ROME — Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, called the Israeli treatment of activists onboard the Global Sumud Flotilla “unacceptable” and a “violation of human dignity”, in a statement released on Wednesday.

 A video published by Israeli National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, shows him taunting the detained activists, 29 of whom are Italian. The activists are shown kneeling with their foreheads pressed to the floor and their hands zip-tied behind their backs.

 PALERMO\ODESA -In this Sicilian capital and throughout Sicily, talking about the Mafia, once a forbidden taboo, is now as common as talking about your favorite football team. Corleone, recognized by Hollywood as the purported birthplace of the Cosa Nostra, now features a city-funded museum dedicated to its history and “legality," while local merchants offer digestives (amari) emblazoned with the image of Marlon Brando portraying Don Corleone in Francis Coppola’s film, The Godfather.

Rome — Pope Leo XIV received a standing ovation at La Sapienza University on Thursday during a landmark pastoral visit that many observers viewed as a symbolic reconciliation between the Vatican and Italy’s largest public university nearly two decades after Pope Benedict XVI was forced to cancel his planned appearance following protests.

ROME- “Imagine the Death Star coming towards your embattled insurgent cause,” said David Armitage, Professor of History at Harvard University. He was speaking at the Center for the series, “Writing America: The United States 250.”

 He was referencing the time in 1776 when the largest expeditionary force ever in the history of the world was assembled off the coast of Long Island, New York while the American Declaration of Independence was being written.