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 Nothing is where it should be. At Palazzo Chigi, the prime minister’s office in Rome, there’s no government resulting from the recent elections. Instead a group of ‘technicians’ – called in during an ‘emergency’ a year and a half ago – that, under the banner of Mario Monti, accounted in the February election for just 11% of the votes.  

 Just when Italians thought their politics could not get any stranger, on Tuesday they did. That was when members of the Five Star Movement of Beppe Grillo decided to “occupy” Parliament, a step that would seem unnecessary since voters had already sent them there to occupy 163 of its 945 seats. 

 A bishop from the earthquake-stricken province of Modena in central Italy said Tuesday he was surprised to find himself having an informal chat at breakfast recently with Pope Francis. 

 Evidence was seized from a school on Tuesday for probes into the alleged severe mistreatment of a 14-year-old autistic boy by two teachers caught on hidden surveillance cameras in the northern city of Vicenza.