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Katy Perry, Justin Trudeau acheive major milestone in their relationship
Katy Perry and Justin Trudeau are reportedly taken major step to strengthen their relationship.
Radar Online reported that the 41-yeear-old American singer-songwriter and the former prime minister of Canada have introduced one another to their kids.
Perry shares her one child, five-year-old daughter Daisy Dove Bloom with her ex-fiancé Orlando Bloom, whim whom she was in a romantic relationship from 2016 to mid-2025.
While Trudeau shares his three children, Xavier Trudeau, 18, Ella-Grace Trudeau, 16, and Hadrien Trudeau, 11, with his ex-wife Sophie Grégoire Trudeau. They tied the knot in 2005 and announced their separation in 2023 after 18 years of marriage.
An insider told the outlet that Perry and Trudeau’s relationship “is not a fling;” they “are crazy for each other.”
The high-profile couple, who recently went Instagram official in Tokyo, are trying to get their kids acquainted.
“Katy’s daughter, Daisy, has spent time around Justin. And his three kids – Xavier, Ella-Grace and Hadrien – have met Katy. It was warm. It was easy. The kids clicked instantly,” the insider closely overserving the situation said.
Perry, the Dark Horse crooner and Trudeau have built an strong chemistry and want to their relationship to another level.
“They both have this sparkle. It’s like they recognize something in each other,” the source concluded.
Advisors to the ultra rich say AI isn’t a gamechanger for landing new clients
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A version of this article first appeared in CNBC’s Inside Wealth newsletter with Robert Frank, a weekly guide to the high-net-worth investor and consumer. Sign up to receive future editions, straight to your inbox.
Market data firms have been pitching artificial intelligence as the key to locating elusive ultra-high-net-worth clients. But leaders at elite advisory firms told Inside Wealth they aren’t sold.
For starters, while AI products can surface data and contact information on ultra-high-net-worth individuals, that’s only half the battle.
“When we’re looking for clients with north of $100 million, I struggle to think they’re going to take a cold email and say, ‘Yes, here’s my balance sheet,'” said Matthew Fleissig, CEO and co-founder of Pathstone, a registered investor advisory with $182 billion in client assets.
Instead, he said referrals come when the company works on a more personal level, like when Pathstone once secured a private jet in under an hour for a client who needed to get from New Orleans to Albany, New York, before their mother died.
“Those types of things are how we are able to grow the business,” he said. “We create moments that matter.”
Fleissig said AI for client prospecting hasn’t been the gamechanger that startups purport it to be.
“These databases have been around forever, and now people have added an AI overlay to be able to mine the database,” he said. “Most of the time, it’s very similar strategies of aggregating data sources that are public or you can pay for, and trying to feed you lists of people. We, at this point, can do that ourselves.”
A growth executive at a high-end national RIA told Inside Wealth that he had done at least 20 demos of AI client prospecting tools in the past six months and said most are built on widely available large language models like Claude and GPT.
“You’re slapping a coat of paint on one of five major LLMs and selling through the fact that ‘Oh our info is better,'” said the executive, who requested anonymity to talk about client acquisition strategies. “Do I pay them $100,000 or do I talk to my IT team and figure out a way of doing it for cents on the dollar?”
Andrew Douglass, head of growth at AlTi Tiedemann Global, said there is little competitive advantage to using nonexclusive data. When the independent wealth management firm used to cold call clients from these types of databases, the client usually already had an advisor or had been called by dozens of other firms already, he said.
For the past five years, client referrals and personal networks have made up 40% and 30%, respectively, of AlTi’s organic growth, he said. Another 30% comes from networking with experts like trusts and estates lawyers and accountants who are likely to be working with clients going through a liquidity event, such as inheriting a fortune or selling a business.
“Most people go out and say, ‘Our minimums are $25 million so whoever has $25 million in liquid assets makes a great client.’ We don’t think that that is a strategy that ultimately works,” said Douglass, calling from the Heckerling estate planning conference in Orlando, Florida. “We think really being looked at in the market as a subject matter expert, consistently showing up to places like Heckerling and where the professional community is and being able to provide value, is the most effective way to grow the business,”
Word-of-mouth referrals are not inherently scalable and can be slow-going. Douglass said the sales cycle with an ultra-high-net-worth client can take 12 months, if not longer.
However, advisories focused on the ultra-rich like AlTi Global are looking for quality, not quantity, he said. The firm’s annual target for organic growth is 25 to 30 new clients in the U.S., which could add about $1.5 billion to $2 billion in new assets.
Eden Ovadia, CEO of AI client prospecting startup Finny, said she is used to encountering skepticism. Ovadia, who co-founded Finny in late 2023, said she views AI prospecting as a complement to traditional outreach rather than a replacement.
She said a popular way for high-end advisors to use Finny is to promote exclusive events to the right audience. For instance, an advisor looking to invite prospects to a suite at a Miami Heat game can use Finny to identify people who work in real estate and are interested in the team. Ovadia also said Finny can be used to identify clients who might need advice after a life transition, such as finding people who recently bought a property worth at least $5 million near Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
“There’s definitely a little bit of cynicism we have to get over when we talk to ultra-high-net-worth firms and they’re, ‘No, we don’t do AI. We want everything to feel really personalized, really white glove,'” she said. “I couldn’t agree more. The idea here is we actually can surface more data about your clients or your prospects than even you know.”
Finny can also be used to keep an eye on existing clients and monitor for signs they may be unhappy, such as searching for investment advice online, Ovadia said.
Fleissig said he is more excited about customers finding Pathstone through AI platforms like Gemini and ChatGPT. In the past two weeks, he said, Pathstone has received five inbound inquiries from clients worth at least $100 million from AI search engines.
Douglass said while AI hasn’t changed the way AlTi Global finds new business, he’s open-minded.
“If someone has a better mousetrap, we’re certainly excited about what the market’s going to look like and bring to bear,” he said.
USWNT star Trinity Rodman’s record NWSL deal: What it means for her and the league
The most complicated sort-of-transfer saga in the NWSL‘s history of them finally concluded on Thursday: U.S. women’s national team forward Trinity Rodman and the Washington Spirit announced they have signed a new deal for Rodman to return to the team.
Rodman and the Spirit agreed to a three-year deal on a salary of more than $2 million annually, making Rodman the highest-paid player in the history of the NWSL and the highest-paid player in the world.
Rodman’s return is a huge win not just for the Spirit but for the NWSL, which nearly fumbled the approach enough to let the face of the league walk away despite her clear interest in staying. Over recent months, the NWSL clung to its principles of a salary cap while expediting a new rule to pay star players — only for that solution to be opposed by the NWSL Players Association. The union has filed two different grievances against the league, and months of arbitration appear to be in everyone’s future.
Rodman’s future, at least, is settled, which brings closure to a soap opera that the entire sports world watched in anticipation of a superstar’s next move and a league’s defining choice.
What does Rodman’s return to the Spirit, her only professional team to date, mean for her, Washington and the NWSL? Let’s dive in.
Rodman cements herself as the face of the NWSL
The NWSL can fight the narrative all it wants, but the creation of the high impact player (HIP) rule was prompted — and urgently so — by the need to retain Rodman. The new rule will allow NWSL teams to spend up to $1 million over the salary cap for elite players, such as Rodman, who meet certain criteria. Just as MLS’ designated player rule is known colloquially as the “Beckham Rule” after the league devised a new way to sign David Beckham, the high impact player rule will go down as the “Rodman Rule” in kind.
As the NWSL scrambled to find a way to keep Rodman amid a league-created fiasco, it became increasingly clear that Rodman wanted to stay with the Spirit, which made the NWSL’s inability to get out of its own way that much more confounding.
Rodman has made Washington her home, and she has become the face of the NWSL, leading the next generation of USWNT stars who move the needle beyond core NWSL fans. The NWSL in recent years has seen some its biggest stars retire or go abroad, but Rodman remains as a player who resonates with casual fans in the wider sports world.
Rodman will now carry on as the NWSL’s top star, a premise some might reject as irrelevant to what she delivers on the field, but one that is undeniably part of the sports marketing landscape. She also steps in line, at the age of 23, as a player who picked up where the last generation left off in fighting for their worth and equitable pay by forcing the NWSL to reconsider its salary restrictions.
On the field, the NWSL also suits Rodman. Yes, experiencing soccer abroad can enhance players’ games and expose them to new styles of play that are critical to advancing their games, especially when preparing for a World Cup. Those who came before Rodman, such as Megan Rapinoe and Alex Morgan, did exactly that. Both credited their time in Lyon as reasons for their midcareer development. Rodman can still make that leap someday, and she already told ESPN in early 2025 that a move abroad is a matter of when, not if.
Rodman’s flashy one-on-one play and remarkable nose for goal in clutch moments fit the NWSL’s fast-paced, transitional style. She is a dynamic forward who can beat players in the open field and in tight spaces on the wings, and she is a proven goal scorer with a wide range of finishing abilities. A healthy Rodman should be a future MVP and Golden Boot candidate — a player worthy of having a new roster rule named after her.
And of course, there is a piece of legacy to all this. Rodman’s new deal makes her the highest-paid player in the league and, more importantly, rewrites the rulebook for the NWSL’s future.
This move wouldn’t have happened without the ability and desire of Rodman, nor without the willingness to push against the NWSL establishment from her agent Mike Senkowski, Spirit owner Michele Kang and a Spirit front office that added president of soccer operations Haley Carter in the middle of the process. That they forced the league to change its way of operating will forever be viewed as a turning point in the NWSL, not entirely unlike Olivia Moultrie‘s legal battle in 2021 to force the NWSL to allow teenagers to play professionally.
Years from now, the fights of Rodman and Moultrie will be taught as case studies in sports law and crisis management classes, and they will be stories of players prevailing against the suppression of their wages and rights.
The right result to the wrong fight for the NWSL
Rodman remaining in the NWSL is a win for the entire league, not just Washington. Sure, opponents won’t be rooting for her to score against them, but Rodman’s return boosts the profile of the entire league, especially given the rate at which NWSL commissioner Jessica Berman and team owners talk about their desire for a massive new media rights deal. Stars drive media value.
This league has long called itself the best in the world, but as one general manager wondered in our anonymous survey last year: What is the league doing to back that up? (That GM voted England’s Women’s Super League as the best in the world.)
Losing Rodman, a star who wanted to stay, after the recent departures of Naomi Girma and Alyssa Thompson to Chelsea, and Sam Coffey to Manchester City, would have sent the NWSL’s panic into DEFCON status. The league has been losing stars to teams abroad and seemed to have little idea of how to counter — up until the passage of the Rodman Rule, as it will henceforth be known.
Longer term, Rodman’s decision to stay and her fight for her worth are an inflection point for the league. The Rodman Rule could usher in a new era of stars and, at minimum, could make million-dollar salaries a norm. (Imagine saying that when the NWSL launched in 2013 with $6,000 annual minimum salaries.)
0:54
Has injury cost Trinity Rodman her top 10 Women’s Rank spot?
Futbol W’s Cristina Alexander and Ali Krieger, along with Natalia Astrain, discuss Trinity Rodman’s slide from 8th to 37th in ESPN FC Women’s Rank.
If MLS is an example — and this new rule looks like the NWSL copied MLS’ homework from years back with Beckham — this is just the starting point to more expansive roster mechanisms to come. The NWSL has chosen this path of controlled spending and regular tinkering rather than abolishing the salary cap entirely.
Using our anonymous GM survey as a snapshot, most sporting executives feel that it is better to raise the cap than abolish it. But several sources around the league also called the high impact player rule “a Band-Aid.” The extra $1 million per team each year will help, those sources argue, but it will need to increase within a year or two to remain competitive.
The top clubs in England, some sources said, don’t need to pay that much more than they already pay to remain competitive for top salaries, and those English clubs are not constrained by a salary cap like the NWSL still is. Not to mention the fact that the markets for player salaries and transfers continue to balloon at unpredictable, exponential rates. Just look at how many times the world transfer record has been set in the past year alone. Some sources look at this more optimistically: HIP can be tweaked as the market evolves, they argue.
The NWSL also faced one of its longtime flaws in this fiasco. The league has been too reactionary since it launched over a decade ago: Decisions, from salary caps to calendars to basic roster rules, take too long, and deliberations drag out until they must be made up against a pressure-packed deadline. The true world-leading league should be far more proactive than it has been historically or was in this case.
Rodman signed her previous contract four years ago. She signaled to the world nearly a year ago that she was thinking about a move to Europe at some point, and even the most naïve observer could decipher that, at minimum, it was a strong piece of leverage for her impending negotiation. The NWSL thought that Rodman would stay in the NWSL based on what Berman has called a wider “value proposition” of competition and media exposure, but money talks.
Berman said before the NWSL Championship that the league would “fight” for Rodman. From the outside, the NWSL looked like a fighter standing in the corner of the ring trying to dodge contact until the final moments before the bell went off, hoping for a split decision in their favor. The Spirit, Rodman — even the NWSLPA — kept coming for the league.
The worst look for the league came in early December, when the NWSLPA filed its first grievance after Berman vetoed an agreed-upon deal between Washington and Rodman because it violated the “spirit” of the rules. The union has also filed a grievance opposing the HIP rule and arguing the cap should simply be raised by $1 million with no restrictions.
The NWSL has been told by many executives that the salary cap set forth in the CBA is too low, and that it was projected to be too low when the CBA was signed. Most general managers said as much in our recent anonymous survey, as did NWSLPA executive director Meghann Burke in recent interviews. The salary cap was set as a floor that was meant to rise through media rights and at the discretion of the owners.
The Spirit can now plan their future
Washington finished second in the league and runners-up in the NWSL Championship each of the past two years — and both times they did so as Rodman dealt with injuries in the homestretch of the campaign. She played sparingly in the 2025 playoffs, and the Spirit still flexed their depth and tactical acumen to nearly snag the title, falling to Gotham 1-0 in November’s final.
Now, imagine Washington with a healthy and newly motivated Rodman. The “healthy” part is really the key here, and perhaps why some might consider the scale of the Spirit’s investment to be a gamble. But injuries happen, and the sprained MCL she sustained in October is more of an unfortunate occupational hazard that all players face.
Rodman returned from the summer break feeling like her chronic back issues were under control, and her strong form (from literally her first minutes on the field in August) supported that claim. She is back with the USWNT in training camp this week for the first time since April.
Now, Rodman is set up for the long term to deliver another championship to the Spirit after winning a title as a rookie in 2021, and to make Washington even more dangerous in attack. Gift Monday and Rosemonde Kouassi were sensational for Washington in the playoffs. Imagine adding a full season of a healthy Rodman back to the mix with a full season from Croix Bethune and Sofia Cantore. Add to that the longer-term potential of new acquisition Claudia Martínez, an 18-year-old Paraguayan forward.
You get the picture. This is a team hunting championships and staying power. Rodman is a cornerstone of that quest.
Crucially, signing Rodman through this rule change means that the Spirit still have some cap space to retain a talented roster around Rodman. Washington will use the entire $1 million in HIP funds, ESPN confirmed, meaning Rodman will still carry a significant hit on the cap (which will be about $3.7 million in 2026 after revenue sharing, per a league source). Carter told ESPN that the team also has allocation money, an old mechanism that helps teams pay players outside of the cap, that it will use throughout the roster.
Sources have previously told ESPN that, no matter what happens to the HIP rule in potential arbitration, the league still has to honor existing contracts. One way or another, there’s a bigger pot of money coming for NWSL players.
Away from the field, and focusing beyond just Rodman, the retention of the 23-year-old is an immediate, major win for Carter and her staff, who started the job officially only on Dec. 1. And it reinforces the power and ambitions of Kang, who is one of four members of the NWSL board’s executive committee. Both are disruptors who find themselves on the winning side of change. This success is likely just one of many. And, to rule out any doubt, the Spirit have made it clear that their ambitions won’t be entirely confined by the NWSL’s current structure.
Why a niche category of CRE lending is suddenly seeing record deals
Wepro | Moment | Getty Images
A version of this article first appeared in the CNBC Property Play newsletter with Diana Olick. Property Play covers new and evolving opportunities for the real estate investor, from individuals to venture capitalists, private equity funds, family offices, institutional investors and large public companies. Sign up to receive future editions, straight to your inbox.
A specific kind of loan that helps owners of commercial buildings pay for big upgrades to save energy or water, add renewable power, or improve resilience is seeing huge growth in a lending environment that has been arguably tough.
This month, Nuveen closed a $465 million C-PACE deal for The Geneva, a landmark office-to-residential conversion in Washington, D.C. The transaction represents the largest C-PACE financing in history.
C-PACE, which stands for commercial property assessed clean energy, is a type of financing that differs from a traditional bank loan. It operates at the state level, requiring local leaders to pass enabling legislation. The amount of the loan is added to the property’s tax bill and repaid over a long period (often up to 20 or 30 years). This can make energy-saving projects more affordable, because the payments are spread out, typically at fixed rates, and the upgrades can lower operating costs and increase property value.
Between 2009 and the end of 2024, cumulative C-PACE investment reached nearly $10 billion, according to PACENation, a nonprofit that says it advocates for C-PACE financing.
Growth, however, has really accelerated over the past five years — with C-PACE lending posting double-digit gains — as more states pass policies enacting the program and more owners and lenders adopt the tool for financing projects. Currently 40 states have C-PACE policies with 32 active programs, up from six active programs in 2015.
Nuveen closed $2.1 billion in C-PACE loans across 53 deals in 2025 alone and has originated over $5 billion in total. In September Nuveen closed on its now-second-largest C-PACE transaction to date at $290 million for the Pendry Hotel & Residences in Tampa, Florida. The closing also marked the first C-PACE financed transaction in the city of Tampa.
Nuveen said upgrades financed by its C-PACE lending have saved over 300,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide.
But it’s not all about the environment, and lenders are quick to admit that, especially as political winds shift away from decarbonization.
“The underlying need of making properties more resilient, more efficient to operate, really doesn’t go away,” said Alexandra Cooley, CEO and CIO of Nuveen Green Capital, an affiliate of Nuveen. “Actually, the vast majority of the projects that we see — the last I checked it was 97% — are some combination of either energy efficiency, which is cutting costs of operating the property, or climate resiliency. So a very small percentage is actually renewable energy.”
It is the mechanism, really, that is increasingly attractive to lenders in a higher-for-longer interest rate environment, in which economic policy uncertainty has hit traditional CRE bank lending hard. For institutional clients that want long-term, fixed-rate exposure, it’s appealing because C-PACE loans are secured by a senior tax assessment on a piece of real property.
“Our borrower is really the property itself, not necessarily the owner of that property at any given moment. So, it’s safer, and it enables our investors, who are long-term investors, to have that duration,” Cooley explained.
Another major player in the space, Peachtree, closed its largest C-PACE deal, a $176.5 million loan for the Rio Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, for renovations that were actually completed in 2024. The loan was structured to finance these renovations retroactively, so the owners could reduce their senior loan obligations, another benefit of the C-PACE product.
“They can be utilized as a rescue capital mechanism, where you just recently opened a new development project, a new development hotel property, a multifamily property, any type of commercial real estate property, and you could technically do a retroactive C-PACE loan to help recapitalize that project and help pay down the bank or the lender that financed the project,” explained Greg Friedman, CEO of Peachtree Group.
Friedman said he sees C-PACE as an economic development tool at a time when “capital markets for commercial real estate have been broken.”
“Banks make up 50% of the commercial real estate lending market. Banks tend to be the lender of choice for new construction, new development projects, and they’re just not lending at the same level,” he said.
C-PACE is very profitable for Peachtree as a business, Friedman said, because the company can aggregate and securitize the loans.
“We have a lot of insurance companies that will invest into these securitizations,” he added.
While C-PACE lenders are less focused on the “green” aspects of the loan, they are still drawn in by the “resilience.”
C-PACE loans can be made in order to fund energy efficient upgrades, which saves money overall and makes the building more valuable, but they can also be done for upgrades to the building’s resilience. That includes against flood, fire and even earthquakes. That is also appealing to investors as climate disasters become ever more extreme.
Cooley said she sees three things driving expansion in the space: More states adopting C-PACE programs, market education and awareness, and investor interest.
“As institutional investors have come in, the cost of capital and the structure of C-PACE has become a lot more compelling for the commercial real estate industry,” she said.
Oil prices rise as US sends armada to Iran, slaps new sanctions | The Express Tribune
Oil prices rose on Friday after US President Donald Trump ratcheted up pressure against Iran through fresh sanctions on vessels that transport its oil, and announced that an armada was heading towards the Middle Eastern nation.
Trump’s statements renewed warnings to Tehran against killing protesters or restarting its nuclear program. The escalating pressure has caused concerns of oil supply disruptions in the Middle East. Kazakhstan has been struggling to resume output from one of the world’s largest oilfields.
Brent crude futures rose $1.86, or 2.9%, to $65.92 a barrel by 11:53 am EST (1653 GMT). US West Texas Intermediate crude was up $1.77, or 3%, at $61.13.
Both benchmarks were set for weekly gains of about 2.5%.
Warships, including an aircraft carrier and guided-missile destroyers, will arrive in the Middle East in the coming days, a U.S. official said. The United States conducted strikes on Iran last June.
US hits vessels, firms with sanctions
The US on Friday also imposed sanctions on nine vessels and eight related firms involved in transporting Iranian oil and petroleum products, the US Treasury said in a statement.
At about 3.2 million barrels per day according to OPEC figures, Iran is OPEC’s fourth-biggest crude oil producer behind Saudi Arabia, Iraq and the United Arab Emirates. It is also a major exporter to China, the world’s second-largest oil consumer.
Chevron (CVX.N), opens new tab said oil output at Kazakhstan’s Tengiz oilfield has yet to resume after Chevron-led operator Tengizchevroil announced a shutdown on Monday following a fire.
Also Read: Oil prices hold near five-week high
The incident exacerbated problems for Kazakhstan’s oil industry, already challenged by bottlenecks at its main exporting gateway on the Black Sea, which has been damaged by Ukrainian drones.
JP Morgan said on Friday that Tengiz, which accounts for nearly half of Kazakhstan’s production, could remain offline for the rest of the month and that Kazakhstan’s crude output is likely to average only 1 million to 1.1 million bpd in January, compared with a usual level of around 1.8 million bpd.
Oil prices climbed earlier in the week on Trump’s moves on Greenland, but dropped by about 2% on Thursday as he backed off tariff threats against Europe and ruled out military action.
Trump said on Thursday that Denmark, NATO and the U.S. had reached a deal that would allow “total access” to Greenland.
Gold At Record High Puts SGB Investors In A Dilemma: Sell Or Hold After 200% Gains?
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Gold rises to Rs 1,57,150 per 10g as investors seek safety. SGB holders weigh selling for profit or holding for interest and tax benefits.
Gold at Peak Levels: Is It Time to Cash Out of SGBs?
Gold prices have surged to a record high as investors flock to safe-haven assets amid escalating geopolitical tensions, the Indian rupee’s slide to a record low, and aggressive gold stockpiling by central banks.
In the domestic market, gold prices touched a fresh all-time high of Rs 1,57,150 per 10 grams.
Riding on the sharp rally in gold, Sovereign Gold Bonds (SGBs)—the government-backed investment scheme—have delivered exceptional returns to existing investors, with some tranches generating gains of over 200%.
With gold prices at elevated levels, SGB holders now face a key dilemma: should they book profits by selling in the secondary market or hold the bonds until pre-mature redemption or maturity to benefit from long-term returns and tax advantages? Market experts believe the decision lies on the objective of the holder.
Aakanksha Shukla, AVP–Wealth Management at Master Capital Services Ltd, believes selling SGBs before maturity can be a prudent portfolio move in the current environment.
“Investors sitting on substantial appreciation may prefer to lock in gains rather than risk a price correction, especially when gold prices have already exceeded long-term return expectations,” she said.
Shukla added that early redemption through RBI windows remains tax-efficient, as capital gains are exempt, and the proceeds can be redeployed into undervalued assets or diversified across equity and debt.
Echoing a balanced view, Thomas Stephen, Head–Preferred at Anand Rathi Share and Stock Brokers, said the decision largely depends on individual investment objectives. Selling at a premium can deliver attractive returns, particularly for bonds that have crossed the five-year lock-in period and are eligible for premature redemption or active trading on exchanges.
However, he cautioned that holding SGBs till maturity allows investors to continue earning the fixed 2.5% annual interest, along with any further appreciation in gold prices, while enjoying full capital gains tax exemption at maturity.
“Selling early may work for short-term profit-taking in a strong gold market, but holding till maturity can enhance overall returns through interest income and tax benefits if gold prices remain firm or rise further,” Stephen said.
Stephen further noted that many SGB tranches are currently trading at a premium in the secondary market due to record gold prices and strong retail demand, which has pushed prices above their underlying gold value. “Selling in the secondary market allows investors to lock in these premiums and realise profits now, especially for series that have already seen sharp appreciation over their issue price,” he added.
Disclaimer: The views and investment tips by experts in this News18.com report are their own and not those of the website or its management. Users are advised to check with certified experts before taking any investment decisions.
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January 23, 2026, 18:30 IST
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School board member’s explosive lawsuit claims teachers union lied about funneling money to political groups
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EXCLUSIVE: A union watchdog organization has filed a lawsuit in tandem with a Utah teacher alleging that the Utah Education Association (UEA) falsely claimed on multiple occasions that members’ dues are not used to fund political activities.
The UEA is the state affiliate of America’s largest teachers union, the National Education Association (NEA). Cole Kelley, a 29-year teacher and Republican member of the Utah State Board of Education, is a co-plaintiff, along with the Freedom Foundation, which says it works to liberate public employees from political exploitation via various means, including litigation.
The lawsuit, filed in Utah’s 3rd District Court, alleges that the UEA made false statements on its website and social media claiming that “UEA member dues are never used for political activities.”
Utah Education Association members rally at the Utah state capitol over funding on February 7, 2025. (Credit: KTSU)
Freedom Foundation says in the lawsuit that that statement appeared on the UEA’s website, X account and Facebook on or around March 26, 2025. On May 1 of that year, the group says it reached out to the UEA and notified the union that the statement was false and violated the Utah Truth in Advertising Act.
‘WE’RE TAKING SCHOOLS BACK.’ RYAN WALTERS’ TPUSA EXPANSION MARKS NEW FRONT IN CULTURE WAR
Days later, according to the suit, the UEA changed the statement to say, “UEA member dues are never used for political parties or candidates.” Freedom Foundation says that assertion is also false.
Kelley told Fox News Digital that the lawsuit is meant to expose the truth. Kelley and Freedom Foundation are only seeking $2,000 each in damages.
“I think that it’s time for the UEA to tell the teachers in Utah the truth about what they do, what they represent, what they stand for, what they’re advocating for,” said Kelley, adding that the union’s politics are clearly left-leaning.
“And I think it’s important for teachers to understand that when you join, your dollars are going towards supporting these political activities,” he said.
A Utah Education Association member holds a sign during a rally at the Utah state capitol over funding on February 7, 2025. (Credit: KTSU)
The lawsuit lists several examples of UEA and NEA “dues-funded” contributions to “Utah political committees.” For example, the suit claims that more than $30,000 was given by the UEA to a group called Protect Utah Workers split over four separate contributions in April 2025.
A portion of UEA dues are kicked up to the NEA, and the lawsuit claims that NEA also supports political causes.
Thus, the lawsuit says the UEA’s statements were false because, “on information and belief, UEA members pay a single, unified dues rate which is apportioned among a local NEA affiliate, the UEA, and the NEA, which — with UEA’s knowledge — uses its share of UEA members’ dues to support and/or oppose political parties and candidates with millions of dollars in spending each year, with most of the expenditures done through the NEA Advocacy Fund, a ‘political organization’ for the purposes of federal tax code.”
The lawsuit says that the NEA contributed about $35,000 to Protect Utah Workers, split over five payments in April 2025.
Utah Education Association members hold signs during a rally at the Utah state capitol over funding on February 7, 2025. (Credit: KTSU)
“Unions like the UEA often operate a political action committee funded by voluntary contributions solicited from members and use these highly visible funds to deflect questions about whether members’ dues are used for politics,” said Maxford Nelsen, the Freedom Foundation’s director of research and government affairs. “Unbeknownst to most teachers, the vast majority of teachers unions‘ political spending is financed with member dues, and the UEA is no different.”
Kelley said that when he ran for the state education board position as a Republican, the UEA contributed to his opponent.
“There’s no question that they are left-leaning and that’s — you know, when you go look at their donations, especially at the NEA level, and you look at their donations to campaigns — they, by a very large margin, support the Democratic Party and are making significant donations to Democrat candidates for office,” he said.
“My big frustration is that, you know, I feel like that what they’re telling their members and what they are telling those teachers that do choose to join their organization — that they’re not being forthright, they’re not being honest— they’re telling half-truths, mis-truths and sometimes flat-out lies.”
Utah Education Association members rally at the Utah state capitol over funding on February 7, 2025. (Credit: KTSU)
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Ryan Walters is the former Oklahoma State Superintendent. He now runs the Teacher Freedom Alliance, a new union alternative which supports educators who wish to teach free from ideological bias.
“This lawsuit exposes what teachers unions have long tried to hide: a coordinated taxpayer-funding scheme that funnels dues into radical political activism aimed at undermining America,” Walters said. “The abuse of both teachers and taxpayers will not go unnoticed, and these organizations will be held accountable.”
The UEA said it does not comment on pending litigation.
The NEA did not return a request for comment.
After Ellen DeGeneres, Channing Tatum speaks up against ICE
US actor Channing Tatum has reacted strongly to the news that Ring cameras would be joining other companies to create direct DATA access for ICE, the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The screenshot of the news shared by the actor read, “Ring Cameras join Flock and Amazon to now create direct data access for ICE.”
Channing Tatum shared the screenshot to his Instagram story with expletive remarks writing, This is so “F*** up.”
His remarks came after former talk show host Ellen DeGeneres voiced support for the protesters in Minneapolis, Minnesota against Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
DeGeneres has received backlash from some Americans who have supported ICE crackdown.
In one of her Instagram videos, the 67-year-old condemned the killing of Renee Nicole Good, the US citizen who was shot and killed by ICE agents earlier this month.
The woman was protesting against ICE agents who have descended upon the Twin Cities in recent weeks, which President Donald Trump has said is in response to a massive misappropriation of welfare funds.
“I am so sorry for what is happening in Minneapolis and our country, really, but specifically Minneapolis right now because that’s where I shot my last stand-up special and everybody there couldn’t have been more lovely,” DeGeneres said on Instagram. “I shot it there because they say it’s the happiest city in America. And I found that to be true.”
She later shared a video of a peaceful demonstration attended by hundreds of people in Minneapolis
What obesity drugmakers see next in the market: More pills, easier access and drug combinations
A pharmacist displays a box of Wegovy pills at a pharmacy in Provo, Utah, Jan. 15, 2026.
George Frey | Bloomberg | Getty Images
The future of the booming obesity drug market won’t hinge on drugs that deliver greater weight loss alone.
Top executives from drugmakers big and small told CNBC that the next phase of the space will be defined by a broader range of treatment options and improved access for patients. Those were among the themes that emerged at the annual JPMorgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco during interviews with top brass from Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk, Pfizer and other drugmakers.
“We really see the obesity market going from, in this year, a one-size-fits-all kind of idea to different medicines for different patients. We don’t have a crystal ball to know how that all sorts out,” Dan Skovronsky, Eli Lilly’s chief scientific officer, told CNBC in an interview at the conference.
“But I think by presenting people with options, they’ll pick for themselves with their doctors, and I think we want to have something for everyone,” he continued. “And we’re not done yet.”
Over the coming years, executives expect an expanding menu of obesity treatments that can be tailored to an individual patient’s needs — from pills and less-frequent injections to combination regimens and drugs designed to preserve muscle mass while promoting weight loss. Some also expect the direct-to-consumer market to become an even larger slice of the market, while hoping that hurdles preventing patients from getting treatment continue to fall.
Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly are widely credited with establishing the market through their weekly GLP-1 injections for obesity and diabetes, which have surged in popularity in recent years. The next chapter is already taking shape, with Novo launching the first GLP-1 pill for obesity earlier this month and Lilly preparing to bring an oral option of its own to market later this year.
While those companies will play a critical role in how the space evolves, other players from pharma titan Pfizer to little-known upstarts could also enter the market — both threatening the two rivals’ sales dominance and offering more treatment alternatives for consumers.
While access remains a challenge for many patients, the ability to get GLP-1s has improved notably over the past year. Both Novo and Lilly have slashed cash prices for their injections and struck deals with President Donald Trump in November that will, for the first time, introduce Medicare coverage for obesity drugs later this year.
More treatment options and wider access could boost the case for analyst projections that say the weight loss and diabetes drug market could be worth almost $100 billion annually by the end of the decade.
In an interview at the conference, Novo Nordisk CEO Mike Doustdar said the company and Lilly currently have around 15 million people combined who have obesity taking GLP-1s. There is still a “long tail” to reaching the 110 million that are reportedly suffering from the condition, along with those who are overweight, he added.
In a May report, McKinsey said it expects a range of 25 to 50 million U.S. patients to use GLP-1s by 2030.
Here’s what executives say the future of the space could look like.
The pill potential
Pills have not yet proven more effective than injections.
Still, the consensus among executives is that oral options could expand the market, reaching entirely new patients. That may include people who are afraid of needles, as well as people who could benefit from existing injections but don’t view their condition as severe enough to warrant a weekly shot.
In an interview at the conference, Doustdar said it could also include people who travel frequently and can’t easily refrigerate injections.
“There is so much aligned exactly with this market expansion story … because there is a huge number of patients that are simply not interested in losing weight at the cost of injecting themselves,” Doustdar said.
The “real growth” and uptake of the pills is going to come from primary care physicians, who write the majority of prescriptions for Americans and typically prefer pills to injections, said Ray Stevens, the CEO of obesity market hopeful Structure Therapeutics.
He said he believes his company’s GLP-1 pill, aleniglipron, will be the third to enter the market after Eli Lilly’s and Novo Nordisk’s. Structure’s oral drug will enter Phase 3 trials this year.
Daily pills can offer more flexibility to patients. For example, Stevens said a patient could cut a pill in half to mitigate side effects on a day when they have an important meeting to attend.
Lilly’s Skovronsky said pills will also serve as a way for patients to “deescalate their therapy” after taking injections. The company in December released data showing that patients who initially took Wegovy or Zepbound shots maintained the majority of their weight loss after switching to Lilly’s pill.
“They say, ‘I’ve lost the weight, I’ve got this, so I can maintain this on my own with something less strong,'” Skovronsky said.
Structure is also developing an oral drugs that targets amylin, an emerging form of weight loss treatment that mimics a hormone co-secreted with insulin in the pancreas to suppress appetite and reduce food intake. Novo is developing a medicine called amycretin, which targets both GLP-1 and amylin to offer potentially enhanced weight loss.
Mixing and matching drugs
Stevens said combination regimens are “going to be the next phase of the field.”
For example, Structure hopes to combine its oral GLP-1 and amylin drugs to achieve even greater weight loss than one alone would, which he said will likely be “one of the best combos of the future.” It’s too early to say which patients would be the best fit for that regimen, but Stevens said it could achieve “good tolerability, really good patient experience and good efficacy.”
He said the company is already working on manufacturing the two ingredients together in a single pill, which is similar to what Novo’s amycretin achieves.
But he said combination regimens can also help treat certain obesity-related conditions better than one product alone. That could look like combining a GLP-1 with one of the existing treatments for fatty liver disease.
“I feel like the winners are now starting to emerge for the monotherapy” treatments, he said. But Stevens said the treatment patients take will segment according to the other health conditions a person has on top of obesity, such as fatty liver disease, chronic kidney disease and cardiovascular disease.
Lilly’s upcoming pill is an oral GLP-1, but Skovronsky said the company can see the potential for a pill that targets that hormone along with another called GIP, since that’s a “preferred formulation.”
That’s how tirzepatide, the active ingredient in Lilly’s blockbuster obesity and diabetes injections, works. That drug has proven to be more effective than semaglutide, the active ingredient in Novo Nordisk’s rival injections, which only targets GLP-1.
Skovronsky said, “we’re working hard to create those medicines” in an oral form, but aren’t ready to disclose any details.
Pfizer inherited several experimental injections and pills with combination potential from its roughly $10 billion acquisition of the obesity biotech Metsera last year.
But Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said the company is also developing an in-house oral drug that blocks the GIP receptor, which can significantly reduce side effects when combined with GLP-1.
“I have very high hopes that it will also differentiate,” Bourla said.
One biotech, Wave Life Sciences, also sees combinations as part of its broader strategy, its CEO Paul Bolno said in an interview at the conference.
Different weight loss methods
Wave is taking a different approach to weight loss, targeting how the body burns fat rather than suppressing appetite. The goal is to achieve comparable weight loss to GLP-1s, without the associated muscle loss, and with less frequent dosing of once or twice a year rather than weekly.
That push comes amid growing focus on the quality of weight loss with next-generation obesity drugs, as GLP-1 treatments have raised concerns around muscle loss, side effects and patient drop-offs.
Wave has an experimental injection that uses RNA technology to lower levels of a protein called activin E – a liver-produced protein that slows fat burning. By reducing that protein, Wave believes the drug can increase fat loss, particularly harmful visceral fat, while preserving lean muscle mass.
Bolno said the company is developing the injection, called WVE-007, as a monotherapy or a potential maintenance treatment that patients can switch to and take far less frequently after being on GLP-1s.
But he also sees the opportunity to combine the company’s injection with GLP-1s to “continue to drive benefits.”
“We can double the weight loss on GLP-1s in combination,” Bolno said, referring to what the company is seeing in preclinical research.
He said adding Wave’s injection on top of a GLP-1 won’t make it more difficult for patients to tolerate the treatment regimen, so it makes the company’s drug “very amenable to combination” options.
As for who can use Wave’s injection, Bolno said it will work for any patient since “this happens to be a target that’s actually in human genetics.”
The future of the industry will likely also include drugs that can achieve even greater weight loss than the current treatments on the market.
Lilly in December released the first late-stage data on an injectable drug called retatrutide, the highest dose of which achieved more than 28% weight loss at 68 weeks among patients who stayed on the treatment. Lilly will read out data on seven other Phase 3 trials on the drug this year.
Dubbed the “triple G” drug, retatrutide works by mimicking three hunger-regulating hormones — GLP-1, GIP and glucagon — rather than just one or two. That appears to have more potent effects on a person’s appetite and satisfaction with food than other treatments.
Skovronsky said the drug could serve patients who need additional weight loss or have other severe health conditions on top of obesity, such as arthritis knee pain.
Novo Nordisk is racing to catch up: In March, it agreed to pay up to $2 billion for the rights to an early experimental drug from Chinese drugmaker United Laboratories International. The newly acquired treatment is a clear potential competitor to retatrutide because it similarly uses a three-pronged approach to promoting weight loss and regulating blood sugar.
Patient access to drugs
The industry has made strides toward improving drug access for patients, and executives expect that will continue. The cash price of Novo’s pill is already the lowest seen on the market, at $149 for the starting dose and up to $299 for the higher doses.
GLP-1 injections are roughly $1,000 per month before insurance and without recent cash discounts.
Both Pfizer’s Bourla and Lilly’s Skovronsky said upcoming Medicare coverage of obesity drugs should also move the needle with coverage.
“Once the government starts covering it in Medicare, it probably will become more and more uncomfortable for employers to not — it’s that societal pressure,” Skovronsky said.
He also pointed to an “activation of consumers,” where patients are starting to call their employers and ask why their benefits don’t cover obesity drugs.
Drugmakers, researchers and scientists are also generating more data about the benefits of obesity drugs for health-care spending, which could help spur more employer coverage, Skovronsky said.
“So for employers, is there less absenteeism? Is there better productivity? Is there better medical costs?” he said. “The data’s coming in, and we’re seeing more and more of that.”
In terms of the direct-to-consumer channel, Skovronsky said it may become the “fastest-growing segment” of the space given the recent push for drugmakers to launch cash offerings.
Lilly was among the first companies to launch a direct-to-consumer platform in 2024 offering its obesity drug Zepbound at a discount, and Novo followed more than a year later.
Bourla estimated that the direct-to-consumer channel already makes up 30% of the obesity and diabetes drug market in the U.S. It could become closer to 90% or more of that market abroad, he added.
When asked about what the broader market will look like by 2030, Structure’s Stevens said he hopes access and affordability are no longer issues.
“I’m okay with the cost dropping because, to me, this has always been about volume and really trying to address a very large unmet need globally itself,” he said.