Germany is braced to enter a new “Dutch-style” political era after federal elections on Sunday, as a knife-edge vote points to months of complicated coalition wrangling.

Outgoing chancellor Angela Merkel joined the campaign trail at a rally in the western city of Aachen on Friday night in an attempt to help her designated successor from the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Armin Laschet, close the gap on the centre-left Social Democratic party (SPD).

“We need a stable government,” Laschet told the crowd at the event in his home city. “If you want stability for Germany, the CDU-CSU [Christian Social Union] have to be in first place tomorrow.”

“We will turn this game around,” vowed the conservative Bavarian state premier, Markus Söder, at the event in the southern German state capital. Germany, he warned, must not become an “experimental site for leftwing tomfoolery”.

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German election on knife edge as months of coalition wrangling loom https://t.co/7yAEUfYqFs

— Guardian Australia (@GuardianAus) September 25, 2021

An ecological epic about deforestation, “The Overstory” brought Richard Powers a wider readership when it won a Pulitzer in 2019. His new novel, shortlisted for this year’s Booker prize, may make him even better known. It is a shorter, more intimate tale that still wrestles with the scientific themes that are his hallmark..

The story is set in Wisconsin and narrated by Theo, a widowed astrobiologist. He is struggling to bring up his son, Robin, whose diagnosis of autism he resists, and whom the novel follows from the age of eight to ten. Robin’s mother, Alyssa, recently died in a car crash; he is disruptive at school. Distressed about global warming and the ruin of the natural world, he is consoled by playing a game in which he and his father imagine life on other planets….

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“Bewilderment”, a science-tinged home-schooling drama, takes place against a dystopian backdrop of extreme weather, crop failures and rampaging militias https://t.co/g4s5bjQVVV

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) September 25, 2021

O God, whose blessed Son became poor that we through his poverty might be rich: Deliver us, we pray thee, from an inordinate love of this world, that inspired by the devotion of thy servant Sergius of Moscow, we may serve thee with singleness of heart, and attain to the riches of the age to come; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

Today the #Orthodox #Church celebrates: Repose of Venerable Sergius the Wonderworker, Abbot of Radonezh
Saints and Feasts information courtesy of @ocaorg.
For more info, visit https://t.co/hyXaLi2wfe pic.twitter.com/p3PdvZ4QRc

— ⊕​ʀᴛʜᴏʙᴏᴛ​☦️🤖 (@BosphorusBot) September 25, 2021

O Jesus, Master and Lord, pour into our hearts thine own heroic love; that being filled with love we may know the love which passeth knowledge, and live in the unknown power of love to win men to trust in love, to the glory of God who is love.

Saturday’s Sunrise in Cleveland, OH pic.twitter.com/iSAQncsA9Q

— Gabe Wasylko (@GabeWasylko) September 25, 2021

“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

“The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is sound, your whole body will be full of light; but if your eye is not sound, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!

“No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.

–Matthew 6:19-24

Early Autumn Sunrise, Norway 🇳🇴🌄 pic.twitter.com/eCvByCoVzf

— 🌲 Norway Pine 🇳🇴 🌻 (@Norway_Pine) September 25, 2021