Concluded, but hardly conclusive.

The week's news at a glance.

German elections

It was “a vote without a victor,” said Hamburg’s Der Spiegel in an editorial. Germans have voted for their parliament—but nobody has won. For weeks, commentators had been predicting a resounding win by Angela Merkel of the right-wing Christian Democratic Union (CDU). It was an easy call: Chancellor Gerhard Schröder of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) has been unpopular for months, largely because of rampant unemployment. Opinion polls showed Merkel with a clear lead. But when the results came out, Merkel’s party had only the barest edge over Schröder’s, at 35 percent to 34 percent. Neither party can rule outright, and we won’t know who is to be chancellor until a governing coalition is struck, possibly weeks from now. Why didn’t the press see this coming?

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