Merz appeared poised to be Germany’s next leader
The conservative Christian Democrats appeared to be on the cusp of victory in Germany’s parliamentary elections yesterday, exit polls show. The country’s next chancellor will almost certainly be Friedrich Merz, a businessman who has promised to crack down on migrants, and slash taxes and business regulations in a bid to kick-start economic growth.
Early exit polls indicated that the hard-right Alternative for Germany party, or AfD, was in second place with 19.5 percent of the vote, a result that was lower than predicted. With a voter participation of 83.5 percent, the election appears to have had the highest turnout since reunification 35 years ago.
President Trump was a late-arriving issue in the campaign. Merz vowed to bring stronger leadership in Europe at a moment when Trump had sowed anxiety on the continent by scrambling traditional alliances and embracing Russia. At a round-table debate yesterday, Merz slammed what he called “interference from Washington” in the election by Elon Musk and Vice President JD Vance.
What’s next: If the exit polls are correct, Merz is unlikely to have the easy option of forming a coalition with the second-place finisher. Like other party leaders, he has promised never to partner with the AfD, parts of which are classified as extremist by German intelligence.
The country’s defense minister, Israel Katz, said that tens of thousands of Palestinian residents who had been displaced by Israeli military actions in several West Bank cities would not be allowed to return to their homes. The Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement saying that it considered Katz’s statements and Israel’s actions to be “a dangerous escalation.”
Context: The tank deployment came after bombs exploded on three buses in Tel Aviv last week. The police said the devices resembled those made in the West Bank. Nobody was killed or injured in the blasts.
Cease-fire: Israel and Hamas yesterday accused each other of violating the Gaza truce after Israel delayed the release of Palestinian prisoners.
Lebanon: Hezbollah put on a show of strength yesterday with an elaborate funeral for its assassinated leader. The militant group hoped the event would revive its battered image.
Zelensky said he’d step down if Ukraine could join NATO
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said yesterday that he was willing to step down if it meant peace in Ukraine. He went so far as to say that he’d trade his departure for NATO membership for Ukraine — a highly unlikely scenario for several reasons. It was not immediately clear whether he had seriously considered stepping down or he was responding to the latest jabs from President Trump and Moscow.
Zelensky continued to push back against Trump’s insistence that he sign a minerals deal that Ukraine says is unpalatable. And he said that today over 30 countries would meet in a kind of coalition of support for Ukraine’s war effort.
Kneeling in the snow: For a Ukrainian village of only 400 people, a single battlefield casualty is a significant loss felt by the entire community.
More on Trump
A decade after the dream of mining asteroids in deep space crashed and burned, a private company is about to try again. This week, AstroForge plans to heave an oven-size spacecraft at an asteroid, hoping to kick off a rare-metal industry that could mean huge wealth for Earth. Success, though, is uncertain.
Lives lived: Carlos Diegues, a film director who celebrated Brazil and helped to forge a new path for cinema in his country, died at 84.
CONVERSATION STARTERS
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Beyond labels: Tate Modern in London is paying homage to Leigh Bowery, the indefinable performer whom Boy George once described as “modern art on legs.”
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It takes a village: A writer bought a house, looking for a refuge. What she really needed was a community.
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Waiting till after hell: Our critic A.O. Scott marvels at the power and paradox of a sonnet by Gwendolyn Brooks that is “at war with itself.”
A pharoah’s tomb was unearthed
Archaeologists have found a pharaoh’s tomb near the Valley of the Kings, in what Egyptian officials called the first excavation of a royal tomb since Tutankhamen’s over a century ago. The tomb belonged to Thutmose II, who is believed to have reigned around 1480 B.C.
The burial chamber is thought to have been built by his wife, Hatshepsut, who reigned after his death. Though the tomb was not filled with riches as Tutankhamen’s was, it contained clues — like alabaster jars and fragments of the royal netherworld book — that could offer insight into Egypt’s cosmopolitan 18th dynasty. Read more here.
