Napoli president Aurelio De Laurentiis today revealed he has offered Manchester United one million euros to play his team in a friendly.

Widespread dumping of toxic waste by Mafia clans in the southern region of Campania is causing a dramatic increase in birth defects and cancer, according to a group of US and Italian scientists.

The island of Capri, exquisitely beautiful but a bit on the prim side, was never going to rival Ibiza, Mykonos or Ayia Napa, in the hard-partying stakes.

A blockbuster exhibition of artefacts salvaged from the volcanic eruption that decimated the Roman city of Pompeii 2,000 years ago opens in New York today.

Around lunchtime on 24 August AD79, the inhabitants of Pompeii on the Bay of Naples saw an astonishing sight: a column of smoke bursting into the sky from Vesuvius, the huge volcanic mountain that looms over the bay. According to an eyewitness, Pliny the Younger, writing 20 years after the event, the cloud reached nine miles in height (it resembled a fir tree, he said) and dropped burning ash upon the town.

The agent of Napoli’s Slovakia midfielder Marek Hamsik has admitted that there is a chance that his client could be tempted away from the San Paolo in the near future.

Two brutal killers were jailed for life today and ordered to serve at least 33 years for the "savage" murder of an innocent chef and his flatmate.

Napoli today confirmed the signing of defender Andrea Dossena from Liverpool on a four-year deal.

Traditionally, and understandably, our interest in Pompeii, destroyed by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79AD, has centred on the dead – the dog tethered to his post, the lovers who died in each others' arms – preserved in pumice for 2,000 years. Mary Beard's focus is on the living: what was everyday life like in this provincial Roman town? She is of a sceptical temper and shows that much of what we think we know is guesswork or mythologising.

Napoli have told reported Liverpool target Ezequiel Lavezzi to turn up for pre-season training on 10 July.

It is perhaps the most remarkable archaeological site in the world and more than 3 million visitors stampede through it every year. But if the new tourism councillor for Campania has his way, the numbers visiting Pompeii will be drastically cut, and the site will be thrown open to multinationals for private events to rake in the money needed to maintain the ruins.