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Customers line up to buy cannoli at Romolo’s Cannoli & Spumoni Factory on 37th Avenue in San Mateo Wednesday. The store is run by Mike and Joe Cappello, who have taken over the family business. Brothers Mike and Joe Cappello love their jobs. They get to eat Italian desserts all day, whenever they want, as they are now master spumoni and cannoli makers. They learned their craft from their grandparents, Romolo and Angela, and have since taken over the family business on 37th Avenue in San Mateo. Romolo’s Cannoli & Spumoni Factory is celebrating its 44th year and the brothers...

The oldest Italian restaurant in the United States has closed after 126 years of business in San Francisco. Surviving the earthquakes of 1906 and 1989, fires, robbery and floods, Fior d'Italia could not ride out a bad economy. Originally opened by Angelo Del Monte and 'Papa' Marianetti on May 1, 1886 in a bordello, the venerable old restaurant had operated in numerous locations across the city over the years.

Grasp a Rare Grappa

Stocks accelerated their losses Friday, on track to logging their worst session this year, after stalled debt negotiations in Greece, some disappointing economic news and reports that S&P downgraded a handful of Italian banks. In the latest round of disappointment from the euro zone, ratings agency S&P downgraded 34 of 37 Italian banks, including banking giant UniCredit, citing worries over the banking industry and economic risks in the country. The move comes after the ratings agency's downgrade of Italy's sovereign rating in January to BBB+, along with downgrades of nine other euro zone countries. All three major averages are on...

It has been 40 years since the "The Godfather" drew fans into the iconic saga of the Corleone family, reinventing the mob-movie genre and embedding the phrase "I'll make him an offer he can't refuse" in the American idiom. But the blockbuster film and its two sequels, with more than $1 billion in revenues, are about far more than crime and punishment to Tom Santopietro, the author of "The Godfather Effect." Mr. Santopietro, a theater manager who has written books on Frank Sinatra, Doris Day and Barbra Streisand, saw "The Godfather: Part II" (1974) as a college sophomore, and it...

Apparently not content by merely insulting Israel and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by suggesting that the Palestinians be given territory as it was before 1967, President Obama and hapless Defense Secretary Leon Panetta have given Israel several private warnings telling them not to take military action against Iran and the 'Madman of Tehran' Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. At a time where Obama should be giving unconditional support to our allies in the Middle East, he again chooses to rebuke them and snub his nose at them.

Charlie:: “You coulda been another Billy Conn, and that skunk we got you for a manager, he brought you along too fast.” Terry: “It wasn’t him, Charley, it was you. Remember that night in the Garden you came down to my dressing room and you said, `Kid, this ain’t your night. We’re going for the price on Wilson.’….I coulda taken Wilson apart! So what happens? He gets the title shot outdoors on the ballpark and what do I get? A one-way ticket to Palooka-ville! You was my brother, Charley, you shoulda looked out for me a little bit. You shoulda...

Washington, DC, December 1, 2011 -- Only 21 percent of surveyed medical students could identify five true and two false indications of when and when not to wash their hands in the clinical setting, according to a study published in the December issue of the American Journal of Infection Control, the official publication of APIC - the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology. Three researchers from the Institute for Medical Microbiology and Hospital Epidemiology at Hannover Medical School in Hannover, Germany collected surveys from 85 medical students in their third year of study during a lecture class that...

In one of the best Marx Brothers scenes is from A Night at the Opera, where Groucho and Chico are ripping up a contract and they finally come to the SANITY CLAUSE, in which Chico proclaims there is no SANITY CLAUSE. In tomorrow’s Financial Times, there is a story about France pushing for a Christmas gift from the ECB. The gift that the French are hoping for is a backstop for the European banks that are under severe stress because of the huge amount of EURO sovereign bonds on the banks’ balance sheets. In order for the ECB to act,...

ROME (AP) — Italian Premier Mario Monti formed a government of bankers, diplomats and business executives Wednesday, saying the absence of politicians in his Cabinet will spare political parties the "embarrassment" of taking the tough decisions needed to steer the country from financial disaster. The 68-year-old former European Union competition commissioner and his Cabinet were sworn in at a solemn ceremony at the presidential palace that formally ended Silvio Berlusconi's 3 1/2-year-old government and the media mogul's 17-year-long political dominance. Monti faces his first major hurdle Thursday when he presents his legislative agenda to parliament and subjects his government to...

Angela Merkel has appealed to German politicians to approve Europe's rescue efforts ahead of a crucial vote that could torpedo the Brussels summit. The German Chancellor, who on Tuesday must secure the Bundestag's approval before European bail-out plans can proceed, briefed politicians on plans to increase the firepower of the European Finance Stability Facility (EFSF) from €440bn (£383bn) to more than €1 trillion. She assured them that Germany would not have to stump up more cash because financial engineering would be used to boost the bail-out fund. Even so, European leaders face a tense wait before the Brussels summit resumes...

In a very bizarre turn of events, it seems that the Federal Bureau of Investigation is all riled up over Clint Eastwood's latest movie, J. Edgar. Which, of course, stars Leonardo DiCaprio as the FBI's founding director, J. Edgar Hoover. So when the bureau's not chasing down Scarlett Johansson's nude pics, it's all up in Clint's business! What's up with the FBI going all Hollywood these days? Color us not surprised it has everything to do with Eastwood's portrayal of The Hoov. And remember we first criticized Clint for failing to make the character "gay-enough." Now it seems the FBI...

LONDON (AP) -- Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter is appealing for other donors to join Britain in a multi-million dollar campaign to wipe out guinea worm, a crippling and painful parasitic disease that now exists only in four African countries. At a press briefing in London on Wednesday, British officials are expected to pledge 20 million pounds (US$31 million) over four years to the cause - but only if other donors also open their wallets. The global campaign to eradicate guinea worm started in 1980, when there were about 3.5 million cases of the disease, also known as dracunculiasis, every...

Here's a trillion dollar deficit question: Where did Iran's Favorite Congress Critter, Ron Paul, get his army of followers ? It's an important question to ask. Bloggers can't criticize Paul without having a cross burned on their blog by the RuPaulista SS. (Erick Erickson's RedState has had to ban anyone who wasn't a member for more than six months for mentioning Paul in a post.) Conservative radio show hosts can't utter a peep about Mahmoud AmendinePaul without having his lines jammed up for the rest of the show.

Not every anti-Israel step the Obama administration takes is reflected by policy. For every "start negotiations with the 1949 Armistice lines" there is disinformation, a falsification of history spewed out by the administration. The latest example of this falsification of history was presented tonight by new Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. On his way to meetings with Israeli and Egyptian officials, Panetta warned that Israel is becoming increasingly isolated in the Middle East, and said Israeli leaders must restart negotiations with the Palestinians and work to restore relations with Egypt and Turkey. In a blunt assessment made as he was traveling...

U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, speaking at West Point, said last week that “Any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should have his head examined.” In saying this, Gates was repeating a dictum laid down by Douglas MacArthur after the Korean War, who urged the United States to avoid land wars in Asia. Given that the United States has fought four major land wars in Asia since World War II — Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq — none of which had...

A cannibal has admitted to killing a man and then making sausages and meatballs from his corpse. He was so proud of his culinary achievements, including rib dishes, that he posted short video clips on the Internet, according to police who removed the offensive footage. The 21-year-old - who worked as a chef - confessed to police in the Russian city of Murmansk saying that he had a strong desire to eat human flesh. He had used a gay dating website to lure his victim, aged 32, to his flat where he brutally knifed him to death before cutting off...

Rick Perry kicks off his campaign tomorrow, but is he electable? In an interview last fall, the Texas governor advocated dismantling Medicare and Social Security. For months, Republicans have complained about their choices in the 2012 presidential race. Mitt Romney seems unprincipled, they’ve said. Michele Bachmann is too flimsy. Tim Pawlenty looks fine on paper, but in person, not so much. And Newt Gingrich is just plain erratic. But now disaffected conservatives think they’ve found their man. His name? Rick Perry. This weekend, while most of the field focuses on the Ames, Iowa straw poll, the three-plus-term Texas governor will...

Efforts appear to be under way to offer Muammar Gaddafi a way of escape from Libya, with Italy saying it was trying to organise an African haven for him, and the US signalling it would not try to stop the dictator from fleeing. The move came amid mounting diplomatic and military pressure on Gaddafi as Britain tries to assemble a global consensus demanding he surrender power while intensifying air strikes against his forces. An international conference in London – including the UN, Arab states, the African Union, and more than 40 foreign ministers – will focus on co-ordinating assistance in...

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) - A single laptop can reveal much, and so it is with the digital treasure chest that Colombian commandos found in the jungle quarters of slain rebel leader Raul Reyes. Files in the computer seized in Saturday's raid into Ecuador that claimed the lives of Reyes and 23 of his comrades offer an intimate portrait of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's desire to undermine Colombia's U.S.-allied government. If authentic, the documents show that sympathies Chavez first aired publicly in January grew out of a relationship that dates back more than a decade. But Chavez is not one of...