Everyday Italian: Newspaper Headlines

The local newspapers in Italy's smaller cities and towns advertise with eye-catching headline boards, designed to be as sensational as possible. Usually one board reports two headlines of the day or week, and sometimes the juxtaposition is unintentionally funny.

Struck by a toilet seat thrown from the train -

Priest collapses at mass!

(Okay, I cheated a bit - colpita is in the feminine form, so we know the victim of the flying toilet seat was female.)

Chiavenna, Dec 2006

Madesimo: costs of tele-heating* inflame the town

Talamona: criminal blaze destroys the kids' nativity scene.

At the newstand: the book K2

Chiavenna: offerings stolen from the nativity scene

Two tourists injured on the ski slopes in Madesimo

*Teleriscaldamento, available in some Italian towns, recovers heat from power stations and pipes it into homes.

Lecco, Dec 2006

Alarm in the Business Piazza*

Father dies while wrapping Christmas presents

30,000 Lecchesi (people of Lecco) forced to junk their cars (a new environmental law will forbid use of cars older than 1993, i.e. pre-catalytic).

Investigation: 'Ndrangheta and business - treasure hunt for the [riches] of the [crime] bosses

In the car with a pistol - young person in handcuffs.

* As reader Marco Andreis points out, Piazza Affari is a real piazza in Milan, "just off via della Posta, a few blocks from Piazza Cordusio. Palazzo Mezzanotte, in Piazza Affari, was thei headquarters of the Borsa Valori di Milano, the Milan Stock Exchange. Nowadays, after privatisation, the Gruppo Borsa Italiana is located there.

So the name of the square was and is still used as a synonym of the Stock Exchange or, in a more general sense, of the Italian financial and business community. More or less as in the US, where Wall Street means the New York Stock Exchange."

Chiavenna, Dec 2006

New Year's Eve in the piazza: Chiavenna live on TV

Provera [says]: "No to the Muslim demands. We'll/let's defend our nativity scenes."

Dec, 2006 - There were a few stories around Italy (though not, I believe, in Chiavenna) about nativity scenes being removed from schools after protests from non-Christian (not necessarily Muslim) parents. Provera, whoever he is, evidently tried to make political capital out of this.

At the wedding lunch, [he] betrays his wife with his [male] friend.

Fell in acid, Lecchese dies after three months.

Terrible accident: a woman run over and killed in the crosswalk.

Alarm on the Grigna (a local mountain) - six hikers lost.

left: It's a long story, read it here.

right: Marconi Cinema closes

Old hospital is a dump

Clean Lecco - the street cleaners return to the street (I hadn't noticed they were missing).

The "spider" Corti fights for life. At first glance, this headline seems very strange, but if you live in Lecco, you know what it's about: the Ragni [spiders] of Lecco are a longstanding club of local mountaineers, famous for exploits such as the first ascent of K2.

Bandits on the run - shoot-out in Valsassina

Autos in the center [of town] - 1000 new traffic fines

Car taxes in the Lecco area - sting for 9 cars out of 10

Minors and disagio - boom in foster care in the area. Disagio is difficult to translate. Agio means comfort, feeling at ease. Disagio is the opposite, but it's also used as a bureaucratic/social service term for severe family troubles, economic and social disadvantages, etc.