You will have to pay between €3 to €10 to enter Venice as of January 2023

Jul 2 2022

As of January 16th 2023, visitors to Venice, which is one of Italy’s major tourist hubs, will have to pay to set foot in the city.

Venice is set to become the first city in the world to require an entrance free, with the launch date announced by Venice’s tourism councillor Simone Venturini on Friday.

Venturini called this a great revolution as well as a solution for the over-tourism problem which has been heavily impacting the lagoon city for decades. The costs will range from €3 minimum to €10.

The price will not be fixed, but it will be varying according to the number of visitors. The more requests for entry, the higher the cost will soar. The goal is not to close off the city, the councillor explained, but to get people to book their presence.

This, he argued, will reduce the tourist peaks as Venice ‘is a living city and it has to stay that way.’ However, there are many exceptions to the entrance ticket mandate.

Residents and children under six will be exempt, as well as people with disabilities, home owners, people visiting for health reasons or to visit relatives, or even those coming to attend cultural or sport events.

It was explained that this is not a system to make cash flow but to instead manage tourism flows. The proceeds will go to lowering the taxes of Venetians which are already soaring quite high to manage the volume of tourists. Fines for ticket violations will vary between €50 to €300.

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Netflix crashed right after Stranger Things 4 Volume 2 released

Jul 2 2022

A few moments after the highly anticipated Stranger Things Season 4 Volume 2 released on Netflix, many reported that the streaming service had crashed.

Now, we won’t immediately blame it on Vecna, but it does seem as though as the influx of people hopping onto Netflix to watch the final 2 episodes caused a bit of traffic congestion.

According to global uptime-monitoring site Downdetector, user reports of problems with Netflix spiked around 3am ET, which is when the series went live. Thankfully, the problem seemed to be resolved within half an hour but complaints peaked at nearly 13,000 at a point.

This didn’t come as much of a surprise as the fourth season already set the record as the number 1 English-language series on the service in its first four weeks of release.

And with the last two episodes being almost feature length films in their own right, with the finale clocking at 150 minutes, it seemed inevitable that the anticipation would cause some overflow of streaming. But as the adjustments were being made, social media was of course blowing up with memes about the whole ordeal.

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Charles Polidano ‘ic-Caqnu’ and son interrogated over money laundering suspicions

Jul 2 2022

Local construction magnate Charles Polidano, who is known as iċ-Ċaqnu, was arrested and interrogated along with his son on Friday morning over money laundering and corruption suspicions.

Polidano was arrested at his home and taken in for questioning at the Financial Crime Investigation Department.

Times of Malta were informed that Polidano had been taken in after a very lengthy investigation and is suspected to have corrupted a senior official at a large entity through a property sale.

The same newsroom was also informed by Polidano Bros on Saturday that it was assisting the authorities to verify payments made to the company in a transaction in 2014 which involved a public deed.

Any wrongdoing was categorically denied by the company, which went on to claim that the authorities will be satisfied once these verifications have taken place.

The 62-year-old magnate’s Polidano Group is one of the leading construction firms on the island and is regularly involved in major infrastructure projects.

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Maltese starlet Haley Bugeja signs for US team Orlando Pride

Jul 1 2022

Maltese international player Haley Bugeja has joined American team Orlando Pride from Italian Serie A side US Sassuolo. She will join on a one-and-a-half-year deal and will reportedly wear the iconic number 7 shirt for the Pride. Bugeja will be available for selection from next month when the club will already be in the third month of its 2022 NWSL campaign.

Orlando Pride compete in the NWSL, which is one of the most highly regarded women’s league in the world. They have had and currently have some of the world’s best players including American attacker Alex Morgan and Brazilian legend Marta who still plays for the Florida based team.

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In a statement Orlando Pride General Manager Ian Fleming had this to say:

“Haley is one of the brightest young talents in the world and we are absolutely thrilled to have her join our Club. She has already shown her quality at a high level in Italy and at the international level with Malta, and she is still just scratching the surface of the player that she can become,”

“She is a constant threat to opposing defenses and will be a valuable addition to our group, both in the immediate and moving into the future, as we continue to build and bolster our roster. We are all very excited to see her in Orlando, as a member of our Pride, very soon.”

The Maltese player also told the Times of Malta newsroom that “It will be a very exciting chapter for me,”.

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