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Thursday, May 1, 2025

Mangione to be lionized as ‘accidental folk hero’ in sick new musical

Move over, Jean Valjean — Luigi Mangione will soon be immortalized on a San Francisco stage in a sickening musical comedy glorifying the alleged UnitedHealthcare CEO gunman.

“Luigi the Musical,” slated to debut at the Taylor Street Theater on June 13, promises a “bold, campy and unafraid” take on the life and times of the man accused of perpetrating an assassination that left two young children without a father.

Opening night is already sold out on the official website, which uses the tagline “A story of love, murder and hash browns,” a reference to Mangione scarfing down the McDonald’s menu item before his arrest in Pennsylvania.

The official synopsis of the musical calls it “A wildly irreverent, razor-sharp comedy that imagines the true story of Luigi Mangione, the alleged corporate assassin turned accidental folk hero.”

Deranged leftists have lined up to align themselves with the 26-year-old alleged killer, including a legion of besotted fangirls who show up in force at his Manhattan court appearances.

The musical even makes light of convicted crypto fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried and accused sex trafficker and disgraced hip-hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs, turning them into Mangione’s wacky jailhouse companions.

“With real-life cellmates Sam Bankman-Fried and Diddy by his side, Luigi navigates friendship, justice, and the absurdity of viral fame,” the summary continues.

The show bills itself as “both laugh-out-loud funny and surprisingly thoughtful,” adding, “If you like your comedy smart and your showtunes with a criminal record, Luigi is your new favorite felony.”

“Luigi” is the brainchild of songwriter Arielle Johnson and director Nova Bradford, who said they drew inspiration from the classic musical “Chicago.”

Behind-the-scenes footage posted by Johnson on Instagram shows a snippet of a song from the musical, which sounds about as tone-deaf as the subject matter.

“… flash those pearly whites, there were cameras there that night, and that’s what let the po-lice take me in,” Johnson croons along with Jonny Stein, who is cast as Mangione.

The lyric is presumably a reference to Mangione pulling down his balaclava to smile at a New York City youth hostel clerk, providing cops with their first good look at him.

In an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, Bradford sought to head off obvious criticism about mining such macabre subject matter for a tongue-in-cheek musical.

“We’re not valorizing any of these characters, and we’re also not trivializing any of their actions or alleged actions,” she said.

Mangione is currently on trial for allegedly murdering UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, 50.

Prosecutors have sought the death penalty, in what could yield the first federal death sentence in Manhattan in 70 years.

https://nypost.com/2025/05/01/us-news/luigi-mangione-getting-his-own-musical-after-being-accused-of-murdering-unitedhealthcare-ceo/

Nvidia raised concerns about Huawei's growing AI capabilities to US lawmakers

Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA)’s CEO, Jensen Huang, recently had a confidential meeting with the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee to discuss the growing artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities of Huawei Technologies Co., as confirmed by a senior congressional committee staff source.

The discussion centered on Huawei’s AI chips and the potential competitive advantage these could gain if restrictions were placed on Nvidia’s chips in China. The Nvidia executives and U.S. lawmakers also explored the implications of AI models being optimized for Huawei chips.

The senior staff source highlighted a particular concern, "If DeepSeek R1 had been trained on (Huawei chips) or a future open-source Chinese model had been trained to be highly optimized to Huawei chips, that would risk creating a global market demand for Huawei chips." This statement underscores the potential global market implications should AI models be developed to favor Huawei’s chips.

https://au.investing.com/news/stock-market-news/nvidia-ceo-discusses-huaweis-ai-capabilities-with-us-lawmakers-93CH-3815714

Potential Winners And Losers In Reshoring Supply Chains

by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

Until values, priorities and incentives change, "the lifestyle you ordered is currently out of stock and on back order, with no estimate of a future delivery date."

The ultimate winners and losers in reshoring supply chains to North America have yet to be determined, and may change depending on the time frame. In the short-term, there are ample reasons to reckon consumers will be the losers as shortages and price-gouging ("it's the tariffs" will be the excuse given for profiteering) take their toll.

Matt Stoller has posted two comprehensive essays on these topics:

How Monopolies Could Exploit the Tariff Shock

How to Prepare for the Coming Supply Chain Shock

In the longer term, however, consumers could be winners as reshored supply chains will be more stable and predictable than globalized supply chains. Stability has a value that isn't recognized until it's absent--as do durability and quality.

One set of potential winners might be large retail corporations that choose to switch from "horizontal" global supply chains to vertically integrated domestic production, in which raw materials are turned into finished products in one production facility.

Ford Motor Company was an early adopter of this model, constructing the immense Ford River Rouge complex from 1917 to 1928 that turned iron ore into finished automobiles in one integrated production process.

"With its own docks in the dredged Rouge River, 100 miles (160 km) of interior railroad track, its own electricity plant, and integrated steel mill, the titanic Rouge was able to turn raw materials into running vehicles within this single complex, a prime example of vertical-integration production."

While it can be argued that vertical integration is less efficient in terms of cost, once again the value of complete control, stability and predictability is not included in spreadsheets, though it becomes readily apparent when long single-source global supply chains break down or are crippled by bottlenecks, artificial scarcities triggered by geopolitical blackmail or a host of other causal factors.

Establishing domestic sources for materials, tooling, robotics, etc. would remove many of the uncertainties that are inherent in a global supply chain breaking down along geopolitical, regional and national lines.

Were unions to regain wide public support, industrial unions might be winners should the public support unionizing new production facilities. The sustained erosion of labor's share of the nation's income over the past five decades might finally gain recognition as a core driver of wealth-income inequality and unionized labor might be understood as a necessary rebalancing of an economy that has favored finance and capital over labor for nearly three generations.

Were the public to begin valuing local production and jobs over "lower prices" and equally low quality, local supply chains might become winners. Note that I've mentioned the public's values and priorities as key drivers changing economic incentives and policies. In the current zeitgeist, the public is assumed to be "rational economic robots" who respond solely to price.

Once the full banquet of consequences of rampant hyper-financialization and hyper-globalization has played out, the public might begin to grasp the importance of valuing something other than low prices (and the low quality that comes with low prices). As a general rule, the public leads the private sector and government, not the other way round.

For example, the public might start valuing national security, which is ultimately dependent on stable, predictable domestic production supply chains owned and controlled by domestic companies.

Until values, priorities and incentives change, the lifestyle you ordered is currently out of stock and on back order, with no estimate of a future delivery date.

https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/potential-winners-and-losers-reshoring-supply-chains

Eli Lilly downplays CVS move to drop Zepbound coverage

Eli Lilly on Thursday downplayed CVS Health (NYSE:CVS)’s decision to drop the company’s obesity drug Zepbound from some lists of medicines it covers for reimbursement, but shares of the drugmaker still fell more than 10%.

CVS said its pharmacy benefit management unit, which is the largest in the U.S., would drop Zepbound coverage from July 1, but keep reimbursing for rival GLP-1 weight-loss drug Wegovy after negotiating a more favorable price from Danish drugmaker Novo Nordisk (NYSE:NVO).

Lilly CEO Dave Ricks said on an investor call that those affected most by the CVS move would be small employers, many of which do not currently cover obesity drugs.

"It seems like the wrong idea to reduce choice," he said, adding that we will see how the market reacts.

Pharmacy benefit managers negotiate volume discounts and fees with drug manufacturers on behalf of employers and health plans, and create lists of medications that are covered by insurance. Prescriptions can be drastically reduced if these middlemen decide not to cover a drug.

Lilly also said current tariffs imposed by the Trump administration would not materially affect its forecast for 2025. It said an expansion of import duties in other geographies or retaliatory tariffs would have a negative impact.

Daniel Barasa, a portfolio manager at Gabelli Funds, said the stock reaction to the CVS news is overblown, given larger self-insured employers typically design their own customized lists of drugs for reimbursement.

Two Lilly investors said the CVS coverage decision will heat up the pricing competition between Novo and Lilly. But they were not immediately worried about a big hit to sales as patients and doctors seem to prefer Zepbound, they said.

"There’s always the risk of a price competition when your competitor Novo Nordisk is frankly not doing enough with its pipeline. So they may try to get a bit too aggressive on pricing just to maintain market share," said Kevin Gade, portfolio manager at Bahl & Gaynor, which owns Lilly shares.

The next two largest U.S. PBMs - UnitedHealth Group (NYSE:UNH)’s OptumRx and Cigna (NYSE:CI)’s Express Scripts - did not respond to queries about whether they were considering similar moves.

The success of Lilly’s popular weight-loss and diabetes treatments has made the Indianapolis-based drugmaker the world’s most valuable healthcare company, with a market value of more than $800 billion.

Lilly on Thursday also posted higher-than-expected quarterly results.

It said lower prices for Zepbound trimmed revenue in the quarter, but that demand remained strong. Sales of the drug came in at $2.31 billion for the first quarter, slightly below analysts’ expectations of $2.33 billion, according to LSEG data.

Lilly in February cut the price for vials of Zepbound by $50 or more and expanded the range of doses it sold online to address competition from compounding pharmacies and Novo. It now offers the two lowest doses of Zepbound for $349 and $499 for a month’s supply.

OVERTAKING WEGOVY

Weekly U.S. prescriptions of Wegovy have plateaued since mid-February, according to IQVIA data provided by analysts. Zepbound recorded nearly 339,000 prescriptions for the week ending April 18, overtaking Novo’s obesity drug by more than 127,000.

Lilly said it had captured about 53.3% of the U.S. market share. IQVIA data suggested Lilly’s current share was closer to 62%.

Leerink analyst David Risinger said CVS’ coverage decision will "hurt Zepbound’s growth momentum," although Lilly will maintain a leading market share as Zepbound has been shown to be a more effective drug than Wegovy.

"I would assume that Lilly will fortify its relationships with other major PBMs," he said.

Sales of diabetes drug Mounjaro were $3.84 billion, exceeding analysts’ estimates of $3.80 billion. Mounjaro is also the brand name used for weight loss outside the U.S.

Lilly cut its full-year adjusted profit forecast to between $20.78 and $22.28 per share, from its previous view of $22.50 to $24.00 per share, citing deal charges.

On an adjusted basis, Lilly earned $3.34 per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ estimates by 32 cents.

Total revenue for the period was $12.73 billion, above Wall Street expectations of $12.67 billion.

https://www.investing.com/news/stock-market-news/eli-lilly-beats-q1-profit-estimates-on-strength-of-diabetes-drug-4016032

'Crypto industry descends on Dubai as Trump euphoria recedes'

Crypto enthusiasts descended on Dubai on Wednesday, gathering under the Gulf's scorching sun and hoping the industry's buoyant mood can keep going despite signs the euphoria around Donald Trump's crypto stance is ebbing.

Speakers at the two-day event in the desert city include chief executives at some of the world's major crypto firms, the head of digital assets at BlackRock and Goldman Sachs, as well as the U.S. president's son, Eric Trump, who is set to take the stage on Thursday.

Once a crypto sceptic, the U.S. president has vowed to support the industry by easing regulatory curbs and has even launched his own cryptocurrency, in a turnaround for the industry after a series of crypto company collapses in 2022.

Cryptocurrency prices surged to a record high after his election win, but have fallen this year. Bitcoin is down about 12% from its peak as the global trade war and industry concerns that the pace of pro-crypto regulation under Trump is slower than expected, knocked sentiment.

Attendees at the TOKEN2049 conference, which is expected to attract around 15,000 people, thronged the venue, while a pair of camels rested unbothered by the loud tunes playing in the background.

They shared mixed feelings about Trump's impact on the industry.

"In the long term, it's going to be good for crypto, but it really relies on the world economy picking up again," said Miklos Veszpremi, the chief operating officer of a web3-integrated streaming platform.

"I think that once the tariffs actually start hitting countries, there's going to be a lot of pain, and we might be headed towards some difficult times," he said.

Still, the industry enjoyed a strong start to the year as money poured in.

Global venture capital investments in crypto companies totalled $5.4 billion in the first quarter of 2025, its best quarter since mid-2022, according to data from PitchBook.

Attendee Herbert R. Sim, wrapped in a bitcoin-themed jacket, said that predicting the impact of Trump policies on the crypto sector was very hard "but so far ... (progress) is on the regulation side of things."

"Things are easing up in America," he said, as developers, investors and crypto fans weaved past packed industry marketing booths and joined queues to glide on outside zip lines.

CRYPTO HUB

The United Arab Emirates is quickly emerging as a key hub for crypto companies, with several setting up shop or seeking to expand.

Binance, the world's largest crypto exchange, announced in March that Abu Dhabi-backed investment group MGX had made a $2 billion crypto investment in it, deepening its ties with the UAE.

The exchange's founder, Changpeng Zhao, who last year served four months in prison after pleading guilty to violating U.S. laws against money laundering, was welcomed to the main stage with cheers from the audience.

Zhao stepped down as CEO of Binance as part of a $4.3 billion settlement with U.S. authorities but remains a major shareholder.

UAE authorities continue to promote crypto adoption.

Buyers for apartments in a new planned tower in Dubai the Trump Organization launched this week alongside a luxury real estate developer will be able to pay with bitcoin, Eric Trump said.

Dubai's Emirates NBD bank recently launched crypto trading services on its digital arm Liv and one of the city's largest free zones, the DMCC, which hosts more than 600 crypto firms, plans to open a "crypto tower" in early 2027 to host more.

"It's much easier to do business here," said Germany-based attendee Andre Liesenfeld, referring to Dubai.

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/money/topstories/crypto-industry-descends-on-dubai-as-trump-euphoria-recedes/ar-AA1DXEzh

"Strong Demand" For Lilly's Weight-Loss Drug Overshadowed By Guidance Cut

Eli Lilly & Co. shares fell in premarket trading in New York after the company slashed its full-year profit outlook, citing increased research and development expenses, despite posting first-quarter revenue and earnings that beat analysts' expectations, driven by strong demand for its anti-obesity drug, Mounjaro.

Goldman analysts, including Asad Haider, provided clients with a first take on Lilly's first-quarter earnings, indicating that 1Q25 results "slightly exceeded expectations."

LLY's 1Q25 earnings slightly exceeded expectations, where, encouragingly, the tirzepatide franchise (Zepbound + Mounjaro) came in at $6.15bn ahead of GS/Visible Alpha Consensus Data ($6bn), reflecting continued strong demand, partially offset by lower realized prices. We note that recent IQVIA data shows Zepbound momentum continuing into April. Performance was a bit uneven amongst other portfolio items, with Jardiance (which included a one time benefit of $370mn) and Ebglyss outperforming, while Jaypirca, Omvoh and Emgality fell short of expectations.

Exhibits 1 and 2 provide more color on earnings results:

Actual vs. GS/Consensus- Income Statement and Margins

Overshadowing the first-quarter print was Lilly's move to slash its full-year earnings guidance due to charges related to a recent cancer treatment deal.

Lilly noted in an earnings release that the existing tariff and trade environment was factored into updated guidance. However, it said the new guidance does not reflect any policy shifts, including pharmaceutical sector tariffs, that could impact business.

More color on the updated guidance via Goldman's Haider:

The 2025 EPS guidance cut (from $22.50- $24.00 to $20.78- $22.28) was entirely driven by the 1Q25 IPR&D charge of $1.57bn which translates to $1.72 on EPS

Haider maintained a "Buy" rating on Lilly with a 12-month price target of $888.

Shares fell 6% in premarket trading as the guidance cut took center stage, overshadowing an otherwise solid first quarter. Despite the decline, the stock remains just below Goldman's 12-month price target and not far off from record highs.

Adding to the pressure, CVS Health announced a deal to expand access to rival Novo Nordisk's anti-obesity drug, which may have further weighed on Lilly's stock sentiment ahead of the cash market.

Earlier, Eli Lilly CEO Dave Ricks provided CNBC with an update about tariffs: "I think that actually the threat of tariffs is already bringing back critical supply chains into important industries, chips and pharma," adding, "So do we need to enact [tariffs?] I'm not so sure."

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/lillys-strong-demand-weight-loss-drug-overshadowed-guidance-cut-shares-fall

Media’s Fake Narrative on Trump’s First 100 Days

by Paul du Quenoy

“Worst polls ever!” or similarly hysterical headlines proclaimed legacy media’s sentiments across the board this week, as U.S. President Donald J. Trump reached his 100^th day in office. Some discredited legacy outlets, many of which conducted the very polls they are now reporting as “bad news” for the president, give him a popularity rating of somewhere between 39 percent and 45 percent. Naturally, they fail to mention that these numbers exceed those of former President Joe Biden at virtually all times between September 2021 and the end of his one-term presidency—a presidency they almost uniformly hailed as a great success.

This is, of course, the same crowd of “journalists” who proclaimed that Trump is “unfit to lead” and “dangerous in word, deed, and action.” They confidently predicted Trump would lose his reelection bid to Kamala Harris last November and his original election bid to Hillary Clinton in 2016. They told us Biden was “sharp as a tack” until just hours before the former president withdrew from the 2024 race in a state of utter cognitive dysfunction, the dimensions of which we are only now learning. They opined that Trump would be judicially barred from public office due to criminal allegations and that there was no politicization of the federal judiciary, civil service, or law enforcement. They falsely reported “Russiagate” as factual, called Trump a “traitor” and a “Russian agent,” advocated for the financial ruin of the Trump family, and, after hours of failing to report the July 2024 assassination attempt against him as such, disappeared searchable news of the crime—even as we still have few answers about exactly what happened or why.

They instructed us that free speech is a “problem,” that the First Amendment is a “challenge,” a “barrier,” and “out of control,” that the Constitution should be “torched,” and that words can be “violence” while actual violence is “not violence,” depending on the “context,” as it were.

They denied the authenticity of Hunter Biden’s laptop and later, after its authenticity was established in court, dismissed concerns about him receiving a sweeping presidential pardon from his father. They censored people who suggested that COVID might have been manmade while putting blue state residents under needless near-house arrest for two years on the basis of scientific data that only an honest few later admitted was faulty. They tried to convince us that a 20 percent rise in consumer prices over four years and a $36 trillion national debt represented sound fiscal policies, while any attempt to repatriate manufacturing or equalize terms of trade was a radical destruction of the “rules-based” international order.

During the so-called “Summer of Love,” even while standing in front of burning buildings on national television, they floated an embarrassingly untrue narrative of “mostly peaceful protests” that resulted in an estimated 570 violent race riots, killed at least 25 Americans, and caused as much as $2.5 billion in damage. They valorized criminal illegal immigrants who, in some cases, raped and murdered American women and girls, while putting parents who dared dissent from DEI and radical gender ideology on FBI watchlists. They ruthlessly attempted to purge opposing viewpoints throughout public life but then derided attempts to enforce foundational civil rights laws over our colleges and universities as a “fascist takeover” on par with Nazi Germany.

Needless to say, the legacy media that gives Trump tepid poll ratings 100 days into a second administration that they all angrily opposed for many years are not inclined to report that a record high 69 percent of Americans told an October 2024 Gallup poll that their level of trust and confidence in the mass media rates “not very much” or “none at all.”

Even if polling were an accurate or objective measure of Trump’s performance, it would take hypocrisy of mainstream media proportions to deny his obvious successes. The two major issues Trump campaigned on and that Americans identified as most important—immigration and inflation—have both already been tackled.

The southern border is secure, with near total erasure of the illegal border crossings that were rampant under Biden. Some 135,000 illegal immigrants have been deported, despite establishment judicial interference. The farce of Biden-era “catch and release” is over. The highly successful “Remain in Mexico” policy, which Biden foolishly repealed, is back in force. In response to economic pressure, Mexico and Canada have stepped up their border interdiction efforts against illegals and drugs, while the U.S. continues to build the wall.

Trump’s economic policies have realized the first decline in consumer prices in three years, while crippling Biden-era inflation has begun to drop and unemployment has fallen even further. Elon Musk’s DOGE has reported $160 billion in savings, fired or suspended hordes of useless federal bureaucrats, and identified and cancelled scads of un- or anti-American DEI programs that poisoned our government.

Following the April 2 “Liberation Day” announcement on tariffs, 130 countries that need the U.S. far more than we need them have begged for new trade deals, with preliminary talks suggesting that future trade relations will be much more favorable to American exports. At the same time, Trump has secured over $1 trillion in foreign investments—a rate of $10 billion per day—which will return manufacturing and production jobs stateside, including for strategically vital industries like microchips.

In foreign policy, Trump has started the first meaningful negotiations toward peace in Ukraine, which appear to be reaching their final stages, crushed the Houthi radicals in the Red Sea region, brought Iran back to the negotiating table after years of derision and mockery, and motivated our European allies to devote resources to their defense and NATO obligations they previously shirked. At home, Americans are prouder, with about 40 percent now saying the country is on the right track, compared to an appalling 28 percent just over three months ago, when Biden was still in charge. Media-manufactured polling might give Trump lower numbers than slower and less decisive presidents, but his path—and his successes—are ringing loud and clear.

https://chroniclesmagazine.org/web/the-medias-fake-narrative-on-trumps-first-100-days/

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Thursday, May 1, 2025