Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

Embattled German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has vowed to stay on despite exit polls in two local elections suggesting damaging defeats for his centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party. In the north-eastern state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, the party was projected to only just scrape into parliament, while the AfD was on track to win the most votes. Merz called the result “a disaster” for his party.In Berlin, the ruling CDU was also expected to be beaten by Die Linke (The Left).Merz is under mounting pressure, with poor approval ratings and rumours he could even be replaced mid-term in a so-called chancellor swap.Votes…

The Liberal Democrats have used their conference to unveil a £2bn plan to cut fuel duty, part of a series of policy proposals intended to tackle worries that not enough voters know what Ed Davey’s party stands for.The proposal to cut fuel duty by 10p a litre for a fixed three-month period came as polling showed Lib Dem policies are less well known than those of Restore Britain, which only launched as a political party in February and has one MP – Rupert Lowe – to their 71.Davey will set out the fuel duty idea, along with a reduction in…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democratic Union is set to suffer heavy losses in regional elections in two states amid surges in support for the far right and far left, according to exit polls.The German chancellor’s party was expected to secure only 5 to 5.5 per cent of the vote in the north-eastern state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, just above the 5 per cent threshold for parliamentary representation, according to estimates by public broadcasters ARD and ZDF on Sunday. The CDU had secured 13 per cent…

Just past 6 pm on a recent Wednesday night, half a dozen pet owners logged into a Zoom meeting to confess something they’re afraid to talk about in public: They’re fed up with their dogs.Before discussion began, Louise Crane, the president and cofounder of Dogs Anonymous, the organization hosting the meeting, recited the seven acknowledgements participants must agree to, the first being, “I admit that life with my dog is not what I imagined.” Crane wore a black T-shirt exclaiming “Abolish ICE” in thick white lettering.“I may need to be talked off a ledge,” one attendee said as conversation kicked…

A strange thing has happened to Bitcoin’s derivatives market over the past five years. The market is larger, institutions play a much bigger role, exchanges offer more sophisticated products, and traders have become far better at moving risk around. At the same time, one of the products that helped build that market has almost disappeared from the crypto-native venues where Bitcoin derivatives first took off.Dated futures volume across the offshore venues tracked by Glassnode is now about 97% below its 2021 level. Options, meanwhile, have expanded from roughly one-quarter of crypto-native Bitcoin derivatives open interest to nearly half, gaining share…

A longstanding mystery surrounding the Dead Sea Scrolls may have a new explanation. Researchers have debated for decades whether the Qumran sect actually followed its unusual 364-day calendar or whether the system existed mainly as a religious and theoretical ideal. A study from Tel Aviv University argues that both possibilities may be partly correct. According to the proposed reconstruction, the sect likely used the calendar during its early history, when disagreements over religious dates contributed to its separation from the Jerusalem establishment. Later, however, the system may have been abandoned because of a fundamental astronomical problem and changing political relations…

Spanish queer drama La Bola Negra has won this year’s people’s choice award at the Toronto film festival.The film, which takes place in 1932, 1937 and 2017, focuses on the lives of interconnected gay men. It premiered at this year’s Cannes film festival with the Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw calling it “handsomely produced, lovingly detailed and confidently constructed” in a four-star review.After a competitive bidding war after its premiere in May, Netflix picked up the rights and the film will be released later this year.In a prepared statement, directors Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi said that connecting with Toronto audiences in…

Four years ago, I moved back to Texas from California. After two weeks of living here, I realized we were going to have to do something about the mosquitoes. In the 25 years I’d been gone, they seemed to have grown larger, more intelligent, and much thirstier. My skin had become a bepoxed nightmare within days.I immediately embarked on a mission to do something, anything, about the problem, quickly resorting to paying a local company to send a guy with a pesticide-blasting cannon strapped to his back to the house once every three weeks. The cannon, used to blast all…

In brief Visa is moving to close a loophole in Crossmint-powered checkouts that let meme coin purchases made with credit cards be processed under a merchant code meant for digital media. The move follows a challenge from Chase, which said one Visa transaction was misclassified and shouldn’t have earned rewards; the New York AG’s office is also reviewing the matter. Meme coin purchases will continue but must be coded as crypto transactions, subject to Visa’s rules; processors have a grace period expected to end next week. Banks came away empty-handed in their bid for tighter restrictions on stablecoin rewards after…

Violence flared in ​the occupied West Bank on Sunday when a suspected Palestinian gunman shot ​dead an Israeli man, police said, and Israeli soldiers killed a Palestinian motorist who the military said was attempting to run them over. The gunman opened ​fire ‌from his vehicle at Israelis gathered at a spring ⁠near the settlement of Neve Tzuf, near Ramallah, according to the Israeli military and police. Read moreIsraeli attacks in West Bank at ‘unprecedented’ level, PNI leader Barghouti says Medics ‌who arrived at the scene of the shooting said they found ⁠a man in a car suffering from critical gunshot…