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Italian Senate Cuts Short Vacation to Set No-Confidence Vote

Associated Press

   ROME - The Italian Senate will return Tuesday from its summer vacation
   to set a crucial date for a no-confidence vote on Prime Minister
   Giuseppe Conte's populist government.

   That development followed a meeting Monday of party whips in the Senate
   who failed to unanimously agree on the date of the no-confidence vote.

   Interior Minister Matteo Salvini declared last week that his right-wing
   League party no longer supports Conte and is pressing for a
   no-confidence vote in the next few days. He's calculating that Conte
   will lose and resign, triggering what Salvini hopes will be a new
   election as early as this fall.

   Eager to become premier himself, Salvini wants to go to the polls as
   soon as possible to capitalize both on the League's rising popularity
   and the waning support for his senior coalition partner, the populist
   5-Star Movement.

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