After 16 years leading Germany, Angela Merkel's time is up, and her country is set for a shift to the left
CBSN
Berlin — German Chancellor Angela Merkel is about to leave her post as leader of Europe's biggest economy after 16 years in power. Just a few months ago, the race to succeed her looked over before it really even started, with her center-right party's candidate, Armin Laschet, holding a solid lead in the polls.
But days before Germans were to cast their votes to elect a new government on Sunday, September 26, Merkel's anointed successor found his campaign wallowing in the wake of gaffes and at pains to convince a flood-battered nation that now is not the time for a sharp shift to the left in both domestic and foreign policy.
"The promise that he entered the election campaign with, that he is a continuation of Angela Merkel's pragmatic but warm style, he is not living up to that promise," Professor Christoph Nguyen, a political scientist at the Free University of Berlin, told CBS News. "There have been some key gaffes, where he has been seen laughing during a very sombre speech, during the floods."
Khan Younis, Gaza Strip — Hamas on Thursday released the bodies of four Israeli hostages, said to include a mother and her two young children who have long been feared dead and had come to embody the nation's agony following the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas on Israel.
Concern over a man who'd exhibited "fixated behavior" caused Emma Raducanu to approach the chair umpire in tears and take an unscheduled break in her second-round match at the Dubai Championships, the Women's Tennis Association said Wednesday. The incident unfolded three years after a man in Britain was convicted of stalking the star player at her family home.
Rio de Janeiro — Brazil's prosecutor-general on Tuesday formally charged former President Jair Bolsonaro with attempting a coup to stay in office after his 2022 election defeat, in a plot that included a plan to poison his successor and current President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and kill a Supreme Court judge.
A Delta Air Lines jet crashed Monday during a fiery landing at Toronto Pearson International Airport, skidding down the tarmac before coming to a stop while flipped upside down.
New videos show the moment a Delta flight from Minneapolis crash-landed, flipped and caught fire in Toronto.
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia — Senior officials from Russia and the U.S. met in Saudi Arabia Tuesday to begin talks on improving ties and negotiating an end to the war in Ukraine.
Italian archaeologists recently uncovered a "monumental necropolis" that appeared to honor an elite class of people thousands of years ago, provincial officials announced this month.
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Beijing — China's Foreign Ministry took issue Monday with a revised U.S. government fact sheet that removed a line on American opposition to independence for Taiwan. The United States "gravely backpedaled" on its position on Taiwan and sent the wrong message to "separatist forces" on the island, ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said.
Israel's prime minister vowed to "open the gates of hell" if Hamas does not return all its hostages and praised President Trump's "bold vision for Gaza's future."
Irish jockey Michael O'Sullivan died on Sunday after suffering injuries in a fall during a race earlier this month, the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board said. He was 24.
A hockey match between rivals the United States and Canada descended into chaos from the moment the puck was dropped as three fights broke out in the first nine seconds.
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