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Deborah Cole

@deborahcole.bsky.social
12K followers 1.3K following 557 posts

Berlin correspondent, The Guardian www.theguardian.com/profile/deborah… deborah.cole(at)theguardian.com

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Deborah Cole @deborahcole.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
The far-right AfD has long taken aim at Germany's Holocaust remembrance culture. In the town of Heidenau, they drew the support of Friedrich Merz's CDU in doing so. I talked to residents about how they see this 'unprecedented' shift @theguardian.com www.theguardian.com/world/2026/o...
theguardian.com
The German town where the right has banned new ‘stumbling stones’ for Nazi victims
Heidenau council has halted the laying of Stolpersteine installed to remember individual victims of the Nazis
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Deborah Cole @deborahcole.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
We went on a bus tour to all the sites last year and the only Austrian on board was the driver 🙂
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Deborah Cole @deborahcole.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Most Austrians and Germans have never seen the Sound of Music but a new museum in Salzburg aims to reconcile the movie, the true story and von Trapps' long ambivalent hometown www.theguardian.com/film/2026/se...
theguardian.com
‘A joyful place’: a new museum coaxes Austrians to embrace The Sound of Music
Sixty years after the film’s release, Salzburg is embracing a Hollywood classic it once kept at arm’s length
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Deborah Cole @deborahcole.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
More on another watershed week in German politics on The Guardian's flagship daily news podcast Today in Focus - The Latest with Lucy Hough youtu.be/QXQ_AFndcT0
youtu.be
Rise of the far right in Germany: how worried should we be? | The Latest
YouTube video by Today in Focus
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Deborah Cole @deborahcole.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
A fair question. When referring e.g. to the AfD in Saxony-Anhalt we often write "right-wing extremist" bc it has that designation from the authorities. While the case is still open at the national level, we hold back. We also call the Linke leftwing & place it with the "democratic" parties (not AfD)
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Deborah Cole @deborahcole.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Germany's chancellor acknowledges disastrous state election results but vow to push on is likely to further alienate voters, and senior members of his own party www.theguardian.com/world/2026/s...
theguardian.com
Latest German election humiliation puts Merz on borrowed time as CDU unrest grows
Chancellor acknowledges disastrous state election results but vow to push on is likely to further alienate voters, and his own party
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Deborah Cole @deborahcole.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Thank you Joost, it's since been corrected by our graphics team
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Deborah Cole @deborahcole.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
The referendum came from a grassroots movement with Linke support. Berlin’s govt finally presented a legal framework to make it a reality about a year ago but then slow-walked it. Merz has said he intends to block it, and the SPD, likely to be in a Berlin coalition, opposes it. Watch this space!
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Reposted by Deborah Cole
The Guardian @theguardian.com · 20/09/2026
Friedrich Merz vows to stay in office after CDU ‘disaster’ in German state elections
theguardian.com
Friedrich Merz vows to stay in office after CDU ‘disaster’ in German state elections
Far-right AfD wins in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and leftwing Die Linke on course for victory in Berlin Germany’s embattled chancellor, Friedrich Merz, has vowed to stay in office and fight for future-proofing economic reforms despite heavy losses for his conservatives in two state elections, one to the far right and the other to a leftwing party. Preliminary results indicated Merz’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) tallied just over the 5% threshold to enter the state parliament in the coastal region of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, its worst-ever state score, which he called a “disaster”. Continue reading...
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Deborah Cole @deborahcole.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Another big day to watch in Germany
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Deborah Cole @deborahcole.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
France and Germany among countries with low Pisa scores, which show how well 15-year-olds use school learning in life www.theguardian.com/education/20...
theguardian.com
European education powerhouses rocked by falling scores in global study
France and Germany among countries with low Pisa scores, which show how well 15-year-olds use school learning in life
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Deborah Cole @deborahcole.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
I'd call Eisenhüttenstadt's Hotel Lunik a missed opportunity www.theguardian.com/world/2025/j...
theguardian.com
A free flat for a fortnight: the German city offering perks to fight depopulation
Eisenhüttenstadt, once a socialist vision but now at risk of becoming a ghost town, seeks to ditch its far-right image
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Deborah Cole @deborahcole.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
😍😍😍https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2026/sep/17/socialist-hotels-in-pictures?utm_term=6aacd23ae4567b95bb8bdfa68434bea7&utm_campaign=FirstEdition&utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&CMP=firstedition_email (with a 🌟 for the featured Sevan Writers’ House, Armenia)
theguardian.com
Socialist hotels – in pictures
Socialist Hotels is the first photography book to focus solely on the architecture of hospitality in Eastern Europe and the post-Soviet landscape. These state-constructed buildings were used by visiti...
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Deborah Cole @deborahcole.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Just did a fast-and-furious Guardian reader Q&A on German politics at this febrile month of elections -- thanks so much to all for the engagement, will ride it through the weekend's races and beyond! www.theguardian.com/world/live/2...
theguardian.com
Berlin correspondent Deborah Cole answers reader questions on the future of Germany and Merz – Europe live
The German chancellor’s hold on power has looked increasingly shaky since a shocking election earlier this month
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Deborah Cole @deborahcole.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
With two more states heading to the polls where the AfD is expected to perform well, Merz cancelled a plan to speak at the UN general assembly in New York next week because “his presence is required in Berlin”, a government official said on condition of anonymity www.theguardian.com/world/2026/s...
theguardian.com
German state leaders rally behind Friedrich Merz amid doubts over his future
Chancellor cancels plan to speak at the UN as far-right AfD target further gains in elections this weekend
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Deborah Cole @deborahcole.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
You know it’s serious when German politicians reach for English vulgarities #shitstorm
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Deborah Cole @deborahcole.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
"Get your shit together" is opposition Greens co-leader Felix Banaszak's message to Germany's CDU as speculation rumbles on about replacing Friedrich Merz as chancellor. "We live in such dramatic times that this country just can't afford that right now." live.deutsche-boerse.com/nachrichten/...
live.deutsche-boerse.com
Banaszak: Kanzlerwechsel würde Vertrauenskrise verschärfen
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Reposted by Deborah Cole
The Guardian @theguardian.com · 12/09/2026
Firewall compromised: has Friedrich Merz blown ‘democracy’s last shot’?
theguardian.com
Firewall compromised: has Friedrich Merz blown ‘democracy’s last shot’?
Many fear chancellor is wrong man for the job at a time when Germany’s defences against far right are crumbling
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Reposted by Deborah Cole
German at Portsmouth @germanatportsmouth.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
Firewall compromised: has Friedrich Merz blown ‘democracy’s last shot’? www.theguardian.com/world/2026/s... via @theguardian.com @deborahcole.bsky.social
theguardian.com
Firewall compromised: has Friedrich Merz blown ‘democracy’s last shot’?
Many fear chancellor is wrong man for the job at a time when Germany’s defences against far right are crumbling
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Deborah Cole @deborahcole.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Bruch "clarified" his views on the anti-lockdown movement 5 years ago and publicly rejected the Querdenker and "extremism" www.facebook.com/watch/?v=487...
facebook.com
49K views · 691 reactions | Ihre Videos sorgten bundesweit für Diskussionen. Nun haben Volker Bruch und drei Schauspielkolleginnen ein Interview zur Aktion #allesdichtmachen gegeben. | ZDF heute
Ihre Videos sorgten bundesweit für Diskussionen. Nun haben Volker Bruch und drei Schauspielkolleginnen ein Interview zur Aktion #allesdichtmachen gegeben.
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Deborah Cole @deborahcole.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
The 5th and final season of Babylon Berlin covering Hitler's rise premieres tonight in Germany, dovetailing with a moment of profound political crisis. I talked to the stars and makers of the global hit TV series about some of the chilling parallels www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio...
theguardian.com
Goodbye to Babylon Berlin, the 1920s TV drama that has eerily foreshadowed real-life politics
The long-running drama reaches Hitler’s rise to power in its final season as its creators reflect on the unsettling parallels between Weimar Germany and the present day
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Deborah Cole @deborahcole.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
On til March!
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Deborah Cole @deborahcole.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Rarely seen such crowds at a Berlin exhibition, stretching once around the magnificent Neue Nationalgalerie for Maurizio Cattelan. Read all about it in my Guardian interview with him: www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...
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The Guardian @theguardian.com · 09/09/2026
German chancellor accuses far-right AfD party of seeking ‘ethnic cleansing’
theguardian.com
German chancellor accuses far-right AfD party of seeking ‘ethnic cleansing’
Friedrich Merz says Alternative für Deutschland is ‘dividing our society’ after party won nearly 44% of vote in Saxony-Anhalt state election * Europe live – latest updates Germany’s chancellor, Friedrich Merz, has accused the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) of seeking “ethnic cleansing” with its “remigration” drive, after the nativist party’s seismic weekend victory in a state election. In their first public confrontation since Sunday’s shock outcome in Saxony-Anhalt, Merz said at a raucous parliamentary debate that the AfD would take an axe to one of the pillars of the German economy with a racist campaign of mass deportations. Continue reading...
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Reposted by Deborah Cole
German at Portsmouth @germanatportsmouth.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Anti-AfD protests sweep Germany as the far right closes in on two more states www.theguardian.com/world/2026/s... via @theguardian.com @deborahcole.bsky.social
theguardian.com
Anti-AfD protests sweep Germany as far right closes in on two more states
Alarm that Berlin and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania may fall next after party’s Saxony-Anhalt election victory
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Deborah Cole @deborahcole.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Said with love, Germany, but this is the sole acceptable female honorific in English. Thank you Gloria, and rest in power.
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Regina Schrambling @gastropoda.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Insightful piece on Maurizio Cattelan by @deborahcole.bsky.social that will make you want to go to Berlin www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...
theguardian.com
‘My work has always been serious’: Maurizio Cattelan on his $6m banana, his gold toilet – and bringing Hitler and a pope to Berlin
He is famed for creating a golden loo that was stolen and a $6m banana that was eaten. But, says the sculptor ahead of a major new show in Germany, there’s more to his work than pranks and provocation
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Deborah Cole @deborahcole.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
The long-running drama reaches Hitler’s rise to power in its final season as its creators reflect on the unsettling parallels between Weimar Germany and the present day www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio...
theguardian.com
Goodbye to Babylon Berlin, the 1920s TV drama that has eerily foreshadowed real-life politics
The long-running drama reaches Hitler’s rise to power in its final season as its creators reflect on the unsettling parallels between Weimar Germany and the present day
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Deborah Cole @deborahcole.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
“Berlin’s toughest run” @hilmarschmundt.bsky.social, who knows his way around a foot race, went behind prison walls for this unusual, moving one www.tagesspiegel.de/sport/zehn-k...
tagesspiegel.de
Zehn Kilometer zwischen Stacheldraht und hohen Mauern: Der Gefängnislauf ist Berlins härtestes Rennen
Roher, unverstellter und emotionaler als der Berlin-Marathon: Der jährliche Knastlauf führt Gefangene an ihre Grenzen. Unser Autor durfte mitmachen – unter strengen Sicherheitsvorkehrungen.
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Deborah Cole @deborahcole.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
The Nazis understood that crushing the avant-garde was central to seizing power. 100 years on the AfD is oddly fixated on Bauhaus again. I talked to voters in Saxony-Anhalt agonizing over their choices, and people keeping the Bauhaus spirit alive for a new era www.theguardian.com/world/2026/a...
theguardian.com
The Nazis drove Bauhaus out of town. Now the far right is waging another war against the movement
Poll to take place in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany, where Bauhaus blossomed a century ago – and where AfD is promising ‘patriotic culture policy’ if it wins
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Deborah Cole @deborahcole.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
Newly discovered artworks by the Booker prize-winning author Iris Murdoch – including the only self-portrait she is known to have painted, four surrealist landscape paintings and three sketches of female nudes – will go on display for the first time on Friday www.theguardian.com/books/2026/a...
theguardian.com
Iris Murdoch artworks from secret room go on display – including self-portrait
Second world war paintings and sketches show novelist ‘engaging with her world in a new light’
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Deborah Cole @deborahcole.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
#supporttheguardian support.theguardian.com/eu/contribute
support.theguardian.com
Support the Guardian
Help us deliver the independent journalism the world needs. Support the Guardian by making a contribution.
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Deborah Cole @deborahcole.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
The German energy company RWE has reached a $1.22bn deal with the US government to relinquish its offshore wind leases and instead redirect funds towards fossil fuel investments. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...
theguardian.com
Trump administration to pay German firm $1.22bn to cut offshore wind leases
Agreement with RWE is fifth deal Trump team has made with energy companies, offering payouts to give up projects
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Deborah Cole @deborahcole.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
Germany remains an EU outlier in creating high obstacles to a fresh start for former cancer patients. “You have the right [in other countries] to make plans again as normal: to buy a house, to start a family. Other EU countries have long since sorted this out.” www.theguardian.com/world/2026/a...
theguardian.com
Cancer survivors need protection from future discrimination, say German politicians
Campaigners say people who have had cancer face discrimination in areas including bank loans, adoption of children and insurance
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Reposted by Deborah Cole
German at Portsmouth @germanatportsmouth.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
'A symbol of resistance’: the fight to save a treehouse built on no man’s land next to the Berlin Wall www.theguardian.com/world/2026/a... via @theguardian.com @deborahcole.bsky.social
theguardian.com
‘A symbol of resistance’: the fight to save treehouse built on no man’s land next to Berlin Wall
Supporters fear structure could be torn down as safety hazard and want it to become memorial to postwar foreign labourers in honour of its Turkish creator
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Reposted by Deborah Cole
David Storey @davidstoreygeog.bsky.social · 01/08/2026
Claiming space: @deborahcole.bsky.social with a tale of borders, migration and geopolitics in Berlin www.theguardian.com/world/2026/a...
theguardian.com
‘A symbol of resistance’: the fight to save treehouse built on no man’s land next to Berlin Wall
Supporters fear structure could be torn down as safety hazard and want it to become memorial to postwar foreign labourers in honour of its Turkish creator
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Deborah Cole @deborahcole.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
Peter Bradshaw took the time to big up SOLO SUNNY, "a kind of B-side to Bob Fosse’s Cabaret" by "the second most politically compromised German film-maker in history" www.theguardian.com/film/2026/ju...
theguardian.com
Solo Sunny review – a rueful East German gem of ambition, loneliness and faded dreams
Konrad Wolf’s 1980 drama follows a singer trying to escape the drab compromises of GDR life, capturing the melancholy of thwarted ambition with warmth and wit
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Reposted by Deborah Cole
German at Portsmouth @germanatportsmouth.bsky.social · 26/07/2026
Police hunt for suspect after one killed and 16 injured in attack at Berlin Pride www.theguardian.com/world/2026/j... via @theguardian.com @deborahcole.bsky.social
theguardian.com
Police hunt for suspect after one killed and 16 injured in attack at Berlin Pride
Authorities ask for help finding 21-year-old, identified only as Abdul B, after van ramming in German capital
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Deborah Cole @deborahcole.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
Back on my hometown NPR affiliate talking about this one www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2...
wbur.org
Police station opens at Hitler's birthplace to curb neo-Nazi tourism
Neo-Nazis visit Adolf Hitler's birthplace as a pilgrimage site.
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Reposted by Deborah Cole
The Guardian @theguardian.com · 22/07/2026
Austria opens police station at Hitler birthplace to deter neo-Nazi tourists
theguardian.com
Austria opens police station at Hitler birthplace to deter neo-Nazi tourists
Police unit in Braunau am Inn will tackle narcotics trafficking and help prevent people visiting it as pilgrimage site Austria has opened a police station in the birthplace of Adolf Hitler in an attempt to “neutralise” its toxic legacy, after years of debate over how to stop neo-Nazis visiting it as a pilgrimage site. Hitler was born on 20 April 1889 in a rented flat of the building in the town centre of Braunau am Inn and spent the first weeks of his life there. Continue reading...
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Deborah Cole @deborahcole.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
Gosh this is lovely about how the new Dior campaign featuring Josh O'Connor is triggering a sense of longing in the Iranian diaspora for a bygone 80s aesthetic www.zeit.de/feuilleton/2...
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Deborah Cole @deborahcole.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
Hanover has Niki de Saint Phalle Nana figures on its crosswalk lights ❤️
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Deborah Cole @deborahcole.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
On the 5th anniversary of Germany's devastating floods in the Ahr valley, returning to this piece about one couple's astounding grace in their loss & criticism ofthe country's future preparedness for climate-related disasters www.theguardian.com/world/2026/a...
theguardian.com
How a mother turned her drowned daughter’s passion into a thriving patisserie
Hamburg shop set up in tribute to aspiring pastry chef becomes ‘happy’ pilgrimage site for grieving parents
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Deborah Cole @deborahcole.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
The men, who drugged and secretly filmed their victims, were members of an online gang targeting mainly women of Chinese heritage www.theguardian.com/global-devel...
theguardian.com
Inside the Telegram ‘drug rape’ chat group that shocked Germany
The men, who drugged and secretly filmed their victims, were members of an online gang targeting mainly women of Chinese heritage
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Deborah Cole @deborahcole.bsky.social · 05/07/2026
Dit is Torstraße
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German at Portsmouth @germanatportsmouth.bsky.social · 03/07/2026
Salzburg bans tourists from driving into its historic centre over the summer www.theguardian.com/world/2026/j... via @theguardian.com @deborahcole.bsky.social
theguardian.com
Salzburg bans tourists from driving into historic centre over summer
Day trippers face fines for entering Austrian city’s old town during July and August to curb ‘chaotic traffic situations’
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Deborah Cole @deborahcole.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
"The true miracle of Switzerland’s long economic success is that it avoided the 'Buddenbrooks trap'. In Mann’s novel, successive generations of a prosperous family grow more comfortable, self-focused & emotionally fragile, losing the pragmatism that created their fortune." @josephdeweck.bsky.social
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Deborah Cole @deborahcole.bsky.social · 08/06/2026
Tune in to our flagship podcast as we discuss the capture and trial of Germany's most-wanted woman after 30 years mainly hiding in plain sight, and how the country sees the bloody and divisive legacy of the Red Army Faction/Baader-Meinhof Gang www.theguardian.com/news/audio/2...
theguardian.com
The jailing of Germany’s most wanted woman – podcast
Dancer, dog owner, bank robber. Germany’s most-wanted woman, Daniela Klette, has been sentenced to 13 years in prison after decades on the run. Deborah Cole and Jason Burke report
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Deborah Cole @deborahcole.bsky.social · 04/06/2026
OMG the fraughtest of pillow talk. When I was learning German I always found it amusing and telling that couples in movies would respectfully siez each other but the morning-after scene would feature them wordlessly moving to du
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Deborah Cole @deborahcole.bsky.social · 04/06/2026
Love it!
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