Meloni’s government argues that rising electricity demand, climate targets and energy security concerns exposed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine justify bringing nuclear energy back into the country’s power mix, according to the Associated Press.

The legislation does not authorize the construction of any reactors. Instead, it creates the regulatory foundation needed before future projects can be proposed, assessed and approved, the AP reports.

Italy was once among Europe’s nuclear pioneers, operating four reactors before a 1987 referendum effectively ended the program.

Since then, the country has relied heavily on imported energy and has become one of Europe’s largest consumers of electricity generated by nuclear plants in neighboring countries.

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COPOMIAO delegation addresses dual citizenship restrictions, Italy’s declining population and a role for Italian young leaders in its highly successful ‘Future Leaders’ fellowship.

A delegation from the Conference of Presidents of Major Italian American Organizations (COPOMIAO) held talks with senior Italian and U.S. officials in Rome in September to strengthen ties between Italian Americans and their ancestral homeland, advocate for greater access to Italian dual citizenship and explore opportunities for younger generations.

Led by ISDA / COPOMIAO President Hon. Basil M. Russo and joined by U.S. Rep. Michael Rulli, co-chair of the Italian American Congressional Delegation on Capitol Hill, the group met with Lorenzo Fontana, president of Italy’s Chamber of Deputies (a role comparable to the U.S. Speaker of the House).

Fontana spoke candidly about the contributions of Italian Americans to the U.S. and the community’s continuing cultural importance. He also expressed enthusiasm for keeping descendants of Italian immigrants connected to Italy.

For many Italian American families, that connection reaches back to ancestors who left Italy in search of safety and opportunity, including those escaping war, poverty and suppression. COPOMIAO’s meetings brought their descendants’ interests directly to Italian officials, with citizenship and cultural exchange at the center of the discussion.

At the Italian Senate, the delegation met with Sen. Mariastella Gelmini, who chairs the Italy–United States parliamentary friendship group, and Christian Di Sanzo, a member of the Chamber of Deputies elected to represent Italian citizens in North and Central America. Di Sanzo expressed support for easing restrictions on citizenship by descent.

The delegation was also invited to Italy’s Foreign Ministry with Silvia Limoncini, director general for services to citizens abroad and migration policies. COPOMIAO advocated for loosening dual citizenship restrictions and making visas easier to obtain, emphasizing the value of helping Italian Americans maintain meaningful ties to Italy.

The group also raised concerns about Italy’s declining population and discussed potential solutions with Italian officials. As one way to deepen ties between younger generations in both countries, the delegation invited Italian government officials to help bring young leaders from Italy into COPOMIAO’s successful Italian American Future Leaders program.

At the U.S. Embassy, the delegation sat down with Ambassador Tilman J. Fertitta to discuss broader U.S.–Italy relations, including energy trade and ongoing cooperation between the nations’ leaders.

Additionally, COPOMIAO met with Italy’s Supreme Court officials during its time in Rome.

“Generations of Italian Americans have preserved their connection to Italy through family, language and tradition,” Russo said. “Our goal is to cement that bond so that it can never be broken.”

The governmental meetings formed part of COPOMIAO’s broader September mission to Rome and Vatican City.

In a separate announcement, the organization detailed its meetings with Pope Leo XIV and Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin, which focused on faith, culture and advancing an emerging relationship with the Holy See.

Together, the visits advanced COPOMIAO’s efforts to build lasting ties among Italian American organizations, the Italian government and institutions in the United States.

In 1930, immigrant families banded together to create the Italian Sons and Daughters of America (ISDA), now one of the most prominent and financially successful Italian American organizations in the nation. In the last decade, ISDA built a 730,000-strong social media community, co-founded the Russo Brothers Italian American Filmmaker Forum (RBIAFF), and launched the fastest-growing Italian American publication (La Nostra Voce). 

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Hon. Basil M. Russo, the national president of Italian Sons and Daughters of America (ISDA), led an Italian American delegation to Rome in September to meet with Pope Leo XIV and Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin.

“Our Catholic faith is deeply woven into the Italian American experience and remains one of the strongest bonds connecting our community across generations,” said Russo, who also leads the Conference of Presidents of Major Italian American Organizations (COPOMIAO). “This visit gave COPOMIAO and ISDA an extraordinary opportunity to ensure our relationship with the Vatican continues to grow with purpose.”

The mission sought to strengthen the spiritual and strategic relationship between the Italian American community and the Vatican while identifying new opportunities for collaboration in areas of faith and culture.

Discussions during the visit centered on preserving Catholic traditions, engaging younger generations and expanding cooperation between Italian American institutions and the Holy See.

Millions of Italian Americans are Catholic, and that spiritual inheritance remains visible in communities throughout the United States.

Each year, Italian American religious feasts honoring patron saints draw millions of people to churches, processions and neighborhoods nationwide. Many of these century-old traditions are organized and preserved by COPOMIAO and ISDA leaders, who help carry the community’s faith and heritage forward.

The September mission built upon COPOMIAO’s landmark visit to Rome and Vatican City in 2022, when Russo led a delegation that met with Pope Francis, Cardinal Parolin, Italian government officials and members of Italy’s Supreme Court.

That first-of-its-kind summit advanced cultural and religious initiatives while laying the foundation for stronger institutional ties among the United States, Italy and the Vatican.

“In recent years, COPOMIAO has united hundreds of organizations around a shared mission to preserve and promote our history, traditions and values,” Russo said. “Our growing relationship with the Vatican brings an essential spiritual dimension to that work and helps carry our community’s journey full circle.”

The audience with Pope Leo XIV marked another defining chapter in that mission, one rooted in a commitment to preserving the spiritual inheritance of generations past and generations yet to come.

The Conference of Presidents of Major Italian American Organizations (COPOMIAO), founded in NYC, is a national coalition of 77 cultural, educational, fraternal and anti-defamation groups. Italian Sons and Daughters of America (ISDA) is a proud member organization of COPOMIAO.

In 1930, immigrant families banded together to create the Italian Sons and Daughters of America (ISDA), now one of the most prominent and financially successful Italian American organizations in the nation. In the last decade, we built a 730,000-strong social media community, grew our not-for-profit fraternal association, ISDA Financial Life, to nearly a half billion dollars in member assets, co-founded the Russo Brothers Italian American Filmmaker Forum (RBIAFF), and launched the fastest-growing Italian American publication (La Nostra Voce). 

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The bridge is projected to cost $16 billion and stretch about 2 miles across the Strait of Messina, with a deck 200 feet wide carrying six road lanes (three in each direction), along with two railway tracks and two service lanes. For reference, its proposed main span would run about three times the length of Japan’s Minami Bisan-Seto Bridge, the only existing suspension bridge to compare the project to, which has a main span of about 0.68 miles.

The bridge is expected to take about seven years to construct and is being designed to withstand major earthquakes and winds of up to 180 mph, according to government officials.

The bridge would circumvent costly shipping and ferry fees and, according to proponents, create hundreds of thousands of new jobs, pumping billions of dollars into Italy’s worn-down southern economy.

It would operate year-round, open up mass-transit and boost tourism.

But the reality on the ground has proved far more complicated. The project has faced protests, stringent environmental reviews by the EU, and political and regulatory hurdles, potentially pushing completion years beyond its targeted 2032–33 opening.

Issues include a potentially significant impact to a major bird migration route through the strait, a local-level corruption investigation, intervention by Italy’s Court of Auditors, which is scrutinizing its cost, and a long list of new design requirements filed by Italy’s Higher Council of Public Works this past month.

“You might be able to build it,” Antonino Risitano, a former dean of engineering at the University of Catania, told The Guardian. “But you cannot guarantee its long-term safety.” Risitano said there was no technology currently available to test suspension cables of that size and length for a single-span bridge. “If you cannot test the suspension cables, you cannot build it. Given today’s scientific knowledge, the current project is not technically feasible.”

Webuild, which is leading the Eurolink consortium contracted to design and build the infrastructure, declined to comment but said the issues raised by Risitano had already been addressed and refuted in a 2025 technical report by the Strait of Messina company.

The bridge must also contend with one of Europe’s most seismically active regions. In 1908, a magnitude 7.1 earthquake struck the Strait of Messina, killing an estimated 80,000 people and devastating communities on both sides of the strait. In the last 40 years alone, 5,000 low-magnitude earthquakes have been recorded.

Again, officials say the bridge will meet comprehensive regulations to counter extreme conditions, and that the structure would carry a 200-year lifespan.

But critics have raised another question: What happens if time-consuming delays or a natural disaster strike during construction, prompting elevated costs, or, in a worst case scenario, an abandonment of the project.

Homes and businesses in the path of the bridge have been marked for demolition, yet they remain standing and occupied as the delays continue.

As of now, as history has shown, time alone will be the judge.

Make a pledge and become a member of Italian Sons and Daughters of America today. 

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The Court of Justice of the European Union, the top judicial institution of the EU, based in Luxembourg, could wipe out the controversial citizenship law, forcing the Italian government to rewrite and pass new legislation.

U-turn, about-face, backpedal — all of the above.

The Italian Constitutional Court is now asking the European Union’s Court of Justice to rule on whether the country’s citizenship-by-descent restrictions violate EU law.

This decision by the constitutional court completely undermines its own ruling, which upheld Italy’s 2025 law imposing harsh restrictions on qualifying for Italian citizenship.

Imposed without warning in March 2025, the restrictions limit eligibility only to those with an Italian parent or grandparent — a move that sent shockwaves through the Italian diaspora, as millions were suddenly cut off from pursuing citizenship to Italy and thousands were severed mid-application.

EU case law, over the past three decades, has consistently held that citizenship can’t be stripped away abruptly, disproportionately, or without warning.

“It’s a 180-degree change of direction,” Marco Mellone, one of four attorneys fighting the law head-on, told CNN. “It’s a confession that they made a mistake … they had the chance to refer it three months ago and didn’t, it’s clear they changed their opinion.”

The challenge hinges on whether claimants were born Italians with unrecognized citizenship, as long-established Italian case law had ruled.

If the ECJ rules against the citizenship restrictions, they will be completely wiped out, leaving the Italian government to write new legislation that complies with EU rules.

The final ruling could take months, or more than a year, to come down.

The ‘Minor Issue’ Is No More 

The Corte Suprema di Cassazione (Italy’s Supreme Court) in late July struck down the “minor issue,” thanks in part to advocacy that was led by Italian Sons and Daughters of America (ISDA).

In 2024, Italy’s Ministry of the Interior introduced a controversial rule known as the “minor issue.”

Under the rule, if an Italian citizen had a child abroad, and then that parent naturalized in another country — becoming, say, a U.S. citizen — while the child was still a minor, the child’s tie to Italian citizenship was considered broken. That meant not just the child, but all of their descendants, would lose any claim to citizenship through that parent.

The sudden implementation of the issue cut off those whose applications for Italian citizenship were already in progress, but thanks to today’s ruling, thousands of dual citizenship applications are revived.

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Russo opened by praising NIABA for spotlighting the contributions of Italian American judges and lawyers and thanked the association for its continued support of COPOMIAO. That support recently deepened, with two NIABA affiliates joining the coalition as it continues to unify and amplify Italian American voices nationwide.

It didn’t take long for that unity to show results. In New York City, when Mayor Mamdani’s administration failed to include Manhattan’s Little Italy on the city’s official tourist map of ethnic enclaves, Italian Americans pushed back, together. The city reversed course and Mr. Mamdani pledged to add Little Italy to the list.

The momentum isn’t just local, it’s legal. Russo credited COPOMIAO National Counsel George Bochetto with a string of wins preserving Columbus Day and Columbus statues through sustained litigation, much of it pro bono work.

The board applauded the mention of a newly filed lawsuit to force the City of Columbus, Ohio, to return its Columbus statue to its place of honor in front of City Hall. Several board members said that NIABA, at the appropriate time, would recommend filing an amicus curiae brief in support of the federal suit.

“When this community moves as one, we affect change,” said Russo, who also leads the Italian Sons and Daughters of America (ISDA), a member organization of COPOMIAO. “Whether before a judge or in the court of public opinion, we advance cogent arguments that lead to potent advocacy.”

COPOMIAO’s Columbus campaign has reached the highest levels of government with the placement of the navigator’s statue on the White House campus in Washington, D.C. this past spring.

It’s generational, too. Russo pointed to the Italian American Future Leaders (IAFL) program as a clear sign this collective is built to last. He urged board members to send the younger attorneys in their networks to IAFL’s annual national convention held in South Florida in January. Their participation, he said, is how the momentum gets carried forward.

And once again, it’s global. This September, a COPOMIAO delegation will travel to Rome to meet with Italy’s top political leaders — part of a push to deepen the cultural bond between Italian Americans and their ancestral homeland. Russo announced the delegation had also secured an audience with Pope Leo XIV later this summer in Vatican City.

Related story: Italian American Leaders Meet With Pope Francis and Government Officials to Reaffirm Our Community’s Religious and Cultural Ties to Italy

Each of these threads is its own story. Together, they’re something bigger: proof that Italian American organizations are moving in a shared direction COPOMIAO has spent years charting — a vision that has kept Russo in steady demand nationwide, addressing 17 major organizations in the past three years alone.

These aren’t isolated wins. They’re the product of collaboration across 77 member organizations.

In 1930, immigrant families banded together to create the Italian Sons and Daughters of America (ISDA), now one of the most prominent and financially successful Italian American organizations in the nation. In the last decade, we built a 730,000-strong social media community, grew our not-for-profit fraternal association, ISDA Financial Life, to nearly a half billion dollars in member assets, co-founded the Russo Brothers Italian American Filmmaker Forum (RBIAFF), and launched the fastest-growing Italian American publication (La Nostra Voce). 

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Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced he would revise a city map of New York’s immigrant neighborhoods after facing days of criticism over an omission that incensed the Italian American community at large.

The map, published by the city, highlighted 30 neighborhoods across the five boroughs, including three separate Chinatowns as well as Little Bangladesh, Little Pakistan, Little Poland and Little Yemen. It did not include Little Italy, or any distinctly Irish or Jewish enclaves.

Under pressure, Mr. Mamdani said Little Italy and other long-recognized immigrant communities would be added to the list.

The map’s release, which coincided with an influx of international visitors to the city for World Cup matches, prompted swift criticism from Italian American organizations, as it was the latest sign of our community being edged out of NYC’s civic life.

The mayor sought to place the blame on his predecessor, Eric Adams.

“When we inherited the list, we added a few additional neighborhoods,” Mr. Mamdani said. “It’s clearly not an exhaustive list of the more than 200 ethnic communities that call our city home. We are going to be making additional changes in the future to reflect that.”

A spokesperson for Mr. Adams disputed that characterization.

A Well-Organized Response

For much of the past century, Italian American advocacy groups were a fractured lot, rarely uniting behind a common cause. That began to change 12 years ago, when Hon. Basil M. Russo was elected to lead the Italian Sons and Daughters of America (ISDA), and later, the Conference of Presidents of Major Italian American Organizations (COPOMIAO), an umbrella group representing 77 groups nationwide.

Under Mr. Russo, longstanding rivalries and internal divisions gave way to a more coordinated response to what members viewed as recurring attacks, among them efforts to rename or remove Columbus Day observances and monuments, and what many in the community describe as a persistent marginalization in civic and cultural discourse.

Mr. Russo also built one of the largest Italian American social media networks in the country, a platform he has used to mobilize hundreds of thousands of Italian Americans in defense of the community’s culture, history and traditions.

Mr. Mamdani is only the latest official to encounter that mobilized response.

Much as he did during his own mayoral campaign, Italian American advocates increasingly rely on social media and nonprofit organizing to press their case, an approach that groups like the ISDA and COPOMIAO have refined into an advocacy operation that continues to amplify itself year after year.

“In our community, respect is very much a two-way street,” Mr. Russo said. “Too often, elected officials have marginalized our history and culture when it’s politically convenient. We’re pleased that Mr. Mamdani is seeking to reverse this blunder, and we believe he and politicians at large now understand that Italian Americans are strongly united in pursuing every avenue available to us to defend and uphold our heritage.”

Read on: Italian American Leaders Turn the Tide in Fight for Columbus

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The Conference of Presidents of Major Italian American Organizations (COPOMIAO) has delivered decisive wins for the pro-Columbus movement over the past two years.

Its largest victory arrived this past spring, when Hon. Basil Russo, president of Italian Sons and Daughters of America (ISDA) and COPOMIAO, teamed up with U.S. Congressman Mike Rulli and actor and Saturday Night Live alum Joe Piscopo — a longtime friend of President Donald Trump — to install a replica of Baltimore’s toppled Columbus statue in front of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, just steps from the White House. The landmark achievement made headlines across the nation and world.

COPOMIAO National Counsel George Bochetto — who, through years of litigation and appeals, blocked the removal of Pittsburgh’s and Philadelphia’s Columbus statues and restored Columbus Day in Philadelphia — reports that COPOMIAO’s federal lawsuit to restore Columbus, Ohio’s namesake statue is showing significant progress.

“Everything I do is intended to honor the memory of my parents and grandparents, who are no longer with me,” said Russo. “Columbus is a testament to our families and ancestors, many of whom ascended from poverty to prominence, in part by using the intrepid navigator as a symbol to fuel assimilation.”

COPOMIAO is also extending its hand across the aisle to Native American and Indigenous Peoples groups through virtual “Solidarity Sessions,” run by Italian American One Voice Coalition (IAOVC) President Andre DiMino and the Native American Guardians Association (NAGA).

Extensive surveying by the two organizations found that only about 10% of Native and Indigenous populations oppose Columbus Day.

Thomas Damigella, who helped launch the Solidarity Sessions, is now leading the creation of a new North End Historical Society museum just steps from North Square in Boston, where Columbus’ history will be a centerpiece. The museum is set to open in the coming weeks.

About COPOMIAO

The Conference of Presidents of Major Italian American Organizations (COPOMIAO), founded in New York City, is a national coalition of 77 cultural, educational, fraternal, and anti-defamation groups. Italian Sons and Daughters of America (ISDA) is a proud member of COPOMIAO. ISDA National Vice President Danielle Salasavage also co-leads the Centro Culturale Italiano di Buffalo, which was admitted into COPOMIAO at its June 2026 Annual Meeting.

Make a Pledge and join Italian Sons and Daughters of America today. 

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For generations, Italian citizenship by descent (“jure sanguinis” or “right of blood”) was widely understood as a birthright, extending across multiple generations of the diaspora and dating back to Italy’s formation in 1861. For millions of Italian Americans, that principle formed the basis of a deeply personal connection to their ancestral homeland.

This article first appeared in the May 2026 edition of La Nostra Voce, ISDA’s monthly newspaper that chronicles Italian and Italian American news, history, culture and recipes. Subscribe today!

However, the overhaul of this longstanding legal principle is the result of a series of developments that have unfolded over the past two years.

In late 2024, Italy’s Ministry of the Interior introduced a controversial administrative interpretation often referred to as the “minor issue.” Under this view, if the parent of an Italian child born abroad naturalized while the child was a minor, with them becoming, for example, U.S. citizens, then that act would sever the line of descent. The sudden implementation of the issue cut off those whose applications for Italian citizenship were already in progress. The court is now weighing the legality of the introduction of the minor issue through a handful of cases, two of which include Italian American families, according to Newsweek.

A second, more sweeping change followed on March 28, 2025, when Italy enacted reforms to citizenship law commonly known as the Tajani Decree, named after Italian Deputy Prime Minister Antonio Tajani. The measure narrowed eligibility by limiting recognition to those with an Italian parent or grandparent, while cutting off many claims through more distant ancestors that had long been accepted.

Taken together, these developments marked a significant departure from a system that had historically treated citizenship as something inherited, rather than constrained by generational limits or shifting legislative policies.

Now, courts are weighing not only whether these new limits are lawful, but whether they can be applied to individuals whose claims were previously considered valid, including citizenship applications that were already in process, according to the Associated Press.

In the coming months, Italy’s highest court for civil matters, the Corte Suprema di Cassazione (Italy’s Supreme Court), will hear challenges over the minor issue. These applicants will argue that citizenship by descent is not something granted upon application, but something possessed at birth and merely recognized through a legal process. From that perspective, they contend, the state cannot strip individuals of a status they previously held, and that those affected should only include people born after the new restrictions took effect last year.

The government, by contrast, maintains that it has the authority to define and limit the recognition of citizenship claims, particularly in response to administrative strain and evolving national priorities.

On June 9, the Italian Constitutional Court is scheduled to hear a significant case addressing the broader validity of the Tajani Decree and its introduction of generational limits on jure sanguinis citizenship.

If the courts determine that the new restrictions cannot be applied retroactively, the decision could preserve eligibility not only for pending applicants, but for hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people across the Italian diaspora who would have qualified under prior interpretations (even if they had not yet begun the citizenship application process).

Conversely, if the court sides with the government’s interpretation, the new limits will likely stand as a firm boundary, closing the door on dual citizenship for many Italian Americans.

More Than a Legal Question

“For Italian Americans, the issue extends beyond legal technicalities. Applicants often spend years assembling documentation, tracing lineage through generations and navigating a complex bureaucratic process. For many, recognition of citizenship represents not only a legal status, but a reaffirmation of identity: a tangible link to family history, culture and tradition,” said ISDA National President Basil M. Russo, who is working with U.S. Congressmen Tom Suozzi (D-NY) and Mike Rulli (R-OH), from the Italian American Congressional Delegation, and meeting with leaders of the Italian government, to petition for a rollback of the restrictions.

Either way, the outcome will carry significant consequences, not only for those currently seeking recognition, but for how Italian citizenship itself is understood in the 21st century.

For the Italian American community, the moment is pivotal.

What has long been viewed as an inheritance, passed from one generation to the next, now stands at the crossroads of law and policy; its future to be decided in the courts over the next several months, or perhaps even sooner.

In 1930, immigrant families banded together to create the Italian Sons and Daughters of America (ISDA), now one of the most prominent and financially successful Italian American organizations in the nation. In the last decade, we built a 730,000-strong social media community, grew our not-for-profit fraternal association, ISDA Financial Life, to nearly a half billion dollars in member assets, co-founded the Russo Brothers Italian American Filmmaker Forum (RBIAFF), and launched the fastest-growing Italian American publication (La Nostra Voce). 

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The 28-year-old man from Paramount, Calif., was charged with grand theft after he gained about $34,000 in fraudulent transactions, the Irvine Police Department said on social media.

Target reported at least 70 thefts across the country that were tied to the scheme, the police said.

While officers made light of the crook’s pasta-and-switch method, calling it a “pasta-tively terrible plan,” his crimes were just the latest in a trend of Lego thefts.

Thieves have targeted Lego products because of their high resale value.

Officials have said that the toys are targeted because the pieces and kits are small, untraceable and in high demand.

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