Police shot and wounded a man thought to be carrying a firearm in central Düsseldorf on Thursday. 

Police said the man was seen brandishing a weapon near a fast-food restaurant on a large commercial street. 

It was not clear if the weapon was real or a replica, police said, but the man did not heed orders to lay it on the ground. 

At that point, police opened fire, hitting the man at least once. He was treated by an emergency doctor at the scene and then taken to hospital injured. 

Police cordoned off a large are of the street amid the operation.

A glass of Glühwein, or mulled wine, at Germany’s Christmas markets this year is liable to cost at least €5 (not including the deposit for the mug) this winter, according to a newspaper report on Thursday. 

The head of the German Federation of Wine Cellers, Peter Rotthaus, said in an interview with the Rheinische Post newspaper that he anticipated average prices to rise by at least 10% this year compared to 2024. 

Rotthaus named a number of reasons for this, but primarily he cited what appears to be a poor harvest year internationally for fruit wines. 

He also said that costs including freight, packaging, wages and energy all contributed to the rising prices. 

Rotthaus also said consumers should expect quite large regional variations in prices based on local conditions. His federation estimates that Germans and visiting tourists consume around 50 million liters of mulled wine in a bid to stay warm and lubricated at Christmas markets each winter.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has spoken out against the EU’s current goal of phasing out new cars with internal combustion engines by 2035, only allowing the registration of new electric vehicles by that date. 

Merz was speaking at a summit with other German political leaders and leading representatives of the country’s struggling car industry. 

“Such a hard cutoff in 2035 will not take place, if I have anything to do with it, and I will do all I can to achieve this,” Merz said in Berlin. 

Deputy Chancellor Lars Klingbeil, a member of the Social Democrats and so the leading representative of Merz’s junior coalition partner, had also signaled a willingness for changes to the plans.

In particular, he cited cars like plug-in hybrids, so-called range extenders (fuel-powered generators used to augment an electric motor and battery pack with a fraction of the fuel needed to power a traditional engine) and those using innovative fuel mixtures.

The EU set the target of registering no new fuel-powered cars as of 2035 in 2022. Many industry leaders have voiced doubts in the feasibility of the proposal, and some have even questioned its environmental credentials. The EU itself is now racing to review the policy proposal, perhaps with an eye to compromise.

Germany is scrambling to try to prop up its renowned car industry, which has been struggling with increased competition from China, decreased demand for cars in general in Europe, new barriers to trade in the US and China, and an array of other issues as well as the transition toward electric motoring. 

More than 50,000 jobs were lost in the car sector in Germany in 2024, a recent study found.

Germany’s DAX index has hit a new all-time high, eclipsing the previous record level set this July. 

The benchmark index rose 0.5% to a high of 24,708.97 points during Thursday’s trade.

The DAX has been buoyant so far in October, rising by roughly 3.5% during the month.

Factors including the potential reduction in tensions in the Middle East and hopes for a cut in interest rates in the US and possibly from the European Central Bank are thought to play a role.

However, the signals on trading floors remain mixed, at best. While western indices broadly continue their largely inexplicable and accelerated upward trend of recent years, renonwed “safe haven” investments like gold remain in extreme demand — which is usually a sign of low investor confidence.

Germans are booking significantly fewer trips to the United States this winter, according to the DRV travel association. The group predicted a 27% drop in sales for the November to April season.

Over the summer, bookings to the US had been about one-fifth lower than the previous year, DRV said.

Increasing costs may be a factor, as well as the fact that Germany updated its travel advisory for the US in March. The warning stated that a valid ESTA visa waiver was not a guarantee for entry into the United States after a string of high-profile detentions of ordinary Germans by US immigration authorities.

In contrast, the DRV reported that winter trips to Southeast Asia and Africa are expected to climb by 16% and 25%, respectively.  

Britta Hasselmann, parliamentary leader of the opposition Green party, slammed the government’s planned reforms shortly after they were announced. Hasselmann called the proposals “cold-hearted and inhumane” as well as “unconstitutional.”

“The CDU and SPD want to take away everything people need to live,” Hasselmann told the German news agency dpa, saying the reforms take away money for food and housing, including from families with children.

“It would also be unconstitutional,” she said, because the state has “a responsibility and a welfare state that provides for a sociocultural minimum standard of living.”

Those on the right, however, celebrated the news. Markus Söder, the leader of the CDU’s Bavarian sister party, the CSU, hailed that a form of basic income for welfare recipients was “history.”

There was also criticism launched at the SPD for abandoning its dedication to a robust social welfare state, but party leadership seemed to have little time for nay-sayers, particularly from the SPD’s left flank.

“We are tightening sanctions to the limit of what is constitutionally permissible,” Minister for Labor and Social Affairs Bärbel Bas of the SPD said.

Germany’s governing coalition presented their final agreement for package of reforms that has been heavily touted by Chancellor Merz for months.

The marathon discussions lasted most of Wednesday and well into the night, amid claims there has been significant opposition to many of Merz’s plans from the more left-leaning members of junior coalition partner the SPD.

However, the parties showed a united front on Thursday morning, announcing tigher restrictions on social welfare payments, changes to the pension system, and new subsidies for electric vehicles in response to competition from China.

“We will significantly strengthen obligations to cooperate and we will also significantly increase the possibilities for sanctions,” Merz said of the changes to the German welfare system.

German automakers are expected to press for fresh incentives to revive demand for electric vehicles during crunch talks with Chancellor Friedrich Merz in Berlin. Sales have slumped and jobs have been slashed amidst increasing competition from China.

Read more: German chancellor calls auto summit as carmakers bleed jobs

Guten Morgen from the DW newsroom in Bonn.

Today, the German governing coalition is expected to present the results of its closed-door summit amidst rumors of increasing tension between Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s center-right Christian Democrats (CDU) and their junior coalition partners, the center-left Social Democrats (SPD).

Merz will then be holding a major meeting for car industry representatives as he tries to revive Germany’s flagging automotive sector.

Check back here for the latest headlines from across Germany.

The city of Kupiansk  in northeastern Ukraine has been closed off since the end of September; no one can enter or leave — not even aid workers. There are now Russian soldiers stationed there.

Some residents have remained even as Russian troops threaten to take full control. The longer they wait. the more dangerous it becomes to evacuate.

DW spoke with some of them. Read the story here. 

Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov told state news agency TASS that efforts by Russia and the United States to end the conflict in Ukraine were still ongoing.

This statement appears to contradict remarks made by a top Russian diplomat the previous day.

On Wednesday, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said that the momentum from the Alaska summit between Presidents Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump “has largely gone,” and accused Ukraine’s European allies of torpedoing peace efforts.

However, on Thursday Ushakov was quoted as saying: “Claims that the Anchorage momentum is fading, or that it has been exhausted, are completely incorrect. We continue to work with the Americans based on what was agreed upon between the presidents in Anchorage.”

The Trump-Putin Alaska summit failed to produce a breakthrough to end the war between Russia and Ukraine. In recent weeks, Trump has become increasingly critical of Putin.

Ukrainian local authorities ordered the evacuation of children and their guardians from towns and villages around the frontline city of Kramatorsk, as well as from some parts of the city.

They cited an uptick in Russian drone attacks in the region as the reason for the evacuation.

“Residents of these settlements, especially families with children who, unfortunately, still remain there, must immediately leave the area accompanied by representatives of the evacuation services,” the city council said on social media.

Kramatorsk, which had a prewar population of around 147,000, is located approximately 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the front line in the Donetsk region. Kramatorsk is the region’s largest civilian hub and garrison city that is still under Ukrainian control.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian authorities in the neighboring town of Sloviansk also urged residents to evacuate, citing an increase in Russian attacks on energy and heating facilities.

“I am addressing the residents of the city today, especially elderly people and families with children — it is time to evacuate. At least for the period of the heating season. Because we see that the enemy is targeting the energy system, specifically boiler facilities,” Mayor Vadym Lyakh said in a social media post.

Andrej Babis, the winner of the Czech election, said he spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and expressed his support and hope for a quick end to the war with Russia.

“I am glad that he contacted me and described the current situation,” Babis said on X.

“We also agreed that if everything works out I will visit Ukraine next year,” he added.

Before the election, Babis had pledged to end a Czech program that sources ammunition for Ukraine. 

Polish investigators accuse a Warsaw registry office archive employee of copying the personal data of Polish citizens and foreigners between 2017 and 2022 and passing it on to Russian contacts.

According to the Public Prosecutor’s Office, the man was arrested in March 2022, shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine. He has been in custody ever since. The case has only now become public. 

The obtained data and documents enabled the Russians to create fake identities for so-called “illegals,” according to the statement. “Illegals” refers to Russian agents who live in a country for years or decades under false identities, gathering information and carrying out assignments.

Tomasz Siemoniak, the minister responsible for the secret services, said that the registrar’s case showed that places unrelated to national security that have access to data are of interest to Russia.

The United States has introduced sanctions against NIS, Serbia’s main oil supplier, which is majority-owned by Gazprom Neft, Russia’s state-owned oil company.

On Thursday, NIS announced it had failed to secure another postponement of the US sanctions, which could jeopardize its efforts to secure long-term oil and gas deliveries. The company added that it has sufficient supplies to maintain operations for customers in the short term.

The US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control imposed sanctions on Russia’s oil sector on January 10 and gave Gazprom Neft a deadline to divest its ownership of NIS, which Gazprom Neft did not meet.

Serbia depends almost entirely on Russian gas and oil, which it mainly receives through pipelines in Croatia and other neighboring countries. Belgrade is formally seeking European Union membership but has refused to join Western sanctions against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia of attempting to create chaos in Ukraine by escalating attacks on the country’s energy grid and railway infrastructure. 

“Russia’s task is to create chaos and apply psychological pressure on the population through strikes on energy facilities and railways,” Zelenskyy told journalists in embargoed comments made in Kyiv on Wednesday.

According to Zelenskyy, Russian attacks this year have already put Ukrainian gas infrastructure under “heavy pressure” and further strikes could force Ukraine to increase imports.

Ukraine has also recently increased its own drone and missile attacks on Russian territory. Zelenskyy stressed the campaign is showing “results” and has led to higher fuel prices in Russia.

“We believe they’ve lost up to 20% of their gasoline supply directly as a result of our strikes,” the Ukrainian president said.

Overnight, Russia launched a drone attack on Ukraine’s southern region of Odesa, injuring five people and damaging port and energy infrastructure, according to the region’s governor.

According to local Governor Oleh Kiper’s post on Telegram, the attack cut power to 30,000 consumers and set containers with vegetable oil and wood pellets on fire in the port.

Both Russia and Ukraine have been increasingly targeting each other’s energy infrastructure in reciprocal drone attacks.

Russia’s state-owned nuclear energy company, Rosatom, is preparing to restart the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, according to the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti, which cited Rosatom’s head, Alexey Likhachev.

However, later on Thursday, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov contradicted this statement, saying that there are currently no grounds to restart the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.

The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant is the largest nuclear facility in Europe. It has six VVER-1000 V-320 reactors, which are Soviet-designed, water-cooled, and water-moderated. These reactors contain uranium-235. All reactors are currently shut down.

Russian forces occupied the Ukrainian power plant in the early days of their full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and it is still under Russian control.The plant has been disconnected from the power grid for over a week. It now relies on backup generators to power cooling systems and other safety mechanisms.

Fires broke out at fuel and energy facilities in Russia’s Volgograd region as a result of a drone attack, Governor Andrei Bocharov said. He added that firefighters are currently fighting the fires.

According to Russia’s Defense Ministry, air defense systems intercepted and destroyed 19 Ukrainian drones over Russian regions overnight, including nine over the Volgograd region.

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian military announced that it struck the Korobkovsky gas processing plant and oil transport infrastructure in Russia’s Volgograd region overnight.

DW brings you the latest headlines related to Russia’s war in Ukraine.

As Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine continues, ahead of Russia’s state nuclear corporation Rosatom is preparing to restart the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.

The Ukrainian plant, which is the largest in Europe, has been occupied by Russian forces since the early days of their full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Meanwhile, both Ukraine and Russia continue their reciprocal drone attacks.

Stay tuned for the latest news and analysis.