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MADRID—When Crimeans voted to secede from Ukraine and join Russia—under the watchful gaze of Russian troops—some Spaniards viewed the drama through the lens of a conflict much closer to home. Spain's Foreign Minister José Manuel García-Margallo said "the parallelism is absolute" between Crimea and Catalonia, the wealthy industrial region that has scheduled a nonbinding referendum on independence from Spain for November. Sunday's referendum in Crimea and the one planned in Catalonia each violates its nation's constitution, Mr. Garcia-Margallo said Monday, and thus "by definition violates international law." Catalan officials ridiculed his attempt to tar Catalonia with the Crimean brush. Catalans...

Voting begins Sunday on a referendum on whether Venice and its surrounding region should secede from the rest of Italy, in an attempt to restore its 1,000-year history as a sovereign republic. La Serenissima — or the Most Serene Republic of Venice — was an independent trading power for a millennium before its last leader was deposed by Napoleon in 1797.

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'Stop being a baby - this isn't a baby gym!' Moustachioed Arnold Schwarzenegger goes undercover as a personal trainer... but his disguise doesn't soften his critiquesHe's one of the most famous bodybuilders in the world.But when Arnold Schwarzenegger stopped by a gym in Venice, California, this week, he went completely unrecognised - thanks to a nifty disguise.The 66-year-old muscle man-turned-actor-turned-politician sported a moustache and heavy dark hair in a ponytail under a baseball cap as he completed a day at Gold's Gym as Howard Kleiner - a fitness trainer and regional manager.

For hundreds of years, people have questioned whether William Shakespeare wrote the plays that bear his name. The mystery is fueled by the fact that his biography simply doesn't match the areas of knowledge and skill demonstrated in the plays. Nearly a hundred candidates have been suggested, but none of them fit much better. Now a new candidate named Amelia Bassano Lanier—the so-called 'Dark Lady' of the Sonnets and a member of an Italian/Jewish family—has been shown to be a perfect fit. Here are eight reasons that are sure to convince you: 1. The Most Musical Plays in the World...

Nathan Louis Campbell is the crazed man who plowed through crowds of people, killing a bride on her honeymoon in Santa Monica. He subsequently turned himself into police. Why hasn't the media showed Campbell's mug shot? There are a few Nathan Campbells out there, but probably not many Nathan Louis Campbells.

"Security video shows the man parking his black car alongside the seaside boardwalk as the sun sank, surveying the idyllic scene for several minutes before getting back into the car and speeding into the crowd. "

A dark colored sedan can be seen pulling up to the scene in this security footage. The driver appeared to speak with pedestrians strolling to the boardwalk. The driver then exited the car to survey the scene, gets back into the vehicle and sped off toward the boardwalk.

A driver who witnesses described as "moving purposefully" struck a dozen people on the Venice boardwalk early Saturday evening. Two of the pedestrians were injured critically, two were categorized as having "serious" injuries and eight others suffered minor injuries, authorities said. The incident occurred about 6 p.m. at the boardwalk's intersection with Dudley Avenue. "The vehicle appeared to be moving purposefully down the boardwalk according to witnesses," said Brian Humphrey of the Los Angeles Fire Department.

Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi responds to a journalist's question about the Vatican's participation in Venice's International Art Festival. Credit: Stephen Driscoll/CNA. Vatican City, May 14, 2013 / 09:33 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Vatican is participating for the first time in a famous international art exposition in Venice under the theme “Creation, Un-Creation and Re-Creation,” with the aim of promoting modern dialogue on faith. The 55th edition of Venice’s Biannual Art Festival, known as the “Biennale di Venezia” in Italian, will take place June 1 to Nov. 24 and will bring together exhibits from 88 different countries. The Vatican’s contribution will...

A Saudi family who “fled” their Sarasota area home weeks before 9/11 had “many connections” to “individuals associated with the terrorist attacks on 9/11/2001,” according to newly released FBI records. One partially declassified document, marked “secret,” lists three of those individuals and ties them to the Venice, Fla., flight school where suicide hijackers Mohamed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi trained. Accomplice Ziad Jarrah took flying lessons at another school a block away. Atta and al-Shehhi were at the controls of the jetliners that slammed into the twin towers of New York’s World Trade Center, killing nearly 3,000 people. Jarrah was the...

At the Venice Biennale, which from 1 June takes place for the 55th time, for the first time the Vatican will be represented with its own pavilion. The Italian art and culture critic Francesco Colafemmina criticised in a statement the works selected for the artists shown there and the costs of the purchase of the exhibited works.

Two centuries after Napoleonic forces snuffed out the 1,000-year Venetian Republic, Venetians are once again aspiring to become an independent state. Inspired by the nationalist aspirations of Scotland and Catalonia, pro-independence campaigners will hold a mass rally in the heart of the lagoon city on Saturday, calling for an urgent referendum to be held on the issue. Indipendenza Veneta, a newly-founded pro-independence movement, says it expects several thousand people to turn up for the rally. …

The owner of a Venice health food market and two other people were arrested on charges related to the allegedly unlawful production and sale of unpasteurized dairy products, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County district attorney's office said. The arrests of James Cecil Stewart, Sharon Ann Palmer and Eugenie Bloch on Wednesday marked the latest effort in a government crackdown on the sale of so-called raw dairy products.

Pope Benedict XVI celebrated mass for over 300,000 people outside of Venice on Sunday. During his homily, he called on the city to remember its historic role as a bridge between cultures, and said it was particularly important in light of the phenomenon of immigration and the new geopolitical circumstances. Christopher Altieri is in Venice with the Pope, and sent this report… I was several hours early, if you reckon by the schedule. In effect, though, I was running late if you judge by the teeming multitude of humanity in which I was caught when I tried to cross the...

VENICE (Reuters Life!) – Venetians woke up on Monday to find that one of the symbols of their world famous lagoon city -- the Grand Canal -- had been stolen. "The Grand Canal has been snatched," was the way several newspaper headlines put it. It seems that a new national law intended to get rid of old, out-of-date provisions that have been on the books since Italy was a monarchy also transferred ownership of the canal from the city to the national government. Worse still, it was part of a package promoted by Roberto Calderoli -- whose title is Simplification...

Authorities in Venice have removed about a dozen RVs from one neighborhood after complaints about human waste being dumped on the street. HazMat crews cleaned up the area around Rose and Third avenues Tuesday night after receiving complaints from Venice residents and activists. The LAPD then made the owners of about 12 RVs move them out out of the area. A local activist known as "Boston Dawna" said no one was cited. She said the RVs were back in the same spots by Wednesday morning. A woman who allegedly uncapped a sewage tank on an RV on Pacific Avenue near...

Investigators recently entered an organic grocery with a search warrant and ordered the hemp-clad workers to put down their buckets of mashed coconut cream and to step away from the nuts. Then, guns drawn, four officers fanned out across Rawesome Foods in Venice. Skirting past the arugula and peering under crates of zucchini, they found the raid's target inside a walk-in refrigerator: unmarked jugs of raw milk. "I still can't believe they took our yogurt," said Rawesome volunteer Sea J. Jones, a few days after the raid. "There's a medical marijuana shop a couple miles away, and they're raiding us...

Fr. Matteo Ricci Related articles: Paul's Missionary Journeys & Last VoyageThursdayThursdayThursday Venice, Italy, Sep 12, 2009 / 06:13 pm (CNA).- A new documentary on the life of Fr. Matteo Ricci, a pioneering Jesuit missionary to China, was screened at the Venice Film Festival on Thursday. The film is part of a revival of interest in Ricci, whom Pope Benedict XVI has called a model for a “fruitful meeting” between civilizations.The movie, directed by Italian filmmaker Gjon Kolndrekaj, was shot in China and Italy.Political and religious dignitaries from both countries attended the screening, ANSA reports. They included the Patriarch of...

As Will Heaven reports, Hollywood and European luminaries at the Venice Film Festival are busy butt-kissing Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan dictator. He’s anti-American, you see, and Oliver Stone has made a documentary and… what’s not to like? Well, this, maybe, especially if you happen to be a Jew involved in the film industry (not unknown). It’s an extract from a speech Chavez gave at a rehabilitation centre on December 24, 2005: The world has enough for everybody, but it happened that some minorities—the descendants of those who crucified Christ, the descendants of those who ejected Bolívar from here and who...