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The mysterious case of the MEP lovers and the disappearing EU pharma report

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:05:38 GMT

A report published by an obscure EU panel without legislative powers risks turning into a political powder keg after it was published online and then taken down again — apparently at the behest of two center-right MEPs who are also in a romantic relationship. Both Pernille Weiss and Christian Ehler sit on the European Parliament’s Panel for the Future of Science and Technology (STOA). In fact, Ehler chairs it. The fact that the pair are in a relationship risks casting a shadow on the appropriateness of the decision to withdraw the report by a panel that is, in theory, a non-partisan body that commissions external scientists to produce useful research for the EU Parliament.The report, on Europe’s market for pharmaceuticals, was published on Friday — POLITICO saved a copy here. By Monday it was gone, replaced by a broken link.POLITICO has been given different reasons for why the study was taken down. What’s certain is that the topic — people’s access t...

Van Zile: Tania Fernandes Anderson owes Boston an apology

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:05:38 GMT

Tania Fernandes Anderson, who represents Roxbury, Dorchester and part of the South End on the Boston City Council, owes Boston’s Jews, veterans and current members of the military an apology. The councilor, who has previously violated the state ethics code by hiring family members to serve on her staff, has, with her recent actions desecrated the memory of the city’s veterans, promoted hostility toward Jews, and has affirmed an atrocity story that has incited attacks not only against Jews throughout the world, but on American interests in the Middle East. In sum, Councilor Anderson has made life more dangerous and uncertain for Bostonians she was elected to serve.Anderson’s antics were on full display at an Oct. 18 meeting of the Boston City Council where, in addition to blocking the passage of a resolution affirming Boston’s solidarity with Israel in the aftermath of Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre, she put forth a resolution of her own that called for a ceasefire and described the massacr...

Wrong notes keep ‘Priscilla’ from being a hit

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:05:38 GMT

Based on the 1985 memoir “Elvis and Me” by Priscilla Presley, Sofia Coppola’s “Priscilla” is a big cup of weak tea, especially measured against Baz Luhrmann’s 2022 effort “Elvis” with the Oscar-nominated, star-making turn by Austin Butler in the lead role. “Priscilla” is the minimalist Elvis-centric film compared with Luhrmann’s maximalist entry.“Priscilla” gives us the visually mismatched Jacob Elordi and Cailee Spaeny as its doomed lovers. He’s 6’5”; she’s 5’1.” The height difference makes Elordi’s Elvis seem like the villainous giant in this fairy tale in more ways than one. It starts in West Germany in 1959, where 24-year-old Elvis is in the Air Force and 14-year-old Priscilla Beaulieu meet. Elvis invokes the tendency of rock stars of that period taking up with underage girls by playing rival Jerry Lee Lewis’s rendition of “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” on a piano.Cue Frankie Avalon’s “Venus,” and, yes, “ple...

Barbara Eden brings her magic to RI Comic Con

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:05:38 GMT

At 92 with a career going back 70 years, Barbara Eden still feels the love for what she does.A trouper who’s done it all – stage, cinema, TV, nightclubs, records— Eden attends Rhode Island’s Comic Con in Providence Saturday and SundayIt won’t, surprisingly, be all “Jeannie! Jeannie! Jeannie!” fans who 38 years later still adore her touchstone series “I Dream of Jeannie.”“Or course it’s mostly ‘Jeannie’ but a lot of people now, according to my fan mail I’m getting all over the world, are seeing these older movies that I did at Fox with Elvis (“Flaming Star’) and Pat Boone (‘All Hands on Deck’), and the Irwin Allen films (‘Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea’). That always surprises me. Or they will see one episode I did for ‘The Andy Griffith Show’ –  ‘The Manicurist’ – and they will have photographs of the show and I sign them.”Born in Tucson and raised in San Francisco, Eden settled into Hollywood’s all-girl Studio Club for aspiring actresses. ...

Editorial: Nee-Walsh at-large choice

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:05:38 GMT

Bridget Nee-Walsh is just what the Boston City Council needs — badly — today.She’s a single mom who said in a recent candidate interview that she can do all that and “still hold your composure and be a professional.” She’s a 44-year-old union ironworker from South Boston and is locked in a tight race for an open at-large seat.Her chief rival is Henry Santana, who has won the endorsement of Mayor Michelle Wu. Santana, 27, emigrated from the Dominican Republic as a child, and became a U.S. citizen at 17. His is a great story, but he has admitted he registered to vote just this year and cast his first vote in the preliminary election held Sept. 12.It’s clear the City Council, too often splintered and known more for being in the headlines than making wise decisions, should not be a training ground for novice politicians. No votes? For an at-large seat?The city could use another mature voice of reason and that person is Bridget Nee-Walsh.Give San...

Adams: China is exploiting our minerals weakness

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:05:38 GMT

For years, savvy policymakers have called America’s alarming mineral import reliance our Achilles’ heel. Now, China has zeroed in on it.As the U.S. outsourced its supply chains – and much of our industrial base – over the past few decades, our alarming dependence on overseas mineral production has reached catastrophic depths. The U.S. is now import-reliant on 51 minerals essential to nearly every dimension of our economy, energy future, and national security. China is the leading supplier of a stunning 26.Our astonishing minerals weakness has quickly become China’s strength. China already dominates mineral supply chains, particularly metals essential to the energy transition, which is already driving soaring mineral demand.We have provided China with geopolitical leverage on a silver platter. And as competition with Beijing has escalated to trade confrontation over intellectual property and control over critical industries – such as semiconductor production – China has unsurprisingl...

Stellar comedy ‘Quiz Lady’ comes up a winner

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:05:38 GMT

Awkwafina aka Karen Lum has been a regular sidekick and supporting cast member in several recent films. She voiced Scuttle in the recent “The Little Mermaid” reboot and was third-billed in this year’s “Renfield.” In “Quiz Lady,” she plays the title role of Annie Yum, a nondescript worker stuck in the back of an office, who lives alone with her beloved bulldog Mr. Linguini and obsessively watches (and successfully beats) her favorite game show “Can’t Stop the Quiz.”The show has had the same host for decades. His name is Terry McTeer (Will Ferrell, playing yet another eccentric TV figure), and any resemblance to Alex Trebek late of “Jeopardy” fame is accidental, I’m sure. Terry has catchphrases and wears a bow tie only once per show and then has the tie mounted on the studio’s walls. Currently, the show has a long-running champion, a thoroughly annoying individual named Ron Heacock (Jason Schwartzman), whose bleached teeth look radioactive. Ron is a loathsomely...

Franks: Can new House Speaker pass legislation?

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:05:38 GMT

I wish newly elected House Speaker Mike Johnson great success in what has turned out to be a difficult journey for the Republicans. For now, the speaker’s chair is no longer “vacant.”Did everyone get what they wanted? Or did everyone lose?Let’s review. The MAGA Republicans bullied their way to this position. After Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan – who they were set on – failed three times on three separate days, a record, they picked the one guy who had not been in Congress long enough to develop enemies within his own ranks. Plus, Johnson had been certified by the Trumpsters, and had not alienated himself from other Republicans.The jury is out on how he will manage his new responsibilities, but I am encouraged by any man who leads first by invoking God in his success and vision. As a member of Congress in the ’90s I too went to church daily. My adversaries called me “lucky.” Yeah, right. I applaud Speaker Johnson on this point. It will help.The first area of concern is keeping the government ...

Dear Abby: Son left parent in the cold during chemo

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:05:38 GMT

Dear Abby: I have hard feelings for my oldest son. A few years back, I was diagnosed with cancer and needed radiation treatments. The hospital is in my son’s hometown, so I asked him if I could sit in their living room between my two treatments a day for six days. He said he would talk to his wife about it.I tried to call him the day before my treatments started, but he wouldn’t answer his phone. I had to sit in my car in the cold of winter for six hours between treatments.I can’t seem to get past this. I don’t bring it up to him, but I resent him and his wife for letting me down in my time of need. How can I get over this and let the resentment go? — Sad in the MidwestDear Sad: Are you and your son and daughter-in-law communicating now? Have they ever explained why they acted the way they did? Did you and your daughter-in-law have some kind of falling out before your diagnosis?That you were left sitting in a car between cancer treatments on a cold wint...

Warm-Up Underway as Mild Pacific Air Spreads Eastward; Falling Back to Standard Time This Weekend

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:05:38 GMT

The shift from Daylight Saving Time to Central Standard Time this weekend means the sun, which sets tonight at 5:44pm CDT will set, after we turn our clocks back an hour before heading to bed Saturday night, will set at 4:40pm Sunday evening.NOAA and NASA researchers report the ozone hole over Antarctica is the 12th largest hole of any single day since 1979—but the overall downward trend in ozone-destroying chemicals continues in the wake of 1987's International Montreal Protocol which banned a series of ozone-destroying chemicalsAn international ban on chemicals emitted and known to destroy UV blocking ozone in the stratosphere has led to a decline in those chemicals which continues, modified some years by natural events such as especially mammoth volcanic eruptions. NASA and NOAA scientists note that overall, there continue to be "signs of stratospheric ozone recovery."Of this year's Antarctic ozone hole, Paul Newman, leader of NASA's ozone research team and chief scientist for Ea...