The Headlines - Meet Pope Leo, and Why Bill Gates Is Giving Away His Money Faster

Episode Date: May 9, 2025

Plus, a Friday news quiz. On Today’s Episode:Who Is Pope Leo XIV?, by Elisabetta Povoledo, Jason Horowitz, Emma Bubola, Motoko Rich and Elizabeth DiasTrump Officials Seek to Bring First White Afrikaner Refugees to U.S. Next Week, by Zolan Kanno-Youngs, Hamed Aleaziz and John EligonU.S.-U.K. Trade Deal to Build on Close Ties but Leave Some Tariffs in Place, by Ana Swanson and Jonathan SwanLeader of FEMA Is Dismissed as Trump Administration Takes Aim at the Agency, by Christopher FlavelleTrump Administration Fires Librarian of Congress, by Tim BalkThe $200 Billion Gamble: Bill Gates’s Plan to Wind Down His Foundation, by David Wallace-WellsNetflix Overhauls Its Home Screen for the First Time in 12 Years, by John KoblinTune in every weekday morning. To get our full audio journalism and storytelling experience, download the New York Times Audio app — available to Times news subscribers on iOS — and sign up for our weekly newsletter.Tell us what you think at: [e-mail]. 

From the New York Times, it's the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. Today is Friday, May 9th. Here's what we're covering. It's been nonstop since 11 o'clock. Have you spoken to him? No. They took away all his stuff.

The Times sat down with John Prevost yesterday in the suburbs of Chicago to talk about his brother Robert Francis Prevost, now better known as Pope Leo XIV. What did you think? I was stunned. I didn't think it would really happen. Prevost's selection as the first ever American pope caught many, even his own family, by surprise. Did he have any desire for it?

Not really. It was absolutely not, absolutely not, God forbid. And then it became, well, if that's what God wants, then we'll deal with it. The new pope, who is 69 years old, was born and raised in the Chicago area, though he has spent much of his life outside the United States, serving as a bishop in Peru and then working in the Vatican,

where he was close with Pope Francis. The best way I could describe him right now is he will be following in Francis' footsteps. And my brother has great, great desire to help the downtrodden. So I think they'll see a great similarity there. And he's simple, you know, he's not going to go out for a 19-course meal. The conventional wisdom before Pope Leo is that there would never be an American pope. great similarity there. He's not going to go out for a 19 course meal.

The conventional wisdom before Pope Leo is that there would never be an American pope. The idea was that the United States is such a global superpower. And the idea about the papacy is that they didn't need to give another global powerful institutional slot to a global superpower. So the thought was there would never be an American. My colleague, Matoko Rich has been covering Pope Leo's selection. She says the Vatican is framing Leo as the second pope from the Americas, following Francis from Argentina, rather than as the first from the U.S. And she says he has a lot in common with Francis in terms of his commitment to the poor and to migrants.

There are some key differences, though, about Pope Leo that might indicate that he'll have a different style as the leader of the Catholic Church. We think that from what we've heard that Pope Leo is a little more reserved. It's not that he doesn't like to be out with the people, but he's not necessarily quite as charismatic. He also is known to be quite discreet. Pope Francis made several remarks

that seemed almost off the cuff, and they tended to shake the church and the entire world. Pope Leo, because he's a little more quiet, reserved, maybe even a little bit shy, is not likely to operate that way. We don't know a lot about what Pope Leo thinks about some of the hot button issues that Pope Francis brought to the fore, such as LGBTQ issues and openness to blessings of same-sex couples or even considering the idea of elevating women in the church and Perhaps even ordaining them. But what we do know is that he seems to have a less perhaps impulsive a less outgoing or Extroverted personality and that might make him a more stable leader for the coming years

That said popes change once they become popes, and many of them have completely changed the office while they're in it. So we're going to have to watch what Pope Leo does with the papacy. For more on Pope Leo and how he may lead the world's 1.4 billion Catholics, listen to today's episode of The Daily. Since taking office, President Trump has moved to stop nearly all refugees from entering the U.S., but he made an exception for one group, white South Africans. Now, the Times has learned that the first group of Afrikaners could be brought to the

states as soon as next week. Trump has classified them as refugees who are victims of racial persecution in their country. He's accused the South African government of confiscating their land, backing a long-held conspiracy theory that white South Africans have been mistreated in the post-apartheid era. The administration sent teams to South Africa to find eligible people for the program and plans to help them find housing and other essentials once they reach the U.S. Refugee advocates say the speed at which the administration has moved to help Afrikaners

underscores how little they've done for people in crisis from other countries, including Afghanistan and Syria. Thousands of refugees had been approved to enter the U.S. when Trump took office, but despite multiple court orders, the administration has refused to let them into the U.S. Now, three other quick updates on the Trump administration. With respect, are you overstating the reach and significance of this deal? Because you're a president who needs a result at a difficult time. I think that it's a great deal for both parties. At the White House yesterday, President Trump announced a new

trade deal with the UK, celebrating it as what he said would be the first of many deals with other countries. Under the agreement, the UK and the US would each lower some of their tariffs, but the deal hasn't been signed yet and could still take weeks to hammer out. The US says it's currently negotiating with dozens of countries after President Trump rolled out dramatic tariffs that rocked the global economy. Also, communities look to FEMA in their greatest times of need, and it's imperative that we

remain ready to respond to those challenges. The Times has learned that the acting head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Cameron Hamilton, was pushed out of his job yesterday after defending the agency's work on Capitol Hill. That put him at odds with President Trump and Kristi Noem, the Secretary of Homeland Security, who have both called for FEMA to be eliminated. But state emergency management officials around the country have warned that without federal support for FEMA, they'll struggle to respond to hurricanes, floods, and other disasters. And in another ousting, the White House fired the librarian of Congress yesterday

in a two sentence email with no explanation. Carla Hayden was appointed by President Obama in 2016 and was the first woman and first African American to take on the role. The firing comes as President Trump has been moving to take more control of America's cultural institutions. In a statement, Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic minority leader, called Hayden's firing a disgrace and said it's part of an ongoing effort by Trump to, quote, "...ban books, whitewash American history, and turn back the clock."

On Thursday, Bill Gates announced that he's planning to wind down the work of the Gates Foundation, which has transformed public health, by giving away nearly his entire fortune in the next 20 years. Since it was established, the foundation has poured more than $100 billion into programs around the world and saved tens of millions of lives, becoming one of the most consequential philanthropies in the world. It was expected to keep up its work for decades and decades, but Gates has now laid out a new timeline. He says he wants the foundation to move faster and spend more. He said it will permanently close its doors at the end of 2045 and that before then it will spend 200 billion more dollars.

Otherwise, what am I going to do? Just go buy a bunch of boats or something, you know, go gamble. This money should go back to society in the way that it has the best chance of causing something positive to happen. In an exclusive interview with the Times ahead of the announcement, Gates said he was changing his giving strategy because he sees this as a moment of opportunity and danger. He said he's worried about the health and economic setbacks of the post-pandemic era and about the Trump administration's assault on foreign aid. But he also said he's hugely optimistic about the promise of new biomedical tools, AI-powered

drug research, and other scientific innovations that could help improve people's lives. You can find Gates' full conversation with my colleague David Wallace-Wells at NYTimes.com. And finally, if you've gotten used to that endless scroll on Netflix, prepare yourself. The streaming services homepage is getting its first major redesign in over a decade. The old design, at its core, was all about seeing rows and rows of titles, basically to simulate the experience of walking through a blockbuster and seeing all the shelves. Remember that?

But now that streaming has killed the physical video store, why replicate the look? The new homepage is going to serve up fewer titles, and they're going to be more fine-tuned to what you've watched. Before, it could take up to a day for the service's algorithm to tailor suggestions based on what you'd searched for.

Now that will happen faster. One Netflix executive told the Times they're trying to match that personalization feeling that TikTok seems to have cracked. Who knows? With viewer options to scroll through, people might now actually have time to watch a movie instead of just spending two hours debating the options. Those are the headlines, but stick around.

We've got a Friday news quiz for you just after these credits. The show is made by Will Jarvis, Jessica Metzger, Jan Stewart, and me, Tracy Mumford. Original theme by Dan Powell. Special thanks to Isabella Anderson, Larissa Anderson, Jake Lucas, Zoe Murphy, Katie O'Brien, and Paula Schuman. Now the quiz. For the next few weeks we are giving you the chance to test your news knowledge on Fridays. So we have questions for you about three stories the Times covered this week. Can you get them all? First up. Every Cardinal deep down has already chosen the name by which he would like his papacy to be known.

Well, I haven't. Deny it if you like. But search your heart and then tell me it isn't so. The film Conclave strongly hinted that every cardinal already has the name that they would use as pope picked out, just in case they somehow end up in charge. It's just practical. There's not a lot of time between when you win the vote and when you have to step out on the balcony to greet the world as pope. The new pope joins a long line of Leos. He's actually the 14th to choose that name. But which of these is the most popular pope name in history? Benedict, Gregory, or John? The answer, you ready for it, is John. There have been 21 Pope Johns, but the other ones are actually the top picks too. There have been 16 Pope

Greggs and 15 Benedicts. Next question. We are going to redefine luxury, and that's not just a slogan, I mean it. Every ounce of my soul means it. We are going to redefine luxury anywhere in the world. Over the past month, Donald Trump's sons, Eric and Don Jr. have been on a blitz of international trips, promoting the family businesses and signing deals, some of which have involved foreign governments. I'm going to list four major development projects. Three of these are real. The question

is, which one is the Trump family not currently pursuing? Is it A. A luxury skyscraper in Dubai with the world's highest outdoor swimming pool? B. a private club in Washington, D.C. that costs half a million dollars to join, C, a private marina on the Albanian coast with a deep water harbor to accommodate mega yachts, or D, a high-end complex of beachfront villas in Qatar with an 18-hole golf course. So your options are Dubai skyscraper,

D.C. club, Albanian yacht marina, or Qathole golf course. So your options are Dubai skyscraper, DC club, Albanian yacht marina, or Qatari golf course. The answer is C, the marina. The Trump family is not currently trying to build a mega yacht port in Albania, but Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner has been pursuing a major new luxury resort there with up to 6,000 hotel rooms.

a major new luxury resort there with up to 6,000 hotel rooms. And last question. President Trump is planning to celebrate taking over the Kennedy Center, the Performing Arts Center in Washington, D.C., with a gala next month that features one of his favorite musicals. But this week, the Times learned that some cast members are planning to boycott that performance. Which musical is it? Cats or Phantom of the Opera? The answer is... Les Mis. The Times has learned that some of the cast of Les Mis is planning to boycott next month. Meanwhile, some other high-profile shows, including Hamilton, have even canceled their

plans to appear at the Kennedy Center. For the record, Trump has said he is a fan of musicals. Those 80s musicals, Les Mis, Cats, and Phantom are all his favorites. He, and I did not know this before, dreamed of becoming a theater producer as a young man before he went into real estate. That's it for the news quiz.

The headlines will be back on Monday, and we'll try a few more questions next Friday.