Former German minister becomes new mayor of Berlin

BERLIN (AP) — Franziska Giffey has become Berlin’s new mayor as the leader of a three-party left-wing governing coalition. She is a former federal minister who quit Germany’s national government earlier this year. Giffey was elected by the state legislature on Tuesday nearly three months after a regional election in which she led her center-left Social Democrats to a narrow victory over the environmentalist Greens. The 43-year-old served as minister for women and families in ex-Chancellor Angela Merkel’s last government until she resigned in May amid allegations of plagiarism in her doctoral thesis. She was later stripped of her doctorate but stuck to her longstanding plan to run for mayor.