The centre-right Christian Democratic alliance, led by Friedrich Merz, won 29% of the vote in Germany’s election, according to an exit poll for a public broadcaster. The hard-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) received 19.5% of the vote, its best ever result. The Social Democrats, led by the incumbent chancellor, Olaf Scholz, trailed in third place with 16%, with the Greens fourth on 13.5%. Mr Merz will have to form a coalition with at least one other party in order to govern. He has ruled out governing with the AfD.
Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, offered to “leave my post” in exchange for the country’s admission to NATO. Speaking at a press conference the day before the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion, Mr Zelensky also dismissed the insults of Donald Trump, America’s president, who called him “a dictator without elections”. Earlier Russia launched a “record” 267 drones at Ukraine, according to Ukraine’s air force.
Elon Musk gave all federal employees just over 48 hours to explain what they had worked on in the past week or face dismissal, hours after Mr Trump pushed the DOGE boss to “get more aggressive”. In his effort to make deep cuts in government spending, Mr Musk has already offered federal employees the chance to resign if they do not want to return to the office full-time.
The Vatican said that Pope Francis had spent a “tranquil” night in hospital and “rested” after suffering a long asthmatic respiratory crisis on Saturday. The 88-year-old pontiff is also receiving oxygen via the nose, according to the Vatican. Francis was admitted to hospital on February 14th. He has pneumonia in both lungs, one of which was partly removed by surgeons when he was young.
Police from Cambodia and Thailand freed 215 foreign nationals from a scam centre in north-western Cambodia. Thailand’s government said that the foreigners, who had been forced to work at the centre, would be returned to their home countries. Thailand has been cracking down on scams after its citizens lost some 60bn baht ($1.8bn) to the schemes over the past two years.
Hamas released six hostages on Saturday, but Israel did not hand over more than 600 Palestinians it was expected to free in return. Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, blamed “Hamas’s repeated violations” such as “the cynical use of hostages for propaganda”. Officials said the prisoners would not be freed “until the release of the next hostages is guaranteed”.
Piers Litherland, a British archaeologist who announced on February 22nd that he had discovered the first rock-cut pharaoh’s tomb since Tutankhamun’s was identified in 1922, told the Observer that he had found a second tomb. Mr Litherland suggested that it probably contains the remains of Thutmose II, a young pharaoh who died in 1479BC and who also owned the tomb discovered earlier this month.
Word of the week: guang gun, a Chinese term meaning “bare branches”, used to describe unmarried men who are unable to continue their family line. Read the full story.
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