Most of Canada to receive emergency alert test today
The federal government will test its capacity to issue emergency alerts today, with the exception of Ontario, where the test will take place on May 15.
A three-party deal to form a new German coalition government under center-left leader Olaf Scholz cleared its final hurdle Monday, setting the scene for him to succeed longtime Chancellor Angela Merkel later this week.
Germany's environmentalist Greens said their members approved the agreement reached last month, with 86% voting for it in a ballot. The other two parties -- Scholz's center-left Social Democrats and the pro-business Free Democrats -- overwhelmingly backed the agreement at weekend conventions.
"We are going into a strong new government, with a very strong and diverse Cabinet, with strong tailwind from the ballot," said Green co-leader Annalena Baerbock, who is set to become Germany's first female foreign minister.
Her party made it clear that it sees efforts to curb climate change as the next government's top priority. Other priorities include modernizing Europe's biggest economy and introducing more liberal social policies.
Scholz will be elected as chancellor in parliament on Wednesday, ending the center-right Merkel's 16-year tenure. He will need the support of at least 369 lawmakers in the 736-seat lower house. The three coalition partners have 416 seats between them, so he should be assured of a comfortable majority.
Hours before the Greens cleared the path for that vote, Scholz presented his party's nominees for the Cabinet, completing his 17-member team.
The most closely watched appointment was that of health minister, as Germany struggles to bring down its highest coronavirus infection rates of the pandemic so far. Scholz chose Karl Lauterbach, an epidemiologist and media-savvy lawmaker who lacks executive experience but has been one of Germany's most prominent voices urging caution and strict measures against COVID-19.
"The pandemic is far from over," said Scholz. "Most people in this country certainly wanted the next health minister to be a specialist who can really do it well, and for him to be called Karl Lauterbach."
German federal and state leaders last week announced tough new restrictions that largely target unvaccinated people. In a longer-term move, parliament will consider a general vaccine mandate.
Asked about the Christmas holidays, Lauterbach said "an important aim must be to bring the case numbers down so far that we can recommend travel without endangering people."
Announcing his choices for the interior and defense portfolios, Scholz said Germany's "security will be in the hands of strong women."
Nancy Faeser, a lawyer who heads the party's branch in the central state of Hesse, was an unexpected choice to become Germany's first female interior minister, a post that includes oversight of federal police forces and the domestic intelligence agency. Faeser said a major focus will be fighting far-right extremism, which she called "the biggest threat" to the country.
Outgoing Justice Minister Christine Lambrecht will become the new defense minister.
The Greens and the Free Democrats already have named their ministers. Scholz's vice chancellor will be Robert Habeck, who leads the Greens along with Baerbock. He will head an economy and climate ministry, a new combination.
The Greens' five Cabinet members include Cem Ozdemir, who will become the first federal minister of Turkish origin six decades since guest workers began coming to Germany from Turkey after World War II.
A long-time vegetarian, Ozdemir said that as agriculture minister he had no plans to force a meat-free lifestyle on others and emphasized that cutting Germany's greenhouse gas emissions should be the overarching goal for the next government.
"That's what we're going to be measured by," he said.
The Greens, however, will have to overcome resistance from the Free Democrats, whose leader Christian Lindner will become finance minister and effectively the No. 3 official in the new government. Lindner's party has a strong free market approach and successfully blocked putting a universal speed limit on German highways in the coalition agreement.
Habeck, the Greens' co-leader and future climate minister, acknowledged he would have liked to have seen a speed limit, which experts say would be an easy way to cut emissions. But in return for allowing Germans to speed along the Autobahn, the new coalition government is committed to measures that amount to ending the sale of gasoline-powered vehicles in the 2030s, he said.
Scholz had pledged a gender-balanced Cabinet -- which it is, if one doesn't count the chancellor.
The federal government will test its capacity to issue emergency alerts today, with the exception of Ontario, where the test will take place on May 15.
Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, has made headlines with his recent arrival in the U.K., this time to celebrate all things Invictus. But upon the prince landing in the U.K., we have already had confirmation that King Charles III won't have time to see his youngest son during his brief visit.
An Ontario man found out that a line of credit he thought was insured actually isn't after his wife of 50 years died.
After more than a century, Boy Scouts of America is rebranding as Scouting America, another major shakeup for an organization that once proudly resisted change.
The trial of a man who admits he killed four women in Winnipeg is set to begin Wednesday, and a law professor says lawyers for Jeremy Skibicki have multiple hurdles to clear for a defence of mental illness.
A first-of-its-kind Canadian research study is working towards a major medical breakthrough for a brain disorder, believed to be caused by repeated head injuries, that can only be detected after death.
In March, Indonesian officials and local fishermen rescued 75 people from the overturned hull of a boat off the coast of Indonesia. Until now, little was known about why the boat capsized.
With Donald Trump sitting just feet away, Stormy Daniels testified Tuesday at the former president's hush money trial about a sexual encounter the porn actor says they had in 2006 that resulted in her being paid to keep silent during the presidential race 10 years later.
An Ontario woman said it would have been impossible to buy a house without her mother – an anecdote that animates the fact that over 17 per cent of Canadian homeowners born in the ‘90s own their property with their parents, according to a new report.
A chicken farmer near Mattawa made an 'eggstraordinary' find Friday morning when she discovered one of her hens laid an egg close to three times the size of an average large chicken egg.
A P.E.I. lighthouse and a New Brunswick river are being honoured in a Canada Post series.
An Ontario man says he paid more than $7,700 for a luxury villa he found on a popular travel website -- but the listing was fake.
Whether passionate about Poirot or hungry for Holmes, Winnipeg mystery obsessives have had a local haunt for over 30 years in which to search out their latest page-turners.
Eighty-two-year-old Susan Neufeldt and 90-year-old Ulrich Richter are no spring chickens, but their love blossomed over the weekend with their wedding at Pine View Manor just outside of Rosthern.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A mother goose and her goslings caused a bit of a traffic jam on a busy stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway near Vancouver Saturday.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.