ITALY: A journalist detained in Iran for three weeks was freed today and is heading home, Italian officials announced.

A plane carrying Cecilia Sala took off from Tehran after “intensive work on diplomatic and intelligence channels,” Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s office said.

Sala, a 29-year-old reporter for the Il Foglio daily, was detained in Tehran on December 19, three days after she arrived on a journalist visa. She was accused of violating the laws of the Islamic Republic, the official IRNA news agency said.