HCA Healthcare cuts 2026 guidance and sets revenue outlook at $77–$79.5 billion after reporting Q2 revenue of $20.23 billion
- Company lowers 2026 net income, EPS and adjusted EBITDA guidance following preliminary Q2 2026 results.
Tuesday, July 14, 2026
HCA cuts 2026 guidance; revenue outlook at $77–$79.5 b, reported Q2 revenue of $20.23 b
Watch: Smug NYT Podcaster Visibly Annoyed When Mick Jagger Defends Elon Musk
by Steve Watson via Modernity News,
Mick Jagger just delivered a masterclass in cutting through media spin, leaving a leftist New York Times podcaster visibly rattled as he clarified that his "mad mogul" lyric about Elon Musk was actually a compliment.
The Rolling Stones legend refused to play along with the expected narrative during the interview, pushing back firmly when the host, David Marchese, presumed the line was a diss.
Instead, Jagger highlighted Musk's real-world achievements in space, crediting him with stepping up where government agencies have fallen short.
Watch the NYT podcaster's face when he realizes Mick Jagger likes and respects Elon Musk—after initially thinking a new Rolling Stones song lyric was a diss:
— Julia ?? (@Jules31415) July 14, 2026
NYT: "But something's nagging at you, what is it?"
Jagger: "No, it's not nagging. It's just that people, they hear one... pic.twitter.com/UuuIgPSSyG
In the exchange, Jagger explained the context behind the lyric from the new Rolling Stones album Foreign Tongues. He pointed to the rescue of the stranded NASA astronauts last year, noting that Musk's SpaceX provided the transportation NASA couldn't.
Jagger told the interviewer: "It's not nagging, but people hear one word and they don't really listen to the line. So it's like, 'Mick Jagger has a go at Elon Musk.' You're not listening to the line, you're only listening to 'Musk.' ... even though I do call him mad."
Marchese's expression totally changed from smiling to frowning in an instant when Jagger refused to confirm the interviewer's gleeful expectation that the singer would criticise Musk.
He continued: "When I wrote that, I was thinking that because of him, they were able to get those astronauts back that were stuck because he provided the transportation because NASA couldn't provide the transportation..."
"Who would you trust to get you into space?" Jagger continued, adding "Would you trust Boeing or would you trust NASA or would you trust mad mogul Mr. Musk? It's really a side-winding compliment because he was the one I remembered was able to do that when the others couldn't."
Jagger exposed how Marchese had completely misinterpreted the lyrics of the song, making him look foolish.
The podcaster pressed on, noting Musk was the only person named on the album, implying significance.
Jagger stood his ground, adding that "mogul doesn't always go down well, either," and the host again showed how one dimensional he is by suggesting "No one likes a mogul."
Jagger was clearly exhausted with the exchange as Marchese simply refused to understand what the singer was getting at.
In another recent NYT interview, Jagger contrasted his approach to performing live with Bruce Springsteen's rabid anti-Trump activism, emphasizing that his job is to give fans a great time, not sermonize.
Jagger's nuanced expression underscores a refreshing independence in an industry often dominated by predictable elite consensus, and his clarity cuts against the grain of performative outrage.
Moments like this expose the disconnect between coastal media bubbles and ground-level realities.
The Rolling Stones continue to prove their enduring relevance not by chasing trends, but by staying true to a no-nonsense ethos that prioritizes delivery over dogma. Jagger's unapologetic take serves as a subtle rebuke to those who weaponize art for division rather than unity through great music and honest reflection.
Jagger gets it - focus on what works, entertain the audience, and let results speak louder than spin. In a free society, that kind of straight talk is exactly what keeps culture vibrant against efforts to enforce conformity.
Goldman Sachs jumps 8% on upbeat earnings
Shares of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. surged 8% on Tuesday after the bank reported better-than-expected financial results for the second quarter of fiscal 2026.
The company's revenue in the reported period reached $20.34 billion, soaring 39% year-over-year and widely exceeding analysts' projections of $16.22 billion. Net earnings jumped 78% on an annual basis to land at $$6.63 billion, while diluted earnings per share stood at $20.98, skyrocketing 92% compared to the second quarter of 2025.
Goldman Sachs' stock rose by 8.06% at 10:15 am ET to go for $1,130.18 apiece.
https://breakingthenews.net/Article/Goldman-Sachs-jumps-8-on-upbeat-earnings/66694673
Netanyahu warns Tehran against attacking Israel
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a warning to Iran on Tuesday, saying that if Tehran were to attack Israel, the response would be far more "powerful" than previous exchanges of strikes.
"We are prepared for every scenario. I can tell you one thing only, and I direct this squarely at Iran’s leaders: Do not presume there will be quiet if you strike us. Do not expect a repeat scenario. For it will not be a repeat; the previous one was potent enough. This will be something else entirely - immensely more powerful," Netanyahu warned the Iranian leadership during his speech at the Negev Conference in Dimona.
Furthermore, the Israeli prime minister declared that anyone who "harms" Israelis would face a "crushing response." "This is how we operate," he stated, citing attacks on "the axis of evil" in Iran.
https://breakingthenews.net/Article/Netanyahu-warns-Tehran-against-attacking-Israel/66694148
Spero bets up to $1.1B for Innovent’s autoimmune antibody
Spero Therapeutics is putting over $1 billion on the line in exchange for rights to develop SP001, an anti-CD40L antibody, for IgG4-related disease. A Phase 2 study is planned for the second quarter of 2027.
Spero Therapeutics has licensed an investigational autoimmune disease therapy from China-based Innovent Biologics.
The total deal value could reach up to $1.1 billion, according to a Tuesday morning news release. This sum includes Spero’s upfront commitment, as well as R&D, regulatory and commercial milestones—though the companies did not provide a breakdown of the specific financials. Innovent will also be eligible for tiered royalties on net sales.
The star of the deal is SP001, a therapeutic antibody targeting CD40L, which is a key protein positioned upstream in several immune signaling paths. Given this target, SP001 “has the potential to redefine treatment paradigms across a range of immune-mediated diseases,” the partners said in their announcement.
Under the deal terms, Spero will have the exclusive right to develop SP001 globally outside of Greater China, an area that includes the mainland, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan. The Massachusetts-based biotech plans to test the asset in IgG4-related disease, a rare and chronic inflammatory condition, with a mid-stage trial set to start in the second quarter of 2027.
Innovent, meanwhile, will retain control over SP001—which the biotech calls IBI355—in Greater China, where the asset has already been evaluated in two early-stage healthy volunteer studies, plus a Phase 1b trial in patients with Sjögren’s disease. A Phase 2 Sjögren’s trial in China is slated to start in early 2027, per the Tuesday release.
To fund the development of SP001, Spero has entered a financing agreement with the investment firm Healthcare Royalty. In exchange for $105 million from Healthcare Royalty, Spero has promised an undisclosed portion of future sales-based milestones and royalty payments associated with its GSK-partnered antibiotic Utebzi.
Utebzi was approved last month by the FDA for complicated urinary tract infection.
Other recent deals in the immunology space include AstraZeneca’s agreement with Sino Biopharmaceutical last week. The pharma paid $200 million upfront for a dual PDE3/PDE4 inhibitor being tested for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in China. A few weeks earlier, AbbVie acquired Apogee Therapeutics for $10.9 billion, absorbing the biotech’s lead inflammatory asset zumilokibart for atopic dermatitis.
Also in mid-June, Biogen swallowed RayThera for up to $1 billion, winning over three preclinical anti-inflammatory assets.
https://www.biospace.com/deals/spero-bets-up-to-1-1b-for-innovents-autoimmune-antibody
'AAIC 2026: Misses endpoint but--Biogen delivers hope, validation with anti-tau Alzheimer’s win'
Biogen touted an “unprecedented” drop in tau in a Phase 2 trial, backing the company’s decision to take diranersen to Phase 3 despite a missed primary endpoint and seemingly supporting the anti-tau approach.
The co-owner of one of two marketed anti-amyloid therapies, Biogen has long been a pioneer in the Alzheimer’s space. On Tuesday at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference, the company presented detailed data from a mid-stage trial of its next candidate, showing that the tau-targeting antisense oligonucleotide can slow clinical decline in patients with the neurodegenerative disease.
“As a clinician, I am excited to see that we now can target successfully another core pathology of Alzheimer’s disease,” Szofia Bullain, vice president of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia clinical development at Biogen, told BioSpace prior to the presentation.
In the Phase 2 CELIA trial, a 60-mg dose of diranersen—discovered by Biogen’s longtime partner Ionis and licensed exclusively to the larger company—led to a 26% slowing on the Clinical Dementia Rating Sum of Boxes (CDR-SB) after 18 months, alongside a slowing of cognitive decline on several other scales, according to Biogen’s press release. The trial enrolled 416 patients with mild cognitive impairment due to Alzheimer’s or mild Alzheimer’s.
Diranersen missed the trial’s primary endpoint, which assessed statistically significant dose response for change from baseline on the CDR-SB, but Biogen underscored the fact that “CDR-SB results favored diranersen versus placebo across all studied doses.” Higher doses were not associated with greater slowing of decline, the company said.
Ionis Head of Development Holly Kordasiewicz said the CELIA study was designed as a dose-finding study to inform the Phase 3 trial, and “to show some of that initial proof of efficacy, so you can have some confidence going into that Phase 3 study.”
“The study hit all those objectives that it needed to hit on, even though it didn’t hit on that primary endpoint,” she told BioSpace ahead of AAIC.
Biogen reported the initial trial result in May, confirming then that it planned to take diranersen to Phase 3 regardless of the missed endpoint.
At AAIC, Biogen also revealed that diranersen is the first tau-directed therapy to demonstrate robust reductions in both CSF total tau (50–65%) and brain tau pathology, as measured by PET, across all studied doses in the trial. Bullain called the degree of tau reduction shown in CELIA “unprecedented.”
The connection between amyloid and tau is becoming clearer, experts told BioSpace last week, with amyloid indicating early signs of Alzheimer’s while tau accompanies cognitive decline.
Biogen’s presentation on diranersen was easily the hottest ticket at AAIC, which is being held this week in London.
The results are “key data that the field is looking to,” Laura Nisenbaum, interim Chief Science Officer at the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation (ADDF), told BioSpace last week. “This is the first signal that we might be able to move beyond amyloid,” she added.
Analysts expressed cautious optimism following Biogen’s initial announcement. “Any new mechanism showing cognitive benefits in Alzheimer’s could be a big long-term win,” RBC Capital Markets told investors at the time, adding that Biogen’s “excitement” over the data “suggests there may be something here.”
BMO Capital Markets also saw positive signs. “We believe management body language suggests warranted enthusiasm for the asset, with data presentation likely providing more rationale for decision to move into phase 3 development,” the analysts wrote in a July 9 note following an investor meeting with the company. “While not perfect . . . we noted the rigor with which these data were interrogated by outside experts,” BMO added, recalling how Biogen’s head of development, Priya Singhal, had said, “These results are not by chance.”
In the Phase 3 study, Biogen will be looking for consistency in the results on a larger scale, Bullain said. “We would again look for robust target engagement, again pronounced impact on tau pathology measured by tau PET, and the same clinical benefits,” Bullain told BioSpace. “If we could replicate those numbers that we’ve seen in Phase 2, I think we certainly would be very happy.”
A history of FDA flexibility
Biogen is no stranger to pushing candidates forward despite failed trial endpoints—and the company has largely been successful. Before winning accelerated approval in January 2023 for their currently marketed Alzheimer’s drug Leqembi, the partners had a precursor: Aduhelm.
In 2019, Biogen and Eisai abandoned the program that would become Aduhelm—the first new Alzheimer’s drug in nearly 20 years—after a futility analysis indicated that two Phase 3 trials would not hit their endpoints. However, a few months later, Aduhelm was back. The partners reported that after a full analysis, one of the trials, the Phase 3 EMERGE study, had hit the primary endpoint at the highest dose, demonstrating a significant decrease in clinical decline. Aduhelm won accelerated FDA approval in June 2021 as the first drug to target an underlying cause of the disease.
Biogen and Eisai also overcame a negative vote by an FDA advisory committee—three members of which would ultimately resign over Aduhelm’s approval. It was essentially replaced on the market by Leqembi.
Two years later, Biogen again benefited from FDA flexibility when Qalsody was approved as just the fourth-ever treatment for ALS despite having missed its Phase 3 primary endpoint. Qalsody, an antisense oligonucleotide partnered with Ionis, was approved specifically for SOD1-ALS, a genetic form of the disease. In this case, the companies did have the support of an adcomm, which voted unanimously that the drug’s effect on a neurodegenerative biomarker could be a reasonable predictor of clinical benefit.
Experts who spoke with BioSpace agreed that earlier intervention is the key in Alzheimer’s.
“You’re going to want to intervene as early as possible as you can in the disease,” Kordasiewicz said. “We’re going to see that in the [Alzheimer’s] field. There’ll be early intervention, and we’ll keep going earlier and earlier.”
Ionis and Biogen have seen this benefit of earlier treatment with Qalsody, as well as with Spinraza—also fruit of the companies’ longtime alliance—in spinal muscular atrophy, Kordasiewicz said.
“With our ALS drug, there’s a portion of the patients who, if you go in early enough, it’s looking like there’s reports that they’re now doing better as well,” she added. Of diranersen, Kordasiewicz said, “It’s great to see this exciting mechanism come to fruition.”
NY gov orders country’s first statewide moratorium on data centers
New York will block the construction of any new large data centers for up to a year so the state can create rules to protect the environment and energy grid from the power-hungry facilities that fuel artificial intelligence technology.
Gov. Kathy Hochul is set to sign an executive order Tuesday morning imposing the country’s first statewide moratorium on hyperscale data centers, which house thousands of computer servers and require massive amounts of energy and a steady supply of water to keep cool.
“As data center development threatens to hike up utility bills, deplete our natural resources, and create uncertainty for New Yorkers, it’s my responsibility to take action and lead,” Hochul, a Democrat, said in a statement.
The order will pause state permitting for new large data centers and direct state regulators to create standards that address environmental impacts, energy demand, water usage and other factors, the governor’s office said.
Tech companies and other backers have argued moves to block the construction of data centers hurt job growth for local communities and cede ground to China in a race to lead in the rapidly growing AI industry.
Earlier this year, Maine seemed poised to establish a similar moratorium. But the measure was vetoed by the state’s Democratic Gov. Janet Mills because it would have blocked a proposed data center in a town that has struggled following the closure of a local mill. Moratoriums have been proposed in at least a dozen states but have not gotten far, though some counties and municipalities have imposed their own temporary bans.
The decision in New York also carries political significance for Hochul’s reelection campaign and the state’s tight congressional races this fall, as Democrats move to address affordability concerns over high utility bills and other pocketbook issues. The governor this year softened New York’s ambitious goals to reduce greenhouse gases, citing rising energy costs for consumers.
Hochul’s Republican opponent in the governor’s race, Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, opposes a statewide moratorium and says local governments should be allowed to strike deals with tech companies for data center projects that promise enough economic benefits.
The state Legislature this year approved its own moratorium bill, but Hochul’s office described the legislation as complex and said it needed additional work. Instead, the governor is opting for an executive order that would take effect immediately once signed.
New York, at this stage, has not been a destination for the biggest hyperscale data centers.
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