Italy | featured news

A recorded conversation between the captain of a sinking cruise ship and a coast guard officer suggests the captain tried to abandon ship.

Shares of cruise operator Carnival Corp plunged 15 percent on Tuesday after a ship operated by its unit struck a submerged rock and keeled over off the coast of Italy late on Friday.

A stricken Italian cruise liner shifted on its rocky resting place as worsening weather disrupted an increasingly despairing hunt for survivors and authorities almost doubled their estimate of the number missing to 29 people.

The captain of the cruise ship that capsized off Tuscany made an unauthorized, unapproved deviation from its programmed course, a "human error" that led to the grounding of the vessel, the chief executive of the ship's Italian owner said Monday. At least six people died in the incident.

Divers search for survivors and passengers tell of pandemonium and being abandoned by the crew after a luxury cruise liner was ripped open by submerged rocks off Italy's west coast. Divers scoured the water for survivors and passengers told of Titanic-style pandemonium and being abandoned by crew members Saturday after a luxury cruise liner was ripped open by rocks off the Italian coast.

In Spain, the prime minister pledged spending cuts and a banking-system cleanup, while in Italy, the prime minister called for “efforts in favor of growth.”

Italian bond yields are expected to fall from recent record highs in an auction on Thursday in a sign the European Central Bank has managed to ease market pressure, at least for now, with its big injection of longer-term funds earlier this month.

To protect Venice from periodic floods that are increasingly heightened by the double whammy of rising seas levels and sinking land, a team of Italian researchers suggests lifting up the canal-laced city by pumping seawater into the aquifers below it.

Italy’s Senate voted overwhelmingly in favor of a package aimed at eliminating Italy’s budget deficit by 2013 and stimulating its economy as part of a broader plan to stabilize the euro.

A letter bomb exploded Friday at an office of Italy's tax collection agency, slightly wounding the organization's director.