Fabrizio Giovannozzi / AP, file

The Duomo in Florence is the fifth largest in Europe.

ROME, Italy - An American tourist underwent emergency surgery after being stabbed in the Italian city of Florence on Tuesday, a hospital doctor and media reports said.

The 68-year-old was in front of the city’s famed Duomo cathedral listening to a street musician with his wife when someone tried to mug him and he resisted, according to a report by Italian news agency, ANSA.

The report said he suffered knife wounds to a kidney and a lung.

Armando Sarti, head of the emergency care department at the Santa Maria Nuova Hospital, said by phone on Wednesday that the man was recovering after an operation.

“The patient underwent surgery overnight and his condition has now improved and ... seems to be stable, although it is too early to release him from intensive care,” he said.

A hospital spokesman said the man's kidney was removed during surgery.

Local media reports in Florence said a 37-year-old Italian man from Bari was arrested shortly after the mugging and remained in custody, although this could not immediately be confirmed with police.

• More NBC News coverage of Italy

Yonhap via Reuters

Kenneth Bae, 44, was convicted of "hostile acts" against North Korea.

An American tour operator sentenced to 15 years of hard labor in North Korea has begun his sentence at a “special prison,” state media reported Wednesday.

Kenneth Bae, 44, stood trial last month accused of “hostile acts” against the repressive regime.

Bae, who is from Washington state, was convicted of an attempt to topple the government through “state subversion” according to a brief report on the Korean Central News Agency's website.

“Pae Jun Ho, an American citizen, started his life at a special prison on Tuesday,” the report said, referring to him by his Korean name.

He is one of at least three other U.S. citizens who are also devout Christians to have been detained by North Korea in recent years.

While North Korea's constitution guarantees freedom of religion, in practice only sanctioned services are tolerated.

Washington state Rep. Cindy Ryu told The Herald newspaper in December that Bae might have been doing missionary work in North Korea.

"Many of us are third- and fourth-generation Christians and many of our pastors are originally from North Korea," Ryu said. "We want to visit our home country, but in North Korea you cannot say you are a missionary."

A Facebook page has been set up titled “Remember Ken Bae, Detained in North Korea.”

Related:

• North Korea: Detained American tourist has 'admitted his crime'
• Detained American, Internet freedom on agenda as Google boss visits North Korea
• Full North Korea coverage from NBC News

CAIRO, Egypt -- An American academic was being treated in a Cairo hospital Thursday after being stabbed in the neck near the U.S. Embassy, prosecutors and diplomatic officials in Egypt said.

Christopher Stone, a fellow at the American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE) was attacked outside the perimeter of the building about noon local time (3 a.m. ET), Embassy officials said.

Police immediately apprehended the suspect and he is in custody where he is suspected of attempted murder, the Egyptian prosecutor’s office said.

Stone’s identity was confirmed by San Antonio-based ARCE. 

Prosecutors said Stone told them he had gone to the embassy to finish some paperwork for his wife when he was challenged by a young man who asked him twice about his nationality.

The suspect, who is unemployed, then stabbed the victim in the neck, prosecutors said.

According to an online biography, Stone is on sabbatical in Cairo as a research fellow for ARCE. He is associate professor of Arabic and head of the Arabic Program at the City University in New York, according to the biography on the university’s website.

NBC News' Alastair Jamieson contributed to this report.

SEOUL -- North Korea said on Saturday that a Korean-American tourist, jailed by the reclusive state since late last year, will face trial for "committing crimes" against the North, a move that could further stoke tensions with the United States.

The move comes amid a diplomatic standoff between the North and the United States, and as Pyongyang has threatened to attack U.S. military bases in the Pacific and the South.

Slideshow: North Korea's young leader, Kim Jong Un

The youngest son of Kim Jong Il succeeded his late father in 2011, becoming the third member of his family to rule the unpredictable and reclusive communist state.

Launch slideshow

A number of U.S. citizens of Korean descent have run into trouble in the North over the years, and Pyongyang has tried to use their detention to extract visits by high-profile American figures, most notably former President Bill Clinton.

In the latest case, Kenneth Bae, 44, has been held by police since arriving in the northeastern city of Rajin on November 3. He was among a group of five tourists.

"In the process of investigation he admitted that he committed crimes aimed to topple the DPRK with hostility toward it," KCNA state media reported, using the North's official title of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

"His crimes were proved by evidence," it said, adding he would soon be taken to the Supreme Court "to face judgment". It did not provide further details.

South Korean rights workers said that the North's authorities may have taken issue with some of his photographs, including those of homeless North Korean children.

A South Korean newspaper published by an evangelical family said he may have been carrying footage of North Korea executing defectors and dissidents. It was impossible to verify this.

According to North Korean law, the punishment for hostile acts against the state is five to 10 years of hard labor.

Clinton flew to Pyongyang in 2009 and met then-leader Kim Jong-il before securing the release of two American media workers who had been charged with entering the North illegally.

Former U.N. ambassador Bill Richardson has made numerous trips to North Korea that have included efforts to free detained Americans. He delivered a letter regarding Bae to officials during a trip to North Korea in January, although he was unable to meet Bae.

Tensions between North Korea and South Korea and its ally the United States have spiraled in recent weeks since the United Nations tightened sanctions after the North's third nuclear weapon test in February.

The toughening of those sanctions led to the North threatening nuclear strikes against South Korea and the United States.

North Korea has a long record of making threats to secure concessions from the United States and South Korea, only to repeat the process later. Both the United States and the South have said in recent days that the cycle must cease.

Slideshow: Glimpses into the hermit kingdom of North Korea

David Guttenfelder / AP

As chief Asia photographer for the Associated Press, David Guttenfelder has had unprecedented access to communist North Korea. Here's a rare look at daily life in the secretive country.

Launch slideshow

On Friday, Pyongyang rejected a call for formal talks to end a standoff that forced operations at a joint industrial complex shared by the North and South to be halted.

South Korea in turn said it would pull out all its remaining workers from the Kaesong factory complex, which is just inside North Korea and is one of the North's few sources of ready cash.

Of the 175 remaining South Korean workers, 126 workers left the factory zone on Saturday. The rest are scheduled to return on Monday.

A representative of the South Korean firms at the complex urged the government to hold inter-Korean talks and to authorize their visit to North Korea on Tuesday, South Korea's news agency Yonhap said.

Related stories:

• North Korea rejects talks with South's 'puppet regime'
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• Full North Korea coverage on NBCNews.com

Yara Nardi/F3 Press

Reid Schepis is taken into custody Thursday after he was alleged to have stabbed fellow student Fabio Malpeso.

Updated at 4:15 a.m. ET on Nov. 5: ROME -- A 19-year-old American was in critical condition Friday after he was allegedly stabbed while he slept by a fellow student following a night of partying in the Italian capital, officials told NBC News.

The victim, New Jersey-born Fabio Malpeso underwent surgery for stab wounds to his lungs and other parts of his body. Police said Friday that Malpeso was in critical but stable condition in intensive care at a hospital in Rome. 

Authorities said the motive for the attack, which happened in an apartment that overlooks Rome's famous Colosseum early Thursday morning, was unclear. However, detectives suspect "drug- and alcohol-related delirium" might be a factor.

The alleged assailant, who was taken to a police station and then a prison in central Rome, was named as Reid Alexander Schepis, 20. The suspect and victim are both students at John Cabot University, an American college in Rome.

Police said Schepis, a resident of Reggio Calabria in southern Italy, appeared to have joint U.S. and Italian citizenship, but they were working to establish his nationalities.

Lawyer: Suspect a 'model student'
Schepis' lawyer, Vincenzo Comi, said his client was "distraught and exhausted," after visiting the young man in jail Friday.

"He is clearly under shock, and nothing in his past could have prepared him for this. He has never had any problems with the law and has always been a model student with top grades,” Comi said, adding he did not want to say what Schepis had told him at this stage.

Comi said Schepis’ mother was American and his father Italian, and as far as he was aware Schepis had dual citizenship.

A third man, an Italian aged in his 30s named Andrea Rinaldi, suffered injuries to his arms and hands trying to defend Malpeso, and was also in the hospital, police said.

Paolo Guiso, a judiciary police inspector who is leading the investigation, told NBC News Friday that Schepis and Malpeso had returned to the apartment, where Malpeso's sister Federica and Rinaldi were also staying, after partying in a nightclub Wednesday night and early Thursday.

Yara Nardi / F3 Press

The building where Schepis is alleged to have stabbed Malpeso is not far from the Coliseum in central Rome.

More international coverage from NBC News

"Federica, Rinaldi and Fabio went to bed at 6 a.m. [Thursday]. Reid stayed in the living room. At a certain point, he went to the kitchen, fetched a knife and went into Fabio's room, where he started to stab the sleeping youth," Guiso alleged. 

"Hearing the screaming and commotion, Rinaldi and the victim's sister ran in to see what was happening. They stepped in to defend Fabio, which resulted in Rinaldi suffering cuts to his hands and arms," he said.

"The motive of the attack is still not clear. At present we … believe that the violence was brought on due to a drug- and alcohol-related delirium," Guiso added.

'Best friends'
Guiso said early Friday that he had not been able to speak properly with Schepis as he was "still half asleep and at times catatonic ...  he was almost in a state of unconsciousness at times."

"We have taken him to Regina Coeli prison in the heart of Rome. Within 48 hours from the arrest, he will have to go before the judge who will need to confirm his arrest," he added.

Marta Canigiulia, 20, a student at John Cabot, told NBC News Friday that she was friends with Schepis and Malpeso, though she had only recently met the latter.

“They were best friends ... they are best friends, I hope they still are,” she added. “I loved them for the fact that they were always very cheery. They would always come up to you and say: ‘Hi Marta, what’s up?’ They were always smiling.”

More US coverage from NBCNews.com

Referring to Schepis, Canigiulia said with tears in her eyes, “he is a good person.”

“I can’t explain why this happened. Probably it’s because of drugs,” she speculated.

Geraldine Gully, 18, another student, said she did not know Schepis and Malpeso personally but “saw them all the time at school. ... They seemed like very good friends. I was so shocked to hear what had happened because it was so unexpected and you wouldn’t believe it,” she said.

In a statement, John Cabot University President France Pavoncello said he was dealing “with this situation personally” with support from other staff and was in touch with the “involved parties and their families.”

He confirmed the suspect and victim were students at the university, saying they were roommates in an off-campus apartment. 

“I trust you will all join me in sending our prayers to the victim's family for their son's full recovery as well as to the family of the alleged attacker, who is likely shattered by this tragic event,” he added.

Thursday was the fifth anniversary of the brutal murder of British student Meredith Kercher in Perugia, Italy, that led to the arrest, trial and eventual acquittal of American student Amanda Knox.

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Reuters

Policemen carry the body of an American teacher shot dead by a student at a school in Sulaimaniya, Iraq, on Thursday.

Updated at 2 p.m. ET
SULAIMANIYAH, Iraq -- The quarrel at a Christian school in northern Iraq was at first easily ignored by other students: a disagreement between a classmate and a teacher that could barely be heard. But it quickly escalated into gunfire Thursday in a murder-suicide marking the rare violent death of an American in Iraq's most peaceful region.

Authorities in Iraq's northern Kurdish city of Sulaimaniyah said 18-year-old Biyar Sarwar shot his gym teacher, U.S. citizen Jeremiah Small, before turning the gun on himself at a private English-speaking school during a morning sports lecture. Sarwar died later at a nearby hospital.

Small was from Cosmopolis, a town in western Washington state near the coast. His father, J. Dan Small, confirmed the death on his Facebook page. "Our oldest, Jeremiah, was martyred in Kurdistan this a.m.," the elder Small wrote.

Eyewitnesses in Iraq described a scene of chaos in the classroom, with some students fainting in fear after gunfire shattered the morning class.

Ahmed Mohammed said he was sitting in the front of the classroom and paid little attention to the argument when it first erupted. He said he could barely hear what was happening because Sarwar was at the back of the room.

"Then I heard the gunshot," said Mohammed, his face pale as he recounted the scene. "I turned my head and saw the body of the American teacher on the ground with blood near it. All the students started to run out of the room. Seconds later, as I was running to the reach the school gate, I heard another gunshot."

A short time later, another student shouted that Sarwar had killed himself, Mohammed said.

"So I rushed back to the class with other students to see the teacher on the ground with three bullets in his head and chest, and bloody, and Biyar with a bullet in his head."

Sulaimaniyah police spokesman Sarkawit Mohammed, no relation to Ahmed, said the shooting appeared to be a murder-suicide, but provided no motive. He said Sarwar hid the gun in his clothes before the lecture at the Medes School, a private Christian academy of elementary through secondary grade level classes.

The Medes program runs three schools in the provinces that make up Iraq's northern Kurdish region, boasting an enrollment of about 2,000 students. According to the schools' website, American staff often teach one or two courses each semester. An estimated 95 percent of the students are from Kurdish Muslim families.

Students described Small as a devout Christian who frequently praised Christianity and prayed in the classroom. However, Sulaimaniyah Mayor Zana Hama Saleh said Small was not a missionary and cast doubt that the killing was motivated by sectarian issues because Sarwar "had no radical religious tendencies."

"Maybe the student had mental problems," Saleh said.

The Nashville, Tenn.-based Servant Group International, for whom Small worked, confirmed his identity and described him as a beloved mentor to the more than 1,000 Iraqi students he taught since 2005.

Jeff Dokkestul, a Servant Group International board member, said Small was one of nine American teachers at the Sulaimaniyah school, which he said is run by Iraqi Kurds. Although Dokkestul said the groups' teachers are Christian, he maintained that they do not proselytize their students.

"We believe this is an isolated incident, just like (what) happens in the U.S.," Dokkestul said in an interview. He said the school operates "as a Christian school serving the Muslim and Christian community, a mixed community."

Sulaimaniyah is located in Iraq's comparatively peaceful Kurdish region, 160 miles (260 kilometers) northeast of Baghdad. The Kurdish region has generally been free of the bombings and shootings that have plagued the rest of Iraq in recent years. Foreigners, including American citizens, usually travel freely around northern Iraq without the armed guards or armored vehicles often used in the rest of the country.

A team from the U.S. consulate in Irbil, the Kurdish region's capital, was in Sulaimaniyah to identify Small's body but was unable by Thursday night to do so.

"We have heard reports regarding the shooting of a teacher in Sulaimaniyah and are working through our consulate in Irbil and Iraqi authorities to ascertain the details of the incident," the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad said in a statement. "At this time, we are waiting for identification to be completed and for the family to be notified."

Medes student Neyan Kamal said Small was highly respected, and described Sarwar as smart.

"I'll never forget these cruel moments," said Kamal, who was in the classroom during the shooting. "I have no idea what the motive was — both were good people."

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