Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservatives posted their worst-ever result in a German state election, where exit polls showed his party with single-digit support in a northeastern Baltic coast region and trailing a far-left party in Berlin.

The Christian Democratic Union won 5.5% of the vote in the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania on ...Read more

President Donald Trump suggested he would modify plans for a large triumphal arch in the capital by including staging areas for U.S. military snipers and to launch drones.

The idea appears to be Trump’s latest attempt to sell the idea of building a towering arch, which has spurred questions about whether it would dwarf Washington, D.C.’s ...Read more

Friedrich Merz’s chancellorship has never been more at risk as two regional elections on Sunday threaten to destabilize his 16-month tenure as German leader.

In the Baltic coast state of Mecklenburg Western-Pomerania, Merz’s conservative Christian Democrats risk missing the 5% electoral threshold to enter state parliament — which would ...Read more

The Moscow Oil Refinery was hit during drone attacks that were part of the largest overnight Ukrainian barrage this year, as Russia entered the final day of voting in its parliamentary elections.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said it downed 1,110 Ukrainian drones across 19 regions of Russia as well as in Crimea, which the Kremlin annexed in 2014....Read more

Qatar’s prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani, said Gulf states must work together to restore stability in the region and help find a settlement between the U.S. and Iran.

“We are hoping this war is a wake-up call for everyone,” Al-Thani said at the Qatar Economic Forum in New York on Sunday. “We have to act together...Read more

U.S. and Chinese officials began talks in New York to lay the groundwork for a high-profile summit between Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping, as the world’s two biggest economies seek to maintain — and potentially extend — a fragile trade truce.

The negotiators, led by U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and China’s Vice Premier...Read more

DENVER — St. Mary’s Glacier is gone.

And it may never return to its glory days as an iconic snowfield above 10,000 feet in Clear Creek County, where it drew year-round skiers and graced postcards mailed home by thousands of tourists who visited Colorado’s mountains.

The remaining bits of snow and ice melted away this past week, leaving ...Read more

Ismael and Guadalupe never imagined they would have to watch their teenage daughter’s funeral from 2,000 miles away. But last month, the parents gathered with their three younger children in the front room of their St. Paul home to say goodbye to Kimberly, a 16-year-old daughter who dreamed of a life in the U.S.

Flowers and candles formed a ...Read more

The little girl stared up at Norma Gómez from the doorway of her neighbor’s apartment, her sad, brown eyes suddenly flashing with hope.

“Are you the person who’s going to bring my mom back?” she asked.

Gómez struggled to find an answer. It was a December morning, and she’d brought food, diapers, baby wipes, and clothes — items ...Read more

In another push to revitalize California’s film and TV industry, Gov. Gavin Newsom on Saturday signed the state’s first standalone post-production tax incentive.

The new incentive is aimed at bringing back jobs for the industry’s editors, sound mixers, composers and visual effects artists. It will allow a 35% to 50% credit on qualified ...Read more

PHILADELPHIA — Philadelphia health officials are warning travelers of a possible measles exposure at Philadelphia International Airport early this week.

The Philadelphia Department of Public Health is notifying travelers and others, who may have been exposed. This incident is unrelated to the recent measles exposures at the Children’s ...Read more

Hundreds of additional Chadian soldiers are arriving in Haiti to bolster the United Nations-backed gang fighting force, which remains badly short of troops and equipment as the volatile Caribbean country attempts to hold its first general elections in more than a decade.

The soldiers are being deployed in groups: one contingent arrived Friday ...Read more

Nick Reiner is still fighting to get access to his family trust from behind bars.

“Nick still has not been able to access even $5 from his trust to buy basic subsistence items from the jail commissary,” Reiner’s attorneys Anita Wu and Geoffrey Neri wrote in court filings, obtained by PEOPLE. They further noted that Reiner’s efforts to ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — A 34-year-old man was arrested this week after he pepper-sprayed another moviegoer at a Burbank AMC theater for using a cellphone during a film, police said.

Lt. Brent Fekety, a Burbank Police spokesman, said officers were summoned about 5:30 p.m. Tuesday to the AMC 16 theater, which is nestled in the middle of the bustling ...Read more

Oil and liquefied natural gas shipments through the Strait of Hormuz in the past two weeks reached the highest level in six months, signaling that U.S. naval protection and mine clearance efforts are “paying off,” a regional U.S. commander said.

“Clearly, momentum is building,” Admiral Brad Cooper, head of U.S. Central Command, said in ...Read more

A federal judge in California has sentenced a former Syrian prison warden to 60 years for torturing inmates and lying to immigration officials to get into the United States.

A jury convicted Samir Ousman Alsheikh, 74, in March of conspiracy to commit torture, three counts of torture, one count of visa fraud and one count of attempted ...Read more

A Tesla’s driver was pulled over for apparently sleeping at the wheel on Interstate 80 in Solano County, the California Highway Patrol said.

Because California’s vehicle code has no specific law against that, he was cited for “unsafe speed.”

“What’s the safe speed for being asleep? Zero miles per hour,” said Scott Heitman, an ...Read more

Washington's public-sector unions are throwing down millions of dollars to keep the state's new high-earners income tax in place and fight an initiative seeking to repeal it.

The Washington Education Association plopped $2 million last week into the campaign against Initiative 645, bringing its total to $3 million and making the teachers union ...Read more

Dan Walters describes working for The Sacramento Bee several decades ago as "like living in Sweden."

The newspaper had a bustling office in California's capital replete with a cafeteria, a gas station, a credit union, and a medical clinic, where staff could get their vaccinations and seek care for typing-related hand injuries, recalls the ...Read more