U.S. Defense Department accepts Boeing 747 from Qatar for Trump’s use. U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has accepted a luxury Boeing 747 jet from Qatar for President Donald Trump to use as Air Force One, the Pentagon said Wednesday, despite ongoing questions about the ethics and legality of taking the expensive gift from a foreign nation.

The Defense Department will “work to ensure proper security measures” on the plane to make it safe for use by the president, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said. He added that the plane was accepted “in accordance with all federal rules and regulations.”

Trump has defended the gift, which came up during his recent Middle East trip, as a way to save tax dollars.

“Why should our military, and therefore our taxpayers, be forced to pay hundreds of millions of Dollars when they can get it for FREE,” Trump posted on his social media site during the trip.

Others, however, have said Trump’s acceptance of an aircraft that has been called a “palace in the sky” is a violation of the Constitution’s prohibition on foreign gifts. Democrats have been united in outrage, and even some of the Republican president’s GOP allies in Congress have expressed concerns.

“This unprecedented action is a stain on the office of the presidency and cannot go unanswered,” said Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York. “Until Americans get transparency on this shady deal, which apparently includes a corrupt plot for Donald Trump to keep the plane at his library after leaving office, I’ll continue to hold all Department of Justice political nominees.”

Schumer has introduced legislation that would prohibit any foreign aircraft from being used as Air Force One and forbid use of taxpayer money to modify or restore the aircraft. But on Wednesday, Republican Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas objected when Schumer asked for a vote, thus blocking it. He did not offer an explanation for his objection.

Critics also have noted the need to retrofit the plane to meet security requirements, which would be costly and take time.

“Far from saving money, this unconstitutional action will not only cost our nation its dignity, but it will force taxpayers to waste over $1 billion in taxpayer dollars to overhaul this particular aircraft when we currently have not one, but two fully operational and fully capable Air Force One aircraft,” said Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill.

She said during a hearing Tuesday that it is a “dangerous course of action” for the U.S. to accept the aircraft from the Qatari ruling family.

Elon Musk’s pullback from politics comes after his last big investment was a flop ...

Wisconsin could go down as billionaire Elon Musk’s last big spend on a political campaign.

And it was a flop.

Musk, the richest person in the world, said Tuesday that he would be spending less on political campaigns. The announcement came as Musk is stepping back from his role in the Trump administration, saying he will spend more time focused on his businesses, and just seven weeks after the candidate he backed in Wisconsin’s Supreme Court race lost by 10 percentage points.

Democrats in the swing state said Musk’s comments show that a party-led effort in this spring’s election, dubbed “ People vs. Musk, ” succeeded in making Musk and his money “toxic.”

“The people have won,” said Wisconsin Democratic Party Chairman Ben Wikler. “The biggest funder in Republican politics is taking his toys and going home.”

Brandon Scholz, a retired longtime Republican strategist in the state, said that at least in Wisconsin, “after that court race he deserves to be labeled as toxic.”

But that doesn’t mean Musk couldn’t spend money on races in the state and nationally again, especially if the stakes are high and his money could make a difference, Scholz said.

“Does he bring with him a lot of baggage? Possibly,” Scholz said. “But over time, maybe not as much.”

Musk’s spending in this year’s Wisconsin Supreme Court race helped make it the most expensive court race in U.S. history. And it came just five months after Musk spent at least $250 million to help U.S. President Donald Trump win, reversing losses in Wisconsin and other battleground states four years earlier.

Musk was all-in on the Wisconsin Supreme Court race, even making a personal appearance in Green Bay the weekend before the election wearing a cheesehead hat — popular with fans of the NFL’s Green Bay Packers — and personally handing out checks for $1 million to supporters. It was an extension of Musk’s high-profile role in the presidential race, where he campaigned alongside Trump and headlined some of his own rallies.

“It’s a super big deal,” he told the roughly 2,000-person crowd in the event center, where hundreds of protesters were rallying against his appearance outside. “I’m not phoning it in. I’m here in person.”

But his appearance — and money — didn’t work.

The candidate Musk backed lost Brown County, the home of Green Bay, by 3 percentage points, going on to lose statewide by more than three times that margin.

After the defeat, Musk has said little publicly about the race and his involvement in it. His popularity has also plummeted.

An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs poll taken two weeks after the Wisconsin court election found that just 33 per cent of adults had a favorable view of the Tesla CEO, down from 41 per cent in December.

Musk’s involvement in the race came at the same time he was the chain-saw-wielding face of the Trump administration’s effort to downsize the federal government.

His Department of Government Efficiency, also known as DOGE, has enacted deep cuts to the workforce and spending, in some cases seeking to shutter entire agencies, but it has fallen far short of its goals for reducing federal spending.

Democratic U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan, of Wisconsin, is one of the most liberal members of Congress and a loud critic of both Trump and Musk.

Pocan is skeptical that Musk truly will back away.

“I don’t believe any of it, first of all,” Pocan said. “This just means they realize how toxic Elon Musk is and the work he did through DOGE.”

Kelda Roys, a Democratic state senator, was also tempered in her excitement over Musk saying he plans to do a “lot less” political spending in the future.

“There’s a ton of other billionaire bros, I’m sure, willing and happy to step up in his place,” Roys said.

Musk could also get involved with future races, but in a much more low-profile way, said Scholz, the Republican.

“In Wisconsin, he had such a huge, huge, huge profile,” Scholz said. “He became the campaign. He became the story.”

Musk spent at least $3 million on the Wisconsin Supreme Court race himself. Musk-backed groups America PAC and a Rebuilding America’s Future spent another $19 million in support of the Republican-backed candidate Brad Schimel. That was part of more than $100 million spent on both sides.

America PAC spent at least $6 million on vendors who sent door-to-door canvassers across the state, according to the nonpartisan Wisconsin Democracy Campaign. It was a reprise of what the group did last fall across the seven most competitive presidential battleground states, including Wisconsin, which were carried by Trump.

In addition to his political contributions, Musk paid three individual voters $1 million each for signing a petition in an effort to goose turnout. Musk also offered to pay $20 to anyone who signed up on his group’s site to knock on doors for Schimel and posted a photo of themselves as proof. His organization promised $100 to every voter who signed the petition against “activist judges” and another $100 for every signer they referred.

Musk himself hosted Schimel on his podcast and cast what was at stake in stark terms.

“A seemingly small election could determine the fate of Western civilization,” Musk said in a social media post on the April 1 election day. “I think it matters for the future of the world.”

Democrats made the race a referendum on both Musk and Trump’s agenda, successfully electing a judge whose victory ensures the Wisconsin Supreme Court will remain under liberal control until at least 2028.

Coincidentally, Musk’s announcement about spending less on political races came just hours after a liberal judge announced her candidacy for the 2026 Wisconsin Supreme Court race.

Wisconsin Appeals Court Judge Chris Taylor is challenging a conservative incumbent justice who sided with Trump in his unsuccessful lawsuit that attempted to overturn his 2020 loss in Wisconsin. The race will be decided in April, months before the midterms in which Democrats hope unease with Trump and Musk will help the party make gains.

Taylor appeared to be taking a similar approach to her campaign that the winning Democratic-backed candidate did this year.

“My campaign is going to be a campaign about the people of this state,” she told The Associated Press, “not about billionaires, not about the most powerful.”

A suicide car bomber strikes a school bus in southwestern Pakistan, killing 5 people. A suicide car bomber struck a school bus in southwestern Pakistan on Wednesday, killing five people — including at least three children — and wounding 38 others, officials said, the latest attack in tense Balochistan province.

The province has been the scene of a long-running insurgency, with an array of separatist groups staging attacks, including the outlawed Balochistan Liberation Army, or BLA, designated a terror group by the United States in 2019.

A local deputy commissioner, Yasir Iqbal, said the attack took place on the outskirts of the city of Khuzdar as the bus was taking children to their military-run school there.

Troops quickly arrived at the scene and cordoned off the area while ambulances transported the victims to hospitals in the city. Local television stations aired footage of the badly damaged bus and scattered debris.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack but suspicion is likely to fall on ethnic Baloch separatists, who frequently target security forces and civilians in the region.

Pakistan’s Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi strongly condemned the attack and expressed deep sorrow over the children’s deaths. He called the perpetrators “beasts” who deserve no leniency, saying the enemy had committed an act of “sheer barbarism by targeting innocent children.”

Officials, who initially reported that four children were killed but later revised the death toll to say two adults were also among the dead, said they fear the toll may rise further as several children were listed in critical condition.

Blaming India

The military also issued a statement, saying the bombing was “yet another cowardly and ghastly attack” — allegedly planned by neighboring India and carried out by “its proxies in Balochistan.”

There was no immediate comment from New Delhi.

Most of the attacks in the province are claimed by the BLA, which Pakistan claims has India’s backing. India has denied such claims.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif expressed his condolences and also blamed India, without providing any evidence to support the claim.

“The attack on a school bus by terrorists backed by India is clear proof of their hostility toward education in Balochistan,” Sharif said, vowing that the government would bring the perpetrators to justice.

Later, Sharif’s office said he is traveling to Quetta, the capital of Balochistan, along with Field Marshal Asim Munir, to meet with the victims of the attack, and to receive a briefing.

Pakistan regularly accuses India, its archrival, for violence at home. These accusations have intensified in the wake of heightened tensions between the two nuclear-armed nations amid a cross-border escalation since last month over the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir, divided between the two but sought in its entirety by each.

That escalation raised fears of a broader war, and during this period the BLA appealed to India for support. India has not commented on the appeal.

A vicious insurgency

Though Pakistan’s largest province, Balochistan is its least populated. It’s also a hub for the country’s ethnic Baloch minority, whose members say they face discrimination by the government.

In one of its deadliest recent attacks, BLA insurgents killed 33 people, mostly soldiers, during an assault on a train carrying hundreds of passengers in Balochistan in March.

And earlier this week, the BLA vowed more attacks on the “Pakistani army and its collaborators” and says its goal is to “lay the foundation for a peaceful, prosperous and independent Balochistan.”

Militant groups are also active in the Balochistan and though it is unusual for separatists to target school children in the province, such attacks have been carried out in the restive northwest and elsewhere in the country in recent years.

Most schools and colleges in Pakistan are operated by the government or the private sector, though the military also runs a significant number of institutions for children of both civilians and of serving or retired army personnel.

In 2014, the Pakistani Taliban carried out the country’s deadliest school attack on an army-run institution in the northwestern city of Peshawar, killing 154 people, most of them children.

#Canada is in discussions to join the U.S. “Golden Dome” missile defence program, according to a spokesperson from the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO).

In a statement to CTV News, the PMO said Canadians gave Prime Minister Mark Carney “a strong mandate to negotiate a comprehensive new security and economic relationship with the United States”.

The statement adds that Carney, his ministers, and their American counterparts are having wide-ranging discussions.

“These discussions naturally include strengthening Norad and related initiatives such as the Golden Dome,” said the PMO statement sent to CTV News.

On Tuesday, U.S. President Donald Trump announced aspects of his continental missile defence shield adding “it automatically makes sense” for Canada to be involved.

“Canada has called us and they want to be a part of it,” Trump said. “So, we’ll be talking to them. They want to have protection also, so as usual, we help Canada.”

According to Trump, the system will be able to intercept missiles launched at North America from the other side of the globe, or from space.

The U.S. president claims the multilayered system will be completed within his term, which ends in 2029, and will cost $175 billion. Tuesday, Trump said his administration would work with Canada to ensure “they’ll pay their fair share”.

“We are dealing with them on pricing. They know about it very much,” Trump said.

The PMO would not comment on how much Canada would be willing to invest in the Golden Dome system.

In March, a senior government source pointed out Carney did announce a $6-billion investment to build an early warning radar system in partnership with Australia. The amount of money had already been outlined in the 2022 plan to modernize the North American Aerospace Defense Command (Norad).

The Liberal election platform also committed to more than $18 billion in spending on national defence. The amount would Canada on track to “exceed our NATO target by the year 2030,” according to policy experts who briefed reporters when the platform was released April 19.

The U.S. president seemed to take notice of Canada’s efforts to increase military spending during Carney’s visit to the White House, saying, “Canada is stepping up the military participation.”

Trump’s “Golden Dome” was a 2024 campaign promise and is based on Israel’s “Iron Dome” defence network designed to intercept short-range rockets and artillery shells with a range of 4 to 70 kilometres.

#EU will provide emergency funds to help keep Radio Free Europe afloat after U.S. cuts.

The European Union agreed Tuesday to provide emergency funds to help keep Radio Free Europe afloat after the Trump administration stopped grants to the pro-democracy media outlet, accusing it of promoting a news agenda with a liberal bias.

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty started broadcasting during the Cold War. Its programs are aired in 27 languages in 23 countries across Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Middle East. Its lawyers have been fighting the administration in court.

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said the bloc’s foreign ministers had agreed to a 5.5-million-euro (US$6.2 million) contract to “support the vital work of Radio Free Europe.” The “short-term emergency funding” is a “safety net” for independent journalism, she said.

Kallas said the EU would not be able to fill the organization’s funding gap around the world, but that it can help the broadcaster to “work and function in those countries that are in our neighborhood and that are very much dependent on news coming from outside.”

She said that she hoped the 27 EU member countries would also provide more funds to help Radio Free Europe longer term. Kallas said the bloc has been looking for “strategic areas” where it can help as the United States cuts foreign aid.

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s corporate headquarters are in Washington and its journalistic headquarters are based in the Czech Republic, which has been leading the EU drive to find funds.

Last month, a U.S. federal judge ordered the Trump administration to restore $12 million that was appropriated by Congress. Lawyers for the service, which has been operating for 75 years, said it would be forced to shut down in June without the money.

In March, Kallas recalled the influence that the network had on her as she was growing up in Estonia, which was part of the Soviet Union.

“Coming from the other side of the Iron Curtain, actually it was (from) the radio that we got a lot of information,” she said. “So, it has been a beacon of democracy, very valuable in this regard.”

Woman accusing Harvey Weinstein of rape describes their complex history. Jurors at Harvey Weinstein ‘s sex crimes retrial heard Monday from a woman who said her consensual relationship with the ex-movie mogul descended into rape.

At times, “he validated me so much,” Jessica Mann said, but when he was told no, “the monster side would come out.”

Mann is the last of three accusers to testify in the case, and the one with arguably the most complicated history with Weinstein. The 73-year-old has pleaded not guilty to all the charges and maintains he never sexually assaulted or raped anyone.

Mann, a cosmetologist and hairstylist, said she met Weinstein at a party in late 2012 or early 2013, when she was 27 and had recently moved to Los Angeles to try to launch an acting career.

She said he took an interest in her ambitions, and they had a few follow-up meetings that alternated between professional talk and boundary-pushing, particularly a request for a massage that Mann said she reluctantly gave the ex-studio boss. Weinstein invited her to an Oscars bash that Mann, new to Hollywood glitz, attended in her high-school prom dress.

She said she wasn’t attracted to Weinstein and initially refused his first sexual advance, but eventually succumbed to him performing oral sex because Weinstein said he wouldn’t let her leave until she let him “do something.” Although she felt confused and “defiled,” she then agreed to consensual encounters with the then-married man, she said.

Partly, she worried about the professional consequences of alienating a powerful producer who had just dangled the prospect of movie roles. She also recalled thinking that “if I was in a relationship, maybe it would feel different,” and that “maybe he did like me.”

“I just thought that maybe it would take the pain away,” said Mann, 39.

In March 2013, she traveled to New York with a friend. After the pals made plans for breakfast with Weinstein, he showed up early and got a room at Mann’s hotel, over her protests, she said.

Weeping and wiping her eyes on the witness stand, she said she went upstairs with Weinstein to try to avoid a public argument and told him, “I don’t want to do this,” but he shoved the door shut as she tried to leave.

After Weinstein demanded she undress and grabbed her arms, she said, she “just gave up.” Mann said he then had sex with her -- after, she believes, injecting himself with an erection-promoting drug that she later found in the bathroom trash.

As she spoke, Weinstein quietly consulted one of his lawyers, then looked ahead of him at the judge’s bench.

Mann told no one about the alleged rape. She said Monday that she doubted she’d be believed and feared reprisals from the well-connected Weinstein.

Over the ensuing months, she nudged him about a potential movie part -- he arranged an audition, which went nowhere -- and told him she appreciated “all you do for me,” according to emails shown to jurors. She also sent him her new phone number, relayed a compliment she’d heard about him, and asked whether he’d be in Los Angeles for her birthday.

“I compartmentalized the part of Harvey that was hurting me,” she said, adding that he had “good sides.” Flattery and friendliness “kept the peace,” she said, while she tried to keep a subtle distance by politely declining some invitations or delaying get-togethers.

She also declined a package his office wanted to send her in summer 2013, according to emails shown in court. The messages didn’t specify the packet’s contents; Mann said it contained cash, and though broke, she “wasn’t for sale.”

Weinstein’s lawyers haven’t yet had their turn to question her. During opening statements last month, defense attorney Arthur Aidala contended that Mann had a “a mutually beneficial relationship” with the former movie producer in hopes of “cutting the line” to an acting career.

Once a Hollywood heavy-hitter, Weinstein became a symbol of sexual misconduct after media reports revealed allegations against him in 2017 and fueled the #MeToo movement.

He was later convicted of various sex crimes in both New York and California. But he’s on trial again because an appeals court found that his New York trial was tainted by prejudicial testimony and overturned that conviction. He’s charged with raping Mann and with forcing oral sex on two other women, separately, in 2006.

The Associated Press generally does not identify people who alleged they have been sexually assaulted unless they agree to be identified. Mann has done so.

U.K. and Iran summon each other’s top diplomats in espionage tit-for-tat. Britain summoned Iran’s ambassador on Monday after charges were filed against three Iranian nationals accused of acting as spies.

The move came the day after Iran summoned a British diplomat to protest what it described as the “illegal and unjustified” detention of an Iranian in the U.K., Iran’s state-run news agency reported.

The tit-for-tat comes as ties between Tehran and London deteriorate.

Iran called the detention of its citizen, who was not identified, a violation of international law and expressed strong dissatisfaction over what it characterized as politically motivated judicial actions, Iran’s state-run news agency reported.

The ministry warned the U.K. against further “unconstructive behavior” that could damage diplomatic relations, IRNA said.

Three men accused of being Iranian spies faced charges in a London court Saturday that they conducted surveillance on and plotted violence against U.K.-based journalists for an Iranian news outlet.

On Monday, Britain summoned Ambassador Seyed Ali Mousavi to the Foreign Office in response to the criminal case.

“The U.K. government is clear that protecting national security remains our top priority and Iran must be held accountable for its actions,” the ministry said in a statement.

When the three men were arrested in the U.K. two weeks ago, police also took four other Iranian nationals into custody on suspicion of preparing a terrorist act in a separate investigation. The four were released from custody Saturday, though counterterror police said that the investigation continues.

Prime Minister Carney says the federal budget will be tabled this fall and the upcoming NATO summit will have ‘budgetary implications.’

Pro-EU centrist in Romania’s tense presidential race takes lead, preliminary data shows.

The pro-European Union candidate in Romania’s critical presidential runoff has won the closely watched race against a hard-right nationalist, nearly complete electoral data shows, in a tense election rerun that many viewed as a geopolitical choice between East or West.

The race pitted front-runner George Simion, the 38-year-old leader of the hard-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians, or AUR, against incumbent Bucharest Mayor Nicusor Dan. It was held months after the cancellation of the previous election plunged Romania into its worst political crisis in decades.

After 10.5 million of 11.6 million votes had been counted, Dan was ahead with 54.32%, while votes for Simion stood at 45.68%, according to official data.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.

BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) -- The pro-European Union candidate in Romania’s tense presidential runoff has taken a clear lead in the polls, nearly complete electoral data shows, in a closely-watched vote against a hard-right nationalist that could determine the geopolitical direction of the NATO member country.

The race pitted front-runner George Simion, the 38-year-old leader of the hard-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians, or AUR, against incumbent Bucharest Mayor Nicusor Dan. It was held months after the cancellation of the previous election plunged Romania into its worst political crisis in decades.

After 10 million of 11.6 million votes had been counted, Dan was ahead with 54.35%, while Simion trailed at 45.65%, according to official data.

Thousands gathered outside Dan’s headquarters near Bucharest City Hall to await the final results, chanting “Nicusor!” Each time his lead widened as more results came in, the crowd, many waving the flags of Europe, would erupt in cheers.
Higher voter turnout than in first round

When voting closed at 9 p.m. (1800 GMT), official electoral data showed a 64% voter turnout. About 1.64 million Romanians abroad, who have been able to vote since Friday at specially set-up polling stations, participated in the vote.

Dan told the media that “elections are not about politicians” but about communities and that in Sunday’s vote, “a community of Romanians has won, a community that wants a profound change in Romania.”

“When Romania goes through difficult times, let us remember the strength of this Romanian society,” he said. “There is also a community that lost today’s elections. A community that is rightly outraged by the way politics has been conducted in Romania up to now.”

As the final votes were still being counted, Ruxandra Gheorghiu told The Associated Press at Dan’s raucous rally in Bucharest that she felt overwhelmed by the result.

“I was so scared that our European force is near the end ΓǪ we are still in Europe and we are not fighting for this right,” she said. “I cannot explain the feeling right now.”

Turnout was significantly higher in Sunday’s runoff and is expected to play a decisive role in the outcome. In the first round on May 4, final turnout stood at 53% of eligible voters.

Romania’s political landscape was upended last year when a top court voided the previous election in which far-right outsider Calin Georgescu topped first-round polls, following allegations of electoral violations and Russian interference, which Moscow denied.

Standing on the steps of Romania’s colossal Communist-era parliament building after polls closed, Simion predicted a significant victory, which he called a “victory of the Romanian people.” Simion said that Georgescu was “supposed to be the president” before last year’s election was annulled. He also called for vigilance against election fraud, but said that overall he was satisfied with the conduct of the vote.

Shortly after 6 p.m., Romania’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Andrei Tarnea said in a post on X that the election was subject to a “viral campaign of fake news” on the Telegram messaging app and other social media platforms, which tried to influence the electoral process and had “the hallmarks of Russian interference.”

Networks of coordinated disinformation have emerged as a pervasive force throughout Romania’s entire election cycle. Romanian authorities debunked the deluge of fake news, Tarnea said.

Simion appeared alongside Georgescu at a Bucharest polling station on Sunday and told reporters that he voted against the “humiliations to which our sisters and brothers have been subjected.”
What’s going on in Romania?

Years of endemic corruption and growing anger toward Romania’s political establishment have fueled a surge in support for anti-establishment and hard-right figures, reflecting a broader pattern across Europe. Both Simion and Dan have made their political careers railing against Romania’s old political class.

Most recent local surveys indicated that the runoff would be tight, after earlier ones showed Simion holding a lead over Dan, a 55-year-old mathematician who rose to prominence as a civic activist fighting against illegal real estate projects.

After voting in his hometown of Fagaras, Dan told reporters that he voted for Romanians “who are quiet, honest, and hardworking, and who have not felt represented for a long time,” and “for strong cooperation with our European partners, not for Romania’s isolation.”

Dan founded the reformist Save Romania Union party in 2016, but later left, and is running independently on a pro-European Union ticket reaffirming Western ties, support for Ukraine and fiscal reform.

Simion’s rhetoric in the lead-up to Sunday had raised some concerns that he wouldn’t respect the outcome if he lost. In the early afternoon, he told reporters that his team was confident in a “landslide victory,” if the election was “free and fair.”

However, he repeated allegations of voting irregularities among Romanian citizens in neighboring Moldova and said that his party members would conduct a parallel vote count after polls close. He told The Associated Press that the ballot so far had proceeded properly.

Adrian Nadin, a 51-year-old musician who supported Georgescu in the previous election, said that he chose Simion.

“A part of Romania prefers conservatism,” he said.

Luminita Petrache, a 32-year-old financial crimes analyst, didn’t want to say who she voted for but described the runoff as a geopolitical choice between East and West.

“It is very important because the next president will be our image in Europe, and (decide) how Romania will evolve in the next five years,” she said. “I hope for changes in Romania in good ways.”
What’s ahead?

The president is elected for a five-year term and has significant decision-making powers in matters of national security and foreign policy. The winner of Sunday’s race will be charged with nominating a new prime minister after Marcel Ciolacu stepped down following the failure of his coalition’s candidate to advance to the runoff.

After coming fourth in last year’s canceled race, Simion backed Georgescu, who was banned in March from running in the election redo. Simion then surged to front-runner in the May 4 first round after becoming the standard-bearer for the hard right.

A former activist who campaigned for reunification with neighboring Moldova, Simion says he would focus on reforms: slashing red tape and reducing bureaucracy and taxes. Still, he insists that restoring democracy is his priority, returning “the will of the people.”

#WASHINGTON, US President Donald Trump wants to hold a meeting with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin as soon as possible, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said.

In an interview with CBS News, the top US diplomat noted that currently, the US and Russian sides must determine when and where such a meeting will take place and its main topics.

"The President has made that offer already publicly. The mechanics of setting that kind of meeting up would require a little bit of work. So I can't say that's being planned as we speak, in terms of picking a site and a date, but the President wants to do it. He wants to do it as soon as feasible. I think the Russian side has also expressed a willingness to do it. And so now, it's just a question of bringing everyone together and figuring out where and when that meeting will happen and what it will be about," he noted.

"Ultimately, one of the things that could help break this logjam, perhaps, the only thing that can, is a direct conversation between President Trump and Vladimir Putin, and he's already openly expressed a desire and a belief that that needs to happen, and hopefully that will be worked out soon as well," Rubio added.

Earlier, Trump wrote on the Truth Social network that he had a phone conversation with Putin planned at 10 a.m. (5 p.m. Moscow time) on May 19. The US president said that he intended to discuss the Ukrainian settlement and trade. Trump added that, following the conversation with a Russian leader, he will speak with Vladimir Zelensky and #NATO leaders.

The most recent phone conversation between Putin and Trump was held on March 18.