Reuters: Italy industry lobby backs PM Renzi on constitutional reform

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi on Thursday won the backing of the country's biggest employers' lobby for a constitutional reform on which the 41-year-old premier has staked his political future.

Renzi's allies in parliament passed a constitutional reform that effectively eliminates the Senate as a legislative body and removes some powers from Italy's regions in a bid to speed up lawmaking and make governments more stable.

By law there must be a referendum on the changes. Renzi has said if he loses the ballot, expected in October, he will stand down, potentially unleashing political chaos and market turbulence in the euro zone's third-largest economy.

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The Huffington Post: The LGBT Pride Rainbow Flag To Fly Above Houses Of Parliament For First Time

A parliamentary spokesperson said: “The Houses of Parliament will join the Pride in London celebrations by flying the LGBT rainbow flag from the top of Portcullis House for the entire Pride weekend.

“This is the very first time the rainbow flag has been flown from Parliament and we are delighted to mark the occasion in this way.”

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Mashable: GPS maps show the wild adventures your cat goes on night

More than one dozen cats were fitted with GPS trackers to show the distance they roam from their homes. The end result was a series of maps, which provide fascinating insight into the travelling habits of felines.

The project started in mid-March with 25 cats enrolled, but by the time the project ended in mid-May, only 14 cats remained. This was due to some GPS trackers disappearing or felines struggling to wear the harness with the tracker attached.

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Politico: Brussels struggles with its Poland problem

“I don’t really think that anybody has a strategy, or wants to get Poland out,” a European diplomat said. “Everybody is still expecting this government to come back to its senses.”

“Hoping” might be a more appropriate term, given the awkward diplomatic back-and-forth between Brussels and Warsaw in recent days. The dispute highlights the difficulty of maintaining EU solidarity without fueling rising populism and unease across the bloc over policies from Brussels ranging from migration to economic governance. [...]

Though sanctions in the form of cuts to Polish subsidies as part of the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy or any structural funds are unlikely to take place, the Commission could carry out “a very deep scrutiny of the way the funds are asked and used,” a European diplomat said.

“It would be very easy for the Commission to act this way, it would not require any formal decision and at that point for Warsaw it would be very hard to continue being a successful recipient of these funds,” the diplomat said. “That’s the only fear of the [Polish government], an economic retaliation which, according to them, will take form in this way.”

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The Guardian: What happened to the 12 Syrian refugees rescued by the pope?

When Pope Francis saved a dozen refugees from a Lesbos detention centre and took them to Rome it was ‘like a miracle’, one of them said. A month on, what is their new life like? [...]

The three families have been in Rome for one month, and I speak to two of them. Contrary to some reports, none has spent a night inside the Vatican and live, instead, in a refuge run by Sant’Egidio, a few streets from the school. How are they settling? “Well, actually, it’s been OK,” says Suhila. They eat eastern food – aubergine for lunch – they have found the mosque, pray at home, take the kids to school each day, “and the weather is similar to the weather in our country”. Quds has made friends with the Italian daughter of one of the volunteers. “We have started to feel ourselves adjusting. The world is smiling at us.”

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