In brief: German chancellor Merkel sworn in for third term

Berlin – Angela Merkel was sworn in Tuesday for her third term as chancellor of Germany, underlining her dominance on the political scene in Europe’s biggest economy.

Merkel, 59, returns to power at a time when the region has yet to get back on its feet fully from its still-unresolved debt crisis, and as Germany’s relations with the United States continue to suffer from the fallout over revelations that American spies tapped her phone and collected electronic data on ordinary Germans.

Her confirmation as chancellor in a vote by lawmakers in the Bundestag on Tuesday was virtually assured after her Christian Democratic Union, or CDU, came in first place by a wide margin when Germans went to the polls in September. But the party fell just short of a majority of seats in the Bundestag, touching off weeks of negotiation with other groups to form a government.

Merkel will preside over a “grand coalition” uniting the conservative CDU with its archrival, the center-left Social Democrats, who finished second in the election. The two parties agreed on an agenda that should see a continuation of Merkel’s tax-friendly policies tempered by some concessions to the Social Democrats, including Germany’s first national minimum wage and some pension increases.

Copter crash kills six U.S. service members

Washington – Six U.S. service members were killed Tuesday when a helicopter crashed in southern Afghanistan, U.S. and NATO officials said. One person on board the aircraft was injured and survived.

A statement issued by the NATO international military coalition said the crash was under investigation and that there was no insurgent activity in the area.

This year, 109 members of the U.S. military have died in Afghanistan, out of a total of 139 members of the coalition. The death toll has dropped significantly since the coalition handed over responsibility for security to Afghan forces last summer and coalition troops are now training and assisting. By comparison, 394 foreign troops died last year, including 297 Americans.

Early Jesuit, Favre, achieves sainthood

Vatican City – Pope Francis has declared the 16th-century Jesuit Pierre Favre a saint, bypassing the Vatican’s typical saint-making procedures to honor the first recruit of Jesuit founder St. Ignatius Loyola.

The announcement was made Tuesday on Francis’ 77th birthday, something of a gift to his Jesuit family for whom Favre is a beloved role model.

Favre, who lived from 1506 to 1546, met Ignatius while the two were college roommates in Paris along with another future Jesuit, Francis Xavier. Favre later was ordained and spent most of his ministry preaching Catholicism in Germany and elsewhere during the Protestant Reformation.

Francis, the first Jesuit pope, recently spoke about the importance Favre had on his life, in particular his message of dialogue with anyone “even with his opponents.”