Nayib Bukele, El Salvador's president and self-styled "world's coolest dictator," is due to visit President Trump at the White House on Monday. He's the first Latin American leader to get an official invite to the Oval Office since Trump took office.

Yesterday’s much-discussed debate between Douglas Murray and Dave Smith, hosted by Joe Rogan, almost perfectly epitomises the divide on the political Right. Murray is a neoconservative intellectual and one of the most prominent public defenders of Israel; Smith is an anti-war libertarian comedian and firm anti-Zionist. The conflict in Gaza has provided a clear fault line for their differences to be exposed.

Romania’s top court has upheld a decision to ban presidential election frontrunner Călin Georgescu from standing in a rerun of the vote in May, sparking protest in Bucharest and leaving the country’s far-right parties four days to find a candidate.

Georgescu, an anti-EU, Moscow-friendly populist, surged from almost nowhere to win the first round of the country’s presidential election last year, but the result was annulled by Romania’s top court because of suspected Russian interference.

Romania’s Central Electoral Committee has suspended the application by ultranationalist presidential candidate Calin Georgescu to run in the upcoming elections on Sunday, sparking condemnation and unrest.

The country's electoral committee, BEC, examined the documents filed by Georgescu but decided not to approve the one related to his campaign funding as it did not have the required signature, Euronews Romania reports.

Is Romania the canary in the 'death of democracy' coalmine?

After today's news, that canary - along with 'democracy' - is well and truly dead.

In a stunning turn of events - that we have a feeling could backfire disastrously on the elite establishment - Romania has barred far-right frontrunner Calin Georgescu from running in May’s presidential election, in a move that could worsen the country’s political turmoil.

The Bucharest-based electoral bureau invalidated Georgescu’s candidacy, a spokesman from the bureau said on Sunday. 

We’re days away from a government shutdown. House Republicans unveiled a six-month continuing resolution to keep the government funded as Congress presses on with the budget reconciliation process that will make the Trump tax cuts permanent, secure the border, and finish the wall, among other things. I don’t mind a good shutdown, but we can’t afford one now.