Dear Blog Readers– I am still trying to get into the groove of the Venice Film Festival but I just want to give you a bit of behind-the-scenes color. Yesterday was the big opening day kicking off with Sandra Bullock and George Clooney in the film “Gravity” by Director Alfonso Cuaron. In the film Bullock …
Dear Blog Readers — I stepped off the Vaporetto (water bus) yesterday onto the Lido of Venezia ready to spend two weeks covering the Venice Film Festival. Here the streets are lined with oleander and azaleas, boats pass by tranquilly in the canals, and tourists, journalists, and press flacks alike bike around cheerfully. Little cabins …
Dear Blog Readers — Back in May I did a blog post on Italy’s first black Minister, Cecile Kyenge, “Call Me Black”. Sadly she’s only been at her new job for a few months and she has been bombarded with racial slurs and even death threats. One insult came this past week from the Deputy …
Dear Blog-readers — Pope Francis has just left Lampedusa and it has been a goose-bump experience. What you see above is a freeze frame of video I shot, yes me, running in front of the Pope’s car with his security guys shoving me aside. But let me take a step back and tell you all …
Former Italian Prime Minister was sentenced today to seven years in prison for paying for sex with an underage prostitute and using his position to cover it up. My AP colleagues and I have been covering this all day and right now I am sitting outside Berlusconi’s Villa near Milan where all the Bunga-Bunga parties …
A participant at the Gay Pride Parade in Rome Saturday holds up a sign saying “I can get Married in France”. Note the Eiffel Tower in the jeweled crown. Gay marriage in France was legalized in May of this year. It is not legal in Italy and I think it will be a long time …
It has been a busy, wacky week in Rome with Harley Davidson’s roaring through the center of the city, and the press in an uproar about a “gay lobby” at the Vatican. As this acoustic and verbal storm has whirled around me, I’ve been happily working on a feature on street performers in Rome, filming …
Harleys at the Coliseum and a “Gay Lobby” at the Vatican Read More »
After his dramatic departure just over two months ago, the former Pope, Benedict XVI, returned to the Vatican today to take up residence in a small monastery inside Vatican walls. On February 28th the newly resigned Ben XVI took off from the Vatican in a helicopter and whirred over the city as thousands of people …