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WARSAW, Poland - UEFA fined Croatia’s football association (euro) 80,000 ($101,000) on Tuesday after fans racially abused Italy forward Mario Balotelli at a European Championship match. The charges related to “the setting-off and throwing of fireworks, and the improper conduct of supporters (racist chants, racist symbols),” UEFA said in a statement.
Italy is in a severe recession, deepened by austerity measures passed by Mario Monti's technocrat government to try to keep Italy in the euro zone. Support for one party opposed to the currency has mushroomed to more than 20 percent.
POZNAN, POLAND — Amid high temperatures and even higher drama, Spain and Italy confirmed themselves as the two qualifiers from Group C at the European Championship. Until Jesús Navas scored the late winner, Spain had a tough time breaking down a Croatian side that went to Gdansk intent on preventing its opponents from playing their usual game. It ended Monday night on that solitary goal, 1-0, sending Spain, the defending champion, through to the knockout round and sending Croatia, a fancied outsider, home and on summer vacation.
Italy coach Cesare Prandelli took the unusual step of thanking Uefa president Platini after his side secured qualification for the Euro 2012 quarter-finals.
Italy beat Ireland 2-0 and that, coupled with Spain's 1-0 success against Croatia, ensured the Azzurri finished second in Group C and will play the Group D winners in the last eight of Euro 2012 in Kiev on Sunday.
Mario J. Gabelli, the eminent philanthropist and investment innovator, will be Grand Marshal of the New York City's 2012 Columbus Day Parade, the world's largest celebration of Italian-American culture and heritage. The 68th annual Columbus Day Parade be held on October 8, 2012, and will feature 35,000 marchers and over 100 contingents, including virtuoso performances of traditional Italian and Italian-American music and dance, street performers, historical and contemporary floats, over a dozen marching bands, and national and international dignitaries.
Both President Obama's and Mitt Romney's campaigns celebrated Father’s Day on Sunday, in a brief respite from the increasingly heated presidential race.
ROME (AP) — Tens of thousands of Italian workers rallied in Rome on Saturday to protest pension cuts, tax hikes and labor reforms imposed by the government of Mario Monti and to demand more stable work, particularly for the young.
Croatia coach Slaven Bilic on Sunday slammed racist fans and called for them to be banned from football after Italy's Mario Balotelli was abused during the two countries' Euro 2012 match last week.
“I WANTED nothing more than to be a foreign filmmaker,” Woody Allen said recently, “but of course I was from Brooklyn, which was not a foreign country. Through a happy accident I wound up being a foreign filmmaker because I couldn’t raise money any other way.”
ROME — The Italian government moved forward Friday with a wide-ranging package of economic measures worth about €80 billion that were meant both to spur economic growth and make a dent in the country’s unsustainably large public debt.