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A former Seattle Police officer is accused of cozying up to a felon and the felon’s wife in a drug trafficking operation that drew the attention of Seattle’s Office of Police Accountability. That officer, Brandon Gandy, ultimately quit his job before being fired. Now, the state’s Criminal Justice Training Commission is piecing through his story in an attempt to determine whether his certification to work as a police officer should be revoked. OPA records allege that Gandy worked as "muscle" for the woman when she sold drugs in her and her husband's home. They also state that Gandy would occasionally...

The Social Democratic Party’s Olaf Scholz has been elected Chancellor of Germany, marking the end of Angela Merkel’s 16-year reign. Olaf Scholz, who was elected Chancellor of Germany on Wednesday, will lead a so-called “Traffic Light” coalition of left-wing parties, the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD, red), the Green Party, and the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP, yellow).

BERLIN, Sept 26 (Reuters) - Germany's Social Democrats narrowly won Sunday's national election, projected results showed, and claimed a "clear mandate" to lead a government for the first time since 2005 and to end 16 years of conservative-led rule under Angela Merkel. The centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) were on track for 26.0% of the vote, ahead of 24.5% for Merkel's CDU/CSU conservative bloc, projections for broadcaster ZDF showed....

Research planned to investigate alleged racial profiling by German police forces has been canceled, an Interior Ministry spokesman said on Sunday. According to the Zeit Online news portal, the ministry decided to drop the study, which was in the “conceptual development” stage, and cited Interior Minister Horst Seehofer as saying there is no need. The term “racial profiling” indicates increased targeting of ethnic minorities, most commonly by law enforcement agencies. […] On Sunday, a spokesperson for the Justice Ministry refused to comment on the media report but referred to an earlier statement, which said that the study is an important...

A woman from Tacoma was arrested Thursday morning and faces five federal counts of arson in connection to burning five Seattle Police Department vehicles during George Floyd protests. Margaret Aislinn Channon, 25, was arrested at her Tacoma home for allegedly setting five patrol vehicles on fire that were parked in the area of Sixth and Pine. U.S. Attorney Brian T. Moran said the 25-year-old was caught on multiple cameras May 30 using an accelerant lit like a blowtorch to start fires in five police vehicles. “I commend the painstaking work of law enforcement using a variety of images to identify...

After Donald Trump claimed most protesters in the US were “antifa,” Germany’s Social Democrats rushed to declare solidarity with the movement. But which movement? And why did other politicians object?Quite a few people, not least the President of the United States, seem a little confused as to precisely what “antifa” is. Unlike many of the gaps in Donald Trump’s knowledge, there are some reasonable historical justifications for this particular confusion. In Germany, politicians and the public have been wrestling with the term for around a century now — without coming any closer to an uncontested definition. What the word means...

These thoughts reflect the writer's concern about the worsening political and social conditions in Germany, a nation whose importance — for America, Europe, and the world — should require no laboring to a readership of politically sophisticated Americans. What's happening today in Germany is deeply disturbing. And it's not for the reason casual American observers, including many conservatives, might think based on information derived from the mainstream English-language media. Contrary to these purveyors of globalist, multi-cultural propaganda, the reason for growing unease about Germany is not the presence in the German parliament (Bundestag), and persistent electoral strength, of "Die Alternative...

A new poll carried out in the wake of a far-right scandal in Thuringia has shown impressive gains in support for the Left party and a significant tumble for Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) in the eastern state. The poll was conducted by infratest dimap and commissioned by the public broadcaster MDR. The CDU in has been accused of colluding with the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) in Thuringia to get a conservative candidate elected state premier, despite the fact that his party — the laissez-faire Free Democrats (FDP) — barely cleared the 5% hurdle to get into Thuringia’s...

The woman who was widely seen as German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s chosen successor will not lead her crisis-racked CDU party into upcoming elections, a party source told AFP on Monday. Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, known as AKK, took over from Merkel as CDU chairwoman and presumed shoo-in for chancellor in 2018 but “has now said she will not be a candidate for the chancellery”, the source said. She made the surprise announcement after telling a crunch CDU meeting that the center-right party had “an unresolved relationship” with the far-right AfD party and the far left. It comes after an election debacle in...

Sinan Selen, a 46-year-old Istanbul-born counter-terrorism expert, will be the first Muslim to fill a top leadership position within Germany's intelligence community. Throughout his government career, Selen has been resolute in confronting Islamic fundamentalists in Germany. He also led efforts at the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) to monitor the Turkish nationalist Milli Görüs, an influential Islamist movement strongly opposed to Muslim integration into European society. The leadership changes at the BfV were spurred by a cellphone video that purportedly showed right-wing mobs attacking migrants over the murder of a German citizen in Chemnitz by...

The head of Germany’s domestic security service has been dismissed for a speech in which he criticized government parties, Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said on Monday. Seehofer said the speech made by Hans-Georg Maassen, in which he accused the Social Democrats (SPD), junior partners in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s coalition, of “naivety” and harboring “radical left” elements, was unacceptable. […] Germany’s ruling coalition had agreed in September to transfer spy chief Maassen to the Interior Ministry following accusations that he harbored far-right views. …

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has announced she will give up leadership of her center-right Christian Democrat Union (CDU) party after 18 years in the post, German media has reported. Merkel announced during a meeting with officials that she will not seek to run for re-election at the party's convention in December. But she made clear that she wanted to remain as chancellor, a position she has held since 2005, CNN affiliate RTL reported, citing party sources. Angela Merkel's Bavarian allies lose majority in crushing vote The announcement is a sign of Merkel's weakened power within her own party, and waning...

For most of Germany’s postwar history, the conservative CDU/CSU and the Social Democrats (SPD) were the undisputed twin poles of German politics. Known as Volksparteien, literally “popular parties,” these big-tent associations of interests have led every government since 1949. They were the German equivalents of the Republicans and Democrats in the United States or Tories and Labour in the United Kingdom. But their popularity is eroding alarmingly. In the words of venerable German political scientist Herfried Münkler, the Volksparteien look increasingly like “last year’s models.” The most recent Deutschlandtrend survey, published on September 20, put support for the CDU/CSU at...

As a language, German has a near-unique quality to sum up a combination of feelings, conditions and elements in a single word. Add “umbehagen” to a list that would most certainly include zeitgeist, leitmotif and doppelganger. Umbehagen describes the angst, discomfort and malaise being experienced by Germans at changing social and political scenes — the arrival and settlement of more than a million refugees from Syria, Iraq and elsewhere would be one strand of this. And so too would be the rise of the right and Alternative for Germany (AfD), concerns over security and terror, or unsettling and disjointed noises...

It’s been almost half a year since Germans went to the polls and completely disrupted the old guard of politics in that country. The Christian Democrats party (CDU) of Chancellor Angela Merkel suffered losses across the board and also saw their former partners in the Social Democratic Party (SPD) split away from them. At the same time, Alternative for Germany (AfD) made major gains, largely based on growing opposition to Merkel’s open borders policy regarding primarily Muslim migrants entering the country. Since that time, Merkel has been unable to form a majority coalition and the nation has been effectively left...

A poll published on Monday by the newspaper Bild put the Alternative for Germany (AfD) at 16 percent, showing that they are currently more popular than the Social Democrats (SPD). The poll, conducted by INSA, put the AfD at 16 percent, just ahead of the SPD at 15.5 percent. The poll marks the lowest support ever achieved by the SPD, traditionally one of the two major parties of German politics. According to the poll, Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats are the most popular party in the country and would secure 32 percent of the vote were elections to be held tomorrow....

Germany has inched one step further towards forming a new government after the centre-left Social Democratic party gave its lukewarm endorsement of a renewed Angela Merkel-led “grand coalition”. At a special SPD congress in Bonn that welcomed leader Martin Schulz’s main speech with sarcastic applause and saw standing ovations for his fiercest critics, the party’s delegates nonetheless gave a cautious green light to the second and final stage of coalition talks with Merkel’s centre-right Christian Democrats.

Berlin must work with Paris to improve and deepen the European Union, German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel urged as his Social Democrats weigh renewing a coalition with Chancellor Angela Merkel. France and Germany, once bitter enemies, “have a joint responsibility to develop all of Europe further,” he told AFP, highlighting “reform of the economic and monetary union” as a top priority. Historically, the two countries have been the powerhouse of the economic integration project that became the European Union; but French President Emmanuel Macron’s plans to shore up the 19-nation euro single currency area and deepen European integration are on...

Germany's divided Social Democrats will hold a crunch vote on Sunday on whether to pursue a coalition deal with Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives, or plunge the nation into political turmoil. At an extraordinary congress in the western city of Bonn, 600 delegates from the centre-left SPD and its 45-member board will have their say on entering into formal talks for a renewed alliance with Merkel's centre-right CDU/CSU bloc. The stakes could scarcely be higher for Merkel as a "no" vote would leave her with the option of leading an unstable minority government -- a prospect she has baulked at --...

Germany's Social Democratic Party is about to vote on whether to negotiate another so-called grand coalition with Angela Merkel's conservatives. If the party says "no," the chancellor's options may be running out. . . . snip As a result, the SPD spent most of the week denying the very obvious rift in the party. Schulz, whose one-year tenure as party leader would surely be up in the event of a "no" vote on Sunday, has already admitted that he couldn't be sure that he had enough delegates on his side.