Sick of weeds and trash piles, Rome to elect new mayor

By FRANCES D’EMILIO
Associated Press

ROME (AP) — After five years in office as Rome’s first populist mayor, Virginia Raggi is running for a second term in the city’s election Sunday and Monday. Romans are fed up with piles of uncollected garbage, subway stations closed down for months for repairs and waist-high sidewalk weeds. Raggi largely owes her 2016 victory to votes from Rome’s outlying, low-income neighborhoods, and she and election rivals have been campaigning heavily there.  Opinion polls indicate she might not win enough votes to make it to a runoff election to decide who will next lead the problem-plagued city.