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 The United States Department of Agriculture will relax a decades-long ban on the importation of many cured-pork products from some regions of Italy starting May 28, greatly increasing the number and variety of salumi in markets and restaurants here.
[...] This "could open up a new world of Italian salami to the United States,” said Joseph Bastianich, an owner of the Eataly grocery stores in the United States. “Americans have been eating bad salami forever, but now the end is near.” 

 MILAN — Teatro alla Scala raised eyebrows in December when it opened its season with “Lohengrin” in observance of Wagner’s bicentennial rather than an opera by Verdi, who was also born in 1813. In the months since, however, the theater has redressed the balance with new productions of four Verdi operas, most recently his very first opera, “Oberto, Conte di San Bonifacio.” 

 Italy's new prime minister, Enrico Letta--on his first visit to France since receiving a vote of confidence from the country's parliament Tuesday--said the continent risked social unrest if leaders failed to come up with effective ways to alleviate high unemployment and stalled growth.

 To mangle a familiar quotation from Tolstoy, all regions of Italy are different, but each is Italian in its own particular way.

Suppose the Italian regions were women (humor me here). Lombardia would be a glamorous but unapproachable Milan model. I see Emiglia-Romagna as a wealthy, slightly dowdy widow. Umbria would be the wholesome, friendly girl next door. Unlike the American girl next door where I live, however, this one is a terrific cook.

 

Amanda Knox, the US student tried for the murder of British student Meredith Kercher in 2007, is considering a return to Italy to face a retrial.In her first TV interview since being cleared in 2011 after four years in jail, Knox protested her innocence and said her experience was surreal and could have happened to anyone.

Italy’s new Foreign Minister Emma Bonino is part of the small Radical Party, a group considered mostly leftist, although it could be associated with issues considered mostly libertarian in the U.S. One of its signature positions is staunch support of Israel, something that's far from being in the majority among Western Europe's liberal elite. And one of the things Bonino has been closely associated with is a campaign launched in 2001 to admit Israel to the European Union.

A growing slice of Italy’s pizza makers are not actually Italian. Despite a long recession and high unemployment, Italians may be less inclined to take pizza-making jobs because of the long hours and modest pay, according to the Telegraph.

 Residents know that summer has arrived in Roselle Park, when the Church of the Assumption presents its annual St. Anthony Italian Family Feast. Once again this year it will be four days of faith, fun, family and friends, packed full of delicious homemade cooking, an Italian-style Café, food venders, non-stop entertainment and music (more performers than 2012!), amusements, and games. 

 There's a crisis in Italy: It's too hot in the pizzeria and the Italians have gotten out, leaving a shortage of 6,000 'pizzaiuoli,' according to the Italian business group FIPE.Despite the worst unemployment rate in two decades, these crucial roles in the land that invented the tomato and cheese pies are going unfilled, according to the report, by the Italian Federation of Confcommercio Companies for Italy. 

 Chicago’s Italian American Chamber of Commerce (IACC) presented Chicago Symphony Orchestra Music Director Riccardo Muti with a Lifetime Achievement award during a gala event at the Art Institute of Chicago's Chicago Stock Exchange Trading Room on Wednesday night. The IACC was founded in 1907 to support the Italian business community and American businesses specializing in Italian products. 

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