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The Art Newspaper. Italy. Inadequate national funding and curatorial disputes threaten to undermine centenary year. The Italian Ministry of Culture’s plans to celebrate the centenary of Futurism (the turn-of-the-century Italian avant-garde movement that was born 100 years ago this month) have come in for heavy criticism, both from within the committee established to coordinate events, and from independent curators and commentators. (Read the article by Gareth Harris and Guglielmo Gigliotti)

BBC. Over the last few decades Italy has been transformed from a nation of emigrants to a target for mass immigration. The change has brought severe political and social strains. In the second part in a series from Italy, Aidan Lewis finds immigrants integrating against the odds in the northern city of Treviso. (Read the article)

AFP. Italy was locked in a constitutional battle on Friday as President Giorgio Napolitano refused to sign into law an emergency decree to stop the mercy killing of a woman who has been comatose for 17 years. In a case reminiscent of the American Terry Schiavo's, conservative Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi mounted a high-profile effort to block a court ruling allowing doctors to remove Eluana Englaro from life support. (Read the article)

NYT. An American journalist, Alexander Stille, has been cleared of charges that he had defamed a close business associate of Italy’s prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, the journalist’s lawyer said. (Read the article by Rachel Donadio)