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KANSAS CITY.COM. And that was the exact moment I came face-to-face with my Italian immigrant past.“Spaghetti?” I asked, not really sure exactly what I was looking at. “Yes. The recipe is so easy: just flour, water and eggs,” Nana said. (Read the article by Jill Wendholt Silva)

ANSA. A mayor who threatened a traffic cop after she tried to fine him in a no-traffic zone got his comeuppance in court Wednesday. (Read the article)

ANSA. The number of Italian beaches to be awarded a prestigious Blue Flag for clean water and pristine sands has risen once again this year, the international Foundation for Environmental Education (FEE) said Wednesday. (Read the article)

THE NEW YORK TIMES NEWS BLOG. Because it is used in every e-mail address and many tweets, you might be forgiven for thinking that the remarkably common symbol @, which English-speakers know as the “at sign,” but Italians call a “snail,” and south Slavs know as a “monkey,” is a fairly recent invention. In fact, a Florentine merchant named Francesco Lapi used the symbol @ in a letter written 473 years ago today, on May 4, 1536.

Francesco Lapi’s letter was sent from Seville to Rome and described the cargo on three ships that had just returned to Spain from Latin America: “There, an amphora of wine, which is one thirtieth of a barrel, is worth 70 or 80 ducats,” Mr. Lapi informs his correspondent, representing the amphora with the now familiar symbol of an “a” wrapped in its own tail. (Read the blog post by Robert Mackey)