Italy, German, French pay tribute at EU symbolic birthplace

VENTOTENE, Italy (AP) — The leaders of Italy, France and Germany vowed Monday to improve Europe's defense and economic prospects as they paid tribute to one of the founding fathers of European unity in a symbolic bid to relaunch the EU after Britain's vote to leave. Standing silently together, Italian Premier Matteo Renzi, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Holland placed three bouquets of blue and yellow flowers — the colors of the European Union — on the simple white marble tombstone of Altiero Spinelli on the island of Ventotene. Spinelli, along with another intellectual confined to Ventotene in the 1940s by Italy's fascist rulers, co-wrote the...