The Italian mafia has long been synonymous with extortion and mob hits, but it appears its taste for murder and racketeering could soon be a thing of the past.

According to the latest official data, 17 people were killed by the mob in Italy in 2022, compared to more than 700 in 1991, as criminal organisations like La Cosa Nostra from Sicily, Naples's Camorra and the Calabrian 'Ndrangheta "have moved aggressively into the low-risk, low-key world of white-collar crime", said Reuters.

What did the commentators say?
Post-pandemic "there's a new trend developing that's a warning for all of Europe", said Bloomberg. While mobsters continue to pursue their traditional criminal enterprises in larger cities, in Italy's depressed regions "gangster tentacles are reaching more subtly and pervasively into the social and economic fabric".

The mafia has effectively evolved from extortion rackets to "insolvencies and bankruptcies", said Milan magistrate Pasquale Addesso. They have "entered the world of sub-contracting, responding to a demand for tax evasion from entrepreneurs".

The maths behind the "why" is simple, said Reuters. Carrying 50 grams of cocaine can land you up to 20 years in prison, while sending out false invoices to gain €500 million in fraudulent tax credits carries a maximum term of six years. These complex cases can also often take years, moving them past the low statutes of limitations for white collar crimes.

What next?
The huge surge in false invoicing, tax evasion and insolvencies is proving an overwhelming challenge for the authorities, especially because much of the investment has been in "small businesses – bars, restaurants and apartments suitable for short-term tourist letting – that offer risk diversification", said The Economist. "If you buy a hotel and it's seized, you lose everything," a businessman with family ties to the Camorra told the publication. "If you buy ten bars and two are seized, you still have eight."

Tax avoidance is becoming a major front in the battle against organised crime, said Maurizio de Lucia, Sicily's chief prosecutor, arguing that the dentist who fails to issue an invoice has the same effect as the drug dealer. "They are both using the same service, they are entering the same terrain."

"Baby Reindeer" begins by telling viewers that "this is a true story". Now the Netflix hit is at the centre of another real-life drama, starring an army of armchair detectives.

The seven-part series stars comedian Richard Gadd and combines two autobiographical plays he wrote and which "premiered to rave reviews" at the Edinburgh Fringe festival, said Vox. Gadd's character, called Donny, is stalked by a woman named Martha and sexually assaulted by a comedy agent, with both "deeply disturbing events" depicted through a "lens of intentional overexposure".

Although the names have been changed, and some fictional elements have been added, speculation about the "real-life mystery" of the perpetrators' true identities has raged since the series premiered last month. 

Legal dramas
Some viewers "quickly created a horrible sort of sequel", said Eva Wiseman in The Guardian, by attempting to expose the stalker on social media. "Historic tweets were urgently screengrabbed, photographs posted side by side, she was quote-tweeted as if a celebrity – the character's name was trending for days." In a now-deleted post on Instagram, Gadd wrote: "Please don't speculate on who any of the real-life people could be. That's not the point of our show."

Internet sleuths also tried to identify the real "high-profile comedy agent", played by Tom Goodman-Hill in the show, who allegedly raped Gadd, said the Daily Mail. After being falsely accused, theatre director Sean Foley tweeted that the police had been informed and were "investigating all defamatory abusive and threatening posts" against him. The woman who is supposedly the real "Martha" has since claimed she will be suing Gadd and Netflix. 

'Patient zero'
Gadd should be allowed to tell his story, said Marina Hyde on "The Rest Is Entertainment" podcast. But TV companies should "understand the era they are living in" and should have foreseen the social media reaction. More of the story should have been "better disguised".

For anyone making a show about real people, this might be the moment when "compliance just got tightened by about 8,000%", said co-host Richard Osman. This will be the "patient zero".

"Gadd is by no means the first creator to confront the slippery ethics around true crime," said Vox.  Some of the controversy surrounding "Baby Reindeer" was perhaps inspired by the scene where Donny goes online and "begins digging up dirt on his own stalker". Although Gadd might not have anticipated the "runaway success" of the show, "it seems clear that he could have at least anticipated that if he couldn't resist Googling his stalker, neither could anyone else".

Enjoy freshly cooked food within sight of the sea – whatever the weather – at one of these standout beach cafes.

Riley's Fish Shack, Tynemouth, Tyne and Wear
After "starting life as a 'street-food (bicycle) stall'", Riley's (pictured above) is now housed in "two customised shipping containers" on King Edward's Bay, "overlooking the frothy waves", said The Telegraph, where "glimpses of dolphins" are a possibility. "Seasonal seafood is the deal," said The Good Food Guide, and the menu and service times "often depend on the catch".

The Hive Beach Cafe, Burton Bradstock, Dorset
"Living up to its name", this is a "hub of activity" situated on the Jurassic Coast, said The Telegraph. The menu includes traditional breakfast options as well as "whopping great boards of finger-lickin' garlic-butter-drippin' claw-crackin' crustacea", said Condé Nast Traveller.

The Secret Bar and Kitchen, Swansea
This wood-walled cafe is on the sands, "just below the Uplands suburb where the poet Dylan Thomas grew up", said The Times. Tuck in to a Welsh breakfast with laverbread and cockles, or international favourites such as crab ravioli and steak salad, while enjoying the view of what Thomas called "a long and splendid curving shore".

The Lookout, Holkham, Norfolk
Perched on the edge of the Holkham National Nature Reserve, the award-winning circular slatted-wood design of The Lookout includes telescopes to offer visitors a closer look at "oystercatchers, greenshanks and lapwings on the marshes", says The Times. "Every detail is eco-sensitive", including "compostable pots, wrapper-less real-fruit lollies and money off for bringing your own cup".

If Israel mounts an assault on Rafah, we will witness the desperate consequences of this terrible war
The Independent editorial board
Without a Gaza ceasefire, "or at very least" humanitarian corridors, "human disaster on a massive scale looks nigh-impossible to avoid", says The Independent. More than a million civilians are "crowded into makeshift camps" in and around Rafah as Israel threatens an "all-out" assault. "When circumstances become this bleak, consolation may sometimes be drawn from the conviction that things cannot get worse." But "practically anyone" touched by this war "in any way" has learned that "alas, it can".

How to beat the stress epidemic
Karyn McCluskey for The Scotsman
William Beveridge's 1942 report that underpinned the welfare state identified five social evils then affecting the UK: "want, squalor, idleness, ignorance and disease". Their modern equivalents have been defined as "hunger, precarity, waste, exploitation and fear", which feels "about right", writes Karyn McCluskey, chief executive of Community Justice Scotland. It may seem "hopeless" but the answer to these issues "can be found in those around us". Connectedness "won't fill hungry bellies", but it can bring "understanding" and a "route to solutions".

Protect pedestrians from these deadly cyclists
Melanie Phillips in The Times
"Are pedestrians the victims of discrimination?" asks Melanie Phillips, after a cyclist who killed a pensioner "couldn't be prosecuted because legal speed limits don't apply to cyclists". In London, crossing the road "increasingly means taking your life in your hands", as cyclists "ignore" red traffic lights and "pedal furiously" across pedestrian crossings. Yet motorists are widely depicted as "spawn of the devil, cyclists are saints and pedestrians can go take a running jump – in some cases, all too literally".