Fiat

For Italians, Fiat is an acronym for Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino. For many of us who owned Fiats during the automaker's last presence in this country, the acronym stood for Fix It Again, Tony. I know, the company that Chrysler may team up with is now the largest vehicle manufacturer in Italy, and it builds good machinery. But that wasn't the case the last time around. While some American motorists may have had decent luck with the fragile Fiats, most of us didn't, and it was that poor quality that eventually pushed the company out of this market in 1984.

A 13-year-old girl was charged yesterday with stealing her uncle's car and ramming two police officers who were conducting an unrelated automobile investigation. Police said the two uniformed officers, Lillian Burroughs, 23, and Michelle McCurdy, 24, both assigned to the 25th Police District, Front and Westmoreland streets, were in satisfactory condition at Temple University Hospital yesterday. The officers were standing next to a 1981 Fiat they had stopped on 5th Street near Clearfield about 10:30 Saturday night when the 1979 Toyota driven by the teen-ager went out of control, police said.

"Consumers are exhaling after the enormous loss of wealth from the recession. The intensive retrenchment that they were doing during the recession has ended. " - Citigroup's chief U.S. economist Robert DiClemente "If you're fraudulent, you deserve to be punished. " - jury foreman Hank Pierotti, after his federal jury said Pfizer Inc. must pay $142.1 million for racketeering fraud in the marketing of epilepsy drug Neurontin "I hope that financial markets will now act on fact and not on fiction.

Philadelphia police say they have identified the man involved in an apparent attempt to abduct an 8-year-old Somerton girl, and they say the whole incident turned out to be a lot less sinister than it first appeared. "A misunderstanding," said Capt. James Nocco, head of Northeast detectives. Alexander Poykov, a 40-year-old Southampton man, telephoned police last week to say he was the person being sought as a suspect in an apparent attempt to abduct the girl June 4, Nocco said Monday.

Scheduled to hit the showrooms around the end of June, the all-new, 2013 Dodge Dart is the latest addition to an avalanche of new and redesigned Chrysler vehicles that earned the recently bankrupt automaker nearly a half-billion dollars in the first quarter — more than it made all last year. And as good as this new compact sedan is, it ought to add even more to the bottom line of Chrysler and its partner, Fiat, the Italian carmaker that owns 58.5 percent of its stock. After all, compacts have 15 percent of the U.S. market and constitute the industry's fastest-growing segment.

It is a big, strong, luxurious four-wheel-drive vehicle that weighs in at a Bentleyesque 5,250 pounds and is priced at an equally hefty $44,600. Its target clientele is the horsey set and the nouveau riche horsey wannabees, people who usually buy Jeep Grand Wagoneers and Range Rovers. It is called the Laforza, but, given its strange genealogy, you could call this rugged, ritzy Italo-American off-roader a lot of other things. You could call the Laforza a LaFordza, since it employs a Ford five-liter V-8 and four-speed automatic transmission.

Interest rates on short-term Treasury securities rose sharply in yesterday's auction to levels not recorded since late March. The Treasury Department sold $7 billion in three-month bills at an average discount rate of 6.22 percent, up from 6.07 percent last week. Another $7 billion was sold in six-month bills at an average discount rate of 6.28 percent, up from 6.10 percent last week. The rates were the highest since March 31, when three-month bills sold for 6.35 percent and six-month bills averaged 6.32 percent.

Italy, until recently the sick man of Western Europe, is so robust that social scientists should be dizzy. A mere decade after last rites were being pronounced, it is flourishing in a manner that may make it a model for Europe's fast-unfolding future. It may be especially suited to absorb the political and cultural shocks of 1992, when the unified market of the 12 nations of the European Community commences. Italy had Europe's first formidable Fascist Party. As recently as a dozen years ago, when "Eurocommunism" was a cresting wave (Italian Communists got 34.5 percent of the votes in 1976)

Attorney Daniel DelCollo Jr. did his best for his client and the game of billiards at last week's meeting of the Somerton Civic Association, but some in the audience indicated they still harbored doubts. As DelCollo spoke, they hummed their way through "Seventy-six Trombones," the theme from The Music Man, the musical with one of Broadway's most memorable lines: "You got trouble right here in River City! With a capital T, and that rhymes with P, and that stands for Pool!" Speaking at a Tuesday evening meeting at Arthur's Catering at Bustleton Avenue and Byberry Road, DelCollo said his client, Doylestown CPA Ron Williams, wanted to bring billiards to the Northeast in an "upscale setting . . . a family place where members must be 18 or older, a place with no liquor, no beer.

Theodore J. Fiala Sr., 82, the heart and soul of the largest antique car collectors' association in the country, died Sunday at his home in Havertown. Mr. Fiala was a founding member of the Antique Automobile Club of America, which started in 1935 in Philadelphia with 14 members and has grown to about 58,000 members worldwide. Headquartered in Hershey, the group has 400 regions and chapters in almost every state and several foreign countries. The headquarters houses a library and research center, publishes a bi-monthly magazine and promotes more than a dozen car shows and rallies each year across the country.

I AM A Philadelphia School District (PSD) teacher in my 36th year, and what has really gotten stuck in my craw most has been the imperial, patronizing manner in which the PSD leadership has been conducting its business. Superintendent William R. Hite Jr. arrived six months ago spouting transparency and community engagement, but what we've mostly gotten has been something far less. School Reform Commission Chairman Pedro Ramos and the SRC set the stage by surreptitiously hiring an attorney to lobby the state Legislature to increase the power of the SRC to impose working conditions.

The New Jersey Supreme Court should block Gov. Christie's latest attempt to roll back its landmark rulings on affordable housing. Christie provoked a standoff over the court's Mount Laurel decisions in 2011, when he attempted to unilaterally abolish the bipartisan board created to carry out the court's affordable-housing directives. Christie wants to transfer the functions of the Council on Affording Housing, which is independent of the governor, to the state Department of Community Affairs, which is run by a member of his cabinet.

The two biggest Mideast crises this past week, concerning Egypt and Palestine, involved voting. Given the bloodshed elsewhere in the region, I consider that to be progress. On Thursday, the U.N. General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to upgrade Palestine to nonmember state observer status (the vote was 138 in favor, with 41 abstentions, and only nine opposed, including the United States, Canada, and Israel). This vote was a positive, since it reenshrines the principle of two separate states for Israel and the Palestinians at a time when fundamentalists on both sides say there should be only one state between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean.

Scheduled to hit the showrooms around the end of June, the all-new, 2013 Dodge Dart is the latest addition to an avalanche of new and redesigned Chrysler vehicles that earned the recently bankrupt automaker nearly a half-billion dollars in the first quarter — more than it made all last year. And as good as this new compact sedan is, it ought to add even more to the bottom line of Chrysler and its partner, Fiat, the Italian carmaker that owns 58.5 percent of its stock. After all, compacts have 15 percent of the U.S. market and constitute the industry's fastest-growing segment.

This has not been a good year for despots. North Korea's Kim Jong Il met his maker, Egypt's Hosni Mubarak is under arrest, and Syria's Bashar al-Assad faces a future that looks rocky. But in Philadelphia, City Council members get to rule their districts with an iron hand - at least for now. Philadelphia is one of a dwindling number of big American cities where local legislators adhere to a courtly tradition called councilmanic prerogative. Like its royal antecedent, the prerogative grants the city's 10 district Council members the right to do as they please in their own patch.

Some deserve a second chance Times are tough, but for those with nonviolent misdemeanors in their past, the tough times just won't release their grip. Pennsylvania legislators should seize the opportunity to provide such constituents with the chance they need to move toward self sufficiency by passing Senate Bill 1220 ("Pa. bill would let more get clean slate," Tuesday). This bipartisan initiative contains well-conceived checks and balances that will help ensure it applies to deserving ex-offenders.

2012 Fiat 500C Lounge: It's Luigi from the Pixar hit Cars . What could be better? Price as tested: $26,050 (Base price: $23,500) Marketer's pitch: A new Italian classic. Conventional wisdom: F.I.A.T. = Fix It Again, Tony? Reality: Cute and cuddly. Economical. Pretty, with classic good looks and lots of style. But not as all-out fun as the Mini Cooper, or even the Ford Fiesta. It's back: Fiat returns to U.S. shores as a part owner of Chrysler Corp.

MILAN - Fiat Industrial, the Italian maker of trucks, farm and construction vehicles, has raised its 2011 forecasts after second-quarter profits soared 78 percent on higher sales volumes across all sectors. Fiat Industrial SpA posted a second-quarter net profit of (euro) 212 million ($304.86 million), compared with (euro) 119 million a year earlier. Fiat Industrial shares rose 3.3 percent to (euro) 9.28 in Milan trading Monday after the results were released. The company says it now expects revenues of (euro)

TORONTO - The chief executive officer of Chrysler and Fiat said Monday that he and Canadian authorities have begun talking about buying Canada's 1.7 percent ownership in Chrysler. The Canadian federal government and provincial Ontario government received 1.7 percent of Chrysler two years ago as part of a bailout that also provided $1.7 billion in loans to help the Detroit company survive. Chrysler Group L.L.C., already controlled by Fiat S.p.A., recently paid back the last of the money it borrowed from the Canadian and U.S. governments.

Second of three parts The sign hanging outside on Baltimore Pike still said Weathers Dodge, but inside, a new business was forming, by necessity, if not design: Weathers Motors. It was June 10, 2009, the morning after bankrupt Michigan automaker Chrysler eliminated 789 dealers across the nation to cut its cost structure and recharge under new Italian management. Larry Weathers Jr. and his son Larry III awoke somewhat relieved, even though midnight had marked the loss of their 78-year-old family Dodge franchise.