Friedrich Merz says "giving up is not an option for me" amid CDU loss and a call for him to go

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz scrapped a planned trip to the UN General Assembly, where he was to speak Sept. 23, with a government official saying he was needed in Berlin. The change came as his authority was damaged by his center-right party's loss to the far-right Alternative for Germany in a Sept. 6 regional election in Saxony-Anhalt. Two more state votes follow Sunday in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Berlin, where AfD is expected to gain ground but lacks a realistic path to power. Merz's Christian Democratic Union could lose Berlin's mayoralty and might fall below the 5% threshold in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Merz has said he does not plan to resign; a local CDU deputy leader there called for him to go, though no top-level allies have publicly joined that call, and the party's eight state governors backed him Wednesday.