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AFP. Visiting US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi will have an audience with Pope Benedict XVI during her weeklong visit to Italy, a Vatican official said Monday. (Read the article)
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GUARDIAN. Spurred by a row about Facebook pages which honour mafia godfathers, Italian politicians are to vote on new legislation ordering Italian internet providers to block pages on the social networking website which are seen as justifying or encouraging criminal activity. (Read the article by Tom Kington)
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ANSA. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi got a surprise gift from Chamber of Deputies Speaker Gianfranco Fini on her visit to the Italian lower house: the birth certificates of her grandparents. (Read the article)
BROADWAYWORLD. A cast of internationally most acclaimed Verdi singers is showcased in the Met's new production of the Italian master's melodic tour de force, Il Trovatore, which opens February 16. (Read the article)
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SALON.COM. This week brings us two of the most interesting films we're likely to see in 2009, and at first glance they couldn't be more different. James Gray's "Two Lovers" is an intimate and evidently personal film about a romantic triangle, and Matteo Garrone's "Gomorrah" is an operatic film about organized crime, an ambitious work of social, physical and spiritual geography. (Read the article by O.Hehir)
Washington Post. His mother, an Italian immigrant who rarely ventured outside the family home and who learned English by listening to the radio, insisted that her boys not speak Italian under her roof so that they would be completely American. His father, an Italian immigrant who made wine in his basement, worked at a bakery. He became acquainted with A.P. Giannini, another Italian immigrant who founded Bank of America. The Tolovi accounts were always with B of A.( Read the article by Patricia Sullivan)
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GUARDIAN. Matthew Fort is wrong to suggest that Italian cuisine as we know it today is a relatively recent development. have read an article on Cif in which Matthew Fort wrote that foreign food upsets Italians, and that Italian cooking as it is now known and loved in the world is in fact a relatively recent product, which would date back to the 18th century. I would like to reply... (Read the article by Luca Zaia)
E ONLINE. Soccer stud David Beckham is returning to the Los Angeles Galaxy (presumably with wife Victoria Beckham and their three sons in tow) for a third season when his three-month stint with AC Milan ends March 9. (Read the article by Jovie Baclayon)
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Stars and Stripes. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and seven other members of Congress — all Democrats — spent about three hours on Aviano air base. (Read the article by Kent Harris)
AP. Sales of pasta products in the United States -- including frozen and refrigerated pasta, canned pasta, soup mixes and prepared dinners -- rose 5 percent last year to $6.4 billion, according to American Italian Pasta Co., the nation's largest manufacturer of dry pasta. (Read the article by David Twiddy)