Rome
CNN
 — 

US Vice President JD Vance met senior Vatican officials on Saturday for talks that follow sharp criticism by Pope Francis of the Trump administration’s immigration policy.

The Vatican said that during the meeting an “exchange of opinions” took place concerning migrants, refugees, and prisoners.

The vice president, a Catholic, has been visiting Rome with his family over the Easter weekend and attended a Good Friday service in St. Peter’s Basilica.

On Saturday morning, he met Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Holy See Secretary of State, and Archbishop Paul Gallagher, the Vatican’s foreign minister. Any meeting with Pope Francis, who is continuing to recover from double pneumonia, has not been confirmed.

Saturday’s meeting represents the first in-person talks between the Holy See and the second Trump presidency and comes amid tensions between leaders of the Catholic Church and the Trump administration.

“There was an exchange of opinions on the international situation, especially regarding countries affected by war, political tensions and difficult humanitarian situations, with particular attention to migrants, refugees, and prisoners,” according to a Vatican communique released following the meeting.

Vance’s office later released its own readout, which stated that the vice president and Parolin discussed “their shared religious faith, Catholicism in the United States, the plight of persecuted Christian communities around the world, and President Trump’s commitment to restoring world peace.”

The statement shared photos from the Vatican showing Vance smiling while greeting Parolin, Vance laughing at a table with Vatican officials, and Vance and his children walking through the Vatican alongside its famed Swiss Guards.

Ahead of Saturday’s talks, Parolin told Italian newspaper La Repubblica that the “current US administration is very different from what we are used to and, especially in the West, from what we have relied on for many years.”

With regards to the Trump administration’s push for a ceasefire in Ukraine, the cardinal said the Holy See “clearly supports the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine,” and that “it is up to the Ukrainians themselves to decide what they are willing to negotiate or potentially concede from their perspective.”

Just before he was hospitalized in mid-February, Francis issued a rebuke of the Trump administration’s immigration policy and refuted the vice president’s use of a theological concept, the “ordo amoris” (“order of love” or “order of charity”), to defend the administration’s approach.

“The true ‘ordo amoris’ that must be promoted is that which we discover by meditating constantly on the parable of the ‘Good Samaritan,’ that is, by meditating on the love that builds a fraternity open to all, without exception,” the pope wrote in a letter to the US bishops.

The Vatican has also expressed concern about the USAID cuts imposed since January, while a US bishop born in El Salvador has called for Catholics to resist deportations by the Trump administration, which have included to prisons in El Salvador.

But after Catholic bishops criticized the Trump administration’s actions on immigration, Vance suggested they were motivated by their “bottom line,” as the Catholic Church receives government money to help resettle immigrants. The bishops’ conference said in response that the federal funds do not cover their costs for this work.

The Vatican statement released following the meeting with Vance on Saturday said that during the talks “hope was expressed for serene collaboration between the State and the Catholic Church in the United States, whose valuable service to the most vulnerable people was acknowledged.”

Despite any tensions, the Vatican is used to talking to leaders with whom it disagrees and the statement noted “the good existing bilateral relations between the Holy See and the United States of America, and the common commitment to protect the right to freedom of religion and conscience was reiterated.”

CNN
 — 

The Trump administration is ready to recognize Russian control of Crimea as part of the US proposal to drive an end to the war with Ukraine, an official familiar with the framework told CNN on Friday.

Crimea, southern Ukraine, has been under Russian occupation since it was illegally annexed in 2014. Four other Ukrainian regions – Donetsk and Luhansk in the east and Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in the south – have also been partially occupied by Russia since its full-scale invasion in 2022.

There has been no immediate comment from Kyiv but the suggestion the US could recognize Russian control of Crimea is unlikely to be welcomed – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in March that his government would not recognize any occupied territories as Russian, calling that a “red line.”

Zelensky said at the time that the territories would “probably be one of the most sensitive and difficult issues” in peace negotiations, adding that, “for us, the red line is the recognition of the Ukrainian temporarily occupied territories as Russian. We will not go for it.”

The US proposal for an end to the war would also put a ceasefire in place along the front lines of the conflict, the source told CNN on Friday.

The framework was shared with the Europeans and the Ukrainians in Paris, France, on Thursday, the source said. It was also communicated to the Russians in a phone call between US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

Despite US President Donald Trump’s claim that he would be able to end the war in Ukraine in one day, American attempts to reach a peace agreement have largely stalled in the face of Russian intransigence, leading to a growing sense of frustration in the White House.

After Rubio warned Friday that the US was ready to “move on” from efforts to bring peace to Ukraine within days if there were no tangible signs of progress, Trump offered a less hardline approach, saying that Rubio was “right” but projecting more optimism about the prospects of a deal.

Pressed on a timeline for the US to walk away, Trump said: “No specific number of days, but quickly, we want to get it done.”

The source that spoke to CNN on Friday said that there are still pieces of the framework to be filled out, adding that the US plans to work with the Europeans and the Ukrainians on that next week in London.

The Trump administration is simultaneously planning another meeting between Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and the Russians to get Moscow on board with the framework, the source said.

Russia has imposed a brutal and repressive regime on Crimea and its people over the past 11 years, human rights observers say, stomping out any sign of opposition.

The UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine has repeatedly reported on the human rights violations allegedly committed by Russia in occupied Crimea – from unlawful detentions, to sexual abuse and torture, to forcing people to send their children to Russian schools and training programs.

Russia has repeatedly denied accusations of human rights abuses, despite substantial evidence and victim testimonies.

Roughly 2.5 million people lived in Crimea before 2014 and many more would regularly visit the tourist hotspot, known for its beaches and nature reserves.

According to official data from the Ukrainian government, more than 64,000 have fled the peninsula to other parts of Ukraine since the annexation. However, Crimean NGOs estimate the number of refugees might be twice as high, as not everyone has officially registered with the government.

Meanwhile, Moscow has worked on its plan to “Russify” the peninsula. It put in place incentives to persuade Russian citizens to relocate to Crimea and the Ukrainian government estimated in 2023 that some 500,000 to 800,000 Russians had moved there permanently since it was annexed, with the number jumping sharply after the opening of the Kerch bridge that connects Crimea to Russia.

Maksym Vishchyk, a lawyer at Global Rights Compliance, a non-profit that advises the Ukrainian authorities on investigating and prosecuting international crimes, said Moscow has repeated the same pattern across other occupied territories.

“When Russia occupied the Crimean peninsula, it commenced a campaign of systematic targeting of communities or individuals it perceived as those who became an obstacle in the Russification campaign… with devastating effects on the social fabric in general, but also communities, families and individuals,” he told CNN in an interview last year.

“And Crimea has been kind of their playbook. Policies and patterns and tactics (Russia) applied in Crimea were then applied as well in other occupied territories. So, we see essentially the same patterns in all occupied territories, both since 2014 and since 2022.”

London
CNN
 — 

The United Kingdom’s Supreme Court has ruled that a woman is defined by “biological sex” under the country’s equality law – excluding transgender women – in a case that is expected to impact accommodations for trans women in bathrooms, hospital wards, sports clubs and more.

The court ruling on Wednesday is limited to defining the term “woman” within the country’s Equality Act 2010, meaning trans women are no longer protected from discrimination as women, although they remain protected from discrimination in other forms.

But in practice, the impacts of the ruling are likely to be wider than the court suggested. The UK’s equalities regulator has said it will issue new guidance on single-sex spaces following the decision.

The ruling has also energized the polarized debate surrounding transgender rights.

Judges said the ruling should not be seen as the victory of one side over another. But trans rights advocacy groups have called that “an insult” and condemned the court decision as exclusionary, contradictory and concerning for the trans and non-binary communities.

The group of women’s rights campaigners that brought the case, For Women Scotland, popped champagne corks outside the court and said it was grateful for a decision that recognized the need for protections based on biological differences.

Here’s what the ruling means in practice:

Implications for equalities law and single-sex spaces

The head of the UK’s Equality and Human Rights Commission said Thursday that it will issue new guidance on single-sex spaces by this summer.

Those spaces will likely include women-only bathrooms, changing rooms, hospital wards, hostels, prisons, sports clubs, domestic violence women’s shelters and more.

Kishwer Falkner, the chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), said in an interview with the BBC on Thursday that “the ruling is enormously consequential,” and it brings “clarity” that “single-sex services like changing rooms, must be based on biological sex.”

Falkner said that trans people can advocate for neutral third spaces, such as unisex toilets or changing rooms, given that “the law is quite clear” that they “should not be using that single-sex facility.”

Falkner also said the UK’s National Health Service must update its guidance on single-sex medical wards to be based on biological sex. Current NHS policy is that trans people should be accommodated according to the way they dress, their names and their pronouns.

The ruling will also have implications for policing and prisons. The British Transport Police said in a statement that it would adopt an interim position that “any same sex searches in custody are to be undertaken in accordance with the biological birth sex of the detainee.”

Meanwhile, many businesses and organizations have said they are reviewing the ruling and not yet making any changes. British media report that the EHRC has been inundated with questions from businesses and public bodies regarding what the ruling means for schools, office buildings and women’s charities.

“Our updated guidance will cover service providers and public authorities, as well as some other areas; so both schools and sports clubs will be covered,” a spokesperson for the EHRC told CNN.

Trans people remain protected from discrimination on the grounds of gender reassignment, which is a protected characteristic under the equality legislation. The law also protects against discrimination by perception, which is when someone thinks you are the opposite sex.

The Supreme Court decision will impact women’s sports, but exactly how is unclear given that new guidance is in the works and many sports bodies and grassroots sports organizations already have their own policies in place.

Faulkner echoed the stance of World Athletics, telling the BBC that trans women cannot take part in women’s sports.

Guidance on transgender inclusion has already been published by all the sports councils covering England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, as well as UK Sport, which supports high-performance athletes. But it’s not yet clear how that guidance will be updated.

“We are now considering what the ruling means for grassroots sports and clubs,” a Sport England spokesperson said in a statement.

The trans community is “absolutely devastated, because this is clear that but there is no upside to this. We have been basically stripped of the right to exist within UK society,” said jane fae, one of the directors of the advocacy group TransActual UK.

“What this has done is we’ve put the UK back from where it was in terms of human rights,” fae told CNN, adding that the ruling appears to undermine the UK’s Gender Recognition Act 2004. “Here we are 20 years later, and it’s been completely, effectively thrown out of the window.”

Under that act, trans women could obtain a gender recognition certificate (GRC) for legal recognition of their female gender. But following the Supreme Court Ruling, those certificates appear to be only relevant in terms of deaths, marriages and pensions.

While the UK equalities watchdog talked of “clarity,” trans rights campaigners have said the Supreme Court Ruling raised more questions than answers, especially when it comes to the utility of gender recognition certificates and enforcement of “women’s spaces.”

TransActual has criticized the court for not providing a clear definition of the terms “women’s spaces” or “biological sex.” The ruling says a biological woman is someone “who was at birth of the female sex,” but it’s unclear how intersex people fit into the ruling or what accommodations should be made for trans women who have female anatomy parts (like breasts).

Although the court said it was not its place to rule on public arguments on the meaning of gender or sex, the decision has taken aim at a central argument of trans activists and progressive groups — that trans women are women.

And in doing so, it has ignited fears of broader “culture wars,” divisive policies and new restrictions in the UK.

On gendered bathrooms, for example, “the UK has had a much more laissez-faire attitude… what we seem likely to be about to see is the sort of imposition of an American style, ‘this is how loos should be,’ sort of thing,” fae said. “It’s Trump-ian.”

Following the ruling, JK Rowling, who financially backed the case, posted on social media: “I love it when a plan comes together.” The author and women’s rights campaigner has been previously criticized for anti-trans comments.

Other campaigners celebrated outside the court, singing “women’s rights are human rights” and holding up signs reading “Fact is not hate: only women get pregnant.”

But the backlash has been swift. Other women’s rights groups and LGBTQ+ advocacy organizations have condemned the ruling and said it rolls back protections provided by the Equality Act.

“Any backsliding should be of concern to everyone that stands against discrimination and oppression in all its forms,” said Scottish feminist organization Engender.

Stonewall, an LGBTQ+ rights charity, said that it shared “the deep concern at the widespread implications” of the court ruling. “It will be incredibly worrying for the trans community and all of us who support them,” it said in a statement, also highlighting that trans people are still protected against discrimination.

A coalition of pro-trans organizations and unions has called for a protest in London on Saturday, saying that the ruling “represents the culmination of the concerted transphobic campaigning we have seen in recent years.”

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has so far been silent on the ruling. But a UK government spokesperson said single-sex spaces “will always be protected by this government.”

“We have always supported the protection of single-sex spaces based on biological sex. This ruling brings clarity and confidence, for women and service providers such as hospitals, refuges, and sports clubs,” the spokesperson said.

Starmer and the Labour Party have long struggled with how to address issues of sex and gender. The Supreme Court Decision means the prime minister can avoid wading into the divisive debate and point to the court’s language.

Meanwhile, the opposition Conservative Party has attacked him for past statements that trans women are women and calling for inclusivity in the debate.

“Saying ‘trans women are women’ was never true in fact and now isn’t true in law, either,” Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch said in reaction to the court ruling which see called “a victory for all of the women who faced personal abuse or lost their jobs for stating the obvious.”

Badenoch has also called for a review of equality acts and the Gender Recognition Act “to ensure that they are there to prevent discrimination, not for social engineering.”

The government’s next challenge will be wrestling with how to ensure public bodies, businesses and organizations implement the changes surrounding single-sex spaces.