Children's lives at risk from US funding cuts to vaccine alliance: CEO

Before the puck dropped in Friday's pivotal NHL playoff match, hundreds of Montreal Canadiens fans took their seats in two century old Catholic cathedral. 

But they weren't there to pray the Canadiens beat the Tampa Bay Lightning in Game 3 of their first round series -- they were there to drink beer and watch the game.

"Hockey is a religion in Quebec," said Francoise Dancause, artistic director of the Cargaison collective, which curates immersive cultural experiences in Quebec. 

She had the idea to install a hockey viewing experience in a church when she woke up on New Year's Day.

"The Canadiens had a good team. I said to myself, for sure we're making the playoffs," Dancause told AFP.

It took months of work, but by the time the NHL playoffs started, the ornate Cathedral of St John the Evangelist in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec was ready to host -- with a projection screen strung across the sanctuary.

"The Canadiens are larger than life," she said of the Montreal club, which has the most wins in NHL history with an unfailingly passionate fan base.

"We often say they're our gods, so the parallel is really easy to make."

For her, a church is an ideal setting for a high-stakes game in a hockey mad society. 

"It's the essence of the church: gathering, being together, living together," she added, conceding that some of the 650 people in attendance on Friday night "have never set foot in a church" previously.

For 94-year-old Aline Tremblay, watching hockey was the new experience.

She had been to the cathedral -- about a 40-minute-drive from Montreal -- for an earlier match in the Montreal-Tampa Bay series.

"It was fantastic, I had so much fun. I screamed, I lost my voice," she told AFP. "For once I shouted out loud in a church."

People drank beer and "everyone was happy," she said. 

She came back for more on Friday, in what was the second hockey game she'd ever watched. 

The church-going crowd didn't leave disappointed. Montreal won in overtime on Friday, taking a 2-1 lead in the best of seven series.

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Brady Kehlenbrink had another solid start against No. 24 Arkansas. But a baseball game cannot be won without scoring runs, as Missouri coach Kerrick Jackson likes to say.

Mizzou baseball was shutout 6-0 on Friday evening in Columbia. With a 5-4 loss the night before, the Game 2 defeat brought another series loss for the Tigers. The team has dropped to 3-17 in conference play and has lost nine straight.

"We are allergic to offense and executing two-strike pitches," Missouri coach Kerrick Jackson said postgame. 

For Kehlenbrink’s last three outings, he has gone more than five innings and has left Mizzou in a position to win. This continued on Friday when the Missouri starter tossed 5⅓ innings and allowed four runs.

"He put is a good position," Jackson said. "When he left, I know he didn't want to come out as early as he did." 

While not his best start, Mizzou has shown on other days that the team is capable of scoring more than four runs. The Tigers were averaging 6.34 runs per game coming into the night.

When Kehlenbrink exited the mound, only two runs had crossed on a two-run homer, but he left two runners on. Reliever Eli Skidmore allowed both inherited runners to score.

While the starter had done his part, the Tigers offense at the plate had not lived up to their end of the bargain. However. this was nothing new for Kehlenbrink. He has received zero runs in support in his time on the mound in the last three games.

In three of the five times that Mizzou has been shutout this season, Kehlenbrink has been on the mound. In six of his starts, the offense has recorded less than three runs.

At the plate in Game 2 of the series, the Tigers added just two hits from left fielder Donovan Jordan and right fielder Pierre seals, and had three walks during the game. Mizzou was put down in order in the first, fourth, sixth, eighth and ninth innings.

"Hitting is hard," Jackson said. "I think our guys are chasing hits and not quality at-bats."

Skidmore added one more run of his own and walked a batter before being pulled for Isaiah Salas for the final out of the fifth. Salas added a scoreless sixth, before finally allowing an unearned run to cross in the eighth on a single that followed an error from second baseman Blaize Ward.

Luke Fricker came in to close the game, loaded the bases in the ninth, but earned a strikeout to shut down additional runs.

The Tigers will try to avoid the sweep against the Razorbacks at 2 p.m. Saturday at Taylor Stadium. Despite initially being expected to start the game on Saturday, lefty Javyn Pimental will miss his start due to injury. 

Things could get awkward Saturday night when US President Donald Trump takes his seat at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, his first time attending the gala while in office.

The White House Correspondents' Association (WHCA), which organizes the annual meeting of the political press, opted not to go with a comedian host this year, as is tradition, but instead invited a mentalist and magician, Oz Pearlman.

Since his return to office last year, Trump's administration has taken a number of measures against the media, selectively restricting access for news outlets that have fallen afoul of his officials.

In a break with precedent, the White House now chooses which reporters are in the press "pool" that has rotating access to the president.

"The Press was extraordinarily bad to me," Trump said recently in a post on his Truth Social platform.

The WHCA inviting Trump this year, despite his repeated attacks on the media, has drawn backlash across newsrooms, and hundreds of journalists have signed an open letter asking attendees to call out Trump's press restrictions to his face at the event.

- 'Untouchable' -

Unlike all other presidents from the past 100 years, Trump has never attended the White House Correspondents' Dinner while in office -- until now.

But as opposed to the tradition of a comedian host "roasting" the commander in chief, this year's edition might see a bit of role reversal with Trump's attendance.

"My guess is that there is going to be some significant expression of grievances" by Trump, according to Robert Rowland, a communications professor at the University of Kansas.

"The other thing is that he does feel untouchable," he told AFP.

- 'Awkward and embarrassing' -

The "Nerd Prom" as attendees affectionately call it brings together hundreds of Washington journalists and media executives to raise funds for scholarships and awards.

And though the White House Correspondents' Dinner is presented as a celebration of America's press freedom, critics have lambasted the event as emblematic of US political journalism's insular, tight-knit nature.

"Even in the best of times, the annual White House Correspondents' Dinner is an awkward and ethically fraught affair," journalist Paul Farhi quipped in The Atlantic magazine, adding that this year's edition "figures to be even more awkward and embarrassing than usual."

Though it will be his first time attending as president, Trump has been a guest at the White House Correspondents' Dinner in 2011.

Then-president Barack Obama infamously teased him relentlessly at the event, making fun of the former real estate developer's proliferation of the birtherism conspiracy theory that America's first Black president wasn't born in the country.

"Say what you want about Mr Trump, he would certainly bring some change to the White House," Obama said at the event, showing an image of the White House transformed into a Trump-branded hotel and casino.

And although the joke has played out with some truth -- with Trump's second term marked by high-profile renovations of the White House and beyond -- Trump's rise to power and his return to the White House Correspondents' Dinner as president 15 years later may show who ended up getting the last laugh after all.

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The Wikimedia Foundation said Saturday it has found a compromise with the Indonesian government, which had threatened to block Wikipedia over domestic registration rules the foundation feared were overly invasive.

Under a 2020 regulation, all electronic system providers (PSEs) must register in Indonesia for what the government calls legal and user protection purposes before making their services available.

Critics have pointed to a provision that requires registered PSEs to take down content deemed as "causing public unrest and disturbing public order" as a free speech restriction.

The Wikimedia Foundation, which owns and operates Wikipedia, had previously said the provision "departs from international human rights norms".

In a statement sent to AFP on Saturday, the foundation said it had a "very constructive meeting" earlier in the week with the Communication and Digital Affairs ministry, during which it explained its "non-profit mission" and "emphasised its commitment to protecting user privacy and security".

It said the ministry informed it that the registration requirement was administrative in nature.

"With assurances that there would be no unlawful content takedown orders or data disclosure requirements that could put the Wikimedia community-led model at risk, the Foundation is working constructively towards the administrative next steps," the statement said.

The ministry did not respond to an AFP request for comment. 

The government last week gave the foundation seven days to register or face its services, including Wikipedia Indonesia, being blocked in the country of around 284 million people.

Last October, Indonesia briefly suspended TikTok's local operating licence after the social media platform refused to share information sought by Jakarta about violent anti-government protests earlier in the year.

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Signatories of the landmark nuclear non-proliferation treaty will meet at the UN from Monday as hopes fade they can reach agreement and tensions soar between the atomic powers. 

In 2022, during the last review of the treaty that is considered the cornerstone of non-proliferation, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned humanity was "one misunderstanding, one miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation."

The situation has only worsened since then.

"I think there is a shared, if you will, sense of crisis by all states parties," said Izumi Nakamitsu, the UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs.

"We don't have any bilateral arms control agreements between the two largest nuclear weapon states," she said referring to the February expiration of the New Start treaty between Moscow and Washington.

"We are also beginning to see quantitative increase of nuclear capabilities in all nuclear weapon states."

Nakamitsu said that mounting geopolitical tensions had halted the post-Cold War trend of disarmament.

The nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT), signed by almost all the countries on the planet -- with notable exceptions like Israel, India, and Pakistan -- aims to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, to promote complete disarmament, and to encourage cooperation on civilian nuclear projects. 

The nine nuclear-armed states -- Russia, the United States, France, the United Kingdom, China, India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea -- possessed 12,241 nuclear warheads in January 2025, according to the latest report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). 

The United States and Russia hold nearly 90 percent of nuclear weapons globally and have carried out major programs to modernize them in recent years, according to SIPRI.

China has also rapidly increased its nuclear stockpile, SIPRI said, with the G7 raising the alarm Friday over Moscow and Beijing boosting their nuclear capabilities.

US President Donald Trump has indicated his intention to conduct new nuclear tests because "other countries are doing it too."

In March, France's President Emmanuel Macron announced a dramatic shift in nuclear deterrence, notably an increase in the atomic arsenal, currently numbering 290 warheads.

- NPT could 'unravel' -

"It is obvious that trust is eroding, both inside and outside the NPT," Seth Sheldon of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, told AFP.

He questioned the likely outcome of the four-week summit.

Decisions on the NPT have to be agreed by consensus, with the previous two conferences failing to adopt final political declarations.

In 2015, the deadlock was largely due to opposition by Israel's arch-ally Washington to the creation of a nuclear-weapon-free zone in the Middle East.

In 2022, the impasse was due mainly to Russian opposition to references to Ukraine's nuclear power plant at Zaporizhzhia, occupied by Moscow. 

This year's summit could fall on any number of stumbling blocks.

The ongoing war in Ukraine, Iran's nuclear program and the war there, non-nuclear states' fears over proliferation and North Korea's developing arsenal could all be deal-breakers.

If there is a third consecutive failure, the treaty "might not implode overnight" said Christopher King, the conference's secretary-general. 

But there is a risk "it will, over time, unravel." 

Artificial intelligence could be a prominent issue as some countries call for all sides to keep human control over nuclear weapons.

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Jury selection is to begin Monday in a high-profile legal battle between billionaire Elon Musk and artificial intelligence startup OpenAI, which he accuses of betraying its non-profit mission.

The clash in a courtroom across the bay from San Francisco pits the world's richest man against a startup that Musk once backed and now competes against in the booming AI sector.

OpenAI's ChatGPT is a formidable rival to the Grok chatbot made by Musk's xAI lab.

While the lawsuit filed by Musk is part of a feud between him and OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman, it spotlights a debate whether AI should ultimately benefit the privileged few or society as a whole.

Court filings lay out how Altman tried to convince Musk to back OpenAI in 2015, acting as a co-founder for a non-profit lab whose technology "would belong to the world."

Musk pumped some $38 million into the lab before he left.

OpenAI is now valued at $852 billion, with Microsoft among its backers, and is preparing to go public on the stock market.

The judge presiding over the trial is aiming for a jury to decide by late May whether OpenAI broke a promise to Musk in its drive to be a leader in AI or just smartly rode the technology to glory.

- Musk duped? -

Musk argues in his lawsuit that he was deceived about OpenAI's mission being altruistic.

The tycoon cites an email from Altman in 2017 claiming that he remained "enthusiastic about the non-profit structure" of their AI venture after Musk threatened to cut off funding for the lab.

Just a few months later, however, OpenAI established a commercial subsidiary in the face of needing to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in data centers to power its technology.

Over the course of the following two years, Microsoft pumped billions of dollars into OpenAI and the tech stalwart's stake in the startup is now valued about $135 billion.

Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella is among those slated to testify at the trial.

- Aimed at Altman -

Along with calling for OpenAI to be forced to revert to a pure nonprofit, Musk's suit urges the ousting of Altman and OpenAI co-founder and president Greg Brockman.

Musk is also seeking as much as $134 billion in damages and to have the court make OpenAI sever ties with Microsoft.

During pre-trial hearings, US Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers mused that Musk team seemed to be "pulling numbers out of the air" when it came to calculating damages.

If the jury sides with Musk, it will be left to Rogers to determine any remedies or payment.

In what OpenAI has dismissed as a public relations stunt, Musk has vowed that any damages awarded in the suit will go to the startup's nonprofit foundation.

- Quest for control? -

OpenAI internal communications brought to light by the lawsuit reveal tensions that culminated with the temporary ouster of Altman as AI chief executive in late 2023.

Musk's legal team highlighted a 2017 entry in Brockman's personal journal reasoning that it would be lying if Altman publicly asserted OpenAI would stay a nonprofit but became a corporation a short time later.

OpenAI now has a hybrid governance structure giving its nonprofit foundation control over a for-profit arm.

In court filings, OpenAI countered that its break-up with Musk was due to his quest for absolute control rather than its nonprofit status.

"This case has always been about Elon generating more power and more money for what he wants," OpenAI said in a post on X, a platform Musk owns.

"His lawsuit remains nothing more than a harassment campaign that's driven by ego, jealousy and a desire to slow down a competitor."

The startup noted that days after Musk entered the AI race in 2023 he called for a 6-month moratorium on development of advanced AI.

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San Antonio star Victor Wembanyama was ruled out of the Spurs' NBA playoff game against the Portland Trail Blazers on Friday, three days after he suffered a concussion.

Wembanyama had been listed as "questionable" on the Spurs injury report, but coach Mitch Johnson announced less than two hours before tip-off that the 22-year-old Frenchman wouldn't play.

"Victor is not playing tonight," Johnson said. "Obviously, there's a lot that goes into that, but he's doing well and progressing."

Wembanyama was placed in the NBA's concussion protocol after taking a hard fall to the court in Tuesday's 106-103 loss to Portland in San Antonio, which evened their best-of-seven first-round series at one game apiece.

Wembanyama attended team workouts on Wednesday and Thursday but was not allowed to take part under the protocol that calls for a gradual return to activity with medical evaluations at each step.

He made the trip to Portland and took part in the Spurs' shoot-around on Friday morning, further sparking speculation that he could be cleared to play.

Johnson, pressed as to whether there was "optimism" that Wembanyama would be back for game four, said he wasn't qualified to say.

"There's gonna be a lot of questions. I understand, and follow-ups, and I  don't think that I'm the appropriate person -- and especially at this time -- to answer a lot of them," Johnson said.

"But he is doing well and progressing."

Wembanyama was named NBA Defensive Player of the Year last week and is a finalist for the Most Valuable Player award.

He averaged a career-high 25 points, a career-best 11.5 rebounds, a league-best 3.1 blocked shots and one steal per game this season.

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Palestinians in the West Bank and a central area of Gaza head to the polls Saturday for municipal elections in a first vote since the Gaza war, marked by a narrow political field and widespread disillusionment.

Nearly 1.5 million people are registered to vote in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, as well as 70,000 people in Gaza's Deir el-Balah area, according to the Ramallah-based Central Elections Commission.

Most electoral lists are aligned with president Mahmud Abbas's secular-nationalist Fatah party or running as independents.

There are no lists affiliated with Fatah's archrival Hamas, which controls nearly half of the Gaza Strip.

In most cities, Fatah-backed tickets will run against independent lists headed by candidates from factions such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (Marxist-Leninist).

Mahmud Bader, a businessman from the northern West Bank city of Tulkarem, where two adjacent refugee camps have been under Israeli military control for over a year, said he would vote despite having little hope for meaningful change.

"Whether candidates are independent or partisan, it has no effect and will have no effect or benefit for the city," he told AFP. 

"The (Israeli) occupation is the one that rules Tulkarem. It would only be an image shown to the international media -- as if we have elections, a state or independence."

In many cities, including Nablus and Ramallah, the seat of the Palestinian Authority, only one list has been submitted, meaning it wins automatically without needing a vote.

Polling stations in the West Bank will be open from 7:00 am (0400 GMT) to 7:00 pm, while in Deir al-Balah, polls will close at 5:00 pm to facilitate counting in daylight due to the lack of electricity in the war devastated strip, the elections commission told AFP.

UN coordinator Ramiz Alakbarov commended the commission for organising a "credible process".

"Saturday's elections represent an important opportunity for Palestinians to exercise their democratic rights during an exceptionally challenging period", Alakbarov said in a statement.

- 'Confirmation of existence' -

Gaza, which has been under Hamas control since 2007, will see its first vote since the legislative elections of 2006 that the Islamist movement won.

Abbas's Palestinian Authority is holding elections only in Deir el-Balah "as an experiment (to test its own) success or failure, since there are no post-war opinion polls", Jamal al-Fadi, a political scientist at Cairo's Al-Azhar University, told AFP.

Abbas, who is now 90 and has remained in power for more than 20 years without ever being re-elected, frequently promises legislative and presidential elections that have never taken place.

Deir el-Balah was chosen as it was one of the only places in Gaza where "the population has remained largely in place and not been displaced" by more than two years of war between Hamas and Israel, Fadi said.

Farah Shaath, 25, was excited to vote for the first time. 

"Although it is unlike any election in the world, it is a confirmation of our continued existence in the Gaza Strip despite everything," she told AFP.

The election commission says it has recruited polling staff from civil society organisations and hired "a private security company to secure polling centres" for the Gaza vote, spokesman Fareed Taamallah told AFP.

But a source from the commission in Gaza, who asked to remain anonymous, said that "Hamas police insisted on securing the electoral process in Deir al-Balah".

The source added that "this will be done by deploying unarmed security personnel in civilian clothing around polling centres", which number 12 in Deir el-Balah.

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Outside a high school classroom in Vilnius, several students look apprehensive as they discuss their looming futures -– university, the job market and, for many of them, serving in the military.

In their final year of high school, all are on the brink of Lithuania's newly-reformed draft policy, expanded to make all 18- to 22-year-old men who pass a health check eligible, as the small neighbour of Russia and Belarus seeks to deter any aggression from Moscow. 

While authorities praise young people's patriotism, eligible men say they need more government support as they prepare to serve. 

"Those younger people will have to defend our country, and to be able to motivate them is important, so they feel encouraged to join the military," Valentinas, an 18-year-old high school student, told AFP. 

This policy, initially implemented in 2014 after the Russian occupation of Crimea, has expanded several times since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. 

At the start of this year, the draft list grew from 3,500 people to 5,000. 

Previous exceptions to the policy, such as those for students in higher education, were removed.  

- 'All volunteers' -

Lithuania's defence ministry is confident its young people are eager to defend their country. 

"It is our high expectation that maybe this year will be the first year that we will have all volunteers coming into conscription," Vice Minister of Defence Karolis Aleksa told AFP in Vilnius.  

But many potential draftees worry the military draft might disrupt their plans in a country formerly occupied by the Soviet Union.  

"This year I wouldn't want to go," Dominikas, 18, told AFP. "If I was to get drafted, it would mess up the rhythm of education, and that would be a problem". 

Vykintas, 18, a classmate, admitted he volunteered, but not out of overt enthusiasm for service.  

"I'm not really excited for the military, but I also volunteered for it because I think it's better to just do it after school and be free with it," he told AFP.  

Another young man, Valentinas, volunteered as "I don't know what to do with my future. I don't know where to study, so the military is a great option for me".    

"Since 2014... the main goal has been to increase the size of the professional armed forces and, in particular, the number of reservists," Tomas Janeliunas, a professor at the Institute of International Relations and Political Science at Vilnius University, told AFP. 

"The number of conscripts has been gradually expanded each year," he added.  

"Everybody understands the reality, the security threats," Aleksa said, adding he believes the country is moving "toward universal male conscription".  

- 'Ten percent' patriotic -

Such policies are popular with government officials who regularly emphasise the country's defence needs, as well as with the Lithuanian public.  

In a 2024 poll, 63 percent of Lithuanians supported universal conscription and the military is the country's most popular institution –- enjoying 80 percent confidence among the public.  

"Lithuania maintains that it must not rely solely on NATO allies but also contribute as much as possible to its own defence -- both through budgetary commitments (this year reaching 5.38 percent of GDP) and by increasing the number of personnel," Janeliunas said.  

Groups such as the Lithuanian Riflemen's Union (LRU) -- a government-sponsored paramilitary group, have emphasised the importance of teaching young Lithuanians about patriotism.  

Young draftees do not always share the same perspective.  

"I'd say about ten percent of the volunteers are patriotic, to be honest," Rokas, 18, told AFP.  

Since the war in Ukraine began, several organisations, including the LRU, have noted increased interest in joining up, and last year, the Lithuanian armed forces noted volunteers for military service were up by half on two years prior. 

- Pay or patriotism? - 

Students say this is not necessarily evidence of greater patriotism.

"I don't think people became more patriotic because of the war," Dominikas told AFP. 

"It's more because of... the increase in the pay rate," said Tomas, his classmate. "I think that's the reason a lot of people are volunteering".  

Conscripts in Lithuania can earn up to 8,835 euros for nine months of service, depending on their evaluations and their volunteer status. 

Young Lithuanians who volunteer can choose the time and place of their service, as opposed to draftees.

They also receive cumulative payments up to 30 percent higher than those drafted compulsorily.  

Regardless of personal feelings towards service, each of the young men AFP spoke to agreed the draft was necessary for the country's security.  

"There wouldn't be enough people if it wasn't mandatory," said Tomas.  

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Arkansas pitcher Payton Burnham shutout Mizzou softball 4-0, putting the Tigers back at .500 Friday in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

The Razorbacks delivered two hits in the first to take a swift three-run lead on the Tigers.

Missouri had four hits in the loss, but failed to score any runs. They stranded seven runners on base, with none of them advancing as far as third base. 

Arkansas got one more run in the fourth to secure the 4-0 win.

Marissa McCann started for the Tigers, giving up six hits and four earned runs. She took the loss and is now 9-9. Courtney Donahue pitched two innings in relief. She held the Razorbacks to just one hit. 

Redshirt-freshman Saniya Hill got some action at second in the loss, and was a bright spot for the Tigers. She played solid defense, tracking down a fly ball behind second base as well stopping a ground ball from making it into the right field.

The Tigers will have a morning rematch against Arkansas at 11 a.m. Saturday at Bogle Park in Fayetteville, Arkansas.