News

Monday, Oct. 15

NFL

San Francisco at Green Bay, 5:15 p.m., ESPN, KXTG (750 AM, 102.9 FM)

MLB

Milwaukee at L.A. Dodgers, Game 3, 4:30 p.m., FS1, KMTT (910 AM)

Men's soccer

Iceland vs. Switzerland, ...

Monday, Oct. 15

Prep boys soccer

Wilsonville at Parkrose, Horizon Christian at Columbia Christian, 4:30 p.m. … Jesuit at Southridge, La Salle Prep at St. Helens, 7 p.m.

Prep girls soccer

Catlin Gabel at Riverdale (Lewis & Clark), 4:30 ...

BERLIN — German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative allies lost their absolute majority in Bavaria’s state parliament by a wide margin in a regional election Sunday, a result that could cause more turbulence within the national government.

The Christian Social Union took 37.2 percent of the vote, down from 47.7 percent five years ago. It was the party’s worst performance since 1950 in a state vote in Bavaria, which it has traditionally dominated.

Constant squabbling in Merkel’s national government and a power struggle at home have weighed on the CSU. It is traditionally a touch more right-wing than the chancellor’s party and has taken a hard-line on migration, clashing with Merkel on the issue.

There were gains for parties to its left and right. The Greens won 17.5 percent to secure second place, double their support in 2013. The far-right Alternative for Germany, or AfD, entered the state legislature with 10.2 percent of the vote.

Meanwhile, the center-left Social Democrats, Merkel’s other national coalition partner in Berlin, finished in fifth place with a disastrous 9.7 percent, less than half what they received in 2013 and their worst in the state since World War II.

The CSU has governed Bavaria, the prosperous southeastern state that is home to 13 million of Germany’s 82 million people, for more than six decades.

Needing coalition partners to govern is itself a major setback for the party, which exists only in Bavaria and held an absolute majority in the state parliament for all but five of the past 56 years.

“Of course this isn’t an easy day for the CSU,” the state’s governor, Markus Soeder, told supporters in Munich, adding that the party accepted the “painful” result “with humility.”

Pointing to goings-on in Berlin, Soeder said, “It’s not so easy to uncouple yourself from the national trend completely.”

Still, he stressed that the CSU emerged as the state’s strongest party with a mandate to form the next Bavarian government.

He said his preference was for a center-right coalition. That would see the CSU partner with the Free Voters, a local conservative rival that made modest gains to win 11.6 percent.

The Greens, traditionally bitter opponents of the CSU with a more liberal approach to migration and an emphasis on environmental issues, are another possible partner. A pro-business party, the Free Democrats, scraped into the state legislature with 5.1 percent support but won’t be needed to form a coalition.

The CSU has leveraged its strength at the state level to punch above its weight in national politics. In Berlin, the party is one of three in Merkel’s coalition government along with its conservative sister, Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union, and the Social Democrats.

That government has been notable largely for internal squabbling since it took office in March. The CSU leader, Interior Minister Horst Seehofer, has often played a starring role.

Back in Bavaria, a long-running CSU power struggle saw the 69-year-old Seehofer give up his job as state governor earlier this year to Soeder, a younger and sometimes bitter rival.

Seehofer has sparred with Merkel about migration on and off since 2015, when he assailed her decision to leave Germany’s borders open as refugees and others crossed the Balkans.

They argued in June over whether to turn back asylum-seekers at the German-Austrian border, briefly threatening to bring down the national government.

The interior minister also featured prominently in a coalition crisis last month over Germany’s domestic intelligence chief, who was accused of playing down recent far-right violence against migrants.

Seehofer has faced widespread speculation lately that a poor Bavarian result would cost him his job. He told ZDF television his party’s election performance had causes in both Berlin and Munich.

“Of course, I as party leader bear a share of responsibility for this result,” Seehofer said, adding that he was prepared to discuss consequences for Sunday’s outcome, but not immediately.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Saudi Arabia on Sunday threatened to retaliate for any sanctions imposed against it after President Donald Trump said the oil-rich kingdom deserves “severe punishment” if it is responsible for the disappearance and suspected murder of Washington Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi.

The warning from the world’s top oil exporter came after a turbulent day on the Saudi stock exchange, which plunged as much as 7 percent at one point.

The statement was issued as international concern grew over the writer who vanished on a visit to the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul over a week ago. American lawmakers threatened tough punitive action against the Saudis, and Germany, France and Britain jointly called for a “credible investigation” into Khashoggi’s disappearance.

Turkish officials have said they fear a Saudi hit team killed and dismembered Khashoggi, who wrote critically of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The kingdom has called such allegations “baseless” but has not offered any evidence Khashoggi ever left the consulate.

Already, international business leaders are pulling out of the kingdom’s upcoming investment forum, a high-profile event known as “Davos in the Desert,” and the sell-off on Riyadh’s Tadawul stock exchange showed that investors are uneasy.

The exchange dropped by over 500 points, then clawed back some of the losses, ending the day down 264 points, or more than 4 percent. Of 188 stocks traded on the exchange, 179 ended the day with a loss.

“Something this big would definitely spook investors, and Saudi just opened up for foreign direct investment, so that was big,” said Issam Kassabieh, a financial analyst at Dubai-based firm Menacorp Finance. “Investors do not feel solid in Saudi yet, so it’s easy for them to take back their funds.”

In an interview scheduled to air Sunday, Trump told CBS’ “60 Minutes” that Saudi Arabia would face strong consequences if involved in Khashoggi’s disappearance.

“There’s something really terrible and disgusting about that, if that was the case, so we’re going to have to see,” Trump said. “We’re going to get to the bottom of it, and there will be severe punishment.”

But the president has also said “we would be punishing ourselves” by canceling arms sales to Saudi Arabia. The sales are a “tremendous order for our companies,” and if the Saudis don’t buy their weaponry from the U.S., they will get it from others, he said.

In a statement published by the state-run Saudi Press Agency, the kingdom warned that if it “receives any action, it will respond with greater action, and that the kingdom’s economy has an influential and vital role in the global economy.”

“The kingdom affirms its total rejection of any threats and attempts to undermine it, whether by threatening to impose economic sanctions, using political pressures or repeating false accusations,” the statement said.

The statement did not elaborate. However, a column published in English a short time later by the general manager of the Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya satellite news network suggested Saudi Arabia could use its oil production as a weapon. Benchmark Brent crude is trading at around $80 a barrel, and Trump has criticized OPEC and Saudi Arabia over rising prices.

“If the price of oil reaching $80 angered President Trump, no one should rule out the price jumping to $100, or $200, or even double that figure,” Turki Aldakhil wrote.

It’s unclear, however, whether Saudi Arabia would be willing to unilaterally cut production.

Aldakhil added that Saudi arms purchases from the U.S. and other trade could be at risk as well. “The truth is that if Washington imposes sanctions on Riyadh, it will stab its own economy to death, even though it thinks that it is stabbing only Riyadh!” he wrote.

Prince Mohammed has aggressively pitched the kingdom as a destination for foreign investment. But Khashoggi’s disappearance has led several business leaders and media outlets to back out of the upcoming investment conference in Riyadh called the Future Investment Initiative. They include the CEO of Uber, a company in which Saudi Arabia has invested billions of dollars; billionaire Richard Branson; JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Jamie Dimon; and Ford Motor Co. Executive Chairman Bill Ford.

Egyptian Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Counselor Ahmed Hafez, said Egypt is following with concern the repercussions of the case of Khashoggi, and stressed the importance of revealing the truth of the matter through a transparent investigation, while emphasizing the gravity of pre-empting investigations and directing groundless accusations.

Khashoggi has written extensively for the Post about Saudi Arabia, criticizing its war in Yemen, its recent diplomatic spat with Canada and its arrest of women’s rights activists after the lifting of a ban on women driving. Those policies are all seen as initiatives of the crown prince.

PRINCE GEORGE, British Columbia  — A pipeline explosion in British Columbia risks cutting off the flow of Canadian natural gas to Washington, and companies are urging customers to conserve.

The blast Tuesday evening shut down the Enbridge natural gas pipeline about 600 miles northeast of Vancouver.

Doug Stout of FortisBC said Wednesday that 85 percent of the gas his company feeds to homes and businesses is carried by the twinned pipeline that runs from northern British Columbia to the United States border south of Vancouver.

“There is a potential impact on Seattle and north of Seattle,” Stout said.

The damaged Enbridge pipeline connects to the Northwest Pipeline system, which feeds Puget Sound Energy in Washington and Northwest Natural Gas in Portland.

Washington-based Puget Sound Energy urged its 750,000 customers to lower their thermostats and limit hot water use through last Wednesday.

No one was hurt when the fireball lit up the sky near the community of Shelley, British Columbia, and forced about 100 members of the nearby Lheidli T’enneh First Nation from their homes.

Witness Terry Teegee said the blast shook the area at about 5:30 p.m.

“We thought it might have been a train crash or a low-flying jet,” he said.

Zachary Semotiuk said he saw a “huge flash,” followed by a “raging fire,” that was easily visible above the tree line from several kilometers away.

Chief Dominic Frederick with the Lheidli T’enneh First Nation said Enbridge contacted him shortly after the blast.

“They had told me there was gas building up in the underground. For some reason or another the gas had stopped flowing and it built up and it just exploded,” Frederick said.

As many as 700,000 customers in northern British Columbia, the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island could be directly affected by a shortage, Stout said.

Stout urged another 300,000 customers in the Okanagan and southeastern British Columbia, to conserve even though their natural gas comes from Alberta.

Currently Fortis has reserves still in the pipeline south of Prince George, in its liquefied natural gas storage tanks in the Lower Mainland and on Vancouver Island, and there is some gas flowing from Alberta through a pipeline in southern British Columbia, Stout said.

Fortis expected to receive updates on the situation as Transportation Safety Board investigators and National Energy Board inspectors arrived to assess the damage and attempt to determine a cause.

The company will update its customers as soon as it is in a position to offer something new, Stout said.