Provocative mermaid statue makes waves in southern Italian town
A provocative statue of a curvy mermaid is making waves in the southern Italian town of Monopoli.
The voluptuous artwork sits in a new square in the Puglia town called Piazza Rita Levi-Montalcini – named after a Nobel prize-winning Italian scientist.
It was created by students from the Luigi Rosso art school in Monopoli after a commission from the local municipality and is located near to a children’s playground. It is part of a €350,000 (£310,000) redevelopment of the area.
Adolfo Marciano, headteacher of the Luigi Rosso art school, said the statue was a “tribute to the great majority of women who are curvy”.
The statue is dedicated to ‘curvy women’. Pic: The Monopoli Times
“The students got together and came up with the idea of a mermaid,” Mr Marciano told The Guardian. “The council was shown the scale model and said it was good, and then decided the completed sculpture would be placed in the square.
“You see adverts on television with models who are very thin, but the mermaid is like a tribute to the great majority of women who are curvy, especially in our country. It would have been very bad if we had represented a woman who was extremely skinny.”
The statue has understandably roiled social media, with equal passions being raised for and against it. “But who could have inspired this,” asked one Twitter user. “Kim Kardashian?”
Tiziana Schiavarelli, an actress from the nearby city of Bari, wrote on Facebook that a friend from Monopoli had been “rightly perplexed” by the monument.
“At first glance, it doesn’t look like the image of the famous scientist. It actually looks like a mermaid with two silicone boobs and above all the hugest ass ever seen on a mermaid. At least the ones I know.”
Ms Schiavarelli concluded by saying she didn’t “mind the authors of the work, nor the municipal administration of Monopoli” it just “amuses me a lot. Who knows, maybe it will become a tourist attraction?”
That sentiment was echoed by a Monopoli local on Twitter, who revelled in the town’s unexpected fame: “Monopoli in all the newspapers for a big-ass mermaid, that’s us!”
The statue is yet to be formally unveiled.
Donald Trump has threatened Russia with more sanctions after a series of deadly strikes across Ukraine, as he said of Vladimir Putin: “What the hell happened to him?”
The US president appeared aghast at the conduct of his counterpart in the Kremlin after drone and missile attacks in Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities left 12 people dead and dozens more injured.
Trump criticises Putin – latest updates
Speaking to reporters at an airport in New Jersey ahead of a flight back to Washington, Mr Trump said: “I’m not happy with Putin. I don’t know what’s wrong with him.”
“He’s killing a lot of people,” he added. “I’m not happy about that.”
Mr Trump – who said he’s “always gotten along with” Mr Putin – told reporters he would consider more sanctions against Moscow.
“He’s sending rockets into cities and killing people, and I don’t like it at all,” he said.
Ukraine said the barrage of strikes overnight into Sunday was the biggest aerial attack of the war so far, with 367 drones and missiles fired by Russian forces.
It came despite Mr Trump repeatedly talking up the chances of a peace agreement. He even spoke to Mr Putin on the phone for two hours last week.
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‘Shameful’ attacks
Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said Ukraine is ready to sign a ceasefire deal, and suggested Russia isn’t serious about signing one.
In a statement after the latest attacks on his country, he urged the US and other national leaders to increase the pressure on Mr Putin, saying silence “only encourages” him.
Mr Trump’s envoy for the country, Keith Kellogg, later demanded a ceasefire, describing the Russian attacks as “shameful”.
Three children were among those killed in the attacks, explosions shaking the cities of Kyiv, Odesa, and Mykolaiv.
Ukrainian siblings Tamara, 12, Stanislav, eight, and Roman, 17, were killed in Russian airstrikes. Pic: X/@Mariana_Betsa
Before the onslaught, Russia said it had faced a Ukrainian drone attack on Sunday. It said around 100 were intercepted and destroyed near Moscow and in central and southern regions.
The violence has escalated despite Russia and Ukraine completing the exchange of 1,000 prisoners each over the past three days.
Donald Trump says he will delay the imposition of 50% tariffs on goods entering the United States from the European Union until July, as the two sides attempt to negotiate a trade deal.
It comes after the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said in a post on social media site X that she had spoken to Mr Trump and expressed that they needed until 9 July to “reach a good deal”.
The US president had last Friday threatened to bring in the 50% tariffs from 1 June, as European leaders said they were ready to respond with their own measures.
But Mr Trump has now said that date has been put back to 9 July to allow more time for negotiations with the 27-member bloc, with the phone call appearing to smooth over tensions for now at least.
Speaking on Sunday before boarding Air Force One for Washington DC, Mr Trump told reporters that he had spoken to Ms Von der Leyen and she “wants to get down to serious negotiations” and she vowed to “rapidly get together and see if we can work something out”.
The US president, in comments on his Truth Social platform, had reignited fears last Friday of a trade war between the two powers when he said talks were “going nowhere” and the bloc was “very difficult to deal with”.
Mr Trump told the media in Morristown, New Jersey, on Sunday that Ms Von der Leyen “just called me… and she asked for an extension in the June 1st date. And she said she wants to get down to serious negotiation”.
“We had a very nice call and I agreed to move it. I believe July 9th would be the date. That was the date she requested. She said we will rapidly get together and see if we can work something out,” the US president added.
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Shortly after, he wrote on Truth Social: “I agreed to the extension – July 9, 2025 – It was my privilege to do so.”
On his so-called “liberation day” last month, Mr Trump unleashed tariffs on many of America’s trade partners. But since then he’s backed down in a spiralling tit-for-tat tariff face-off with China, and struck a deal with the UK.
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Much of his most incendiary rhetoric on trade has been directed at Brussels, though, even going as far as to claim the EU was created to rip the US off.
Responding to his 50% tariff threat, EU trade chief Maros Sefcovic said: “EU-US trade is unmatched and must be guided by mutual respect, not threats.
“We stand ready to defend our interests.”
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