Germany’s new Chancellor Friedrich Merz discussed the Ukraine war and trade rows with US President Donald Trump on Thursday and said the United States remained Berlin’s “indispensable” partner, using their first phone call to attempt to heal frayed ties.Since Trump returned to the White House, he has rattled Europe with head-pinning changes in security and trade policy, while his top administration officials have strongly supported Germany’s far-right AfD party.Merz, despite being an avowed transatlanticist, has called for Europe to become more independent of its traditional NATO ally and said after his February election win that he had “no illusions” about the new tone from Washington.But in their talk on Thursday, the conservative Merz “assured the American President that, 80 years after the end of the Second World War, the USA remains an indispensable friend and partner of Germany,” said a statement from Berlin.”Both agreed to a close exchange and announced mutual visits to the USA and Germany,” it added without giving dates.Merz’s spokesman Stefan Kornelius highlighted broad agreement to jointly resolve major crises, from the Ukraine war to the escalating US-EU trade row sparked by Trump’s blizzard of tariffs.The new chancellor “shared the President’s call for a swift end to the killing in Ukraine” and said that “Russia must now agree to a ceasefire to create space for negotiations”.The statement added that “Trump said he would strongly support Germany’s efforts, together with France, Great Britain, Poland and other European partners, to achieve lasting peace.”The call came after Merz took power on Tuesday in a bumpy first day during which he was only elected in a second-round vote my MPs, having lost the first one in a surprise upset.His inauguration ended half a year of political paralysis in Europe’s top economy since centre-left ex-chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government collapsed last November 6, the day Trump was re-elected to the White House.- ‘No illusions’ -Trump’s inauguration came about a month before the German election on February 23 and heavily impacted the final stretch of the campaign.The new US president reached out directly to Russia to end the Ukraine war and fuelled doubts about the future strength of NATO, while threatening a trade war that would harm especially export power Germany.Merz, straight after winning the election, urged the speedy formation of a new coalition government, warning that “the world isn’t waiting for us”.He said his “absolute priority will be to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible so that, step by step, we can really achieve independence from the USA” in security matters.During the campaign, the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) won strong backing from Trump ally Elon Musk, the technology billionaire, who called it the “best hope” for Germany.Last week, after Germany’s domestic intelligence agency designated the AfD a “right-wing extremist” party, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio called the move “tyranny in disguise”.Vice President JD Vance wrote on X that “the West tore down the Berlin Wall together. And it has been rebuilt — not by the Soviets or the Russians, but by the German establishment”.Merz on Tuesday condemned what he labelled the recent “absurd observations” from the United States and said he “would like to encourage the American government… to largely stay out of” German domestic politics.A politician with longstanding US ties, Merz said he had always felt “from America that they can clearly distinguish between extremist parties and parties of the political centre”.Merz also noted on Tuesday that “I did not interfere in the American election campaign” that elected Trump.The Berlin statement after the first Trump-Merz phone call made no mention of the row over the AfD.

A Polish former model testifying through tears Thursday at the trial of Harvey Weinstein said the disgraced movie mogul sexually assaulted her when she was a minor at age 16.Kaja Sokola, 39, alleged in a New York criminal court circumstances surrounding an alleged assault in 2002 when she met with Weinstein in a Manhattan apartment.”I was scared, I never had been in an intimate situation before that,” Sokola said in graphic testimony Thursday, adding that as he molested her she noticed Weinstein “staring at me in the reflection” of a bathroom mirror.”I’ll never forget this,” she said.Sokola is being heard this week in criminal court for the first time, one of three accusers in a 2020 New York case alleging Weinstein committed multiple sexual assaults. Weinstein does not face charges in the alleged 2002 incident with Sokola because its timing is outside the statute of limitations.The previous day Sokola testified that Weinstein also sexually assaulted her in spring 2006, in a Manhattan hotel when she was 19, claims that the former Miramax co-founder denies.The other two accusers — onetime production assistant Miriam Haley and then-aspiring actress Jessica Mann — testified at Weinstein’s original trial.Their two accounts helped galvanize the #MeToo movement nearly a decade ago, but the case is being re-prosecuted as Weinstein faces a new trial in New York. His 2020 convictions on charges relating to Haley and Mann were overturned last year by the New York Court of Appeals, which ruled that the way witnesses were handled in the original trial was unlawful.Sokola said that as an aspiring actress she met Weinstein at a restaurant dinner with other models in 2002 when she was 16. The film producer who is nearly 40 years her senior called her a few days later to propose a lunch meeting, she testified, but instead they arrived at an apartment and he told her to take off her clothes.”He forced me to the bathroom. I told him I didn’t want to do it, and he said I had to work on my stubbornness,” she told the court, testifying that Weinstein touched her and forced her to touch him until he ejaculated.Sokola “felt stupid, ashamed,” she said, as the 73-year-old Weinstein, seated in a wheelchair, looked at the jury or rested his hands on his forehead.When she told Weinstein she wanted to leave, “he got upset” and said that “I had to listen to him if I wanted to pursue my career in Hollywood,” added Sokola, who is now a psychotherapist.Sokola acknowledged that a year later she began losing weight and suffered from conditions including anorexia and bulimia.Asked by prosecutor Shannon Lucey why she never reported what happened, she said “I thought it was my fault.””I was a happy teenager before that,” she said. “I had boundaries, but this happened so rapidly without my permission.”Weinstein, the producer of box-office hits “Pulp Fiction” and “Shakespeare in Love,” has never acknowledged wrongdoing.He is serving a 16-year prison sentence after being convicted in California of raping and assaulting a European actress more than a decade ago.

US President Donald Trump’s administration will stop updating a long-running database of costly climate and weather disasters as part of its deep cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, according to a Thursday announcement.The database, which spans the years 1980-2024, has allowed researchers, the media and the public to keep a tally of events ranging from wildfires to hurricanes that caused losses exceeding $1 billion, adjusted for inflation. “In alignment with evolving priorities, statutory mandates, and staffing changes, NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information will no longer be updating the Billion Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters product,” a banner on the landing page said. Past years will remain archived.From 1980 to 2024, the United States experienced 403 weather and climate disasters with damages exceeding $1 billion each, adjusted to 2024 dollars. The cumulative cost of these events surpassed $2.9 trillion.A time-series chart shows that while there is year-to-year variation, the overall number of billion-dollar disasters is rising sharply, driven by climate destabilization linked to fossil fuel emissions.”Hiding many billions in costs is Trump’s latest move to leave Americans in the dark about climate disasters,” said Maya Golden-Krasner of the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute.”Trump’s climate agenda is to leave people unsafe and unprepared while oil companies pocket record profits,” Golden-Krasner added. “The pressure is on for leaders with integrity to keep counting the costs of climate disasters and hold polluters accountable for the damage.”Trump, who withdrew the United States from the Paris climate agreement on day one of his second term, has pursued aggressive rollbacks of climate-focused institutions. His administration appears to be following “Project 2025,” a blueprint authored by right-wing think tanks that labels NOAA a key source of “climate alarmism.”NOAA has since undergone mass layoffs affecting roughly 20 percent of its workforce, and the White House is seeking to slash the agency’s annual budget by $1.5 billion — nearly a quarter of its total funding.The move follows another major blow to federal climate science: the dismissal of more than 400 authors behind the National Climate Assessment, a report mandated by Congress and considered the government’s foremost climate evaluation.