Free Republic

If you've ever ordered a shot of espresso from an Italian-style café and were surprised to be served a small glass of sparkling water alongside it, there's actually a few good reasons as to why. First, the sparkling water is a palate cleanser that can prepare your taste buds to detect all the nuanced espresso flavors... Second, espresso can be dehydrating, so having something like a glass of ice cold sparkling or still mineral water with it can help counteract that effect... The true history of the custom is difficult to pinpoint precisely, but sparkling espresso or coffee drinks are...

Shortly after a car plowed into a crowd of pedestrians in Modena, Italy, four Italian civilians stepped in and tackled the vehicle's driver, pulling him to the ground, according to the city's mayor. "The madman, I don't know what to call him, the criminal who committed this act, he got out of the car brandishing a knife," Mayor Massimo Mezzetti told state-owned news agency RAI. "Four citizens, whom I thank, captured him and handed him over to law enforcement." Mezzetti said that eight people were wounded when the car rammed into a crowd on Via Emilia, a busy street in...

At least eight people were injured Saturday in Modena, Italy when a crazed driver rammed his car into a crowd at full speed — and then knifed a hero who stopped him when he tried to flee following his cowardly act. The man has been identified by authorities as Salim el Koudri, a 31-year-old Italian citizen of Moroccan origin. The motive is not yet known, but a terrorist attack is not being ruled out, Italian newspaper La Pressa reported.

After weeks of negotiations, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has failed to form a government... King Frederik X has now asked Liberal Party leader Troels Lund Poulsen to lead talks...Under the King's mandate, Poulsen is now expected to explore the formation of a government that excludes both the Social Democrats and the Moderates, signalling a major shift to the right in Denmark's political landscape.The move came after weeks of difficult coalition talks following Denmark's fragmented March snap election, which saw 12 parties enter parliament, with only three winning more than 10% of the vote.Although Frederiksen's Social Democrats recorded their weakest...

An X user posted the photo of the 49-year-old politician posing on a bed wearing a skimpy slip, blasting Italy’s first woman prime minister as “shameful.” Meloni shared a screenshot of the post on Tuesday with an assurance that the photo is indeed fake — albeit fabulous. “Several fake photos of me are circulating, generated with artificial intelligence … I must admit that whoever created them, at least in the attached case, has also improved me quite a bit,” wrote the politician, who was elected in 2022. She went on to warn against ne’er-do-wells who use artificial intelligence to dupe...

Residents in Punta Marina near Ravenna are having to put up with the constant disruption from a booming peacock population that is now taking over the streets and turning into roaming gangs of aggressive birds. Explosive growth in big bird numbers Numbers have risen continually since 2014 when just ten birds lived in nearby pine woods. Pandemic conditions allowed rapid breeding so that today around 120 peacocks roam freely through the settlement, intimidating human residents. Local television programme Vita in diretta captured scenes of birds crowding pavements and causing widespread mess. Constant noise and health impacts Sharp loud screams of...

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared himself "a strong supporter of NATO" after talks with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on Friday, as political friction between the two allies brews. The atmosphere during the visit was notably warmer than in recent weeks. Rubio spoke partly in Spanish during the meetings, joking that the language was "very similar" to Italian. He also said he had been trying to learn Italian himself, but that his subscription to language app Babbel had expired.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said on Monday she would not support any decision by President Donald Trump to withdraw U.S. troops from Italy. "It is a decision that doesn't depend on me and one that I personally would not agree with," Meloni told reporters in Yerevan, Armenia, on the sidelines of a European Political Community summit. Asked whether Washington would consider pulling its troops out of ​Italy and Spain, Trump last week answered "probably". Meloni added she would likely meet with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is due to travel to Rome later this week for talks,...

The German chancellor Friedrich Merz has desperately backflipped on his criticism of US President Donald Trump after he threatened to remove thousands of US troops from Germany. German chancellor desperately backtracks on Trump criticism after savage threat to remove troops | 4:55 | 6.18M subscribers | 368,472 views | May 4, 2026

If everything goes to plan, Alex Bellini could become the first person to live on an iceberg, where temperatures hover between 5 to −4 degrees Fahrenheit and gale-force winds blow. The 38-year-old Italian public speaker and adventurer, who crossed two oceans alone on a row boat and ran across the U.S. in 70 days, recently spoke about his project, Adrift, a years’-long ambition to live in a survival capsule on a Greenland iceberg. Once a suitable iceberg is selected, Bellini plans to conduct research on climate change‘s affect on ice sheets and to test the limits of human endurance and...

President Trump announced Friday he would soon raise tariffs to 25% on vehicles imported from the European Union, claiming the bloc was non-compliant with its US trade deal. “I am pleased to announce that, based on the fact the European Union is not complying with our fully agreed to Trade Deal, next week I will be increasing Tariffs charged to the European Union for Cars and Trucks coming into the United States,” he said in a post to Truth Social. Companies that build vehicles in the United States will be exempt from the tariff, he added. “Many Automobile and Truck...

nvestigators believe the sinking of Mike Lynch's Bayesian superyacht was not caused by a storm and have blamed the crew instead. The £30million vessel capsized off the coast of Sicily in August 2024, killing seven including the British tech billionaire and his 18-year-old daughter Hannah. However, the report found it amounted to 'little more than a squall, a sudden increase in wind speed that precedes thunderstorms and downpours', which the crew should have been able to manage. According to the preliminary findings, the 184ft yacht therefore capsized and sank due to the improper actions of the crew, their underestimation of...

I just spent 2 incredible weeks in Italy and it is so frustrating to come back to the U.S… How is it possible @RobertKennedyJr that the Italian food supply is so vastly superior. I literally ate bread at every meal, dessert multiple times per day, and generally ate way more than I do in the U.S. Not once did I have acid reflux. Not one headache, no digestive problems, and I didn’t gain any weight. If I ate the same way in the U.S. (I used to at times) I would have gone through a full bottle of Tums and...

Between the 10th and 13th centuries, the monks at the Great Lavra Monastery on Mount Athos, Greece, sporadically broke down a 6th century manuscript and reused its pages as binding material and flyleaves for other texts. In time, Codex H effectively disappeared. These new volumes were spread across Europe and it was only through the enterprise of a sharp-eyed 18th century French monk that researchers today have been able to locate the lost folios among libraries in Italy, Greece, Russia, Ukraine, and France. All the same, while the general content of Codex H, which contains a copy of the Letters...

Israel’s military removed two soldiers from combat duty and placed them in military detention for 30 days after they destroyed the town’s crucifix. The social media picture of an Israeli soldier taking the blunt side ‌of an axe to a fallen sculpture of Jesus on the cross drew worldwide condemnation and apologies from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other officials. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni thanked the Italian soldiers, saying: “I thank Commander Diodato Abagnara and the entire Italian contingent of UNIFIL for their decision to donate a new crucifix to the Lebanese village of Debel.” One of the...

Donald Trump has eight days before he will be forced to make up his mind on Iran. He wants to end the unpopular war, but claimed on Thursday he was under “no time pressure” to do so. In fact, the US president is bound by the 1973 War Powers Resolution, which limits his ability to wage war without congressional approval to 60 days. That deadline passes on May 1, 60 days after his formal notification of the war to Congress on March 2. It will compel him to choose one of four options – seek congressional authorisation to continue the...

New examination of artifacts recovered from a tomb discovered in 1927 near the Etruscan site of Bisenzio suggests that luxury materials from the western Mediterranean were traded in the interior of the Italian peninsula, according to a report in La Brújula Verde. Located in central Italy's necropolis of Olmo Bello, the rectangular stone cist contained cremated remains, weapons, and ceramics dated to between 750 and 725 B.C. Andrea Babbi of Italy's Institute of Heritage Science said that one of these artifacts, a bronze brooch, had been wrapped with a thin, ornamental silver wire shaped by a series of grooved rollers....

The four leading European states are planning a naval mission to secure the Strait of Hormuz. This much is clear: the hot phase of the conflict appears to be over, and the key players have already made their moves. The loss of Europe’s geopolitical power is the defining decline narrative of our time. As Europeans, we are condemned to become unwilling witnesses of continental decay. And in no field of politics does the toxic amalgam of eco-socialism, elite arrogance, and rampant infantilism become more visible than at the level of the European Union. What we are witnessing in Brussels and...

•“Sheikh Abdul Qader Fadlallah Mamour, 39 years of age, who was expelled last November by Italy back to his native country, Senegal, declared what he described as Jihad against Europeans in Africa.” •“Mamour stated, in a phone call with As-Sharq Al-Awsat, that he has under his command 9,000 Africans from Senegal, Mauritania, Morocco and neighboring African countries, who are prepared to what he described as carrying out Jihad operations against the Europeans, who he accused for stealing the resources of his country.” •In a former interview, Mamour revealed to A-Sharq Al-Awsat that he had met with Osama bin Laden three...

For months and months Papadopoulos has accused Italian officials in participating in the Trump collusion scam. Papadopoulos is certain the Italians were working with the Obama CIA to set him up in 2016. Today former US Ambassador to Italy and the Republic of San Marino John R. Phillips was included on the list of unmaskers.