(CNBC) The International Energy Agency’s head warned Thursday that Europe maybe has six weeks left of jet fuel as the airline industry continues to grapple with headwinds due to the Middle East crisis. IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said the Strait of Hormuz blockade will result in “the largest energy crisis we have ever faced,” in an interview with the Associated Press on Thursday. “In the past there was a group called ‘Dire Straits.’ It’s a dire strait now, and it is going to have major implications for the global economy. And the longer it goes, the worse it will be for the economic growth and inflation around the world,” he said.

(CNN) President Donald Trump seems to be leaning in on the idea that elderly conservative Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas might think about a conveniently timed retirement this year. Trump couched his comments to Fox Business’ Maria Bartiromo in respect for the jurisprudence and decision-making processes of both justices. But he also repeatedly gestured at the political utility of them retiring soon: “I think he is one of the great justices of all time,” Trump said of Alito, before adding: “It’d be nice to say, now I have somebody for 40 years.”

(Reuters) Pope Leo blasted leaders who spend billions on wars and said the world was "being ravaged by a handful of tyrants", in unusually forceful ‌remarks in Cameroon on Thursday after U.S. President Donald Trump attacked him again on social media. Leo, the first U.S. pope, also decried leaders who used religious language to justify wars and urged a "decisive change of course" in a meeting in the biggest city in Cameroon's anglophone regions, where a simmering conflict going back nearly a decade has left thousands dead.

(Mediaite) A committee of American Catholics on Wednesday issued a statement in response to Vice President JD Vance’s latest attack on Pope Leo XIV. Speaking at a Turning Point USA event at the University of Georgia on Tuesday, Vance said the Pope should “be careful when he talks about matters of theology.” The comment came as Pope Leo had repeatedly condemned the war in Iran and called for peace. The next day, U.S. bishops’ Committee on Doctrine claimed that Pope Leo wasn’t merely trying to “opine” as Vance suggested.

(Axios) Before President Trump posted an image of him as a Christ-like healer, he discussed the meme with his controversial housing finance chief Bill Pulte, Axios has learned. Trump was in South Florida over the weekend and the two spent time together, according to two advisers who spoke to the president about the image. At some point, Pulte brought the image to Trump's attention, the advisers told Axios. It's not clear whether he just displayed the rendering on his phone or actually sent it to the president.

(CBS News) Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard asked the Justice Department to investigate two former government officials who played a central role in President Trump's first impeachment inquiry. A spokesperson for Gabbard's office confirmed that she drafted criminal referrals for a whistleblower and a former intelligence community watchdog, but did not detail what specific crimes are alleged. The whistleblower — whose identity has not been formally disclosed — reported an "urgent concern" about President Trump's request for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden.

(Raw Story) An election clerk in a far-right Michigan county has been purging voter rolls without authorization, Votebeat reported on Tuesday. According to the report, the Michigan Bureau of Elections "sent a letter to Antrim County Clerk Victoria Bishop on Tuesday saying it had received information suggesting she had made voter registration changes 'that fall outside the scope of your statutory authority and fail to comply with the law.'"

(Daily Beast) Panicked U.S. hotels are slashing room rates for the World Cup amid a demand shortfall, exacerbated by what executives believe is being driven by a surge in anti-American sentiment. Industry executives had hopes that FIFA’s World Cup would revive last year’s slump in travel to the country. Last year, FIFA projected that millions of international visitors would give the U.S. a $30.5 billion economic boost. But that demand hasn’t materialized, forcing FIFA to begin cancelling tens of thousands of reserved rooms in host cities across the country.

(MS NOW) You may have seen images of the moment when a delivery driver showed up at the door of the Oval Office with the president’s McDonald’s order and praised him for the no-tax-on-tips policy that passed as part of his budget bill last year. The White House clearly wanted to portray the scene as a chance encounter, as if Trump was just a regular guy waiting for his french fries — never mind the armed Secret Service agents or guarded gates this delivery driver somehow skipped through....But, as you probably suspected, the whole thing was an attempt at a PR stunt.

(AP) Supreme CourtJustice Ketanji Brown Jackson has delivered a sustained attack on her conservative colleagues’ use of emergency orders to benefit the Trump administration, calling the orders “scratch-paper musings” that can “seem oblivious and thus ring hollow.” The court’s newest justice, Jackson delivered a lengthy assessment of roughly two dozen court orders issued last year that allowed President Donald Trump to put in place controversial policies on immigration, steep federal funding cuts and other topics, after lower courts found they were likely illegal.