Protesters faces police during a demonstration against the expansion of a U.S. military base at the Dal Molin airport, in Vicenza, northern Italy, Saturday, July 4 2009. Thousands of people flocked to this northeastern Italian city on Saturday to protest a planned U.S. military base expansion. Demonstrators wearing helmets and carrying plastic shields threw stones and other objects at police guarding a bridge on the route of the protest. Police fired tear gas canisters and clubbed some demonstrators, but no injuries were immediately reported.