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☆ Mafia boss Messina Denaro held in top security Italian prison
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-18 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

[1/4] A general view shows the prison where Italy's most wanted mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro is detained, in L'Aquila, Italy, January 18, 2023. REUTERS/Gabriele PileriL'AQUILA, Italy, Jan 18 (Reuters) - Mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro was being held on Wednesday in a high-security jail in central Italy, subject to special restrictions applied to the country's most dangerous prisoners. "I've no criminal record," Messina Denaro, who was caught on Monday after 30 years on the run, told prison guards when he was admitted to the Costarelle prison close to the city of L'Aquila, Italian media reported. Police on Tuesday found the apartment where they believe Messina Denaro had been living for the past few months under the assumed name of Andrea Bonafede. Prosecutors say Messina Denaro was one of the leading figures in Cosa Nostra but preferred to remain in his own region and was not the "boss of bosses" like the late Salvatore "Toto" Riina.

☆ Factbox: How top Mafia boss Messina Denaro escaped justice for 30 years
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-18 | by ( Alvise Armellini | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

ROME, Jan 18 (Reuters) - Matteo Messina Denaro, a brutal Sicilian Mafia boss who was Italy's most wanted criminal before his capture on Monday, had been on the run for 30 years. Messina Denaro, 60, was the last runaway member of a generation of mobsters who masterminded a string of bombings and murders that terrorised Italy in the early 1990s. Nobody knows for sure, but there have long been suspicions that Messina Denaro had his back covered by politicians and other establishment connections. Crime writer Roberto Saviano has pointed out that a former junior justice minister, Antonio D'Ali, has been convicted for collusion with the Messina Denaro family. Messina Denaro was eventually caught outside a clinic in Palermo after police discovered he was sick with cancer.

☆ Perfumes and fancy clothes found in mafia boss Messina Denaro's hideout
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-17 | by ( Wladimir Pantaleone | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

[1/5] Carabinieri police stand guard near the hideout of Matteo Messina Denaro, Italy's most wanted mafia boss, after he was arrested, in the Sicilian town of Campobello di Mazara, Italy, January 17, 2023. REUTERS/Antonio ParrinelloPALERMO, Italy, Jan 17 (Reuters) - Perfumes and designer label clothes were found on Tuesday in an apartment which investigators believe was the last hideout of Sicilian mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro, judicial sources said, a day after the arrest of the 60-year-old fugitive. Messina Denaro was known for his taste for luxury goods, including sun glasses and clothes. Investigators believe Messina Denaro was driven on Monday to Palermo's La Maddalena hospital from Campobello di Mazara to be treated for cancer. Despite his illness, prosecutors said Messina Denaro was fit enough to serve time in prison where he will carry on with his cancer treatment.

Italy's most-wanted man, Mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro, was arrested Monday after three decades on the run. Messina Denaro, a convicted murderer who has eluded authorities 30 years, is thought to be the leader of the notorious Cosa Nostra organized crime group. A picture released by police early Monday showed Messina Denaro in a police car — visibly older than in his 1990s mugshots — alongside two officers. Matteo Messina Denaro after his arrest on Monday. In 2006, police arrested Cosa Nostra boss Bernardo Provenzano, who police named as the "Capo di Capi," or chief of chiefs, after a 43-year manhunt.

☆ Italy arrests Sicilian Mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-16 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

1 fugitive, convicted Mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro, was arrested on Monday at a private clinic in Palermo, Sicily, after 30 years on the run, Italian paramilitary police said. Messina Denaro was captured at the clinic where he was receiving treatment for an undisclosed medical condition, said Carabinieri Gen. Pasquale Angelosanto, who heads the police force's special operations squad. Messina Denaro was taken to a secret location by police immediately after the arrest, Italian state television reported. Messina Denaro, who had a power base in the port city of Trapani, in western Sicily, was considered Sicily's Cosa Nostra top boss even while a fugitive. Messina Denaro, who tried in absentia and convicted of dozens of murders, faces multiple life sentences.

☆ Sicilian mafia boss arrested after 30 years on the run — the last of Italy's most-wanted crime lords
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-16 | by ( Joshua Zitser | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Matteo Messina Denaro, the boss of Sicily's Cosa Nostra mafia group, was arrested on Monday. He became a fugitive on Italy's most-wanted list in 1993, tied to a series of murders and bombings. His capture followed the arrests of other crime kingpins who had been on the run for decades. He is the last of Italy's three most-wanted mafia bosses who eluded capture for decades, per Sky News. Mafia "boss of bosses" Salvatore Riina, who spent 23 years as a fugitive, was captured in 1993.

☆ Illness is what ultimately snared Italy's top Mafia fugitive
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-16 | by ( Alvise Armellini | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Messina Denaro, 60, was caught just outside a private clinic in Palermo together with an accomplice. Illness "is one of the events in the life of a (fugitive) individual that forces them to come out into the open," Palermo Prosecutor Paolo Guido told a press conference. Officers found a man who looked well-groomed, in apparent good health, with a luxury watch worth 35,000 euros ($37,840). In police pictures, Messina Denaro was seen wearing a brown fur-lined jacket, glasses and a brown and white woolly hat. Meanwhile, Messina Denaro seems set for a life behind bars.

☆ Arrest of 'last godfather' deals new blow to ailing Sicilian mafia
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-16 | by ( Angelo Amante | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Messina Denaro, 60, was Italy's most wanted mafia boss and had been on the run for three decades. Experts describe Cosa Nostra, its fame amplified by movies such as "The Godfather", as an ailing crime group facing several difficulties, including competition in the highly lucrative drugs market. "Messina Denaro was the last godfather, he represented all the secrets of Cosa Nostra. Sergi said it was not clear who would step in to replace Messina Denaro in what is now a more factionalised mafia. Any revelation from Messina Denaro on the group's activities - including 1993 bomb attacks in Florence, Rome and Milan which killed 10 people - could be a further major development.

☆ Italian police arrest most wanted mafia boss Messina Denaro in Sicily
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-16 | by ( Vladimiro Pantaleone | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

PALERMO, Italy, Jan 16 (Reuters) - Italian police said on Monday they had arrested Matteo Messina Denaro, the country's most wanted mafia boss who had been on the run for three decades, swooping on a private hospital in the Sicilian capital Palermo where he had gone for treatment. Prosecutors say Messina Denaro is a boss of Sicily's Cosa Nostra mafia. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni hailed the arrest as "a great victory for the state that shows it never gives up in the face of the mafia". Messina Denaro, who comes from the small town of Castelvetrano near Trapani, is accused by prosecutors of being solely or jointly responsible for numerous other murders in the 1990s. In 1993 he helped organise the kidnapping of a 12-year-old boy, Giuseppe Di Matteo, in an attempt to dissuade his father from giving evidence against the mafia, prosecutors say.

☆ Years of cat-and-mouse end as top mafioso cornered in Italian clinic
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-16 | by ( Crispian Balmer | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

He liked wearing designer clothes, expensive sun glasses and Rolex watches, he loved video games and had a taste for luxury foods. Messina Denaro was born in the southwestern Sicilian town of Castelvetrano in 1962, the son of a mafioso. A mass of these notes was found in 2006 when police caught Bernardo Provenzano, who had led Cosa Nostra after Riina's arrest. In a letter to a contact, Messina Denaro said he couldn't believe how careless Provenzano had been. Nonetheless, the fact he managed to escape arrest for so many years showed he had a fierce, loyal following.

The sale of the plant to a consortium, led by Cypriot private equity firm G.O.I. The sale process is in contrast to Germany's confiscation of Rosneft's Schwedt refinery and Gazprom Germania, or Russia's takeover of Sakhalin 1 from Exxon Mobil (XOM.N). Energy is run by Michael Bobrov, who is also CEO of Israeli firm Green Oil that holds a major stake in Israel's biggest refiner Bazan Group. The deal marks an expansion into the refining sector for Trafigura that concluded a similar deal with Prax in 2021 for a refinery in Britain. Trafigura also holds a 3% stake in Italian refiner Saras, an indirect stake in India's major Nayara refinery and runs two small refineries via its subsidiary Puma Energy.

☆ European shares muted, UK outperforms as China-exposed stocks jump
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-28 | by ( Bansari Mayur Kamdar | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

The region-wide STOXX 600 (.STOXX) was flat as of 9:31 GMT, while the FTSE 100 <.FTSE> advanced 0.7% as commodity-linked and China-exposed stocks jumped in early trading. The UK market, which was closed for holidays since its half-day trading on Friday, is playing catch-up, analysts said. The FTSE 100 index has benefited this year from its exposure to commodities as prices of oil and base metals have rallied amid the Russia-Ukraine war. Meanwhile, STOXX 600 was headed for an annual loss of 12.2% as concerns about an economic recession due to aggressive monetary policy tightening by central banks globally weighed on the European index. The technology sector (.SX8P) weighed on STOXX 600 on Wednesday, tracking the overnight fall in U.S. peers as rising yields pressured the interest rate sensitive shares, a recurring theme this year.

In TV, the top 10 list ranges from the indefinable second season of “The White Lotus” to laugh-out-loud comedies and smoldering fantasy shows. “Catch the Fair One” is available on Hulu and various video-on-demand platforms. “Paris, 13th District” is available on Amazon Prime Video and various video-on-demand platforms. “Peter Von Kant” is available on various video-on-demand platforms. “Tár” is available on various video-on-demand platforms.

Lufthansa declined to comment on Rome's decision to offer an initial minority stake. Some of Italy's politicians consider ITA as the heir to cultural icon Alitalia, which they want to preserve. Some also say that ITA does not have to worry so much about losing its national identity should Lufthansa take over. The Certares-led alliance was willing to pay 350 million euros for a 50% stake plus one share of the state-controlled airline, sources had said. ($1 = 0.9412 euros)Reporting by Angelo Amante in Rome and Joanna Plucinska in London; additional reporting by Giuseppe Fonte in Rome.

Fashion rental apps offer users a way to make passive income from the clothes in their closets. Londoner Camille B. has earned over £18,000, or about $22,000, by renting out her designer items on the apps. It was a pleasure to wear, cost $349.25 AUD, or $233, and I've rented it multiple times already, including to someone who wanted the dress for her wedding. Fashion rental apps have changed the way I buy clothesIt's definitely changed the way that I buy. I have a yellow Jacquemus dress which was rented 30 times, for a total of £1,651.71, or about $2,000.

☆ 'The White Lotus' Season 3: Creator Mike White drops some hints on what could be in store
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-12 | by ( Dan Heching | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

“The first season kind of highlighted money, and then the second season is sex,” White said. “I think the third season would be maybe a satirical and funny look at death and Eastern religion and spirituality. It feels like it could be a rich tapestry to do another round at ‘White Lotus.’” (Season 1 of the show took place in Hawaii, followed by this season’s bawdy action set in Sicily.) That’s not the only clue White has dropped for the next season of “Lotus,” which already jumped halfway around the world once, from the Pacific to the Mediterranean. You know, we did Europe, and maybe Asia, something crazy like that, that would be fun,” White told Deadline in October, going on to mention Japan as a potential contender for the setting of the third ritzy White Lotus resort.

☆ Golden Globe Awards 2023: See the full list of nominees
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-12 | by ( Lisa Respers France | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +7 min

CNN —The nominees for the 80th Golden Globe Awards were announced on Monday. Mayan Lopez and Selenis Leyva, two of the stars from “Lopez vs. Lopez,” announced the range of film and television nominees as selected by members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA). Favored Oscars contender “The Banshees of Inisherin” led the film categories, with nominations including best musical or comedy film. It stars Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson. The ceremony, which was not broadcast last January over controversy surrounding the HFPA, will return to NBC on Jan. 10.

☆ In ‘White Lotus,’ Is Portia the Voice of Gen Z?
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-11 | by ( Ellen Gamerman | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

When “The White Lotus” season finale airs on Sunday night, viewers may come away a little wiser about Sicily, couples vacations and modern love. But perhaps the biggest lesson of all will be in the ways of Gen Z, whose personalities series creator Mike White writes with gleeful zeal and dead-on precision. Their leader of sorts is Portia, a personal assistant from San Francisco who is at loose ends during her boss’s luxury resort vacation on the Italian coast. The character, the embodiment of Gen Z angst and attitude, is played by Haley Lu Richardson. Portia’s employer Tanya, a loopy rich lady in perpetual crisis played by Jennifer Coolidge, is at her most lucid when trying to hand down older-woman wisdom to her young charge.

☆ More than 500 migrants arrive in Italy as rescue ships dock
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-11 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

ROME, Dec 11 (Reuters) - Italy, which has vowed a tough line on immigration, took in more than 500 migrants on Sunday as two charity rescue ships were allowed to dock at ports in the south of the country after several days at sea in bad weather. The Geo Barents ship, operated by the Doctors without Borders (MSF) charity and which had 248 migrants aboard, arrived in Salerno in the southwestern region of Campania, MSF said. On the other side of the country, the Humanity 1, another rescue vessel run by the charity SOS Humanity, docked in the port city of Bari after the Italian authorities agreed to grant it permission. It accuses the charity ships of making it easier for economic migrants to reach Italy and playing into the hands of people traffickers. On Wednesday, a baby was born on the same vessel and later flown with his mother and three siblings to Italy.

☆ 'The White Lotus' season finale review: 'Arrivederci' says goodbye to a brilliant second season (SPOILERS)
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-11 | by ( Brian Lowry | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers about “The White Lotus” season finale, “Arrivederci.”CNN —It started with floating bodies, and finally brought home its various threads with a sly nod to the fact that the sex in this visit to “The White Lotus” tended to be transactional. In between, the second installment proved almost as engrossing, uncomfortable and meme-worthy as its Emmy-winning predecessor, which is no small accomplishment for writer-director Mike White. Tanya, however, wasn’t the only character being manipulated for money or advantage, which is what connected the show’s various threads. Discovery), but thanks to “The White Lotus,” it’s home to one of the best things on television, and as anthology-style concepts go, potentially one of the most durable. So now that everyone obsessed with the show has said “Arrivederci” to Sicily, the only real question is, “Where are we going next?”

☆ 'The White Lotus': The show's most cringeworthy moments
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-10 | by ( Dan Heching | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +8 min

(“White Lotus” and “Enlightened” are from HBO, which like CNN is part of the same parent company, Warner Bros. Tanya usurps a boat ride to NOT spread her mother’s ashesJennifer Coolidge (center) in 'The White Lotus' Season 1. Valentina gives Isabella a lavish (and hideous) brooch as a giftSabrina Impacciatore (L) and Eleonora Romandini in 'The White Lotus' Season 2. With White Lotus Sicily manager Valentina (Sabrina Impacciatore), White has beautifully constructed a driven and capable employer who nonetheless has quite a huge blindspot. Kai gets caught stealingKekoa Scott Kekumano in 'The White Lotus' Season 1.

☆ HBO's 'White Lotus' season 2 was filmed at a real hotel in Italy. Here's what it's like.
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-10 | by ( Travis Clark | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

"The White Lotus" season two was filmed at the San Domenico Palace hotel in Taormina, Italy. The season was filmed at the San Domenico Palace Four Seasons luxury hotel in Taormina, a town in the Sicily region of Italy. Getty Images"It has so much personality," "White Lotus" executive producer David Bernad told People Magazine last month. HBOBut if you can get past the alleged hauntings, the San Domenico Palace sounds like a beautiful place experience. Here's how it's described on the website: "Perched on a rocky promontory high above the Ionian Sea, the iconic San Domenico Palace welcomes you to a 14th-century convent reimagined.

Editor’s note: This article includes spoilers for “The White Lotus” season 2. “He kept saying, ‘Sabrina, the more bitchy you are, the more it’s going to work.’ And I really trusted him.”Sabrina Impacciatore in "The White Lotus." Jennifer Coolidge accepts the Emmy for her performance in season 1 of "The White Lotus." The brief, moan-filled love scene that follows gets about as close to a life-affirming event as an overnight stay at the White Lotus can. I was inventing magic rituals — literally, inventing rituals to get the role, to have Mike White in my life.

MILAN, Dec 8 (Reuters) - Russia's Lukoil (LKOH.MM) and U.S. private equity firm Crossbridge are close to a deal for the sale of the Russian group's refinery in Sicily, Italy, three sources with knowledge of the matter said on Thursday. The Lukoil-owned site in Sicily refines a fifth of Italy's crude and directly employs about 1,000 people in an economically depressed area. Last week, Rome laid down a scheme to place the plant in the hands of trustees to protect jobs and domestic refinery capacity from the embargo. read moreThe possibility that the refinery may end up under a trusteeship has accelerated negotiations between Lukoil and Crossbridge, one of the sources said. ($1 = 0.9480 euros)Additional reporting by Angelo Amante; Editing by Leslie AdlerOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ So Hot Right Now: 5 Volcano Vacations to Add to Your Bucket List
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-07 | by ( Andrew Nelson | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

“FIRE OF LOVE,” the Oscar-nominated 2022 documentary about two star-crossed volcanologists, reflects our fascination with the earth’s eruptions. “Working on the film, I visited two volcanoes—Fagradalsfjall on Iceland’s Reykjanes Peninsula, and Anak Krakatau, off the coast of West Java,” said Sara Dosa, director and producer of the National Geographic documentary. “We were awestruck by the molten rivers pouring down the mountainside—a seemingly surreal color of orange.”Elsewhere, Kilauea’s fireworks on the Big Island of Hawaii kicked off 2023 and, on screens, Sicily’s Mt. Etna loomed as a backdrop for the sexual shenanigans in “The White Lotus.”

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