Italian News Snippets: 06.15.08

Some Italian news for your Sunday reading pleasure:

• Remember the couple who was caught having oral sex in a cathedral confessional box? They’ve apologized to the archbishop, who accepted their apology.
• Tom Hanks is in Rome at the moment, filming “Angels & Demons,” the prequel to Dan Brown’s hit “The Da Vinci Code.”
• Apparently Italy can’t clean up its own trash – Germany is hauling 160,000 tons of the garbage in and around Naples back to Germany in order to incinerate it.
• It’s official from the Guinness Records folks – Italy has created the world’s largest Spumante glass.
• Ever wonder what Italian salaries are like? Here’s a comparison of some Italian wages with UK wages.
• The night-time tours at Pompeii have re-opened for the summer travel season.
• Even in a city as well-traveled as Rome, you can still find pleasant surprises – like a church that you thought was miles away being right behind you.
• The Italian government is saying it might get rid of the almost universally-hated licensing fee Italians are supposed to pay (though they rarely do) to support the state-run TV network, RAI.
• Italian military soldiers are being deployed into some Italian towns to help fight crime.
• The Vatican has given its seal of approval to a new musical about the Virgin Mary. It’s set to debut at the Vatican later in June.
• Manchester United soccer star Wayne Rooney married his long-time girlfriend in an Italian villa.
• Aside from the fact that they’re both on the political right, the other reason Berlusconi’s pick is McCain in the upcoming U.S. election is so that he “would no longer be the oldest person at the upcoming G8” summit, because McCain is one month his senior.
• Italian researchers say that the brainier you are, the longer you’ll live.
• Man, I can’t stand the pigeons in Venice… But there are still people who are defying the city’s ban on pigeon-feeding in St. Mark’s Square.
• Italian primary schools are among the top ten in the world in terms of the amount spent per child per year.
• Another necropolis has been discovered – this one is near Rome, and is thought to be the burial grounds for some of Rome’s lower classes.
• Italian mayors have asked for new special powers to deal with security issues. What, like X-ray vision? Invisibility?
• If you’ve ever wondered whether that “Made in Italy” label on your shoes was faked, a new proposal for an ID card for shoes would eliminate that question.
• Venice is apparently proposing that even more buildings in the canal city be turned into hotels. Something tells me even those Venice hotels will be too expensive for most budget travelers.
• One of Italy’s flagship wines, Brunello, is to be watched a bit more carefully and the production checked to see if it meets existing standards. This after allegations that the famous varietal had been cut with other grapes.
• One Times Online writer has a great family vacation in a former palazzo south of Naples.
• On this list of Europe’s top 10 boutique hostels, there’s a 17th century monastery-turned-hostel in Naples that makes the cut – La Controra hostel in Naples.