LEVERKUSEN, Germany (AP) — Bayer Leverkusen has extended a contract for Czech Republic striker Patrik Schick until 2030, the German Bundesliga club said on Monday.
Schick’s original deal was to expire in 2027.
The announcement came after a string of key players left the club this off-season.
They include midfielder Granit Xhaka, attacking midfielder Florian Wirtz, right back Jeremie Frimpong and defender Jonathan Tah — all crucial to Leverkusen’s league and cup double in 2024. Also, coach Xabi Alonso departed for Real Madrid.
Schick was Leverkusen’s top scorer last season with 27 goals in 45 games and scored a total of 64 goals in the Bundesliga for the club since his arrival in 2020.
Former Manchester United manager Erik ten Hag, who was appointed in May to replace Alonso, is faced with a big rebuild due to the departures.
Leverkusen’s off-season spending so far has gone on American attacking midfielder Malik Tillman from PSV Eindhoven and former Liverpool defender Jarell Quansah, while the club’s also signed Brentford’s highly-rated goalkeeper Mark Flekken.
“Bayer 04 is working hard to assemble a top team for the future,” Schick said. "I firmly believe that we will continue to play a significant role in the Bundesliga and in Europe.”
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FILE - Leverkusen's Patrik Schick celebrates after scoring his side's opening goal during the German Bundesliga soccer match between Bayer Leverkusen and FC Augsburg at the BayArena in Leverkusen, Germany, on, April 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner/File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Two senators from opposite parties are joining forces in a renewed push to ban members of Congress from trading stocks, an effort that has broad public support but has repeatedly stalled on Capitol Hill.
Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Republican Sen. Ashley Moody of Florida on Thursday plan to introduce legislation, first shared with The Associated Press, that would bar lawmakers and their immediate family members from trading or owning individual stocks.
It's the latest in a flurry of proposals in the House and the Senate to limit stock trading in Congress, lending bipartisan momentum to the issue. But the sheer number of proposals has clouded the path forward. Republican leaders in the House are pushing their own bill on stock ownership, an alternative that critics have dismissed as watered down.
“There’s an American consensus around this, not a partisan consensus, that members of Congress and, frankly, senior members of administrations and the White House, shouldn’t be making money off the backs of the American people,” Gillibrand said in an interview with the AP on Wednesday.
Trading of stock by members of Congress has been the subject of ethics scrutiny and criminal investigations in recent years, with lawmakers accused of using the information they gain as part of their jobs — often not known to the public — to buy and sell stocks at significant profit. Both parties have pledged to stop stock trading in Washington in campaign ads, creating unusual alliances in Congress.
The bill being introduced by Gillibrand and Moody is a version of a House bill introduced last year by Reps. Chip Roy, a Republican from Texas, and Seth Magaziner, a Democrat from Rhode Island. That proposal, which has 125 cosponsors, would ban members of Congress from buying or selling individual stocks altogether.
Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida tried to bypass party leadership and force a vote on the bill. Her push with a discharge petition has 79 of the 218 signatures required, the majority of them Democrats.
House Republican leaders are supporting an alternative bill that would prohibit members of Congress and their spouses from buying individual stocks but would not require lawmakers to divest from stocks they already own. It would mandate public notice seven days before a lawmaker sells a stock. The bill advanced in committee Wednesday — which Luna called “a win” — but its prospects are unclear.
Magaziner and other House Democrats, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, wrote in a joint statement Wednesday that they “are disappointed that the bill introduced by Republican leadership today fails to deliver the reform that is needed.”
The Senate bill from Gillibrand and Moody would give lawmakers 180 days to divest their individual stock holdings after the bill takes effect, while newly elected members would have 90 days from being sworn in to divest. Lawmakers would be prohibited from trading and owning certain other financial assets, including securities, commodities and futures.
“The American people must be able to trust that their elected officials are focused on results for the American people and not focused on profiting from their positions,” Moody wrote in response to a list of questions from the AP.
The legislation would exempt the president and vice president, a carveout likely to draw criticism from some Democrats. Similar objections were raised last year over a bill that barred members of Congress from issuing certain cryptocurrencies but did not apply to the president.
Gillibrand said the president “should be held to the same standard” but described the legislation as “a good place to start.”
“I don’t think we have to allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good,” Gillibrand said. “There’s a lot more I would love to put in this bill, but this is a consensus from a bipartisan basis and a consensus between two bodies of Congress.”
Moody, responding to written questions, wrote that Congress has the “constitutional power of the purse” so it's important that its members don't have “any other interests in mind, financial or otherwise.”
“Addressing Members of Congress is the number one priority our constituents are concerned with,” she wrote.
It remains to be seen if the bill will reach a vote in the Senate. A similar bill introduced by Gillibrand and GOP Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri in 2023 never advanced out of committee.
Still, the issue has salience on the campaign trail. Moody is seeking election to her first full term in Florida this year after being appointed to her seat when Marco Rubio became secretary of state. Gillibrand chairs the Senate Democrats’ campaign arm.
“The time has come," Gillibrand said. “We have consensus, and there’s a drumbeat of people who want to get this done.”
FILE -Sen. Ashley Moody, R-Fla., speaks during the confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee for Kash Patel, President Donald Trump's choice to be director of the FBI, at the Capitol in Washington, Jan. 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis, File)
FILE - Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., leaves the Senate chamber after voting on a government funding bill at the Capitol in Washington, March 14, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
