Constitutional Court says Zoran Milanovic cannot take up PM post because he did not first step down as president.

Croatia’s top court has ruled that President Zoran Milanovic, who had campaigned to become prime minister before this week’s parliamentary elections, may not head the new government.

“The president has been warned in time that he cannot participate in the campaign but that he must [first] resign. Now it is over. He can no longer be a prime minister-designate,” Constitutional Court President Miroslav Separovic said at a news conference on Friday.

“Everyone is obliged to adhere to the constitution and the law,” he added.

Croatia held parliamentary elections on Wednesday, in which the ruling conservative Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) won the most seats but not enough to form a government alone.

The vote was held after a bitter campaign between longtime political foes – the conservative incumbent, Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic, and the left-wing populist Milanovic.

For months, Plenkovic and his Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) party seemed poised for an easy victory that would secure his third term as premier.

But in mid-March, Milanovic, who tops opinion polls, made the shock announcement that he would challenge Plenkovic and become the candidate for the Social Democrats.

Milanovic dissolved parliament on March 18, triggering this week’s snap election in the European Union member state of 3.8 million people. He said he would run for prime minister and resign only after winning the polls.

The Constitutional Court then immediately warned him that he could only stand in the elections if he first stepped down as president.

But Milanovic ignored the warning and campaigned across the country, accusing Plenkovic of leading the “most corrupt government in Croatia’s history”.

Corruption has long been the Achilles heel of the HDZ, which has been in power most of the time since Croatia’s 1991 independence from Yugoslavia.

The HDZ won 61 seats in the 151-member assembly, and a centre-left coalition led by the Social Democratic Party (SPD) won 42. The nationalist, right-wing Homeland Movement party came third with 14 seats, making it a likely kingmaker.

‘Preparation for coup d’etat’

Al Jazeera’s Marina Barukcic, reporting from Zagreb, said President Milanovic’s next move was unclear after the court’s verdict.

“He believes that the Constitutional Court’s decision is a preparation for a coup d’etat led by Prime Minister Andrej Milanovic,” she said.

Barukcic said the president promised to bring back the will of the people to the state.

Plenkovic said on Thursday that it would be known “very soon” with whom the party would form a new parliamentary majority.

The SDP was also trying to cobble together a majority although its task appears more difficult.

Croatia has a parliamentary democracy in which the prime minister and his cabinet set all major policies. The president nominates the prime minister based on election results, may dissolve parliament and acts as the head of the armed forces with some say in foreign policy.

Final election results are not expected until next week because a rerun is needed in two polling stations after irregularities were recorded.

NEW YORK (AP) — Could there be a Taylor Swift new album rollout without a few additional surprises?

No.

On Friday, the pop star released her 11th album, “The Tortured Poets Department,” an amalgamation of her previous work and reflecting the artist who — at the peak of her powers — has spent the last few years re-recording her life’s work and touring its material, filtered through synth-pop anthems, breakup ballads, provocative and matured considerations.

But that was midnight. At 2 a.m. Eastern, she released “The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology,” featuring 15 additional songs.

“I’d written so much tortured poetry in the past 2 years and wanted to share it all with you, so here’s the second installment,” Swift wrote in an Instagram caption. “And now the story isn’t mine anymore… it’s all yours.”

The songs are a natural continuation of the first half of the album; many return to her “evermore” and “folklore” sound, with an assist from her collaborator Aaron Dessner.

This is not Swift’s first time surprising her fans, and certainly not her first time doing so with a surprise album release. A few months after “folklore” was released in 2020, she announced “evermore” would arrive at the midnight the same day. And speaking of midnight, she dropped a “3am” edition of “Midnights” featuring seven new tracks in 2022 a handful of hours after the original release.

Iranian nuclear sites are “fully safe” and have not been impacted by Israeli strikes, the country’s regime says.

Israel carried out limited strikes on areas of Iran early Friday in retaliation for Tehran firing a barrage of missiles and drones at Israel last Saturday.

The region surrounding the city of Isfahan — home to the country’s “nuclear energy mountain” — was among the areas targeted in the strike.

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Isfahan is home to Iran’s Uranium Conversion Facility and three research reactors. The country’s underground Natanz enrichment site is also in the region.

Iranian state media stated following the attack that the nation’s atomic sites were “fully safe” and not struck by the missiles.

“The explosion this morning in the sky of Isfahan was related to the shooting of air defense systems at a suspicious object that did not cause any damage,”  Iranian army commander Gen. Abdolrahim Mousavi said.

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The International Atomic Energy Agency, a United Nations affiliate watchdog organization, later confirmed “there is no damage to Iran’s nuclear sites.”

The agency said it “continues to call for extreme restraint from everybody and reiterates that nuclear facilities should never be a target in military conflicts.”

Details surrounding the intended target of the strike – if there was one – were not immediately available, but Fox News was previously able to confirm the target was “not nuclear or civilian.”

Vehicles drive past an anti-Israeli banner showing missiles being launched in a square in downtown Tehran, Iran. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

A senior Iranian official allegedly told Reuters that Iran has no plans to immediately respond to the Israeli strike, which was described differently in Iranian state media. The explosions heard in Isfahan were allegedly a result of the country’s air defense systems activating and not a missile attack, the official told Reuters.

Former Israel Defense Forces spokesman Jonathan Conricus wrote on X that while Iran appears to downplay the strike, he “think[s] they’ve gotten the message.”

Fox News Digital’s Bradford Betz, Jennifer Griffin and Elizabeth Pritchett contributed to this report.