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Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Poland’s air-traffic control agency, PANSA, has been cut off from most of its revenue as part of a legal dispute between the Polish state and pharmaceutical giant Pfizer over an unpaid bill of €1.3 billion (5.6 billion zloty) for COVID-19 vaccines.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced on Friday that the government will ensure that PANSA receives funds to enable it to continue operations and that air safety will not be compromised.

Pfizer wszedł na konto agencji nadzorującej polskie niebo #PAŻP . To działania komornicze, aby ściągnąć 5,6 mld zł od Polski za przegraną o szczepionki przeciw #Covid19 – pisze @KlaraKlinger i @RenataKim3 @NewsweekPolska . @MZ_GOV_PL @donaldtusk @Arlukowicz https://t.co/wPnoKLJokJ

— rynekzdrowia.pl (@rynekzdrowia) July 9, 2026

PANSA is not a party to the legal dispute with Pfizer, but has been targeted as part of efforts by the American company to enforce payment, reported the Newsweek Polska weekly and Rynek Zdrowia, a health news website, which were the first to break the story.

They revealed that the European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation (Eurocontrol), which manages air traffic in Europe, had suspended payment of so-called en route air navigation charges to PANSA.

That was later confirmed in a statement by PANSA, which noted that such fees “constitute over 80% of the agency’s revenue and are the primary source of financing for its operations”.

“The enforcement order obligates Eurocontrol to withhold all funds from en route charges to PANSA – both current and future – until Pfizer’s claim is satisfied or the matter is otherwise resolved,” wrote PANSA.

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Eurocontrol is based in Belgium, which is where Pfizer has been fighting its legal battle against Poland. In March this year, a Belgian court ordered that Poland must pay €1.3 billion for 60 million Covid vaccine doses Warsaw had ordered through the European Commission but, in 2022, declared that it no longer wanted.

Poland is still preparing to file an appeal. However, its request for enforcement of the ruling to be delayed until the appeal is heard was rejected by the Belgian court, allowing Pfizer to begin seeking enforcement.

This month, Romania’s air-traffic agency, ROMATSA, confirmed that it too had been cut off from funds by Eurocontrol as part of Pfizer’s similar legal claim against the Romanian state for €600 million in unpaid fees for Covid vaccines.

Datoria României către Pfizer ajunge la ROMATSA: Eurocontrol a notificat poprirea sumelor colectate pentru statul român https://t.co/U0GGtQtjU3

— stiripesurse.ro (@stiripesurse_ro) July 1, 2026

In its statement, PANSA said that, in coordination with Poland’s general prosecutor’s office, it was taking “all steps to lift the order and release the funds”, including filing a “formal objection” to the move.

In the meantime, it was seeking to secure other financial resources to replace the withheld funds and ensure that operations can continue. “Maintaining the highest level of safety and continuity of air navigation services remains PANSA’s priority, and there is no risk of any employee layoffs.”

Speaking on Friday, Prime Minister Tusk said that he was in talks with his finance minister, Andrzej Domański, over the issue. He assured that “we of course won’t leave PANSA without help” and that “there won’t be any problems with its operations”.

🔴PAŻP bez pieniędzy przez Pfizera. Tusk zabrał głos

Polska Agencja Żeglugi Powietrznej straciła dostęp do swoich głównych przychodów z powodu sporu rządu z koncernem farmaceutycznym Pfizer. – Od pierwszych dni naszych rządów staramy się rozwiązać problem – mówił Tusk, pytany o…

— Wirtualna Polska (@wirtualnapolska) July 10, 2026

Tusk also noted that the entire issue stemmed from decisions made by the former Law and Justice (PiS) government, which ruled Poland from 2015 to 2023. It was under PiS that the vaccines were ordered but then cancelled, triggering Pfizer’s legal action.

“Order, don’t collect them, don’t pay, and then blame the need to pay on their successors – that’s pretty typical of them,” said Tusk. “But it makes my blood boil every time I hear about the Pfizer problem.”

“Although our legal battle is ongoing, the threat is obvious,” he added. “We’re being sued by Pfizer for billions of zloty…All of us may have to pay.”

A Belgian court has ordered Poland to pay US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer around €1.3 billion for Covid vaccines ordered by the European Commission on behalf of member states during the pandemic but which the Polish government later refused to receive https://t.co/1ZtPgl8Y3o

— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) April 2, 2026

Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Main image credit: Ministerstwo Infrastruktury (under CC BY-SA 4.0 )

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When it comes to sci-fi, few names carry the same weight as Ridley Scott , who is single-handedly responsible for some of the most influential films of all time. One of the first that immediately comes to mind is Blade Runner , the 1980s sci-fi classic starring Harrison Ford , who returned to star alongside Ryan Gosling in the legacy sequel, Blade Runner 2049 . However, if someone were making a list of the greatest Ridley Scott-directed sci-fi films , it would be impossible to list more than a few without getting to Alien , the 1979 classic that kickstarted a franchise still going strong to this day. Back in 2024, Scott worked with director Fede Alvarez to produce the hit sequel, Alien: Romulus , which was trending on streaming last week — the duo are now working together to find a director for the Alien: Romulus sequel that’s been in development since 2025.

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Ukraine’s military will organize a new force tasked with making incursions deep in Russian territory to degrade Moscow’s fighting capabilities, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced on Friday night.

The unit will have a “long-range, effectively global, impact on Russia,” the Ukrainian leader said in his nightly address .

Ukraine’s increasingly capable drone strikes on petrochemical production facilities already are taking a toll on the Russian economy , which heavily relies on exports of fossil fuels. It’s gotten to the point that India — the biggest foreign buyer of Russian crude oil — will now export some of what it refines back to its country of origin.

Everyday Russians have been increasingly reporting fuel shortages as Ukrainian strikes on oil refineries deep in Russia hit production. Videos posted on social media show long queues and heated confrontations in front of gas stations.

The strikes deep in Russian territory illustrate Ukraine’s bourgeoning defense industry, with drones and other unmanned vehicles playing a key role. Kyiv’s domestically produced Flamingo missile system has a range of 3,000 kilometers.

Zelenskyy also announced the creation of a team of Joint Rapid Response Forces. These will combine drones, artillery and other capabilities to “ensure the fastest possible response on the front” in the war with Russia.

“It also must be a modern, technology-driven assault force,” he said.

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This week's science news was filled with big discoveries from the world of the small, led by a physicist's creation of a mini-universe, which was designed so we can watch time emerge from within an isolated quantum system .

The experiment was performed using a Bose-Einstein condensate — a strange state of matter that consists of thousands of atoms blended into a single quantum object at near absolute zero (minus 273.15 degrees Celsius, or minus 459.67 degrees Fahrenheit). The system showed time speeding up, slowing down and even stopping, depending on what the system was doing.

Those weren't the only highbrow high jinks using a Bose-Einstein condensate we reported on this week. We also covered NASA's upgrade to its mini-fridge-sized laboratory on the International Space Station that will use the bizarre state of matter to probe the quantum world. Back on Earth, physicists also found that complex numbers aren't necessary for quantum mechanics to work and used quantum computers to create a rare material critical to nuclear fusion . And to stick with news from the small (and weird) things of the world, we also reported that scientists have created little diving suits to transform cockroaches into search-and-rescue cyborgs .

Arctic ice thickening shows promise

First experiment to thicken Arctic ice with seawater shows promise — but there's a big catch

Researchers conducted the first real-life sea ice thickening experiments in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut. (Image credit: Arctic-Images/Getty Images) The Arctic is the world's fastest-warming region, where sea ice is rapidly disappearing at a rate of 12.2% per decade.

The ice is crucial for maintaining stable sea levels and marine nutrient flows, and for reflecting solar radiation away from our planet, so its precipitous decline is deeply concerning. That's why one team of researchers turned to a surprisingly simple method to stem the ice loss: flooding ice sheets with seawater to thicken them.

The results, despite some major caveats, showed a lot of promise.

Discover more planet Earth news

— Extreme heat waves are making our cities buckle. Investing in urban nature is no longer optional.

— Colorful 'painting-like' ripples cover an ancient seafloor structure in the Bahamas — Earth from space

— 'Uncharted territory': Record-high ocean temperatures confirmed for June as El Niño strengthens its grip

Life's Little Mysteries

Does fast charging damage your battery more than regular charging?

Some types of batteries charge faster than others. (Image credit: Tfilm via Getty Images) If you're as shamefully attached to your devices as I am, you may have wondered about the wildly differing times it can take for them to charge. So what's the science behind fast charging, and does it damage a device's battery more than regular charging does?

— If you enjoyed this, sign up for our Life's Little Mysteries newsletter

One of the oldest gravestones of a free Black person in the U.S. found

'One of the oldest gravestones of a free Black person in America' discovered in Boston

The gravestone of "Boston," a formerly enslaved man who died in the 18th century in Boston, Massachusetts. (Image credit: Boston Parks and Recreation Department) It was found amid photos of headstones during a restoration project at Boston's Granary Burying Ground — a gravestone with only one name, "Boston."

That's how a team of conservationists chanced upon the tombstone of Sebastian, a formerly enslaved man who died free in 1729 and chose the city's name as his own.

A search through the historical archives has produced a wealth of information about Boston's past, including his reputation as a hardworking handyman throughout the city, and his emancipation following the death of the man who held him in slavery.

"It's been there all along. We just had to go look and share the story," Michelle Wu, the mayor of Boston, said in a July 4 speech.

Discover more archaeology news

— 100,000 years ago, one of the earliest Homo sapiens outside Africa was stabbed in the face, analysis finds

— 6,000-year-old broken ribs discovered in Syria may be one of the oldest known cases of child abuse in the world

— Neanderthals and modern humans may have shared culture 59,000 years ago in Turkey, study finds

Also in science news this week

— New sodium metal battery design charges in just 4 minutes and retains its capacity for years

— Dirty 'button' unearthed by metal detectorist turns out to be a rare 900-year-old coin from Norway's last Viking king, Magnus Barefoot

— 'Astronomers have to revise estimates': The Milky Way may be larger, heavier and more lopsided than we realized

— 2,500-year-old tomb of a 'warrior prince' with chariot and helmet discovered on Italy's Adriatic coast

— Malaria had nearly been eliminated around a giant dam in the Amazon — but then it came roaring back. Experts just discovered why.

Science interview

'800 seconds for a sick visit': Some factors driving antibiotic resistance have nothing to do with biology, says medical sociologist Julia Szymczak

Decisions around antibiotic prescribing aren't driven only by medical knowledge — emotions also play a role, a medical sociologist explains. (Image credit: Angel Santana via Getty Images) Antibiotic resistance continues to pose a growing danger across the U.S., with more than 2.8 million antimicrobial-resistant infections occurring in the country each year. Last week, we brought you a report from Live Science health editor Nicoletta Lanese , who visited Japan to investigate how that country is curbing its overuse of antibiotics .

Now, in the second part of a feature series into the fight against this "silent pandemic," Nicoletta interviewed medical sociologist Julia Szymczak to dig into the social and emotional drivers of antibiotic overprescription.

Something for the weekend

If you're looking for things to keep you busy over the weekend, here's a selection from our best opinion pieces, interviews, diagnostic dilemmas and crosswords that we published this week.

— Superintelligent AI in space could explain the Fermi paradox [Opinion]

— 'It's more than a hope; it's a guarantee': The Vera C. Rubin Observatory's 10-year movie of the universe is about to 'blow our minds,' chief scientist Tony Tyson says [Interview]

— Diagnostic dilemma: A woman heard voices for years — but not because of psychosis [Diagnostic Dilemma]

— Live Science crossword puzzle #51: Largest rodent on Earth — 4 down [Crossword]

Science photo of the week

Secretive Chinese probe snaps first photo of Earth's mysterious 'quasi-moon' — and it may pose a big problem

China's Tianwen-2 spacecraft captured this photo of the quasi-moon Kamo'oalewa (a.k.a. 2016 HO3) at a distance of around 12.5 miles (20 kilometers) from the near-Earth asteroid. (Image credit: CNSA) It doesn't look like much, but this blurry, gray image is the first-ever close-up photo of one of Earth's temporary "quasi-moons" — a fast-spinning asteroid temporarily orbiting the sun in sync with our planet.

Of equal intrigue is the spacecraft that took the image: a secretive Chinese probe that is likely gearing up to land on the space rock and snag a sample ‪—‬ although an unexpected hiccup will make that more difficult.

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