Manuela Giordano

[Christiane Amanpour @amanpour]

During the Obama administration, “the president wisely made the choice not to agree to Prime Minister Netanyahu's request to be able to go in and bomb and to even join in the bombing,” his former top diplomat John Kerry tells me. “Obama said, ‘No, we're going to try diplomacy.’”

[Jorge Liboreiro @JorgeLiboreiro]

🚨 Just in: EU leaders adopt joint conclusions on Ukraine at 27 for the first time since March 2025.

They also agreed to roll over the sanctions against Russia from 6 to 12 months.

#EUCO

[Scott Robertson @sarobertson_]

Carney: The new world order will be built from Europe. Canada is the most European of non-European countries, and we are transforming our cooperation with the EU ... In a more dangerous and divided world, Canada has chosen to build and work in partnership with Europe.

[Quirinale @Quirinale]

80 anni, buona #FestadellaRepubblica! 🇮🇹

[Paolo Gentiloni @PaoloGentiloni]

https://t.co/7zd2wxyUIA

[Anne Applebaum @anneapplebaum]

Illiberalism is not Inevitable.
Neither MAGA nor Putin get to rule forever.
https://t.co/LExzWbwd1L

[Anne Applebaum @anneapplebaum]

Orban concedes defeat. The support of Trump, Vance, Putin, Lavrov, Weidel, Milei, Le Pen, Fico, Babis and many others could not overcome Hungarian anger at a stagnant, corrupt regime

https://t.co/yfMCWUFk34

[Mike Young @micyoung75]

The Avignon Papacy reference is the detail that demands attention. An American defense official invoked a 14th-century episode in which the French Crown physically relocated the papacy to Avignon and controlled it for 67 years - as an implicit model for what happens to religious institutions that oppose state power.

That's not a slip of the tongue. That's a studied historical reference deployed deliberately in a room with the Pope's senior diplomat. The message was not subtle.

Leo heard it. He spent Holy Week delivering what papal scholars described as a sustained theological argument about the nature of power and imperial violence. On Palm Sunday he said Jesus rejects the prayers of those who wage war. On Easter Sunday - the same morning Trump posted his expletive-filled threat on Truth Social - Leo told world leaders to lay down weapons. On Tuesday he called the civilization threat "truly unacceptable" and asked citizens directly to contact their elected representatives.

The White House's response to the Pope's Tuesday statement: "The Iranian people welcome the sound of bombs because it means their oppressors are losing."

The first American pope will spend America's 250th birthday on Lampedusa with migrants. One Vatican official told The Free Press: "The Pope may well never visit the United States under this administration."

The Pentagon summoned a cardinal and invoked the Avignon Papacy. The Pope responded by asking 1.4 billion Catholics to call their congressmen.

[Pedro Sánchez @sanchezcastejon]

Netanyahu ha impedido a los católicos celebrar el Domingo de Ramos en los Lugares Santos de Jerusalén. Sin explicación alguna. Sin razones ni motivos.

Desde el Gobierno de España condenamos este ataque injustificado a la libertad religiosa y exigimos a Israel que respete la diversidad de credos y el derecho internacional. Porque sin tolerancia es imposible convivir.

[Manuela Giordano @manuelawdc]

@andy_corah @TheCinesthetic 🔝this.

[Ukraine Donor Platform @UAdonorplatform]

Our 16th Steering Committee took place in Kyiv today, bringing together Ukraine’s key partners to advance work on budgetary support, reconstruction, reform, private sector engagement abd social recovery. Together, we #StandWithUkraine https://t.co/PYHuIVh4Ej

[Alex Kane @alexbkane]

A New York Times investigation indicates that it was a US strike on an Iranian school that killed 175 people, mostly children. https://t.co/YoR5WY3bWn

[Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand]

This is genuinely extraordinary: https://t.co/bCioDPpxC4

Speaking is General Sir Richard Shirreff, NATO's former Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe.

He says that the UK "should not, in any way, shape or form be involved with the Americans because they are being led by a couple of gung-ho nutters like Trump and Hegseth without a proper strategy and without serious thought about what the end state for this war is."

He goes on: "Yet again we have an American president who has gone to war, a war of choice, a war of hubris frankly, without ANY [the emphasis is his] clear idea of how the war ends and without any clear strategy." He predicts that "this thing is going to go south very, very quickly."

He highlights in particular just how foolish it was to kill Ayatollah Khamenei: "The idea of assassinating the Ayatollah Khamenei who was not just Iran's head of state but he was the religious symbol for Shiites worldwide. Assassinating him during the month of Ramadan is about as subtle as murdering the Pope on the steps of St Peter's in Holy Week. It will inflame the Shiite world and what you're doing by doing that is probably pushing large numbers of Iranians who might have been reconcilable, who might have thought about rising up, back into the fold of the irreconcilable."

[Al Jazeera English @AJEnglish]

BREAKING: The UN’s nuclear watchdog chief, Rafael Grossi, says inspectors have not found evidence of a coordinated Iranian programme to build nuclear weapons despite Israeli and US claims.

🔴 LIVE updates: https://t.co/Pp5PMsskiW

[ian bremmer @ianbremmer]

grossi wants to be un secretary general and american support is crucial for his candidacy. he wouldn’t be saying this unless he really believes it.

[hanna 🐉 @hannaeeliz]

”i promise to continue to be disobedient so that you can belong to a world in all your mad, complex wildness as a young woman” — jessie buckley dedicating her bafta to her daughter

[Science girl @sciencegirl]

After 144 years of construction, the Sagrada Família in Barcelona has reached its full height with the placement of the final piece atop its central tower.

📹davidcantor

[Manuela Giordano @manuelawdc]

@TheCinesthetic 🙌🏻 yes

[Tom Scott 🇺🇦 @Tom___Scott]

65-year-old British woman in the US on the "trip of a lifetime", with a valid tourist visa, was arrested by ICE, shackled, transported & held for weeks on end.

Do NOT travel to the US under any circumstances.
https://t.co/Yj77Gvt6DK

[Ukraine Donor Platform @UAdonorplatform]

The @UAdonorplatform has agreed five key objectives for 2026, covering macro-financial stability, recovery and reconstruction, critical reforms, private sector investment and social aspects of recovery.

https://t.co/wtxDI5iZjx

Together, we #StandWithUkraine️ 💪 🇺🇦