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The first American pope used his first major university speech to draw a line under a kind of war the world has yet to fully name. Twelve thousand miles an hour over the Martian surface, a small American spacecraft turned a planet's gravity into a slingshot toward an all-metal world. In an audition room halfway across the planet, the official search for the next 007 began.

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In his first major university speech, Pope Leo XIV warned that AI and high-tech weapons spending are leading the world toward catastrophe. His address at Rome's La Sapienza University was the first papal visit since Benedict XVI canceled in 2008.

Leo, the first American pope, greeted Gazan students who had arrived via a humanitarian corridor before delivering his prepared remarks. AI ethics and warfare are expected to be major themes in his first encyclical, due in the coming weeks.

The Justice Department moved to drop charges against more than 100 January 6 Capitol riot defendants, the largest single roll-back of those prosecutions to date. Critics inside the department say career prosecutors are openly clashing with Deputy AG Todd Blanche over the dismissals.

The wave of dismissals follows months of Trump-era reshuffling at the department, with senior career staff resigning or being reassigned. Defense attorneys say more dismissals are likely as the administration works through the remaining docket.

CIA Director John Ratcliffe traveled to Havana yesterday and met with Raúl Castro's grandson, the Cuban interior minister, and the head of Cuban intelligence. Cuban officials confirmed the visit, which would have been unthinkable in earlier administrations.

The visit comes as a US blockade has collapsed Cuba's electric grid, with Washington floating $100 million in humanitarian aid plus Starlink access. Intelligence cooperation was reportedly on the agenda, a striking pivot for two governments still locked in their longest standoff.

PM Narendra Modi told Indians to buy less gold and skip foreign holidays as Iran-war pressure squeezes India's dollar reserves. Markets dropped after veteran banker Uday Kotak warned business leaders to prepare for the worst.

Africa CDC declared a new Ebola outbreak in DR Congo's eastern Ituri province, with 246 confirmed cases and 65 deaths so far. Vaccine teams are mobilizing from existing stockpiles, but remote terrain and ongoing conflict in Ituri complicate ring-vaccination logistics.

The Maori Queen Te Arikinui Kuini Nga Wai hono i te po met King Charles at Buckingham Palace, her first since taking the throne in 2024. Their meeting marked a nearly 200-year-old relationship rooted in New Zealand's Treaty of Waitangi.

US Border Patrol Chief Michael Banks resigned effective immediately, announcing the departure on Fox News in the latest DHS leadership change. Banks was a prominent public face of the administration's border-enforcement push, and no successor has been named.

The Senate unanimously approved a resolution to withhold lawmaker pay during future government shutdowns, with sponsors calling it a deterrent to repeat funding fights. Senators framed the vote as a long-overdue alignment between their incentives and the public's.

A Chicago federal jury awarded the family of Samya Stumo $49.5 million in compensatory damages over her death in the 2019 Ethiopian Airlines crash. Plaintiffs plan to pursue punitive damages on appeal — one of the last unresolved cases from the two MAX crashes that killed 346.

TAKE CONTROL

Central banks bought more gold last year than at any time in recorded history. They know something most retail investors are just starting to figure out: when paper currencies wobble, hard assets hold the line.

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Honda reported a $2.7 billion full-year loss, its first ever, blaming an expensive EV pivot and Iran-war oil and trade pressures. Tokyo-based Honda now runs both a profitable combustion business it doesn't want to invest in and a growing EV unit that still loses money.

The SEC is seeking court approval for an $18 million Adani settlement, with Gautam Adani paying $6 million and his nephew Sagar $12 million. DOJ is expected to drop criminal charges after Adani reportedly pledged $10 billion in US investment and 15,000 jobs.

SpaceX is preparing to file its long-anticipated IPO prospectus as soon as next week, sources told CNBC. A public offering would mark the largest tech IPO in over a decade and force Starlink, Starship, and the broader space business onto open books.

UK-Thai researchers identified Nagatitan, a 27-tonne sauropod, as the largest dinosaur ever found in Southeast Asia, from fossils dug up a decade ago. At roughly 27 meters long, it edged out a diplodocus on the leaderboard of biggest long-necked herbivores.

A new study finds that aged immune cells secrete enzymes that infiltrate the brain and stop new cell regeneration, accelerating cognitive aging. Mice injected with young immune cells solved mazes faster, suggesting a tractable target outside the brain itself.

NASA's Psyche spacecraft buzzed Mars at over 12,000 mph Friday, using the planet's gravity to slingshot toward asteroid 16 Psyche. Scientists believe the metal asteroid is a planetary core remnant, and the mission may rewrite how rocky-planet interiors are studied.

Vegas routed Anaheim 5-1 in Game 6 to wrap the second-round series and advance to the Western Conference final. Mitch Marner and Pavel Dorofeyev led the scoring as the Knights finished off the Ducks four games to two.

Kyle Schwarber hit his MLB-leading 18th home run as the Phillies beat the Red Sox 3-1 at Fenway Thursday night. Schwarber has now homered in seven of his last seven games — the first Phillies player to do so since current teammate Bryce Harper.

Scottie Scheffler shares the lead with six others at 3-under after a tough first round at Aronimink — the biggest first-round logjam in 57 years. Rory McIlroy stumbled to a 4-over 74, while Spieth at 69 still chases a career Grand Slam.

Amazon MGM has officially launched auditions for the next 007, with Nina Gold (Game of Thrones, Star Wars) tapped as casting director. Frontrunners reportedly include Callum Turner, Jacob Elordi, and Harris Dickinson, five years after Daniel Craig's final film.

A week of TV upfront presentations in New York closed with Disney and Netflix drawing the loudest applause and Amazon, NBCUniversal, and Fox playing it tighter. Variety noted not a single scheduling move or timeslot was unveiled across the entire week — a telling silence in itself.

NPR reports that Gen Z is buying homes faster than millennials did at the same age, even as the average first-time buyer age hits 40. Most Gen Z buyers are doing it without parental help, and as single buyers, a turn from the millennial template.

PRECIOUS METALS

A recent policy change is shining a spotlight on retirement diversification—and physical gold is back in the conversation.

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What it is: NOAA's updated outlook released this week puts the odds of an El Niño forming this summer at 82% by July and 96% by December, with the only real debate now over how strong the cycle will be. ECMWF projections place Pacific Ocean temperatures up to 3°C above average by November, putting 2027 in striking distance of a global heat record.

The detail: Only 37% of model runs put this year's El Niño in the very strong category, but several individual ensemble members project nearly 4°C above baseline in key Pacific regions. Forecasters are watching subsurface ocean heat content as the leading indicator, with the Niño 3.4 index already trending warm.

Why it matters: Even a moderate El Niño typically triggers droughts across Australia and Southeast Asia, floods along the eastern Pacific coastline, and a measurable global temperature spike that compounds with the underlying greenhouse-warming trend. A strong event in 2026-27 could push global temperatures past 1.6°C above preindustrial averages for the first time, an annual threshold most climate plans assume will hold for several more years.

What to watch: NOAA will release its formal probability ladder upgrade in early June if subsurface Pacific temperatures continue to climb in the coming weeks, with a strong-category designation possible by mid-summer. Insurance markets, food futures, and energy-grid planners are already pricing the cycle in, but the rest of us will feel it through grocery aisles, hurricane forecasts, and home-cooling bills later in the summer and into the fall.

That's your five. See you in the inbox tomorrow.

—The Five Minute Daily Team