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VILLAGE VOICE. The invention of the Italian-American hero must be considered one of the happiest occurrences of 20th-century American cuisine. It happened in the 1920s. French bread had just been introduced into the United States and caused a craze. Every Italian-American bakery in Brooklyn was making demi-baguettes: bulbous loaves, crusty on the outside, lightweight in the middle, prone to go stale unless used quickly. (Read the article)
ANSA. The Ancient Roman city of Pompeii is flinging open its doors to bike users for the first time this weekend with a special new tour laid out for them. (Read the article)
ANSA. A cow dressed as a Roman centurion and another wearing the colours of the AS Roma soccer team are among life-size models popping up in Rome's streets and piazzas for the capital's first CowParade exhibition. (Read the article)
PRnewswire. The Columbus Citizens Foundation's Board of Governors last Thursday pledged $500,000 to help reinstate The College Board's Italian Language and Culture Advanced Placement program. The program, known as AP Italian, was suspended following the 2008-2009 school year because of a lack of funding.
The commitment, announced by the Foundation's president, Frank Fusaro, brings to $1 million funds pledged toward the AP reinstatement effort, which will require total contributions of $3 million. The other funder to date is the Republic of Italy. (Read the article)
THE NEW YORK TIMES. President Obama is scheduled to meet with Giorgio Napolitano, the president of Italy, before flying to San Francisco to raise funds for Senator Barbara Boxer, the California Democrat, and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. (Read the Article)
THE INDEPENDENT. Spanish actor Javier Bardem and Italy's Elio Germano on Sunday shared the best actor award at the Cannes film festival for their roles in two gritty urban dramas. (Read the article)
NYT. ONE spring afternoon in the early 1980s Giancarlo Dall’Ara, an Italian hotel marketing consultant, was wandering the streets of a tiny village near Maranzanis, in Friuli, a rural mountainous region in the northeast corner oF Italy. (Read the article)
ANSA. A beautiful but little-known sculpture has just made its first appearance as a confirmed Michelangelo work at an exhibition in Rome. The bas-relief carving is one of 35 marble and bronze artworks in a show at Palazzo Venezia paying tribute to Renaissance sculpture, which opened on Friday. (Read the article)
ANSA. After over a year of not being able to pay their respects, mourners will now be able to visit their loved ones in a decaying part of a historic Venetian cemetery although they will have to brave the danger of falling debris to do so. (Read the article)
AP. Cultural figures in Italy are mourning the death of Edoardo Sanguineti, a poet and critic whose playful use of language made him an important neo-avant-garde writer on the 1906s literary scene. (Read the article)