This week’s world-famous news haiku competition™ is about how Iran moved billions of dollars through crypto exchange Binance $BNB ( ▼ 0.68% )  to fund its regime, continuing into this month, despite repeated red flags. Binance says it has “zero tolerance for illicit activity.” Send me your entry — to haiku at cheddar dot com — by noon ET Thursday, for consideration by your Cheddar peers.

And now? News!

Matt Davis — Need2Know Chedditor

News You Need2Know

• Ferrari hires iMac designer to go Electric

• The Pope has quite a few notes on AI

• Bank shot: Alleged ‘sex slave’ loses his lawyer

• BP removes its chair over ‘serious concerns’ on co …

• Eli Lilly spends $4bn buying vaccine developers

• Poll of the day: Let there be Luce?

What’s the stock market up to, eh?

$SPX ( ▲ 0.61% ) $DJI ( ▼ 0.23% ) $NDX ( ▲ 1.59% )  

Companies mentioned in today’s newsletter

$AAPL ( ▼ 0.16% )  $FERI ( 0.0% )  $JPM ( ▲ 0.12% )  $BP ( ▼ 3.86% )  $LLY ( ▼ 0.02% )  

Ferrari hires iMac designer to go Electric

Have you ever looked at your old Apple $AAPL ( ▼ 0.16% ) Watch and thought, "I wish I could drive this, but for $640,000"? Well, Ferrari $FERI ( 0.0% ) has answered your oddly specific prayers! The iconic Italian automaker just unveiled its first-ever EV, the "Luce" (that’s Italian for "light," you know 🧐).

To craft this battery-powered marvel, Ferrari teamed up with legendary Apple design God, Jony Ive. The result? A five-seat family speedster where the entire upper half is made of glass. Even Ferrari's chairman, John Elkann, freely admitted, "It doesn't look like what you would imagine a sports car to be."

And what about that classic Ferrari engine roar? Don't panic, they've slapped on an "external amplification system" that pumps out fake engine noises onto the street — a feature the company likens to playing an electric guitar.

The results have, so far, been divisive. Online commenters have dubbed the glass-clad EV "hideously underwhelming" and an "insult to the marque." Even former Ferrari chair Luca di Montezemolo chimed in with a brutal review, praying that if bootleggers copy the design, they "at least remove the prancing horse." At $640,000 a pop, let's just hope the Luce doesn't need to be restarted every time it freezes.

My favorite Ferrari wasn’t even a Ferrari, actually, but the 1972 Ferrari Daytona Spyder driven by Detective Sonny Crockett in the first two seasons of Miami Vice.👇🏻 Because Ferrari declined to provide vehicles for the show, producers used replicas built on 1976 and 1981 Chevrolet Corvette C3 chassis, and were forced to blow up the car in season three when Ferrari swapped it for a white Testarossa. Maybe they could make an electric one of these?

Quote of the Day

The Pope has quite a few notes on AI

Just as Silicon Valley executives are racing toward AI supremacy, a powerful new voice has entered the chat: Pope Leo XIV. In his first encyclical, a 42,300-word document titled Magnifica Humanitas ("Magnificent Humanity"), the first American pontiff has issued a sharp rebuke aimed at the tech industry’s unchecked ambitions.

The Pope's message serves as a clear warning against the concentration of immense digital power in the hands of a few private actors. He cautions that artificial intelligence "threatens to normalize an anti-human vision" where people risk being reduced "to mere cogs in a system driven toward ever greater efficiency." While acknowledging that "A.I. can be a valuable tool," Leo stresses that the technology "tends to amplify the power of those who already possess economic resources, expertise, and access to data."

Drawing on biblical imagery, the pontiff compared the current tech landscape to the Tower of Babel, warning against top-down projects driven by profit and pride. He insists that AI must be "freed from the logic that turned it into an instrument of domination" and instead serve the common good. For Big Tech moguls, his overarching message is to slow down, elevate the human, and remember that machines are not gods.

Best of luck with that, Bob. Really.

Bank shot: Alleged ‘sex slave’ loses his lawyer

When you're embroiled in a headline-grabbing legal battle, the absolute last thing you want is for your high-profile attorney to suddenly jump ship. But that’s exactly the major setback facing former JPMorgan $JPM ( ▲ 0.12% ) banker and alleged sex slave, Chirayu Rana.

Rana is currently at the center of a salacious lawsuit, making the outrageous claim that a JPMorgan Chase executive, Lorna Hajdini, turned him into a sex slave. Yet, just hours before a scheduled court appearance, his lawyer — Daniel Kaiser, who notably represented Jeffrey Epstein accusers — abruptly filed a consent to be "discharged" from the case. As a result, Rana now has no legal representation and will be forced to represent himself "pro se" until he can find a replacement.

The timing could not be worse. The afternoon hearing was specifically scheduled so Rana could argue for the right to remain officially anonymous as a "John Doe" in the court docket. And yet I don’t think that’s terribly likely, now.

Meanwhile, JPMorgan Chase continues to firmly state that Rana's allegations are completely without merit and has zero intention of settling. Hajdini is also fighting back, having filed her own defamation claims against Rana. Acting as his own lawyer in this rapidly escalating legal circus might just be his toughest pitch yet.

Song of the Day: Stormzy, ‘24 Hours’

Stormzy's new collaborative single "24 Hours" featuring R&B artist Odeal is a highly praised, breezy summer track that marks the rapper's first proper release in over three years. It’s an effortless summer anthem that masterfully balances nostalgia with modern production. Stormzy is also from my native Croydon, so he gets bonus points.

BP removes its chair over ‘serious concerns’ on conduct

BP $BP ( ▼ 3.86% ) has abruptly ousted its chair, Albert Manifold (👆🏻), after less than a year in the position, citing "serious concerns" regarding his behavior, the Financial Times reports. The sudden leadership shakeup caused BP's shares to drop by 4.4% and adds yet another chapter to the UK oil giant's recent history of management and boardroom instability.

Manifold's management style was reportedly seen by colleagues as excessively aggressive and overly controlling. Insiders described him as "shouty," claiming he frequently spoke down to staff, withheld critical information from fellow board members, and even attempted to restrict the newly appointed CEO, Meg O'Neill, from meeting independently with non-executive directors.

The board acted swiftly to remove him. Amanda Blanc, BP's senior independent director, explained the decision to the FT: "Albert has helped bring a welcome focus and pace to BP’s transformation. However, the board has been surprised and disappointed to learn of governance oversight and conduct issues it deems unacceptable and has taken decisive action."

Ian Tyler has stepped in as interim chair to steady the ship. Tyler reassured stakeholders by noting that the board has been "very impressed" with O'Neill's performance so far, emphasizing that leadership maintains "deep conviction in the strategic direction we have laid out, and the company is moving at pace to deliver it.”

Those, of course, are exactly the words an interim chair should say when he’s replacing somebody shouty. Well done, Ian.

Eli Lilly spends $4bn buying vaccine developers

Eli Lilly $LLY ( ▼ 0.02% ) is making a massive return to a sector it had recently sidelined, announcing it will spend up to $4 billion to acquire three small vaccine developers. The acquisitions include Curevo, which is working on a shingles vaccine; LimmaTech Biologics, focusing on staph infections; and the imaginatively named Vaccine Company, which targets the Epstein-Barr virus (no relation). Currently, none of these three companies have products on the market.

How is Eli Lilly funding this ambitious pivot? The 150-year-old pharmaceutical giant became health care's first $1 trillion company last fall. Flush with cash from its incredibly popular weight-loss drugs, Mounjaro and Zepbound, Lilly has been on a major buying spree. While their recent focus has heavily featured treatments for diabetes, Alzheimer’s, and cancer, this move marks a return to their historical roots in infectious diseases — a legacy that includes producing the polio vaccine in the 1950s.

This bold investment stands out given the current, let’s say, vaccine climate. The broader vaccine industry has struggled recently under Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has overseen policy changes hostile to vaccine development. Consequently, smaller companies have found it increasingly difficult to raise money, paving the way for a well-funded titan like Eli Lilly to swoop in.

Free yourself from advertising forever!

Should you check your 401(k) today?

👍️ 

Yes.

Poll of the day: Let there be Luce?

Poll of the day: Laundry issues

We asked: Which is the most brazenly impressive feature of Binance's $BNB ( ▼ 0.68% ) "best-in-class" zero-tolerance compliance program? You answered:

🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Catching illicit activity before it happens. But, you know. Not actually doing that. Allegedly. (61)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Staring directly at internal money-laundering alerts for 15 months while keeping the account opens. (143)
🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Processing $850 million for a self-described "antisanction operator" posing with Rolexes. (43)
🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ Defending the company by arguing the "overwhelming majority" of its transactions aren't funding the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp. (119)
366 Votes

via @beehiiv polls

Need2Know is covered by Cheddar’s Terms of Service

P.S. So, you remember the cheese puns that used to open this newsletter? Suffice to say, they were divisive. Now, thanks to a thing called “dynamic content options,” I can offer you the option to see cheese puns again, if you’re one of the thousands who got in touch bemoaning their departure six months ago. All you need to do is answer “true” on this survey, and submit it. If you never want to see cheese puns in this newsletter again, don’t click that link, don’t fill out the survey, don’t submit it. Just keep reading and pretend this conversation never happened. Mmmkay? Thank you.