A Vatican employee annulls the papal seal on the pope’s fisherman’s ring, at the Vatican, Tuesday, May 6, 2025.
| Photo Credit: AP

Following Pope Francis’ death on April 21, 133 cardinals from around the world will convene within the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican on Wednesday (May 7, 2025), to elect the next pope in the Papal Conclave 2025. As it chooses the 267th pope, this momentous occasion represents a major change for the Catholic Church.

With the world’s attention focused on Rome, there is widespread conjecture about the top candidates, how this covert process will proceed and who might become the future spiritual leader of more than 1.3 billion Catholics throughout the world.

What is the voting process?

Voting begins with a morning Mass, followed by an afternoon entry into the Sistine Chapel. The chapel is then sealed to ensure that only the electors and essential staff remain, cut off from the outside world.

Cardinals cast a single vote on the first day. Two ballots are held in the morning and two in the afternoon starting on the second day.

On a piece of paper, each vote is scribbled with the words Elijo como Supremo Pontífice, which translates to “I elect as Supreme Pontiff,” and the name of the candidate. After being folded, ballots are then taken to the altar and placed in a chosen urn.

Each vote is counted and read out by three scrutineers, who are randomly selected cardinals. Ballots are burned in a stove after being stitched together with a needle. The outcome is shown by the colour of the smoke signals coming from the chapel chimney: white smoke indicates a successful election, while black smoke indicates no decision.

To win, a candidate must get a two-thirds majority – at least 89 votes out of 133.

Watch: How is a new Pope chosen? | Explained

What if no Pope is chosen?

If no pope is chosen within three days, the cardinals take a day of prayer and thought. Seven additional ballots are then cast. After three iterations of this cycle, the two leading candidates, who are unable to cast their own ballots, enter a runoff election.

Conclaves have rarely lasted long in modern history. In fact, the 12 pope elections that have taken place since 1846 have concluded in three to five days.

Both the 2005 and 2013 Conclaves were short, lasting only two days each.

What happens after the new Pope is chosen?

After a new pope is chosen, he accepts the position and decides on a papal name that represents his vision or inspiration. The previous pope, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, chose Francis as his papal name in honor of St. Francis of Assisi.

In the “Room of Tears,” the new pope dons his white papal garments.

Following this, the senior cardinal declares, “Annuntio vobis gaudium magnum; HabemusPapam!” (“I announce to you a great joy; we have a pope!”) from St Peter’s Basilica’s balcony, and the new pope appears to give his first public blessing.

COLUMBUS: Cincinnati Mayor Aftab Pureval will face Cory Bowman, the half brother of Vice President JD Vance, this fall after the pair were the top two vote-getters in Tuesday’s primary. Pureval placed a dominant first in the nonpartisan three-way contest, in which third-place finisher Republican Brian Frank was eliminated. Under the rules of the southwest Ohio city’s nonpartisan primaries, only the top two primary finishers advance to the November general election. With nearly all votes counted, Pureval led Bowman by about 70 percentage points Tuesday night, highlighting the uphill fight that Bowman will face in November. If Bowman pulls an upset in this predominantly Democratic city, he would be the latest family member of a president or vice president to serve in office. That includes the brother of Mike Pence, President Donald Trump’s first vice president, elected to Congress during their previous administration. In a statement, Pureval said the city deserves a “substantive and healthy debate of ideas about the future of our city” headed into the fall. “There is work ahead of us in Cincinnati, but I am incredibly proud of what we’ve accomplished over the past few years,” he said. “We have made meaningful, tangible progress for folks across our community, and this is a moment to keep building on the momentum we’ve worked so hard to create.” Bowman did not have an immediate comment. He has said he wants to improve his city, not get involved in national politics. Pureval, 42, is viewed as a Democratic up-and-comer. A former special assistant US attorney, congressional candidate and Hamilton County clerk of courts. He won the 2021 mayor’s race with nearly 66% of the vote to lead Ohio’s third-largest city. Bowman, 36, co-founded an evangelical church on the city’s West End and owns a coffee shop. He has never held public office but says his half brother’s inauguration inspired him to enter politics. Vance didn’t take an active role in the campaign, but he posted a message of support for Bowman on Tuesday. “He’s a good guy with a heart for serving his community,” the vice president wrote on X. “Get out there and vote for him!” Bowman thanked Vance in reply: “Love you brother!”

The software has been pinpointed by independent experts as likely being used in a number of countries with poor human rights records [File]
| Photo Credit: REUTERS

A U.S. jury on Tuesday handed WhatsApp a major victory in its cyberespionage suit against NSO Group, ordering the Israel-based firm to pay some $168 million in damages.

Meta-owned WhatsApp sued NSO in late 2019 in federal court in Northern California, accusing it of planting Pegasus spy software on the smartphones of targets using the messaging app.

“This trial put spyware executives on the stand and exposed exactly how their surveillance-for-hire system — shrouded in so much secrecy — operates,” Meta said in a blog post.

“Put simply, NSO’s Pegasus works to covertly compromise people’s phones with spyware capable of hoovering up information from any app installed on the device.”

Pegasus software also enables smartphone cameras or microphones to be remotely turned on without letting users know, according to Meta.

WhatsApp accused NSO of cyberespionage targeting journalists, lawyers, human rights activists and others on the Facebook-owned messaging service.

A jury on Tuesday found that NSO should pay WhatsApp $444,719 in compensatory damages and another $167,254,000 in punitive damages intended to discourage repeating the behavior that landed it in court.

“We will carefully examine the verdict’s details and pursue appropriate legal remedies, including further proceedings and an appeal,” NSO vice president for global communication Gil Lainer said in response to an AFP inquiry.

“We firmly believe that our technology plays a critical role in preventing serious crime and terrorism and is deployed responsibly by authorized government agencies.”

Evidence presented at the trial said NSO had spyware installation methods to exploit the technology of companies other than Meta, spending tens of millions of dollars annually on ways to install malicious code through messaging, browsers and operating systems, according to Meta.

In 2016, Apple rushed out a security update after researchers said prominent Emirati rights activist Ahmed Mansoor was targeted by UAE authorities using Pegasus spyware.

The software has been pinpointed by independent experts as likely being used in a number of countries with poor human rights records.

“Given how much information people access on their devices, including through private end-to-end encrypted apps like WhatsApp, Signal and others, we will continue going after spyware vendors indiscriminately targeting people around the world,” Meta said in the blog post.

“These malicious technologies are a threat to the entire ecosystem and it’ll take all of us to defend against it.”

The legal complaint said the attackers “reverse-engineered the WhatsApp app and developed a program to enable them to emulate legitimate WhatsApp network traffic in order to transmit malicious code” to take over the devices.

Infecting smartphones or other gadgets being used for WhatsApp messages meant the content of messages encrypted during transmission could be accessed after they were unscrambled for recipients.

Founded in 2010 by Israelis Shalev Hulio and Omri Lavie, NSO Group is based in the Israeli seaside hi-tech hub of Herzliya, near Tel Aviv.