Italian News Snippets: 3 March 2007

What’s that funny-looking blob next to the lowercase i, you ask? Why, it’s Italy’s new logo, of course. You can read about it and marvel at its ugliness while you check out the rest of the recent Italian news bits:

• Italy’s volcanos are rumbling – the ground at the Campi Flegrei caldera, near Naples, is “undergoing renewed uplift” (sounds like volcano botox to me) and Stromboli erupted on Tuesday. Stromboli’s last eruption in 2002 led to a small tsunami.
• Italy apparently thought it needed a new logo and slogan… Though I’m with zoomata and beginning with i, it looks pretty silly to me. This from a country known the world over for its design sense?
• The US says it won’t extradite CIA agents to Italy in the “first criminal trial over controversial US ‘renditions’ of terror suspects.”
• A woman in Naples washed the dirt off of a potato and found it wasn’t a potato at all – it was a World War II grenade. That’ll make some interesting mash.
• Italy’s Family Affairs Minister thinks all Italian hospitals should have foundling wheels installed. Don’t know what a foundling wheel is? There’s a picture and description here, including a story of how one worked exactly as they’re intended recently.
• Remember the orange-throwing festival I wrote about in Ivrea? 180 people were injured this year in the Battle of the Oranges. Citrus fruit can, indeed, be dangerous.
• There are several stories about a Florence hospital which apparently transplanted several organs from an HIV-infected patient into three people who, at least before their transplants, didn’t have HIV. Whoops.
• There are plans to raise the price of rail tickets, and of course people are already complaining. Italy has some of the lowest train fares in Western Europe.
• New lights will be shone on Roman mosaics in Sicily – literally.
• Vatican soccer is in full swing – and get a load of the trophy they’re playing for. You’ll also find a great photo and video here.
• An exhibit in Rome features the work of Albrecht Dürer and his relationship with Italy.
• The Mediterranean city of Genoa will host the end of the Tall Ships regatta this year.
• Legendary film composer Ennio Morricone got his first Oscar last weekend, a lifetime achievement award. I couldn’t hear his acceptance speech, delivered in Italian, so I couldn’t tell if Clint Eastwood was translating or reading from a prompter. Anyone know?
• Lovers are leaving their marks – very heavy marks – on a Roman bridge, and people are divided about what to do.
• A teenager has been arrested for the death of the police officer in the post-soccer riot in early February.
• The Italian fashion house of Versace is going to “dress” the interiors of Agusta helicopters. Have they run out of human beings to dress?