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Romanian Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu resigned on Monday, a day after a far-right opposition leader won the first round of the presidential election re-run and his own candidate crashed out of the race, Reuters reported.

Ciolacu said his centre-left Socialists would withdraw from the pro-Western coalition - effectively ending it - while cabinet ministers will stay on in an interim capacity until a new majority emerges after the presidential run-off.

Hard-right eurosceptic George Simion decisively swept the ballot on Sunday, with some 41% of votes, and will face Bucharest mayor Nicusor Dan, an independent centrist, in a May 18 run-off. Coalition candidate Crin Antonescu came third.

Although Ciolacu's leftist Social Democrats (PSD) won the most seats in a Dec. 1 parliamentary election, Simion's AUR and two other far-right groupings, one with overt pro-Russian sympathies, won more than a third of the seats to become a clear political force, according to Reuters.

A federal appeals court rejected on Monday a request by U.S. President Donald Trump's administration to allow it to revoke the temporary legal status of hundreds of thousands of Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans living in the United States, Reuters reported.

The Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined, opens new tab to put on hold a judge's order halting the Department of Homeland Security's move to cut short a two-year "parole" granted to the migrants under Trump's Democratic predecessor, Joe Biden.

The administration's action marked an expansion of the Republican president's hardline crackdown on immigration and push to ramp up deportations, including of noncitizens previously granted a legal right to live and work in the United States, according to Reuters.

The administration argued Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem had discretion to categorically end the migrants' status and that the judge's order was forcing the U.S. government to "retain hundreds of thousands of aliens in the country against its will."

The U.S. Department of Education informed Harvard University on Monday that it was freezing billions of dollars in future research grants and other aid until the nation's oldest and wealthiest college concedes to a number of demands from the Trump administration, a senior department official said, Reuters reported.

The move represents the latest salvo from a Trump administration willing to use the power of the federal purse to force institutions, from law firms to universities, to make sweeping policy changes or else lose billions of dollars in federal grants and contracts.

In a letter to Harvard, U.S. Education Department Secretary Linda McMahon said the university must address concerns about antisemitism on campus, school policies that consider a student’s race, and complaints from the administration the university has abandoned its pursuit of “academic excellence” while employing relatively few conservative faculty members.

"This letter is to inform you that Harvard should no longer seek GRANTS from the federal government, since none will be provided," McMahon wrote, according to Reuters.

 U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Monday ordered a 20% reduction in the number of four-star officers, deepening cuts at the Pentagon that have shaken the Department of Defense at the start of President Donald Trump's second term in office, Reuters reported.

Hegseth has long been vocal about how he views the senior-most ranks of the military as too big.

In a memo, the contents of which were first reported by Reuters, Hegseth said there will also be a minimum 20 percent reduction in the number of general officers in the National Guard and an additional 10% reduction among general and flag officers across the military.

"More generals and admirals does not lead to more success," Hegseth said in a video posted on X.

"This is not a slash and burn exercise meant to punish high ranking officers, nothing could be further from the truth," he said, according to Reuters.