The United States Central Command (CENTCOM) announced on Monday that two US-flagged merchant vessels "successfully transited through the Strait of Hormuz and are safely headed on their journey."
In a post on X, CENTCOM added that US Navy guided-missile destroyers are "currently operating in the Arabian Gulf after transiting the Strait of Hormuz in support of Project Freedom," further mentioning that the US forces are "actively" assisting efforts to normalize commercial shipping transit through the area.
While US President Donald Trump previously stated that Washington would help stranded ships pass the waterway, Iran warned against such actions, threatening to attack any foreign military forces that come close.
The price of oilcontinuedto rise on Monday following reports that two Iranian missilesstrucka US warship after it ignored warnings as it attempted to pass through the Strait of Hormuz.
Earlier, the IRGC Navy released a new map, designating areas of the waterway under Iranian military control after the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) claimed that the United States had established a security corridor through Omani waters, claiming it allowed safe transit through the Strait of Hormuz.
At 6:22 am ET, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for June deliveries jumped 5.24% to sell for $107.28 per barrel, while Brent for settlements in July advanced 5.59%, going for $114.22 per barrel a minute later.
The prescription data collected forEli Lilly'sLLY new weight-loss pill, Foundayo, is flawed, analysts said Friday. Wall Street's take buoyed Lilly stock on the heels of its blowout first-quarter report.
This is the first time Eli Lilly shares have risen on Foundayo prescription data — namely because the new pill has consistently underperformed its key rival, Wegovy Pill from Novo NordiskNVO.
But analysts now say there's a reason why. On Thursday, the company said 20,000 patients have started treatment with Foundayo. IqviaIQV, which keeps tabs on prescriptions, has tracked around just 10,000 total prescriptions, Leerink Partners analyst David Risinger said in a report.
"It appears there is a capture rate issue with the data," RBC Capital Markets analyst Trung Huynh said in a client note. "It is difficult to know what the current capture rate is, as the weeks do not align with the 3.5-week, 20,000-patient disclosure from LLY yesterday."
Eli Lilly stock bounded 3.1% higher to 963.33. That follows a nearly 10% jump on Thursday following the first-quarter report. Novo shares also jumped 3.9% to 43.88.
Shares of both also benefited from a Food and Drug Administration proposal that would largely eliminate compounding of semaglutide and tirzepatide, the backbones behind Novo's and Lilly's biggest weight-loss and diabetes drugs.
Investors have closely watched the early days of Foundayo's launch, comparing each week to Novo's oral Wegovy. Wegovy Pill launched in January, with Foundayo coming online in April.
In each week, Foundayo has lagged the same-week comparison to Wegovy Pill. In its third week on the market, Iqvia says Foundayo had 5,612 total prescriptions, significantly lower than the roughly 26,000 recorded for Wegovy Pill in its third week of launch.
The figures "are significantly understated," Leerink's Risinger said.
The data show 82% of the prescriptions come from the mail channel, which is likely Eli Lilly's direct-to-consumer website, LillyDirect, RBC's Huynh said. Another 12% came from chain stores.
In contrast, 60% to 70% of the prescriptions for oral Wegovy were filled by chain stores in the first weeks of its launch. He noted NovoCare Pharmacy, Novo's direct-to-consumer site, is much smaller than LillyDirect.
"In our post-call with LLY, they noted the retail channel is based on a small sample and the telehealth channel, which accounts for ~35% of Foundayo (total prescription) share, has more data gaps still."
Huynh says weeks eight through 12 will be most telling for Foundayo's launch.
"Prior to that, the data is clouded by channel fill dynamics, sampling programs, and volatile capture rates across telehealth and LillyDirect channels, dynamics that LLY IR has explicitly flagged," he said.
More broadly, analysts remain impressed with Lilly's performance. Three analysts hiked their price targets on Eli Lilly stock in the wake of the first-quarter report, according to FactSet. BofA Securities analyst Jason Gerberry did the opposite, cutting his target to 1,133 from 1,294.
He says there are still uncertainties ahead for GLP-1s, which account for 65% of Lilly's business.
Still, he described the first-quarter report as "solid" as Foundayo prescriptions pick up and Mounjaro continues to outperform, particularly abroad. Mounjaro is Lilly's type 2 diabetes drug based on tirzepatide, the same ingredient behind its weight-loss shot, Zepbound.
George Orwell's prognostications about the future of authoritarianism have proven consistently accurate. They have only been limited by his inability to foresee the creation of certain technologies which make the future look even more bleak. The reason his books, like 1984 and Animal Farm, are considered classics of literature is because they are timeless.
Their warnings and messages still apply today and will probably apply centuries from now.
Animal Farm, first published in 1945, is a tale specifically written as an allegory for the Bolshevik Revolution and the rise of Soviet Communism. Despite the characters being talking animals, the themes are dark and disturbing. It is a story about the naivety of the "underclass", the exploitation of the "have-nots" by communists seeking to use gullible people as weapons against their "imperialist" and capitalist enemies.
It is a grotesque tragedy composed like a children's novel, which makes it all the more effective. It destroys the notion of "equity" and exposes the truth: There is no such thing as a socialist Utopia, there can only ever be socialist dystopia. And to get it, leftists are happy to sacrifice you and everything you love. Not only that, but they expect you to applaud them for it.
The message is made iconic in the book's famous phrase: "All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others..."
This is the epitome of woke ideology and how progressives behave today. It's no surprise that Hollywood is incapable of telling this story properly. In order to do that, they would have to put their own warped beliefs under a microscope, and that's simply not going to happen.
The new animated adaptation of Animal Farm is being billed as a kid-friendly foray into concepts of "authoritarianism"; but it perverts Orwell's message about communism and demonizes capitalism instead.
Audiences across the board are not happy. The movie is distributed by Angel Studios, which bills itself as a Christian and conservative leaning company. However, the makers of the film (director Andy Serkis and The Imaginarium Studios) are entirely left wing. Given the people involved, Angel Studios should have know what kind of disaster they would have on their hands.
Andy Serkis is a former member of the Socialist Workers Party, a Troskyist Group in England in the 1990s. Though he is no longer involved, he still considers himself left wing, and his exit from political provocation was largely because of conflicts with his acting career. Enlisting a hardcore socialist to direct Animal Farm feels like a deliberate middle finger to conservatives who see the story as a cautionary battle cry against leftist movements.
The film was even released on May Day (International Workers Day), which is a communist holiday.
In developing the film as far back as 2013, Serkis (still riding the high of his successful role as "Gollum" in the Lord Of The Rings movies) admitted that he had no intention of sticking to the critique of communism. Rather, he believed that if Orwell wrote Animal Farm today, he would obviously compose a takedown of capitalism.
“First and foremost, we are not making a film about Communism and Stalinism because if Orwell was writing the story today, he would be talking about other relevant topics like globalisation and corporate greed...”
In other words, Andy Serkis, like most communists, wants to rewrite history in favor of his ideology.
This is exactly what he did in the new Angel Studios film. Many of the characters from the book are the same, and some of the plot points remain. The animals revolt against the farmers and seek to build their Utopia of fairness. But, the pigs (who represent the communist manipulators in the book) are not evil in the film. Rather, they are corrupted into doing bad things by a new character - Ruthless billionaire Frieda Pilkington and her corporation.
Frieda is the typical evil rich white person common in leftist mythology. Some critics have argued that the character looks strikingly similar to Elon Musk's mother, May Musk, and she even drives a vehicle that looks like a pink Cybertruck.
Rather than the pigs being conniving and malicious from the beginning, Frieda corrupts them into evil with the promise of riches. Her plan is to use the pigs as a means to get control of the farm. In the end, the animals realize their mistake and their solution is yet another communist revolution.
The message being, communism only goes wrong when evil capitalists influence the outcome. Collectivist ideology is inherently good. Leftists are not psychotic ideologues thirsting for power and control. They are just led astray sometimes.
There are numerous hatchet job films denigrating capitalism out of Hollywood. There are few if any that explore the nightmares of communism and left-wing collectivism. Orwell's Animal Farm is one of the few stories that captures the insidious nature of "equity" and suicidal empathy that permeate communist societies. It is about the tools that communists use to lead the population astray, not about capitalism leading communists astray.
Even worse is the marketing strategy of Angel Studios, which has tapped into the pockets of conservative and libertarian influencers (including Tucker Carlson) to sell the movie. It is likely that most of these influencers never watched the film before they promoted it, and if they did, it might be time to question their motives.
Critics and audiences alike have given Animal Farm a thunderous thumbs down. Angel Studios is the same company that put Sound Of Freedom in theaters; a movie which was relentlessly (and suspiciously) attacked by the political left for putting a spotlight on child trafficking and pedophile rings. It is unfortunate that they made placed this project in the hands of the same left wing community that tried to tear them down only a couple years ago.
Historically speaking, crawling to communists for help has never been a good idea; there's always a catch. By extension, making trade deals with China and the CCP from a position of weakness usually ends with diplomatic concessions instead of mere economic concessions. That is to say, the Chinese are less interested in economic benefits, and more interested in political submission.
Canadians are about to speed run this lesson after Prime Minister Mark Carney's "new strategic partnership" formed with China early this year. The announcement has been heralded as a pragmatic reset in Canada-China relations after years of tensions, aimed at diversifying Canada’s trade amid U.S. tariffs under Trump. The goals of the deal include increased bilateral trade, agricultural agreements, currency swaps and energy exports.
The problem is, Carney also wants Canada to maintain its relationship with Taiwan, which the CCP views as a violation of their "One China" policy. Not surprisingly, China is already using their newfound economic leverage to pressure Canada to submit to their demands on Taiwan.
Chinese Ambassador to Canada, Wang Di, has warned that the new strategic partnership between Canada and China could be damaged if Canada continues sending parliamentarians (MPs and senators) to Taiwan, or if they continue transiting warships through the Taiwan Strait.
Wang emphasized the One China principle, stating there is "only one China in the world, and Taiwan is an inalienable part of China’s territory." He described Taiwan as a core interest and political foundation for bilateral relations, warning that official engagements by Canadian parliamentarians with Taiwanese officials would be "hurtful."
🚨CHINA ISSUES ULTIMATUM🚨
First, Carney pulls MPs out of Taiwan.
Now China is warning Canada not to go back - and not to send ships either.
Carney told Canadians he was dealing with China because the U.S. was "unreliable".
— Northern Perspective (@NorthrnPrspectv) May 1, 2026
Canadian MPs and senators have long visited Taiwan, including numerous meetings with the president and foreign minister. But, this year their trips to Taiwan have been cut short, with Canada showing a quiet willingness to "de-conflict" high-profile visits when they overlap with China diplomacy.
Taiwan's envoy to Ottawa warned that Canada's burgeoning attachment to China could put them in a vulnerable position and lead to "trade weaponization" by the CCP.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has led his country into economic chaos as one of the few leaders unwilling to negotiate a basic trade deal with the Trump Administration. He should have been the first to make a deal, given that around 75% of Canada's export economy relies on US markets and there is no viable alternative that will bring anywhere close to the same trade revenues.
Canada's housing market is currently in shambles with prices still skyrocketing. Jobs losses are climbing. Factories are shutting down. Food prices are inflating.
It's a matter of simple math and basic geography: The US is the largest consumer market by far with 30% of total global buying power. China is around 12% of the global total and their consumer spending is far less liquid (and spread out over a much larger population). Furthermore, shipping goods 6000 miles to China is a lot more expensive and inefficient than shipping goods right across the border to the US. It's not complicated - making a deal with the US is the superior option.
However, Carney and his globalist ilk are not interested in common sense trade policies, they are engaged in an ideological war with the Trump Administration. This is about an increasingly "woke" and socialist Canadian regime vs an increasingly nationalist and anti-woke US government.
Carney has consistently painted the situation between the US and Canada as a war, and he has made it clear he intends to "win". This means cutting deals with traditional enemies like China; not because it makes sense financially, but because it's a way to spite Trump and conservatives in America.
In the end, it is a foolish plan which will only end up costing Canadians billions in export revenues and possibly enslave them to eastern geopolitical interests; further inflaming tensions with the US.
The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) said it received a report of "unknown projectiles" striking a tanker 78 nautical miles north of Fujairah, United Arab Emirates.
"All crew reported safe. No environmental impact reported," the UKMTO said in its brief notice.
The sad, short tale of what would’ve been an AI-focused high school is all-too-emblematic of why public education keeps getting worse in New York City.
Chancellor Kamar Samuels pulled the plug at the first hint of woke opposition, as race-obsessed activists fumed that opening Next Generation Technology HS would “exacerbate existing disparities” among city students.
Meaning: Selective admissions to a cutting-edge computer-science-focused school would be a boon to the kids who were prepared to do the academic work — and so expose how badly so many K-8 public schools fail low-income black and Hispanic families.
NextGen had attracted a qualified applicant pool of 1,000 students, with 39% Hispanic, 21% black, 20% Asian and 17% white — but critics were sure the final screen would “disadvantage” the non-white, non-Asian ones.
Opponents included Greg Faulkner, who chairs the Panel for Education Policy, who claimed to back the idea “of a school dedicated to advanced technology” and to appreciate “the academic rigor of this model” — but opposed the selective admissions that are transparently necessary to making such school work.
And so no teens get to attend a challenging school, partnered with Carnegie Mellon University and Google and offering a strong math and science curriculum.
Then again, Samuels is an enemy of the Gifted & Talented programs in lower grades that would prepare students for such challenges: As a superintendent on the Upper West Side,he worked to dismantleG&T in the name of “equity.”
This is the chancellor hand-picked by Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a Bronx Science grad who evidently thinks future generations shouldn’t have as much opportunity as he grew up with.
This nonsense mainly serves to cover the system’s failure to serve the very children Mamdani, Samuels and Faulkner pretend to care about.
No wonder minority families are fleeing Department of Education outlets for public charter schools whose rigorous instruction has seen poor black and Hispanic kids greatly outperformtheir DOE-“served” peers on every academic assessment.
