EXAMINER. Fr. Federico Lombardi, director of the Vatican press office, has confirmed that the Pope is available to meet with President Barack Obama on July 10 in the Vatican. Obama will be in Italy meeting with the Group of Eight (G8) industrialized nations in L'Aquila, east of Rome, July 8-10. The Pontiff and the U.S. President clash on many issues, including abortion and embryonic stem-cell research. According to a White House spokesman, the two will discuss their “shared belief in the dignity of all people.” (Read the Article)

AFP. Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi faces a lawsuit from the owners of the left-leaning La Repubblica daily after he urged entrepreneurs not to advertise in the paper, the group said Wednesday. L'Espresso, which also publishes a weekly magazine of the same name, has asked its lawyers "to take all the necessary steps to protect the company," it said in a statement.It said Berlusconi, 72, had attacked La Repubblica in a speech earlier this month to young Italian entrepreneurs, exhorting them not to advertise in what he called a "subversive" newspaper. (Read the Article)

AP. The sacred Buddhist mountain of Wutai in China and Italy's Dolomite Mountains were among five new sites named Friday to UNESCO's World Heritage List. The Dolomites in northern Italy comprise "a diversity of spectacular landscapes of international significance for geomorphology marked by steeples, pinnacles and rock walls," UNESCO said in a statement. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which makes recommendations to the UNESCO committee, said the mountains were chosen for "their outstanding natural beauty and the geological significance of their limestone formations." (Read the Article)

AP. Celebrities across the globe say they're stunned by the death of Michael Jackson, the pop legend who was on the cusp of a comeback. Sophia Loren says, "It's horrible news. The world has lost an icon and music has lost treasures." (Read the Article)

COURIER POST. Political power brokers and parishioners are pressing the leader of North Jersey's Roman Catholics to let an elderly priest stay in the church he's led the past 54 years. More than 150 people gathered Wednesday to pray for Newark Archbishop John Myers to reverse his decision removing Pastor Joseph Granato from St. Lucy's Church after his July 1 retirement. The 80-year-old priest wants to remain involved with the church and to continue to live in its rectory in the Italian-American neighborhood where he was raised. (Read the article)

CHICAGO TRIBUNE.  If you want to find Italians [in Chinatown]," she said, "stop at Feida Bakery after 8:30 mass or Chiu Quon [Bakery] after the 9:30," referring to the Sunday morning mass schedule at St. Therese Chinese Catholic Church on West Alexander Street. The promise of custard pie, coffee and conversation entices parishioners to gather at these Wentworth Avenue bakeries. (Read the article)

EXAMINER. America is ready for Fiat to become Italian-American, or so it seems if you follow Exotic Car Show and Italian Car Club news reports. Case in point: Club Fiat-Lancia Unlimited is the largest Fiat Branded Club in North America, and they are fierce supporters of the Chrysler-Fiat Union.
(Read the article)

ANSA. Naples is celebrating the ancient origins of the performing arts with a new exhibition that opens Thursday showcasing Greek and Roman mosaics, frescoes and masks with a connection to the theatre. (Read the article)

ANSA. Venice on Friday crowned its first official female gondolier when a married mother-of-two passed her test, breaking into one of Italy's last male bastions. Giorgia Boscolo, 23, passed a gondoliering course introduced by the city council in 2007 to become the first certified woman gondolier in the lagoon in nine centuries. (Read the article)