Birds block highway

Coburg, Germany

One of Gerhard Schröder’s pet projects, a new autobahn that will link eastern and western Germany, has been derailed by the chancellor’s governing partner, the Green Party. The highway is intended to enable jobless easterners to commute more quickly to jobs in the booming west. But the Greens got a court order to stop the $240 million project, saying that the highway would threaten the habitat of 200 blue tits. The blue tit, a songbird, is not endangered.