CDU leader Friedrich Merz is once again working on the AfD. He does not want to ban the right-wing extremists, allow cooperation at the municipal level and win back the supporters with a tough migration course. Merz acknowledged current weaknesses in his own party. "We have to gain trust, we have to win it back," he said. "Trust is quickly lost and only slowly regained. It's an arduous journey," Merz said in an interview with ZDF.
Green hydrogen has the potential to heat millions of homes and keep German industry humming. So far, though, a lack of the environmentally friendly gas and the infrastructure needed to transport it have prevented its wide-scale use.
The first German companies have begun throwing in the towel and consumption is collapsing in response to the fallout from exploding energy prices. The economy is sliding almost uncontrolled into a crisis that could permanently weaken the country.
Europe is currently experiencing the largest movement of refugees since World War II. The willingness to help is vast and armies of volunteers are helping out as governments begin mobilizing resources. But will it be enough?
In 2015, now-outgoing German Chancellor Angela Merkel allowed more than one million migrants and refugees, many of them from Syria, into Germany. In the years that followed, many were granted refugee or special protection status. Some have taken up German citizenship, in time to vote in the upcoming German election on September 26, and help choose Merkel's successor.