Italy

Danny Ferry's first shot was a beauty, a gentle jump shot launched from about 20 feet away from the basket. Perfect arc. Perfect trajectory. And two points. Nine of his next 10 shots were adventures in the bizarre. Blocked or banged off the rim or the backboard. His only other basket of the night came on his own rebound - after Kevin McHale blocked him twice. Ferry, formerly of Il Messaggero of Italy and Duke University, presently the owner of a $34 million NBA contract, made his belated NBA debut Nov. 2, when his new team, the Cleveland Cavaliers, played the Boston Celtics at the Boston Garden.

It was just after I crossed the border from Switzerland into Italy that I began to plot my husband's death. After all, this was Day Three of my drive from London to Tuscany, alone in a station wagon with three young children and a tadpole. My husband would join us later. His work had kept him from enjoying this endless drive, which he had once called "your great adventure. " But as our route turned into the Tuscan hills, I began to lose my thirst for blood. Here were vineyards, olive groves, wheat fields and fortified towns, rose-colored villages sitting atop small tan mountains, streams and lakes glittering in the valleys, copses of pines and lines of cypress.

ROME - In the very moments as Italy's new coalition government was being sworn in, ending months of political paralysis in a country hoping to revive a bleak economy, a middle-aged unemployed bricklayer opened fire Sunday in the square outside the premier's office, seriously wounding two policemen, authorities said. The alleged gunman from Calabria, a southern region plagued by joblessness and organized crime, told investigators he wanted to shoot politicians. But finding none in the square, he shot at Carabinieri paramilitary police.

JOHANNESBURG - Defending champion Italy was eliminated Thursday from the World Cup with a humbling 3-2 loss to Slovakia, which advanced. Slovakia finished second in Group F to Paraguay. The Italians were last, the first time they've ever finished at the bottom of an opening-round group. For the third consecutive game, the Azzurri allowed an early goal and this time they never recovered. Robert Vittek put Slovakia ahead in the 25th minute, taking advantage of an errant pass from midfielder Daniele De Rossi.

There were two big winners at the European Championship soccer tournament played last month in West Germany. The obvious one was Holland, which took home the title by beating the Soviet Union on June 25 in Munich, and also exorcised the ghosts of its upset defeat in the championship game of the 1974 World Cup in that same Munich stadium. The less obvious winner was Italy, which, although it was eliminated by the Soviet Union in the semifinals, assumed the mantle of favorite to win the 1990 World Cup. True, Italy looked like anything but a World Cup winner in that semifinal loss on a rain-drenched field in Stuttgart.

Spain will play attacking football against Italy in the European Championship final. The defending champions just hope Italy returns the favor. Both teams go into Sunday's final at Olympic Stadium in Kiev, Ukraine, promising to maintain the tactics that brought them there. Spain coach Vicente del Bosque promised an attacking lineup with three forwards. He also brushed off criticism that Spain's attack lacks the cutting edge it had during the team's Euro 2008 and 2010 World Cup triumphs.

Concetta Petarde Sulpizi, 84, whose emigration from fascist Italy in 1934 was brought about by her 10-year-old niece, died Monday of lung disease at the Regina Nursing Center in Norristown, where she had lived for three years. She formerly lived in Oreland. Mrs. Sulpizi was born in Vinchiaturo, Italy. Her father, a skilled stonemason, died in 1917 during a flu epidemic in America, where he had gone to work on the Bryn Athyn Cathedral. Her mother died in 1930. At the urging of her sister, Teresa Pistilli, who had already settled in America, Mrs. Sulpizi applied for permission to leave Italy.

State Department officials yesterday refused to confirm or deny a report that U.S. Rep. Thomas M. Foglietta will be named U.S. ambassador to Italy, replacing Reginald Bartholomew. But nobody can deny that the ambassador post, hosting international power brokers, tycoons and artists at the elegant embassy home of Villa Taverna, is a major taste of la dolce vita. Situated in what Romans call the Eternal City's most tranquil neighborhood, the 300-year-old villa has 17 rooms and eight acres of manicured gardens.

During the summer of 1970, when I was 10 years old, my parents Nicola and Carmela decided to take me and my sister Paula to visit our mountaintop hometown of San Bartolomeo in Galdo, Italy. We boarded the Michelangelo cruise ship out of New York Harbor for the eight-day voyage across the Atlantic Ocean. Over the next three months, we reconnected with family and friends that I had heard stories about. What a magical time it was riding bikes with my cousins through the little town and playing the kissing game with the cute Italian girls - wonderful memories that I will cherish for the rest of my life.

Often, at the bottom of obituaries of those of Italian descent, the name appears. And certainly it is on people's lips at the annual Columbus Day Parade, when its members march south on Broad Street - not north. But its good works have largely gone ignored. Its membership numbers, which are "embarrassingly small," according to one of its leaders, have stayed the same, stagnant, for 20 years. Pennsylvania has more members than any other state, but the numbers are not growing here, either.