Asked how he evaluated the attacks by Trump of Leo, Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin responded: “For me it seems a bit strange, to say the least.”

International News via Reuters:

A senior Vatican cardinal on Wednesday called U.S. President Donald Trump’s disparaging attacks on Pope Leo over the Iran war “strange,” a day before the U.S. Secretary of State is due to hold talks with the pope.

Asked how he evaluated the attacks by Trump of Leo, Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin responded: “For me it seems a bit strange, to say the least.”

“I wouldn’t want to get into judgments or personal evaluations about this,” the cardinal told journalists outside an event near the Vatican.

Leo, who will welcome U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio to the Vatican for a meeting on Thursday, drew Trump’s ire after becoming a firm critic of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran and the Trump administration’s hardline anti-immigration policies.

The president has kept up an unprecedented series of public attacks on the pope in recent weeks, drawing a backlash from Christian leaders across the political spectrum.

The U.S. ambassador to the Holy See told journalists on Tuesday that the conversation between Leo and Rubio, the first known meeting between the pope and a Trump cabinet official in nearly a year, was likely to be “frank”.

Parolin said on Wednesday the meeting was requested by the U.S. He said Leo would listen carefully to what Rubio had to say.

“I imagine they’ll talk about everything that has happened in recent days,” said the cardinal.

On Monday, Trump falsely suggested the pope believed it was okay for Iran to obtain nuclear weapons and said Leo was “endangering a lot of Catholics” by opposing the war.

Leo told journalists after the latest attack that he was spreading the Christian message of peace. The pope also firmly rejected the idea that he supported nuclear weapons, which the Catholic Church teaches are ​immoral.

Reporting by Joshua McElwee, editing by Alvise Armellini and Deepa Babington

In September 2018 Turner revealed that he had Lewy body dementia, a degenerative nerve disease

International News via Reuters:

Ted Turner, the brash sportsman and entrepreneur whose ambition and instincts led to a media empire that included groundbreaking news network CNN, has died, CNN reported on Wednesday citing a press release from Turner Enterprises. He was 87.

No cause of death was given.

In September 2018 Turner revealed that he had Lewy body dementia, a degenerative nerve disease.

One nickname was not enough for a personality as roguish and bold as Turner’s. He was known variously as the “Mouth of the South,” “Captain Outrageous,” and “Terrible Ted.”

He became a billionaire by taking over his father’s billboard business, buying a television station in 1970 and parlaying that into what would become a vast ground-breaking television group.

Turner became one of the most powerful figures in U.S. media and entertainment, his networks specializing in news, sports, re-runs, and old movies. But he did not stop there. He added the MGM/UA movie studio to his portfolio before making an even bigger move – merging his Turner Broadcasting System with Time Warner in 1996.

Turner headed the new company’s cable networks division and was its leading shareholder, but he had trouble fitting into a corporate system after decades of free-wheeling as his own boss. He eventually lost control of his networks.

Turner also became one of the world’s leading environmentalists, one of the largest land owners in the United States, and a major philanthropist, giving $1 billion to the United Nations.

With a slender mustache, gap-toothed grin, dimpled chin and mischievous glint in his eye, Turner pursued a range of passions. In the 1970s he owned the Atlanta Braves baseball team and the Atlanta Hawks of the National Basketball Association and skippered his yacht the Courageous to the America’s Cup. The many women in his life included Oscar-winning actress Jane Fonda.

In 1986 he started the Goodwill Games, an Olympic-like competition, and two years later bought a wrestling organization that provided more TV content. His concerns about nuclear war led him to co-found the Nuclear Threat Initiative in 2001.

Forbes estimates Turner’s fortune at $2.8 billion.

“If I only had a little humility, I’d be perfect,” he once said.

ROCKY START IN TV

Robert Edward Turner III was born in Cincinnati on November 19, 1938, moving to the South with his family when he was 9. He was sent to military schools where he became a champion debater and yachtsman.

He enrolled at Brown University in Rhode Island and angered his father by studying the classics rather than business. Turner got in trouble for having a girlfriend in his room, among other offenses, and he never graduated.

He joined his family’s advertising company in Savannah, Georgia, selling space on billboards. At 24 he was left in charge after his father killed himself.

The business was sold to pay debts but after a family debate in which Turner was victorious, he repurchased the firm and made it successful. In 1970, against the counsel of advisers, he bought a failing Atlanta UHF television station, now called WTBS, for $2.5 million.

After a rocky start, Turner eventually made the station profitable with low-cost 24-hour programming. The station’s fortunes rose in 1976 after a federal ruling that cable television systems could use satellite signals for programming. By being a satellite pioneer, Turner helped WTBS become the first “superstation,” with programming picked up by local cable systems across the country.

In 1980, he started CNN in Atlanta, which he said would counter “sleazy” coverage by the major networks CBS, NBC and ABC. Offering low pay but the lure of adventure, Turner signed up journalists and technical crew who endured ridicule that the “Chicken Noodle Network” would fail. Instead, as the first 24-hour news outlet, it set a template for worldwide news coverage of wars, trials, revolutions and manmade and natural disasters.

“Barring satellite problems, we won’t be signing off until the world ends,” Turner said in a 2013 CNN interview. In 2018, in the middle of President Donald Trump’s stormy first term, Turner said in an interview that he rarely watched the network he had founded any more, saying that it focused too much on politics.

As a “televisionary,” Turner was named Man of the Year in 1991 by Time magazine for “influencing the dynamic of events and turning viewers in 150 countries into instant witnesses of history.”

In 1996 Time Warner Inc bought his Turner Broadcasting System for $7.5 billion, creating the world’s largest communications company, with properties such as HBO, Warner Bros movie studio, Time magazine, CNN, Cartoon Network and Turner Classic Movies.

In 2001, Time Warner merged with online provider AOL, a $99 billion deal that Turner voted in favor of. But in the ensuing reorganization, he was stripped of his position overseeing the cable networks that he had created and ultimately lost billions as the value of the company’s stock fell. In 2003 he quit as vice chairman and three years later stepped down as a Time Warner director.

He battled depression and often spoke of suicide, according to his biographer.

BLUNT TALKER

In his early days Turner had a reputation as a raucous drinker who bluntly spoke whatever was on his mind.

“I don’t have any idea what I’m going to say,” he once told the New Yorker magazine. “I say what comes to my mind.”

He ticked off the Catholic church when he called some of his employees “Jesus freaks” because of the Ash Wednesday marks on their foreheads and told a group of Germans that after being on the wrong side of two world wars, they could turn things around just as his losing Braves baseball team had done.

Turner had a long-running feud with fellow media mogul Rupert Murdoch that began in 1983 when a Murdoch-sponsored yacht collided with Turner’s boat in an Australian race, which led Turner to challenge Murdoch to a fist fight. Their ill will intensified in 1996 when Murdoch started Fox News as a conservative rival of CNN. Turner called him a warmonger and likened him to Adolf Hitler.

During his ownership of the Atlanta Braves baseball team, Turner appointed himself manager and directed the team for one game, a 2-1 loss to Pittsburgh, in 1977. Baseball officials then ordered him to relinquish the manager’s job.

But he was also a major philanthropist. In 1997 he made philanthropic history by announcing that he was donating $1 billion to fund United Nations operations. In 2017, after the last installment of the donation, Turner called it “the best investment I’ve ever made.”

His Turner Foundation also gave millions to environmental groups, while he promoted and invested in clean energy.

Turner became one of the largest private landowners in the United States with more than 1.9 million acres (770,000 hectares) in six states, including Montana, where he spent much of his time. He owned a herd of some 50,000 bison, which he used to supply a restaurant chain he founded in 2002 called Ted’s Montana Grill. He also owned ranches in Argentina’s Patagonia.

Turner was married and divorced three times and had five children. His third marriage, to Fonda, which lasted 10 years, ended in 2001.

Editing by Rosalba O’Brien

IIF’s quarterly Global Debt Monitor said that strengthening international demand for Japanese and European government bonds contrasted with broadly stable demand for U.S. Treasuries since the start of the year

International News via Reuters:

Investors are showing signs of diversifying away from U.S. Treasuries as global debt levels hit a record of nearly $353 trillion by end-March, a report by the Institute of International Finance published on Wednesday found.

IIF’s quarterly Global Debt Monitor said that strengthening international demand for Japanese and European government bonds contrasted with broadly stable demand for U.S. Treasuries since the start of the year.

“These trends partly reflect diverging debt trajectories, which are increasingly influencing investor allocation decisions,” Emre Tiftik, director at the IIF for Global Markets and Policy, wrote.

“Under current policies, the U.S. debt-to-GDP ratio is expected to continue rising, and recent Congressional Budget Office projections indicate a further deterioration in the long-term fiscal outlook.”

This stood in contrast to debt ratios in the euro zone and Japan, which are projected to follow a more moderate path even with continued fiscal expansion, the report said.

However, U.S. corporate bond markets continue to boom, supported by AI-related issuance and strong overseas inflows.

RISING DEBT LEVELS

Washington’s borrowing push was one of the main drivers for global debt to rise by over $4.4 trillion in the first quarter, the fastest increase since mid‑2025 and the fifth straight quarterly increase, the IIF report said.

Tiftik said the rise in U.S. debt had been largely driven by government borrowing.

He pointed to a sharp acceleration in debt at the start of the year by Chinese non-financial corporate borrowers – predominantly state-owned firms – which significantly outpaced borrowing by the country’s government.

Outside the world’s two biggest economies, debt across mature markets edged lower, while emerging markets, excluding China, saw levels rising modestly to a record $36.8 trillion driven by government borrowing.

Looking at key debt ratios, global debt stood at 305% of world economic output, broadly stable where it had been since 2023. However, debt ratios followed a similar pattern as debt levels – trending lower in mature markets and rising steadily in emerging economies.

Overall, the biggest increases over the past quarter were recorded in Norway, Kuwait, China, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia – each recording gains of more than 30 percentage points of GDP, the IIF report showed.

The IIF predicted that structural pressures – including aging populations, rising spending on defense, energy security and diversification, cybersecurity and AI-related capital expenditure – would push both government and corporate debt levels higher over the medium- to long-term.

“The recent conflict in the Middle East is set to further intensify some of these pressures,” Tiftik said.

Reporting by Karin Strohecker; Editing by Dhara Ranasinghe and Tomasz Janowski

The MV Hondius, carrying 150 people, is expected to reach Tenerife on Saturday, where it will dock after Spain agreed to requests from the World Health Organization to receive it despite protests from the local government

International News via Reuters:

The arrival this weekend of a cruise ship hit by an outbreak of hantavirus is reviving memories for residents of Spain’s Canary Islands of the quarantines they experienced during the Covid pandemic.

The MV Hondius, carrying 150 people, is expected to reach Tenerife on Saturday, where it will dock after Spain agreed to requests from the World Health Organization to receive it despite protests from the local government.

The archipelago was one of the first places in Europe to undergo quarantines during the early days of the pandemic. More than 700 holidaymakers were stranded in a hotel in Tenerife for 14 days in February 2020 after authorities cloistered the compound to prevent the spread of the virus, weeks before it propagated to the rest of Europe.

Other epidemics, such as an outbreak of Ebola in 2014, have also affected the islands, whose economy relies heavily on tourism. The archipelago has also complained that it has had to bear the brunt of a migration crisis from Western Africa.

“We are a community that’s already quite flexible when it comes to helping others and being accommodating to people, but I think this is excessive,” said local resident Margarita Maria, 62. “People are scared, people are worried. Spain is a huge country with plenty of ports where the cruise ship could go.”

The World Health Organization says the risk to the public remains low and the variant detected among passengers can spread between humans only through close, prolonged contact.

Nevertheless, the news was stirring fears that hospitals and health centres on Tenerife would have to be locked down, said a nurse who asked not to be identified.

“It will be just like Covid … People are worried about their children, elderly relatives and the vulnerable,” the nurse said, adding that the islands’ quarantine protocol for viruses, if one was declared, would affect schools and healthcare centres.

All the passengers left on board the ship were not presenting symptoms of the disease and would be repatriated to their countries, while the 14 Spaniards on board would be flown to a hospital in Madrid to quarantine, Spanish Health Minister Monica Garcia said on Wednesday.

Some residents complained that the Canaries’ status as a safe destination meant it always had to shoulder responsibilities other tourist markets shirk.

“Tourist destinations competing with the Canary Islands in the international market, such as Morocco, have not been taken into account, and the decision has been made to bring the cruise ship to the Canary Islands – there must be a reason for that,” said Jorge Marichal, president of Tenerife’s hotels association, Ashotel.

Madrid has failed to communicate what was expected of the archipelago, which was making it difficult to assuage the tourism industry, said the regional government’s tourism minister, Lope Afonso.

Some Canarians worried it could have an impact on Pope Leo’s scheduled visit to the Canaries in June.

“Can you imagine the Pope with hantavirus? That’s a headline we don’t want,” local comedian Omayra Cazorla said on Instagram.

Reporting by Corina Pons and Borja Suarez; writing by Charlie Devereux, Editing by William Maclean

Trump said on Friday he would increase tariffs on EU cars and trucks to 25% this week, from 15% currently, because the EU was not complying with the terms of a deal struck in Scotland last July

International News via Reuters:

EU lawmakers and governments aim on Wednesday to finalise a deal scrapping duties on U.S. imports under renewed pressure from President Donald Trump, though divisions over safeguards dim chances of a swift agreement.

Trump said on Friday he would increase tariffs on EU cars and trucks to 25% this week, from 15% currently, because the EU was not complying with the terms of a deal struck in Scotland last July.

Many EU countries want to ward off that threat and are pushing for swift implementation of legislation to remove import duties on U.S. industrial goods and grant preference access to U.S. farm and sea produce, as set out in the trade accord.

However, nine months after the deal was struck, the European Parliament and the Council, the body representing EU governments, still have to agree a common text before the duty reductions can enter force.

LAWMAKERS WANT TOUGHER SAFEGUARDS

EU lawmakers want tougher safeguards, including suspending the deal if the U.S. fails to comply, making tariff cuts conditional on U.S. action, and ending EU tariff concessions entirely on March 31, 2028.

EU governments had little appetite for inserting such items, one EU diplomat said. Another said the two sides were still far apart, with further talks likely to be required next month.

Manfred Weber, president of the centre-right European People’s Party, the largest group in the European Parliament, said he wanted to see a final vote in the EU assembly in May.

However, that appears ambitious given a number of political groups believe Trump’s latest threat means strong safeguards are essential. 

The car tariff threat cast a shadow over a meeting of G7 trade ministers meeting in Paris on Wednesday.

German Economy Minister Katherina Reiche, whose country would be among those hardest hit by the car tariff increase, said she was in intense talks with U.S. officials and was hopeful they would ‘solve this challenge.”

EU Trade Commissioner Maros Sefcovic said he would be heading to Brussels to attend the negotiations later in the day.

Reporting by Philip BlenkinsopEditing by Bernadette Baum