Morning papers briefly led with American AI chiefs – Altman, Amodei, Musk – calling to slow development, warning of uncontrollable intelligence and delaying OpenAI's IPO, before the focus returned to the Saxony-Anhalt fallout.
Throughout the day editors tracked Friedrich Merz's eroding authority. Bild asked who still backed him, Söder denied coup plans while raising pressure, Spiegel reported fear in the CDU, Tagesspiegel described authority collapse on open stage, and speculation grew over dismissing Bärbel Bas, a minority government or a successor.
Evening projections from Lower Saxony municipals closed the arc: the CDU stayed ahead of the SPD but with clear losses while the AfD nearly tripled, read across papers as a second verdict on the chancellor.