Pope Rhymes With Hope

Good evening,

This week made one thing painfully clear: politics is no longer just how we govern—it’s how we see the world. Even God is now filtered through a partisan lens.

Nothing seems sacred anymore. Not science. Not education. Not even basic morality. When the Catholic Church named its first American pope this week, some hailed his decades of service to the poor and sick. Others branded him “woke” for believing in human dignity, compassion, and equality.

Politics has seeped into our minds like black mold—creeping into every crack of society, warping our judgment, staining even the holiest spaces. A man who devoted his life to Christ is seen not as a shepherd, but as a symbol in someone’s culture war.

We’ve lost the ability to see each other as human beings first. Can we still remember how?

The world is now led by two powerful American men: Donald Trump, who can dictate the actions of the most powerful nation on Earth—and Pope Leo XIV, who holds the hearts, minds, and ears of 1.4 billion Catholics worldwide.

If ever there was a battle between good and evil in our lifetimes—this might be it.

More on Pope Leo XIV below, but first:

THE LATEST

Rumeysa Ozturk – the Tufts graduate student who was kidnapped off the street by plain-clothes ICE agents in March– was released today after a judge ruled she had been "unlawfully" detained without evidence except for an op-ed she co-wrote for her school newspaper.

This doesn't mean that the Trump Administration can't or won't deport Ozturk – who is here from Turkey on a student visa.

GAZA

For 68 days, Israel has prevented life-saving aid—provided by humanitarian organizations and other countries—from entering Gaza. Inside the enclave, food and medicine are in dangerously short supply. Fuel—needed for cooking and to run water desalination plants—is also scarce.

UNICEF says more than 9,000 children have been treated for acute malnutrition since January 2025; 1,400 of them are so severely affected they will die without treatment. Israel has destroyed more than half of Gaza’s hospitals.

Community kitchens that once fed tens of thousands have shut down due to lack of supplies—including World Central Kitchen, which says it has served 130 million meals in Gaza over the last 18 months but no longer has the supplies they need – which happen to be sitting in trucks just outside Gaza’s border, waiting to be allowed in by Israel.

According to the UN, half of Gaza’s population—nearly one million people—were surviving on one meal a day from charity kitchens before they ran out of food and shut down. Seventy-five percent of households don’t have enough drinking water.

The Israeli government has plainly stated that no aid will be allowed in until Hamas concedes to its demands—an act that constitutes starvation as a weapon of war, which is explicitly prohibited under international law.

But Israel doesn’t seem to care. Israel’s genocidal finance minister and overlord of the Occupied West Bank, Bezalel Smotrich, said this week that “Gaza will be entirely destroyed” and that Palestinians will be forced out “in great numbers” to other countries. Also known as ethnic cleansing.

Sure to cover all their bases, Israel denies that there is any food shortage—but also claims Hamas is stealing most of the aid and reselling it for millions to fund operations—a charge aid groups say they have not seen any evidence of.

Journalist Jonathan Cook – using BBC as an example – writes that the media’s failure to mention that Netanyahu is wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity, including starving civilians as a weapon of war, “is all the more unconscionable on this occasion,” given that Netanyahu is explicitly doing the thing he’s charged with.

“In any other circumstance, it would strike you as obvious that starving children en masse is morally abhorrent, and that anyone who does it, or excuses it, is a monster. The role of the BBC is to persuade you that what should be obvious to you is, in fact, more complicated than you can appreciate.

"There may be skin-and-bones babies, but there are also hostages. There may be tens of thousands of children being slaughtered, but there is also a risk of antisemitism. Israeli officials may be calling for the eradication of the Palestinian people, but the Jewish state they run needs to be preserved at all costs… If we could spend five minutes in Gaza without the constant, babbling distractions of these so-called journalists, the truth would be clear. It’s a genocide. It was always a genocide.”

PART OF THE PLAN

But this appears to be part of a broader strategy. This week, Israel’s security cabinet unanimously agreed to invoke an ethnic cleansing plan called “Gideon’s Chariots” unless Hamas accepts its demands. Israel wants some hostages released and the right to continue military operations. Hamas, by contrast, is demanding a permanent Israeli withdrawal and a full cessation of hostilities.

Israel says the deadline to accept the deal is May 15, which coincides with the final day of Trump’s three-day trip to the Middle East, where he’s scheduled to visit Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE. He is not expected to visit Israel. (More on that below)

Over the last 18 months, Israel has seized roughly 50% of Gaza’s land, slowly carving out what it calls a “buffer zone”—almost certainly in violation of international law. The newly sanctioned plan would squeeze two million Palestinians into the remaining slivers while the IDF controls the perimeter and controversial private security firms (think: Blackwater in Iraq) manage aid distribution. These firms would operate just 4–10 food centers, capable of feeding only about 60% of the starving population in the initial phase. Israel began calling up 70,000 reservists to implement the plan but walked it back after public backlash from within Israel.

Israel has made clear that its intention is a permanent occupation of Gaza.

“One thing will be clear: there will be no in-and-out,” Netanyahu said in a video posted to X on Monday. “We’ll call up reserves to come, hold territory—we’re not going to enter and then exit the area, only to carry out raids afterward. That’s not the plan. The intention is the opposite.”

Why use private security firms? Possibly because the UN has said it won’t cooperate with Israel’s plan, warning that it punishes “the less mobile” and “the most vulnerable people” and “contravenes fundamental humanitarian principles and appears designed to reinforce control over life-sustaining items as a pressure tactic—as part of a military strategy. It is dangerous, driving civilians into militarized zones to collect rations, threatening lives, including those of humanitarian workers, while further entrenching forced displacement… Humanitarian action responds to people’s needs, wherever they are.”

Meanwhile, Hamas maintains its position:

“The resistance remains committed to a comprehensive agreement—one that includes a complete cessation of the war and a clear roadmap for the day after.” (Jeremy Scahill on Substack)

A TURNING POINT?

As Israel and Yemen’s Houthis traded tit-for-tat strikes this week, Trump made a surprise declaration during a meeting Tuesday with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney: the Houthis had “capitulated” to the U.S. and agreed not to target American vessels in the Red Sea—attacks they’ve been carrying out since last year to protest the U.S. and Israel’s war on Gaza. In exchange, the U.S. would also stop attacking.

“They just don’t want to fight, and we will honor that,” Trump told a room full of surprised and skeptical reporters—one of whom asked where he’d heard the news.

Turns out it was true—with one major caveat: the agreement, brokered by Oman, did not include Israel, which the Houthis say they’ll continue to target. Trump had not informed Israel before making the announcement, prompting Netanyahu to acknowledge publicly that Israel is on its own.

As more details emerged, observers were left wondering: Is there bad blood between Trump and Netanyahu—and what does that mean for Gaza and beyond?

Just the day before, Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom reported that Netanyahu was frustrated with Trump, saying his actions often didn’t match his words. The day after Trump’s declaration, Israel Hayom then reported that Trump was “disappointed” with Netanyahu and wants to move on without him.

True rift or political theater? Hard to say. But several data points suggest the two headstrong narcissistic leaders may be at a fissure point:

• Trump leaves for a planned Middle East trip on Monday. Notably, he is not scheduled to stop in Israel. Axios reports that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was scheduled to visit Israel to meet with his counterpart Monday and meet Trump in Saudi Arabia later. Now, Hegseth has cancelled the meeting in Israel, claiming Trump has asked him to join him sooner. Is this like faking an emergency to get out of a party?
• Trump fired National Security Adviser Mike Waltz the week prior—presumably for adding a reporter to a Signal chat about an imminent U.S. attack on the Houthis. But The Washington Post reports Trump was also angry that Waltz was backing Netanyahu’s hawkish Iran strategy. “Waltz appeared to have engaged in intense coordination with Netanyahu about military options against Iran ahead of an Oval Office meeting between the Israeli leader and Trump,” the Post reported, citing two sources.
• When asked about the Houthi deal—and why Israel wasn’t informed—the U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee responded that the U.S. “isn’t required to get permission from Israel to make some type of arrangement that would get the Houthis from firing on our ships.” (Oh, snap. Could have fooled us, though).
• The Times of Israel reports that the U.S. has dropped its demand that Saudi Arabia normalize relations with Israel as a condition for continuing nuclear talks.

SO, LIKE, IS "WOKE" BAD?

A conclave of 133 cardinals chose Robert Prevost—an American-born man who has spent most of his life in Peru—as the Catholic Church’s first American pope, and the 267th in its history.

Prevost was widely seen as a dark-horse candidate. Many pundits and “experts” dismissed his chances precisely because he’s American. The longstanding belief has been that the Church wouldn’t choose an American pope because the U.S. already wields disproportionate global power. But in a moment when much of the world is mired in war and conflict, ruled by sycophantic politicians and corrupt leaders, it’s hard not to wonder: Can Pope Leo, a man of God—with his American ties and sensibilities (he’s Chicago-born, a Villanova graduate, and a White Sox fan)—change the tide or at least smack some sense into people?

Prevost, who is ideologically close to Pope Francis, speaks five languages and previously held a position that required working closely with bishops around the world—giving him a global perspective many others lacked. As Axios reports, he was seen “as close to his predecessor both personally and in terms of outlook, but somewhat more moderate in temperament and on some ideological questions than the more fiery Francis. That made him a continuity candidate but also a plausibly acceptable choice for some who had quibbles with Francis.” (Axios)

Within hours of the announcement, sleuths on the internet began digging through Prevost’s social media history—landing on his X page, where he has reshared articles in support of George Floyd, refugees, and, most notably, a post titled: “JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love for others.” In today’s political climate, that headline alone stirred both admiration and backlash.

Non-Catholics, too, have expressed hope that Pope Leo — while not perfect (some claim he has ignored sex abuse charges against priests under his purview) — may offer a moral counterweight to the political chaos.

PAKISTAN v. INDIA

India launched a retaliatory attack on Pakistan Tuesday, killing at least 31 civilians, including children, according to officials there.

Two weeks ago, unidentified gunmen killed 25 Indians and one Nepalese in the Indian-occupied Kashmiri town of Pahalgam—a disputed region that India and Pakistan have fought over for decades. India, without presenting evidence, blamed Pakistani militants for the attack and vowed retaliation.

Pakistan denies involvement, saying it had agreed to an independent, transparent investigation, which India declined. Pakistan warned that India’s attack would not go unanswered—raising global fears that another war could be imminent. This time, between two nuclear-armed nations.

Pakistan also claims to have shot down five Indian jets this week, including Rafale fighters—10-ton French-built aircraft equipped with laser-guided bombs and missiles. If true, the losses would be serious—and India now worries Pakistan may be receiving outside help.

The last major flare-up between the two countries was in 2019. India currently buys about one-third of its weapons from Israel, and the two nations maintain strong strategic ties. Critics claim India's playbook is straight from Israel – targeting civilians including mosques, cutting off water, maintaining stiff military control and shutting down dissent.

HEADLINES

New Jersey’s Newark Airport experienced another 90-second blackout on Friday, leaving air traffic controllers temporarily unable to communicate with aircraft in the sky. A similar outage occurred less than two weeks ago, prompting Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy to announce plans to reform the nation’s antiquated air traffic system within the next three to four years. (ABC News)

• A widespread shortage of air traffic controllers is also contributing to declining airline safety—a problem industry insiders have been warning about for years.  (Politico)
• One FAA source tells Crooked Media: “The equipment my program is trying to replace is from the 1960s with a 30-year lifespan… Why isn’t the government giving us the money to replace them?” Congress has long been blamed for neglecting flight safety infrastructure.

Trump dumped Ed Martin --his nominee for US Attorney for DC– after JUST ONE Republican senator said he would not support the nomination. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) said he would not vote for Martin given his past support for January 6 rioters. Trump has named Jeanine Pirro interim attorney for DC. (The Washington Post)

Trump also pulled his nominee for attorney general, Dr. Janette Nesheiwat (also known as fired NSA Mike Waltz's sister-in-law) after the right criticized her support of vaccines and discovered she lied about her education background. Trump has nominated Dr. Casey Means --who didn't finish her medical residency, and whose medical license is currently expired. Upside, she went to Stanford? (NPR)

Trump announced his first trade deal with the UK this week. Under the agreement, imported British cars will now face a 10% tariff instead of 25%, and taxes on steel and aluminum have been eliminated. While Trump called the deal “comprehensive,” details remain sparse. (CNN)

Trump fired three of the five members of the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) in a move Consumer Reports called “illegal,” since the CPSC is supposed to be independent and bipartisan. The three fired members—all appointed by Biden—say they plan to sue.  (The Hill)

Trump wants to reopen Alcatraz, the notorious prison located on an island in San Francisco Bay. The prison, closed in 1963 because it was too expensive to maintain (millions of gallons of water had to be shipped in each week), is now a museum. Trump claims it would be a “perfect” place for criminals—though “criminals” remains vaguely defined—and believes it would send a strong message to would-be offenders. Rehabilitating the dilapidated site would cost an exorbitant amount. (Axios)

The Trump Administration shut down a CDC agency responsible for setting national standards for disease control. Experts warn that this could stall crucial scientific research and prevent the timely updating of safety guidelines. (NBC News)

The White House now says Trump will not “rename” Veterans Day, but instead add the label “Victory Day for World War I.” Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt clarified that the holiday’s original name would remain. (The Hill) 

Bill Gates announced he will give away his entire $200 billion fortune over the next 20 years “to the cause of saving and improving lives around the world.” (Gates Foundation)

Retired Supreme Court Justice David Souter, appointed by George H.W. Bush, died Friday at age 85. (The New York Times)

The Supreme Court ruled that the Trump Administration can ban transgender troops from the military. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said affected troops will have 30 to 60 days to leave. Roughly 1,000 active-duty personnel identify as transgender. (The Washington Post)

Meanwhile, The Washington Post reports that countries targeted by Trump’s tariffs are now being encouraged to sign contracts with Elon Musk’s Starlink. While there’s no direct link (yet), the Post says these developments “indicate that Secretary of State Marco Rubio has increasingly instructed officials to push for regulatory approvals” for Starlink “at a moment when the White House is calling for wide-ranging talks on trade.” (The Washington Post)

In a twist, Trump is now pushing for a tax hike on the rich. He’s urging House Speaker Mike Johnson to raise the top income tax rate from 37% to 39.6% for individuals earning over $2.5 million and couples earning over $5 million. But just last month, Trump opposed the idea… so. (Semafor | WSJ)

Congress has pulled funding from a program that provided free broadband access to students at underserved schools. FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez says the move will affect 5 million households, deepening the digital divide by “stripping away one of the few remaining tools available to schools and libraries to help students and seniors access the internet—whether to do their homework, apply for jobs, or consult with a doctor.”  (The Verge)

Still don’t have your Real ID? The deadline has passed, but DHS says those without one will still be allowed to fly—for now—but will be subjected to additional security screenings. (AP)

Finally, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney met with Trump on Tuesday to discuss tariffs and border security. During a joint meeting, Carney told Trump that Canada is not for sale—like, ever. (MSNBC)

COMING UP

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will meet with China’s vice premier in Switzerland for trade talks this weekend — the first meeting between the two countries since Trump imposed 145% tariffs on Chinese imports. (The Wall Street Journal)

On Monday, Trump will depart for his first major foreign trip of the term, beginning in Saudi Arabia — the same country he chose for his first trip during his initial term.

CNBC: Trump has long maintained a warm relationship with Gulf Arab states, particularly the UAE and Saudi Arabia, where his children have business ventures and planned real estate projects. Those ties could strengthen the Gulf’s hand in negotiating new trade deals, while also raising concerns among critics about potential conflicts of interest — allegations the Trump family denies.

Ahead of the trip, Trump announced that the U.S. will now refer to the Persian Gulf as the “Gulf of Arabia.” (Al Jazeera)