Theresa Maggio

From The Guardian:
Horse racing has been suspended at the Palermo racetrack after Italian police investigating mafia activity discovered illegal gambling and evidence that Cosa Nostra bosses were rigging races.

The order, from the head of the Palermo prefecture, Antonella De Miro, followed the arrests earlier in December of 25 people linked to the clans  Read More 

The Gua dian

First published on Friday 17 November 2017 03.06 EST

The former “boss of bosses” Toto Riina, one of the most feared godfathers in the history of the Sicilian mafia, has died in hospital while serving multiple life sentences for masterminding a bloody strategy to murder Italian prosecutors and law enforcement officers trying to bring down the Cosa Nostra.

Riina, who is thought to have ordered more than 150 murders, had been in a medically induced coma after his health deteriorated following two operations for cancer.

He died in the prisoner wing of a hospital in Parma, in northern Italy, just before 4am local time on Friday, a day after he turned 87, according to the country’s main dailies and the Ansa news agency.

Nicknamed “the Beast” because of his cruelty, Salvatore “Toto” Riina led a reign of terror for decades after taking control of the Cosa Nostra in the 1970s. Read More 

What a shot! Doesn't look real, but it is. Sometimes it pays to look up.

Some of the refugees spent fur days at sea in an open raft. It bent in the middle, shaped like a V, many fell into the water and drowned, including a newborn baby.
From the Guardiam:
"A newborn baby is among 99 people believed to have drowned in two separate shipwrecks off the Libyan coast  Read More 

At the intersection of Corso Vittorio Emanuele and Via Maqueda in the heart of the old town, the Quattro Canti is also known as the theater of the sun. I do not know who took this fine picture, but whoever it was lay down in the center of a busy intersection on a cloudless day and shot upward toward the cerulean blue sky. Read More 

An old fishing vessel full of 700 immigrants capsized about 15 miles off the coast of Libya today. 100 have been rescued, while four ships are in the area to try to save the rest. The BBC, in contact with an Irish military ship at the scene, said many are feared drowned.
According to La Repubblica today,  Read More 

Two Nigerian immigrants broke their arms and legs when they were pushed out of a fourth floor window by human traffickers because they had not paid their way yet. Sicilian authorities think it was a last-minute attempt to get more money out of their family members back in Nigeria. Doctors in Sicily are treating  Read More 

Moving books here is a community effort.

I have spent the last two mornings reliving my three-hour encounter with Marcello Lampone, a 67-year-old Palermo inventor and blithe spirit. His bottega is near the intersection of Via Maqueda with Via del Bosco. Here he is at play.
 Read More