Italian President Mattarella recovering after pacemaker implantation
Italian President Sergio Mattarella is said to be in a stable condition after receiving a pacemaker.
According to sources close to him, the 83-year-old underwent planned surgery at the Santo Spirito hospital in Rome on Monday evening.
It was initially unclear how long he would have to stay in hospital.
Mattarella has been in office since February 2015, making him one of the longest-serving heads of state in Europe.
He is the longest-serving president in his home country since the end of World War II.
He is considered to have considerable moral authority across party lines. Italy has been ruled by a coalition of three far-right and conservative parties for two and a half years.
Before becoming president, Sicilian-born Mattarella served as a member of the Chamber of Deputies for 25 years, originally for the Christian Democrats and later for the Social Democrats.
He served as education minister in 1989 and 1990, and as defence minister from 1999 to 2001.
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Who holds the cards in Trump vs. Musk? Trump, but …
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In other words: Make sure you think long and hard about what you do next, because you could live to regret it. So assuming for the moment that this feud continues, who holds the cards? There is no question that, if truly forced to choose, the vast majority of Republican powerbrokers would choose Trump. But it's not quite so simple. Vice President JD Vance, after hours of somewhat conspicuous silence Thursday, eventually came down firmly in Trump's corner (in case there was any doubt) – albeit without criticizing Musk. Other Trump allies who aren't fond of Musk and his influence seemed to seize on the opportunity to try and excommunicate him – in Steve Bannon's case, somewhat literally, as he suggested Trump should deport the South African-born Musk, who's now a US citizen. Musk — the wealthiest man in the world — is a relative newcomer to politics, having only really joined the conservative movement less than a year ago (after the assassination attempt against Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania). Trump, by contrast, often seems to have an almost cult-like influence over his side of the political divide, transforming the GOP into one that's much more about loyalty to him than any particular set of ideals or principles. The president often flip-flops – Musk on Thursday noted Trump was once a professed deficit hawk just like him – and the base often flips right alongside him. When Trump says something baseless or false (like that the 2020 election was stolen) much of his party internalizes it and rallies around it. This is Trump's party, full stop. But when it comes to how much this feud could matter, it's not quite as simple as who picks what side. Musk retains real influence, and that's why we're seeing many Republicans resist that binary choice. A persistent rift with Musk would force Republicans to reckon with some uneasy dynamics. Musk's overall popularity has clearly taken a hit as the Department of Government Efficiency has fallen out of favor. And he's definitely not as popular as Trump is on the right. Musk's personal politics and tech-world background always made this a somewhat uneasy marriage with Trump, and the president's agenda bill has unearthed some of those tensions. But Musk has retained significant Republican support even as the DOGE effort has struggled. In fact, his stature eclipses most Republicans not named Trump or Vance. An April Reuters/Ipsos poll, for instance, showed 54% of Republicans had a 'very favorable' opinion of Trump, and 50% said the same of Trump's vice president. But Musk wasn't far behind, at 43%. He was well ahead of other Trump administration figures like Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth (33%) and then-national security adviser Michael Waltz (18%). Similarly, a more recent Marquette University Law School poll showed Musk's 'very favorable' number among all Americans (22%) coming up just shy of Trump (25%) and matching Vance. And that's even after the polling decline of DOGE. Musk's DOGE work has also remained quite popular in GOP circles. An April New York Times/Siena College poll showed 63% of Republicans and 70% of Trump voters said they 'strongly support' the cuts made by Musk and DOGE. The flip side is that even if Republicans really like Musk – in numbers that aren't that far from Trump's own – that doesn't mean their devotion to him is comparable. It's possible to really like two people but clearly like one of them more. And there have been signs that Republicans don't necessarily want more of Musk. Polling from Quinnipiac University in early April, for example, showed while 71% of Republicans said he had about the right amount of power to make decisions in the Trump administration, just 8% thought he had too little. 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New York Post
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Elon Musk bashes Steve Bannon as ‘a criminal' after podcast host urges Trump to seize SpaceX
WASHINGTON — Elon Musk lashed out at Trump ally Steve Bannon Friday, calling the former White House chief strategist 'a criminal' after he urged the president to seize the Musk's SpaceX company and to deport the South African-born billionaire. Replying to an X post rehashing Bannon's call for Trump to use the Defense Production Act to take over Musk's space exploration company, the Tesla CEO posted that 'Bannon advocates crime, because he is a criminal.' Musk and Trump have been publicly fighting over the big beautiful bill — leaving MAGAworld divided. Molly Riley/White House / SWNS Musk, 53, became a naturalized American citizen in 2002. Bannon, 71, served four months in federal prison after being convicted in July 2022 of two counts of contempt of Congress for refusing to give documents and testimony to the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. He was released in October of last year. Here is the latest on Donald Trump and Elon Musk's feud Trump, 78, also granted Bannon a pardon during the final moments of his first term in office, getting him off the hook for federal charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering after allegedly defrauding donors to a fund advertised as helping construct a wall along the US-Mexico border. Bannon advocates crime, because he is a criminal — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 6, 2025 Musk's broadside at Bannon came amid a still-simmering feud with Trump over the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, during which the Tesla boss threatened to decommission SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft — used by NASA to take astronauts and supplies to the International Space Station — before later backing off. Bannon was pardoned on fraud charges, but later convicted of contempt of Congress and ordered to spend 4 months in prison. Gregory P. Mango The Defense Production Act would allow the federal government to take over private assets such as SpaceX; however, the company would have to be deemed critical to national security.
