Italian President Giorgio Napolitano said on Wednesday that February 24 seems the most suitable date for voters to go to the polls.
In a statement, the president said that date for a vote was in the "best interests of the country" and would "not excessively prolong the campaign".

 MILAN -- A Milan court fined a Moroccan woman at the center of Silvio Berlusconi's sex-for-hire scandal (EURO)500 ($650) on Monday for failing to appear as a witness twice at the former premier's trial. It ordered her to testify in January.  

Silvio Marchetti, who has silver hair and a dry sense of humor most atypical for an attache, tells a story about meeting the late Harold Washington, Mayor of Chicago, in the mid-1980s. Marchetti, who now heads up the Italian Cultural Institute in Chicago, had come from Italy and requested a mayoral audience to talk up the cultural riches of his native country.  

Cesare Prandelli believes a return to Italy could benefit Mario Balotelli but warned that "the city or the country is not the problem" for the striker. Prandelli, the Italian national coach under whom Balotelli enjoyed a superb Euro 2012 campaign, was asked about the future of the 22-year-old as speculation increases that City boss Roberto Mancini is ready to sell him. 

 Four people were killed and at least seven were injured when an apartment block collapsed onto another in Palermo's historical city centre, Sicilian emergency services say.The accident is the latest of several similar incidents in Italy, where illegal construction and lax building standards are rife.

Italian scientists have created a new gravitational antenna to improve the measurement of the tiniest subjects. Their results, published in the journal Nature Physics, should help in measurement of a point, millions of times smaller than the atom, where Einstein's theory of relativity meets quantum mechanics. 

As Christmas nears and the economic crisis bites deeper and deeper into consumers' pockets, shoppers are increasingly opening to the idea of ''recycling'' presents. According to research by retail association Coldiretti, one in three Italians this Christmas is considering re-gifting items received on other occasions. 

Italian President Giorgio Napolitano on Monday reaffirmed his concern over Italy's future saying that parliament's inability to deliver a new electoral law was "unforgivably serious". President Napolitano told high ranking politicians and institutions during his traditional year-end greeting ceremony that the lack of a new electoral law was worrisome and likely to lead to further political instability when the country casts its vote earlier than expected.