A tiny mountain village in Italy is celebrating something it hasn’t seen in almost 30 years: a baby. Pagliara dei Marsi, a mountain village in the Abruzzo region with fewer than two dozen residents, welcomed baby Lara Bussi Trabucco earlier this year, The Guardian reports. Her arrival has turned the infant into a celebrity in a town long defined by depopulation and aging residents. Lara was born in March to Paolo Bussi, 56, and Cinzia Trabucco, 42. Now nine months old, Lara has already drawn attention well beyond the village limits. “People who didn’t even know Pagliara dei Marsi existed have come, only because they had heard about Lara,” her mother told the outlet. Her birth offers a rare bright spot as Italy grapples with a deepening demographic crisis. In 2024, the country recorded just 369,944 births, the lowest figure on record, according to the national statistics agency Istat. To combat what Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has called a “demographic winter,” Italy introduced a €1,000 ($1,177) birth incentive, which the couple will receive. Still, challenges remain. The Guardian notes the village hasn’t had a teacher in decades, and widespread school closures underscore how daunting it may be to raise a child where youth have all but disappeared.
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