— a key provision for Kyiv.

Claudiu Tufis, an associate professor of political science at the University of Bucharest, says Sunday’s result will likely boil down to turnout, which is often higher in the second round vote. “Turnout will be the key,” he said. He added that Simion lacks adequate experience for high office and fears he would quickly target civil society organizations.“That is a significant problem,” he said. “What is driving him is his focus on identity politics. He has absolutely no experience when it comes to foreign policy ... economy, and no experience when it comes to public administration.”

For energy sector worker Rares Ghiorghies, 36, Simion represents a new form of patriotic conservatism that he feels is needed to overhaul an outdated political class.“I think about freedom, dignity, equal rights for everyone, prosperity, and healthy principles, not what we have now: manipulation, censorship, and incompetence in everything related to the state system,” he said.“We need a role model, a patriot who knows that you can achieve more with your heart than with your brain,” Ghiorghies said.

Tensions in society are being further amplified online, wherehave emerged as a pervasive force through the entire election cycle.

Cyabra, an AI-powered platform that studies online influence campaigns, analyzed hundreds of comments on both candidates’ official X accounts after the first round, and concluded that a large percentage came from fake accounts.

Those posts reached a peak on the day of the election and the day after in what appeared to be a synchronized campaign, the group said, with most of them criticizing Dan using rhetoric such as “foreign puppet,” or praising Simion with slogans such as “Well done, Romania!”This is a photo gallery curated by AP photo editors.

‘s upcoming tour was thrown into question Friday as a British judge ordered him held in custody while facing allegations that he beat a music producer with a bottle in a London nightclub in 2023.Brown, 36, appeared in Manchester Magistrates’ Court to face one count of causing grievous bodily harm and was ordered held until his next hearing June 13 in London — the same day he’s due to take the stage in Frankfurt, Germany, on the third date of his world tour.

Judge Joanne Hirst rejected Brown’s bail request after prosecutor Hannah Nicholls said that the crime was “extremely serious.”Brown was on tour in the U.K. in February 2023 when he launched an unprovoked attack on producer Abe Diaw, striking him several times with a bottle at the Tape nightclub in the swanky Mayfair neighborhood in London, Nicholls said. Brown then chased Diaw and punched and kicked him in an attack caught on surveillance camera in front of a club full of people, she said.