Olaf Scholz will become the next chancellor of Germany after his center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) finalized a deal with the Greens and the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) on Wednesday to form a new governing coalition.

Why it matters: Scholz, who serves as finance minister and vice chancellor in the current coalition, will lead Europe's largest economy into the post-Merkel era.

The big picture: The announcement comes three months after the SPD won an astonishing comeback victory in Germany's elections, narrowly defeating the conservative bloc that had led the government for 16 years under Angela Merkel.

Scholz is viewed as a steady, experienced politician who is not expected to make radical changes to Germany's foreign policy.

The man photographed carrying House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s podium through the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 has pleaded guilty to entering and remaining in a restricted building without lawful authority. According to federal court documents, Adam Johnson copped the plea on Monday.

Johnson, then 36, of Parrish, Fla., was identified by acquaintances on social media after a Getty Images photographer captured an image of him waiving to a camera while carrying a podium emblazoned with the seal of the speaker through the U.S. Capitol. His image was one of the first disseminated on Jan. 6, as a pro-Trump crowd attempted to beat its way past police lines and into the Capitol to stymie the counting of electoral college votes that went in favor of President Joe Biden.

A statement of facts filed by federal prosecutors said the FBI compared the now-infamous Getty Images photo and social media screenshots contained in news articles with Johnson’s driver’s license photo. The license photo was “reasonably believe[d]” to be a match to the man in the Getty Images and social media posts, an agent wrote.

Mike Lindell Blames a Vast GOP Conspiracy for His Supreme Court Failure

MyPillow chief and 2020 dead-ender Mike Lindell has long promised that he would file an election-fraud complaint with the Supreme Court on Tuesday morning. But now he claims to have missed that goal because he was silenced by Republican National Committee Chairperson Ronna McDaniel.

It was a last-minute pressure campaign orchestrated by the RNC and McDaniel that prevented his case from moving forward and “saving the country,” Lindell now alleges.

“We believe that they have reached out to multiple [attorneys general] and put pressure on them, not to sign the Supreme Court complaint,” Lindell said Monday on his evening livestream, this time from aboard his private plane as he scrambled to lock down the signatures required to file his complaint with the high court.

With a poor WiFi connection marring his live-streamed rant, Lindell blasted McDaniel, alleging she orchestrated a vast Republican conspiracy against him when she finally acknowledged late last week that President Joe Biden won the 2020 election.

“How dare the RNC try and stop this case from getting to the Supreme Court. Shame on you, RNC! You are worse than Fox [News] now!” he stated, referencing his claims that the cable giant has silenced him. “You can’t tell me why Ronna McDaniel, the head of the RNC, made a statement saying Biden won three days before this Supreme Court complaint was supposed to go to the Supreme Court.”

BRUNSWICK, Ga. — Jurors began deliberations just before noon Tuesday in the murder trial of the three men accused of killing 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery last year, a case that has stoked nationwide outrage and intense scrutiny of the justice system.

Judge Timothy Walmsley read jurors their instructions after prosecutors made their final rebuttal to the defense’s closing arguments, calling part of defense lawyers’ strategy “offensive.” Prosecutors say that three White men — Travis McMichael, his son Greg McMichael and their neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan — pursued Arbery without justification, jumping to conclusions about a “Black man running down the street” and using their pickup trucks to trap him in their suburban Georgia neighborhood.

“This isn’t the Wild West,” prosecutor Linda Dunikoski said as she argued that the defendants acted as dangerous vigilantes on Feb. 23, 2020.

Defense attorneys say the accused were concerned citizens who believed that Arbery was a burglar and never set out to hurt him. The defendants were trying to stop Arbery for the police, they said, when Travis McMichael shot Arbery in self-defense during a struggle.

As president, Donald J. Trump was a media maximalist whose unavoidable-for-comment style helped generate saturation news coverage, for better or worse.

President Biden has taken a stingier approach to his dealings with the press — and not all his allies believe it’s working out.

After nine months in office, Mr. Biden has conducted roughly a dozen one-on-one interviews with major print and television news outlets. That compares with more than 50 for Mr. Trump, and more than 100 for Barack Obama, in the same period, according to West Wing record keepers.

If the pulpit is one of a president’s most powerful tools of communication, Mr. Biden has opted to rely more heavily on fleeting, impromptu exchanges with White House reporters, often taking a few shouted questions as he boards a helicopter or exits a photo-op. He has not sat for interviews with The Associated Press, The New York Times, Reuters, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal or USA Today. Even friendly venues like “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” have gone unvisited.

FLORESVILLE — Longtime Democratic state Rep. Ryan Guillen of Rio Grande City is switching parties as Republicans press to make new inroads in South Texas and after redistricting made his district much more favorable to the GOP.

Guillen made the announcement Monday morning at a news conference here where he was joined by Gov. Greg Abbott and House Speaker Dade Phelan, R-Beaumont.

"Friends, something is happening in South Texas, and many of us are waking up to the fact that the values of those in Washington, D.C., are not our values, not the values of most Texans," Guillen said. "The ideology of defunding the police, of destroying the oil and gas industry and the chaos at our border is disastrous for those of us who live here in South Texas."

Guillen’s decision to run for reelection under the GOP banner is a boon for Republicans who have been working to show new strength in South Texas after President Joe Biden underperformed there in 2020. The decision also comes after the GOP-led redistricting process turned Guillen’s district, already Republican-leaning, into a solidly red one.

Total deaths across Europe from Covid-19 are likely to exceed 2 million by March next year, the World Health Organization (WHO) has said, adding that the pandemic had become the number one cause of death in the region.

Reported deaths have risen to nearly 4,200 a day, double the number being recorded in September, the agency said, while cumulative reported deaths in the region, which includes the UK, have already surpassed 1.5 million.

Describing the situation as “very serious”, the WHO said it expected “high or extreme stress” on hospital beds in 25 of the region’s 53 countries, with intensive care units in 49 countries set to come under similar strain.

On current trends, the region’s cumulative death toll would surpass 2.2 million by 1 March, it said.