What is troubling young people?

The cannabis law came into force yesterday. Adults are now allowed to smoke weed - but only in public if they keep their distance from children, young people, daycare centers, schools and playgrounds.

One thing that has puzzled me for a long time in the discussions about partial legalization: it has always been about whether cannabis should be legalized at all, since consumption has been proven to damage the brains of teenagers and even young adults. You can ask this question, but actually a further question is crucial: Why an increasing number of young people are turning to this drug.

It is said that parents today, on average, live in much greater harmony with their children than was usual in earlier times.

But something seems to be missing from the young people, something seems to be weighing on them, they seem to have to prove themselves, otherwise they wouldn't take these risks. But what is it? The aftermath of the pandemic? The course of the world? The education system? And: Can and should politics do something?

  • More background: The bag turnaround 

The anger shows itself again

Protests against the right-wing conservative Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have also been announced for today and tomorrow in Israel. Tens of thousands of people took to the streets on Sunday.

The demonstrators are calling for the government to resign, new elections and a quick agreement to release the hostages held by Hamas.

Israeli flags are often seen at the demonstrations. The demonstrators apparently want to show that Netanyahu does not stand for the entire country, nor for the policies that they themselves want.

It is a signal internally, against one's own government. And it is a sign to the outside world. Far too often, in international debates about the war in the Middle East, Netanyahu's interests are equated with the interests of the entire country.

  • More background: On the street against Bibi

The defeatable one

Almost a year ago, in the presidential elections, things weren't looking good for Recep Tayyip Erdoğan: there was the earthquake, there was the economic crisis, there was inflation. But he won.

That's why it wasn't actually expected that his Islamic-conservative AKP would perform poorly in the local elections in Turkey. But for the first time since its founding in 2001, it became only the second strongest force. The opposition party CHP has surprisingly become the strongest force.

“This is not the end for us, but a turning point,” said Erdoğan, acknowledging – unusually humbly – his party’s losses.

My colleagues Şebnem Arsu, Anna-Sophie Schneider and Özlem Topçu report from Istanbul and Hamburg on the elections and their consequences. Erdoğan's aura of invincibility has been broken, this is how they assess the outcome: "There are now serious competitors from the opposition on the political stage who do not win elections by chance or just once," they write.

With the local elections, the voters also and above all sent a signal against the government in Ankara. They are disappointed with Erdoğan, who, one year after his re-election as president, has failed to fulfill his election promises. My colleagues’ conclusion: “Turkish democracy is (still!) alive.”

  • The full story here: Four lessons from Turkey's elections 

Read the current SPIEGEL editorial here

  • This is how you lose the battle for the brightest minds:

    Bettina Stark-Watzinger wanted to improve the working conditions for young researchers. But a new law does not fulfill the minister's central promise. 

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Today's starting question: Which of the following politicians has already been a candidate for chancellor?

Winner of the day...

...is the Icelandic-Danish art world star Ólafur Elíasson. Today the unveiling of the window group he designed in Greifswald Cathedral is the subject of a press conference there. The windows will then be inaugurated on April 7th. Elíasson's design is considered a homage to the Greifswald artist Caspar David Friedrich, whose 250th birthday is being celebrated this year.

It is interesting that contemporary artists also – and especially – like to design church windows. When I have a few moments left at Cologne Central Station to catch the next train, I quickly go over to Cologne Cathedral to look at the windows there. These were designed by the most important living German artist Gerhard Richter and were inaugurated in 2007.

Even today's architects repeatedly reveal their weakness for churches. I remember how my now deceased colleague Mathias Schreiber and I traveled to Düsseldorf 26 years ago to meet the architect Christoph Ingenhoven for a SPIEGEL interview (Ingenhoven, the poor guy, was in the competition for the construction of Stuttgart at the time 21 won - the station is still not finished).

On the way to the interview, my colleague said to me: "If you ask architects what they would most like to build, they usually say: a church."

And so it happened. Actually. My colleague asked the question, Ingenhoven, a specialist in functional buildings, answered as expected and explained: “Because a church – if we apply secular values ​​– is purposeless. Creating such a spiritual, mythical space is very appealing.«

  • Gerhard Richter declares church windows to be his final major work

The latest reports from the night

  • International helpers from World Central Kitchen killed in Israeli airstrike:

    A World Central Kitchen team was hit during Israeli shelling in the Gaza Strip. Five people died - including helpers from Poland, Australia and Great Britain.

  • Man contracts bird flu from dairy cows:

    Transmission of the H5N1 virus to humans has been recorded for the second time in the USA. However, the patient's symptoms are apparently manageable.

  • Trump's Truth Social shares lose more than a billion US dollars in value:

    Truth Social's IPO made Donald Trump around four billion US dollars richer in one fell swoop - on paper. But the first setback came on Easter Monday.

I would particularly like to recommend this story to you today:

New heating law:

gas heating or heat pump – which is cheaper? The federal government is funding heat pumps with a lot of money. But many property owners continue to rely on fossil fuels. New evaluations show which variant is worth it in the long term.

I wish you a good start to the day.

Yours, Susanne Beyer, author of the editor-in-chief