MARTIN MEISSNER

Police with machine guns secures a Eurovision square in the city center during the 69th Eurovision Song Contest week in Basel, Switzerland, Friday May 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)
AP PHOTOS: Eurovision performers gear up for grand final with sparkles and songs
The Swiss city of Basel played host this week to competitors representing 37 countries.
 
Miriana Conte from Malta performs the song "SERVING" during the second semi-final of the 69th Eurovision Song Contest, in Basel, Switzerland, Thursday, May 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)
AP PHOTOS: Eurovision final lineup is set after second semi-final
 
Red Sebastian from Belgium performs the song "Strobe Lights" during the dress rehearsal for the first semi-final of the 69th Eurovision Song Contest, in Basel, Switzerland, Monday, May 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)
AP PHOTOS: The Eurovision Song Contest is back
The contest is a week of power pop and outrageous outfits that culminates in the final of the 69th Eurovision Song Contest on Saturday night.
 
Hosts Hazel Brugger, left and Sandra Studer, on stage during the first semi-final of the 69th Eurovision Song Contest, in Basel, Switzerland, Tuesday, May 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)
10 acts win a place in the Eurovision final but 5 are sent home as the music contest heats up
Competition in the Eurovision Song Contest has kicked off with the first of two semifinals. Ten acts from among 15 countries that performed were voted through by voters to the final of the pan-continental music extravaganza.
 
Wild horses graze in a meadow near the city of Duelmen, Germany, where the herd lives in almost unmanaged feral conditions, Saturday, April 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)
AP PHOTOS: A herd of wild horses with origins in the 14th century still roams the German countryside
The herd is known as the Dülmener Wildpferde in German, or the wild horses of Duelmen.
 
A woman looks at candles at the schoolyard of the Joseph-Koenig high school in Haltern, Germany, ten years after 16 pupils and two teachers of the school died in the Germanwings crash in the French Alps, Monday, March 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)
Families and German town mark the 10th anniversary of the Germanwings crash in the French Alps
Victims’ relatives have traveled to the scene in the French Alps of the crash of Germanwings Flight 9525 10 years ago while hundreds of people marked the anniversary in a German town that was home to an 18-strong school group on board the plane.
 
iolanda of Portugal perform the song Grito during the first semi-final at the Eurovision Song Contest in Malmo, Sweden, Tuesday, May 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)
The Eurovision Song Contest kicked off with pop and protests as the war in Gaza casts a shadow
Competition in the 68th Eurovision Song Contest kicked off Tuesday in Sweden. The war in Gaza is casting a shadow over the sequin-spangled pop extravaganza.
 
Germany, France renew friendship treaty, warn of nationalism
 
German forest standoff: Police clear protester tree homes
German police forcibly removed protesters from tree houses as they sought to free the way for parts of an ancient forest to be cleared next month for new coal strip mining.
 
AP PHOTOS: German wranglers corral wild stallions
The Merfelder Bruch reserve at Duelmen in western Germany, north of the densely populated Ruhr industrial region, is the last of what were once many areas where wild horses could roam. Documents mention wild horses there as far back as 1316, and the dukes of Croy set aside the reserve for them in th