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AHN. Rome's couturiers are cash-strapped and the Italian government just might save them. Italy is planning a financial bailout for the struggling fashion industry. The Italian clothing industry began looking for a government bailout amidst a financial crisis where even the super-rich have cut back on their haute fashion. Now, the Italian minister of economic development Claudio Scajola says help is on the way. (Read the Article by Anthony Jones)

ANSA. Chiara Zurzolo, an associate professor in applied biology at Naples University, gained the front cover of the journal Nature Cell Biology thanks to her discovery. She has made an advance in the study of human mad cow disease, finding out how the disease-causing agent called a prion finds its way from the stomach to the human brain. (Read the article)

ASSOCIATED PRESS. Italian director Salvatore Samperi, best known for erotic comedies that challenged the morals of Italy's middle class, has died at age 64, his family said Thursday. Samperi died Wednesday, said his brother Jadran Samperi, declining to give the cause of the death. The director died in his house on Lake Bracciano, about 30 miles (50 kilometers) north of Rome, according to the ANSA news agency. Among his most succesful movies, "Grazie, Zia" (Thank you, Aunt) and "Malizia" (Malice). (Read the Article)

ASSOCIATED PRESS. Vatican Radio said Wednesday that a 1943 document found in a Rome convent bolsters church contentions that Pope Pius XII tried to save Jews from Nazis in World War II. Vatican Radio reported the discovery of a note, kept in a cloistered monastery near the Colosseum, which lists the names of 24 people who were taken in by the nuns "in accordance with Pius' desire." (Read the Article)