
A conclave fantasy game has users winning by picking a lineup of potential popes
With the papal conclave now entering its second day of voting for a new pope, you've surely heard about the betting markets available for people to wager on the outcome. If you thought those were extreme, just wait until you hear about the papal fantasy game people are playing.
Yep, that's right. The gamification of the conclave isn't just reserved to betting. There's also an Italian fantasy game available for those who want to predict the next pope, thought it's played for bragging rights instead of money. It's called Fantapapa -- an Italian term for fantasy pope -- and it's not dissimilar from fantasy football, as managers are tasked with putting together a lineup of 11 players, er, cardinals they think have the best shot at becoming the next pope. The goal is to score the most points.
Naturally, you may be wondering how points are scored if only one person can become pope, and this is where I'll lean on NPR for an explanation (it's too late to sign up for the game).
According to NPR, managers can select one captain for their team and earn 1,000 points if that person becomes the next pope. They receive 500 points if they put the next pope anywhere else on their roster. Additional points are scored when the cardinals on their roster are mentioned in major Italian news outlets. More points can be scored by correctly guessing things like the next pope's name and whether he'll wear glasses during his first appearance in St. Peter's Square.
Unsurprisingly, the betting favorite to become the next pope, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, is among the top picks of the game's 70,000-plus users.

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


San Francisco Chronicle
an hour ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
This Michelin-starred S.F. restaurant's quirky format made it famous. Now it's just distracting
For one glorious summer, my grandma bought season passes to Universal Studios Hollywood for my cousins and me. I became close associates with the 'E.T.' — nice guy — and visited every attraction multiple times. But that much exposure to a good thing brings downsides: The surprises of the grounds tour no longer moved me, the 'Back to the Future' ride became a high-tech arcade game. The illusion was shattered. More recently in San Francisco, I've felt a similar shift at State Bird Provisions. When it opened on New Year's Eve in 2011, State Bird set a new standard of creativity for Bay Area restaurants. Chefs Nicole Krasinski and Stuart Brioza introduced a novel dim sum-style presentation of small plates, emulsifying California's bounty with French, Italian, Japanese and Chinese flavors and technique. It earned State Bird nearly every national honor: Bon Appétit's Best New Restaurant in America, multiple James Beard awards, a Michelin star. The staff, carrying trays or pushing carts, pirouette through the dining room, tempting tables with tiny salads, gleaming riblets and potato chips with aerated dip. Steamy siu mai? Not in this building. This spirited exhibition was fun and endearing on my first visit. Now, it's my least favorite thing about the restaurant. Extra! Extra! San Francisco Chronicle critics MacKenzie Chung Fegan and Cesar Hernandez are dueling this week over one restaurant: State Bird Provisions. Don't miss Fegan's response on Friday — sign up for the Chronicle Food newsletter to make sure it lands in your inbox. The dim sum schtick feels more customary than essential, more cute than efficient, more showy than delicious. The dim sum plates can feel like a roller coaster on a day where the weather won't make up its mind; sunny and thrilling one moment, gray and dull the next. I gleefully gnawed on immaculate ribs, lacquered in a fiery, tart passion fruit sauce ($16), then puzzled over a bland wedge salad of yellowing golf ball-sized lettuces ($6). Avocados in Caesar dressing ($8), wearing a fuzzy fur coat of cheese curls, failed to delight like the cherries accompanied by a cloud of savory-sweet whipped cheese ($10). Egg tofu custard ($9)? Beautifully silky. But the burrata-capped garlic bread ($13) was dense enough to give your mandibles a workout. This aspect of the experience may be the initial draw, but it does not actually represent the restaurant's best efforts. Instead, State Bird's spoils are on the printed dinner menu. If the roving snacks are a jam session, built on and stymied by improvisation, the standard menu dishes are albums: expressive, precise, fleshed-out thoughts. Toothsome, hand-cut noodles ($30) come doused in a peppery pumpkin seed salsa macha, with an egg on top that melts into pudding. A treasure chest of a donabe ($30) contained chewy tofu cubes, ready-to-burst beans and springy mushrooms in a slightly viscous, unctuous green broth; each sip felt like a massage for my soul. The restaurant's namesake specialty is always on the dinner menu: juicy fried quail (half for $24) lording over lemony, stewed onions. These entrees are in the major leagues. The small plates are playing varsity. On one visit, I had my eye on roti with lentil hummus off the printed menu. But I abandoned that plot for a couple of dim sum bites with lower price tags. The next outing, I ordered the flaky flatbread, and I realized the gravity of my mistake. I was constantly in this conundrum of choice, where the implied ephemeral state of the dim sum compelled me to act fast or miss out like a loser. When I rejected the servers' edible propositions, I saw a flicker of defeat on their faces, and felt as though I was letting them down. Not to Penn & Teller the magic trick, but the appetizer scarcity is artificial, as you can order the dim sum items a la carte. In fact, there's a printed version of the menu, if you want to skip the tableside advertising and cherry-pick your snacks. The dining room — a veritable vortex of hors d'oeuvres — is constantly animated, if a bit chaotic. The cart and tray circulation contributes to the commotion. The lanes between tables are already tight, and traffic is stalled by servers giving neighboring tables their best Don Draper sales pitch. If you visit the facilities, be prepared to play human Tetris to get back your seat. The staff is well-informed on the menu, but their ample responsibilities can impact service: the occasional forgotten drink, a tardy entree, tables crowded with empty plates. While hordes of patrons no longer camp outside of State Bird, as they did for years, demand is still high. Prime time reservations evaporate swiftly. If you don't book weeks in advance, you're likely to only find slots past 8 p.m. Or you can try showing up early: The bar is reserved for walk-ins. I don't question State Bird's aptitude for brilliant cooking. I'm interested in seeing State Bird evolve. While the dim sum-style presentation brought the restaurant glory, today it seems to be an albatross, an inescapable presence, an unskippable ad. Noise level: Loud. Meal for two, without drinks: $75-$150 What to order: Fried quail (half for $24), pork ribs ($16) Drinks: Beer and wine. Exceptional house-made non-alcoholic drinks like shiso-yuzu soda ($9) and Raspberry Julius ($10). Best practices: Skip the dim sum-style plates. Instead, order a starter on the dinner menu like roti or pancakes and an entree like donabe or quail. Peanut milk ($4) is non-negotiable.


USA Today
2 hours ago
- USA Today
PBS and NPR defunded. Colbert cancelled. This is silencing political critics.
The Trump administration has already defunded NPR and PBS. Now the most popular comedian on television is being booted off the air. 'Go f--- yourself.' That was just one of the many 'witticisms' Stephen Colbert had for President Donald Trump and his "Late Show" audience on July 21, his first since breaking the news the show was coming to an end. Not in a year. Not after a farewell tour. Next May. No replacement. No streaming continuation. Yes, CBS made what it called an "agonizing" business decision to cancel the most-watched show at 11:30 p.m. ET/PT, just days after Colbert mocked the network's parent company for a $16 million payout to Trump. Colbert thanked CBS but also criticized its anonymous leak to the New York Post that the show loses between $40 million and $50 million a year amid falling ratings and advertising for late-night TV shows. On the one hand, you have those arguing this is simply a case of corporate cost cutting and media evolving. While others are raising the alarm this is a political decision disguised as a financial one. Both can be – and are – true at the same time. Ironically, Colbert can trace success to Trump monologues Before Colbert called his bosses' bosses' settlement with Trump a 'big fat bribe," his "Late Show" monologues have taken direct aim – nightly – at authoritarianism, misinformation, corporate cowardice and Trump for nearly a decade. One could even argue that he owes his success to Trump, because during his initial months at 'Late Show,' Colbert faltered in the ratings. In 2017, however, he began to see a surge of success as he got to mock Trump 1.0 in his monologues. Soon his show was No. 1 in late night, a ranking it held for nine straight TV seasons while simultaneously racking up 33 consecutive Emmy nominations. Colbert became a go-to voice for Trump-resistant Americans who enjoyed their political despair with a side of satire. In many ways, he took up the mantle left by his old boss, Jon Stewart, offering comedic catharsis in chaotic times. Despite this context, CBS claimed the decision to cancel was purely financial and 'not related in any way to the show's performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount.' According to the company, the show had become too expensive to produce amid shrinking ad revenues and changing viewer habits. Opinion: Paramount's shameful CBS settlement with Trump deserves congressional scrutiny CBS is not wrong: Late-night advertising has by some estimates dropped by half since 2018. Anecdotally, I watch a lot of late-night viral clips on my phone, but I can't tell you the last time I watched any late-night television live on my television. But not everyone's buying the "it's just business" line. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts, called for scrutiny while Sen. Adam Schiff, D-California, who taped the July 17 show when Colbert broke the news, echoed the concern. The Writers Guild of America issued a statement suggesting the move raises 'significant concerns' about political retribution. There are countless scathing opinion columns, letters to the editor and social media posts containing similar sentiments. Meanwhile, Trump gloated. He posted on Truth Social, "I absolutely love that Colbert' got fired. His talent was even less than his ratings. I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next." CBS is part of merger that needs Trump administration approval CBS is just one part of a massive merger between Paramount Global and Skydance. However, the deal is still pending approval from the Federal Communications Commission, more than a year after the proposed merger was announced. The chairman of the FCC, Brendan Carr, was appointed by Trump. If you need a clue about whether his loyalties lie with the Constitution or the current occupant of the White House, Carr swapped out an American flag lapel pin for a gold medallion in the shape of Trump's profile just months ago. When corporations' incentives line up so conveniently with silencing dissent, we should be alarmed. Because both things can be true: The economics of late-night television, and the cultural influence of it, has been changing. And the timing of the settlement combined with the end of the "Late Show" is deeply concerning. Here is how it appears: The Trump administration made it clear that certain media deals wouldn't get approved unless certain broadcasting decisions were made. That would be the government using its power to punish dissent and influence private business decisions in order for political favor. Opinion: I wouldn't be a journalist without my college paper. Students deserve that chance. Jon Stewart warned that comedians will get sent away first In his 2022 Mark Twain Prize acceptance speech, Jon Stewart warned, 'When a society is under threat, comedians are the ones who get sent away first. It's just a reminder to people that democracy is under threat. Authoritarians are the threat to comedy, to art, to music, to thought, to poetry, to progress, to all those things.' That's the part that should concern us. The question isn't what happens to Colbert (he will be fine). It's what happens to us: the audience, the public, the people who depend on sharp, fearless voices to cut through the fog. The federal government defunded NPR and PBS. Now one of the most popular comedians on television is being nudged off the air. At what point do we stop calling this "just a business decision" and start calling it slow, strategic silencing? Because when cost cutting trims away the voices willing to laugh at power in real time, what's really being cut is dissent. And if that's not political, then what is? Kristin Brey is the "My Take" columnist for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, where this column originally appeared.
Yahoo
10 hours ago
- Yahoo
Watch Rusowsky Live His ‘Real Dream' of Performing on Tiny Desk
For Rusowsky, Tiny Desk had been a long-held dream. On Tuesday, the Spanish musician stopped by the NPR headquarters to serenade Tiny Desk with a concert featuring songs from his newest album, Daisy. Rusowsky's set opened with the sound of a flute as the Spanish star eased into 'Johnny Glamour,' backed by a quartet of singers harmonizing behind him. 'Con esa carita,' they repeated, as Rusowsky swayed in his seat, shaking a maraca shaped like a banana. More from Rolling Stone Anohni and the Johnsons Embrace Existentialism for NPR Tiny Desk Debut Bloc Party Goes Back to the Beginning on NPR Tiny Desk See Clipse Go Hard With Six-Song 'Tiny Desk' Concert 'What's up? Thank you for inviting us today. It's like a real dream for us,' Rusowsky told the audience. 'We came from Madrid. And, I just released called Daisy, and we are going to play a couple of songs from it. Hope you like it.' Rusowsky transitioned his performance into 'Sophia' from the recently released record, keeping it completely acoustic and orchestral as he shined with his whisper vocals over the plucks of guitar. Then came 'Malibu,' in which Rusowsky took on an electric bass to back the soft, piano-driven song. For '(ecco),' Rusowsky traded the bass for the piano, as he allowed his backup vocalists to harmonize with him at the start of the emotional song. 'I forgot the pictures on my mind,' he sings in English before adding in Spanish: 'We've never had a time, just you and me.' 'The past days, we got sick with the AC… But now, we party,' declared Rusowsky at the end of the track, before turning up the energy for his closing song 'Dolores.' Rusowsky released his debut album Daisy in late May, featuring collaborations with Kevin Abstract on 'Liar?,' Jean Dawson on 'Kinki Fíaro,' Ravyn Lenae on 'Pink + Pink,' and Ralphie CHoo on 'Bby Romeo.' At the time, he spoke to Rolling Stone about the album's songs. About 'Sophia,' he said: 'It was also one of the most fun to make, because I've been finding myself with music from the 2000s. I've been listening to a lot of Timbaland, a lot of Mya. I wanted to do something like that, but I wasn't thinking about it too much.' Best of Rolling Stone Sly and the Family Stone: 20 Essential Songs The 50 Greatest Eminem Songs All 274 of Taylor Swift's Songs, Ranked Solve the daily Crossword