Danny, 2.500 kg was due on 11 January. Carmine Mariani and Luciana Luciani says they were getting ready for New Year's Eve when labour started. The father says «I saw the fireworks from the hospital window. My new Year started with the cry of my son». people have started to visit the room to see the child, a kind of symbol for the century and millennium. The child sleeps peacefully and opens his eyes now and then to have a look at the world.

San Tommaso the Apostle is the patron saint of Ortona. In the cathedral the Apostle bones are have been kept for over 700 years, and in 1300 a Pope issued a Bull giving indulgence to the pilgrims: also this church, though very few know that, is a Jubilee seat, but the facilities supplied elsewhere (parking, lavatories, picnic areas) are not available here.

Within the last 30 years many endangered species in the Apennines have survived and flourished, first of all the Marsican bear and the Abruzzo chamois. Also the populations of deer and roe-buck, exterminated by hunters and reintroduced in the 1970's, are growing. The lynx too has come back, but the greatest success story is the wolf, thanks to the great Operazione San Francesco, launched in 1972 by the National Park of Abruzzo and the WWF.

On Christmas Day Monsignor Giuseppe Molinari opened the Jubilee year in the Cathedral of San Massimo, yesterday in the Santuario di Roio, which is, together with San Massimo and Santa Maria di Collemaggio, a place for Indulgence in the Holy Year. Monsignor Molinari emphasized the importance of charity pointing to the example of Madre Teresa of Calcutta. Collemaggio will be opened in spring, after the restoration works are over.

On 31 december 1999 of the 56,259 inhabitants in Chieti 27.197 were males and 29.062 females. The municipality computer gave among the oldest: Luigia Macchia, born 21 june 1897; three 1899 girls, Anna Bascelli, Anna Di Giampasquale and Maria Magistrali, 8 born in 1900: Maria Concetta Claudio, Gilda D'Andreagiovanni, Filomena Di Mascio, Palmarosa Meffe, Vincenzo Montingelli, Maria Pelusi, Vincenzo Perrotti, and Agostino Santilli, and four, born in 1901, aspiring to the record: Pompilia Giuseppina Capitanio, Anna Di Primio, Anna Liberatore and Carmela Rosica. Happy birthdays.

Two weddings on 1 January 2000: Alessandro Clemente, 30, and Liliana Angelozzi, 25, were married at noon by Mayor Angelo Sperandio. The record however goes to Umberto Sardini, from Città Sant'Angelo, and Simonetta Fantozzi from Teramo, who married exactly one second after midnight, before the cameras of the national TV.

Allegrina Mancinelli has started her second century among friends and relatives, as well as a special visit of Mayor Nicola Crisci and Vice Renato Santarelli, who presented her a special plaque for her achievement, a tradition in the municipality of Roseto.

Paolo Attardi, 3800 gr, born at 4.50 in L'Aquila. At midnight, 31 december, wedding ceremony for Maurizio Buccigrossi, cellphone dealer, and Luciana Giallonardo, dentist, in medieval borough Santo Stefano di Sessanio. The spouses presented mayor Antonio Aloisio a plaque to thank him for being on duty. Another couple had the same idea: Umberto and Simonetta from Città Sant'Angelo.

Carmela Lucia Barbara Giuliani, 100 years old last 4 December. Two daughters, 12 grandchildren and also a great-grandson, a son who died in WW2. Her most vivid memories: the first TV. Her sadness: «when I was young there was not this welfare of today, but we loved each other, while now everybody thinks for himself. The youths are too exacting now, they don't respect their parents any longer. I saw the see for the first time whan I was 80, and I also took a lift for the first time then. But I've come here all the same».