

ROME -- I left New York at 34 because every bone in my body could feel that the window was closing.