SpaceX agrees to take Italian experiments to Mars
Elon Musk’s SpaceX has agreed to carry Italian experiments on its Starship megarocket during planned future missions to Mars, according to a new deal announced on Thursday. “Italy is going to Mars!” Italian Space Agency president Teodoro Valente said on X, adding that the scientific experiments would fly on the first Starship trips to the red plane...
Returning Italy’s stolen treasures from New York: ancient artifacts come home after decades abroad
Over half a century after it vanished, the remarkable “Head of Alexander”—a marble bust dating to the first century CE and believed to portray Alexander the Great or a figure inspired by him—has finally returned to Italy. The sculpture originally belonged to the Antiquarium of the Roman Forum, where it disappeared sometime during the twentieth cent...
Calabria-Sicily bridge project moves forward amid legal, technical, and financial hurdles
The long-debated plan to build a bridge over the Strait of Messina has reached a pivotal moment—but numerous uncertainties remain. As of early August 2025, Italy’s CIFESS inter-ministerial committee granted approval for the definitive project, which comes with a price tag of 13.5 billion euros. The structure, designed as a single-span suspended bri...
A Romantic story of Marcello Mastroianni’s mother’s meatballs
Sophia Loren’s spaghetti, Alberto Sordi’s Sunday lunch, Nino Manfredi and Vittorio Gassman’s lesso alla Piacchiapò in Ettore Scola’s film We All Loved Each Other So Much. When these giants of cinema are evoked—who portrayed a poor yet authentic Italy, especially through food—it feels like being catapulted into a distant era. A country that no longe...
The secret seaside escape where Italians have been holidaying for years
Cycling along a path fringing the Adriatic Sea, I pass families entering a play park and older couples walking hand in hand. The pedestrianised “park of the sea” is a quiet spot for a morning stroll, but it also turns into a lively night-time destination after dark. What once was a road and car park is now a path curved like the waves of the sea wh...
Isabella Rossellini, 73, Drops Jaws in Makeup-Free Video: ‘Inspiring and Beautiful’
As the star of such unforgettable films as Blue Velvet and Death Becomes Her, Isabella Rossellini has been stunning audiences with her talent and beauty for decades. Now, at 73, the actress and model is embracing the “freedom” that comes with age…and looking every bit as gorgeous as ever in the process, as a recent video proved. Rossellini took to...
In Northern Sardinia, Nature Nurtures Longevity
Northern Sardinia greets you first with a smell. Step off the plane or ferry and a warm herbal breeze envelops you, carrying the distinctive fragrance of elicriso (Mediterranean helichrysum), almost, and curiously so, curry-like. Locals tell us “la Sardegna sa di elicriso,” Sardinia smells of helichrysum. Here, however, the land doesn’t just perfu...
Italian Heritage Festival announces 2025 honorees
The West Virginia Italian Heritage Festival of Clarksburg (WV) has announced its picks for the 2025 honorees that will be recognized for their contributions and achievements in the Italian-American community. “These individuals represent the best of our community,” Rocky Romano II, Honorees Committee Chair, said in the release. “Their achievements...
This Tuscan startup sold all its olive oil in the U.S. Then came Trump's tariffs
On the steep hills of southern Tuscany, Romain Piro has spent the past two decades harvesting fruit from his silvery olive trees and turning it into olive oil. In 2019, he convinced his sister, Marie-Charlotte Piro, to go into business with him. The siblings started shipping their small-batch bottles to the United States, where olive oil is in high...
Why the USA is Getting Closer to Hosting a Regular Season Serie A Match
Serie A has always remained within the confines of Italy, and its surrounding islands. In fact, no European league has ever ventured beyond their own country to stage a match, but everything points towards that changing imminently. Just this week, Barcelona president Joan Laporta said he is “open” to staging La Liga in the USA from next season. Ita...
It’s canning season, when tradition meets ingenuity
Each summer, a quiet but determined ritual returns across Italian kitchens, from North to South: the making of conserve and marmellate. Far from being a nostalgic custom, this is a practical response to seasonality and abundance: if gardens, fruit trees, and markets overflow with ripe tomatoes, figs, cherries, peaches, and plums, we don’t waste any...
The End of an Era: Remembering DiCosmo’s Italian Ice and Our Shared Vallata Roots
The little green shack at the corner of 4th and High Street in Elizabeth stands silent now. After 107 years of serving up the finest Italian ice in New Jersey, DiCosmo’s has closed its doors for the final time, and the bulldozers are coming. For those of us whose families emigrated from the same hillside villages of southern Italy, this isn’t just...