Pope Leo Throws Shade at Trump Over His Petty Media Ban

Pope Leo XIV made a point to express his support for the free press, firing a stray at President Trump—whose ongoing White House ban on MS NOW, CNN, and Politico is still being legally contested.

“I’m just wondering if you had a word for some of our colleagues at CNN who are having difficulties with the White House,” a reporter asked the pope on Friday while en route to France.

“I am very happy that here, you are all welcome,” Pope Leo replied. “Good coverage … I think it’s important that we have it all the way around, for everyone.”

U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly temporarily reinstated the outlets’ access for a two-week period starting Thursday morning—an order that the Trump administration defied twice the same day.

The first American pope has been quite talkative this week. He also criticized AI and the damage it has inflicted on the human essence on Friday, stating that “it cannot answer questions that concern the meaning of life, which is rooted in lived experience.” He has also long criticized the Trump administration’s current war on Iran, which notably sparked a threat from the Pentagon in April.

President Trump scuttled a major AI guardrail after a series of tech executives donated to his political operation.

The Lever reports that in September 2024, the Biden administration began the process of implementing a rule that required AI companies to report their experiments to regulators at the federal government. At the time, officials said that the rule was aimed at preventing “dangerous accidents” that “could result in injury or even loss of life.”

AI investors and companies such as OpenAI balked at the requirement, even as many safety officials resigned or were pushed out over its warning about lax safety regulations. Leading AI investors started donating millions to Trump’s reelection campaign, and after he won in November, they opened their wallets even further.

Just before Trump’s inauguration, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s Tools for Humanity company donated $5 million to Trump’s super PAC, MAGA Inc. Only nine days later, Trump signed an executive order ending Biden’s AI policies, including the reporting rule, although it was still on the federal regulatory agenda.

Then more tech donations arrived in Trump’s coffers. In February, Open AI investor Marc Adreesson donated $500,000 to MAGA Inc., and his partner Ben Horowitz matched the donation. The next month, they donated another $5 million, and in June, Elon Musk, who has his own xAi venture, donated $5 million himself. In September, OpenAI co-founder and president Greg Brockman and his wife donated a combined $25 million to MAGA Inc.

In December, more than a year after the Biden administration proposed the AI disclosure rule, it was formally withdrawn from the federal regulatory agenda. Today, these same AI leaders are claiming they always supported regulating the technology and are demanding lawmakers step in after some high-profile hacking incidents. It’s a far cry from the millions they spent to ensure the government would leave them alone.

A software company contracted by the U.S. government claimed it had no ties to Russia. That does not seem to be the case.

Oxygen Forensics CEO Lee Reiber and Russian national Oleg Sergeyevich Davydov were arrested and charged by the Department of Justice with conspiracy to commit wire fraud earlier this week.

Reiber allegedly advertised that his company, which provides forensic and archival services for electronic data, exclusively sold American-made software and had no foreign ownership.

Yet five Russian nationals, including Davydov, reportedly owned and controlled Oxygen Forensics through a holding company based in Cyprus, according to a criminal complaint released by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California. The company’s software, too, was Russian, the complaint alleged.

Several executive agencies were affected by the scheme: the Defense Department and components of the Department of Homeland Security, including the Secret Service, the National Computer Forensics Institute, Homeland Security Investigations, and the DHS Office of Inspector General.

The Secret Service specifically had signed a five-year contract with Oxygen Forensics in 2024.

The Virginia-based group allegedly concealed its true ownership after the U.S. imposed additional sanctions on Russia in early 2022 following its invasion of Ukraine. Months later, Reiber—of Boise, Idaho—was appointed the company’s CEO, president, and chairman of the board, while mentions of Russian ownership were stripped from the company’s public filings, according to the complaint.

Details released in the affidavit suggest that Reiber was well aware of the conspiracy. In November 2023, Reiber wrote to Davydov and the alleged Russian accomplices after a reporter asked about Oxygen Forensics’ connection to a Russian company. Reiber noted at the time that the reporting “could destroy” a pending contract with the National Computer Forensics Institute, and that the “current existence of this company hangs in the balance,” according to the criminal complaint.

Both Reiber and Davydov face a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison if convicted.

The Supreme Court just brought Donald Trump’s immigration database back to life.

The nation’s highest judiciary sided with the Justice Department Friday, undermining a lower court’s ruling that stopped state officials from using sensitive personal data such as Social Security numbers to perform citizenship background checks.

The ruling effectively revives the Homeland Security Department’s redesign of the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, also known as SAVE, an enormous database that has previously flagged eligible voters as noncitizens. The Supreme Court’s decision also allows the administration to utilize that tool in its quest to create indexes of adult citizens in each state.

SAVE was created out of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 to assist federal agencies in determining the status of immigrants and naturalized citizens applying for public benefits. Its form and purpose were distinctly different then: It was not a database, but rather a jumping-off point tool to query other federal databases, according to the American Immigration Council.

That changed in 2025, when the Trump administration reimagined SAVE as a device to restrict the electorate. The goal, according to an April 2025 release by DHS and the Department of Government Efficiency, was to “ensure a single, reliable source for verifying noncitizen status nationwide.”

The administration integrated criminal records, immigration timelines, addresses, Social Security numbers, driver’s license data, and federal passport databases into SAVE. The government pushed the system onto state agencies, citing Trump’s debunked 2020 election fraud conspiracy while urging them to upload their state voter rolls to investigate and verify American voters.

It is not clear how accurate the new system is, but a Texas Tribune-ProPublica investigation published in February found that at least 87 people in Texas (one of the first states to comply) were falsely flagged by SAVE as noncitizens.

Brian Broderick, the chief of the verification division at Citizenship and Immigration Services that oversees SAVE, told those outlets at the time that the system can’t always source the most current citizenship information.

Opponents to the sweeping initiative have argued that SAVE violates federal privacy mandates.

In June, U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan blocked the new version of SAVE, ruling that the “federal government has knowingly trampled on the privacy rights of American citizens in a manner that threatens the sacred right to vote.” Weeks later, the U.S. Court for the District of Columbia Circuit refused to intervene.

The sustained block inspired Solicitor General D. John Sauer to appeal to the Supreme Court earlier this month. He argued in writing that the ruling “threatens the integrity of upcoming elections by vacating the federal government’s authority to internally use Social Security data when fulfilling its duty to respond to requests by States to verify the citizenship of individuals for voting and other purposes.”

Sauer argued that the government would suffer “irreparable” harm due to Sooknanan’s order, as it would force the government to “return to an older, more cumbersome, and less reliable version” of the SAVE system. He added that any reversal of the ruling “would come too late for the 2026 midterms.”

This story has been updated.

Ed Sheeran has had his upcoming weekend shows at billionaire Robert Kraft’s Gillette Stadium due to inclement weather—a fitting, ironic end to an embarrassing saga for the British singer.

The cancellation was announced Friday morning as a massive nor’easter is anticipated to hit the East Coast over the weekend.

“Due to the severe weather forecast throughout the weekend, the tour has made the difficult decision to cancel the Ed Sheeran concerts at Gillette Stadium,” a spokesperson for Kraft told TMZ Friday. “The decision was made with the safety of fans, staff and everyone involved in the shows as the top priority. Refunds are available now at the point of purchase.”

Sheeran drew waves of backlash after a coalition of NFL owners demanded that he either boot rapper Macklemore from his U.S. Loop Tour or have the concerts canceled entirely. Macklemore has been an outspoken voice against Israel’s genocide of Palestinians, which clearly set off Kraft, an avowed Zionist who runs the “Touchdown in Israel” program that takes former football players on a propaganda tour of Israel. Sheeran took the easy way out, and Macklemore was removed from the tour earlier this month. The move led Sheeran to lose thousands of followers on social media, as he was lambasted for being spineless—all of which was made worse after he gave a morally impotent statement after Macklemore’s dismissal.

“Macklemore coming off tour was the promoter’s decision, it was not mine. Macklemore’s contract for the tour was with the promoter, not me,” Sheeran wrote on Instagram last week. “I am not complicit. I have my personal views on this devastating conflict. Just because I choose not to speak publicly, it doesn’t mean I don’t have them, and it doesn’t mean I don’t care.”

“Ed told me that Kraft said I would not be allowed to perform in his stadium,” Macklemore said in his own statement. “Ed also told me that Kraft had rallied some of the other stadium owners and collectively they gave him an ultimatum: if Macklemore stays on the tour, you will not be allowed to play in our venues.”

Now Sheeran won’t be playing either, at least this weekend, as this incoming nor’easter serves him his poetic justice.

On Thursday, Macklemore announced his own tour, titled the “Free Palestine” tour with Macklemore and Friends. It will make stops in Dublin, Paris, and London in late October.

This story has been updated.