ROME - Juventus drew away at Ajax in the first leg of their Champions League quarter final as talisman Cristiano Ronaldo scored yet again to bag an all-important away goal for his side.

 Ronaldo, whose goal marked his 125th in the tournament, proved once more why Juventus paid big money to tempt him away from the Bernabeu last summer.

ROME - A police officer charged with the murder of Stefano Cucchi has told a courtroom in Rome that he witnessed his colleagues repeatedly hit and kick Cucchi in events that eventually led to the man's death, judicial sources revealed.

 Francesco Tedesco this week revealed that he had witnessed fellow police officers strike and kick Cucchi in the face, and had subsequently been told to keep the incident under wraps.

ROME - Both coalition parties have lost ground to a resurgent Partito Democratico in the latest polls for upcoming European elections in May, investigations by political and social research institute SWG have revealed.  

 Deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini’s League party were the hardest hit, estimated to have lost 1.1 per cent of their support in the space of a week.

NAPLES – One man is dead and another man has been injured in an ambush near a school in the east of Naples, police said on Tuesday.

 Luigi Mignano, 57, was in a car with his son, Pasquale, 32, at Rione Villa, in the San Giovanni a Teduccio neighbourhood when two people on scooters approached and opened fire. 

 Around 10 shots were fired by the scooter’s passenger, police said. 

 Emergency workers were unable to save Luigi, who died instantly. Pasquale sustained leg injuries and was taken to the Ospedale del Mare.