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| Today's top stories are: - 🗳️ An Ohio referendum on constitutional amendments
- 🧪 A new clinical trial showing that weight loss & diabetes drug Wegovy may improve heart health
- 💰 Italy's surprise decision to implement a 40% windfall tax on banks' profits
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| 1 | | Ohio voters are set to decide whether it should be harder to amend the state's constitution. Tuesday's referendum could effectively thwart efforts to protect abortion rights through a constitutional amendment ballot in November. More: - The GOP-led Ohio Legislature ordered the poll to raise the threshold for constitutional amendment referendums from a simple majority to 60% of votes.
- A "yes" vote will also make it more difficult for petitioners to get amendments on the ballot.
- Republican Secretary of State and Republican candidate for Senate Frank LaRose said last month that the referendum "is 100 percent about keeping a radical, pro-abortion amendment out of our Constitution."
- November's abortion referendum could ban the state from prohibiting abortions and enshrine the right to "make and carry out one's own reproductive decisions."
- Abortion rights were upheld in six referendums that took place in other states last year, but none of those proposals received more than 60% of the vote.
- Political organizations on both sides of the battle have raised tens of millions of dollars to fund their campaigns.
Zoom Out: - Historically, only one in three Ohio ballot referendums on constitutional amendments were approved with +60% of votes.
- Two amendments to end political gerrymandering were approved by ~75% of voters in 2015 and 2018.
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| 2 | | A new study found that the weight loss drug Wegovy reduces the risk of heart attacks, strokes, and cardiovascular deaths by 20%. The finding shows that Wegovy, and similar weight loss drugs, may have positive side effects. More: - Many insurers currently don't cover Wegovy, which costs ~$1,350 per month.
- Additional evidence showing that Wegovy could improve heart health may prompt employers and insurers to cover the drug.
- Novo Nordisk, the company behind Wegovy, plans to seek approval from U.S. and EU regulators to list the heart benefit on the drug's label.
- The pharmaceutical company plans to present the full results of the study at a conference later this year.
Zoom Out: - Wegovy, and similar weight loss drugs like Ozempic, work by imitating the GLP-1 gut hormone, which promotes insulin production and appetite suppression.
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What the numbers say: Eli Lilly's stock surged over 14% and is on pace for its best day in 23 years after the drugmaker reported that its net income reached $1.76B in the second quarter, up from $952.5M a year ago. Lilly's market capitalization surpassed $500B in midday trading, becoming the ninth-most valuable company in the S&P 500 index as it jumped over Johnson & Johnson. Relevance: News that Novo Nordisk's Wegovy could help improve heart health bodes well for Lilly's Mounjaro because they are both widely used as weight-loss drugs and have strong similarities. | | | |
| 4 | | GOOD NEWS: President Biden has created a new national monument near the Grand Canyon, protecting lands that are sacred to Native American peoples. The designation will also block any new uranium mining claims in the nearly 1-million-acre area. More: - Native American tribes and conservationists have called for greater federal protections for the land around the Grand Canyon for years.
- The monument will be called Baaj Nwaavjo I'tah Kukveni Grand Canyon National Monument. "Baaj Nwaavjo" means "where tribes roam" in the Havasupai language, and "I'taj Kukveni" means "our ancestral footprints" in the Hopi language.
- Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, the first Native American cabinet secretary, said that the designation will "help protect lands that many tribes referred to as their eternal home."
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| 5 | | The Italian government has introduced a one-time 40% windfall tax on banks' profits. The move was justified on the grounds that banks benefitted from higher interest rates in recent months, with many Italian banks reporting higher-than-expected profits in the first half of 2023. More: - Investment bank Jefferies estimated that Italian banks passed an average of 12% of the rise in rates on depositors, compared to 22% across the Eurozone.
- As part of the plan, the Italian government will tax 40% of the net interest margin (NIM), which measures the income gap between a bank's lending and deposit rates, earned in 2022 or 2023, whichever is higher.
- The Italian bank Intesa said it expected its NIM to reach €13.5B ($14.78B) this year.
- The Italian banking index lost 7.7% on Tuesday but surged 50% over the past year, beating the 20% average increase in banking stocks seen across European banks.
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| 6 | | U.S. regulators issued fines worth $549M against 11 financial firms for record-keeping infractions related to the use of messaging apps by employees. According to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the firms admitted that their employees used apps like WhatsApp for work communications since at least 2019 in violation of federal securities law. More: - The use of secure messaging apps like WhatsApp, Signal, and iMessage to discuss corporate matters effectively prevents banks from complying with federal record-keeping laws.
- The banks that received the largest fines were Wells Fargo ($200M), BNP Paribas and Societe Generale ($110M each), and the Bank of Montreal ($60M).
- The Commodity Futures Trading Commission found that 13 Wells Fargo employees violated the bank's policies by using text messaging to communicate with colleagues and other market-facing individuals.
- The SEC ordered the banks to hire consultants to review their internal policies on communications going forward.
Zoom Out: - Wall Street regulators have now collected over $2B in settlements related to record-keeping violations.
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 | Writer | | Dr. Daniel Smith is an Inside writer with a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Cambridge. Follow him on Twitter @DJS12321 or email him at Daniel@inside.com. | | This newsletter was edited by NO ACCOUNT ASSOCIATED WITH THE EDITOR | |
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