Italy News: 08.24.08

Some Italian news for your Sunday reading pleasure:

• An Italian court has ruled that teachers are not allowed to spit at principals. Good, I’m glad we cleared that up.
• Here’s another article about one reporter’s Home Food experience (remember my Home Food dinner in Milan?). I’d love to do another one.
• So, just in case you were wondering, you’re not allowed to build sandcastles on the beach in Italy.
• As if there aren’t enough trendy shops in Italy, Abercrombie & Fitch now says it’s going to open two stores in Milan next year.
• With the Serie A soccer season starting up in a week, I’m starting to get excited about what my team, AC Milan, will do this year. I’m trying not to get too optimistic, given last season’s results & news that Gattuso just got injured in a friendly against Austria, but this Pirlo highlight reel makes me think anything’s possible… Oh, how I love this man… (Don’t worry, the husband knows of my affections.)
• The mayor of Varallo has said he’ll work as a street cleaner every morning in order to help reduce the costs associated with keeping the city spic & span.
• A medical association in Italy has asked Italian TV programmers to pull several medical- and hospital-theme TV shows (such as ER & Scrubs, as well as some Italian shows) because they “get details wrong.”
• Apparently some turtles in Calabria got a bit turned around and, instead of crawling into the sea, crawled into a nearby restaurant. Luckily, turtle soup isn’t on the menu.
• If you’re headed to Pompeii or Herculaneum this year, be sure to check out one of the two exceptionally cool-sounding events listed here. The Pompeii event runs through November, the Herculaneum one through the middle of September.
• One flight attendant gets the inside scoop on Positano from another flight attendant – she says they tend to have some of the best travel advice, and these Positano tips only proved her point again.
• Once again, there’s an Italian wine region that’s under scrutiny for “possible fraudulent grape mixing” – first it was Brunello, and now it’s Montepulciano.
• The Pope made some comments which appear to indicate that he fears Italy is in danger of returning to fascism.
• An Italian has won the gold in the men’s 50km race-walk in Beijing.
• Wanna know what music the Italians are listening to this summer? Sara’s got the rundown, complete with videos.
• A woman in Italy gave birth to quadruplets, which would be news enough – except that the woman’s 55 years old.
• Etruscan art pieces which were on display in Russia’s Hermitage museum are on their way back to Italy, where they’ll be on display at the Etruscan Academy Museum in Cortona.
• Italians are perplexed that the price of pasta continues to rise as the price of wheat drops.
• In 2005, Verona named a street after a local man who fought under and stayed loyal to Mussolini, and a new left-leaning city council wants to change the name.
• A farmer in Abruzzo who is raising a fawn that was abandoned by its mother is now being threatened with prosecution if he doesn’t hand the deer over to authorities of a national park.
• A new Italian law makes it easier for employers to dismiss workers who aren’t carrying their own weight.
• The gap between Italy’s North and South is growing wider, at least in terms of money matters. The North continues to get richer as the South gets poorer.
• Okay, it’s not about Italy, but it’s about Italian food – Italy’s Grom gelato chain (yes, it’s a chain – but it’s an amazing chain of amazing gelato) is now in Paris.