Italy on alert for extreme heat
The Italian health ministry issued heat alerts for every part of the country on Friday, July 18th, including maximum-level 'red' alerts for 17 cities.
The ongoing heatwave was expected to intensify and reach its peak, with temperatures in cities including Rome, Florence and Bologna forecast to reach the high 30s (Celsius) and to remain elevated at night.
Parts of Puglia, Sicily and other southern regions were set to see highs of 40°C again on Friday, according to forecasts, after much of Italy has been in the grip of a scorching heatwave for more than a week.
The heatwave was expected to begin to break in northern Italy over the weekend, giving way to stormy conditions.
Italy vows EU cooperation despite 'no' vote for chief
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on Thursday said her government would keep cooperating with the EU even after her party voted against a second term for European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, AFP reported.
Meloni in a video message offered von der Leyen "all the best in her work" after she won the backing of the European Parliament to stay on as head of the EU's executive body.
While MEPs from Meloni's far-right Brothers of Italy party had opposed von der Leyen's reappointment, Meloni said this "will not compromise cooperation".
Italy's coalition government was split over the choice, with Forza Italia backing von der Leyen while League leader Salvini - who joined Orban's new Patriots for Europe bloc - said the confirmation was a "slap in the face with new green taxes, migrant landings and war".
Google investigated over 'unfair' user data practices
Italy's competition watchdog said on Thursday that it had opened an investigation into Google and its parent company Alphabet over suspected "unfair commercial practices" linked to user data consent requests, AFP reported.
The consent request that Google sends to users to aggregate personal data across services, including its search engine, Maps and YouTube, "may constitute a misleading and aggressive commercial practice," the AGCM competition authority said in a statement.
The request "appears to be accompanied by inadequate, incomplete and misleading information" regarding "the real effect that consent has on Google's use of personal data of users," the watchdog added.
This wasn't the first time Google had fallen foul of Italy's competition authority: In 2021, AGCM hit the tech giant with a fine of over 100 million euros for abusing its dominant market position by shutting out a rival's smartphone app for electric vehicle owners.
North-south employment gap persists for graduates
The employment rate for Italian university graduates aged between 25 and 64 was 84.3 percent in 2023, according to data published by national statistics agency Istat on Wednesday.
The nationwide employment rate was 11 percentage points higher for graduates than for those who only had a high school diploma.
But there was a significant divide between employment rates in the north and south of the country, with 90.6 percent of university graduates and 83 percent of school leavers employed in the north, versus 70.8 percent and 57.2 percent respectively in the south.
The data also showed that almost a quarter (24 percent) of those whose parents had low education levels dropped out of school early, compared to just two percent of students who had at least one parent with a degree.
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