A weekly round-up of news stories that piqued our interest or made us scratch our heads.
Berlin's lefties back to the Left On Monday, the Berlin chapter of the left-wing SPD rebelled against their own party on a national level announcing that they will vote “no” on a bill marking Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria as safe countries, a bill which would mean that its citizens can no longer claim asylum. It still has to be approved by all Bundesländer, though. Will the rest of the SPD follow suit?
Berlin airports, the country's best?! Berlin airport-planning gets a notoriously bad rap (ahem, BER). Yet, when it comes to functional planning, i.e. punctuality, the statistics speak for themselves. Only 21.4 (Schönefeld) and 22.8 (Tegel) percent of planes were delayed between January 1 and August 31 this year, making them the best performing airports in the country (Frankfurt comes out as the worst with 35.5 percent of planes delayed/cancelled).
Fort choc Supermarket shoplifters typically go for expensive meats or spirits and cigarettes, which is why this stuff usually has an added layer of security at your local shop. But one Edeka in Wedding's Sprengelstraße has been dealing with a criminal with a sweet tooth: a chocolate thief. Due to the constant disappearance of Duplo and Bueno, they are now only available upon request from the counter… ID still unnecessary.
V-gone? Berlin might be pretty vegan friendly, but you can't force an all-veggie diet upon kindergarten-age children says Berlin's Bildungverwaltung. The body responsible for education announced on Monday that Kitas cannot offer only vegan food for their kiddies. Its uncertain how many Kitas will actually be affected by this law.
Back to Polska? For the 1500 Polish people living on the streets of Berlin, help has arrived from their homeland – which includes the offer to return home. As part of Polish homeless-aid organization Barka, two social workers are hitting the Berlin streets to offer support to their beleaguered countrymen. According to the Berliner Stadtmission, Poles are the largest foreign homeless population in Berlin.
Hangmanity Mystery solved: last week’s “refugee doll” hanging from a crane on Hermannplatz has turned out to be a stunt by art collective Rocco and His Brothers. They uploaded a video showing the installation of the doll and doled out criticism of Europe’s politicians, specifically Italy’s prime minister Salvini and Hungary’s Orbán.