Romania’s leftist Social Democratic Party has withdrawn from negotiations to form a pro-European coalition government, extending political turmoil that has gripped the European Union country after a top court annulled a presidential election.

Romania’s pro-European parties agreed to form a majority government made up of groupings that were traditionally on opposite sides and shutting out far-right nationalists who made significant gains in the election on Dec. 1.

Romania’s far-right presidential candidate Calin Georgescu has protested outside a closed polling station against a top court’s unprecedented decision to annul the first round of the vote in which he emerged as the frontrunner.

A top Romanian court has annulled the first round of the country’s presidential election, days after declassified intelligence alleged Russia ran a coordinated online campaign to promote the far-right outsider who won the first round.

Emergency authorities say four people in eastern Romania have been found dead after torrential storms dumped unprecedented rain, leaving hundreds stranded in flooded areas.

The Biden administration has thanked Romania for its president withdrawing from the race to lead NATO, saying the move would help ensure the Western military alliance stays properly focused.

NATO member Romania’s top defense body says the country will donate a Patriot missile system to neighboring Ukraine to help Kyiv in its war against Russia as Moscow’s forces continue to bombard civilian areas and energy infrastructure.

Romania’s president has withdrawn from the race to become NATO’s next secretary general.

Hungary has lifted its veto on Mark Rutte becoming the next head of NATO.

President Joe Biden has hosted Klaus Iohannis, the president of Romania, at the White House.

Several central and Eastern European countries have begun marking the 20th anniversary of the largest expansion of the NATO military alliance when formerly socialist countries became members of the bloc.

Authorities in Romania found a crater on their territory near the border with Ukraine that they say was likely caused by a crashed drone that exploded on impact.

Defense officials in NATO member Romania say they have found new fragments of drones similar to those used by the Russian army near its border with war-torn Ukraine, in the third such finding in the past week.

The discovery of drone debris on Romanian territory this week has left some local residents fearing that the war in neighboring Ukraine could spread into their country, as Russian forces bombard Ukrainian ports just across the Danube River from NATO-member Romania.

A two-day summit in Romania has started in the country's capital bringing together 12 European Union member states situated between the Baltic, Black and Adriatic Seas.

Romania’s defense minister says that pieces, apparently of a drone from Russia’s recent attacks on Ukraine’s port on the Danube River, have been found on the territory of his country.

The leaders of nine central and eastern European countries say NATO allies should aim at further boosting their support for Ukraine and for its aspiration to become a member of the alliance.

European Council President Charles Michel has pledged to continue supporting Ukraine against Russian aggression “for as long as necessary,” adding that EU leaders will “massively ramp up” ammunition production to send to the war-torn country.

The leaders of Hungary, Romania, Georgia and Azerbaijan have finalized an agreement on an undersea electricity connector that could become a new power source for the European Union amid a crunch on energy supplies caused by the war in Ukraine.

The European Union's executive arm is preparing its recommendation on Ukraine’s request to join the EU.

The leaders of seven NATO nations from across Europe have pledged their support for Sweden and Finland’s bids to join the alliance and for providing more weapons to help Ukraine battle Russia.

French President Emmanuel Macron has arrived in Romania to hold bilateral talks and meet with French troops stationed there who are part of NATO’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Nine NATO nations on the alliance’s eastern flank have held talks in Romania ahead of a key NATO summit later this month.

President Joe Biden is set to announce plans to send additional military aid to help Ukraine fight back against the Russian invasion.

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris says Washington’s dedication to the collective defense of NATO is “ironclad” amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent refugee crisis in eastern Europe.

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris is embracing calls for an international war crimes investigation of Russia over its invasion of Ukraine and the bombing of civilians, including a maternity hospital.

The chill of a Cold War hangs over Eastern Europe again.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has paid an official visit to Romania.

Maksim Goldenshteyn's book, “So They Remember,” tells the story of his Holocaust survivor grandparents who languished in Jewish death camps and ghettos in Transnistria during World War II.

Romanian lawmakers on Thursday voted in favor of a new coalition government led by a Liberal former army general, which could usher in an end to a months-long political crisis in the Eastern European nation.

Officials say a fire at a COVID-19 hospital in Romania has killed two people.

Doctor Petruta Filip is working 100-hour weeks at a hospital in Romania’s capital Bucharest which, like hospitals throughout the country, is struggling under an onslaught of coronavirus patients requiring treatment amid worryingly low vaccination rates.

Romania has hit daily records of both coronavirus infections and deaths as the country grapples with an acute virus surge amid alarmingly low vaccination uptake.

Romania's president has nominated centrist party leader Dacian Ciolos to be prime minister after a protracted political crisis culminated last week in the Liberal-led coalition government being ousted in a no-confidence vote.

Hungary has offered neighboring Romania help in caring for coronavirus patients as the country faces an alarming surge of COVID-19 cases and a shortage of intensive care beds.

Authorities say a fire at a hospital in Romania’s port city of Constanta has killed seven COVID-19 patients in the ICU.

The U.N. General Assembly is unfolding this week under a thundercloud of deep pessimism.

Racism, climate change and the world’s worsening divisions will take center stage at the U_N_ meeting of world leaders, a day after Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that the world was "on the edge of an abyss.”.

Moldova’s pro-Western president has been joined in the capital Chisinau by her counterparts from Romania, Poland, and Ukraine to celebrate the country’s three decades of independence from Soviet rule.

Romania’s president told U.S. counterpart Joe Biden that more NATO troops are needed on the alliance’s eastern flank given Russia military maneuvers that feel threatening to many people in the region.

Marchers have taken to the streets in the Romanian capital of Bucharest to protest restrictive measures to fight the spread of COVID-19 even as new daily infections and deaths rose in the European Union nation.

Protesters waving flags march after a deadly fire at a hospital treating COVID-19 patients in Bucharest, Romania, Saturday, Jan. 30, 2021. It was the third hospital fire in Romania in as many months. Not a single new hospital was built in Romania in 31 years," AUR co-president George Simion said, referring to the time since communism ended. AdSimion said the party and its supporters “want the resignation of those responsible,” naming Health Minister Vlad Voiculescu and Department of Emergency Situations head Raed Arafat. We need new hospitals.”Before the fire at the Matei Bals hospital, a November fire in a COVID-19 intensive care unit in north Romania killed 10 people and a fire psychiatric hospital in the same region killed one person in December.

A protester stands outside the presidential palace in Bucharest, Romania, Thursday, June 18, 2020, during a rally against a law banning the teaching of gender studies. Dozens of protesters gathered outside Bucharest's Cotroceni Presidential Palace, to express their opposition to a law banning the teaching of gender studies in the country's schools and universities and call on President Klaus Iohannis to reject signing the bill and send it back to parliament. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)BUCHAREST Dozens of protesters gathered Thursday in Romania's capital to express their opposition to a law banning the teaching of gender studies in the countrys schools and universities. Neighboring Hungary passed similar legislation in 2018, removing accreditation and funding for gender studies at the university level. Hungary recently also banned transgender people from changing their gender on official documents.