Bloomberg Venezuela’s autocratic regime claimed wins in 17 of the 23 states holding governor elections on Sunday, results that defied polls predicting widespread gains by the opposition. The government kept polling stations open hours past the scheduled 6 p.m. closing. Election officials emerged about 10:15 p.m. to announce the results. Votes were still being counted in one state. “This only ...

Bloomberg German Chancellor Angela Merkel heads into potentially laborious talks this week to form a national government weakened after her Christian Democratic Union suffered a defeat in Volkswagen AG’s home state. Three weeks after Merkel’s CDU won the federal ballot, her party posted its worst election result in Lower Saxony since 1959 and lost in the state to the Social ...

At the center of the increasingly bitter dispute between the US and Turkey is a demand by an irate President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that American prosecutors free a Turkish-Iranian gold dealer who’s about to go on trial on money-laundering and fraud charges. The confrontation sharpened, as Erdogan protested in Ankara that the businessman, Reza Zarrab, was being squeezed as a ...