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AP. Here's another of the Mafia's trademark offers-you-can't-refuse: pay or be eaten by a crocodile.
Italy's anti-Mafia police unit said Wednesday it has seized a crocodile used by an alleged Naples mob boss to intimidate local businessmen from whom he demanded protection money. (Read the article)
The New York Times. Amid the doom and gloom of tumbling advertising revenue and its impact on most consumer magazines, there is at least one anomaly: Vanity Fair Italia, a weekly magazine that is still growing in the face of the general downturn. (Read the article by J.J. Martin)
ANSA. George Clooney, Colin Farrell, Richard Gere, Anthony Hopkins, Meryl Streep and Paz Vega will be among the stars at the fourth Rome International Film Festival next month, organisers said Friday. (Read the article)
ANSA. The following 14 films will vie for the top prize at this year's Rome film fest on October 15-23, artistic director Piera Detassis and president Gian Luigi Rondi said Friday (Read the article)
The New York Times. The “Tosca” that makes its debut tonight at the Metropolitan Opera is bound to annoy a least a few opera patrons. It abandons the sumptuousness and true-to-life quality of the long-ensconced production by Franco Zeffirelli, whose renditions of the classic Italian operas are slowly being phased out at the house. (Read the article)
ANSA. Italy mourned the death of six soldiers killed in Afghanistan last week at a state funeral Monday in Rome. Schools and public offices around the county observed a minute of silence as the funeral services began at the Basilica of St Paul's Outside the Walls. (Read the article)
BBC. The bodies of six Italian soldiers killed in a suicide attack in Afghanistan have arrived in Rome. They have been met by the Italian President Giorgio Napolitano, family members and an honour guard. (Read the article)
Anna Magnani is now celebrated as a role model for a new generation of Italian feminists, galvanised by sex scandals involving prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, and a daily diet of sexist imagery in the media. (Read the article by Tom Kington)
Guardian. With men routinely taking lovers and expecting their wives to cook, clean and look elegant, Silvio Berlusconi is only part of the problem (Read the article by Maria Laura Rodotà)
ANSA. A European space observatory sent to study the earliest years of the universe has returned its first images successfully, partly thanks to an Italian instrument, a leading astrophysicist said Thursday.(Read the article)