New GLP-1 Survey Finds Users Cutting Restaurant Spend

 Last week's GLP-1 headlines included Novo Nordisk partnering with telehealth platforms Hims & Hers, LifeMD, and Ro to offer its weight-loss drug Wegovy directly to consumers at substantial discounts, aiming to improve affordability and access. Meanwhile, Eli Lilly reported robust demand for its rival anti-obesity medication, Mounjaro.

We've occasionally highlighted key trends in the GLP-1 space and consumer sentiment around these drugs. The latest consumer pulse comes from a new survey conducted by financial website FinanceBuzz.

FinanceBuzz surveyed 1,000 U.S. adults earlier this year and asked whether they have used GLP-1 drugs and for what purpose. What they found is that more than half of the GLP-1 users (52%) dialed back their spending at restaurants. About 37% reduced spending on alcohol, and about 29% reduced supermarket spending. 

The survey provided a snapshot of top concerns about GLP-1 drugs from users and potential users...

About 20% of Americans have tried GLP-1s.

Most Americans don't plan on starting GLP-1s. However, many are considering the need to lose weight. 

In a separate survey, a KFF Health Tracking Poll of 1,500 adult participants in late April found that about 6% of U.S. adults, or over 15 million people, were taking GLP-1s. 

One key finding of the KFF poll was that 43% were diagnosed with diabetes by a doctor, 25% were diagnosed with heart disease, and a doctor told 22% that they were overweight or obese. 

The big news of affordability this past week—since that's on everyone's minds who wants to take GLP-1s—is the Wegovy addition to Hims & Hers at a very affordable price. 

What's also affordable is eating healthy and exercising. 

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/new-glp-1-survey-finds-users-cutting-restaurant-spend

White House: Changing A Minor's Gender Is "Child Abuse" And "Medical Malpractice"

 by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller announced Thursday that the Trump administration considers it “child abuse” to be change the gender of a minor and that health professionals carrying out the procedures are opening themselves up to charges of medical malpractice.

Speaking to the press, Miller stated “The Department of Justice is coordinating with state and local law enforcement to fight child abuse in our school systems.”

“It is child abuse to change a child’s gender, particularly if you do not inform the parents,” Miller further emphasised, adding “So, if a five-year-old or a six-year-old or a seven-year-old goes to school and the teacher tries to turn the boy into a girl or the girl into a boy, that is child abuse, and this administration is treating that as child abuse, and it is a gross violation of parental rights.”

“This also includes the administration’s message to our hospital systems that they cannot and will not be allowed to use taxpayer dollars to perform chemical castrations and sexual mutilations of children,” Miller noted.

He added that “Castration surgeries, castration drugs, sterilization treatments of children are barbaric. They violate all sound medical ethics. They are completely unwarranted. They harm children for life, irreversibly. It is child torture. It is child abuse. It is medical malpractice.”

“So the Department of Health and Human Services, under the leadership of Bobby Kennedy, as well as the Department of Justice and other departments of this government, are making clear to our medical providers and our hospital systems that you cannot use taxpayer dollars to perform these barbaric procedures on America’s children,” Miller urged.

He further outlined that “HHS has systematically updated all and eliminated all of the junk, fake science that was produced under the Biden administration promoting sex changes on children, promoting the idea of sterilizing children.”

“That’s been cleaned out, that’s been removed, and new guidance is being issued to doctors and hospitals advising them that they cannot perform these horrifying procedures, these irreversible procedures, on our nation’s children,” he added.

Leftists in the comments of the post are claiming en mass that there are no cases of this happening anywhere in the US, and that Miller is making it all up. Yet, there have been accounts in the news, and a deep dive suggests this is happening in places.

Miller also noted that “This administration ended the Biden administration’s policy and the Democrat Party’s policy of allowing men into women’s sports, men into women’s spaces.”

“We are using every single legal and financial tool we have, at President Trump’s direction, to make it clear that schools and universities are—and will—lose federal funds, as you’ve seen in Maine, if you allow men to invade women’s sports and women’s spaces. And this applies to our whole K-12 system,” Miller added.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/white-house-changing-minors-gender-child-abuse-and-medical-malpractice

Hope For The UK? Reform Party Dominates Uniparty In Sweeping Local Elections

 In July of 2024, the Labour Party and Kier Starmer won general elections with the British public seeking to punish conservatives for not following through on their Brexit promises and stopping mass open immigration.  One of the primary reasons why the Brexit movement was a success was because it attempted to address growing concerns among UK natives that their ties to the European Union had trapped them in a prison of progressive politics including carbon taxation, declining personal freedom, economic crisis and mass immigration from the third world. 

Starmer would take his narrow win and go on to expand the very same policies that UK citizens voted against.  He helped to flood Britain with migrants, primarily from Islamic regions, and as the public took to the internet and the streets to complain, he enforced draconian censorship laws to silence them. 

It's amazing how quickly things can change in less than a year. In 2024, the Reform Party won around 14% of the vote share.  This week in local elections they won 30% of the vote share, crushing Labour and the Conservatives and winning 677 council seats.

Labour lost 187 seats and Conservatives were stunned with a 674 seat loss. Nigel Farage has hailed Reform UK's gains in Thursday's elections as "unprecedented" and "the end of two-party politics".  The party also won two mayoral races and added a fifth MP to its ranks in the Runcorn. 

UK voters are sending a clear message to the political elites that their progressive agenda will no longer be tolerated.

Local council elections are held every four years (though not all seats come up for a vote at the same time), and are designed to fill local government posts dealing with issues from housing to potholes.  The Reform Party upset in council seats is a sign that Farage is on his way to becoming Prime Minister. 

Conservatives and Labour, long considered a "Uniparty" alliance that never actually changes the system while they pretend to be opposed, has consistently referred to Reform as an "extremist" or "far-right" organization (much like MAGA in the US).  Writing in The Times, Keir Starmer argued that the lesson learned from the elections was not that the country needed "ideological zealotry", but that the government needs to "crank up the pace on giving people the country they are crying out for..."

Labour members claim that their losses are due to the sluggish economy and cuts to social welfare policies, such as cuts in winter fuel payments to pensioners.  In other words, their solution is to buy off voters with more benefits.  They continue to pretend as if the mass immigration problem, high taxes and censorship are not factors.

Nigel Farage, though opposed to mass immigration programs, has not come out to fully endorse deportations, which is what helped give Donald Trump his landslide White House win in the US.  Some critics say Farage does not go far enough in his solutions for saving the country.  Only time will tell, but there are certainly visible cracks in the armor of the uniparty system and this may portend much needed changes in the UK and perhaps the rest of Europe in the near future. 

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/hope-uk-reform-party-crushes-uniparty-sweeping-local-elections

Ukrainian Drones Have Been Targeting Historic Orthodox Churches In Russia

 Throughout over three years of the Russia-Ukraine war, there has been a sad and tragic trend of churches being struck by missiles, drones, or bombs on both sides of the conflict.

But attacks on religious sites have gone all the way back to 2014, and the start of the conflict in the Donbass, which saw pro-Kiev forces frequently shelling Russia-aligned areas, including attacks on Orthodox churches.

And of course, since then the Ukraine government has actively and openly persecuted Ukraine's largest Orthodox church for simply maintaining spiritual communion with the Moscow Patriarchate.

Famous, historic monasteries have been shut down or seized by authorities, monks expelled, and churches have been raided by far-right nationalist militant groups. As for the other side, Russian aerial raids have often devastated whole Ukrainian neighborhoods, including destruction of local churches.

In a fresh incident, Russian government and media sources say a Ukrainian drone was sent across the border and struck an iconic, historic church in Belgorord region, which set the church on fire.

Local Belgorod governor Vyacheslav issued a statement on Telegram Saturday saying "the enemy is striking our holy sites again – an enemy drone has attacked Saint George Church in the village of Tolokonnoye."

Emergency crews were able to extinguish the blaze, but not before the church's domes caught on fire...

Earlier, Russia claimed a church was hit by FPV drones in Belgorod region.

The St. George the Victorious Church in the village of Tolokonnoe caught fire. The flames were quickly put out and no-one was injured. pic.twitter.com/jDlSCWZmOA

— Tim White (@TWMCLtd) May 3, 2025

Friday into early Saturday saw Ukrainian forces launch over 40 drones and some 150 artillery shells in Russia's southern Belgorod region. Along with neighboring Kursk, Belgorod has seen repeat incursions by Ukraine's military over the course of the war.

While it's impossible to confirm whether all these attacks on churches were 'deliberate' and targeted, Russian authorities believe this is the case, given an even more well-known church was just recently destroyed:

Last Thursday, the iconic New Jerusalem Orthodox church complex in the region burned down following a Ukrainian drone strike. Commenting on the incident at the time, Gladkov described it as a “deliberate” attack and also accused the Ukrainian military of subsequently targeting the firefighters who were trying to contain the blaze.

The New Jerusalem Church complex in the village of Sukharevo was entirely made of wood and so went up in flames quickly. That did clearly seem a targeted attack given Ukrainian drones dropped explosives directly on it.

❗️‘New Jerusalem’ orthodox church attacked by Ukraine UAV burnt to the ground in Russia’s Belgorod region.

⚠️The Ukrainian Armed Forces reportedly attacked the temple at least twice, preventing local residents and firefighters from putting it out. At the time of the attack, four… pic.twitter.com/GB8hunxt49

— Russian Embassy in South Africa 🇷🇺 (@EmbassyofRussia) April 25, 2025

Currently, Moscow and Kiev are still far from agreeing on a ceasefire. President Zelensky has accused his Russian counterpart Putin of playing a "game" with offers of very limited, 3-day ceasefires. Kiev instead wants to start with a month-long truce, but Russia has described this as a pretext for Ukraine forces rearming and replenishing along the front lines.

"This is more of a theatrical performance on his part. Because in two or three days, it is impossible to develop a plan for the next steps to end the war," Zelensky has said in his latest statement.

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/ukrainian-drones-have-been-targeting-historic-orthodox-churches-russia

'Putin says he hopes there will be no need to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine'

 Vladimir Putin has said this morning there has been no need to use nuclear weapons in the conflict with Ukraine - and he hopes there never will be.

Speaking in a broadcast on state television, Putin said Russia has the strength and the means to bring the conflict in Ukraine to a "logical conclusion".

https://news.sky.com/story/ukraine-war-latest-putin-says-he-hopes-there-will-be-no-need-to-use-nuclear-weapons-in-ukraine-12541713

Treasury Dept. Rejects Over $300 M in Improper Payment Requests Using New Verification System

 The U.S. Department of the Treasury has blocked its first improper payment requests using a new automated payment verification system spearheaded by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

DOGE announced Tuesday that Treasury identified and rejected $334 million in improper payment requests due to missing budget codes, invalid budget codes, and budget codes with no authorization.

Invalid budget codes include budgets that had already been fully spent. Unauthorized codes refer to payments not linked to the budget.

Prior to DOGE’s intervention, the Treasury’s accounting code was optional for the $4.7 Trillion in payments that go out each year, making traceability almost impossible.

“This is a big deal,” DOGE Chief Elon Musk commented on X. 

Back in February, the Treasury Access Symbol (TAS) became a required field, increasing transparency into where U.S. tax dollars are going.

Treasury went live with its new payment verification system last week, resulting in the rejection of over $300 million in fraudulent accounting entries.

https://amgreatness.com/2025/04/29/treasury-dept-rejects-over-300-million-in-improper-payment-requests-using-new-verification-system/

CBS Kamala Interview at Center of Trump Lawsuit Receives Emmy Nomination

 The controversial interview with former vice president Kamala Harris that sparked a $20 billion lawsuit by President Trump against CBS, has been nominated for an Emmy.

The lawsuit stems from accusations that CBS producers highly edited an answer that Harris provided to “60 Minutes” correspondent Bill Whitaker regarding whether Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was “listening” to the Biden administration.

Fox News reports that Harris was widely mocked for the “word salad” answer she gave Whitaker in a preview clip that aired on “Meet the Nation.”

However, when the CBS primetime special aired, Harris had a different, more concise response, prompting accusations that CBS deceptively edited the vice president’s answer to shield her from backlash.Report Ad

That edited answer prompted President Trump to file a lawsuit against CBS News and its parent company Paramount for what he alleged was election interference in the days leading up to the 2024 election.

There are reports that CBS parent company Paramount has chosen to settle that lawsuit rather than face the president in court.

Earlier this year, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chair Brendan Carr ordered CBS to hand over the unedited transcript of the interview as part of an investigation into whether the network had violated the FCC’s policy on “news distortion.”

“60 Minutes” executive producer Bill Owens resigned last week after claiming that corporate pressure was preventing him from exercising editorial freedom.

Meanwhile, the exact interview which sparked the controversy has been been nominated for an Emmy in the category of “outstanding edited interview.”

White House Communications Director Steven Cheung told Fox News Digital, “Of course it’s nominated for best editing because it takes some serious talent to edit Kamala’s answer into something that’s coherent and understandable, which in the end they still failed to do.”

Trump is considering potential legal action against the New York Times for election interference, saying “It’s vital to hold these Liars and Fraudsters accountable.”

https://amgreatness.com/2025/05/02/cbs-kamala-interview-at-center-of-trump-lawsuit-receives-emmy-nomination/