Buying a home in Spring 2023 means both higher interest rates and stiff competition.

The Wall Street Journal is your money-reafing podcast is breaking it all down,

and a special weekly series under contract. You're going to home buying.

New episodes drop each Friday. Follow your money-reafing everywhere you listen to podcasts.

Pfizer is in talks to buy biotech CGen. Plus, stock buybacks are projected to top a trillion

dollars this year, and after critical race theory, conservatives begin targeting ESG investing.

One of the activists described the two campaigns to me is conservatives want to fight democratic

causes. They feel are seeping into classrooms through CRT and into boardrooms through ESG.

It's Monday, February 27th. I'm Luke Vargas with the Wall Street Journal,

and here's the AM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories moving your world.

Today.

We are exclusively reporting that drug maker Pfizer is in talks to acquire biotech company CGen.

That is, according to people familiar with the matter, who said the talks are at an early stage

and that there's no guarantee there will be a deal. A potential deal would bolster Pfizer's

lineup of cancer treatments and help offset billions of dollars in sales that it projects to lose

due to patent explorations by 2030. CGen has a market value of some 30 billion dollars and would

be expected to command a premium over that. Last year, the company was in advanced talks to be

acquired by Merck in a more than 40 billion dollar deal, but both sides ultimately failed to reach

agreement. The US Energy Department has concluded that the COVID pandemic most likely arose from a

laboratory leak, according to a classified intelligence report recently provided to the White House

and key members of Congress. The Energy Department, which was previously undecided on how the virus

emerged, now joins the federal Bureau of Investigation in saying that the virus likely spread via

...