Welcome to TGIF, a news summary from a very unreliable narrator.

→ Pope Bob: A billow of white smoke, and we have a new pope! And he is an American! His name is Robert Prevost—now Pope Leo XIV—and he was born in Chicago before serving as a bishop in Peru. The Vatican chose an American to avoid tariffs, I presume. Prevost was known to be close to Pope Francis and seems likely to carry forth many of his philosophies and efforts, though it’s too soon to tell. His Twitter/X feed features church news updates, and also a scattering of political statements over the years in support of anti-racist activism and immigration. Also, this:

I feel like if you’re about to become pope and you have recently negged one particular Catholic, just delete it. Like, if the voice of G-d on Earth posted specifically, “Nellie Bowles is wrong,” I would struggle with that. Many, many people post that. But not specifically the voice of G-d. Or, not yet.

Jokes aside: Congratulations to the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics. TGIF will follow along for any new pope antics, but I promise it’s not blasphemy, it’s just fun.

→ This is how the Trump economy works: Let’s say you run Freight Technologies, Inc., a cross-border shipping logistics company. Heavy new tariffs seem like a risk to your business, right? Maybe not! All it takes is this one weird trick called Buying Trump’s Crypto Token, which is a scam “currency.” As the chief executive officer of Freight Technologies, Inc. put it in a recent press release: “We believe that the addition of the Official Trump tokens are an excellent way to diversify our crypto treasury, and also an effective way to advocate for fair, balanced, and free trade between Mexico and the U.S.” Buying $TRUMP tokens—$TRUMP is the official name of the corruption coin, not some mockery I’ve made up here—is how you advocate for yourself these days. Want to keep doing business in Indonesia? Buy some $TRUMP first, you globalist piggy. Pulled over for speeding? Go to CoinBase.com, get yourself a $TRUMP card, and we’ll see about the points on your license. Skip the IRS bill, and instead pay taxes directly in $TRUMP. It’s that easy! There was a song popular in my youth called “Gangsta’s Paradise,” and it’s been stuck in my head for weeks. Soon our only currency will be baseball cards with Eric and Don Jr.’s faces on them, and I’ll be the poor sucker with nothing but Tiffany’s...