London
CNN
 — 

Businesses in Germany and Britain produced less this month amid worries about President Donald Trump’s near-universal tariffs, in another sign that the global damage from his import levies is adding up.

Closely watched surveys of purchasing managers showed Wednesday that private sector output contracted in Germany, Europe’s biggest economy, and the United Kingdom.

“Tariff concerns and uncertainty weighed on business confidence and demand,” S&P Global and Hamburg Commercial Bank, which publish the survey of German companies, said in a news release.

Likewise, in the UK, “survey respondents widely commented on the negative impact of US tariffs and a subsequent slump in confidence among clients,” S&P Global said.

The first reading of Germany’s Purchasing Managers’ Index, which tracks activity in the manufacturing and service sectors, came in at 49.7, from 51.3 in March. A reading below 50 indicates a contraction.

The downturn is probably the result of multiple forces, said economists at Berenberg, a bank.

“Beyond international headwinds such as the tariff-related uncertainty, this likely also reflects the broad-based domestic economic weakness,” they wrote in a note.

Early data already points to a slump in global trade in the face of Trump’s import taxes. South Korea’s Customs Service reported that exports for the first 20 days of April declined 5.2% compared with the same period last year. That singular data point is a “key bellwether” for where trade is heading, Min Joo Kang, a senior economist at ING, said in a note Monday.

On Tuesday, the International Monetary Fund downgraded its economic growth forecasts for numerous countries, including the United States, Germany and the UK, and joined a chorus of warnings from economists and business leaders about economic damage from US tariffs. The Washington, DC-based institution said Trump’s unpredictable tariff policy and countermeasures by America’s trading partners will likely deal a heavy blow to economies worldwide.

Survey data for the UK bore out that gloomy view. The country’s PMI reading came in at 48.2 this month, the lowest since November 2022.

“There is no doubt that the chilling effect of the US president’s tariffs has slowed UK growth,” said Rob Wood, chief UK economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, a research firm, although he added that he doesn’t see a recession.

The broader eurozone economy, which includes Germany but not Britain, has held up better, according to the survey for the region. The PMI reading for the 20 countries that use the euro stood at 50.1 this month, indicating broadly flat output.

However, that was the lowest number in four months and new orders fell at the fastest pace so far in 2025.

Data for the surveys was collected between April 9-22.

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CNN
 — 

A skeleton recovered from an intriguing Roman-era cemetery in England may mark the first physical evidence of combat between gladiators and animals, according to new research.

The skeleton of a man, who was between the ages of 26 and 35 when he died, was found with bite marks from a large cat — likely a lion — on the pelvis. The man died and was buried in a grave between 1,825 and 1,725 years ago in an area now known as York, England. The study was published Wednesday in the journal PLOS One.

Archaeologists with the York Archaeological Trust recovered the remains from Driffield Terrace, which they consider to be a gladiator graveyard.

The spot sits along the old Roman road leading out of York and got its graveyard designation after archaeologists announced the discovery of 82 skeletons of able-bodied young men in a 2010 documentary called “Gladiators: Back From the Dead.”

While the Romans documented fights between humans as well as humans and animals in artwork and records, the physical evidence of gladiators and the battles they faced for the sake of entertaining others is scarce, the study authors said.

“For years, our understanding of Roman gladiatorial combat and animal spectacles has relied heavily on historical texts and artistic depictions,” said lead study author Tim Thompson, a professor of anthropology and vice president for students and learning at Maynooth University in Ireland, in a statement. “This discovery provides the first direct, physical evidence that such events took place in this period, reshaping our perception of Roman entertainment culture in the region.”

The findings highlight the wide-ranging effects of the Roman Empire across England, showing that gladiator arenas that featured animals imported from other countries were part of the culture and lifestyle far from the reaches of the Colosseum in Rome.

Burials didn’t take place within settlements during the Roman period, leading the dead to be cremated or buried alongside major roads, the authors said in the study.

When construction in the area led to archaeological evaluations in 2004, researchers uncovered the Driffield Terrace cemetery. Many of the men’s remains carried evidence of training, trauma, healed injuries and unusual funeral rites such as decapitation. Analysis of tooth enamel also showed the men came from a broad range of Roman provinces from around the world.

While researchers have carried out extensive studies on the cemetery and its remains, a mystery lingered: a skeleton with unexplained depressions on the pelvis that resembled bites from a carnivore.

As part of the new study, the researchers created three-dimensional scans of the markings and compared them with bites from various carnivores. The comparison showed the bite marks likely came from a large cat, most likely a lion.

“The bite marks were likely made by a lion, which confirms that the skeletons buried at the cemetery were gladiators, rather than soldiers or slaves, as initially thought and represent the first osteological confirmation of human interaction with large carnivores in a combat or entertainment setting in the Roman world,” said study coauthor Malin Holst, lecturer in osteoarchaeology at the University of York’s department of archaeology, in a statement. Holst is also the managing director of York Osteoarchaeology, which specializes in the excavation, analysis and reporting of human remains.

Surviving texts and artwork demonstrate that such encounters between men and beasts were staged during arena spectacles in the Roman Empire, said Kathleen M. Coleman, James Loeb Professor of the Classics at Harvard University. Coleman was not involved in the research.

“But images can travel to areas where the events themselves do not take place, so on their own they are not conclusive evidence that animal combat took place there,” Coleman said. “That is why the new skeleton is so important.”

Additional analysis of the man’s bones showed he recovered from malnutrition as a child but had spinal issues due to overloading his back and inflammation of his lungs and thighs.

The man was likely a bestarius, or a gladiator that went up against beasts, and whose role was filled by volunteers or slaves.

“(Gladiators) could become famous and could buy their freedom, so we have a better understanding now of the complex social world they inhabited,” said Barry Molloy, an associate professor in the school of archaeology at University College Dublin, who was not involved in the study. “What we see in art might be considered to be ‘the money shots’ or what we might imagine the Romans viewed as the ‘coolest kills’ that the patron of the art wanted to show their audience. You can imagine in the arena, with an armed person fighting for their life, the winner of human vs. animal battles was not a foregone conclusion.”

Gladiators were viewed as athletes at the time, and their owners wanted them to win so they would be able to fight again, the study authors said. The lion bite never healed, which suggests it led to or caused his death, and the man was decapitated after death. While this was a funeral rite for some in the Roman period, the researchers think the man was decapitated as a mercy killing after the lion bite.

“This is a hugely exciting find because we can now start to build a better image of what these gladiators were like in life, and it also confirms the presence of large cats, and potentially other exotic animals, in arenas in cities such as York, and how they too had to defend themselves from the threat of death,” Malin said.

But how did a gladiator arena, and a lion, end up in northeast England?

Images of sparring gladiators, sometimes with one another or with beasts, memorialized in ancient mosaics and pottery recall the Roman Colosseum, “which would have been the classical world’s Wembley Stadium of combat,” said David Jennings, CEO of York Archaeology and a doctoral researcher in the department of archaeology at University of York. Jennings did not participate in the new research.

But such brutal sporting events had an extensive reach beyond the core Roman territories, and while an amphitheater likely existed in Roman York, it hasn’t been discovered yet, Malin said.

York began as the Roman city of Eboracum, which was founded as a fortress in the year 71 AD, and soldiers remained there until the end of the Roman period in the early fifth century, according to the study authors. Researchers think gladiator-style arena events were occurring there as late as the fourth century because the city hosted many senior generals and politicians, as well as Constantine, who was proclaimed emperor by his troops in Eboracum in AD 306.

The new findings indicate that Britain was well integrated into the customs and systems of the Roman Empire at its peak and provide evidence that Roman entertainments were widespread across the empire, said Jaclyn Neel, an associate professor of Greek and Roman studies at Carleton University in Ottawa. Neel was not involved in the research.

But the presence of lions, rather than local wild boar and deer, in York provided a unique twist for the researchers. Mosaics, such as the “Corridor of the Great Hunt” located in the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Villa Romana del Casale in Piazza Armerina, Sicily, depict how large animals were captured and transported to Rome for sport.

“The exact context for this encounter might have been a contest between a professional beast-fighter and the lion, which would have been exciting for the spectators, who might even have laid bets as to who would win,” Coleman said. “Or it could have been a form of execution in which a criminal is exposed to wild animals, in which case presumably the spectators would enjoy the satisfaction of seeing justice being done, since a criminal would not elicit any pity.”

The lion was likely transported along well-established supply routes that also carried bulk supplies of wine, oil and grain across continental Europe and the Mediterranean to York given that it was a legionary base, said study coauthor Dr. John Pearce, reader in archaeology and classics at King’s College London. Big cats like lions would have been captured in northern Africa, then transported across the sea before being moved across a network of rivers and eventually the road from London to York.

“As tangible witnesses to spectacles in Britain’s Roman amphitheatres, the bitemarks help us appreciate these spaces as settings for brutal demonstrations of power. They make an important contribution to desanitizing our Roman past,” Pearce said in a statement.

If the man who faced the lion was a professional hunter, as indicated in the study, the entertainment of watching human and a lion interact in the arena was probably more like bullfighting in Spain, Neel said.

“I do think it’s important to not exoticize the Romans — they were much more familiar with death than most modern North Americans, but that doesn’t mean that they tried to kill as many people as possible,” she said. “Roman culture emphasized the control of man over nature. A beast hunt, to me, is a theatrical re-enactment of that control. Romans thus used the beast hunts to reinforce a sense of human superiority over nature, even for the spectators.”

The skeleton will be part of the Roman exhibition “DIG: An Archaeological Adventure in St. Saviorugate” in York, while a 3D scan of the bite mark and other depictions of gladiatorial fights in Britain are part of the traveling “Gladiators of Britain,” a British Museum partnership exhibition currently on display at the Dorset Museum & Art Gallery.

CNN
 — 

“The Art of the Deal” opens with an exhausting fly-on-the-wall account of a week in the life of Donald Trump the real-estate shark. He’s never still, always on the phone and cranking out deal-after-deal with big business pals.

The president hoped the first 100 days of his second term would uncork a similar torrent of dealmaking as depicted in the seminal text of Trumpism.

But Trump has softened his tone on his trade war with China; he blinked over reciprocal tariffs on dozens of other nations; and he is fast losing patience with the Ukraine war, which he had predicted he’d end in 24 hours. Deals are proving more elusive when the stakes are not skyscrapers and casinos but entire economies, the credibility of powerful foreign leaders and national sovereignty.

Trump’s belief that every policy issue is a win-lose proposition has dominated his return to the White House – and has led to some nominal successes.

He’s worked out, for example, how to use his considerable executive authority as leverage against an adversary. By threatening to cut security clearances, he won concessions from some top law firms. By brandishing billions of dollars in government funding, he flexed power over several top universities. This is all ethically and constitutionally questionable. But it’s all about chalking up “wins.”

Trump’s fellow businessmen understand the game. The president offered an opt-out from 145% Chinese tariffs to iPhones following an “Art of the Deal”-style call with Apple CEO Tim Cook.

But the president is also finding out that geopolitics and global trade negotiations have little in common with selling a condo.

China and Ukraine resist Trump’s pressure

So far, the endless stream of stunning trade deals predicted by the president’s staff after he paused many tariffs for 90 days hasn’t materialized.

China has balked at being bullied.

And despite the president’s growing fury, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has refused so far to accept onerous US conditions for ending the war started by Russian President Vladimir Putin – who has received no such pressure.

If Trump does pull a fair peace deal out of the hat in Ukraine, he’ll potentially save tens of thousands of lives and end three years of vicious killing. If he can rebalance US trade with China, he’ll go some way to redressing economic injustices in industrialized regions gutted by globalization.

None of these initiatives are closed. But they are all testing the core mythology of Trump as dealmaker that is crucial to his political appeal.

He caricatured his own approach taken to its logical and cruel extremes earlier this year when he suggested moving Gaza’s entire population of more than 2 million people out of the territory devastated by Israel’s war with Hamas. He promised that this feat of ethnic cleansing would allow the US to build the “Riviera of the Middle East” with no thought of the dignity and sovereignty of Palestinians.

Not surprisingly, his hopes for forging Middle East peace have stalled.

China’s President Xi Jinping doesn’t do diplomacy by phone.

Beijing’s preference for formal, painstaking lower-level talks among officials before presidents meet means Trump’s approach to his China trade war was questionable from the start – as was the idea that Xi would bend following the humiliation of facing 145% tariffs that Trump slapped on Chinese goods. After all, his nationalist political project is based on remaking a world that he regards as unfairly shaped by American power.

Almost all US presidents over the last 20 years have been frustrated at China’s refusal to open its markets to US products, among other issues, including Chinese intellectual property theft. Intimidating Beijing might have worked 25 years ago. But China is now a superpower. It can hurt the US as much as the US can hurt China.

“I think the Chinese are going to feel vindicated,” Richard Haass, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations told CNN’s Kasie Hunt. “We imposed tariffs on China; China pushed back with large tariffs of their own. It looks to be the United States that is backing down. From China’s point of view, this is how they hoped it would play out.”

Beijing’s refusal to blink was predictable, although the White House, which seems to lack expertise on China, appeared surprised.

“If a negotiated solution is truly what the US wants, it should stop threatening and blackmailing China and seek dialogue based on equality, respect and mutual benefit,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said Wednesday. “To keep asking for a deal while exerting extreme pressure is not the right way to deal with China and simply will not work.”

Trump’s statements on Tuesday and Wednesday that tariffs wouldn’t stay near 145% and that he wouldn’t play “hardball” with Xi were a clear change of emphasis from a White House that had been demanding a call from the Chinese leader. It comes amid rising political pressure in the US – not least from tanking stock markets destabilized by Trump’s tariff policies, which have crushed the 401(k) pension plans of many Americans. Next year’s midterm elections are already spooking GOP lawmakers. Trump just met with CEOs who warned of supply chain crunches and shortages if China tariffs stay high. And a new Pew Research poll found Wednesday that the president’s approval rating has slumped to 40% — down 7 percentage points since early February.

China might have learned from the previous episode of Trump’s tariff war, which was marked by an earlier climbdown. Earlier this month, the president paused reciprocal tariffs on dozens of countries only hours after they’d come into force. He admitted he’d been watching alarming developments in the bond market as America’s reputation as a safe investment haven came under severe pressure.

The White House saved face on that occasion by arguing that scores of nations were lining up with attractive trade deals to bring to the president. But so far, no final agreements have emerged. Genuine trade deals typically take years to negotiate, since they require politicians of all sides to make painful political concessions on issues that often impact powerful constituencies. The US is, for example, insisting that Europe open its markets to US meats from hormone-raised livestock, a concession EU leaders would struggle to impose on their voters.

Despite the evidence of China’s hardline statecraft, Trump still appears convinced that what he calls his “great relationship” with Xi will unlock a deal quickly. “Everything’s active. Everybody wants to be a part of what we’re doing,” he told reporters on Wednesday. Hours later however, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who is being credited with masterminding Trump’s walk back on tariffs laid out a less optimistic timeline for meaningful change in trade with China. He spoke of a “two- to three-year timeline for the full rebalancing” of the relationship – in a scenario that would require Beijing’s cooperation.

The White House insists that Trump’s policy is working already. It regularly publishes lists of incoming investment to the United States. It’s true that some nations are using such inflows to impress the president. But this might also signal that they think they can buy him off with flashy headlines without fundamentally altering the character of their full trading relationship.

Still, many Trump supporters retain their belief in his mystical dealmaking powers. “Trump is an incredibly strategic negotiator. He’s the best there is, “ former Trump adviser Stephen Moore told CNN’s Brianna Keilar. “Eventually … they (China) will come to the negotiating table and the US will come out ahead in this negotiation because the situation is so unlevel right now.”

Trump’s attempts to impose his vision and will on Ukraine mean that his efforts to forge a peace deal have been as unsuccessful as his trade wars. As with China, some of his approaches appear not to appreciate the political forces acting on foreign leaders.

The president, for instance, expressed frustration with Zelensky on Wednesday because of his failure to sign up to a US-drafted agreement that appears to lock in many of Russia’s goals while compromising Ukraine’s sovereignty.

“The situation for Ukraine is dire — He can have Peace or, he can fight for another three years before losing the whole Country,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “We are very close to a Deal, but the man with ‘no cards to play’ should now, finally, GET IT DONE.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the president’s “patience is running very thin.” She added, “He needs to see this thing come to an end.”

Trump is angry about Zelensky’s opposition to America’s proposed recognition of Russian sovereignty over Crimea – a region annexed illegally by Putin in 2014.

Yuriy Boyechko, CEO of Hope for Ukraine, a nonprofit organization, explained such a move would be politically impossible for Zelensky. “The only way it can be done is through a change of (the) Ukrainian constitution, and to get that done, referendums need to take place; the Ukrainian Parliament has to approve this amendment to the constitution; and (Ukraine’s) highest court has to rectify this before Crimea can be recognized as Russian territory.”

Boyechko added, “Surrendering Ukrainian territory to Russian occupiers will never be ratified by the Ukrainian Parliament and the Ukrainian people will never vote for it.”

The US approach comes after weeks Trump repeatedly escalated pressure on Ukraine while bringing his plans more closely in line with Russia’s goals, a process accelerated by US envoy Steve Witkoff’s frequent visits to Putin. The administration is also trying to negotiate a deal to exploit Ukraine’s rare earth mineral resources, which critics have likened to economic colonization of a vulnerable nation.

While Trump is angry at Ukraine, he’s convinced Putin is ready to deal – despite a lack of evidence that he’d compromise any of his goals to eventually destroy Ukrainian independence.

“I think Russia is ready. I think we have a deal with Russia,” Trump said Wednesday in the Oval Office, once again empathizing with the aggressor rather than the victim of the conflict.

At the start of “The Art of the Deal,” Trump wrote that while other people paint beautifully or write wonderful poetry, “deals are my art form.”

The world is wondering whether he’s lost his touch.