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Apple is moving all of its production of cover glass for the iPhone and Apple Watch to the U.S. for the first time ever. Suggested Reading The tech producer announced Wednesday that it’s expanding a partnership with Corning with a new investment of $2.5 billion for the manufacturer to make its cover glass at its Harrodsburg, Kentucky facility.  Related Content On the same day of this announcement, Apple declared it was raising its previous commitment to invest $500 billion in the U.S. over the next four years by another $100 billion for a whopping $600 billion. CEO Tim Cook joined President Donald Trump at the White House on Wednesday to announce the new investment.  The President has been applying intense pressure on the tech giant to move its production from abroad to the U.S.  During the press conference, Cook thanked President Trump for “putting American innovation and American jobs front and center.”  “[Cook’s] not making this kind of an investment anywhere in the world. Not even close. He’s coming back. Apple’s coming back to America,” President Trump said.  In both releases, Cook said Apple was “grateful” to President Trump for his support.  In the same announcement, Apple also said its launching its new American Manufacturing Program, which intends to incentivize global companies to produce parts for Apple in the U.S.  Corning’s Kentucky facility will now solely produce Apple products. A release said this new partnership will increase the company’s workforce in the state by 50%, plus the two plan to open an innovation center at the facility.  In April, Bank of America calculated that if just the final assembly of the iPhone 16 Pro Max (which starts retailing at about $1,199.99) was moved to the U.S., the price would increase 25% based on labor costs alone. 📬 Sign up for the Daily Brief Read More

Welcome to the economic tightrope: Prices are climbing, growth is sagging, and one wrong step could tip the U.S. into a stagflation trap. For months it was just a whisper. Now, it’s starting to seem like a siren. Suggested Reading Paul Krugman wasn’t the first to cry stagflation, but his voice is carrying. In a recent Substack post, the Nobel laureate laid out a compelling case: tariffs deep in Smoot-Hawley territory, a crackdown on immigration that’s choking labor supply, and private survey data flashing red. For Krugman, the question isn’t whether inflation is happening — it’s whether the stagnation part of the equation has arrived. And increasingly, the answer looks like yes. Related Content The conditions are textbook. Inflation is running hot, GDP growth is losing altitude, and the job market is wobbling. The July payrolls report came in at just 73,000 jobs added — a third of expectations. Unemployment ticked up. And while official CPI data has yet to spike dramatically, private surveys tell a different story. Purchasing managers are reporting cost surges. The ISM Services index, typically a solid inflation predictor, suggests that 4% inflation could be just months away. Torsten Sløk, the chief economist at Apollo Global, has said he’s watching the interplay among tariffs, a weakening dollar, and slowing growth. Sløk has consistently warned that surging tariffs, creeping inflation, and slowing growth are converging into a stagflation signal. He projects GDP to decelerate to around 1.2%, with inflation hovering stubbornly near 3% and unemployment ticking higher. He also highlights the drag from a weaker dollar and fractured global supply chains. “Tariff hikes are typically stagflationary shocks — they simultaneously increase the probability of an economic slowdown while putting upward pressure on prices,” Sløk wrote in a June white paper. “This is the definition of stagflation.” Wall Street’s caution isn’t just noise — it’s rooted in mounting evidence. At JPMorgan, economists have cut their 2025 GDP outlook to 1.3%, citing a one-two punch: Trump’s protectionist trade policy and a drop-off in business investment. Their recession probability is now at 40%, with corporate leaders reportedly hesitating to commit capital amid growing uncertainty around both tariffs and labor policy. That hesitation is mirrored in investor behavior. Savvas Savouri, chief economist at QuantMetriks, told MarketWatch that he’s advising investors to take cover in inflation-protected bonds and gold, and sees strength in large-cap multinationals with pricing power and global revenue streams. Smaller firms with domestic exposure and high refinancing risk? Less so. “If you look through the front windscreen rather than the rear-view mirror, it’s clear to see stagflation is coming to the U.S.,” he said. Olu Sonola, the head of U.S. economic research at Fitch Ratings, agrees the warning lights are flashing. “The bottom line is that the risk of stagflation has risen meaningfully,” he wrote in a recent client note, pointing to sticky price growth and signs of labor market softening. It’s not just theoretical anymore — it’s creeping into the data. “Inflation is drifting further from target, private sector economic growth has slowed materially, and the labor market has just sounded a warning bell.” Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve is trapped. Policymakers are watching growth cool while inflation sticks, and the levers they have are blunt. Rate hikes risk pushing the economy into recession. Cuts risk unleashing another inflationary spiral. So for now, the Fed is standing still — a position that makes sense tactically but leaves them exposed if either side of the equation worsens. What’s fueling the shift? For starters, tariffs. Trump’s second-term agenda has reversed nearly a century of trade liberalization. Average tariff rates are back to levels not seen since the 1930s. And since the U.S. economy is far more trade-exposed than it was then, the pain hits harder. Krugman pointed out that imports as a share of GDP are roughly triple what they were in 1930, so the inflationary shock is magnified. As he put it: “A tariff is basically a selective sales tax.” And with a 15-point spike in effective rates, prices are heading in one direction. Then there’s labor. ICE raids and deportations have led to a visible decline in the number of foreign-born workers—a reversal of years of growth. The result? Crops left unpicked, construction projects stalled, and industries that rely on immigrant labor struggling to staff up. That puts pressure on supply, which puts pressure on prices. The AI boom as ballast If there’s been a saving grace in the past six months, it’s been AI. A torrent of data-center investment, GPU orders, and cloud infrastructure buildouts has propped up industrial activity even as consumer sectors lose steam. Krugman credits the AI boom as the reason the slowdown hasn’t been more severe. But that boost has its limits. Hardware stockpiling is finite. Compute buildouts are cyclical. And once those orders slow, there’s no obvious next engine of growth. Sløk also flagged concerns that markets, particularly the “Magnificent Seven” tech giants, aren’t pricing in the earnings risk that would come with a stagflationary slowdown. At the same time, policy volatility is scaring off private investment. The uncertainty around tariffs has become its own tax. Companies don’t know whether they’ll be paying 10% or 35% duties next year. Trump has made apparent “deals” with some trading partners, but they aren’t formalized. Immigration policy is equally unstable. All of these factors are combining to muddy the water for business investment, which is already softening. Two years ago, economists were praising an immaculate disinflation: Inflation fell even as growth held strong. Now, we’re looking at the reverse. Inflation is rising, growth is stalling, and confidence is eroding. For the moment, the labor market is the last line of defense. But even that is starting to fray. Initial unemployment claims are inching higher. Wage growth is slowing. The quit rate is down. And services hiring is falling to levels associated with GDP growth of just 0.5%. This, as Krugman notes, is what Goldman Sachs calls “stall speed” — a point at which the labor

Bitcoin Trails Gold in 2025 but Dominates Long-Term Returns Across Major Asset Classes Gold leads bitcoin year to date, but BTC’s cumulative return since 2011 dwarfs all major asset classes, including gold, stocks and real estate. Updated Aug 10, 2025, 5:36 a.m. Published Aug 9, 2025, 9:55 p.m. Bitcoin slipped 0.11% in the past 24 hours to $116,702, according to CoinDesk Data, but remains up 25% year to date; this year-to-date (YTD) performance is second only to gold’s 29% gain among major asset classes, according to data shared by financial strategist Charlie Bilello on X. 2025 Performance so far As of Aug. 8, bitcoin’s 25% year-to-date return ranked behind only gold’s 29.3% advance. Other major asset classes have posted more modest gains, with emerging market stocks (VWO) up 15.6%, the Nasdaq 100 (QQQ) up 12.7% and U.S. large caps (SPY) rising 9.4%. Meanwhile, U.S. mid caps (MDY) and small caps (IWM) 0.2% have only gained 0.8%, respectively. This marks the first time gold and bitcoin have occupied the top two positions in Bilello’s annual asset class rankings since records began. 2011–2025 Cumulative returns Over the longer term, bitcoin has delivered an extraordinary 38,897,420% total return since 2011 — a figure that dwarfs all other asset classes in the dataset. Gold’s 126% cumulative return over the same period puts it in the middle of the pack, trailing equity benchmarks like the Nasdaq 100 (1101%) and U.S. large caps (559%), as well as mid caps (316%), small caps (244%) and emerging market stocks (57%). Based on Bilello’s figures, bitcoin’s total return has exceeded gold’s by more than 308,000 times over the past 14 years. 2011–2025 Annualized returns When measured on an annualized basis, bitcoin’s dominance is equally clear. The flagship cryptocurrency has delivered a 141.7% average annual gain since 2011, compared with 5.7% for gold, 18.6% for the Nasdaq 100, 13.8% for U.S. large caps and 4.4% to 16.4% for other major equity and real estate indexes. Gold’s long-term stability has made it a valuable hedge in certain market cycles, but its pace of appreciation has been far slower than bitcoin’s exponential climb. Gold vs. bitcoin, according to Peter Brandt Renowned trader Peter Brandt weighed in on Aug. 8, contrasting gold’s merits as a store of value with bitcoin’s potential to surpass all fiat alternatives. “Some think gold is a great store of value — and it is. But the ultimate store of value will prove to be bitcoin,” he said on X, sharing a long-term chart of the U.S. dollar’s purchasing power. His comments echo the growing narrative that bitcoin’s scarcity and decentralization make it uniquely positioned to outperform traditional hedges over time. Looking Ahead Bitcoin’s ability to hold above six figures in 2025 while maintaining a top-two performance among major assets underscores its resilience in a volatile macro backdrop. Traders are watching whether it can retest the year’s peak near $123,000, while long-term holders point to its outperformance since 2011 as evidence of its staying power. Market participants say upcoming macro data and risk appetite across equities and commodities could set the tone for the next leg. Disclaimer: Parts of this article were generated with the assistance from AI tools and reviewed by our editorial team to ensure accuracy and adherence to our standards. For more information, see CoinDesk’s full AI Policy. Siamak Masnavi Siamak Masnavi is a researcher specializing in blockchain technology, cryptocurrency regulations, and macroeconomic trends shaping the crypto market. He holds a PhD in computer science from the University of London and began his career in software development, including four years in the banking industry in the City of London and Zurich. In April 2018, Siamak transitioned to writing about cryptocurrency news, focusing on journalism until January 2025, when he shifted exclusively to research on the aforementioned topics. AI Boost “AI Boost” indicates a generative text tool, typically an AI chatbot, contributed to the article. In each and every case, the article was edited, fact-checked and published by a human. Read more about CoinDesk’s AI Policy. More For You XRP Charts Signal Caution to Bulls as Bitcoin Awaits Breakout and Ether Goes Bonkers XRP remains below the critical $3.65 level, where a bearish pattern previously emerged, as on-chain data shows potential for profit taking by holders. What to know: XRP remains below the critical $3.65 level, where a bearish pattern previously emerged, as on-chain data shows potential for profit taking by holders. Bitcoin is consolidating gains within a counter-trend descending channel. Ether has broken out of a long-term symmetrical triangle, signaling a new uptrend towards previous record highs. Read full story Read More

XRP remains below the critical $3.65 level, where a bearish pattern previously emerged, as on-chain data shows potential for profit taking by holders. Updated Aug 9, 2025, 6:44 p.m. Published Aug 9, 2025, 6:25 p.m. This is a technical analysis post by CoinDesk analyst and Chartered Market Technician Omkar Godbole. XRP: Not out of the woods yet XRP , the payments-focused cryptocurrency, surged 11% on Thursday, reportedly breaking out of a bull flag pattern to suggest renewed upward momentum. However, it’s not yet clear, as prices remain well below the crucial $3.65 level, where a bearish “tweezer top” candlestick pattern occurred last month. The tweezer top is a bearish reversal pattern, comprising two candles with identical highs that represent a clear rejection point, in this case $3.65. It’s as if the market tried to climb to a new level twice and was met with a brick wall of selling pressure at the same spot, a sign that the upward momentum has completely stalled. The bulls, therefore, need to overcome the significant supply point at $3.65, a move that would invalidate the bearish reversal pattern. XRP’s weekly chart. (TradingView) However, this may be easier said than done, as on-chain data suggests that holders are sitting on substantial profits and have a strong incentive to sell at current valuations. “The [XRP] Net Unrealized Profit/Loss (NUPL) remains at elevated levels not seen since the 2021 peak, reaching similar levels to those observed in 2018. These high values indicate that the market still carries significant unrealized profits, which historically represents zones of potential distribution and price correction,” research firm Alphractal said on x. XRP net unrealized profit and loss. (Alphractal) Resistance: $3.38, $3.65, $4.00. Support: $2.99, $2.72, $2.65. Bitcoin: BTC awaits breakout Bitcoin’s (BTC) recent pullback is currently taking the shape of a descending channel (white lines) within its primary uptrend (yellow lines). This pattern is a classic “bull breather” that suggests the market is consolidating its recent gains. The price’s recent bounce from the 50-day Simple Moving Average (SMA) further reinforces the strength of this consolidation. For traders, this means that while the short-term trend is still corrective, the path of least resistance remains to the upside. BTC’s daily chart. (TradingView) A decisive breakout from the descending channel would confirm a continuation of the broader uptrend, potentially yielding a move to record highs above $123,000. Conversely, a move below the May high of $111,965 would increase the risk of a deeper sell-off to $100,000. Resistance: $120,000, $122,056, $123,181. Support: $111,965, $104,562, $100,000. Ether: Major breakout Ether has rallied to over $4,200, reaching levels last seen four years ago. The cryptocurrency has broken out of a prolonged symmetrical triangle that contained its price since the all-time high in late 2021, which is a major bullish signal. ETH’s daily chart. (TradingView) The decisive breakout, particularly on a chart with this long a time horizon, indicates that the market has officially entered a new, powerful uptrend, opening the door for a retest of record highs above $4,800. Resistance: $4,400, $4,875, $5,000. Support: $4,000, $3,941, $3,737. Disclaimer: Parts of this article were generated with the assistance from AI tools and reviewed by our editorial team to ensure accuracy and adherence to our standards. For more information, see CoinDesk’s full AI Policy. Omkar Godbole Omkar Godbole is a Co-Managing Editor and analyst on CoinDesk’s Markets team. He has been covering crypto options and futures, as well as macro and cross-asset activity, since 2019, leveraging his prior experience in directional and non-directional derivative strategies at brokerage firms. His extensive background also encompasses the FX markets, having served as a fundamental analyst at currency and commodities desks for Mumbai-based brokerages and FXStreet. Omkar holds small amounts of bitcoin, ether, BitTorrent, tron and dot. Omkar holds a Master’s degree in Finance and a Chartered Market Technician (CMT) designation. X icon AI Boost “AI Boost” indicates a generative text tool, typically an AI chatbot, contributed to the article. In each and every case, the article was edited, fact-checked and published by a human. Read more about CoinDesk’s AI Policy. More For You Bitcoin Trails Gold in 2025 but Dominates Long-Term Returns Across Major Asset Classes Gold leads bitcoin year to date, but BTC’s cumulative return since 2011 dwarfs all major asset classes, including gold, stocks and real estate. What to know: Bitcoin is up 25.2% so far in 2025 as of Aug. 8, second only to gold’s 29% gain. Since 2011, bitcoin’s total return has exceeded gold’s by over 308,000 times. BTC has also led annualized gains since 2011, far outpacing equities and real estate. Read full story Read More

The protocol’s new yield-trading platform, Boros, allows traders to go long or short on funding rates, and has attracted significant deposits and activity since its launch. Updated Aug 9, 2025, 4:47 p.m. Published Aug 9, 2025, 4:43 p.m. Pendle’s total value locked (TVL) has surged to a record $8.27 billion, while its native token PENDLE climbed 45% over the past week to $5.6 on the back of the protocol’s new yield-trading platform. With bitcoin funding rates averaging about 10% annualized this week and roughly $80 billion in open interest, according to Dune data, more than $8 billion changes hands yearly between longs and shorts. Boros packages those yields into tradable on-chain assets called Yield Units (YUs), letting traders go long or short on the rates themselves. Boros can be used for numerous advance strategies, including hedge floating funding payments into fixed rates, or lock in high yields during volatile periods. In its first two days, Boros attracted deposits of over 283 WETH (around $1.1 million) and 6.4 WBTC (about $750,000) into its vaults, data shows. Activity on Pendle’s Arbitrum deployment has spiked alongside the launch, with active addresses reaching 1,428, well above the monthly average, and both buyers and sellers multiplying on decentralized exchanges according to data from TheTie. While Boros currently supports BTC and ETH funding rates, plans are to expand to other floating yields such as staking rewards and tokenized Treasury bills. Pendle’s performance and total value locked also came on the back of the Hyperliquid ecosystem. The firm integrated with Hyperliquid late last month. Since then, Kinetiq’s kHYPE, the largest liquid staking token on Hyperliquid’s HyperEVM, has attracted $221 million in total value locked. PENDLE token, over the past week, has significantly outperformed the wider cryptocurrency market, as measured by the CoinDesk 20 (CD20) index, which rose 13.15% over the period. Francisco Rodrigues Francisco is a reporter for CoinDesk with a passion for cryptocurrencies and personal finance. Before joining CoinDesk he worked at major financial and crypto publications. He owns bitcoin, ether, solana, and PAXG above CoinDesk’s $1,000 disclosure threshold. X icon More For You Bitcoin Trails Gold in 2025 but Dominates Long-Term Returns Across Major Asset Classes Gold leads bitcoin year to date, but BTC’s cumulative return since 2011 dwarfs all major asset classes, including gold, stocks and real estate. What to know: Bitcoin is up 25.2% so far in 2025 as of Aug. 8, second only to gold’s 29% gain. Since 2011, bitcoin’s total return has exceeded gold’s by over 308,000 times. BTC has also led annualized gains since 2011, far outpacing equities and real estate. Read full story Read More

The quick buyback suggests Hayes may see renewed upside in ether, contradicting his earlier prediction of a market downturn. Aug 9, 2025, 3:42 p.m. Arthur Hayes, co-founder of crypto exchange BitMEX, appears to have reversed course on a major ether (ETH) trade just days after warning of a market downturn. Last week, data from Arkham Intelligence showed that Hayes sold 2,373 ETH worth around $8.32 million, when the second-largest cryptocurrency was trading near $3,500 and moved into stablecoins. This weekend, however, he seems to have a change of heart. Hours ago, data first spotted by Lookonchain showed an address linked to Hayes moved out of $10.5 million in USDC to buy back ether, with the price of the cryptocurrency now hovering around $4,200. The move comes after Hayes liquidated over $13 million in crypto holdings last week, including ethena and meme token pepe . At the time, he cited U.S. tariffs and weaker-than-expected jobs data as headwinds for crypto, predicting bitcoin could test $100,000 and ether could revisit $3,000. Yet Hayes’ quick buyback suggests he may see renewed upside in ether. Hayes seemingly confirmed the acquisition of ETH in a post on X, saying he “had to buy it all back” while sharing an ether price chart. Disclaimer: Parts of this article were generated with the assistance from AI tools and reviewed by our editorial team to ensure accuracy and adherence to our standards. For more information, see CoinDesk’s full AI Policy. Francisco Rodrigues Francisco is a reporter for CoinDesk with a passion for cryptocurrencies and personal finance. Before joining CoinDesk he worked at major financial and crypto publications. He owns bitcoin, ether, solana, and PAXG above CoinDesk’s $1,000 disclosure threshold. X icon AI Boost “AI Boost” indicates a generative text tool, typically an AI chatbot, contributed to the article. In each and every case, the article was edited, fact-checked and published by a human. Read more about CoinDesk’s AI Policy. More For You Bitcoin Trails Gold in 2025 but Dominates Long-Term Returns Across Major Asset Classes Gold leads bitcoin year to date, but BTC’s cumulative return since 2011 dwarfs all major asset classes, including gold, stocks and real estate. What to know: Bitcoin is up 25.2% so far in 2025 as of Aug. 8, second only to gold’s 29% gain. Since 2011, bitcoin’s total return has exceeded gold’s by over 308,000 times. BTC has also led annualized gains since 2011, far outpacing equities and real estate. Read full story Read More

The surge comes after gold futures hit an all-time high and amid concerns over the impact of U.S. tariffs on Switzerland’s gold exports. Aug 9, 2025, 3:21 p.m. Commodity-backed cryptocurrencies, which are dominated by gold-backed tokens, have seen a historic surge in issuance this week, with minting volumes hitting their highest point in at least five years. The leap comes after gold futures traded above a $3,500 all-time high this week, after the Swiss Precious Metals Association warned that the U.S.’s 39% tariffs on Switzerland could have “negative impact” on the international flow of physical gold. Both gold spot and futures fell after the initial surge, when a White House official told Bloomberg that the President would introduce a policy clarifying that imports of gold bars should not be subject to tariffs. That didn’t stop gold-backed tokens from being minted, however. The warning also saw gold-based cryptocurrencies, including Tether Gold and Paxos Gold (PAXG) , briefly top $3,390 before receding. Minting volumes, per RWA.xyz data, reached $439 million over the week, more than doubling the previous $195 million record seen in 2021. (RWA.xyz) These tokens, which are backed by physical reserves held in vaults, allow investors to gain exposure to the precious metal and can be transferred instantly on-chain without crossing borders. Switzerland, which refines a large share of the world’s gold despite having no mines of its own, exported more than $61 billion worth of the metal to the U.S. over the past year. The move has triggered a political backlash in Switzerland, with some lawmakers calling for the gold sector to shoulder part of the economic fallout. The precious metal makes up over a quarter of Switzerland’s exports, per Swiss National Bank data. Francisco Rodrigues Francisco is a reporter for CoinDesk with a passion for cryptocurrencies and personal finance. Before joining CoinDesk he worked at major financial and crypto publications. He owns bitcoin, ether, solana, and PAXG above CoinDesk’s $1,000 disclosure threshold. X icon More For You Bitcoin Trails Gold in 2025 but Dominates Long-Term Returns Across Major Asset Classes Gold leads bitcoin year to date, but BTC’s cumulative return since 2011 dwarfs all major asset classes, including gold, stocks and real estate. What to know: Bitcoin is up 25.2% so far in 2025 as of Aug. 8, second only to gold’s 29% gain. Since 2011, bitcoin’s total return has exceeded gold’s by over 308,000 times. BTC has also led annualized gains since 2011, far outpacing equities and real estate. Read full story Read More

Amid the cutthroat war for AI talent, tech giants are offering astronomical sums to lure a tiny pool of top engineers from rivals. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman expects the market for these geniuses to remain intense, but estimated there are “many thousands of people” capable of making key discoveries in superintelligence who could conceivably be found. The amounts of money being offered to hire AI geniuses is mind-boggling, as tech giants like Meta, Microsoft, Google and OpenAI fight over a tiny talent pool in their race to achieve the next breakthrough. And the cutthroat competition doesn’t look like it will ease anytime soon. “Definitely this is the most intense talent market I have seen in my career,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told CNBC on Friday. “But if you think about the economic value being created by these people and how much we’re spending on compute, you know, maybe the market stays like this. I’m not I’m not totally sure what’s gonna happen, but it is a crazy intense comp for a very small number of people right now.” Exactly how small is that group of people, and what do they know that others don’t, CNBC’s Andrew Sorkin asked. “The bet, the hope is they know how to discover the remaining ideas to get to superintelligence—that there are going to be a handful of algorithmic ideas and, you know, medium-sized handful of people who can figure them out,” Altman replied. That would help explain the astronomical amounts companies are willing to spend to poach AI talent, with one offer reportedly topping $1 billion. Altman said in June that Meta had been making “giant offers to a lot of people on our team,” some totaling “$100 million signing bonuses and more than that [in] compensation per year.” Meta is also investing $14.3 billion in Scale and hired the startup’s CEO, Alexandr Wang, for a superintelligence team. While immense fortunes are being thrown at a handful of top engineers, Altman estimated the number of people smart enough to make superintelligence breakthroughs is actually much, much larger. “I bet it’s much bigger than people think, but you know some companies in the space have decided that they’re going to go after a few shiny names,” he told CNBC. “I think there’s probably many thousands of people that we could find and probably tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people in the world that are capable of doing this kind of work.” Introducing the 2025 Fortune Global 500, the definitive ranking of the biggest companies in the world. Explore this year’s list. Read More

Vinay Prasad, who was recently ousted as the top vaccine and gene therapy regulator at the US Food and Drug Administration, is returning to his role, the Department of Health and Human Services said Saturday.  Prasad is returning at the FDA’s request, HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon said in a written statement. “Neither the White House nor HHS will allow the fake news media to distract from the critical work the FDA is carrying out under the Trump administration,” Nixon said.  Prasad will resume leadership of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, Nixon said. It’s unclear whether he will also retake two other roles he held at the agency as chief science officer and chief medical officer.  Prasad abruptly departed the agency on July 29 after a conservative backlash in part over his handling of safety issues with Sarepta Therapeutics Inc.’s gene therapy. Laura Loomer, an ally of Donald Trump, had said he was not aligned with the president’s agenda and has aggressively lobbied against his return.  FDA Commissioner Marty Makary told reporters on Monday that he was trying to persuade Prasad to return to the agency. Though Prasad was in his role for less than three months before his ouster, he managed to stir controversy at the agency. He demanded more studies of Covid vaccines, overruled his own scientific review staff and took a confrontational approach that gave critics fodder to claim he could stymie scientific innovation.  Prasad and Makary asked Sarepta last month to stop shipping Sarepta’s treatment for Duchenne muscular dystrophy, Elevidys, following three deaths that were linked to the company’s gene therapies. Sarepta initially refused, then relented, leading to an outcry that the agency had overstepped. Shares in biotech firms soared on news of Prasad’s departure from the agency. His return was reported earlier by Endpoints News.  Introducing the 2025 Fortune Global 500, the definitive ranking of the biggest companies in the world. Explore this year’s list. Read More

A group of masked thieves stole about $7,000 worth of Labubu dolls from a Los Angeles-area store this week, authorities said. The incident took place early Wednesday morning at a store in La Puente, a city about 18 miles (29 kilometers) east of Los Angeles, the LA County Sheriff’s Department said. The department said the suspects used a stolen Toyota Tacoma in the incident, which was recovered shortly afterward. The agency said it was investigating the case and did not have additional information. Labubu dolls, created by Hong Kong-born artist Kasing Lung, have become a popular collectible item a decade after the toothy monsters were first introduced. Toy vendor One Stop Shop said in an Instagram post that the thieves took all of the store’s inventory and trashed the establishment. The store posted surveillance footage showing a group of people wearing hoodies and face coverings breaking in. The suspects are seen shuffling through items and carrying boxes out of the shop. “We are still in shock,” the store said in its post, urging people to help find the thieves. Introducing the 2025 Fortune Global 500, the definitive ranking of the biggest companies in the world. Explore this year’s list. Read More