German leadership candidate talks security amid party woes

BERLIN (AP) — The struggling center-right candidate to succeed German Chancellor Angela Merkel is touting his party’s law-and-order and security credentials as he tries to turn around disappointing polls, questioning his left-leaning rival’s stance toward the police and the military. Armin Laschet has been tapped by Merkel’s center-right Union bloc to succeed her after 16 years in office. But he again faced questions on Friday about tensions in his own ranks as the Sept. 26 parliamentary election nears. Recent polls show the Union trailing the center-left Social Democrats, who have been helped by the relative popularity of their candidate, Finance Minister Olaf Scholz.