Italy's Prime Minister Enrico Letta will step down after his own party launched a no-confidence vote against him, paving the way for the young and popular mayor of Florence to assume the post.
The Wall Street Journal reports:
"Mr. Letta's resignation brings an end to a government that is barely 10 months old and has teetered on the brink of collapse virtually from its birth. It will clear the way for [President Giorgio] Napolitano to ask Matteo Renzi to try to form a new government."
Scotland, as we've told you previously, is voting later this year on breaking away from the U.K.
Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond had said that the new country would retain the pound as its currency and take on a portion of the U.K.'s debt. Britain's message today [Thursday]: Not so fast.
"If Scotland walks away from the U.K., it walks away from the pound," said Chancellor George Osborne. [You can watch his comments here.]
Osborne's remarks were supported by members of all three major parties: the ruling Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, as well as the opposition Labour. The chancellor's comments came after recommendations made by Sir Nicholas Macpherson, the senior civil servant at the Treasury. He said a currency union with an independent Scotland was "fraught with difficulty."
Salmond, Scotland's first minister, supports independence, and he reacted angrily to Osborne's remarks, calling them "bluff, bluster and posturing." And, he said, if there was no deal on the pound, there won't be a deal on the U.K.'s $2.67 trillion debt, either.
"All the debt accrued up to the point of independence belongs legally to the Treasury, as they confirmed last month – and Scotland can't default on debt that's not legally ours," he said in a statement. "However, we've always taken the fair and reasonable position that Scotland should meet a fair share of the costs of that debt. But assets and liabilities go hand in hand, and – contrary to the assertions today – sterling and the Bank of England are clearly shared UK assets."
Osborne's remarks mark a hardening of the anti-independence posture by the U.K.'s politicians. Just last week, Prime Minister David Cameron made a speech in which he urged the rest of the U.K. – England, Wales and Northern Ireland – to tell Scottish voters to reject independence when they vote in September.
"If we lost Scotland, if the U.K. changed, we would rip the rug from under our own reputation," he said. "The plain fact is we matter more in the world together."
It's unclear what a "yes" vote for independence would mean economically. Diageo, the company that owns whisky brands such as Johnnie Walker, says it would make no difference, a comment echoed by the head of Barclays bank. The head of the oil giant BP, however, says independence would create "uncertainties."
Polls show that support for independence is low, but many Scots are still undecided.
Comcast, as we reported earlier, wants to buy Time Warner Cable for about $45 billion. The deal, which Comcast confirmed this morning, would bring together the nation's No. 1 (Comcast) and No. 2 (Time Warner) cable companies.
NPR's David Folkenflik filed this report for our Newscast Desk:
"If the deal goes through, Comcast will serve about thirty million American households in cable tv alone
"The news was broken by a reporter for one of Comcast's many television properties — CNBC. Comcast also owns NBC and Universal studios. The purchase would stave off a lesser bid for Time Warner by a smaller rival, Charter, and it would give Comcast more leverage when it negotiates with the parent companies of such major cable channels as Fox News and ESPN over how much to pay to carry their programming.
"Federal anti-trust lawyers at the Justice Department are likely to review the deal, which would mean fewer players competing to win cable franchises from regional and local governments.
"Time Warner Cable itself is a remnant of an even larger mega-deal - the creation of AOL Time Warner — now considered one of the worst mergers in U.S. history."
Fifteen years ago an unwelcome viral visitor entered the U.S., and we've been paying for it ever since.
The U.S recorded its first case of West Nile virus back in 1999. Since then, the disease has spread across the lower 48 states and cost the country around $800 million, scientists reported this week in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.
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