Something about an election in Brazil has always felt like a family event—live music, loud opinions, arguments at the table, and in the last decade, the steamy glow of a phone screen added to the noise. It is in that crowded, noisy, intimate space that the story reported by Folha de S.Paulo takes root: a false accusation involving a presidential candidate and Our Lady of Aparecida, the beloved patron saint of Brazil. The report does not simply tell a story about incorrect information. It tells a story about how a lie, dressed in religious feeling, crossed the line between gossip…

The papal plane was still cutting through the night sky over Europe when Pope Leo XIV did something that has become increasingly rare among the powerful: he refused to look away. He had just completed a four-day trip to France, a tour that left him visibly tired, his voice roughened and his eyes shadowed by the weight of endless meetings, homilies, and handshakes. Yet when a reporter asked what the United States and China, in particular, should do to prevent artificial intelligence from posing catastrophic risks to humanity, he leaned forward and answered without the careful diplomatic hedging that usually…