A new documentary about Carlo Acutis, the Catholic teenager known as “God’s Influencer,” has drawn an extraordinary television audience in Italy.

Titled My Name Is Carlo, the film explores Acutis’s short but remarkable life and attracted almost 4.3 million viewers when it aired on Canale 5 on Sunday.

The broadcast captured close to 30 per cent of the overall viewing audience. According to Italian media reports, the figure climbed to about 40 per cent at the documentary’s peak.

It charts the story of Acutis, who died from leukaemia in 2006 at the age of 15 and was canonised by Pope Leo in September 2025.

Italian actor Samuele Carrino portrays Acutis in the documentary. Born in London on May 3, 1991, the future saint came from a wealthy family that later returned to Milan.

Acutis gained the nickname “God’s Influencer” because of his pioneering use of technology. Among his most significant projects was a multilingual website cataloguing Eucharistic miracles acknowledged by the Catholic Church.

The Catholic Church declared him a saint after recognising two miracles attributed to his intercession.

The first was approved in 2020 and involved the healing of a child suffering from a pancreatic condition.

The child’s Brazilian mother had prayed to Acutis before kissing a relic of his clothing. Soon after Mass, her son told her that he felt well again.

Subsequent medical examinations found that the boy’s pancreas had returned to normal.

The second miracle was confirmed in 2024. It concerned a Costa Rican woman who suffered a severe brain haemorrhage after falling from her bicycle in Italy. Her mother prayed at Acutis’s tomb, after which the woman was said to have made a remarkable recovery.

On the same day, despite doctors warning that she was unlikely to survive, the woman began breathing without assistance.

By the following day, she could walk on her own. Doctors examining the case later reported that the signs of the haemorrhage had vanished.

Acutis’s popularity has also made Assisi a major pilgrimage destination, with estimates suggesting that more than one million people have visited the hilltop town to see where his body rests.

His remains were exhumed in 2019 and placed in a glass tomb, where they have been displayed dressed in a tracksuit and trainers.

Acutis was the son of an Italian mother and a banker father who was half English and half Italian. Although his parents were not especially religious, he developed a deeply committed Catholic faith.

Raised in Milan, he attended Mass every day and became known for helping vulnerable people, including children targeted by bullies and those experiencing homelessness. He regularly gave homeless people food and sleeping bags.

His interest in digital communication led him to manage his local parish website and later the website of a Vatican-based academy, using both platforms to share Catholic teachings.

At 11, Acutis became fascinated by accounts of Eucharistic miracles, including stories of wine turning into blood in Croatian castles and Colombian priests using reliquaries to halt advancing tsunamis.

He would then look up these tales and post them on his website, which he had designed to document miracles and stories about saints. 

Antonia Salzano, his mother, said her son had a ‘special relationship’ with God from an early age, even though her family was not religious.

Aged seven, Acutis wrote: ‘My life plan is to be always close to Jesus.’

It was a commitment he would carry with him throughout his life before it was cut short by cancer of the blood in 2006.

Carlo’s diagnosis with leukaemia in October 2006 came as a horrifying shock.

The disease can take several forms but affects the blood cells in bone marrow. 

Symptoms include tiredness, bruising and bleeding, repeated infections and high temperatures, per Blood Cancer UK.

The disease overwhelmingly affects young people. While it is not currently curable, it is possible to treat.

In spite of his diagnosis, Carlo reassured his parents: ‘I’m happy to die because I’ve lived my life without wasting even a minute of it doing things that wouldn’t have pleased God.’

WASHINGTON — A former member of the Democratic Socialists of America is warning that the far-left organization’s expanding influence could reshape Democratic politics ahead of the November midterm elections.

Jake Altman told the Times of London that he left the DSA in 2022 after nearly 10 years with the group. His departure followed the organization’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, when it called for the United States to withdraw from NATO and described the alliance as “imperialist expansionism that set the stage for this conflict.”

“I felt anger and confirmation that the organization had gone completely off the deep end and there’s nothing to be salvaged,” said Altman, who lives in Michigan. “There’s no point in remaining in an organization that’s been taken over by people like this.”

“There were people who knew better on the inside, and they just did nothing. It’s very similar to what’s happening to the Democratic Party now,” he added.

The DSA’s platform includes abolishing the Senate—a step some scholars argue may not be achievable even through the constitutional amendment process—along with making the president and Supreme Court subservient to Congress and defunding the Pentagon.

Senior DSA figures have also advocated defunding the police, eliminating Immigration and Customs Enforcement and imposing sanctions on Israel over its war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Despite those positions, DSA members have won Democratic primaries in at least six House races. Even more candidates who align with the group’s values have secured victories in contests across the country.

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“My concern is that high-propensity Democratic Party primary voters, who tend to be the most engaged and the most ideological, have become radicalized, particularly the affluent ones. I’m troubled because there’s an underbelly to this movement,” said Altman, who says he is supporting Republican Mike Rogers over Democrat Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan’s closely watched Senate race.

“My view is we cannot let these extremists get power because they really are dangerous,” he continued. “Even the ones who have good intentions will do things that will have profound consequences for ordinary Americans.”

Altman, a native of Iowa and former union organizer, said he joined the DSA in response to the economic decline that affected the Rust Belt during his childhood in the 1990s and early 2000s.

The Times of London reported that the median age of DSA members was about 68 when Altman joined in 2013. By 2018, the median age had been cut in half.

“The Bernie Sanders movement [in 2016] and then AOC’s victory [in 2018] brought a lot of fuel and energy,” Altman said. “It was showing we can actually do this. It was proof of concept that they could achieve their goal, which was to change the Democratic Party.”

Altman now believes the DSA has been taken over by younger radicals. He also warned that “among some hardcore activists, there is a thrill to violence.”

“We need a renaissance of democracy where locals begin to take control back from national organizations that have become very extreme,” he concluded. “We all have a responsibility to try to stop this but I don’t think there are enough people resisting.”

The DSA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Dennis Haskins, best known for playing Principal Richard Belding on the 1990s sitcom “Saved by the Bell,” has died at age 75, his agent confirmed.

“It’s a tragic loss,” agent Jay Schachter said. “Everyone loved Mr. Belding, and those of us who knew Dennis loved him even more. He was a great person, and he absolutely loved his fans. No matter what, he always made time for them.”

No cause of death was immediately disclosed.

Haskins was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and attended the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, according to a biography published on the university’s website.

He built a wide-ranging acting career with guest appearances on shows including “The Twilight Zone” and “Magnum, P.I.,” according to IMDb. His most recognizable role came on “Saved by the Bell,” where Principal Belding became known for his signature outburst: “Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, what is going on here?”

Haskins continued working in television and film, with appearances in productions such as “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.”

Schachter said Haskins’ death has left him devastated.

“He was my client and dear friend for over 20 years, and I will miss him terribly,” Schachter said. “I’m heartbroken.”