Top Stories — Wednesday, April 22, 2026
What is trending in the USA today? Here is Breaking News:
- Pope Leo Is Skipping Some of Africa’s Biggest Catholic Nations — nyt News
- A Year After Terrorist Attack, a Kashmir Town Longs for Tourists — nyt News
- Hormuz is just a ‘dry run’ if China and U.S. go to war in the Pacific, Singapore foreign minister warns — CNBC
Pope Leo Is Skipping Some of Africa’s Biggest Catholic Nations
Source: nyt News • Published: 4/22/2026, 9:31:07 AM
From the point of view of pastoral efficiency, some of the nations that Pope Leo XIV has visited on his African tour this month make a lot of sense. Cameroon and Angola, for example, are each home to millions of Catholics.
But in other African nations that fuel Catholicism’s global growth — nations not on the Pope’s itinerary — some are puzzled by their exclusion.
The Pope spent three days in almost entirely Muslim Algeria, home to only a few thousand Catholics. On Tuesday, he began a two-day trip in Equatorial Guinea, which is majority Catholic but one of the continent’s smallest countries.
He is bypassing the Democratic Republic of Congo and Nigeria, which together are home to some 90 million Catholics.
Some see the visits to Equatorial Guinea and Algeria as important missionary work. Others said they hoped their papal visit from Leo would come in the future. Still others wondered whether security concerns, such as the war in eastern Congo or recent terrorist attacks in Nigeria, kept the pope away.
A Vatican spokesman did not respond to a request for comment about how Pope Leo’s itinerary was decided, and why the continent’s biggest Catholic nations were bypassed.
Many craved his presence. “Africa is suffering, and we need peace,” said Francine Mukweya Catherus, 52, the assistant director of the choir at the Lumiere de Saint Leonard church in Kinshasa. Here are four mostly Catholic nations on the continent that didn’t make the cut for Leo’s first visit to Africa as pope.
Congo is home to 55 million Catholics, and the Central African country’s high fertility rate means it is an essential part of the church’s global future.
Pope Francis visited the country in 2023, drawing millions of people to meetings and masses in the capital, Kinshasa. For this reason, many Congolese Catholics said they understood why their country didn’t make the cut. “When he came to Kinshasa, other countries were not visited either,” Mrs. Catherus said.
Since that visit, however, the stakes have changed. The long-running conflict in the country’s east has escalated, with thousands of innocent people killed along the border with Rwanda.
In Congo, the Roman Catholic Church is one of the few institutions capable of challenging the state; church leaders have publicly opposed President Félix Tshisekedi’s proposed constitutional changes, warning that they could further destabilize the country.
Angelique Mitaku, 57, a Catholic who attends St. Leonard’s parish in Mazale, said she hoped the pope would use his tour in Africa to challenge African leaders to restore peace. She viewed him as one of the few people who could “bring together the Rwandan and Congolese presidents for sincere and Christian discussions to find solutions.”
“God will not come down from the sky to resolve our problems,” she said, but the pope could plead for peace. “We expect this support from him.”
Nigeria has the continent’s biggest population, and, after Congo, the highest number of Catholics. Yet no pope has visited the country since 1998, when John Paul II arrived to beatify the Rev. Cyprian Michael Iwene Tansi, a Nigerian monk known for his simple life and devotion to the poor.
At the time of that visit, Williams Oboshi Ari, who was raised in a Catholic family, was a child. Now 32 and a medical administrator in the central state of Nasarawa, Mr. Ari said he felt “very, very bad” when he heard about Leo’s itinerary. To him, Nigeria should be a stop on any papal tour of Africa, especially given the security crises in the country.
For years, communities in rural Nigeria have suffered mass killings and kidnappings perpetrated by extremist groups like Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa Province, as well as armed bandits. Though the victims are of all faiths, yearslong efforts to persuade the Trump administration to view the crisis through the lens of Christian persecution have lately gained traction.
If he had come to Nigeria, Leo would likely have had to address this issue.
“Maybe he wants to avoid all those controversies,” Mr. Ari said.
Other young Nigerians interpreted their country’s omission differently. Naomi Peters Omoruwa, 28, argued that the pope is perhaps less needed in Nigeria because it already has one of the world’s youngest and most active Catholic populations. Visiting other countries is “a chance to reach out to people who may not yet have a strong relationship with God,” she said.
Nigeria is such a colossus that it needs a visit all its own, said Cardinal emeritus John Olorunfemi Onaiyekan, the retired archbishop of Abuja. “We cannot be packed onto an African tour,” he said.
In Kenya, unlike in the United States and Europe, attending daily mass is still a common practice for many Catholics — 74 percent say they attend daily or weekly.
The devotion in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, is visible daily. On Monday, people arrived for Mass at the main Catholic church in Nairobi after work.
The church, the Cathedral Basilica of the Holy Family, is close to government buildings and the Kenyan Parliament. Those who attended Mass included civil servants and small business people.
Several Kenyans said they had no idea that the Pope was visiting Africa this month. Aside from mild surprise, none said they took his absence in East Africa as a slight.
Coming to the continent at all “means he is with us together because Africa is one nation,” said Josephene Mwende, 28. “Maybe he will come to Kenya one day. Hopefully.”
Last year, Pope Leo appointed the first African-born bishop to lead a diocese in the mainland United States. That bishop, Simon Peter Engurait, is from Uganda. Now serving in Louisiana, he has spoken of the challenges of trying to get young Americans interested in the Catholic faith.
But that is less of a problem where he is from.
Uganda’s Catholic population has exploded to 21 million. Africa is the only continent where the number of seminarians is growing. Many of them become missionaries abroad, including in Europe and the United States, two places that traditionally sent missionaries to Africa.
Uganda is one of the engines of this switch. The country is producing many young priests who travel abroad to serve the emptying churches of the West.
Francis Twesigye, a Catholic from western Uganda, said he was sad Leo would not be visiting, in part because he had missed Francis, who made a papal visit in 2015. “I had no money to travel to Kampala to see him,” he said, referring to the capital.
But Geodon Peter Ssebulime, a parishioner in the Nsambya neighborhood of the city, endorsed the pope visiting countries with smaller numbers of Catholics. He noted that both John Paul II and Francis visited Uganda and Kenya.
“It sends a message of openness and encourages better relations with non-Catholics,” he said.
Reporting was contributed by Babatunde Samuel from Lagos, Nigeria; Matthew Mpoke Bigg from Nairobi, Kenya; Musinguzi Blanshe from Kampala, Uganda; and Motoko Rich from Rome.
Ruth Maclean is the West Africa bureau chief for The Times, covering 25 countries including Nigeria, Congo, the countries in the Sahel region as well as Central Africa.
Read the full story at nyt News.
A Year After Terrorist Attack, a Kashmir Town Longs for Tourists
Source: nyt News • Published: 4/22/2026, 9:30:09 AM
The pony handlers are usually busy this time of year saddling up a steady stream of tourists near Pahalgam, a hill town in the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir. But as they lined the road that leads up from the valley last weekend, only a few cars passed by.
Instead of frenetic haggling over rides into the meadows, there were long stretches of idleness.
“We just wait,” said Shabir Ahmad, who has worked here for more than a decade. “Sometimes a customer comes. Sometimes there is no one for hours.”
A year ago, on April 22, 2025, three men armed with assault rifles stormed a lush meadow and opened fire on tourists in Pahalgam, a town in the southern part of Indian-administered Kashmir. The attack turned a popular picnic spot, in a picturesque region that locals often call a “mini Switzerland,” into the scene of a massacre.
Of the 26 people killed, 25 were Hindus, many of them singled out and shot in cold blood. The other was a Kashmiri Muslim pony handler who had tried to stop the attackers. The killings triggered a raging, four-day military conflict between India and Pakistan. (India accused Pakistan of sponsoring the terrorist attack; Pakistan denied any involvement.) Both countries control parts of Jammu and Kashmir but claim the region as a whole.
By the time President Trump declared the conflict over, relations between India, Pakistan and the United States had been reordered.
Tourism across the broader Jammu and Kashmir region was badly hit in the aftermath of the attack but has shown a gradual revival, according to Peer Zahid Ahmad, deputy director for tourism in the regional administration. Figures are still being compiled, he said, but the industry was now “in a more comfortable position.”.
Local business leaders are less sanguine. Javed Burza, president of the Pahalgam Hotels and Owners Association, said hotel bookings were at about 30 percent of previous levels.
Hoteliers say they have cut their staff by more than half. Along the road from Anantnag to Pahalgam, dozens of small juice stalls and roadside cafes have shut down. Many pony handlers said they knew colleagues who have left the trade and taken up work as day laborers at nearby construction sites.
“I had to pull my two daughters out of their private school and put them in a local government school,” said Nisar Ahmad Khatana, 42, who handled ponies. “There was no money coming in.”
Tourism in Muslim-majority Kashmir has long depended on middle-class visitors from the cities and plains of India, most of them Hindus. Their numbers were suppressed throughout the long militancy that began in 1989, when targeted violence and fear drove many Kashmiri Hindus out of the valley. Hundreds of thousands of Indian soldiers and paramilitary have outnumbered paying guests for many stretches since then.
But after 2019, when the Hindu-nationalist government led by Narendra Modi abolished Kashmir’s special status as a state and declared that it would be ruled directly from New Delhi, mainstream tourists headed there. The flow paused during the Covid-19 pandemic, but, whether from a sense of assurance about security or national pride, the industry was back.
Pahalgam, with steep ravines, grassy hillsides and pine forests that give way to open meadows at the top of the narrow valley, also lies along the route of the annual Amarnath Yatra, which brings hundreds of thousands of pilgrims each summer to visit a Hindu shrine high in the Himalayas.
A senior police official said regional security was significantly stepped up after the attack. Nearly 400,000 people made it to the holy cave shrine in July and August last year — down only about 20 percent from 2024.
Locals say they hope this year’s pilgrimage will help kick-start tourism more broadly, after a year of losses, in places like Pahalgam that are wholly dependent on visitors.
Near a small viewpoint overlooking a shallow stream, Bashir Ahmad Bhat, 45, sat on the ground with a stack of shawls folded beside him. In the past, he said, he could make about 5,000 rupees, roughly $60, in sales on a good day. Now he makes barely 1,000 or 1,500 rupees a day; there are days when he sells nothing at all.
“What else can we do?” he said.
In the main market, shops remained open. Shelves were stacked with shawls, dry fruits, and souvenirs. Shopkeepers sat behind counters, watching occasional visitors walk past.
At a restaurant nearby, Ajaz Ahmad, 31, moved between tables taking orders and checking on staff. He has worked in this restaurant for 14 years, most recently as a floor manager.
In January 2025, just months before the attack, he decided to start his own restaurant. He took out a bank loan, sold his wife’s jewelry, and hired 25 employees.
“For four months everything was going well,” he said. “Then suddenly it all stopped.”
Within weeks, he shut the restaurant and returned to his former job
“Coming back like this was not easy.”
Residents say the change in Pahalgam is visible not only in numbers but in rhythm. Streets that were once crowded are mostly empty.
Mr. Burza of the hotels association said some travel agents now steer visitors away from Pahalgam.
“In the years before the attack, millions of tourists coming to Kashmir would have Pahalgam as their first stop,” he said. “Now it is not even 30 percent of what it used to be.”
On the outskirts of town, Mohammad Aslam Chopan, 38, stood holding a white pigeon in his hands.
In earlier years, he brought several birds to popular viewpoints, offering tourists the chance to take photographs holding them. Payments were small, but steady enough to support his household.
After the attack, visitors stopped coming. “For eight months, whenever I fed them and I cried,” he said.
Now he has returned to the same spots, but his earnings are minimal.
On a recent afternoon, a small group of visitors stopped near him. Among them was Devyani Jana from the Indian state of West Bengal, who was traveling with her family.
She paused near the viewpoint where Mr. Chopan stood and agreed to take a photograph with one of his pigeons. She handed him 50 rupees, about half a dollar.
She said she had been unsure about the trip at first. “People told us to be careful,” she said. “But we wanted to come.”
Read the full story at nyt News.
Hormuz is just a ‘dry run’ if China and U.S. go to war in the Pacific, Singapore foreign minister warns
Source: CNBC • Published: 4/22/2026, 9:28:33 AM
Should a war break out between China and the U.S. in the Pacific, "what you are seeing in the Strait of Hormuz will be a dry run," Singapore Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan said Wednesday.
Balakrishnan made the remarks at CNBC's CONVERGE LIVE event in Singapore, responding to a question on whether the city-state was facing any pressure from Washington and Beijing to choose between the two.
Singapore has relationships with both the countries, and is uniquely positioned to take advantage of developments in the U.S. and China, Balakrishnan told CNBC's Steve Sedgwick.
The U.S. is Singapore's largest foreign investor with around 6,000 American companies based in the city-state. Singapore also runs a goods trade deficit with Washington to the tune of about $3.6 billion, according to the office of the U.S. Trade Representative.
Meanwhile, China has been Singapore's largest trading partner, and Singapore has been China's largest foreign investor.
Singapore will "refuse to choose" one over the other, he added. "The way we conduct our affairs is we assess what is in Singapore's long term national interests, and if I have to say no to Washington or Beijing or anyone else, we don't flinch from that."
"We are acting in our own long term national interest. We will be useful, but we will not be made use of," he added.
Separately, Balakrishnan also said that said the conflict in the Middle East had shown that "chokepoints matter," pointing out that Singapore also sits astride one of the world's critical trade arteries in the form of the Strait of Malacca.
At its narrowest point, the Strait of Malacca is two nautical miles, compared to 21 nautical miles for the Strait of Hormuz.
The minister was also asked if the actions of Iran in trying to extract tolls from ships passing the Strait of Hormuz would be have other countries thinking of also collecting tolls through chokepoints such as the Strait of Malacca.
In March, Iran's state media reported that Tehran was preparing legislation that would impose tolls on ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz.
Balakrishnan said that it was a risk if this scenario came to fruition, but the states alongside the Strait of Malacca — Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia — have a strategic interest in keeping it open and not collecting tolls.
"With respect to both America and China, we have told both of them we operate on the basis of UNCLOS," he said, referring to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
Article 44 of UNCLOS states that "States bordering straits shall not hamper transit passage ... There shall be no suspension of transit passage."
"The right of transit passage is guaranteed for everyone. We will not participate in any attempts to close or interdict or to impose tolls in our neighborhood," Balakrishnan said.
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