Gas station explodes in Rome, injuring at least nine first responders
The explosion was heard across the Italian capital shortly after 8 a.m., sending up a huge cloud of dark smoke and fire visible from several areas of the city.
Elisabetta Accardo, a spokesperson for the Roman police, said that eight police officers were injured after arriving for rescue operations.
'There were a few chain explosions after the first one,' Accardo told Italian state broadcaster RAI. 'All the policemen injured suffered burns, but they are not in danger of life.'
Fire department spokesperson Luca Cari said one firefighter was also injured in the explosion, but 'not seriously.' Ten teams were at work on the site, he added.
Police said they were checking the whole surrounding area for people who were injured or trapped in nearby buildings.
There was no immediate indication of the cause of the explosion.
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Indian Express
4 hours ago
- Indian Express
Ukrainian suspect in 2022 Nord Stream pipeline blasts arrested in Italy
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First Post
4 hours ago
- First Post
The real-life story behind Hulu's new mini-series ‘The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox'
If true-crime dramas interest you, try Hulu's new mini-series, 'The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox'. It brings to life the shocking tale of American student Amanda Knox, who was wrongfully convicted for the murder of her housemate Meredith Kercher in Italy Amanda Knox went from being a kid in Seattle to being convicted for a brutal murder in Italy and gaining the world's attention. Now, there's a mini-series on her on Hulu. File image/Reuters In November 2007, American student Amanda Knox made headlines around the world when she was arrested and put on trial for allegedly killing her roommate in Italy. Now, nearly two decades later, she making headlines again, but this time, it's for Hulu's limited series The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox. The eight-episode series, starring Grace Van Patten as Knox, which dropped on August 20 has created significant buzz around the world. After all, the story that inspires the series was the perfect tabloid story — beautiful young American; a brutal murder in a picturesque Italian town and tales of sex games and occult rituals. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD But who exactly is Amanda Knox? What was the case against her? The life of Amanda Knox Knox was born in America's Seattle in 1987 to parents — mother Edda Mellas, a math teacher from Germany, and father Curt Knox, a finance executive at Macy's. At the age of 20, then studying in the University of Washington, she applied to spend an academic year abroad, opting for the picturesque Italian college town of Perugia. She soon makes her way to Perugia and rents a room in a cottage along with three other roommates, including Meredith Kercher, a British exchange student from the University of Leeds. Shortly after she reached Italy, Knox met Italian Raffaele Sollecito at a classical music concert, and they started dating. The 23-year-old Italian computer engineering student's apartment was a short walk from the girls' flat. On November 1, however, a chain of events occurred that changed Knox's life irreversibly. Her roommate, Kercher, was found dead in her bedroom in the apartment that they shared. According to the Italian police, her body was partially clothed, with her throat cut. She was stabbed multiple times and was sexually assaulted. The Italian police escort Amanda Knox after she was arrested for the murder of British student Meredith Kercher, her flatmate in Italy. File image/AFP When the Italian authorities questioned Knox, she revealed to them that she had the spent the night at her boyfriend's house and when she returned, she found the home door ajar and drops of blood on the bathroom mat. Following this, the Italian police took her in for interrogation. In a January 2025 report for The Atlantic, she described the questioning as 'the most terrifying experience of my life'. 'I was 20 years old, and was questioned for more than 53 hours over a five-day period in a language I was only just learning to speak. The night of Meredith's murder, I had stayed with Raffaele Sollecito, a young man I'd just started dating. But no matter how many times I said that, the police refused to believe me,' she wrote. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD She reveals in that same essay that as a result of sleep deprivation and the lies she was fed by the police, she signed papers that claimed that she was in the house when Kercher was stabbed. She even confessed that it was Patrick Lumumba, who owned the bar where Knox worked part-time, killed Kercher. 'I recanted only a few hours later, but it didn't matter,' Knox wrote. 'I was coerced into signing the statements and then charged with criminal slander for doing so. (The police, who did not record the interrogation as they were supposed to, deny that I was hit or pressured into making these statements.)' Arrest and trial of Amanda Knox On November 6, 2007, Knox, Sollecito and Lumumba were arrested. However, Lumumba was released two weeks later after customers at his bar proved he had been serving drinks that night. But Knox and Sollecito were charged with murder and went on trial. In the initial trial spanning from January to December 2009, prosecutors claimed Knox and her boyfriend murdered Kercher because she wouldn't participate in a group sex game. Lead prosecutor Giuliano Mignini said, 'Amanda had the chance to retaliate against a girl who was serious and quiet. She had harboured hatred for Meredith, and that was the time when it could explode. The time had come to take revenge on that smug girl.' STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD In December 2009, US student Amanda Knox, was found guilty of killing British student Meredith Kercher in 2007 and sent to prison for 26 years. Knox's then-boyfriend and co-defendant Raffaele Sollecito was also found guilty and imprisoned for 25 years. File image/AFP At the end of the trial, both of them were found guilty with Knox receiving a 26-year prison sentence. Both served four years in an Italian prison before being found innocent in 2011 by an eight-member jury. Following this, Knox returned to the US. But her legal woes were far from over. In March 2013, a retrial was ordered after prosecutors appealed that crucial DNA evidence had been left out, and the case was sent back to an appeals court in Florence. And a year later, she and Sollecito were convicted again of Kercher's murder. Knox remained in the US and was sentenced in absentia to 28-and-a-half years in prison, while Sollecito was sentenced to 25 years. In 2015, Knox's and Sollecito's murder convictions were once again overturned by Italy's highest court in a retrial. In a statement, Knox said: 'I am tremendously relieved and grateful for the decision of the Supreme Court of Italy. The knowledge of my innocence has given me strength in the darkest times of this ordeal.' STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Amanda Knox talks to the press surrounded by family outside her mother's home in Seattle after Italy's top court annulled her conviction for the 2007 murder of British student Meredith Kercher. File image/Reuters Media trial of 'Foxy Knoxy' While Knox was embroiled in one legal battle after another, it was not her only suffering. As she faced court, she also faced a media trial, which depicted her in very poor light. She was often referred to as 'Foxy Knoxy' with the media painting her as some femme fatale. Journalists scoured her online profiles to dig up anything on her; they even dug up a picture of her posing with a vintage machine gun at a museum that she had uploaded to her Myspace page. Many tabloids and news media outlets villified Amanda Knox during the course of her trial. She was referred to as Foxy Knoxy and made to look like some femme fatale. Image Courtesy: X They portrayed her as promiscuous woman motivated by extreme thrills and sexual conquests. The media ran photos of the couple kissing outside the house while they waited for the police to arrive. They even ran headlines such as 'Orgy of death; Amanda was a drugged up tart'. Even CCTV screenshots of her and Sollecito buying lingerie were published across newspapers and news channels in Italy. After her final exoneration, Knox recalled the sensationalism around her case, saying, 'It was impossible for me to have a fair trial,' adding that in the eyes of many she had become 'the dirty, psychopathic, man-eating Foxy Knoxy'. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD US' Amanda Knox with her husband Christopher Robinson (L) at the courthouse in Florence. File image/AFP Knox's path to redemption Today, Knox lives in the US with her husband, Christopher Robinson, and their children — daughter Eureka Muse Knox-Robinson and son Echo. She has written two memoirs on her experiences, 2013's Waiting to Be Heard and 2025's Free: My Search for Meaning. There's also been a Netflix documentary titled Amanda Knox and a docuseries she hosts, talking to women about being publicly shamed. And now comes the Hulu series, _The Twisted Tale of Amanda Kno_x where she is the producer. According to her website, she advocates for wrongfully incarcerated people and is involved with multiple organisations fighting for criminal justice reform. With inputs from agencies
News18
7 hours ago
- News18
Ukrainian suspected in Nord Stream pipeline blasts arrested in Italy
Last Updated: Berlin, Aug 21 (AP) A Ukrainian citizen suspected to be one of the coordinators of the undersea explosions in 2022 that damaged the Nord Stream gas pipelines between Russia and Germany has been arrested, German prosecutors said Thursday. The suspect, identified only as Serhii K in line with German privacy rules, was arrested overnight by officers from a police station in Misano Adriatrico, near the Italian city of Rimini, federal prosecutors said. Explosions on September 26, 2022 damaged the pipelines, which were built to carry Russian natural gas to Germany under the Baltic Sea. The damage added to tensions over the war in Ukraine as European countries moved to wean themselves off Russian energy sources, following the Kremlin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Investigators have been largely tightlipped on their investigation, but said two years ago they found traces of undersea explosives in samples taken from a yacht that was searched as part of the probe. In a statement Thursday, prosecutors said Serhii K was one of a group of people who placed explosives on the pipelines and is believed to have been one of the coordinators. They said he is suspected of causing explosions, anti-constitutional sabotage and the destruction of structures. The suspect and others used a yacht that set off from the German port of Rostock, which had been hired from a German company using forged IDs and with the help of intermediaries, prosecutors said. They didn't give any information on the other people aboard the yacht or say anything about who else might have been involved in coordinating the suspected sabotage. The explosions ruptured the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, which was Russia's main natural gas supply route to Germany until Moscow cut off supplies at the end of August 2022. They also damaged the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which never entered service because Germany suspended its certification process shortly before Russia invaded Ukraine in February of that year. Russia has accused the US of staging the explosions, a charge Washington has denied. The pipelines were long a target of criticism by the US and some of its allies, who warned that they posed a risk to Europe's energy security by increasing dependence on Russian gas. In 2023, German media reported that a pro-Ukraine group was involved in the sabotage. Ukraine rejected suggestions it might have ordered the attack and German officials voiced caution over the accusation. German prosecutors didn't say when they expect Serhii K to be handed over to German authorities. (AP) SKS NPK NPK view comments First Published: August 21, 2025, 16:45 IST Disclaimer: Comments reflect users' views, not News18's. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Loading comments...
