Italy

FLORENCE, Italy -- Two of Europe's most prominent counterterrorism officials criticized the United States yesterday for not being fully cooperative in the global fight against Islamist extremism, saying that its unwillingness to share information and evidence in a timely manner has compromised important investigations and prosecutions. The remarks were made by senior investigative magistrates Armando Spataro of Italy and Baltasar Garzon of Spain at a counterterrorism conference that was also attended by senior U.S. officials.

The streets will be lined with Ferraris, Maseratis and Lamborghinis as people walk by with plates of Italian food and stop to glance at photographs of rare car parts. But you won't see this scene in Italy - instead it will be in Baltimore. On Saturday, the third annual exotic car show will take place, this year being renamed Concorso Italia de Little Italy, as the event - which for the past two years has been held in Annapolis - comes to Baltimore. The idea came about in summer 2005, when Jonathan Kendall decided that he wanted to give back to a place that had helped his family, the Children's Guild, a nonprofit organization helping children with emotional and behavioral issues.

The bocce tournament was in full swing by the time the float carrying the mariachi band came snaking through Little Italy's skinny streets. A cultural fusion was on display yesterday at the city's 117th Columbus Day parade, complete with a float representing the city's Hispanic Business Association, plenty of local high school marching bands and the standard, and always popular, Frank Sinatra impersonators. "Columbus opened the door for immigrants to come to the United States," said Angelo Solera, a Hispanic community advocate who helped coordinate the participation of Hispanic businesses.

Cecilia Danieli, 56, who built her family's steel tool company into a major company doing business with the former Soviet Union and the Middle East, died Thursday in Udine, Italy, of cancer. Ms. Danieli was nicknamed Italy's "Iron Lady" by the foreign press, who reported on her deals with Iran, Central America and the former Soviet Union.Under her direction, the family business expanded to include bases in the United States and Italy as well as in Buttrio, near Udine. It also began selling completely furnished steel plants.

Something's crooked in Little Italy, and it isn't the corkscrew pasta at Sabatino's. A three-story garage is being built at the southwest corner of Central Avenue and Bank Street. Its simple lines, colorful Italian crests and brick veneer are designed to fit into the surrounding neighborhood of historic row- houses and restaurants.But now that it's nearing completion, it has begun to acquire a feature that makes it unlike any other building in the immediate area.The difference is crooked bricks: On the east and west sides of the garage, where the street is relatively level, masons are laying the bricks level, too. But on the north and south sides, where the street slopes gradually downhill from west to east, the masons are laying the bricks on an angle that corresponds to the grade.

ON THE DAY his handsome 89-year-old profile graced the front page of the New York Times last week, John Pente, the movie hero of Baltimore's Little Italy and role model for us all, sat at his kitchen table with his daughter Marge and pushed down a button on his telephone answering machine."

FLORENCE, Italy -- Gina Lollobrigida was supposed to be the female lead of elections for the European Parliament in Italy earlier this month. But the movie star was upstaged by a remarkable state-of-the art politician named Emma Bonino.Remember the name. Ms. Bonino, all by herself, is the fourth-largest party in the country, and her story is a model of modern media politics. On June 13, while Ms. Lollobrigida was losing in her hometown, a new party called "Bonino's List" won 8.7 percent of the country's multiparty vote.

A 106-year-old Rosedale woman who was born in Italy become the oldest Marylander -- and second-oldest American -- to become a U.S. citizen yesterday.After the honor, Irene DiCocco spoke the only English she knows."

A settlement was reached yesterday in the multimillion-dollar libel suit brought by Little Italy leader Giovanna M. "Gia" Blatterman against three men she accused of plotting to damage her reputation, partly in order to harm her political future.Terms of the pact, reached in the courtroom of Baltimore Circuit Judge Edward J. Angeletti during the second day of a jury trial, were not disclosed, and the parties involved were barred from discussing specifics. But Blatterman's lawyer, Gerald Ruter, said his client was "very happy" with the arrangement.

ASSISI, Italy -- Pope John Paul II knelt before the bare stone tomb of St. Francis yesterday and prayed for the areas of central Italy devastated by earthquakes three months ago.Later, the pope urged crowds of several thousand people who cheered him to bear the hardship caused by the earthquakes "in a Franciscan spirit" and to rebuild quickly, "so that damaged homes, churches and other monuments may return to their earlier charm."Frames of steel pipe, like a giant Erector set, cradled the damaged walls of the transept of the huge basilica and stretched up the facade to provide access for restorers securing its partly collapsed vaults.

When Brett Rogers bought his house on Fawn Street in Little Italy in 1999 for $115,500, the budding attorney was 24, living with roommates and happy to rehab the property. His home was surrounded by two public housing complexes, the water and a parking lot. Living in the city with its crime and grime was a challenge but also an adventure. He kept his Baltimore house when he moved to New York's Upper East Side a few years later, took a job as a corporate attorney for an international bank on Wall Street and married.

Auto racing Kahne ends 37-race drought, earns rare victory for Petty Kasey Kahne gave struggling Richard Petty Motorsports a much-needed boost Sunday, holding off Tony Stewart in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, Calif., to end a 37-race winless streak and earn his first road-course victory. Kahne was met in Victory Lane by Richard Petty, who made his first trip as a car owner in more than a decade. A Petty-owned car had not won a race since John Andretti's victory at Martinsville in April 1999.

For a city with only four operating movie theaters, Baltimore sure goes movie-crazy every summer, with nearly a dozen free outdoor film festivals scattered throughout the region. The outdoor movie season unofficially begins Saturday, when the musical version of Hairspray will be shown at the Village of Cross Keys. The citywide outdoor-movie mania really picks up in July, with films being shown on lakefronts and in city parks, near monuments and alongside office plazas, from Little Italy to Columbia.

A meticulous lifelong stonemason and community activist, Robert Louis Marsili was as intolerant of shoddy workmanship as he was of prevaricating politicians. "We should get high-quality work if it's paid for by the taxpayers," Marsili would say, according to son Robert L. Marsili Jr., reciting a quotation that he said illustrated his father's passion for honest government. The elder Marsili, known as Roberto, was a former president of the Little Italy Community Organization and ran unsuccessfully for Baltimore mayor in 1999 and for the City Council in 2004.

Best European cities to visit 1 Florence, Italy 2 Rome 3 Salzburg, Austria 4 Venice, Italy 5 Vienna, Austria 6 Barcelona, Spain 7 Paris 8 Bruges, Belgium 9 Siena, Italy 10 Prague, Czech Republic Source: Conde Nast Travel Readers Choice Awards

No one will ever be able to accuse Nathalie Beatty of being a wallflower - in either her style or her personality. This "professional volunteer" is known for carrying off a cutting-edge style. Just check out her outfit as she co-chaired the Ruth Shaw Fashion Show at the Baltimore School for the Arts. The 41-year-old Baltimore resident credits her Egyptian-born mom. "I was definitely influenced by my mother's European aesthetic, but I've always had my own strong opinions about what I like.

Walking tour in Italy What's the deal?: With a walking vacation in Italy from Cross Country International, the first person pays $2,695 and the second pays nothing. The Rome Coast Walk, with five departures through December, includes six nights' lodging, four days of guided hiking (daily walking distance is four to seven miles), museum entrance fees and most meals. What's the savings?: About $2,695 What's the catch?: The price includes taxes but not airfare, which will run you another $800-$1,000 roundtrip, depending upon the airline.

Giovanni Rigato, a chef and owner of two restaurants in Baltimore's Little Italy who made his mark on the city's cuisine, died Thursday at his residence in Parkton. The cause of his death has not been determined, his family said. He was 64. Mr. Rigato was born in 1944 in Cavalese in the Italian Dolomites, a mountainous region near the Austrian border, where his maternal grandmother, Lina Zanella, was a cook in the family's small dining hall. "He had great stories about her cooking and spending time with her," said a daughter, Bridget Rigato of Baltimore.

Past vacations that involved driving in Italy had required a peace pact between my wife, Kathy, and me, because being on the road there is so intense because of high speed, tight squeezes and plain old Italian urgency. With those complications, navigational mistakes become magnified, and the driver starts blaming the navigator and vice versa. It gets ugly. Amid cars whose drivers ignore lane markers, instructional signs and numerous traffic laws - assuming there are traffic laws - one missed turn easily can lead to half an hour of recovery time to get back on the right road even with a map, considering that parts of the nation's roadway system truly do resemble bowls of spaghetti.

2006 Folonari Riesling From: Pavia, Italy Price: $ 9 serve with: seafood, spicy Asian cuisine Riesling is associated with Germany, Austria, France's Alsace region, Australia, Washington state - but seldom with Italy. This crisp, just-off-dry version of this noble white-wine grape is simply a wonderful value, however. It offers generous flavors of citrus fruit, apples, peaches and tropical fruit, but somehow never crosses the line into being overblown. It offers good acidity, a welcome touch of minerals to offset the fruitier flavors, and a zingy finish.