Turin

ATHENS -- As soon as the flame is extinguished in Athens tonight, the clock starts ticking in the Italian Alps. Seventeen-and-a-half months from now -- 530 days to be exact -- the Olympic flame will be ignited at the opening ceremonies of the Winter Games in Turin. "We are emotional," organizing committee chief Valentino Castellani said. "We have the feeling that we are stepping onto the stage. The bell for the last lap is ringing for us. " Turin, the industrial capital of the northwestern Piedmont region, will be the first Italian city to host the Winter Olympics since Cortina D'Ampezzo in...

Claudio Marchisio scored the sixth goal of his breakthrough season and Arturo Vidal converted a controversial penalty as Juventus beat Cesena 2-0 Sunday to reclaim the Italian league lead. Cesena's 42-year-old goalkeeper, Francesco Antonioli, kept Juventus in check at the Turin club's new stadium until Marchisio fired in a 72nd-minute shot between two defenders with his weaker left foot. In the 80th, Antonioli punched away a cross and then collided with Juventus forward Emanuele Giaccherini, receiving a red card that set up a penalty for Vidal despite vehement protests from Cesena.

No vault, however secure, is impregnable. No criminal scheme, however cunning, is foolproof. Well-constructed heist stories exploit the tension between these simple truths to produce a grand clash of vigilance and nerve, pitting a fortune’s defenders against its would-be usurpers. Such forces animated Steven Soderbergh’s glittering 2001 Rat Pack homage “Ocean’s Eleven.’’ And the formula is deployed with equal skill - and somewhat greater plausibility - in the new true-crime chronicle “Flawless: Inside the Largest Diamond Heist in History,’’ about a nighttime robbery at the Antwerp...

Fiat said Monday it will produce Jeep SUVs at its Mirafiori factory in Turin from 2013 as it takes advantage of flexible work rules approved earlier this year by union rank-and-file. The Italian automaker, which controls Chrysler, said the Turin plant will start being fitted with updated infrastructure next year to pave the way for the start of Jeep production in the second half of 2013. The same factory will also manufacture new and updated versions of the Alfa Romeo Mito model.

CALGARY, Alberta -- Defending champion Stephane Lambiel shook off a knee injury, an early wake-up call, and the post-Olympic blahs to easily win his qualifying group yesterday at the World Figure Skating Championships. Qualifying sessions are unique to worlds, and most of the Group A competitors struggled, including American Evan Lysacek. When Lambiel nailed two quadruple jumps, one in combination, the Swiss skater soared past Lysacek with 160.90 points. Lysacek, on medication for a bacterial infection since the Turin Games, was second with 139.70.

Fiat said Monday it will produce Jeep SUVs at its Mirafiori factory in Turin from 2013 as it takes advantage of flexible work rules approved earlier this year by union rank-and-file. The Italian automaker, which controls Chrysler, said the Turin plant will start being fitted with updated infrastructure next year to pave the way for the start of Jeep production in the second half of 2013. The same factory will also manufacture new and updated versions of the Alfa Romeo Mito model.

MILAN - Andrea Pininfarina, chief executive of the family Italian car design firm that counts Ferraris and Alfa Romeos among its creations, died yesterday in an accident near the northern city of Turin, reports said. He was 51. Mr. Pininfarina, who was on a scooter, collided with a car whose driver failed to stop at an intersection, Luigi Semenzato, police chief in the town of Trofarello south of Turin, told Sky Tg24 television news. He said the driver "didn't see the Vespa coming.

Hannibal came and went. The Italian Parliament left town nearly a century and a half ago. Fiat has been gradually going elsewhere for years now. What endures in this old industrial city at the foot of the Alps is the chocolate. It's piled in mini-mountains in the shop windows along the Via Roma, tucked into elegant boxes at the Pasticceria Gertosio, served up double-strength in gelato, mixed with hazelnuts to make Nutella, blended with coffee and milk to create bicerin, which the Torinesi have been sipping for centuries.

NEW YORK -- "American Idol" did a number again on the Olympics in terms of viewers Thursday on one of television's most competitive nights in memory. An estimated 11 million more people watched TV than normally would on a Thursday night, according to preliminary Nielsen Media Research estimates. A special Thursday edition of "Idol" was seen by 23.4 million people between 8-9 p.m. EST -- compared with 17.7 million for the Olympics, and 14.8 million each for "Survivor" and "Dancing With the Stars" in that hour.

US skeleton coach Tim Nardiello was fired by the sport's national federation for ignoring orders to stay away from the team during its final Olympic preparations. Nardiello, who was denied a credential to coach at the Turin Games, is in St. Moritz, Switzerland, where the four sliders representing the United States are training. The letter of dismissal was e-mailed Friday. "I'm very disappointed," Nardiello said yesterday. Nardiello was suspended by the US Bobsled and Skeleton Federation Dec. 31, accused of sexually harassing team members.

‘The Girlfriends (Le Amiche)’’ opens with a long, loving pan of the northern Italian city of Turin underneath the credits. It’s 1955, and Michelangelo Antonioni is poised between his realist roots and the chic anomie of his ’60s heyday. Clearly, he meant the movie, adapted from a novella by Cesare Pavese, to evoke that particular place. Seen now, more than half a century later, it seems much more evocative of a particular time: when well-off, stylish women wore pencil skirts and pillbox hats; they could have love or work, but not both; and choosing the wrong lover might lead to suicide attempts or at...

No vault, however secure, is impregnable. No criminal scheme, however cunning, is foolproof. Well-constructed heist stories exploit the tension between these simple truths to produce a grand clash of vigilance and nerve, pitting a fortune’s defenders against its would-be usurpers. Such forces animated Steven Soderbergh’s glittering 2001 Rat Pack homage “Ocean’s Eleven.’’ And the formula is deployed with equal skill - and somewhat greater plausibility - in the new true-crime chronicle “Flawless: Inside the Largest Diamond Heist in History,’’ about a...

ROME - A Vatican researcher has rekindled the age-old debate over the Shroud of Turin, saying that faint writing on the linen proves it was the burial cloth of Jesus. Experts say the historian may be reading too much into the markings, and they stand by carbon-dating that points to the shroud being a medieval forgery. Barbara Frale, a researcher at the Vatican archives, says in a new book that she used computer-enhanced images of the shroud to decipher faintly written words in Greek, Latin, and Aramaic scattered across the cloth.

MILAN - Andrea Pininfarina, chief executive of the family Italian car design firm that counts Ferraris and Alfa Romeos among its creations, died yesterday in an accident near the northern city of Turin, reports said. He was 51. Mr. Pininfarina, who was on a scooter, collided with a car whose driver failed to stop at an intersection, Luigi Semenzato, police chief in the town of Trofarello south of Turin, told Sky Tg24 television news. He said the driver "didn't see the Vespa coming.

CALGARY, Alberta -- Defending champion Stephane Lambiel shook off a knee injury, an early wake-up call, and the post-Olympic blahs to easily win his qualifying group yesterday at the World Figure Skating Championships. Qualifying sessions are unique to worlds, and most of the Group A competitors struggled, including American Evan Lysacek. When Lambiel nailed two quadruple jumps, one in combination, the Swiss skater soared past Lysacek with 160.90 points. Lysacek, on medication for a bacterial infection since the Turin Games, was second with 139.70.

With memories of the Winter Olympic Games fast receding and March weather suggesting some early sailing, it seems the snow sports season is fast schussing toward a close. But not so fast. Aside from the terrific recreational skiing right now, complements of recent snowfall and plenty of snowmaking nights in February, March is a big month for big events in New England. While the West got the NCAA championships -- being held through this weekend at Steamboat, Colo. -- two national championships will be decided in Vermont and Maine.

Mother Russia is an Olympic champion. Juggling motherhood and speedskating, Svetlana Zhurova won gold in the women's 500-meter sprint yesterday in Turin with a 2-year-old son cheering her on back home near St. Petersburg. "Now, I have a big fan of me that I can do it for," Zhurova said, breaking out in a huge smile. Something sure clicked after she gave birth to Yaroslav -- "Yary" for short -- 26 months ago. While many top athletes-turned-mothers never overcome the effects of pregnancy, Zhurova actually improved on the solid, but hardly spectacular results from her younger days.

‘The Girlfriends (Le Amiche)’’ opens with a long, loving pan of the northern Italian city of Turin underneath the credits. It’s 1955, and Michelangelo Antonioni is poised between his realist roots and the chic anomie of his ’60s heyday. Clearly, he meant the movie, adapted from a novella by Cesare Pavese, to evoke that particular place. Seen now, more than half a century later, it seems much more evocative of a particular time: when well-off, stylish women wore pencil skirts and pillbox hats; they could have love or work, but not both; and choosing the wrong lover might lead to suicide...

NEW YORK -- "American Idol" did a number again on the Olympics in terms of viewers Thursday on one of television's most competitive nights in memory. An estimated 11 million more people watched TV than normally would on a Thursday night, according to preliminary Nielsen Media Research estimates. A special Thursday edition of "Idol" was seen by 23.4 million people between 8-9 p.m. EST -- compared with 17.7 million for the Olympics, and 14.8 million each for "Survivor" and "Dancing With the Stars" in that hour.

Mother Russia is an Olympic champion. Juggling motherhood and speedskating, Svetlana Zhurova won gold in the women's 500-meter sprint yesterday in Turin with a 2-year-old son cheering her on back home near St. Petersburg. "Now, I have a big fan of me that I can do it for," Zhurova said, breaking out in a huge smile. Something sure clicked after she gave birth to Yaroslav -- "Yary" for short -- 26 months ago. While many top athletes-turned-mothers never overcome the effects of pregnancy, Zhurova actually improved on the solid, but hardly spectacular results from her younger days.