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(Bloomberg) -- Right-wing media entrepreneur Ben Shapiro has taken a $4.7 million stake in a struggling Israeli pharmaceutical company and joined the board.

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Shapiro, 39, a co-founder of media company The Daily Wire and host of the Ben Shapiro Show podcast, now owns 4.8% of Oramed Pharmaceuticals Inc., according to regulatory filings published late Monday. That makes him the companys biggest shareholder, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Shapiros investment comes after Orameds stock price collapsed by 80% due to its failure in January in a years-long effort to develop a method to deliver insulin to diabetics orally, rather than by injection. The company has since said it would explore potential strategic alternatives including an acquisition, merger, business combination, or other transaction.

Oramed rose 8.4% to $2.66 at 10:33 a.m. in New York. The company, which is traded in both New York and Tel Aviv, has a market value of $106 million, down from a peak of $1.1 billion in 2021.

This is a pure investment move, Shapiro said in an emailed statement. I identified Oramed as an undervalued stock in January 2023 given its low market cap, publicly disclosed cash holdings, and apparent low burn rate. I have great faith that the board will be able to use the companys capital in effective and diverse ways, including but certainly not limited to its current biotech-centered strategy.

Shapiro bought the shares on the open market, he said. The filings didnt say how much he paid for the stock, though his 1.9 million shares were worth $4.7 million as of Mondays close. He also now holds 20,000 restricted stock units that can be converted into additional Oramed stock over three years, the filings said.

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His appointment to the board is unconnected to his podcasting and media ventures and is a private business decision, Oramed said in response to questions from Bloomberg News.

Shapiros ownership stake and extensive operational and business background and acumen makes him a valuable addition, the company said in a news release. He bought the shares on the open market and Oramed said it doesnt know what he paid for them.

The Daily Wire, founded by Shapiro and Jeremy Boreing, hosts podcasts by Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson and commentators Candace Owens and Matt Walsh, while producing streaming video content.

The company describes itself as right of center politically and one of the USs fastest-growing media businesses. Its part of a universe of right-leaning media companies that have sprung up in recent years, including the Peter Thiel-backed Rumble Inc. and former President Donald Trumps Truth Social.

(Updates with shares in fourth paragraph, statement from Shapiro in fifth.)

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Conservative Pundit Ben Shapiro Invests $4.7 Million in Israeli Drug Company - Yahoo Finance

A year ago, Elon Musk announced that he wanted to buy Twitter to clear it of bots and turn the de facto public town square into a place for unfettered free speech. Social media experts worried that would mean the platform would stop moderating what users post, and warned that the consequence of Musks stated absolutism would be that the platform would be overrun with violent and hateful content.It turns out they were right.

After he took over the platform, Muskinsisted that Twitters strong commitment to content moderation remains absolutely unchanged. But around the same time, Twitterfired most of its trust and safety staff, the team responsible for keeping content that violates the companys policies off the platform.

The result, perhaps unsurprisingly, was that hate speech on Twitter surged dramatically in the weeks following the takeover, according to anew study from the University of Southern Californias Information Sciences Institute, Oregon State University, UCLA, and UC Merced, which also found that there had been no decrease in the number of bots on the platform. It is yet another data point in a series of changes that have taken Twitter from being a global public square to a platform where racists, bigots, and propagandists are more empowered than ever.

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A few months ago it was the first place you looked for insight, says Imran Ahmed, CEO of the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), a nonprofit that tracks disinformation. It was always about finding communities of mutual interest and seeing what the most interesting people around the world were saying about things and what the news was. And that is just destroyed.

Twitter did not respond to a request for comment about its moderation practices since Musks takeover or what systems it has in place.

Researchers found that the increase in hateful content began almost immediately after Musks takeover as users began to test the boundaries of what would get past Twitters new moderation regime.

The day that [Musk] officially took over the platform, a lot of right-wing figures had started tweeting anti-LGBTQ rhetoric, specifically the term groomer, says Kayla Gogarty, research director at Media Matters for America, a media watchdog group, referring to the conspiracy theory that LGBTQ people prey on younger people by grooming them. [These accounts] were basically saying that they were testing the waters of Twitters content moderation, she says.

Twitters policies do not allow slurs and tropes that intend to degrade or reinforce negative or harmful stereotypes about a protected category.

There seems to have been a clear indication that people anticipated that Musk would reduce moderation, says Keith Burghardt, a computer scientist at USCs Information Sciences Institute and one of the co-authors of the paper. But its clear that hate speech didnt decline immediately after Elon Musk bought Twitter, suggesting that whatever moderation he did was not enough.

Even before it reduced the size of its moderation teams, Twitter wasnt particularly quick to remove hateful content, according to Tal-Or Cohen Montemayor, founder and executive director of CyberWell, a nonprofit that tracks anti-Semitism online in both English and Arabic.

Data collected by CyberWell found that though only 2 percent of anti-Semitism contenton social media platforms in 2022 was violent, 90 percent of that came from Twitter. And Cohen Montemayor notes that even the companys standard moderation systems would likely have struggled under the strain of so much hateful content.If youre experiencing surges [of online hate speech] and you have changed nothing in the infrastructure of content moderation, that means youre leaving more hate speech on the platform, she says.

Civil society organizations that used to have a direct line to Twitters moderation and policy teams have struggled to raise their concerns, says Isedua Oribhabor, business and human rights lead at Access Now. We've seen failure in those respects of the platform to actually moderate properly and to provide the services in the way that it used to for its users, she says.

Daniel Hickey, a visiting scholar at the USCs Information Sciences Institute and coauthor of the paper, says that Twitters lack of transparency makes it hard to assess whether there was simply more hate speech on the platform, or whether the company made substantive changes to its policies after Musks takeover. It is quite difficult to disentangle often because Twitter is not going to be fully transparent about these types of things, he says.

That lack of transparency is likely to get worse. Twitter announced in February that it wouldno longer allow free access to its APthe tool that allows academics and researchers to download and interact with the platforms data. For researchers who want to get a more extended view of how hate speech is changing, as Elon Musk is leading the company for longer and longer, that is certainly much more difficult now, says Hickey.

In the months since Musk took over Twitter, major public news outlets like National Public Radio, Canadian Broadcasting Company, and other public media outlets have left the platform after being labeled as state-sponsored, a designation that was formerly only used for Russian, Chinese, and Iranian state media. Yesterday, Musk reportedlythreatened to reassign NPRs Twitter handle.

Meanwhile, actual state-sponsored media appears to be thriving on Twitter. An Aprilreport from the Atlantic Councils Digital Forensic Research Lab found that, after Twitter stopped suppressing these accounts, they gained tens of thousands of new followers.

In December, accounts that had beenpreviously banned were allowed back on the platform, including right-wing academic Jordan Peterson and prominent misogynist Andrew Tate, who was later arrested in Romania for human trafficking. Liz Crokin, a proponent of the QAnon and Pizzagate conspiracy theories, was also reinstated under Musks leadership. OnMarch 16, Crokin allegedfalselyin a Tweet that talk show host Jimmy Kimmel tweet had featured a pedophile symbol in a skit on his show.

Recent changes to Twitters verification system, Twitter Blue, where users can pay to get blue check marks and more prominence on the platform, has also contributed to the chaos. In November, a tweet from afake account pretending to be corporate giant Eli Lilly announced that insulin was free. The tweet caused the companys stock to dip almost 5 percent. But Ahmed says the implications for the pay-to-play verification are much starker.

Our analysis showed that Twitter Blue was being weaponized, particularly being taken up by people who were spreading disinformation, says CCDHs Ahmed. Scientists, journalists theyre finding themselves in an incredibly hostile environment in which their information is not achieving the reach that is enjoyed by bad actors spreading disinformation and hate.

Despite Twitters protestations, says Ahmed, the study validates what many civil society organizations have been saying for months. Twitters strategy in response to all this massive data from different organizations showing that things were getting worse was to gaslight us and say, No, weve got data that shows the opposite.

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Twitter Really Is Worse Than Ever - WIRED

The Book ofCommonPrayeris enjoying a revival in the Church of England, despite the best efforts of some modernists to mothball it. Over the past two years,more and more churchgoers have asked me about a return to Thomas Cranmers exquisite language,essentially unaltered since 1662,for church services and private devotions. Other vicars tell me they have had a similar increase in interest.

It helps that the Book ofCommonPrayerhas had a fair bit of attention recently. The late Queen Elizabeths insistence on the use ofPrayerBook texts in her funeral rites meant that in September more people witnessed the beauty of this liturgical treasure than watched Neil Armstrongs first steps on the Moon. The hairs on the back of my neck bristled as I heard on TV the solemn words echo around Westminster Abbey: In the midst of life we are in death.

And in the lead-up to the coronation, thePrayerBook has once again been in the public eye although not all the publicity has been good.Cambridge University Presss beautifully bound newPrayerBook, published in time for the coronation, had to be recalled from its first print run when it was noticed that the text mistakenly included France as a dominion under Charles III. Some priests have held on to their misprints in the hope that they might become rare collectors items or in case the sorry state of French politics makes them prophetic.

Whats interesting is that the C of Es Book ofCommonPrayerrevival is overwhelmingly led by millennials. What the 1960s ecclesiastical revolutionaries wrote off, a younger generation is embracing. Brandon LeTourneau, 27, a convert from Judaism and soon to be ordained ministry intern, is hardly a young fogey. He wears Dr Martens and is covered in tattoos. He jokes that from what he can see no one under 40 is joining a church that doesnt focus on tradition and rigour. Why should I bother with a church that doesnt challenge me spiritually or a liturgy that doesnt demand more of me? Though he started his Christian life being baptised in a Californian megachurch swimming pool, he found himself longing for something more exacting.

I have to confess that ten years ago during a church spring clean I tossed around 60 pocket-sizedPrayerBooks into a black bin bag and drove them to the tip. What was I thinking?

The young chairman of thePrayerBook Society, Bradley Smith, tells me that since the pandemic his small organisation has been overwhelmed with interest, enquiries and new members. Churches are trying to match this enthusiasm and many are trailblazing with billings like Matins n Brunch or Evensong n Curry on their notice boards.

Bradley confirms that his societys new members are like Brandon almost exclusively under 35 and more often than not male. He and I speculated as to whether these are also Jordan Peterson fans. Anecdotal evidence is that online Bible lectures from the hugely popular Canadian psychologist have reignited disaffected young mens interest in traditional Christianity. Perhaps thePrayerBook Societys incursion into supporting prison ministry substantiates this theory? If the revival can take off in the toughest jails, it can grow anywhere.

The revival also appears to transcend the normative Anglican tribal divides of High and Low church. A few church schools have taken to assimilating the Book ofCommonPrayerinto their curriculums, providing the prospect of growing future Anglican leaders fluent in the deepest parts of their heritage. Even Roman Catholics are having a go. For the Ordinariate an enclave for ex-Anglicans, including the former Bishop of Rochester Dr Michael Nazir-Ali the Vatican has assimilated an adjusted 1662 text.

It would be a mistake to misinterpret renewed interest in thePrayer Book as a purely aesthetic enterprise, a sort of religious Classic FM. What is clear is that the appeal is not just about Shakespearean language, beautiful though it evidently is. ThePrayerBook is theology at its best. It is a manual of spiritual disciple that is as far removed from modern, cringe-inducing wellness gobbledygook as can be. Its uncompromising opening, We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts, is a brick through the window to many facets of modern living including narcissism, egotism and the crocodile tears of identity politics.

I am a recent convert to the Book ofCommonPrayer.I have to confess that ten years ago during a church spring clean I tossed around 60 pocket-sizedPrayerBooks into a black bin bag and drove them to the tip. What was I thinking?Like many Anglican vicars I believed at the time thatCommonPrayerservices were a roadblock to progress. The antiquated and niche language was attractive only for crusty octogenarians who clung to bygone days.

Halfway through the first lockdown I was fed up with holding daily online services from the vicarage, disconnected from my congregation and my church. Casually, almost out of boredom, I picked a solitary 1662PrayerBook on the nearby shelf.Yes, I was familiar with Evensong and Cranmers communion rite, but more as a pastoral chore than a treasure. Now in Covid-tide I fell upon something concise and beautiful, a liturgy that called me to serve it, not the other way around.

The 2022 census showed an ever-shrinking Christian population inhabiting a secular wilderness. Church attendance continues to decline. Nothing seems to work. Maybe the C of E can be renewed by vicars and laity salvaging the oldPrayerBook from vicarage dustbins? Stranger things have happened in Church history.

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Why millennial men are turning to the Book of Common Prayer - The Spectator

Oodles of Minnesota Vikings players skedaddled this offseason as the club sought to become more nimble financially.

Cameron Dantzler (CB, Commanders), Eric Kendricks (LB, Chargers), Patrick Peterson (CB, Steelers), Adam Thielen (WR, Panthers), Dalvin Tomlinson (DT, Browns),Duke Shelley(CB, Raiders), Irv Smith (TE, Bengals), Kris Boyd (CB, Cardinals), and Chandon Sullivan (CB, Steelers) departed in March and April.

And another former Viking who hasnt been a part of the team since 2018 found a new home with the Buffalo Bills running back Latavius Murray.

NFL Networks Ian Rapoport tweeted Sunday, The Bills signed veteran RB Latavius Murray to a 1-year contract. He visited them earlier in the offseason. Buffalo marks Murrays sixth team in 10 seasons, tallying a resume mixed with longevity and production since 2014.

A Pro Bowler in 2015 with the [then] Oakland Raiders, Murray was a member of the Vikings team that sprinted to the NFC Championship in 2017. Dalvin Cook was a rookie, tore his ACL, and Murrays name was called for RB1 duty with a side dish for Jerick McKinnon, who is currently on the Kansas City Chiefs roster. Notably, Murray took the RB1 title back in 2017 free agency just as future Hall of Famer Adrian Peterson left the Vikings for good.

Murray played for a goofy team last year in the Denver Broncos that has enough talent to win a Super Bowl on paper but has produced an anemic brand of football. In the 2022 offseason, former Vikings executive George Paton (now the Broncos general manager) swung a blockbuster trade with the Seattle Seahawks for Russell Wilson. The move careened Denver up folks power rankings, but the Broncos played clownishly, resulting in the termination of head coach Nathaniel Hackett after a single season and the hire of Vikings rival Sean Payton.

Murray tabulated 1,420 rushing yards with the Vikings on 356 carries for 4.0 yards-per-rush and 14 touchdowns. He truly helped the Vikings almost-storybook season remain afloat in 2017 when the aforementioned Cook was lost to injury.

Since beginning his playing career in 2014, Murray ranks fourth in the NFL for rushing touchdowns (55). His 6,252 rushing yards are the sixth-most in the same timeframe.

In Buffalo, Murray will vie for playing time with RBs James Cook Dalvin Cooks brother Damien Harris, Nyheim Hines, and rookie Jordan Nims. He usually finds a way to make a teams regular season roster, so the 33-year-old might be in good shape this September.

The Bills employ two other former Vikings tight end Zach Davidson and wide receiver Stefon Diggs.

Dustin Baker is political scientist who graduated from the University of Minnesota in 2007. Subscribe to his daily YouTube Channel, VikesNow. He hosts podcast with Bryant McKinnie, which airs every Wednesday with Raun Sawh and Sal Spice. His Vikings obsession dates back to 1996. Listed guilty pleasures: Peanut Butter Ice Cream, The Sopranos, and The Doors (the band).

All statistics provided by Pro Football Reference / Stathead; all contractual information provided by OverTheCap.com.

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Former Viking Quietly Slipped into AFC East - VikingsTerritory.com