The far-right frontrunner in Romania’s presidential vote has been barred from running in May’s election, in an explosive decision that sparked violence on the streets of Bucharest and came despite pressure from Washington to “listen” to voters’ demands.

After a 10-4 vote, the country’s electoral bureau (BEC) said Sunday it was invalidating Calin Georgescu’s candidacy due to his “failure to comply with the electoral regulations.”

The decision came just over a week after Romanian prosecutors opened a criminal investigation into Georgescu, accusing him of crimes such as attempting to subvert the constitutional order and establishing a fascist organization. When Georgescu left the courthouse where he was questioned last month, he made what many interpreted to be a Nazi salute to his supporters outside.

The BEC ruling will outrage Georgescu’s supporters in Romania and come as a boon to Moscow and members of the Trump administration, who have singled out Romania as a chief agent of democratic backsliding in Europe.

Despite being virtually unknown before Romania’s annulled presidential election last year, Georgescu – a 62-year-old former soil scientist who opposes aid to Ukraine and has expressed sympathy for Romania’s fascist leaders from the 20th century – has won widespread support in the Eastern European country and become a cause célèbre on the American right.

Georgescu won the first round of the election in November, but the country’s constitutional court voided the result after declassified intelligence reports uncovered possible Russian interference in Georgescu’s TikTok-fueled campaign. A re-run is scheduled for May, and polls show that Georgescu was on track to win a plurality of votes.

The decision to annul November’s election had little precedent and handed a propaganda victory to Moscow, which has long dismissed Western democracy as a sham in which elites fix the results to suppress unorthodox views and guarantee an outcome favorable to the liberal establishment.

This rhetoric has also begun to be echoed in Washington. In February, US Vice President JD Vance told a stunned audience at the Munich Security Conference that Romania’s decision to cancel the election “based on the flimsy suspicions of an intelligence agency” was evidence of Europe’s “threat from within.”

“If your democracy can be destroyed with a few hundred thousand dollars of digital advertising from a foreign country, then it wasn’t very strong to begin with,” Vance said.

Georgescu said the BEC’s decision to bar him showed that “Europe is now a dictatorship” and that “Romania is under tyranny.” Elon Musk, who has also expressed support for far-right parties in Germany, said: “This is crazy.”

Georgescu’s supporters descended on the BEC headquarters on Sunday evening, with some throwing Molotov cocktails. At least 13 members of Romania’s Gendarmerie security force were injured in subsequent clashes, Antena 3 reported.

George Simion, chair of the right-wing Alliance for Romania (AUR) party, said in a video on social media that the BEC members who voted against Georgescu’s candidacy should be “skinned in the public square,” according to Antena 3. Other AUR members have since tried to walk back his statement.

If Georgescu chooses to challenge the BEC’s decision before a Monday evening deadline, Romania’s constitutional court would then consider his appeal.

A fake plan to attack on a Sydney synagogue using a caravan of explosives was fabricated by an organized crime network in order to divert police resources, Australian police said on Monday.

Authorities in January found explosives in a caravan, or trailer, that could have created a blast wave of 40 meters (130 feet), along with the address of a Sydney synagogue.

But police on Monday said the discovery was part of a “criminal con job,” with the ease with which the caravan was found along with the lack of a detonator suggesting there was never any intent to attack Jewish targets.

“The caravan was never going to cause a mass casualty event but instead was concocted by criminals who wanted to cause fear for personal benefit,” Krissy Barrett, the Australian Federal Police’s Deputy Commissioner for National Security, told a news conference.

“Almost immediately, experienced investigators… believed that the caravan was part of a fabricated terrorism plot – essentially a criminal con job.”

Police are yet to make any arrests in relation to the planning of the fabricated plot, but have gone public with the information in order to provide comfort to the Jewish community in Sydney, Dave Hudson, New South Wales Police Deputy Commissioner, told the news conference.

“It was about causing chaos within the community, causing threat, causing angst, diverting police resources away from their day jobs, to have them focus on matters that would allow them to get up to or engage in other criminal activity,” Hudson said.

Police are investigating a suspect involved in an organized crime network, he added.

Australia has suffered a spate of antisemitic attacks in recent months, with homes, schools, synagogues and vehicles targeted by vandalism and arson, drawing the ire of the country’s traditional ally Israel.

A blonde whippet from Italy with soulful eyes and tiger-like markings won the overall prize at Crufts, the world’s biggest dog show, on Sunday.

Miuccia, who is 4 years old, became the first Italian dog to win the coveted Best in Show prize at the event in Birmingham, England – an accolade that left her handler, Giovanni Liguori, overwhelmed with emotion.

“It’s really a dream come true, I am truly overwhelmed. Miuccia performed her best, I felt her very relaxed on the leash, so I’m super-, super-happy,” Liguori told British broadcaster Channel 4 afterward.

“I absolutely adore her, she’s fantastic, the sweetest dog, she always wants to be super-close to me and that’s the most important thing. It’s incredible, it’s amazing, as Italians we are super-proud.”

Miuccia became the fourth whippet to win the prize and saw off competition from more than 18,000 dogs gathered at Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre for four days of competition.

A Tibetan Mastiff from Romania named Viking finished in second place, becoming the first of his breed to make it to that stage of the competition.

First held in 1891, Crufts has become one of the most famous international shows of its kind, attracting dogs from all over the world. Around six times as many dogs compete at Crufts as at the Westminster Dog Show, the famed US competition held in New York every year.

Those dogs competing for the Best in Show award qualify for the final if they win one of the seven preliminary rounds that come before it, where they are grouped with other similar dogs.

And as well as the famous dog-showing competition, there are opportunities for dogs to showcase their agility and obedience skills.

An oil tanker and a cargo ship have collided off the northeastern coast of England, causing a huge fire and prompting an emergency response from the British coastguard.

The coastguard said it has sent a helicopter and lifeboats from nearby towns, as well as “vessels with fire-fighting capability,” to respond to the incident.

The Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) said it had sent four lifeboat crews to respond the incident and that it was aware of “reports that a number of people had abandoned the vessels following a collision and there were fires on both ships.”

The incident is believed to involve a US-flagged tanker called the Stena Immaculate, and a container ship called the Solong – which is sailing under the flag of Madeira, an autonomous region of Portugal – according to the ship tracking tool VesselFinder.

The Stena Immaculate, which is managed by the United States logistics firm Crowley, is part of a fleet of 10 tankers involved in a US government program to supply its military with fuel. The Department of Defense’s “Tanker Security Program,” according to Crowley, “ensures a commercial fleet can readily transport liquid fuel supplies in times of need.”

A flurry of high-speed ships and a tugboat were seen moving towards the site of the collision at the time of the coastguard’s rescue operation, real-time data from VesselFinder showed.

The Solong left the Scottish port of Grangemouth on Sunday evening and was headed for Rotterdam, the Netherlands, according to VesselFinder. The Stena Immaculate was at anchor off the coast near the city of Hull after traveling from the Greek port of Agioi Theodoroi last month.

The alarm was raised at 9:48 a.m. local time (5.48 a.m. ET) and the incident “remains ongoing,” the coastguard said.

“The current focus is on the firefighting and search and rescue operation. In due course a full marine casualty investigation report should be submitted to the International Maritime Organization,” it said.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Russia has revoked the accreditation of two British diplomats over alleged intelligence activities, the Federal Security Service (FSB) announced on Monday, the latest in a series of tit-for-tat diplomatic rebukes that was quickly dismissed by London as “baseless.”

The men “intentionally provided false information” when they received permission to enter Russia, which violated Russian law, and the service discovered “signs of carrying out intelligence and subversive work by the said diplomats that threatens the security of the Russian Federation,” an FSB statement said.

The pair were ordered to leave Russia within two weeks. The Russian Foreign Ministry summoned a representative of the British embassy today and a “strong protest” was expressed to him, it said.

“A warning was also made that if London escalates the situation, the Russian side will give a decisive ‘mirror’ response,” the Russian ministry’s statement said.

But Moscow and London have been trading diplomatic barbs for years, particularly since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 poisoned relations between the two countries.

Russia expelled several British diplomats last year: in September it sent six home, accusing them of spying, and in November it returned a further diplomat after it “identified signs of his conducting intelligence and subversive work.” In each case, Britain has dismissed the allegations.

More broadly, Russia claimed last year that Britain’s Foreign Office had transformed since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine into a body whose “main task is to inflict a strategic defeat on our country.”

And it has banned hundreds of British political and media figures from entering the country.

Russia often makes diplomatic moves at crucial junctures in the war in Ukraine. This week, a Ukrainian delegation will travel to Saudi Arabia to meet with US counterparts to negotiate an end to the conflict; Britain recently hosted a European summit aimed at finding a path forward that Kyiv and Europe can agree on.