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ANSA. The global economic downturn has made Italians more pessimistic on the economic situation in Italy today but at the same time there is growing optimism for the future, according to this year's report on the country from the Eurispes socio-economic think tank. (Read the article)
ANSA. Italian kids in hospital are in for a dose of "clown therapy" according to Equal Opportunity Minister Mara Carafagna who on Friday unveiled fresh funding for a scheme to treat young patients with a bit of fun. (Read the article)
REUTERS. taly may soon seek a ban on full- face Muslim veils, drawing on debate in France where President Nicolas Sarkozy has described the burqa as unwelcome and legislators are considering a vote to outlaw or restrict it. (Read the article)
ANSA. Italy on Thursday unveiled a new anti-mafia plan putting together all current laws against organised crime and setting up a national agency to oversee seizures of assets from the Mob. (Read the article)
THE NEW YORK TIMES. As they have for the past four years, prominent people and passers-by joined together outside New York’s Italian Consulate on Wednesday to take turns reading the names of 8,600 Jews rounded up in Italy between 1938 and 1945, never to be seen again. (Read the article)
THE NEW YORK TIMES. Frank Serpico's 1971 testimony on police corruption in New York fueled the most extensive investigation of police wrongdoing in the city’s history. The son of an Italian immigrant from Marigliano (Naples), his loud, idealistic campaign -- which inspired the 1973 Hollywood success "Serpico," with Al Pacino -- made him "a pariah on the force," but also made the N.Y.P.D. "a thousand times more honest than it was 40 years ago." He lives today in a one-room cabin he built in the woods near the Hudson River, with no TV or Internet.
"True to his cinematic self -- writes the New York Times -- he always showed up in a different outfit and hat: one day as the sheepherder, the next day the prospector, then the monk. He wears an earring in each ear and a magnifying glass around his neck for fine print. He would spout esoterica and draw from his knowledge of Italian, Spanish, German, Dutch, Arabic and Russian. In a coffee shop, he might quote from Dante’s “Inferno,” or pull out his harmonica and play “Danny Boy.” (Read the article by Corey Kilgannon.)
THE NEW YORK TIMES. The 100 or so people who showed up at the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute of Queens College, in Midtown Manhattan, were concerned about a specific issue: the “Guido culture” that MTV show’s drinking, hot-tubbing and brawling stars proudly embrace.
Some Italian-Americans consider “Guido” a slur and have vehemently protested not only the show but also the use of the term. But others, mostly younger Italian-Americans, use it affectionately to refer to a particular life style, making it a label akin to preppy, punk, Deadhead and rapper.
The attendees were probably not among MTV’s usual demographic. There were scholars, elected officials, representatives from Italian-American organizations and the Consulate General of Italy, though there was a sprinkling of people who proudly called themselves Guidos and Guidettes.
But the speakers and subject were handled with respect (Read the article by Patricia Cohen)
USA TODAY. Renato Brunetta, minister of public administration, suggested the new law after an Italian judge ordered a 60-year-old father to keep paying a living allowance to his 32 year-old live-in daughter who had finished university studies eight years ago. (Read the article)
ANSA. Technology is catching up with school-skipping teens in Italy who are about to find themselves up against a wall of digital surveillance that will notify their parents when they cut class, education officials said Wednesday. (Read the article)
ANSA. Italy's ten-year wait for Oscar glory will have to continue after Giuseppe Tornatore's Baaria failed to make the long list for the best foreign-language film. (Read the article)