Berlusconi's Skeevy Love Life Vs. the G8

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is playing host to world leaders at the G8 meeting but many Italians fear his penchant for hosting teenage girls and escorts at his villa will overshadow and hurt the summit, the Los Angeles Times reports. Sex scandals have dogged the PM for months, trying the patience of normally tolerant Italians who worry that his antics are beginning to damage the country's image.

"The limit of decency has been reached," a popular Catholic magazine wrote recently in an unusually harsh criticism of Berlusconi. "In other nations, if politicians fall short of the rules—even minimal ones—or exhibit questionable behavior, they are forced to resign. Why is it so different in Italy?" (More G8 summit stories.)