Welcome back to the week’s news, dissected, digested, and then sent up. This is like if the Free Press Slack leaked but it’s only my messages, so all-caps announcements to the whole company asking where the bathroom key is, plus DMs of conspiracy theories that I send to interns.
But first, a shameless sell: Bari and The Free Press are headed to San Francisco on May 15 for a debate on the future of AI. Tickets are almost sold out. Get yours today.
→ Trump, pope, bunny: Pope Francis passed away this week. He was affectionately known in these pages as the woke pope, a sweet Argentine who genuinely seemed to be trying to reform the internal Vatican machine, especially the finances, which were a disaster even before tariffs came down on gold chestplates and pointy hats. As Fortune puts it: “The new leader of the Catholic Church will inherit a financial mess that Pope Francis spent much of his reign trying to fix.” One cardinal who’d been ousted over just these matters is trying to get in on the conclave to help pick the next pope, probably angling for one with a looser handle on the papal checkbook. The conclave will start next month.
On these occasions of uncertainty and anxiety, I always turn to the president of the United States. This week, he stood on a White House balcony to deliver his condolences to Catholics—there to his right, Melania, and to his left, an adult dressed in an Easter Bunny costume. As the president eulogized a man many see as a direct interlocutor with God, the Easter Bunny stood somber, calm, ears alert but paws at rest, little nose tipped down, which is how make-believe holiday animals like him signal respect.
The darkest part is that I do find this comforting. Like when Barney explained pets dying. Having a bunny involved tickled a little soothing spot behind the ears. Perhaps the Easter Bunny is underused. Imagine, for example, how much softer the blow would have been if the bunny were behind President Bush during his Oval Office address to the nation after 9/11. Or if Obama had talked about chemical weapons being a red line in Syria, but there were a bunny doing a little jig behind him. They should bring him out more, year-round even.