Italy’s top story on Friday:

A 5.0-magnitude earthquake struck Italy’s southern region of Calabria on Thursday evening, causing no immediate damage but leaving residents shaken, AFP reported.

The quake hit at 9.43pm local time and had its epicentre three kilometres west of Pietrapaola, in the province of Cosenza, close to the Ionian coastline, according to Italy’s National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV).

READ ALSO: Italy’s southern Calabria region rocked by strong 5.0 earthquake

Fire officials wrote on X that there had been no reports of damage or calls for help, but checks were ongoing, according to AFP.

Pietrapaola Mayor Manuela Labonia told RaiNews 24 on Thursday evening that “the situation seems calm,” but residents felt “other tremors, less strong ones” after the first quake and were “all in the streets”.

On social media, some people reported feeling the earthquake as far away as Bari, Puglia, some 250 kilometres to the north.

Investigation launched into major wildfire near Rome

Rome prosecutors on Thursday opened an investigation into the cause of a blaze which led to the evacuation of homes and offices in the north of the city, as well as national broadcaster Rai’s television studios, according to media reports.

The wildfire, which firefighters brought under control on Wednesday evening, broke out on the slopes of the Monte Mario nature reserve.

Prosecutors reportedly had not ruled out arson as a potential cause. However, Rome Mayor Roberto Gualtieri on Thursday told Italian media the fire “was apparently started by a meal being cooked” over a fire on the Monte Mario hill, where he said there were often “illegal camps” set up by homeless people.

The fire, one of many around Rome in recent days, broke out amid a heatwave and was fuelled by wind and high temperatures, Gualtieri said.

Former Liguria governor Toti released from house arrest

A judge in Genoa on Thursday ruled that the former governor of the Liguria region could be released from house arrest as he was no longer deemed at risk of re-offending after he resigned last week, news agency Ansa reported.

The decision means Giovanni Toti, 55, can now leave his villa in Ameglia, near La Spezia, where he had been under house arrest since May 7th amid a major corruption investigation centred on the port of Genoa.

Toti resigned as governor last week following the investigation, which has also implicated nine others, including the former head of the Genoa Port Authority, one of the largest in the country.

A former journalist who was close to late former premier Silvio Berlusconi, Toti is no longer aligned with any political party but was backed by the ruling right-wing coalition in the last election.

Two priests arrested after ‘stealing phones to hide sex abuse’

Two Italian priests were arrested for orchestrating a robbery to steal cellphones belonging to two men they had sexually abused, the AFP news agency reported on Thursday.

The phones contained evidence that two Franciscan priests had subjected the victims to abuse in return for food and clothing, according to a statement from prosecutors in Naples reported by AFP.

They were among six people arrested in the case that began in April when a burglary was reported in the town of Afragola, outside Naples. The ensuing investigation found “substantial evidence” of abuse “within several monasteries including the Basilica of Saint Antonio of Afragola”.

Wiretaps showed that the priests had ordered the burglary, “driven by the strong fear of facing the consequences of a complaint filed by the victims of violence supported by chats, videos and messages,” read the statement.

Nearly one in three Italian houses unoccupied, report finds

Some 27 percent of houses in Italy are unoccupied, a report from Italy’s national statistics institute Istat said on Thursday, according to Ansa.

The report said the majority of empty houses were located in southern Italy and on the islands of Sicily and Sardinia, though the region with the single highest percentage of unoccupied properties was Valle d’Aosta, in the northwest of the country.

Istat also said that some 56 percent of Italy’s residential properties were built between 1961 and 2000, while 9.5 percent were over 100 years old.

Liguria, Tuscany and Piedmont were the regions with the oldest homes, according to the report.