Girls injured in Naples balcony collapse out of danger
Three young girls who were seriously injured in the deadly collapse of a building’s balcony in Naples last month were out of danger, a statement from the city’s Santobono paediatric hospital said on Thursday, according to Ansa.
A total of seven girls, aged between two and eight, had been hospitalised following the collapse, but four were discharged in recent days.
"Today is a very important day. We can say that all seven girls involved in the collapse are safe," Rodolfo Conenna, general director of the Santobono hospital, said.
The incident, which occurred in the evening of Monday, July 22nd, killed two people instantly, while a third victim died in hospital the following day.
Italy moves to improve jail conditions amid surge in inmate suicides
Italy’s parliament has passed a long-planned bill aimed at improving living conditions in the country's overcrowded and understaffed prisons amid a spike in suicides among inmates, national media reports said on Thursday.
The bill made provisions for the recruitment of an additional 1,000 prison officers, simpler procedures for early release, and the improvement of community care facilities for outgoing inmates.
Some 65 inmates have taken their own lives so far this year – five less than the total number of suicides recorded in the whole of 2023.
Italian prisons have long suffered chronic overcrowding issues, with facilities around the country currently housing around 61,000 inmates – that’s 10,000 over the official overall capacity of 51,000.
Beach clubs stage two-hour strike
Private beach club operators around Italy were set to hold a symbolic two-hour strike on Friday in protest against EU competition rules slated to come into force from next year.
Under a European directive approved in 2006 but postponed by multiple Italian governments over the years, Italy’s beach concessions will have to be put up for public tender from January 2025 after being automatically renewed and handed down from one generation to the other for decades.
But concession holders have fiercely opposed the directive in recent months, complaining about the lack of national criteria for the planned public tender, and asking the government to grant some form of economic compensation to outgoing operators.
Operators have said Friday's strike will be followed by a four-hour walkout on August 19th and six- or eight-hour closures on August 29th if the government doesn’t meet their demands.
Media reports on Thursday said that Italy’s government was considering putting off public tenders until 2030 in regions where private lidos covered 25 percent or less of the total shoreline.
Culture minister mocked over Naples gaffe
Italy’s Culture Minister Gennaro Sangiuliano was once again the target of mockery on social media on Thursday after a post published by his official Instagram account celebrated “two and a half centuries” of Neapolitan history as opposed to 2,500 years (Naples is said to have been created in 475 BC).
The Instagram post was taken down within minutes but not before drawing the attention of dozens of social media users, who made fun of the slip-up and shared the post online, according to national media reports.
Sangiuliano, a Naples native, later said on X that his social media manager was to be blamed for the error, adding that he had “accepted his resignation".
Sangiuliano is no stranger to gaffes. The minister was in the news last April for saying: “If we think of London, we think of Times Square.”
Comments