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Italian elections are due Feb. 24-25. The Christmas week already offered a wave of activity from outgoing Prime Minister Mario Monti, who first unveiled his agenda for Italy and then said he would head a centrist alliance of parties in a bid to remain premier. That has raised the political stakes, and there is time enough for plenty of surprises. Ultimately, though, it has probably increased the chances the Italian election delivers a market-friendly outcome.
Bored with your default wine choice when you get home? Then try a vermentino from Italy or France. “The good ones have something of the lemon meringue pie about them but in a non-sweet way,” says Helen McGinn, whose first book, The Knackered Mother's Wine Club, is published in February.
Patti Page, the apple-cheeked, honey-voiced alto whose sentimental, soothing, sometimes silly hits like “Tennessee Waltz,” “Old Cape Cod” and “How Much Is That Doggie in the Window?” made her one of the most successful pop singers of the 1950s, died on Tuesday in Encinitas, Calif. She was 85.
After panettone vs pandoro, in these days, in Italy, there’s a new challenge, the one between sausages and pig’s trotters. It seems that Italians prefer the first one, by the way, we are talking about two equal historical dishes (porks’meat called in Italy “zampone” was invented by a chef in 1511!) really loved in Bel Paese. But it’s not all: in Italy, make a chose between one of the two recipes is really important and, in very way, they both have to be accompanied by lentils. The reason? Alwalys in Italy, they bring “good luck“. Finally, in Italian tradition also eating grapes and pomegranate is foundamental to begin at the best 2013, but this is another story…
The former Italian prime minister agreed to payments totalling €36 million a year (£29.4 million) to Miss Lario but successfully argued against her claims on the bulk of his fortune, including the family property portfolio and his business interests.
Italian neurologist Rita Levi Montalcini, Nobel Prize winner for Medicine in 1986 died at her home in Rome. She was 103. Rome's mayor says biologist Rita Levi-Montalcini, who conducted underground research in defiance of Fascist persecution, and went on to win a Nobel Prize for helping unlock the mysteries of the cell, has died at her home in the city. She was 103.
We think of It's a Wonderful Life as a great American movie, a great Jimmy Stewart movie, a great Frank Capra movie — and, of course, as a great Christmas movie. We don't think of it as a great Italian-American movie.
The abandoned university building on the outskirts of Rome, colloquially known as Salaam Palace, was once a sparsely populated makeshift shelter where new arrivals from Africa — fleeing war, persecution and economic turmoil — squatted to create their own refuge.
Italian Premier Mario Monti announced Friday he is heading a new campaign coalition made of up centrists, business leaders and pro-Vatican forces who back his “ethical” vision of politics, aiming for a second mandate in office if his fledging reform movement wins big in parliamentary elections.
An Italian priest found himself embroiled in a national controversy this week after a Christmas bulletin he posted in his church went viral.