Europe

BERLIN (AP) — Chancellor Angela Merkel’s center-right party suffered clear defeats in two German state elections on Sunday at the hands of popular governors from parties further to the left, according to projections. The setback comes six months before a national vote that will determine who succeeds the country’s longtime leader.

Sunday’s votes for new state legislatures in the southwestern states of Baden-Wuerttemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate kicked off an electoral marathon which features another four state ballots and the Sept. 26 national election.

DONETSK, March 14. /TASS/: Ukraine’s Armed Forces dropped an improvised explosive device from a drone near the Leniskoye village in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic’s south, the Donetsk News Agency reported on Sunday citing the DPR’s mission to the Joint Center for Ceasefire Control and Coordination.

The incident occurred at 12:15 p.m. Moscow Time. The Kiev forces launched a drone from the Ukrainian-controlled Vodyanoye village, the DPR’s mission noted.

MOSCOW, March 14. /TASS/: Russia’s coronavirus case tally rose by 10,083 in the past day, reaching 4,390,608, the anti-coronavirus crisis center told reporters on Sunday.

In relative terms, the growth rate reached 0.23%.

The lowest growth rates were registered in the past day in the Tuva Republic (0.03%) and the Sakhalin Region (0.04%).

MOSCOW, March 14. /TASS/: Russian cosmonaut Sergei Korsakov, who was initially expected to fly on Soyuz MS-18 in April, is one of the first Russian candidates for the flight onboard the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft, Head of Russia’s Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center Pavel Vlasov said.

"Sergey is one of the first candidates to fly on Crew Dragon, he has passed all the necessary events necessary for preparing space equipment," Vlasov said in an interview with the Komsomolskaya Pravda radio station.

MOSCOW, March 14. /TASS/: By their actions the Western nations have only precipitated regulation of the internet sphere, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Sunday.

"It was them to precipitate what we have been stopping short of doing for quite a long time. We felt embarrassed about the necessity to impose regulative measures in the cyberspace. In what concerns American internet monopolies," she said in an interview with the Voskresny Vecher (Sunday Evening) with Vladimir Solovyov program on the Rossiya-1 television channel.

MADRID (Reuters) - A red Ferrari worth 250,000 euros ($298,800.00) and an arsenal of weapons including revolvers and a Japanese sword were seized when 12 members of the largest drugs gang in Madrid were arrested, police said on Sunday.

The gang was very violent, according to Spain’s National Police, which found three daggers and several automatic weapons during a series of raids, along with 600 kg of cocaine.

Some 700,000 euros ($836,640.00)in cash was seized, along with 20 expensive cars, including the Ferrari.

London, Mar 14 (AP-PTI) London's police department is under scrutiny for the way officers handled some participants at an unofficial vigil Saturday night for a London woman whose death led to murder charges against a fellow officer and spurred a national conversation about violence against women in the UK.

Hundreds of people disregarded a judge's ruling and police requests by gathering at Clapham Common in honour of Sarah Everard, 33, who last was seen alive near the south London park on March 3.

LONDON, March 13 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese side expresses its strong condemnation of and firm opposition to "groundless slanders at China" and blatant interference in China's internal affairs by some politicians, a spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Britain said Saturday.

MOSCOW, March 13. /TASS/: After a request from the Guinean authorities, Russia is considering suppling domestic vaccine against the Ebola virus to the African country, head of the group of specialists of the Federal Service for Surveillance on Consumer Rights Protection and Human Wellbeing in Guinea Andrey Kritsky told TASS.

YEREVAN, March 13. /TASS/: Clashes between opposition supporters and the police took place on Saturday outside of the residence of Armenian President Armen Sarkissian, where he met with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.

The protesters tried to break through the police cordon, but were pushed back by law enforcement officers. The protesters were chanting "Armenia without Nikol" and "Nikol is a traitor".

Earlier, the presidential administration announced that the president was scheduled to meet with Pashinyan on March 13 to discuss ways out of the crisis.