Man whose son was found encased in cement sentenced to 72 years in prison

A Colorado man whose seven-year-old son was repeatedly abused before being found encased in concrete in a Denver storage unit has been sentenced to 72 years in prison for the death.Leland Pankey received the sentence on Friday, with one count of child abuse landing him 48 years in prison and 24 years for tampering with the body.

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'I guess I wasn't arrested': Joe Biden reverses on claim of an arrest in South Africa

Joe Biden has previously told of being arrested in South Africa while traveling with black lawmakers. He reversed himself Friday in a CNN interview.

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Trump Team Testing ‘Off-the-Shelf’ Drugs to Cure Coronavirus

(Bloomberg) -- The Trump administration is testing existing “off-the-shelf” drugs to combat the coronavirus, a cabinet official said Saturday.A national lab in Tennessee recently made “an important discovery” involving existing drugs, Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette said at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Maryland.“The scientists at our Oak Ridge National Laboratory were able to look at the protein strains and determine -- perhaps, it’s still early -- that we can find some off-the-shelf drugs that can help us not only cure the disease but stop the spread of the infection,” Brouillette said.Brouillette was responding to a question about what his agency is doing to help combat the virus, which has caused markets to plunge and killed nearly 3,000 people across the globe. In the U.S., where 22 cases have been reported, the virus has killed one person -- a woman from Washington state -- and more cases are likely, President Donald Trump said Saturday.In addition to the laboratory tests, Brouillette said he’s harnessing the power of his agency’s “super computers” as well as artificial intelligence capabilities to assist organizations like the Centers for Disease Control and the World Heath Organization to conduct modeling on the virus.“We want to know how far is this going to spread and at what point might it peak,” he said.To contact the reporter on this story: Ari Natter in Washington at anatter5@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Jon Morgan at jmorgan97@bloomberg.net, Matthew G. Miller, Virginia Van NattaFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

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Turkey raises migrant pressure on Europe over Syria conflict

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday threatened to let thousands of refugees cross into Europe and warned Damascus would "pay a price" after dozens of Turkish troops were killed inside Syria. Around 13,000 migrants have gathered along the Turkish-Greek border, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said as several thousand migrants were in skirmishes with Greek police firing tear gas across the frontier. The escalating tensions between Turkey and Russia, who back opposing forces in the Syria conflict, after an air strike killed the Turkish troops sparked fears of a broader war and a new migration crisis for Europe.

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South Koreans told to stay home as coronavirus infections surpass 3,100

South Korea urged citizens on Saturday to stay indoors as it warned of a "critical moment" in its battle on the coronavirus after recording the biggest daily jump in infections, as 813 new cases took the tally to 3,150. South Korea is grappling with the largest outbreak of the virus outside China, as a new death took the toll to 17, amid a record daily increase in infections since the country confirmed its first patient on Jan. 20. It was a "critical moment" in reining in the spread of the virus, he said, adding, "Please stay at home and refrain from going outside and minimize contact with other people."

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Pete Buttigieg is Not Optimistic About South Carolina. But He's Pushing On.

Saturday’s contest in South Carolina is not anticipated to be a good day for Pete Buttigieg

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Barclays bankers acquitted over fraud charges in Qatar deal

Three former Barclays bankers were cleared Friday of fraud over a 4 billion-pound ($5.2 billion) investment deal with Qatar at the height of the global financial crisis in 2008. The three men — Roger Jenkins, Thomas Kalaris and Richard Boath — were acquitted after a five-month trial at London's Old Bailey. The case was brought by Britain's Serious Fraud Office, which had accused the three men of hiding the true nature of the fundraising plan with Qatar from authorities and other shareholders.

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Tom Steyer: Billionaire Democrat dances to ‘Back That Azz Up’ on stage with rapper in embarrassing rally stunt

Presidential hopeful and billionaire hedge fund manager Tom Steyer, 62, found an eye-catching way to end his final rally before the South Carolina primary -- twerking on stage with the rapper Juvenile.In an enthusiastic display of dad-dancing, the former hedge fund manager worked up a sweat dancing to Back That Azz Up.

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Turkey Will Allow Up to One Million Syrian Refugees to Breach Its Borders to Reach Europe

Turkey will allow up to one million Syrian refugees to pass through its territory to reach Europe ahead of a Russian-backed Syrian government offensive on the last rebel-held territory in the war-torn country."We have decided, effectively immediately, not to stop Syrian refugees from reaching Europe by land or sea," a Turkish official told Reuters. "All refugees, including Syrians, are now welcome to cross into the European Union."Footage of Syrian refugees boarding boats attempting to reach the islands of Greece was broadcast on CNN Turkey, while a reporter for Middle East Eye shared a picture of a bus placed by Greek authorities in front of its Pazarkule border crossing with Turkey, to prevent refugees from entering.Syria's offensive on Idlib province, targeting the last remnants of the rebellion including several Al-Qaeda groups, has forced one million people to flee their homes. International aid groups have struggled to provide food and shelter to refugees, some of whom have frozen to death after repeated cold winter nights.The Turkish army, stationed along the country's border with Syria, has repeatedly come into conflict with Syrian government forces. Syria killed 33 Turkish soldiers on Thursday in a series of air strikes.Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a phone conversation Friday told Russian leader Vladimir Putin, who backs Syrian government forces, that any Syrian military position was a legitimate target for Turkish forces. Erdogan is scheduled to speak with President Trump on Friday regarding the attacks on the Turkish military and the refugee issue.The nine-year Syrian civil war has produced one of the world's largest refugee crises, with millions of migrants fleeing to Europe throughout the conflict.

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Fox News Breaking News Alert

Fox News Breaking News Alert

Biden wins South Carolina Democratic primary, Fox News projects, in crucial boost to campaign after early losses

02/29/20 4:01 PM

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South Carolina primary: Joe Biden projected to win

It comes as a major boost to the former vice-president's flagging presidential campaign.

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Afghan conflict: What will Taliban do after signing US deal?

A sense of cautious optimism is rising, but Afghanistan's political future is yet to be decided.

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Northern rail: Government takes over after chaos

The government takes over services from Sunday which were previously operated by Arriva Rail North.

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Coronavirus: Italian economy takes a body blow

Could Italy's health crisis be the factor that tips the country into another recession?

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Biden projected as winner in South Carolina, halting momentum of front-runner Sanders

Joe Biden was projected to win South Carolina's Democratic primary on Saturday, reviving his faltering White House campaign and halting the surge of national front-runner Bernie Sanders, who appeared headed to a distant second-place finish.

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Biden projected to win South Carolina Democratic presidential primary

Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden is projected to win the South Carolina Democratic presidential primary on Saturday and is expected to defeat rival Bernie Sanders decisively for his first victory of the 2020 election campaign, according an analysis of exit polls by Edison Research.

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Weinstein stir crazy at New York hospital days after sex crimes conviction, spokesman says

Harvey Weinstein is sitting under guard in a cinderblock room at a New York City hospital days after his conviction for sexual assault and rape, and at times "can go stir crazy just staring at the emptiness," according to a spokesman.

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Biden Wins in South Carolina, Adding New Life to His Candidacy

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Joe Biden wins South Carolina primary with overwhelming support.

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After 12 hours, the polls in South Carolina have closed.

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A crowd waits for Warren in Houston: ‘I just love her energy.’

By BY MICHAEL HARDY from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/32ER890

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Looking to Super Tuesday, Buttigieg campaigns in Nashville.

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Map: Confirmed coronavirus cases, worldwide

More than 81,000 people have been sickened by a coronavirus, mostly in China. This map is updated daily.

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The Sinister Sanders Child-Care Plan

Bernie Sanders announced a “universal child care” proposal at the end of his wide-ranging 60 Minutes interview with Anderson Cooper. The plan would guarantee “every child in America free full-day, full-week, high-quality child care from infancy through age three,” and the campaign estimates that it would cost taxpayers 1.5 trillion dollars over ten years. But aside from being prohibitively expensive and distressingly vague, the plan looks an awful lot like social engineering.Start with the price tag. After failing to explain how he would pay for his expansive agenda — “I can't rattle off to you every nickel and every dime,” Sanders told Anderson Cooper in a disastrous moment of candor — the Sanders campaign released a partial list of pay-fors the day after the interview, laying out the cost of the senator’s major proposals alongside the tax hikes a Sanders administration would pursue to finance its domestic agenda. The campaign pegged the child-care proposal at a $150 billion annual price tag, more expensive than current federal outlays on unemployment insurance and the SNAP program combined.Add the child-care initiative to the bevy of programs Sanders has already promised to enact as president, and the fiscal feasibility of a child-care proposal grows more uncertain.The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget released their analysis of Sanders’s universal child-care plan yesterday, and raised concerns that the Sanders campaign was overestimating federal receipts from its proposed “tax on extreme wealth”:> Based on the work of economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, the Sanders campaign estimates this wealth tax would raise $4.35 trillion. This would be enough to finance Senator Sanders's $1.5 trillion universal child care and pre-K plan, his $2.5 trillion housing plan, and $350 billion of his Medicare for All plan (note that our analysis previously assumed he would dedicate $800 billion, not $350 billion, to Medicare for All).> > In our assessment, however, Senators Sanders’s wealth tax is likely to raise significantly less than advertised due to high levels of tax avoidance and the erosion of taxable wealth over time. We believe the wealth tax is likely to raise roughly $3.3 trillion. Assuming the proceeds are distributed evenly, that would leave the universal child care and pre-K plan nearly $400 billion short.As a point of reference, that $400 billion shortfall is larger than the sum total currently allotted to all federal welfare programs combined.While Sanders’s innumeracy was perhaps to be expected, the senator’s defense of the child-care plan on the merits was surprising. For a candidate with well-documented disdain for corporate America, it was strange to see how much of Sanders’s child-care proposal was concerned with the “career outcomes” of “mothers” who — heaven forfend — make “career sacrifices in order to care for their children.” The Sanders campaign presents female labor participation growth as one of the central selling points for its child-care scheme: “Mothers,” the campaign proclaims, “are 40 percent more likely than fathers to report a negative impact on their career outcomes due to child care considerations,” making the institution of a government-funded child-care scheme a “moral responsibility.” The campaign presents the welfare of the children whose stay-at-home parents enter the workforce as an ancillary concern.The Sanders campaign hardly seemed to consider — or, worse, seemed to have considered and proceeded to ignore — the possibility that those mothers making “career sacrifices” might want to raise their own children. As a 2015 Gallup poll found, 56 percent of mothers with children under the age of 18 said they would rather remain at home than enter the workforce, if given the choice. Instead, the socialist appears eager to incentivize more mothers to join the workforce, whereupon they will be presumably “exploited” by the “greedy” corporations the senator has spent a lifetime deriding.Most alarming is the power the senator’s plan vests in the federal government to insert itself into the child-rearing process. Sanders proposes a one-size-fits-all, government-funded child-care model, with no provision for those parents who wish to remain at home. If the Sanders campaign were simply concerned about the costs associated with raising children — both in the home and at a day-care center — it could have proposed a subsidy that also conferred benefits to stay-at-home parents or to relatives providing child care. But the social-engineering component of the plan is unmistakable, as Sanders would essentially create a scheme to augment the “career outcomes” of mothers who might otherwise raise their children at home, thereby boosting enrollment in government-funded child-care centers. Of course, all of those child-care centers will be subject to “quality standards” concocted in Washington.The implications of Sanders’s child-care agenda are clear enough. Right in the heart of the proposal, the Sanders campaign acknowledges that “ages 0 through 4 are the most important years of human life intellectually and emotionally.” Parents ought to be the ones to impart their values to their children in such a formative window, not a Sanders-administration functionary.

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Idaho targets transgender people, birth certificate changes

Idaho lawmakers moved forward Thursday with legislation banning transgender people from changing the sex listed on their birth certificates despite a federal court ruling declaring such a ban unconstitutional. Ohio and Tennessee are the only other states in the country where transgender people cannot change their birth certificates, according to a law firm that has challenged the practice in court. In Idaho, this is another effort by the conservative state to target the population as Republicans in the House a day earlier advanced legislation to keep transgender women from competition.

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Central Park Five's Kevin Richardson slams Bloomberg campaign

Kevin Richardson, a member of the Central Park Five, has hit out at Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s presidential run and his blocking of a multimillion-dollar settlement over the group’s wrongful persecution.Mr Richardson, one of the five teenagers wrongfully convicted for the shocking assault of Trishia Meili in 1989, was reported to have criticised Mr Bloomberg at an event outside his campaign office in Manhattan.

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Court won't let Trump pardon void guilty verdict against Arpaio

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Used to giving orders, Kansas abortion foes can't cut a deal

Abortion opponents who've become used to giving orders to Kansas lawmakers on the exact wording of new restrictions are stymied now that they face compromising to get a proposed anti-abortion amendment to the state constitution on the ballot. After falling short in a House vote three weeks ago, abortion opponents have pressured a dozen members who voted no, moderate Republicans and Democrats who are Catholic or who represent relatively conservative or heavily Catholic districts. Kansans for Life, the state's most influential anti-abortion group and a GOP power-broker, has for years told lawmakers what proposals to pursue and has watched them approve the group's language and echo its talking points.

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Mexico Has Two Coronavirus Cases, Health Officials Say

(Bloomberg) -- A 35-year-old man was confirmed as the first coronavirus case in Mexico, the country’s deputy health minister said on Friday. A second case was verified by a state health official.The first patient has a mild case and has been put in quarantine along with family members in the country’s Institute of Epidemiological Diagnosis and Reference for further testing, deputy health minister Hugo Lopez-Gatell said at the National Palace.The man is a resident of Mexico City who took a trip to Italy in February. The case is Mexico’s first, and the second known instance in Latin America after Brazil confirmed a case on Wednesday.“We have the capacity to deal with the situation,” President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said at his morning press conference.The man traveled to Bergamo, Italy, for a conference, where he had direct contact with an infected Italian national who normally lives in Malaysia.The second case, in the northern border state of Sinaloa, is a 41-year-old man who also traveled to Italy, said Efren Encinas Torres, the state’s health minister in an interview on Radio Formula. That patient is in isolation, as is a colleague he traveled with, who has not presented any symptoms.Local health officials sent details to the national agency for confirmation.“We see the state laboratory’s confirmation as valid, but nevertheless we will verify it in our own laboratory,” Lopez-Gatell said.Separately, Lopez-Gatell said that a cruise ship that had been stopped in Cozumel on suspicion of possible infection had no cases aboard and that passengers would be allowed to disembark.Worldwide, more than 83,000 cases have been confirmed and deaths from the virus have topped 2,800 people. On Friday, Iran, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands and the U.K. all reported new infections. Nigeria confirmed the first infection south of the Sahara desert.The Mexican peso fell 0.7% to end the day at 19.6437 per dollar, its weakest close since October 2019. Mexico’s benchmark Mexbol stock index plunged 2.6% after the coronavirus news.(Adds details about second case in lead and sixth paragraph. A previous version added case details, worldwide numbers and stock move.)To contact the reporters on this story: Justin Villamil in Mexico City at jvillamil18@bloomberg.net;Lorena Rios in Mexico City at lriost@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Carolina Wilson at cwilson166@bloomberg.net, Nacha Cattan, Dale QuinnFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

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Fox News Breaking News Alert

Fox News Breaking News Alert

President Trump holds a rally in North Charleston, S.C., 24 hours before the polls close in the state's Democratic primary. Watc

02/28/20 4:09 PM

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Why is Iran's reported mortality rate for coronavirus higher than in other countries?

Iran has now suspended parliament indefinitely due to the outbreak. Secretary of State Pompeo says the U.S. has offered to help Iran respond to the virus.

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A man convicted for killing his high school girlfriend was freed by decades-old DNA evidence. Now he's on a mission to find the real killer.

Leah Freeman's shoes were the only clue police had in her murder — and the only evidence that her high school boyfriend Nick McGuffin wasn't her killer.

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The Strange Tale of How British Commandos Attacked Hitler's Fish Oil Production

More important than you know.

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Mike Huckabee goes on bizarre rant about Trump 'sucking' coronavirus out of Americans' lungs

In Donald Trump’s America, very few national figures are as loyal to the president as Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas and father of the former White House press secretary.And, as criticism has mounted regarding Mr Trump’s reaction to the deadly coronavirus, Mr Huckabee got a chance to display that obedience once again — and took the bait, hook line and sinker, by delivering a bizarre defence of the man.

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Walkout as Polanksi wins 'best director' at Césars

The Polish-French director is wanted in the US for the statutory rape of a 13-year-old in the 1970s.

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Leap Year: What it's like being born on 29 February?

People around the world tell us what it's like being born on 29 February.

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Latvia railway: Why I love living in an old train station

Milda Romanova's home is an old rail station, and at 88 she still loves all things trains.

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Four Reasons Why The Coronavirus Is Such a Terrifying Economic Menace

The normal playbook for fighting recessions might not work in a global pandemic

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How the New Invisible Man Movie Departs From the Novel by H.G. Wells

Leigh Whannell turns the sci-fi classic into a tale of domestic abuse.

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Who Will Care For Society’s Forgotten?

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Joe Biden Needs a Win in South Carolina. Will He Get It?

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We Don’t Really Know How Many People Have Coronavirus

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Tom Steyer showered South Carolina in political spending. Will it pay off?

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Celine: Fall 2020

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The Atlantic Politics Daily: The American Workplace Isn’t Ready for the Coronavirus

It’s Friday, February 28. South Carolina’s open primaries on Saturday are the final test before Super Tuesday. And President Trump said he would nominate the House Republican John Ratcliffe as director of intelligence (if this sounds familiar, it’s because we’ve been here before).

In the rest of today’s newsletter: The guessing game of the stock market in the time of coronavirus fears. Plus: Is there anything Bloomberg’s money can’t buy?

*

« TODAY IN POLITICS »

(MARTIN LISNER / SHUTTERSTOCK / THE ATLANTIC)

American workers can’t afford to get coronavirus.

The risk of a real coronavirus outbreak in the United States has gone from being talked about as an outside chance to being talked about as a virtual inevitability. That alarming prospect has the stock market tanking, the Trump administration scrambling, and the CDC broadly advising Americans to stay home if they feel ill.

Sick days themselves are a luxury for a lot of Americans, as my colleague Amanda Mull has pointed out.

Even if a person in one of these jobs is severely ill—coughing, sneezing, blowing her nose, and propelling droplets of virus-containing bodily fluids into the air and onto the surfaces around her—asking for time off means missing an hourly wage that might be necessary to pay rent or buy groceries. And even asking can be a risk in jobs with few labor protections, because in many states, there’s nothing to stop a company from firing you for being too much trouble. So workers with no good options end up going into work, interacting with customers, swiping the debit cards that go back into their wallets, making the sandwiches they eat for lunch, unpacking the boxes of cereal they take home for their kids, or driving them home from happy hour.

Read the rest.

+ The White House’s response has been … mixed. As our White House correspondent Peter Nicholas reported a few weeks ago, the president’s “instincts in the face of an outbreak that has left the world on edge risks making things worse.”

+ What is going on with the stock market? Joe Pinsker has this history of what happens when investors have to do a lot of guessing.

—Saahil Desai

*

« IDEAS AND ARGUMENTS »

(SARAH SILBIGER / GETTY)

1. “Sanders would be every holiday present rolled into one.”

That’s how Sean Spicer, the former White House press secretary, says the president’s reelection campaign and their allies view Bernie Sanders, the current Democratic front-runner. Whether Sanders wins or loses the nomination, President Trump believes he’ll benefit, Peter Nicholas reports.

2. “The Second Amendment in particular poses distinct problems for data searches, because it has multiple clauses layered in a complicated grammatical structure.”

Even with the help of robust 21st-century linguistic databases that stretch back to the founding era, the original meaning of the phrase “keep and bear arms” is still a question of heated debate, these scholars write.

3. “That runs counter to America’s commitment to freedom of speech. Immigration judges, more than anyone else in America’s bloated immigration bureaucracy, should be able to speak about how immigration law and policy are shaping the adjudication of cases that come before them.”

American immigration judges are functionally employees of the executive branch, but that means the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review can effectively block them from speaking about immigration policy generally. A First-Amendment researchers writes about what he sees as the dangerous gagging of judges under Trump.

*

« WEEKEND READ »

(MARK WILSON / GETTY / THE ATLANTIC)

You can’t buy memes, Mike.

If you spend enough time on the internet, you may know about Democratic primary candidate Michael Bloomberg’s unorthodox campaign tactic of purchasing humorous jokes from popular Instagram accounts to promote his candidacy among the Youths™.

Our tech reporter Kaitlyn Tiffany explains why internet virality simply can’t be purchased:

Memes spread by imitation and iteration. They need to be remixed and repeated. (As with the recent spontaneously circulated image of Bernie Sanders in an oversize coat, saying, “I am once again asking,” or 2016’s “Nasty Woman” micro-economy.) Bloomberg’s images, in paid-for spots on meme accounts, are not really spreading; apart from a semipopular parody post that mocks the former mayor, there have been no major copy-pastes of his template.

Read the rest.

---

*

Today’s newsletter was written by Saahil Desai, an editor on the Politics desk, and Christian Paz, a Politics fellow. It was edited by Shan Wang, who oversees newsletters.

You can reply directly to this newsletter with questions or comments, or send a note to politicsdaily@theatlantic.com.

Your support makes our journalism possible. Subscribe here.

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Chancellor Hopefuls Clash in Duel for Post-Merkel Germany

(Bloomberg) -- Emotions were running high in an old brewery in the region where Chancellor Angela Merkel’s party stumbled into its worst crisis in decades.In the town of Apolda in the eastern German state of Thuringia, supporters of the Christian Democratic Union shouted down local media, claiming reporters smeared the state chapter. With beer flowing freely, that anger quickly turned to wild cheers when Friedrich Merz appeared before some 1,300 sympathizers, a day after the race to lead Germany’s most powerful party started.For the bulk in attendance, Merkel -- and not a rogue decision by local CDU lawmakers to ally with the far-right Alternative for Germany -- was the problem, and Merz is the answer.The long-time Merkel antagonist “is the only one in the CDU right now who has the courage” to stand up to the German leader, party member Bernhard Koegel said between speeches and folk music in Apolda. “He is the only one who will be able to stop Merkel.”Crowd SizeAbout 170 miles west of Apolda, a crowd of about half the size of Merz’s gathered to hear Armin Laschet, a moderate in Merkel’s mold who’s considered the clear front-runner. After officially announcing their respective candidacies to lead the CDU on Tuesday in Berlin, the two events were the first stops to woo the base.The eight-week contest will culminate in a special convention on April 25. The winner will have the inside track to succeed Merkel and set the trajectory for Europe’s most powerful economy for years to come. The stakes are high for Germany and its partners.Merz has accused Laschet of representing “continuity,” while pledging to be the only candidate who can take the CDU forward into a post-Merkel era.Health Minister Jens Spahn, who this week set aside his own leadership ambitions to back Laschet, took issue with Merz’s accusation in a Wednesday night television interview. Spahn’s decision not to run was a bid to unite his more conservative faction with Laschet’s centrist backers and dealt a blow to Merz’s chances.“I also have a bit of change in me, certainly compared to Friedrich Merz,” said the 39-year-old Spahn, who would be Laschet’s deputy if he wins. He has repeatedly lamented the CDU’s deepest-ever crisis and urged the party to reach out to voters leaked to the Greens and the AfD.At a barn-like clubhouse of a local rifle association in the remote village of Lennestadt-Kirchveischede, the contrast between the contenders was clear. It was Merz’s fervor and promise of change versus Laschet’s stability and his standing as head of Germany’s largest state.At the Laschet event, Martin Solbach acknowledged that Merz still has strong support in the rolling hills of rural western Germany even after his long hiatus from politics. But the CDU councilman in the nearby town of Wenden said he supports the state premier of North Rhine-Westphalia.Laschet “can show he has done a lot, which is saying more than his opponent,” who went into business after losing out in a power struggle with Merkel a decade ago, Solbach, 61, said as a traditional brass band played. “Laschet is closer to the base, but he needs to become a little more aggressive.”In his first speech since announcing his candidacy, Laschet pulled his punches when it came to his CDU political rivals. At best, he indirectly took issue with Merz’s criticism of Merkel’s energy policy, saying any approach in the age of climate change is fraught.Political TraditionThe performance was unusually tepid for an Ash Wednesday speech, a tradition in German politics. The events, often held in locations off the beaten path, typically offer politicians a platform to address issues in a more emotional way, a departure from staid stump speeches.Accompanied by a traditional brass band, Laschet took to the stage amid moderate applause from the beer-drinking CDU locals spilled out over benches. Most of Laschet’s attacks were reserved for the far-right AfD, who he said are trying to “break” the country and represent “everything the CDU is against.”He also took aim at the Greens, criticizing the environmental party for seeking growth-sapping regulations and demonizing Germany’s auto industry.“Nobody would treat a key industry like the Germans do,” Laschet said. He acknowledged the damage inflicted by the 2015 diesel-cheating scandal, “but that’s not a reason to bad talk a whole industry.”As a leader, Laschet said he wanted to talk less and deal less with regulation. “I just want to do it,” he said to loud applause.Merz’s TurfThe most aggressive aspect of the performance was its location in the rolling hills of Sauerland -- a traditional CDU stronghold that also happens to be where Merz is from.The former CDU caucus leader, meanwhile, went straight to the heart of the crisis in Thuringia. Cow bells rang, and the band played a march as Merz shook the hand of the leader of the state chapter, who’s decision sparked national outrage. The gesture went over well, as did Merz’s combative style.“Things can’t stay as they are,” said Merz to the raucous crowd. “We have to transfer the enthusiasm here to the outside,” he said, adding that he would welcome having Laschet part of his team.(Updates with Spahn comments from seventh paragraph)\--With assistance from Iain Rogers.To contact the reporters on this story: Arne Delfs in Apolda, Germany at adelfs@bloomberg.net;Patrick Donahue in Lennestadt-Kirchveischede, Germany at pdonahue1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Ben Sills at bsills@bloomberg.net, Chris Reiter, Chad ThomasFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

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