The sector has become the latest to clamp down on the wearable devices, following action by pub operators and theatres in recent weeks.
According to the UK Cinema Association (UKCA), many venues are currently reviewing their internal policies surrounding smart glasses.
As a result, numerous locations have already prohibited or restricted their use by cinemagoers.
A UKCA spokesman said: "UK cinema operators are aware of the increasing availability and use of wearable technology such as smart glasses and the extent to which these can provide benefits to those with specific access requirements.
"However, they are also mindful of the issues around privacy and film piracy that arise around the use of such technology in cinemas, and as a result many are introducing policies to prohibit and/or restrict the wearing of camera-enabled smart glasses in particular in their venues.
"This is clearly a developing area, and we will continue to work with our members to ensure their approach remains relevant and proportionate."
ATG Theatres, which owns the Bristol Hippodrome, Edinburgh Playhouse and various theatres across London, has said that filming is not allowed and that those wearing the glasses during shows will be asked to remove them.
A number of pub firms, including Wetherspoons, have indicated that they will not allow people to record with the glasses inside their venues.
The move follows growing scrutiny of smart glasses over their recording capabilities, with courts in England and Wales this month prohibiting Meta smart glasses because of restrictions on taking images and videos in courts.
Meta first started selling Meta glasses in 2021 but has seen demand grow in recent years on the back of partnership with brands Ray-Ban and Oakley, with around seven million pairs sold last year.
The technology company said it recognises that films should not be recorded without authorisation.
A Meta spokeswoman said: "People use our glasses because they're helpful and let them stay in the moment, from listening to music to live translation or hands-free calls.
"They also provide critical new technology for people in the blind and low vision community and limiting how people can use this technology would be a major step backwards.
"Naturally some places shouldn't be filmed at all and that's reasonable but rules should be applied consistently."
The reinstated U.S. blockade on Iranian oil exports is effectively preventing Tehran from exporting oil, making Iran’s oil volumes irrelevant for global oil market balances, Bob McNally, president of Rapidan Energy Group, told CNBC on Thursday.
The U.S. brought back the blockade in the Gulf of Oman aimed at preventing Iran from exporting its oil after the ‘deal to make a deal’ collapsed in July and hostilities in the Middle East returned.
The blockade, which the U.S. had lifted for about three weeks while negotiations were being held in June and early July, is now back and effectively blockading Iran’s oil exports.
“Kharg Island is not exporting anymore,” McNally told CNBC, referring to Iran’s key oil export terminal that handles more than 90% of all shipments.
“Iran has stopped being a factor for the oil market in terms of its exports because of the blockade,” McNally said.
Iran may have been removed from the real barrels count, but the crude oil futures market is underpricing geopolitical risk, the energy expert told CNBC.
“The refined products are telling the story” of how crude futures may be underpricing the tightness in the global oil market, according to McNally.
In addition, “the market has become a little less optimistic about near-term and sustainable reopening of Hormuz,” he said, adding that the longer the disruption goes on, “the risk is that crude will follow products higher.”
Brent Crude prices topped $91 per barrel this week amid heightened security concerns for shipping in the Middle East and fading hopes that the U.S. and Iran could return to negotiations.
The refined product market, however, is already flashing severe tightness, with the diesel crack spread hitting record highs in both the United States and Europe this week.
The diesel crack spread in the United States hit triple digits this week, for the first time ever. The premium over crude prices jumped to as high as $102 per barrel on Monday, before easing slightly to about $100 a barrel on Tuesday.
A stand-up comedian’s satirical stab at Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s new luxury home tax has snowballed into something she never expected to actually build.
Madison Walser, who splits time between New York and Los Angeles, launched a website called Aura Investments back in May as pure internet bait. The pitch was simple and absurd: struggling artists move into vacant apartments owned by wealthy second-home owners, and in exchange those owners dodge the city’s pied-à-terre tax.
The site’s copy leans into the joke hard. “You own a home in New York. You cannot always be there. Why should you be taxed for being successful?” it reads, before offering itself up as “your solution to the vacancy tax.”
Comedian Madison Walser created Aura Investments as a joke after Mayor Mamdani’s pied-à-terre tax proposal, building a site pitching artist house-sitting as a workaround for wealthy second-home owners looking to dodge the tax.Madison Walser/Instagram
What started as a Threads joke turned into roughly 4,000 artist applications and about 25 homeowner submissions, eight or nine of which she considers legitimate.Aura Investments Except a lot of people didn’t get that it was a joke.
Since going live, Walser told Curbed in an interview she has fielded outreach from people who say they actually own second homes in Manhattan and Brooklyn, on top of a flood of interest from artists hoping to snag free rent.
“I think we’re close to 4,000 submissions,” Walser told the outlet of artist applicants alone. On the property owner side, the haul was smaller but still real. “For properties, we had 25, and after I checked, we had eight or nine that were legitimate,” she said.
The origin story traces back to a smaller joke that got out of hand. Walser had spent roughly a year bouncing between cities as a professional pet sitter before coding the site herself.
“When the pied-à-terre tax thing came out, I made a joke on Threads that, because I have such a big heart, I’m willing to sign a lease and live in the property of someone who’s avoiding the tax so they don’t have to pay it,” she told Curbed. “My background is in software development, and I’ve been playing around with AI coding tools, so I was like, ‘Let me just code something real quick.’” A friend asked to repost it. “I was like, ‘Sure, why not?’ And it just blew up.”
Now Walser is doing the unglamorous work of trying to make the joke legally sound. She’s hunting for a lawyer and hoping to bring on a co-founder to help sort out logistics.
“The biggest things are legal and safety,” she said. “Both sides have to get a background check, and I have to make sure you’re not some sketchball. We have to verify that you actually own the property. Then I have to get a leasing agent who makes sure the artists have tenants’ rights. I’m not just throwing these people in there on, like, a vacation. There would need to be a lease in place so the owners could not use the unit unless that was specified in their contract.”
Two possible business models are on the table. In one, artists live rent-free while owners pay Aura a placement fee equal to 10% of what they’d otherwise owe in taxes, funding both operations and a redistribution pool for other artists. In the other, artists cover utilities themselves in exchange for the space.
She’s now exploring whether to build it into something real, with two possible models: either free housing for artists funded by a placement fee from owners (10% of their would-be tax bill), or artists covering just the utilities.catlabs/Instagram
Walser frames the arrangement as a mutual win dressed up in ego stroking for the ultra-wealthy.
“It’s a back scratch for both sides. If you frame it to the wealthy as ‘Hey, we’re actually doing you a favor,’ it stops making poor people look like they’re less than,” she said. “On the other hand, it actually puts people in units and frees up all the housing these artists live in.”
Mamdani’s pied-à-terre tax, aimed at owners of second homes worth $5 million or more who maintain a primary residence elsewhere, was billed by the mayor’s office as a way to fund parks, schools and libraries by taxing the wealthy.
The city has already sent formal notification letters to affected owners and stood up a dedicated Department of Finance webpage to walk them through it.
Walser acknowledges the city has already warned that leases entered into solely to dodge the tax won’t be valid, which could sink the concept as-is.Bloomberg via Getty Images
But city officials have also warned that sham leases designed purely to skirt the surcharge won’t fly. Walser isn’t naive about the timing of that warning.
“The city recently released a warning that was like, ‘If we find out that you entered a lease agreement with the sole intention of avoiding the tax, that’s not valid,’” she told the outlet. “My narcissistic ass is like, They definitely saw the website.”
Asked whether that guidance effectively kills her idea, Walser didn’t rule out a Hail Mary.
“Unless I somehow got a meeting with the mayor himself and was like, ‘Okay, hear me out,’ which I’m not opposed to doing.”
Walser insists the concept has legs beyond just Manhattan’s luxury housing stock. She said interest has trickled in from outside the five boroughs entirely, including someone in France offering up a cottage for artists. She’s also eyeing California’s proposed commercial vacancy tax as another opening, floating the idea of matching small businesses with empty storefronts for short-term pop-ups.
The comedian built a website that matches artists with people who want someone to live in their New York pieds-à-terre to avoid the vacancy tax.catlabs/Instagram
The website even nods to the Medici family as inspiration, casting the whole venture as old-world art patronage repackaged for a modern tax code.
“Michelangelo, court artisans — all these things happened because someone was bankrolling them,” Walser said. “Nepo babies are in art because someone is bankrolling their lives so they have time to focus on something that is not guaranteed to provide you money back. I’m calling this art patronage of the 21st century.”22
For now, Walser said she’s not chasing scale. She just wants proof of concept.
“It was all a joke with the intention of, like, ‘Damn, this would be really cool if we could make this happen.’ My goal now is to match one person with one house. If I can do that, this is successful, in my opinion, and it can grow from there.”
After receiving a checkered regulatory scorecard in 2024, Aurobindo’s sterile injectables and oncology unit is back in the FDA’s crosshairs. At the same time, a manufacturer of drug ingredients in Tianjin, China, has also run afoul of the regulator in the latest round of facility writeups published on the agency’s website.
First up, Aurobindo’s Eugia unit has received an FDA Warning Letter tied to an inspection of its facilities of its Pharma Specialties arm in the Indian city of Hyderabad back in February. Although the drug production specialist responded to the resulting Form 483 on March 20, the FDA has determined that many of Eugia’s proposed remediations were inadequate, resulting in the more serious reprimand.
The U.S. regulator flagged two main observations revolving around the physical spaces in which Eugia operators work and lackluster adherence to procedures meant to prevent contamination of sterile drug products.
Eugia’s aseptic processing lines, the FDA wrote, lacked sufficient restricted access barrier systems to allow proper ergonomics when performing manufacturing steps, and they also hindered proper placement and “appropriate physical separation from the surrounding environment,” which the FDA warned are essential to minimizing or eliminating operator intervention in critical clean room environments.
The FDA also noted that it observed operators being allowed to enter certain areas related to the aseptic line “on a frequent basis” to perform manual interventions, among other concerns about Eugia’s overall poor environmental monitoring at the site.
Adding to the FDA’s concerns, the agency noted that it cited Eugia for similar manufacturing violations and aseptic practice issues at other facilities inspected last November and in January.
“Both of these facilities are classified as Official Action Indicated and are in unacceptable CGMP status,” the FDA wrote of the other plants, adding that the “failures at multiple sites demonstrate that management oversight and control over the manufacture of drugs are inadequate.”
Prior to those more recent infractions, Eugia set an especially bad track record with FDA inspectors in 2024.
That August, the company received a warning letter for its Unit III plant in Hyderabad after failing to address concerns the FDA had raised at the plant, which had recently started operations in February 2024.
Before that, the company had encountered four FDA Form 483s across various sites in its network since late 2023.
Heading north to China, meanwhile, the FDA also doled out a warning letter—published this week—to Kilo Pharmaceutical Sci-Tech following a submission of records related to its active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) plant in Tianjin around July 7.
In looking over the materials, the FDA said it uncovered deviations, in particular flagging the company’s failure to properly register certain products intended for U.S. distribution, among other more production-focused concerns.
On the manufacturing front, the FDA dinged Kilo for failing to show that its process is reproducible and meets necessary quality standards. The agency noted that the company distributed certain ingredients to U.S. compounding pharmacies despite indicating in documents to the FDA that “these APIs were still in development and were not commercial products,” according to the agency.
“Therefore, formal documents such as standard operating procedures had not been finalized,” the FDA added.
The company was also dinged for failing to prepare and use master production and control records, dropping the ball on validation of its testing methods and further stability testing.
On the company’s purported listing violations, the FDA noted that “[y]ou did not provide drug listing information for demecarium bromide and chlorambucil under your own labeler code, yet you manufactured and shipped these drugs into the United States.
“Although these drugs are listed in FDA’s drug listing database,” the regulator continued, “they are listed under a different company’s labeler code, not your own.”
The FDA warned Kilo that failing to address any of the deviations outlined in the warning letter could result in the agency’s “continuing to refuse admission of articles manufactured at Tianjin Kilo Pharmaceuticals Sci-Tech Co.”
Just eight months after it introduced its oral version of semaglutide for obesity, also known as the Wegovy pill, Novo Nordisk is testing the GLP-1 in smaller doses in the late-stageOASIS 5 study.
The company has not made public the strength of the doses being tested in the placebo-controlled trial, which is underway in the United States and Europe. A starter dose of the Wegovy pill comes in at 1.5 mg, with the titration schedule ramping up at increments of 4 mg, 9 mg and then a maximum dose of 25 mg.
"OASIS 5 is designed to evaluate the efficacy and safety of lower maintenance doses of the Wegovy pill in adults with overweight or obesity," Novo said in an email to Fierce. "While the currently approved maintenance dose is 25 mg, we are also studying the effects of lower maintenance doses by generating new evidence to fully reflect the patients’ needs in real-world obesity management."
The study, which began last week, will include 450 patients who will be on treatment for 60 weeks. The trial is open to adults with a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or more or a BMI of 27 or more for those with a weight-related health issue such as hypertension, sleep apnea or cardiovascular disease. The study excludes diabetes patients and those who have recently lost weight or are already being treated with a GLP-1.
The primary objective of OASIS 5 is to investigate weight loss. Secondarily, the trial also will track blood pressure, cholesterol levels, waist circumference, side effects and other weight-related health metrics.
"Having a broader range of maintenance doses could provide greater flexibility in treatment and optimizing the patient experience," Novo added. "The study is therefore part of our ongoing work to build the clinical evidence required to support appropriate treatment options for people with obesity."
The company did not address a question about which doses are being studied.
The uptake of the Wegovy pill has been successful so far. In the second quarter, the oral drug clinched sales of 3.22 billion Danish kroner ($497 million), far outdistancing those of Eli Lilly’s GLP-1 pill Foundayo, which was launched in early April and accounted for sales of $98 million in the latest reported quarter.
Since GLP-1 weight-loss medicines were brought to the market by Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly, some patients have been using smaller “microdoses” to manage the high costs or side effects of the treatments. This practice often dovetails with the use of compounded drug product, which Novo and Lilly have been fighting fiercely over the past several years.
Moreover, as additional weight loss candidates reach the pivotal stages of development, drugmakers are increasingly highlighting differences in the magnitude and quality of weight loss offered by their assets as potential differentiating factors in the high-demand and ever-evolving obesity market.
The United States will issue fresh sanctions targeting Lebanon’s Hezbollah on Thursday, including re-designating the group under a terrorism authority to emphasize its ties to the Iranian government, Reuters reported, citing a statement it reviewed.
The Treasury Department will re-designate Hezbollah as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist “for service to the Iranian regime under the command of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force,” the statement said.
A US official cited by Reuters said the move was intended to show that Hezbollah acts on behalf of the Iranian government and to update the public record linking the designation to its actions for the IRGC Quds Force.
It’s no secret that patients and doctors are dissatisfied with our nation’s healthcare system. Across the board, politicians, physicians, and citizens are calling for changes: transparency, affordability, autonomy, and a public option. Currently, New York State is considering legislation, theNew York Health Act, that would create the state-level single-payer New York Health Plan (NYHP).
The New York Health Act promises comprehensive coverage, but gives the state monopoly control over healthcare financing and restricts nearly all voluntary alternatives.
While the bill doesn’t explicitly require all doctors in the state to enroll in the newly created NYHP, it prohibits insurers from offering coverage that duplicates any service included in the extraordinarily broad state plan.
This would mean no employer- or individual-based insurance, no catastrophic insurance, no marketplace plans, no health savings accounts. Direct primary care subscriptions may become illegal as NY State has previously treated some versions as insurance. Medicare and Medicare Advantage plans would be subsumed by the NYHP. It would make it impossible for individuals to pursue a cash-pay alternative or privately contract with their doctors.
Just as patients’ freedoms to choose their healthcare financing would be drastically curtailed, physicians’ freedom to choose the financing of their practice would face significant limitations. Physicians who opt out of NYHP to continue their cash-pay or direct-pay practices would lose many patients who rely on partial out-of-network reimbursement from insurance (as there will be no private insurance).
It is even possible that these non-enrolled doctors could be accused of fraud for accepting cash for any service otherwise covered by NYHP. While this isn’t spelled out in the act, it’s not unthinkable because it is exactly how Medicaid payments are handled in most states today. Physicians who are enrolled in NYHP, like those enrolled in Medicaid, will be prohibited from accepting cash for covered services, even with the patient’s full knowledge and consent.
Our Medicaid system and the Canadian health system stand as examples of the risks of a public health sector that does not provide for a parallel private system. In both cases, regulations have led to long wait times, physician shortages, and healthcare deserts for Canadians and Americans on Medicaid. In some provinces of Canada, the median wait time to see a specialist is 30 weeks – more than 8 months! If we think U.S. Emergency Departments are overrun now, it will be much worse if we adopt the NYHP.
Conversely, the United Kingdom’s single-payer National Health Service (NHS) permits a parallel private system: patients may self-pay or buy private insurance, and NHS physicians may also practice privately. That alternative does not solve every NHS problem, but it preserves choice, opens additional capacity in the public system, and helps retain physicians who might otherwise leave public practice entirely.
New York’s bill combines centralized price controls with Medicaid and Canadian-style restrictions on alternative financing models. It might reduce administrative spending initially. But if state-enforced price controls fail to cover the costs of providing care, as they often do, physicians will leave practice, leave the state, and reduce services. Without private insurance or parallel practice to supplement capacity, the resulting caregiver shortages will lead to an increasingly overburdened system with even longer waits, fewer choices, and lower-quality care.
The New York State Health Act should be rejected. It is not a single-payer option in the way that, for example, public schools are optional. This act would usher in a single-payer mandate, place inappropriate constraints on patients’ and providers’ freedom to contract privately, and leave no room for parallel private practice. As much as we may want an alternative to the status quo, New Yorkers shouldn’t settle for any health plan that will so severely limit their freedom and that of their providers.
Colleen Smith, MD, is a Clinical Policy Analyst at the Center for Modern Health.
