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    The Meaning of Germany’s Election

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    We examine the role of immigration in the outcome.Germany yesterday became the latest country where voters rejected a left-leaning government largely because of their unhappiness over immigration and the economy.Germany’s next chancellor is likely to be Friedrich Merz, a former corporate lawyer who has promised to crack down on migration, cut taxes and regulation and adopt a hawkish policy toward Russia. Merz leads a center-right alliance that finished first in yesterday’s election, with 29 percent of the vote. A far-right party, Alternative for Germany, that promises even tougher immigration policies — but is friendly toward Russia — finished second, with 21 percent of the vote.The center-left Social Democrats, who led the government for the past four years, tumbled to third place, with 16 percent of the vote. It was their worst showing in a national election since at least 1890.Merz now faces the challenge of putting together a coalition that includes more than half of the seats in the German Parliament. Like other mainstream politicians, he has vowed to exclude the far right from his coalition because of its extremism, including its embrace of slogans and symbols with Nazi overtones. You can read more about the coalition scenarios here. You can also read more about Merz.Two big issuesThe campaign was dominated by two issues that have also shaped recent politics in the United States and many other parts of Europe: immigration and the economy.In Germany, the share of the population born in another country has reached nearly 20 percent, up from 12.5 percent in 2015. The increases have brought rapid change to communities. And although many recent immigrants have fared well in school and in the job market, many others have not.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in US Politics

      Danes offer to buy California to spite Trump’s Greenland aims: ‘We’ll bring hygge to Hollywood’

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      Since returning to the presidency last month, Donald Trump has called for Canada to become the 51st US state, suggested he might take over the Panama Canal, floated US ownership of Gaza – and tried to buy Greenland.Now, Denmark – which owns Greenland – is clapping back.More than 200,000 Danes have signed a satirical petition to buy California from the US.“Have you ever looked at a map and thought, ‘You know what Denmark needs? More sunshine, palm trees, and roller skates.’ Well, we have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make that dream a reality,” the petition reads. “Let’s buy California from Donald Trump!”Across the top of the petition’s website, a slogan calls to “Måke Califørnia Great Ægain” and imaginary supporters like Lars Ulrich of Metallica and Viggo Mortensen of Lord of the Rings fame offer their reasons for making California “New Denmark”.“We’ll bring hygge to Hollywood, bike lanes to Beverly Hills and organic smørrebrød to every street corner. Rule of law, universal healthcare and fact-based politics might apply,” the petition continues.“Let’s be honest – Trump isn’t exactly California’s biggest fan. He’s called it ‘the most ruined state in the union’ and has feuded with its leaders for years. We’re pretty sure he’d be willing to part with it for the right price.”Trump and California’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, have been locked in tense relations since the president retook office – with Newsom recently directing $50m to fight the Trump administration and its deportation efforts and Trump threatening to condition federal disaster aid to the state in wake of the Los Angeles wildfires.The petition aims to crowdfund $1tn (“give or take a few billion”) and receive 500,000 signatures.Trump began floating the idea of purchasing Greenland in 2019, saying the US needs to control the autonomous territory “for economic security”. The Arctic island is believed to be rich in oil and gas, and other raw materials essential to green technology – that are becoming available as massive ice sheets and glaciers melt as a result of the climate crisis. The same melting ice is also opening up new shipping routes.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSpeaking on Danish television in January, Mette Frederiksen, the prime minister, said Greenland was “not for sale”, adding: “Seen through the eyes of the Danish government, Greenland belongs to the Greenlanders.”Similarly, following a visit from Donald Trump Jr earlier this year, Greenland’s prime minister, Múte Egede, said: “We are Greenlanders. We don’t want to be Americans. We don’t want to be Danish either. Greenland’s future will be decided by Greenland.”Although the Danish petition to purchase California may be a joke, the US’s bid to purchase Greenland appears quite serious. Buddy Carter, a Republican representative of Georgia, announced that he had introduced a bill to authorize the purchase of Greenland and rename it “Red, White and Blueland”. More

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      in Elections

      E.U. Vessels Surround Anchored Chinese Ship After Cables Are Severed in Baltic Sea

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      Multiple countries are investigating and the authorities in Europe say they have not ruled out sabotage. But U.S. intelligence officials have assessed that the cables were not cut deliberately.For more than a week, a Chinese commercial ship has apparently been forced to anchor in the Baltic Sea, surrounded and monitored by naval and coast guard vessels from European countries as the authorities attempt to unravel a maritime mystery.The development arose after two undersea fiber-optic cables were severed under the sea, and investigators from a task force that includes Finland, Sweden and Lithuania are trying to determine if the ship’s crew intentionally cut the cables by dragging the ship’s anchor along the sea floor.On Wednesday, the Swedish police announced that the inquiry into the episode had concluded but that an investigation was ongoing. Sweden did not release any initial findings.American intelligence officials had assessed that the cables were not cut deliberately, though the authorities in Europe say they have not been able to rule out sabotage.“The preliminary investigation was initiated because it cannot be ruled out that the cables were deliberately damaged,” Per Engström, the superintendent of the Swedish police, said in a statement on Wednesday. “The current classification of the crime is sabotage, though this may change.”Denmark has said it is in “ongoing dialogue” with various countries, including China.The mystery of the severed cable and who is to blame comes as Europe is increasingly on edge after a number of apparent sabotage operations, including arson attacks, vandalism and physical assaults. Many of these have been attributed to Russian intelligence operatives, including a plot that emerged last month, Western officials say, to put incendiary devices on cargo planes.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Elections

      After Turmoil, Royal Danish Ballet Taps Veteran Dancer as Leader

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      Amy Watson will helm the storied company as it grapples with the sudden departure of its previous artistic director and accusations of abuse at its school.For months, the Royal Danish Ballet, one of the world’s premier dance troupes, has been in turmoil. Accusations of abuse have shaken its 253-year-old school. Then, last week, the company said its star artistic director, Nikolaj Hübbe, was abruptly resigning after 16 years.Now the Royal Danish Ballet hopes to turn the page on those troubles. The company announced on Thursday that Amy Watson, a California-born dancer who joined the troupe in 2000, would serve as its next artistic director.“This theater gave me a second homeland and a wonderful career that I could have never dreamed of,” said Watson, 43. “I want to serve in the highest capacity for the theater and to give back.”Watson, whose tenure begins on Friday, succeeds Hübbe, 57, a Copenhagen native who has been a fixture at the troupe for years. He started training at its school when he was 10 and was a principal dancer by age 20. He later was an acclaimed principal dancer at New York City Ballet for 16 years.Since 2008, Hübbe has run the company, famous for its rich choreographic legacy rooted in the repertory of the 19th-century Danish master August Bournonville. Hübbe oversaw new productions of classics like “Swan Lake” and “Giselle,” and expanded the company’s range, bringing in works by living choreographers, including Christopher Wheeldon, Alexei Ratmansky, Yuri Possokhov and Wayne McGregor. He also worked to attract new audiences with more casual and intimate offerings.During his tenure, the company faced difficulties, including budget cuts, union fights and allegations of drug abuse in the company. Last year, the organization began an inquiry into conditions at its school amid reports that children had experienced psychological and physical abuse. Some former students said they had developed eating disorders after being told at a young age that they were too heavy to dance.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Elections

      Moving In Childhood Contributes to Depression, Study Finds

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      A study of more than a million Danes found that frequent moves in childhood had a bigger effect than poverty on adult mental health risk.In recent decades, mental health providers began screening for “adverse childhood experiences” — generally defined as abuse, neglect, violence, family dissolution and poverty — as risk factors for later disorders.But what if other things are just as damaging?Researchers who conducted a large study of adults in Denmark, published on Wednesday in the journal JAMA Psychiatry, found something they had not expected: Adults who moved frequently in childhood have significantly more risk of suffering from depression than their counterparts who stayed put in a community.In fact, the risk of moving frequently in childhood was significantly greater than the risk of living in a poor neighborhood, said Clive Sabel, a professor at the University of Plymouth and the paper’s lead author.“Even if you came from the most income-deprived communities, not moving — being a ‘stayer’ — was protective for your health,” said Dr. Sabel, a geographer who studies the effect of environment on disease.“I’ll flip it around by saying, even if you come from a rich neighborhood, but you moved more than once, that your chances of depression were higher than if you hadn’t moved and come from the poorest quantile neighborhoods,” he added.The study, a collaboration by Aarhus University, the University of Manchester and the University of Plymouth, included all Danes born between 1982 and 2003, more than a million people. Of those, 35,098, or around 2.3 percent, received diagnoses of depression from a psychiatric hospital.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Elections

      Denmark’s Center-Left Coalition Wins Election Majority

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      An unpredictable race ultimately gave the governing Social Democratic Party its best showing in two decades, though analysts said it looked set to form a more centrist government.COPENHAGEN — Denmark’s center-left coalition emerged with a majority of parliamentary seats early Wednesday, after a tight overnight count in an unpredictable general election gave the governing Social Democratic Party its best showing in two decades.The Scandinavian kingdom is still headed for some uncertainty, with Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen saying she would formally disband the government and resign her position, setting the stage for a cross-party negotiation that analysts have said is likely to result in a more centrist administration.In a speech in the early hours of Wednesday celebrating the result, she said that her party had been elected to form a “broad government,” and expressed a desire to work with parties across the political spectrum.But Ms. Frederiksen, who called early elections in response to anger over a mink cull during the coronavirus pandemic, acknowledged that she was compelled to form a new government because, “It is clear that there is no longer a majority behind the government in its current form.”With 100 percent of the votes in Denmark counted, the center-left Social Democrats had 50 seats, the most for any party, with the center-right Venstre in second place. With left-leaning seats from the autonomous nations of Greenland and Faroe Islands, the current center-left coalition snagged a majority of one in the 179-seat Parliament.A new party, the Moderates, led by the former Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen, came in third with 16 seats, returning Mr. Rasmussen to the Parliament. It was a strong showing, and analysts had said Mr. Rasmussen could play a kingmaker role if left and right were evenly balanced, but the Social Democrats’ success will significantly diminish his influence.Instead, according to Kasper M. Hansen, a professor of political science at the University of Copenhagen, the focus would be back on Ms. Frederiksen.“The whole discussion will now be: How will she negotiate with the other parties?” he said, adding that Ms. Frederiksen had promised to bridge divides across the political spectrum. “We will see a prime minister that will be working across the middle.”Another new party, the right-wing Denmark Democrats — founded by Inger Stojberg, a former immigration minister who was sentenced to two months in jail for illegally ordering the separation of some asylum-seeking couples — also gained 14 seats.Jasmina Nielsen More