Focus::Daily News

NEWSLINE

 Mike Piazza is one Hall of a catcher. It took until a fourth try on the ballot, but the former Mets slugger came crashing through the doors of Cooperstown on Wednesday, when he was elected to the Hall of Fame, Class of 2016. 

 Irpinia contradicts everything you expect about Southern Italy. The rainy climate and green mountains have more in common with the Pacific Northwest than the Amalfi Coast, just 40 miles away. Instead of Roman ruins like those at Pompeii, stones remain from the Osci, the native Campanian tribe known for their salacious festivals. The spiritual center of the region is the famously hard-to-reach church at Montevergine. 

 On paper, David O. Russell’s new film, “Joy,” looks perfectly straightforward, even square. It’s a bootstrap-capitalist fable, a tale of adversity overcome and rags exchanged for riches, a case study in success suitable for a self-improvement seminar.

 

 Gina DePalma, a pastry chef whose artfully simple Italian desserts helped make Babbo in Greenwich Village one of Manhattan’s most beloved and admired restaurants, died on Tuesday at a hospice in the Bronx. She was 49. 

 The music finally died there in December when the last holdout, Alex Carozza, packed up his accordion store and 50 years of memories and moved off the block.  

 Italian fashion label Dolce & Gabbana is telling a “simple story” set in an Italian village during the summer.

Dolce & Gabbana’s advertising campaign for summer 2016 continues the brand’s familial communications, casting various generations to create a colorful, whimsical and somewhat realistic scene.

 

 The Italian government has committed to spend millions of euros on some of its most important heritage sites, including Venice and Siena. Cultural sites will also be kitted out with security alarms and video surveillance, the ministry said, adding that this spending would come to €50m.
 

 

 AND now they’re a quartet. Gianandrea Noseda, the music director of Turin’s Teatro Regio, is to become music director of Washington’s National Symphony Orchestra, the fourth Italian in recent years to be tapped for a major American orchestra. He joins Riccardo Muti at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Nicola Luisotti at the San Francisco Opera and Corrado Rovaris at the Philadelphia Opera. In addition, Fabio Luisi holds the position of Principal Conductor at New York’s Metropolitan Opera in addition to his role as General Music Director of the Zurich Opera. 

The War on Christmas has reached Italy’s shores.

An Italian school principal was forced to resign amid a flurry of controversy after he replaced the annual Christmas concert with a winter recital — a move even the prime minister and the predominantly Catholic country’s non-Christians have condemned.

Buongiorno! Are you someone with Italian roots who would like to keep the tradition going in your family? Do you just love the sound of Italian names or have memories of a lovely trip there? MooseRoots collected data from the Social Security Administration, as well as Oxford University Press to find the top 25 Italian names trending in the U.S.

Pages