After enduring nearly a month of heartache and anxiety, a dog owner can finally rest after her missing dog was found safely at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson Airport on Saturday, according to airport officials.

Delta Air Lines passenger Paula Rodriguez’s 6-year-old dog, Maia, was lost in August at the airport, which is considered the busiest in the world.

The airport’s operations team found Maia hiding near the north cargo facilities, according to a post on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. “Tired but in apparent good health, she was transported to a vet and is expected to return home soon,” airport officials said.

On August 18, Rodriguez and Maia embarked on a journey from their home in the Dominican Republic to California for a two-week vacation.

With the next flight to Punta Cana scheduled for the following day, Rodriguez faced the distressing reality of spending the night alone in a detention center, separated from her beloved canine companion.

The next day, Rodriguez arrived at her flight’s gate early, eagerly awaiting her reunion with Maia. To her dismay, Maia never arrived.

Unable to remain in the United States for over 24 hours without a visa, Rodriguez was left with no choice but to board her flight to Punta Cana without Maia, an experience that she said triggered a panic attack during her journey home.

“Everyone who knows me knows what she means to me,” Rodriguez said of her beloved pet. “I don’t go anywhere without her. She’s so well behaved that I take her to restaurants, literally everywhere. She’s my partner in everything.”

Despite Rodriguez’s relentless calls to Delta for updates, weeks went by without receiving any new information.

With the cancellation of her tourist visa, Rodriguez sent her mother to Atlanta to join the search efforts in the vast 4,000-acres of Hartsfield-Jackson Airport.

Her worst fears faded on Saturday when Atlanta Airport officials announced Maia’s discovery three weeks after she was lost.

A small mosque at the heart of the Marrakech Medina in the city’s historical quarter was a treasured place of prayer for the hundreds of traders working at the busy market outside.

Now, it’s off limits.

The mosque, located in the corner of the famous Jemaa el-Fna square, had a beautiful tower which, once adorned with white triangle decoration, has almost entirely collapsed in the powerful earthquake that struck the area on Friday night.

The beautiful building is barely recognizable now. The ornate tower is almost entirely gone – just one bare stump of bricks sticking out of the rubble.

Outside the damaged mosque, local resident Zined Hatimi recalled the terror of Friday night.

Hatimi, 53, slept in a central Marrakech park with her entire family, including little children. She said it got cold at night, so they stayed together.

“Everybody was outside. All of the neighbours, everyone. We don’t want to go inside, everyone is scared, the shaking was so strong,” she said.

The Marrakech Medina, a UNESCO World Heritage site was hit by the 6.8 magnitude earthquake on Friday, the largest to hit the area in at least 120 years.

The Medina district dates back centuries and is enclosed by walls built of red sandstone. Once defending the city from danger, large parts of these walls have been damaged in the quake. Long sections are showing deep cracks and parts have crumbled.

Many of the old buildings inside the Medina have been damaged and some have collapsed entirely. On Sunday morning, large piles of rubble were dotted around the area, with stray cats scouring them for food. Some sections of the city were cordoned off with fencing as the old building could be at risk of collapse.

Outside Marrakech, the impact of the quake is still emerging. Images showed the 12th Century Tinmal Mosque in the High Atlas mountains had been badly damaged.

The mosque is seen as a prime example of Almohad architecture, referring to the period when Almohads ruled over Morocco as well as parts of Algeria and Spain.

Other buildings in Marrakech appear to have escaped nearly unscathed.

The Kutubiyya mosque, Marrakech’s crown jewel, stood intact on Sunday morning, despite videos showing it shaking violently in the quake.

Away from the historical Medina, in many of the modern parts of Marakkech, the impact was barely noticeable. Cafes and restaurants were getting ready to open on Sunday morning, catering to tourists who decided to stay.

Miami Hurricanes football safety Kamren Kinchens was carted off the field after a tackle attempt during the team’s 48-33 upset victory against No. 23 Texas A&M on Saturday.

The injury happened late in the fourth quarter at Hard Rock Stadium, when Kinchens took a blow to the chest as he attempted to tackle Aggies receiver Ainias Smith. The safety laid motionless after making the tackle.

Players from both teams gathered around the 20-year-old as he was looked at by medical staff. The All-American player was carted off the field following a lengthy delay.

According to ABC’s broadcast of the game, Kinchens was awake and communicating with medical staff as he left the field. He was taken to Ryder Trauma Center in Miami.

Miami Hurricanes football head coach Mario Cristobal said in the team’s postgame news conference that tests on Kinchens seemed to be “relatively normal.”

“We’re going to head over there right after I get done with this press conference to see how he’s doing but it seems like we’re going to be fine,” Cristobal said.

At every grand slam this year, Novak Djokovic has had an opportunity to make history, to stamp his authority on the game as unequivocally its best men’s player, to equal or break another record.

He drew level with Rafael Nadal’s 22 grand slam titles at the Australian Open, pulled clear with a men’s record 23 grand slam titles at the French Open, was defeated by Carlos Alcaraz in the Wimbledon final, and now has another chance to equal Margaret Court’s record of 24 grand slam titles in the US Open final on Sunday.

Standing in his way is third seed Daniil Medvedev who stunned Alcaraz in the semifinals and who has already defeated Djokovic in a US Open final before, and in straight sets.

Though Medvedev’s game remains perfectly suited to the fast hard courts, he is expecting Djokovic to be “10 times better than he was that day.”

“Against Novak, it’s the same. He is always better than previous time he plays,” Medvedev said, according to the ATP Tour. “For example, I beat him in the US Open final, he beat me in Bercy in a great match. Carlos beat him at Wimbledon, he beat him in Cincinnati. Novak is going to be his best version on Sunday, and I have to be the best-ever version of myself if I want to try to beat him.”

‘Every final could be the last one’

When Djokovic and Medvedev last played each other in a grand slam final, it was the Russian who upset the odds and thwarted Djokovic’s attempt to win a then record 21st slam and complete the first men’s calendar grand slam – winning the Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon and US Open in the same year – since Rod Laver in 1969.

Since winning his first-ever grand slam at that US Open in 2021, Medvedev has come close to winning another, taking a two-set lead in the 2022 Australian Open final against Nadal but eventually succumbed to defeat.

“The challenge is that you play a guy who won 23 grand slams and I have only one,” he said, according to the US Open. “When I beat him here (in the 2021 final), I managed to play better than myself, and I need to do it again. There is no other way.”

At 36, Djokovic could become the oldest man to win the US Open singles title in the Open Era, surpassing the record set by Ken Rosewall in 1970.

“Every Grand Slam final could be the last one,” he told reporters ahead of the final. “Ten years ago, I felt like, ‘Hey, I still have quite a few years ahead of me.’ I don’t know how many I have ahead of me now, or how many years where I [can] play four Slams in the whole season. So I am aware of the occasion.”

It will be Djokovic’s 101st match at the US Open, a tournament which he has won three times already in his career, though not since 2018.

‘You want to fight ‘til the end’

Djokovic has had a relatively straightforward run to the final, aside from surviving a scare in the third round when he found himself two sets down against his compatriot Laslo Djere, he has completed every other match in just three sets, minimizing his time on court as he has swept aside the competition.

It marks a remarkable end to a year in which he has reached the final of every grand slam, adding two more titles to his collection, after a 2022 in which he could not compete in Australia or the USA due to his decision to remain unvaccinated against Covid-19.

For Medvedev, playing in the US Open final caps an impressive hard-court season in which he reached five consecutive finals on the surface and won four titles.

His performance against Alcaraz in the semifinals displayed his powerful serve, shotmaking and tenacity, all marking him as a difficult opponent for Djokovic.

“You want to fight ‘til the end, you want to win,” Medvedev said, according to the ATP. “And that’s how you should be in the final of a grand slam.”

How to watch

The final will begin at 4p ET on Sunday, and viewers in the US can watch all the action on ESPN, while Sky Sports will broadcast the matches in the UK.

As Hurricane Lee fluctuates in intensity over open Atlantic waters, its effects may soon be felt at beaches up and down the East Coast in the form of life-threatening rip currents and dangerous shoreline conditions.

Lee is forecast to continue moving well north of Puerto Rico, the British and US Virgin Islands and the northern Leeward Islands, but it will have an impact there and at other Caribbean islands. It remains too early to determine its long-term track for later this week and how significant the impacts could be for northeastern US states, Bermuda and Atlantic Canada.

The East Coast, however, is expected to face large swells and rip currents in an increasing manner through this week – much as the Caribbean is being affected now.

“Swells generated by Lee are affecting portions of the Lesser Antilles,” the National Hurricane Center warned Friday night. The British and US Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Hispaniola, the Turks and Caicos Islands, the Bahamas and Bermuda also face swells this weekend that can bring life-threatening surf and rip conditions.

Waves breaking at 6 to 10 feet were forecast for Sunday, according to the National Weather Service office in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Larger waves were expected this week along east- and north-facing beaches.

“Beach erosion and coastal flooding is possible,” the office posted on social media.

Lee, which was a Category 1 storm Thursday, intensified with exceptional speed into Category 5 status as it moved west across the Atlantic, more than doubling its wind speeds to 165 mph in just a day.

Vertical wind shear and an eyewall replacement cycle – a process that occurs with the majority of long-lived major hurricanes – has since led to the weakening of Lee, the hurricane center said.

Now a Category 2 storm with maximum sustained winds of 105 mph, forecasters expect Lee to regain strength “during the next couple of days, followed by gradual weakening,” the hurricane center said early Sunday. Lee is centered around 280 miles northeast of the northern Leeward Islands as of 5 a.m. ET Sunday and moving in a west-northwest direction at 9 mph.

Differing scenarios on Lee’s impact

Computer model trends for Lee have shown the hurricane taking a turn to the north early this week. But exactly when that turn occurs and how far west Lee will manage to track by then will play a huge role in how close it gets to the US.

Several steering factors at the surface and upper levels of the atmosphere will determine how close Lee will get to the East Coast.

An area of high pressure over the Atlantic, known as the Bermuda High, will have a major influence on how quickly Lee turns. A strong Bermuda High would keep Lee on its current west-northwestward track and slow it down a bit.

As the high pressure weakens this week, it will allow Lee to start moving northward. Once that turn to the north occurs, the position of the jet stream – strong upper-level winds that can change the direction of a hurricane’s path – will influence how closely Lee is steered to the US.

Scenario: Out to Sea

Lee could make a quick turn to the north early this week if high pressure weakens significantly.

If the jet stream sets up along the East Coast, it will act as a barrier that prevents Lee from approaching the coast. This scenario would keep Lee farther away from the US coast but could bring the storm closer to Bermuda.

Scenario: Close to East Coast

Lee could make a slower turn to the north because the high pressure remains robust, and the jet stream sets up farther inland over the Eastern US. This scenario would leave portions of the East Coast, mainly north of the Carolinas, vulnerable to a much closer approach from Lee.

The inaugural Africa Climate Summit drew to a close on Wednesday, with the host, Kenya’s president William Ruto, saying that a total of $23 billion had been pledged to green projects by governments, investors, development banks and philanthropists.

The summit, which focussed on driving green growth and climate finance solutions, concluded with the “Nairobi Declaration,” a call from African leaders for urgent action on climate change, which included a request for new global taxes on carbon pollution as well as phasing out coal use and ending fossil fuel subsidies.

African heads of state and government warned that many African countries face “disproportionate burdens and risks” from climate change, and called on the global community “to act with urgency” in reducing planet-heating pollution and supporting the continent in addressing the problem.

“Africa is not historically responsible for global warming, but bears the brunt of its effect, impacting lives, livelihoods, and economies,” the leaders said in the joint declaration.

Among the most eye-catching finance announcements, the United Arab Emirates pledged $4.5 billion to clean energy initiatives in Africa. The pledge was announced by Sultan Al-Jaber, the head of the UAE’s national oil company, ADNOC, and the government-owned renewable energy company, Masdar. He will also serve as the president of COP28, the annual UN climate meeting that will take place in Dubai starting in November.

“It is our ambition that this will launch a new transformative partnership to jumpstart a pipeline of bankable clean energy projects in this important continent,” Al-Jaber said, adding that the investment could lead to the generation of 15 gigawatts of clean energy by 2030. Africa’s current clean energy generation capacity is 56 gigawatts.

The initiative marks a positive development, according to Yemi Osinbajo, former vice president of Nigeria and now an advisor for the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet (GEAPP), a consortium that helps developing countries shift to clean energy.

Germany announced 450 million euros (about $481 million) of climate finance pledges, and and the US pledged $30 million to support climate resilient food security efforts across Africa. Hundreds of millions more were offered following an initiative to boost Africa’s carbon credit production 19-fold by 2030.

Carbon credits are used by companies to offset carbon emissions, and are usually generated by financing projects that aim to reduce carbon pollution in the atmosphere, such as tree planting, or reduce planet-heating pollution by promoting switching to renewable energy, especially in developing countries.

“Carbon credits could be a game-changer for Africa,” said Osinbajo. “They have the potential to unlock billions for the climate finance needs of African economies while expanding energy access, creating jobs, protecting biodiversity, and driving climate action.”

However, campaigners in Nairobi protested against this approach, arguing that carbon credits are flawed and allow wealthy countries and companies to continue to pollute.

A new framing

In the joint declaration, African leaders called upon the global community “to act with urgency in reducing emissions, fulfilling its obligations, keeping past promises, and supporting the continent in addressing climate change.”

They pointed to steps to achieve this, including accelerating efforts to reduce emissions, honoring the commitment to provide $100 billion in annual climate finance as promised at the 2009 UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, and upholding commitments to “a fair and accelerated process of phasing down coal, and abolishment of all fossil fuel subsidies.”

“Decarbonizing the global economy is also an opportunity to contribute to equality and shared prosperity,” the leaders said.

According to Osinbajo, the summit provided a “new framing” of Africa, not as victim, but as a key solution to the climate crisis. He said that “with its untapped renewable energy potential, the world’s youngest and fastest growing workforce, and critical minerals and resources, (Africa) has the fundamentals to become a cost-competitive green industrial hub, greening both African and global consumption and removing carbon from the air.”

Mexico seems set to elect its first female president in next year’s election after the country’s leading parties both unveiled women candidates.

Ruling party Morena said Wednesday that Claudia Sheinbaum will be its nominee for the 2024 general election. She is set to take on Senator Xóchitl Gálvez, who was nominated by the opposition coalition on Sunday.

They will be vying to replace current leader Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who is required to step down next year as Mexican law prohibits presidents from seeking a second six-year term.

Sheinbaum is a former mayor of Mexico City who has long been considered a favorite to get the nomination. She was officially named Morena’s pick after winning an internal survey on the party’s candidate.

Born in Mexico City in 1962, Sheinbaum has a degree in physics and a PhD in energy engineering.

She served as Mexico City’s secretary of the environment in the year 2000, when Obrador was the city’s mayor. Since then, she has maintained a close relationship with the outgoing leader, supporting him in his three political campaigns for presidency.

She was elected mayor of Mexico City in 2018.

After four-and-a-half years, she left that post to pursue her ambition of becoming presidential candidate for her party, of which she is a founder.

Her main rival Gálvez was officially named on Sunday as the candidate of the alliance of opposition parties “Frente Amplio Por Mexico,” Mexico’s Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) announced on its X account, formerly known as Twitter.

PRI is the main opposition party to Morena. The coalition “Frente Amplio Por Mexico” (The Broad Front for Mexico) is made up of three opposition parties; the National Action Party (PAN), the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) and PRI. Gálvez is a senator for PAN.

Coming from humble beginnings, Gálvez was able to study computer engineering after winning a scholarship. She later went on to become a businesswoman.

From 2015 to 2018, she served as the mayor of the Miguel Hidalgo borough in Mexico City. In 2018, she won a seat in the Senate for PAN.

This comes as, in another historic moment, Mexico’s Supreme Court ruled to federally decriminalize abortion on Wednesday, finding that the current ban on the procedure is unconstitutional.

“The First Chamber of the Court ruled that the legal system that penalizes abortion in the Federal Criminal Code is unconstitutional, since it violates the human rights of women and people with the capacity to gestate,” the Supreme Court said on social media.

A drone attack caused an explosion near Russia’s military headquarters in the city of Rostov-on-Don on Thursday, as Kyiv continues a campaign of strategic aerial strikes in Russian territory.

An “emergency mode” was enacted around the crash site and nearly 100 residents were offered alternative temporary accommodation, Golubev said. Kyiv did not make any immediate comment.

Rostov-on-Don is in southern Russia, not far from the Ukrainian border. It was briefly occupied by Wagner troops during the private military group’s brief rebellion against the Kremlin earlier this year.

The strike was one of several to hit Russia overnight. Russian air defense systems separately intercepted a drone attack near Moscow, the capital’s mayor Sergey Sobyanin said in a post on Telegram on Thursday.

“Tonight, in the Ramensky urban district, air defense forces thwarted a drone attack on Moscow. There is no damage or casualties at the site of the fall of the wreckage. Emergency services are on site,” Sobyanin said in the post.

Ukraine is showing increasing willingness to launch targeted strikes across the border, in an apparent attempt to slowly wear down domestic Russian support for the war and degrade Russian infrastructure.

The attacks have come amid the continued assault of Ukrainian cities by Moscow, whose attacks regularly target civilian areas.

On Wednesday, at least 17 people including a child were killed after a Russian missile struck a market in a town in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donetsk, officials said. It was one of the worst attacks in months.

“Russian troops are terrorists who will not be forgiven and will not be left in peace,” Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal wrote on Telegram. “There will be a just retribution for everything.”

In addition to the attacks on Russian territory, Kyiv has continued to also hit Russian-occupied territory in Ukraine.

Russian-appointed officials in occupied Zaporizhzhia say there was another Ukrainian drone attack on Enerhodar, the city adjacent to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, early on Thursday.

Ukraine is meanwhile “slowly gaining ground” in its counteroffensive despite weeks of difficult fighting, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said Thursday.

“The Ukrainians are gradually gaining ground,” he told the European Parliament. “This is heavy fighting, difficult fighting but they have been able to breach the defensive lines of the Russian forces. And they are moving forward.”

His remarks come after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky sent out a strong message last week regarding Ukraine’s progress, tweeting: “No matter what anyone says, we are advancing, and that is the most important thing. We are on the move.”

As Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) grows ever popular, the country’s once dominant Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party finds itself at a crossroads.

The center-right CDU was in power for much of Germany’s post-war era and oversaw the reunification of East and West Germany. It remains the country’s most popular party but now sits in opposition – an unaccustomed position – while the center-left Social Democrats govern in coalition with the Green Party and Free Democrats (FDP).

With polls showing the AfD gaining on the CDU, state elections approaching in the fall and a European Parliament election next year, the party formerly led by ex-Chancellor Angela Merkel is facing a dilemma over how to move forward.

The CDU has long shunned the AfD because of its anti-democratic stance and fringe ideologies, which include an openly anti-migrant, euroskeptic, Islamophobic and anti-feminist agenda. As a result, CDU leader Friedrich Merz caused shockwaves in July when he left open the possibility of collaboration with the party on the local and municipal level.

In an interview with public broadcaster ZDF, Merz said it was “natural” to look at ways to continue to work cooperatively if an AfD mayor or district administrator was voted in.

Merz backpedaled later that month, posting on X, formerly known as Twitter: “To clarify it once again, and I never said it differently: the CDU resolution is valid. There will be no CDU cooperation on the local level with the AfD.”

Still, his comments were enough to spark an outcry – not least from members of his own party – and raise concerns that the party’s resolve could be weakening.

Berlin’s CDU mayor, Kai Wegner, took to X to write: “What cooperation is there to be had?

“The CDU cannot, does not want to and won’t work with a party whose business model is hatred, division and exclusion.”

Meanwhile, members of the AfD believe that shunning their party will soon be a luxury the CDU can’t afford.

Unlike many of its Western allies, coalition governments are a natural part of German politics. An electoral system established after World War II makes it almost impossible for a single party to win power, meaning multiple parties are expected to band together to form a majority.

The AfD has found particular resonance with voters in Germany’s former communist states. A poll conducted by INSA (Institute for New Social Answers) and published last Thursday found that the AfD had eclipsed the CDU in popularity in the eastern state of Saxony. There, the AfD is now polling at 35% – a significant 6 percentage points above the CDU at 29%.

The new figures have thrown into question how long Saxony’s current state governing coalition of the CDU, SPD, and the Greens can last.

A Deutschlandtrend poll conducted by public broadcaster ARD in early August found that the majority of Germans – 64% – continue to support the CDU’s decision to reject cooperation with the AfD, although this opinion has become less popular since March 2020.

There are also clear differences between West and East Germany, with just under half of East Germans – 47% – agreeing with the CDU’s refusal to cooperate with the AfD, compared with 68% of West Germans.

In March 2021, the AfD was formally placed under surveillance by Germany’s BfV domestic intelligence service on suspicion of trying to undermine Germany’s democratic constitution – making it the first party to be monitored in this way since the Nazi era crumbled in 1945. And in April this year, the BfV labeled the party’s youth wing as “extremist,” a finding it rejected.

Voter appeal

But speaking on condition of anonymity, a former CDU voter who switched allegiance to the AfD had one overarching complaint: the CDU no longer represents the middle ground.

The voter, from Saxony Anhalt state, said that he believed the CDU had “slid very far to the left,” adding that many of his friends and colleagues “think the same way.”

“The CDU used to have conservative policies for mainstream society. This is no longer the case today and many feel they are no longer represented here,” he said.

Kühne, who also serves as the religious spokesperson for the AfD parliamentary group in Saxony, echoed this sentiment.

The Saxony Anhalt voter cited migration and energy costs as well as “internal security” as the main issues that were driving voters away from the CDU and towards the AfD.

“Many people who have not received asylum should actually leave the country. However, they are tolerated and receive social assistance,” he said, adding that he believes that illegal immigrants are carrying out “extreme acts of violence almost every day” in Germany.

Data from Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office does not support this, with a report finding that the rate of crimes committed by migrants sank for a third year in a row in 2022, with one in 14 criminal offenses in Germany committed by immigrants. The same data showed a rise in attacks against migrants.

Kühne gave similar explanations for why some German voters were turning to the far-right.

”Migration is, of course, an important issue. And we need to say it: it’s getting too ‘crowded’ here. The municipalities are only just coping… We will see a tipping point. At some point, our society will no longer be able to cope.”

Speaking specifically about refugees fleeing the war in Ukraine, he said: “Our heart is wide and open, but everything has its limits.

“We have an influx of 12,000 people in the city of Leipzig alone. These are official figures for just Ukrainians.”

Data from the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, shows that Germany had taken in over one million Ukrainian refugees to date – a figure higher than other European countries including neighbouring Poland.

During the 2015 European migrant crisis, then-chancellor Merkel adopted an “open-door” policy which saw hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing war in Syria and beyond arrive in Germany – a decision which attracted both praise and criticism.

“But it’s not just migration,” Kühne added. “Our economy is stagnating, and this is backfiring.

“People can’t even fill up their cars at the gas station anymore,” he sadi, citing the scenario of a mother of “a young family with two small children” who is forced to cancel a weekend trip away with her family so that she can afford to fill her car with petrol.

The AfD appears to be capitalizing on societal grievances and learning to speak the language of the mainstream to great effect, while not abandoning its more extremist positions.

The party has begun to talk more seriously about economic policy and argues that the government’s commitment to climate policies and supporting Ukraine’s war effort are placing overly burdensome costs on the German taxpayer.

Populist parties as ‘lightning rods’

The CDU’s Michael Kretschmer, state premier of Saxony, believes a shift in policy is the best approach for democratic parties to stop the rise of the far-right.

He has been vocal about how a surge in illegal immigration is contributing to support for the AfD.

Opinion polls in his state, one of the five that make up Germany’s former east, put the AfD in the lead; Saxony has long been a stronghold for the far-right party.

Still, Kretschmer rules out any kind of collaboration. “Of course, one cannot work together with anyone who is a danger for democracy.”

He also cites a lack of trust in the current SPD-led government as the reason for a surge in support for the AfD.

“In the past, we have seen time and again that people choose populist parties as lightning rods when trust in the government’s abilities and in democratic structures wanes,” he said.

“Trust has fallen because the federal government is too hesitant and is not tackling and solving the problems in our country that are visible to everyone.

“Citizens as well as businesses rightly expect that the federal government will finally tackle the important issues; high energy prices and inflation, a stagnating economy and growing illegal migration.”

As the AfD continues its rise, it is clear that all of Germany’s democratic parties will have to adapt to the new political landscape; although none more so than the CDU, which may have a fight on its hands to maintain its status as the country’s most popular right-of center party.

When Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni made an official visit to the crime-ridden Neapolitan suburb of Caivano last week, she promised a “radical reclamation” of a territory she admitted “the state had failed.”

Meloni, the country’s first female prime minister, was there to draw attention to an alleged systematic gang rape of pre-teen cousins by a group of delinquents.

The alleged repeated rapes of the two girls – aged 10 and 12 at the time and now in protective custody out of fear their families can’t protect them – capped a summer of headlines about sexual violence and gender-related killings of women and girls.

Neither of these issues has so far been a focus of Meloni’s “Italy-first” traditional family agenda, which has focused on removing same sex parents from birth certificates, clamping down on inheritance rights for gay couples, and seeking to criminalize surrogacy with prison terms even if it is carried out abroad.

Her trip to Caivano was overshadowed by comments made by her partner, Andrea Giambruno, an Italian journalist with whom she shares a daughter but to whom she is not married, who suggested some of the sexual violence over the summer was the fault of the victims.

“If you go dancing you are fully entitled to get drunk,” he said on his television program. “But if you avoid getting drunk and losing consciousness, perhaps you’d also avoid getting into trouble, because then you’ll find the wolf.”

His comments came while discussing the case of a 19-year-old woman who was allegedly gang-raped by seven men at a party near the Sicilian city of Palermo in August.

When questioned by a guest on the program, Giambruno tried to defend his words by digging in deeper: “(A man) might say to his daughter, ‘Look, don’t get in a car with a stranger. Because it is very true that you should not be raped because it is an abominable thing. But if you avoid getting into the car with a stranger, maybe you won’t run into that danger,’” he said by way of clarification, failing to blame the young men who allegedly committed the crime.

“Perhaps we should start passing this message across and be a little more protective, in terms of vocabulary and language,” he added.

He might have been thinking of his own 7-year-old daughter, Ginevra, who is Meloni’s constant companion, traveling with her to the United States to meet President Joe Biden as well as tagging along when Meloni met Pope Francis earlier this year.

“I do everything possible to take my daughter to when I can, and to go home in the evening to put her to bed, as I have always tried to do,” Meloni, who often talks about what being a mother means to her, told “Donna Moderna” (Modern Woman) magazine earlier this year.

She defended Giambruno’s victim-blaming comments during a press conference Thursday, saying they had been misunderstood.

“I think that Andrea Giambruno hastily and assertively said something different from what most people interpreted,” she said.

“I don’t read in those words ‘if you walk around in a miniskirt they’ll rape you’ but something similar to what my mother told me: ‘eyes open and head on your shoulders.’ Rapists exist and we must not let our guard down,” she said at the press conference.

“My mother always told me that. We must always be aware, do our best not to put ourselves in a position to allow these animals to do what they would like to do. I think it is advice that many parents would give to their children, this does not give any justification to rapists.”

Gang-related violence

Meloni has focused on coming down hard on organized criminality in areas where offenses are taking place.

However, she has barely mentioned a documented rise in reported gender-related violence in Italy this summer, which included the killing of a 52-year-old nurse in Rome this week.

The mother of two daughters was stabbed 20 times in the foyer of her apartment building in the capital, allegedly by a man who had just this summer vandalized her car with red spray paint with which he wrote, “I love you a lot,” according to Rome city police who published a photo of her car. Lawyers for the suspect declined to comment on the case.

According to the Telefono Rosa hotline for domestic violence, there has been a 25% increase in gang-related gender-based violence in 2023 in Italy compared to the same period last year. The organization notes that the increase is primarily by younger offenders – sometimes, as in the case of the alleged gang rape in Palermo, of which footage was published on social media, including young men under the age of 18.

This Sunday, the women of the opposition Democratic party, led by Elly Shlein, are meeting to form a response to what they say is the systematic punishment of women in the first year of Meloni’s premiership.

“Atavistic impulses are re-emerging in society and, above all, regulatory proposals are emerging that erase women’s laborious achievements of self-determination: from the right to health, to education, to work without a modern and dynamic welfare system, to abortion, but also to maternity and parenthood, despite proclamations about birth rates; among the new generations we are witnessing an explosion of violence towards young women, and we could continue. This is why we need to put our analytical and proposal-making thinking back at the center.”

Nepotism concerns

Meloni has yet to comment on the killing of the nurse in Rome, which was the 78th gender-related killing of a woman this year, according to the Differenza Donna association. It estimates that one woman is murdered by someone she knows every three days in Italy.

Instead, Meloni has focused on her own family, which is increasingly prominent in party politics. During her August holiday, she was photographed at a lunch with relatives holding a plate of cooked blue crabs, currently the chief enemy to Italian mussel and clam fishermen after destroying millions of euros’ worth of shellfish.

The photo was taken by her brother-in-law Francesco Lollobridgida, Italy’s minister of agriculture, who is married to her sister Arianna, who in August was promoted to lead Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party’s membership arm and political secretariat division – a move that raised eyebrows within the party ranks.

Brothers of Italy member Massimo Milani called for a special congress within the party to discuss the matter.

On Tuesday, Meloni posted a selfie on Instagram smiling among party faithful at a dinner that drew more comments about nepotism than about the cohesion of her party, from opposition party members and the general public alike.

But in Rome’s Garbatella neighborhood, where Meloni grew up with a single mother, she is lauded. “She has proven herself to be a stateswoman, she has made us proud,” said Giovanni Montuori, who runs a local favorite restaurant, Da Giovanni. “Her mother still lives here, she is raising her own daughter in spite of challenges. She’s the real thing.”

When asked about her partner’s comments on the gang rape, the restaurateur said simply, “There is truth to it, simply put.”

The Brothers of Italy have also retained their popularity. Meloni’s party won the September 22 elections last year with nearly 26% of the vote. As of late July, her party had surpassed 29% support in opinion polling, dropping about a point by late August, according to a SWG poll for La7 television.

Despite her success, Meloni’s first year in office has been challenging. She has faced record-breaking arrivals of irregular migrants and the loss of Silvio Berlusconi, a key coalition partner.

But the steady drumbeat of opposition to perceived nepotism and her reluctance to push gender issues is likely to dominate her tenure in office, however long it may last.