Berlin transportation workers to strike on Thursday and Friday
According to Verdi, bus, tram and underground services in the capital will largely come to a standstill for around 48 hours, starting Thursday from the first shift at around 3am.
It is to be the third and longest strike so far in the ongoing wage dispute with the Berlin transport company (BVG).
The previous warning strikes lasted 24 hours each.
Passengers can expect all U-Bahn trains and trams as well as most bus routes to be cancelled during the strike. The Berlin S-Bahn is not affected.
READ ALSO: Berlin to see 48-hour public transport strike
Europe leaders battle for unity in 'new phase' under Trump
European leaders at an emergency meeting in Paris Monday were divided on how to respond to US President Donald Trump's dramatic policy shift on Ukraine, with France and Britain pushing for security guarantees and Germany bristling at suggestions troops could be deployed.
With European policymakers still reeling from US Vice President JD Vance's withering attack on the European Union at an annual security conference in Munich, key leaders attended the meeting at the Elysee Palace called at the last minute by President Emmanuel Macron.
European leaders worry that Trump will freeze them out of peace talks with Moscow that will also exclude Kyiv, fears that were heightened by a rare meeting expected Tuesday in Saudi Arabia between the top diplomats from Russia and the United States.
European leaders in Paris weighed measures including ramping up defence spending to be less dependent on the US, providing security guarantees to Kyiv, and sending troops to Ukraine as peacekeepers in the event of a ceasefire.
Zelensky said he and Macron shared a "common vision" for how to achieve peace, including that "security guarantees must be robust and reliable," he said on social media after the call.
But he insisted Washington had to be involved, saying "there must be a US backstop, because a US security guarantee is the only way to effectively deter Russia from attacking Ukraine again."
READ ALSO: EXPLAINED - How the US is turning away from its ally Germany
Germany says it is 'premature' to talk about troops to Ukraine
After the talks in Paris, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said that any debate on sending peacekeepers to Ukraine was "completely premature" and "highly inappropriate" while the war is ongoing.
"We have repeatedly stated that, first of all, we have to wait and see whether and how peace will hopefully emerge for Ukraine," said German deputy government spokeswoman Christiane Hoffmann.
"Then we will be able to talk about the conditions and how this can be implemented," she told reporters in Berlin, adding it was "premature to discuss (sending troops) at the present time".
A government source in Berlin said Germany rejects sending troops to Ukraine for a potential future peacekeeping mission if it is "without full US involvement".
"We will not participate in scenarios in which European and American security (policy) diverges," the source added.
Man shot by police after threatening doctor with knife at Düsseldorf hospital
A man threatened a doctor with a knife at Düsseldorf University Hospital and was then shot by a police officer, German news agency DPA reported.
The incident happened on Monday. The man was shot in the leg while trying to flee police, and is undergoing emergency surgery, a police spokesperson said. There are no other casualties, and a hospital spokesperson said there was no danger to the public or staff.
Police remained on site throughout the day on Monday.
First cannabis club in Germany's southwest gains permission to grow legally
The Fellbach Cannabis Social Club (CSC) "Southside organics" has become the first club in the Rems-Murr district to receive an official cultivation permit from the responsible regional council in Freiburg, according to Stuttgarter Zeitung.
The association is now allowed to legally grow marijuana in larger quantities and sell it to its members - under strict conditions.
"A little tear rolled down my cheek with joy when I finally received the permit," the club's founder, Alex Reinhardt told Stuttgarter Zeitung.
The process to obtain permits and legal permissions to cultivate cannabis at commercial scale is notoriously arduous in Germany, with many of the legalities still unclear nearly a year after the legalisation law was passed.
Reinhardt submitted his application for a cultivation license on time for the deadline last July.
READ ALSO: How two German cities will test out selling cannabis at dedicated shops
German 'bureaucracy monster' on everyone's election hit list
German politicians make a lot of laws and regulations but on the campaign trail many rage against the country's notorious bureaucracy, labelling it a monster that needs to be slayed.
Whatever else divides them, almost all candidates in the February 23rd vote agree with the popular idea that Europe's biggest economy needs to slash back its thicket of rules, often labelled a "jungle of paragraphs".
Conservative poll frontrunner Friedrich Merz -- who once famously argued a tax return should fit onto a beer coaster -- has vowed to go to war against the "bureaucracy monster".
Time spent filling in forms cost the German economy €65 billion, says the Normenkontrollrat, an independent body advising the government on regulation.
The Ifo economic institute, factoring in a series of indirect costs, puts the figure even higher -- at a whopping €146 billion or 3.4 percent of German economic output.
With reporting by AFP, DPA and Rachel Loxton.
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