Free Republic

Italian authorities put a stop to a network of slippery fraudsters who were selling fake oil by the truckload — with cops seizing 42 tons of packaged “extra virgin” worth $1 million. On Monday, cops in southern Italy raided 18 garages and warehouses in the Puglia region and confiscated the oil — some of which had already been packed and ready for sale, according to CNN. Police found 71 tons of what they referred to as an oily substance in plastic tanks — as well as 623 liters of chlorophyll, an extra-virgin olive oil ingredient that the shifty bandits were...

Vito Montanaro, director general of the Bari heath authority, said 20 people had died and 35 were injured in the crash on single-track near the town of Andria in southern Italy. Local authorities had earlier put the death toll at 12. Eighteen of the 35 reported to be injured are in a critical condition. Hospitals have issued an urgent call for blood donors. "We need blood group 0," Giuseppe Corrado, president of Barletta-Andria-Trani province, said. The injured have been taken to hospitals in Andria, Barletta and Bisceglie. People are still trapped in the wreckage of the crash, which was caused...

On Monday, 11 February in Rome the canonization was announced of 800 Christians took place who suffered martyrdom in the 15th Century in Otranto. The elevation to the altars is to be made in the context of an ordinary consistory of the College of Cardinals which was convened by Pope Benedict XVI. The canonization concerned Antonio Primaldo and his 800 companions. The Christian inhabitants of the town of Otranto in Apulia, in southern Italy were victims of a bloodbath by Ottoman troops during a raid on 29 July 1480. They killed more than 800 fishermen, craftsmen, farmers, merchants, peasants simply...