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Pfizer, the EU, and disappearing ink

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:47:41 GMT

It’s as if Pfizer’s massive COVID-19 vaccine deal with the European Commission were written with disappearing ink: the more time passes, the more details seem to vanish.For a while now controversy has raged around the text messages supposedly exchanged between Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Pfizer Chief Executive Albert Bourla in the run-up to the April 2021 deal for 1.1 billion doses of the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine. The content and even existence of the messages has been shrouded in secrecy, with requests for clarification met with a fat “no comment.”On Friday, the Commission said it had reached a long sought-after deal with Pfizer to revise the terms of the contract. The new deal cuts down the 450 million doses that were still due to be delivered in 2023, and spreads them out over the next four years.That’s all the information you get. The Commission isn’t revealing the new number of doses that member countries must buy, nor any of...

Germany’s slipped into recession and everyone should be worried

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:47:41 GMT

FRANKFURT ― Not so long ago, Germany was Europe’s powerhouse: wealthy, booming, politically strong. But the mighty have fallen.And it’s not hard to see why this is giving the rest of the eurozone a bad case of the jitters. After all, if its largest member is struggling, it risks dragging the whole lot of them down with it.Germany is by far the eurozone’s biggest economy, accounting for almost 30 percent of the bloc’s economic output. It is the largest trading partner of more than half of the EU’s 27 countries. Politically too, that has enabled Berlin to call a lot of the shots within the European Union. But Thursday’s data, which showed that Germany has fallen into recession, didn’t come out of the blue. It was already among the last in Europe to return to pre-COVID levels when economies started to rebound after the pandemic. And it’s that very drawn-out nature of Germany’s malaise — as well as an absence of the surefootedness of...

New sanctions against Russia stuck in limbo over Greek-Hungarian protest 

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:47:41 GMT

Hungary has won an unlikely ally. After largely playing solo in its opposition against Russian sanctions, Budapest is now getting support from Athens in its skepticism over the freshest measures against Russia, five EU diplomats told POLITICO.The EU is currently discussing its 11th sanctions package against Russia after the start of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine more than a year ago. Whereas the 10 previous sanctions packages focused on measures to empty Vladimir Putin’s war chest, Brussels now wants to avoid its sanctions being circumvented. In an unprecedented step for the bloc, the current package could target other countries helping Moscow dodge its trade embargo.But Budapest and Athens have thrown a collective spanner in the works by linking their approval for the package to a separate thorny issue involving Ukraine. Kyiv has compiled a list of private companies it calls “war sponsors,” which includes a number of European companies. The odd couple want...

Europe pitches ‘AI Pact’ to curtail the booming tech’s risks

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:47:41 GMT

Europe has a new plan to get ahead of dangerous artificial intelligence: An “AI Pact.”The boom of generative artificial intelligence tools like chatbot ChatGPT has triggered a global scramble of regulators trying to keep the technology under control. In meetings with industry leaders this week, and with global peers in past months, the European Union — the Western world’s de facto digital policeman — has quietly been building support for a global pledge to build and use these new tools responsibly.“We are in the middle of things,” Margrethe Vestager, the Commission’s executive vice president responsible for digital affairs, told reporters this week. “And while we’re in the middle of things, we see generative AI and the large language models are developing really, really fast.”At a meeting of G7 countries in Hiroshima, Japan, last weekend, leaders pledged to advance “international discussions on inclusive artificial intellig...

As Turkey heads to runoff presidential race, domestic issues loom large

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:47:41 GMT

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has parlayed his country’s NATO membership and location straddling Europe and the Middle East into international influence, is favored to win reelection in a presidential runoff Sunday, despite a host of domestic issues.Erdogan, 69, who has amassed greater powers during his 20 years in office, finished a first-round election on May 14 just short of a victory and also retained a majority in parliament. That came despite rampant inflation and the aftermath of a catastrophic earthquake that killed over 50,000 people in the country’s south. His challenger in the runoff is Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the 74-year-old leader of the main opposition social democratic Republican People’s Party and the joint candidate of a six-party alliance, who has promised to undo years of democratic backsliding under Erdogan, to repatriate Syrian refugees and promote rights of women.Here’s a look at the main domestic issues shaping the election, and...

New bill to build Oakland Athletics stadium on Las Vegas Strip caps Nevada’s cost at $380 million

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:47:41 GMT

CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) — A bill introduced late Friday in the Nevada Legislature would give the Oakland Athletics up to $380 million for a potential 30,000 seat, $1.5 billion retractable roof stadium on the Las Vegas Strip.The bulk of the public funding would come from $180 million in transferable tax credits from the state and $120 million in county bonds, which can vary based on interest rate returns. Clark County also would contribute $25 million in credit toward infrastructure costs.The A’s have been looking for a home to replace Oakland Coliseum, where the team has played since arriving from Kansas City for the 1968 season. The team had sought to build a stadium in Fremont, San Jose and finally the Oakland waterfront, all ideas that never materialized.The plan in the Nevada Legislature won’t directly raise taxes. It can move forward with a simply majority vote in the Senate and Assembly. Lawmakers have a little more than a week to consider the proposal before they adjourn...

The Machine Celebrates the Bloated Beer Bellies of Viral-Quasi-Celebrity-Land

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:47:41 GMT

I am one of the many billions of world citizens who had no idea who Bert Kreischer is, and after seeing The Machine, a wide-release, sub-Nic-Cagean riff on his beer-can-size meta-quasi-celebrity, I could hardly care less. You’d need to look to the Trump presidency to find a more odoriferous example of our 21st-century American desire to elevate pure asshole-ness, and at least Trump kept his shirt on. Apparently, in real life, Kreischer was a titanic alcoholic frat bro in the ’90s at Florida State U, big enough to have been profiled in a Rolling Stone article about party schools. Oliver Stone thought it’d make a movie, and commissioned a bunch of scripts, one of which got turned into National Lampoon’s Van Wilder micro-franchise in the aughts.A Florida Man incarnate, Kreischer decided to capitalize, and launched a stand-up career telling yarns about his glory days as a souse. His capstone story happened on a school trip to Russia (he was unaccountably taking Russian-language classes)...

CCS baseball playoffs: Santa Teresa wins Division IV title with another shutout

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:47:41 GMT

SAN JOSE — No one can score off these guys.Santa Teresa concluded the Central Coast Section playoffs with a 27-inning scoreless streak.The Saints were coming off a remarkable 14-inning shutout of Leland in the Division IV semifinals, a game in which the team’s two top starting pitchers went seven innings apiece. So Anthony Dela Cruz was called upon to take the mound in the biggest game in program history.Dela Cruz hadn’t pitched more than four innings in a game this season, but all he did Saturday was throw seven innings of four-hit shutout baseball as Santa Teresa won the first CCS baseball championship in school history with a 2-0 win over Palma at Excite Ballpark.“He’s been our closer at times during the year,” Santa Teresa coach Patrick Hawk said. “He’s been our number three starter when we’ve had a three-game week and I knew this kind of competition, this moment would not be too big for him.”Baseball: Santa Teresa Anthony De...

Oakland A’s struggles: When’s the last time an MLB team started this poorly?

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:47:41 GMT

OAKLAND – Oakland A’s right-hander James Kaprielian hasn’t experienced anything like this before. He’s pretty sure none of his teammates have, either.In fact, for well over a century, no player on a Major League team has lost on such a consistent basis as the A’s have this season.Thanks in part to their own miscues and some misfortune, the A’s allowed four runs in the third inning and lost 5-2 to the Houston Astros on Friday before a postgame fireworks-influenced crowd of 13,345 at the Coliseum.At 10-43, the A’s, now on a season-high nine-game losing streak, have the second-worst record of any big-league team since 1900, only ahead of the 1904 Washington Senators, who were 9-41 after 53 games (with three games called with the score tied).“This is a challenge. I mean, this is tough,” said Kaprielian, now 0-5 this season. “I’ve never gone through something like this. I don’t think anyone has. We’re historically losing games r...

CANNES PHOTOS: See standout moments of glamour, humor and reunion as the festival draws to a close

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:47:41 GMT

CANNES, France (AP) — The Cannes Film Festival always commands a certain amount of awe.The appearances by cinema royalty, the nightly parade of high fashion and the festival’s ability to launch filmmakers and films large and small onto the global stage all combine to produce an array of eye-catching moments during the 12 days of Cannes.As the festival draws to a close Saturday, see some of its standout moments through the lenses of photographers for The Associated Press.From its first day, the 76th edition demonstrated its ability to draw attention, hosting Johnny Depp’s return to cinema with the opening night film, “Jeanne du Barry.”While some were irked by the emphasis on Depp — who told the AP “I didn’t know what planet I was on” during his appearance for the premiere — the festival quickly turned the spotlight onto other stars.Michael Douglas accepted an honorary Palme d’Or and kisses from his wife and daughter at the top of the festival’s famed Palais stairs. Harris...