Prosecutors in Rome are investigating a bus explosion in the city’s historic centre, the 10th such blast in the Italian capital this year. Passengers and pedestrians were lucky to escape injury on Tuesday when the vehicle burst into flames on Via del Tritone, a busy high street close to the Spanish Steps and Trevi fountain. The explosion was reportedly caused by a short circuit, although panicked tourists initially suspected terrorism. Two shops were damaged by the blast.

“There was a loud roar and everyone started to flee like crazy when they didn’t understand what was happening,” reported Il Messaggero, whose head office is on Via Tritone. “We thought it was a bomb,” Japanese tourists told the newspaper.

The explosions are so frequent in Rome that residents have suggested public transport poses a greater threat to their safety than terrorism. There were 22 bus blasts last year and 14 in 2016, with no reported injuries.(theguardian)…[+]

Donald Trump’s attorney and legal fixer, Michael Cohen, was paid half a million dollars by a company affiliated with a Russian oligarch closely linked to Vladimir Putin, according to extraordinary allegations published on Tuesday.

The claim was made in a research document drafted and posted online by Michael Avenatti, a lawyer for Stephanie Clifford, the pornographic film actor known as Stormy Daniels, who alleged she was paid in 2016 in return for agreeing not to disclose that she had sex with Trump. Cohen was said by Avenatti to have received $500,000 through a US affiliate of the Renova investment group owned by Viktor Vekselberg, a Russian billionaire closely associated with Putin who was placed under sanction by the US government last month. The payments were allegedly made between January and August 2017.

An attorney for the Renova affiliate, Columbus Nova, said it hired Cohen as a business consultant and that Vekselberg had no involvement in the payments. Cohen, his attorney, and the Republican National Committee – for which Cohen is a deputy finance chairman – did not respond to requests for comment.(theguardian)…[+]

An investigative reporter who covers crime and corruption in Montenegro has been shot and injured in an attack that prompted calls from the European Union and the US to protect journalists in the Balkan country.

Olivera Lakić, a journalist for the Montenegrin newspaper Vijesti, was wounded in the right leg outside her home in the capital, Podgorica. She was taken to a hospital and was reported out of danger. Police said the attack happened around 9pm. A search for the attackers was underway, including increased controls throughout the city and a review of surveillance cameras in the area, police said.

Vijesti’s chief editor, Mihailo Jovović, said Lakić told him a man approached her and shot her, while two other men ran away. She was attacked six years ago after she wrote a series of articles about alleged murky dealings over a tobacco factory. That perpetrator was jailed for several months and Lakić had police protection for a while.

“I am speechless,” Jovović said in comments published on the Vijesti website. “For how much longer will this be happening? A lot of stories she wrote have not been investigated [by the authorities]. For how much longer must we live in fear of such cowards?”(theguardian)…[+]