Hosts Germany score win to take them to last 16 of Euros
Hosts Germany became the first team to qualify for the knockout phase of Euro 2024 on Wednesday thanks to a 2-0 win over Hungary.
Germany followed up their 5-1 demolition of Scotland in the tournament's opening game by seeing off the Hungarians in Stuttgart, with Jamal Musiala and Ilkay Gundogan scoring either side of half-time.
Julian Nagelsmann's team have a maximum six points with one game still to come in Group A, and are certain to progress to the last 16 at least as runners-up in the section.
Hungary put up a fight but the hosts had too much quality in the final third, with Bayern Munich star Musiala firing in the opener midway through the first half after captain Gundogan refused to give up a lost cause in the box.
Germany then doubled their lead on 67 minutes as Gundogan, of Barcelona, swept home an assist by Maximilian Mittelstaedt.
Their recent struggles appear to be a thing of the past, and Germany have now won their opening two games at a World Cup or European Championship for the first time since Euro 2012.
"We were determined to win today and confirm our performance against Scotland," said goalkeeper Manuel Neuer.
"We were dominant and deserved to win. You could see the euphoria in the stadium."
Hungary's hopes of progressing now hang by a thread, while group rivals Switzerland and Scotland played out a 1-1 stalemate in Wednesday's late match in Cologne.
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Malu Dreyer to step down as state premier of Rhineland-Palatinate
Rhineland-Palatinate's state premier has announced that she will resign from office in July.
The SPD politician said during a press conference in Mainz on Wednesday that she is leaving "with a heavy heart" 11 years after being elected as head of the state government.
However, the 63-year-old said she is running out of energy and cannot give her all to the role.
Malu Dreyer with her successor Alexander Schweitzer. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Arne Dedert
Dreyer was keen to point out that her decision is not a reflection of the Social Democrats' dismal results at the recent European elections, where they received just under 14 percent of the vote in Germany.
READ ALSO: What the EU elections say about the state of politics in Germany
Dreyer said: "Without question, this is of course a very poor result and it is absolutely clear that we have to fight as social democrats." She maintained, however, that she is also "very confident" that the party will find ways "to get out of this social democratic crisis, let's call it that".
The SPD's Alexander Schweitzer is set to take over the position from Dreyer. Schweitzer has been minister for labour and social affairs in Rhineland-Palatinate since May 2021.
Dreyer said she plans to rest and "simply do nothing" when she leaves the job initially.
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Germany weighs expulsions to Afghanistan via third countries
Migration and asylum policy is to be the focus of Thursday's conference of state premiers, which Chancellor Olaf Scholz will attend.
It comes after Interior Minister Nancy Faeser on Wednesday said Germany is in talks with third countries to find ways to deport criminals to Afghanistan without dealing directly with the Taliban.
"We are working hard to ensure that we can once again deport dangerous Islamists and violent criminals to Afghanistan," Faeser told the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung daily.
"We are pursuing confidential negotiations with various states to open ways to make deportations to Afghanistan again," she said.
"German security interests clearly come first," she added.
Germany completely stopped deportations to Afghanistan and closed its embassy in Kabul following the Taliban's return to power in 2021.
The debate over resuming such expulsions re-emerged after a 25-year-old Afghan was accused of killing a police officer in a knife attack last month.
Officials have explored the possibility of carrying out deportations via third countries such as Uzbekistan, Der Spiegel daily reported.
READ ALSO: German chancellor backs allowing deportations to Afghanistan after policeman killed
Amazon to invest an additional €10 billion in Germany
Tech giant Amazon says it will invest an additional €10 billion in Germany, most of it in cloud computing, the US tech giant's latest major investment in Europe.
A total of €8.8 billion will come from Amazon's cloud computing division AWS and will be invested in southwest Germany by 2026, with the rest going into logistics, robotics and company offices.
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The investment comes on top of €7.8 billion announced last month by AWS towards building a "sovereign cloud" centre in Germany.
The first sovereign cloud complex will be set up in the state of Brandenburg, and will be operational by the end of 2025.
The new system is to address concerns of some European countries and public agencies, which have been reluctant to resort to cloud computing for fear data would be transferred to other jurisdictions, notably the United States.
With its recently announced investments, Amazon said it was hiring thousands of new workers in Germany, taking its total number of permanent employees in the country to about 40,000 by the end of the year.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on X that the investments showed that Germany remained "an attractive business location".
"As the government, we are working on precisely this: strengthening our competitiveness," he said.
Germany, Europe's top economy, sees attracting new investments in high-tech fields as crucial as it struggles to emerge from a period of weakness.
With reporting by Rachel Loxton
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