Merkel’s party wins election in rivals’ German heartland

The Associated Press

BRUNSWICK — Officials in coastal Brunswick are working to win back the city’s lost status as a U.S. “Tree City.”

The Brunswick News reports Brunswick spent 18 years recognized by the Tree City USA program established by the Arbor Day Foundation and the National Association of State Foresters. That ended after Brunswick’s tree board fell out of commission in 2014.

Brunswick city management analyst Beatrice Soler says a proposal to re-establish a three-person tree board will be presented to the city council on Wednesday.

Establishing a board is one of the requirements for becoming an official Tree City. Others include creating a community forestry program and holding an annual Arbor Day program. More than 3,400 communities have joined the Tree City USA program since it was launched in 1976.

BERLIN — German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives won a state election Sunday in their center-left rivals’ traditional heartland, a stinging blow to the challenger in September’s national vote.

The western state of North Rhine-Westphalia is Germany’s most populous and has been led by the center-left Social Democrats for all but five years since 1966.

It is also the home state of Martin Schulz, the Social Democrat seeking to deny Merkel a fourth term in the Sept. 24 election. Schulz was hoping for a boost after two previous state election defeats sapped his party’s momentum.

Instead, Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union won 33 percent of the vote in the election for the state legislature, with the Social Democrats trailing on 31.2 percent.

Social Democrat governor Hannelore Kraft’s coalition lost its majority as her junior governing partners, the Greens, took only 6.4 percent. Conservative challenger Armin Laschet, a deputy leader of Merkel’s party, was set to replace Kraft.

“The CDU has won the heartland of the Social Democrats,” said the conservatives’ general secretary, Peter Tauber.

“This is a difficult day for the Social Democrats, a difficult day for me personally as well,” Schulz, who wasn’t on the ballot Sunday, told supporters in Berlin. “I come from the state in which we took a really stinging defeat today.”

But he urged the party to concentrate now on the national election. He said that “we will sharpen our profile further — we have to as well.”