Sicilian gangs persuaded drug addicts, alcoholics and people with mental health issues to have their limbs broken and then staged fake car accidents to get hundreds of thousands of euros as insurance payouts, according to police, who have broken up the scam.

Italy's poorest region, Sicily, is the country's problem child. Now it has elected a new government. To fix the island, it will have to overcome corruption and widespread Mafia control - and figure out how to convince its population not to leave. By Walter Mayr.

Researchers have discovered traces of what could be the world’s oldest wine at the bottom of terracotta jars in a cave in Sicily, showing that the fermented drink was being made and consumed in Italy more than 6,000 years ago. Previously scientists had believed winemaking developed in Italy around 1200 BC, but the find by a team from the University of South Florida pushes that date back by at least three millennia.