Rome

ROME, N.Y. -- So what if there's a cyber village? Who cares if there's an official credit card? What does it matter that TV crews are as plentiful as the pot?At Woodstock '99, like Woodstock '69, they're getting filthy, hippie style.Those wishing to maintain some level of hygiene during this extended weekend of sweat, dirt and baking sun had the numbers against them: 225,000 concert-goers, one single shower facility."I feel so dirty, I can't even deal with myself," said Sharon Bevacqua, 27, yesterday.

ROME -- Burdened by an unnecessary and irresponsible government crisis, Italy is losing ground after the brilliant national effort that a year ago made it a founding member of the European single currency, the euro, thereby reaffirming the country's role as one of the three leading nations in the European Union.There is popular disillusionment with the costs of euro membership. A comprehensive report on social trends, issued by the Censis institute last month, said that Italians are in a period of psychological unease.

ROME -- Closing a chapter in Italian postwar history, a three-judge panel in Palermo acquitted Giulio Andreotti, seven times prime minister of Italy, yesterday of charges that he was the Sicilian Mafia's main protector in Rome.The verdict was a vindication for the 80-year-old Andreotti, who has spent much of the past decade in court. "Obviously, I am delighted," he said after watching the verdict, announced live on national television, in his Senate office in Rome. "It was not so great to have to wait so many years."

More than 1,000 people turned out for a carnival in Glyndon yesterday to raise money to offset medical expenses for Jake Rome, 6, who has a malignant brain tumor. Jake's father, Mark Rome, said organizers will not know how much was raised until later this week. The boy is undergoing chemotherapy.Pub Date: 3/29/99

AMERICA is Rome, now and for the foreseeable future. It is the unwobbling pivot around which other nations move, the country that brings order to the world through a system that spans the globe.It does not matter whether NATO decides to continue with its war against Serbia. The fundamental material reality of world politics will go unchanged.Every great empire rests on a tripod of strength -- military, economic and ideological. So it was with Rome and Britain. So it is with America.In military terms, America's empire is far greater than any empire preceding it. Even at its height, Rome had much to fear on its borders.

ROME -- Entering crunch time for public-works projects for the 2000 Holy Year, Rome issued a plea yesterday to its residents: Go away."Romans, if you can, go on vacation," urged Guido Bertolaso, an overseer of some of roughly 1,000 projects getting Italy ready for the Millennium Holy Year, when up to 30 million tourists are expected.Authorities scheduled the most annoying of the street projects for this month, but the tradition of leaving the city in August has eased in recent years. Bertolaso urged a revival.

ROME -- Cardinal William H. Keeler's flock might be in Baltimore, but his home away from home is here at a church called the Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri, St. Mary of the Angels and Martyrs.Every cardinal, when he is elevated to the position of prince of the church, receives a "titular" church in Rome or its suburbs. According to local wisdom, American cardinals often received the most decrepit churches, those badly in need of painting and re-pointing, with exposed wiring and bad plumbing.

ROME -- In his Holocaust movie fable "Life is Beautiful," actor-film director Roberto Benigni plays an Italian Jew trying to shield his young son from the horrible reality of a Nazi concentration camp.The caring, sometimes kooky father convinces the little boy that the German soldiers who had come to their house were part of an elaborate, childlike game. Benigni works the tragic premise for laughs, earning the Italian filmmaker controversy both in the United States and here in Italy -- as well as Academy Award consideration for best foreign film.

ROME -- An Italian court of appeals rejected Turkey's request yesterday for the extradition of a Kurdish rebel leader, deepening tensions between Italy and Turkey.Abdullah Ocalan, arrested last week while seeking to enter Italy, is to be released from detention in a military hospital and put under house arrest while Italy considers his request for political asylum.Prime Minister Massimo D'Alema had said Italy would not hand Ocalan over to Turkey, citing an Italian law that prohibits extraditing prisoners to countries that have the death penalty.

For the first time, the Vatican newspaper's presses are rolling outside of Rome -- and beginning operations in Baltimore.Cardinal William H. Keeler said yesterday that publishing the weekly English language edition of L'Osservatore Romano, containing Pope John Paul II's speeches and writings, is "a tremendous honor" for the local Roman Catholic nonprofit foundation that also publishes the Catholic Review.The newspaper's Jan. 7 issue, the first printed here, was sent to 2,500 subscribers in the United States by the Cathedral Foundation, the center of Catholic church works in Baltimore.

ROME - - His words sounded hopeful, rather than pretentious. Whether Michael Phelps was in Barcelona, Athens or even Long Beach, Calif., at big meets and small ones, he has resolutely stayed on message since 2004. Phelps spoke of wanting to elevate the sport during non-Olympic years, keeping swimming afloat once the last anthem was played. Elbow room on the ESPN crawl and highlight shows in 2009 and 2010? You almost felt like saying: Good luck with that. It seemed a far more difficult prospect than winning the eight gold medals he took home from Beijing less than a year ago. Years from now, Phelps' greatest accomplishment at the World Championships may not have been that barrier-breaking, epic victory against Milorad Cavic of Serbia in the 100-meter butterfly, one of his five gold medal results in Rome (the last one came Sunday in a world-record performance in the 400-meter medley relay with teammates Aaron Peirsol, Eric Shanteau and David Walters in 3 minutes 27.28 seconds)

ROME - -Filippo Magnini, the two-time world champion? Gone. Nathan Adrian, the rising American star who took both sprint events at the recent nationals? Gone. Still standing, and swimming in the final tonight in the men's 100-meter freestyle, is none other than 21-year-old David Walters, who had the sixth-fastest qualifying time at the world championships. He went 47.92 seconds Wednesday night in the semifinals, not as fast as his 47.59 in the morning prelims (just off Michael Phelps' American record, 47.51)

ROME - -The Great Stroke Experiment is over. By mutual decision, Michael Phelps and his coach, Bob Bowman, are putting that relatively new windmill, straight-arm stroke - designed for sprinting - right back on the shelf. "It actually was [mutual]. It's funny, as often happens, he came out and said the same thing," Bowman said this morning at the world championships. "He said, 'I don't think this is working.' I said, 'You're right.' Experiment failed. Next." The Baltimore swimmer told Bowman that on Sunday night, almost immediately after his opening leg in the winning 400-meter freestyle relay.

ROME - - This might have been a new one in the storied career of Michael Phelps. Phelps went through the paces at a pre-meet news conference at a major swimming event and was not asked about Mark Spitz, not even whether he was relieved, finally, not to be compared to Spitz any longer after eclipsing the icon by winning eight gold medals last summer at the Olympics in Beijing. Instead, there was a light moment Friday near the end of the session about another future opponent looming over Phelps - in a different way than Spitz once did - one towering figure capable of blocking the sun. Shaq.

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.

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.

ROME - At a tourist information center near the Roman Forum, I asked an attendant whether anything was free in the Eternal City. He looked at me strangely, then came up with a response. "Si, signora," he said, pointing to the brochures on the countertop, "all these are free." It's like that in Rome, where prices for everything are high, even before you get sticker shock from exchanging dollars to euros. Here's how a budget traveler can try to make do: STANDING ROOM ONLY : At a bar, cafe or pasticceria, stand at the counter instead of sitting at a table.

Lavinia By Ursula K. LeGuin Harcourt / 282 pages / $24 At nearly 80, Ursula K. LeGuin is one of the doyennes of science and speculative fiction. Her work has received the most important awards for her genre, from the Nebula to the Hugo, as well as the National Book Award and the Pushcart Prize. She is - to use a much overused, but in her case apt, term - an icon. That said, LeGuin has not written a new work in a decade, although she's done a series of important translations, including one of Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching.

Dec. 25 A.D. 336 The first recorded celebration of Christmas on Dec. 25 took place in Rome. 1907 Jazz singer and bandleader Cab Calloway was born in Rochester, N.Y.

ROME -- The Vatican announced a change in rules for electing a pope yesterday by reinstituting the traditional requirement that two-thirds of the cardinals in the conclave agree on a candidate, no matter how long the process takes. The move reverses a decision made by Pope Benedict XVI's predecessor, Pope John Paul II, who decided in 1996 that a two-thirds vote was needed in the early rounds but a simple majority would do in case of a stalemate after dozens of votes. In a document released in Latin yesterday, Pope Benedict said he was returning to the traditional voting norm, requiring a two-thirds majority throughout.