Independent politician Yekaterina Duntsova wanted to run on a platform to end the war with Ukraine.

But the electoral commission voted unanimously to reject her candidacy three days after her application, citing 100 "mistakes" on her form.

Ms Duntsova said she would appeal the decision at the Supreme Court.

The commission said 29 people have so far filed to run for the presidency. But after today's decision, Mr Putin remains the only candidate to be able to register as a candidate.

Kelsey Hatcher, 32, delivered one daughter on Tuesday, and a second on Wednesday, at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Hospital.

Announcing the arrival of her "miracle babies" on social media, Ms Hatcher hailed the medics as "incredible".

The girls are described as fraternal twins - with rare separate birthdays.

Hatcher said the family was now back at home and could "enjoy the holidays". She had previously expected a Christmas due date.

The mother was told at age 17 she had a double uterus (uterus didelphys) - which the UAB described as a rare congenital anomaly affecting 0.3% of women.

And the odds of becoming pregnant in both uteri - a dicavitary pregnancy - were even slimmer, at "one in a million", according to the UAB.

When Shawn Murphy’s wife died in 2009 after a botched gallbladder surgery, he presumed the doctor who performed the operation would be forced out of medicine for good.

Dr. Pachavit Kasemsap, a former Air Force surgeon, had cut Loretta Murphy’s aorta during that common procedure, according to a database of malpractice payments kept by Florida insurance regulators. She never left the hospital and died just shy of her 40th birthday. Shawn Murphy was left to raise their two daughters, then 13 and 17, on his own.

During the weeks that Murphy prayed for his wife to recover and the months that he fought Kasemsap in circuit court in Brevard County, Florida, he didn’t know that other families had complained that their loved ones had suffered under the same doctor’s care.

Kasemsap has settled five malpractice cases for a total of $3 million, according to the Florida malpractice payment database. That includes $1 million paid to the Murphy family. In one of the cases Kasemsap settled, a patient said the doctor negligently stapled and stitched her rectum to her vagina. Kasemsap denied doing that, and in legal filings in all five cases, the doctor denied that he was negligent.

The doctor’s LinkedIn profile says his last job as a surgeon ended in December 2012, months before he settled the last of those five cases. But there was one industry ready to welcome him regardless: health insurance.

A federal judge is set to hear arguments Dec. 19 over the Capitol Complex Improvement District Court, which is scheduled to be created Jan. 1.

The new court would be led by a state-appointed judge and prosecutors, and it would be the equivalent of a municipal court, handling misdemeanor cases. Municipal judges and prosecutors in Mississippi are typically appointed by local elected officials, but legislators who created the CCID Court said it was part of a package to fight crime.

The Justice Department says the new court would continue Mississippi’s long history of trying to suppress Black people’s right to participate in government.

“Just like many past efforts to undermine Black political power, (the law) singles out the majority-Black City of Jackson for loss of local control of its judicial system and ability to self-govern and enforce its own municipal laws,” wrote Kristen Clarke, assistant attorney general for the department’s Civil Rights Division, and Todd Gee, the U.S. attorney for south Mississippi, in a Dec. 5 federal court filing.

The unanimous verdict reached Monday came after just three hours of deliberation following a four-week trial revolving around a lucrative payment system within Google’s Play store. The store is the main place where hundreds of millions of people around the world download and install apps that work on smartphones powered by Google’s Android software.

Epic Games, the maker of the popular Fortnite video game, filed a lawsuit against Google three years ago, alleging that the internet powerhouse has been abusing its power to shield its Play Store from competition in order to protect a gold mine that makes billions of dollars annually. Just as Apple does for its iPhone app store, Google collects a commission ranging from 15% to 30% on digital transactions completed within apps.

Apple prevailed in a similar case that Epic brought against the iPhone app store, but the 2021 trial was decided by a federal judge in a ruling that is under appeal at the U.S. Supreme Court.

But the nine-person jury in the Play store case apparently saw things through a different lens, even though Google technically allows Android apps to be downloaded from different stores — an option that Apple prohibits on the iPhone.

Just before the Play store trial started, Google sought to avoid having a jury determine the outcome, only to have its request rejected by U.S. District Judge James Donato. Now it will be up to Donato to determine what steps Google will have to take to unwind its illegal behavior in the Play Store. The judge indicated he will hold hearings on the issue during the second week of January.

The figures - gathered by a network of Afghan veterans - reveal the scale of what one former UK general calls a "betrayal" and a "disgrace".

The soldiers fled to Pakistan, which now says it will expel Afghan refugees.

The UK says it has brought thousands of Afghans to safety.

Gen Sir Richard Barrons, who served the British Army in Afghanistan over 12 years, told BBC Newsnight that the failure of the UK to relocate these soldiers "is a disgrace, because it reflects that either we're duplicitous as a nation or incompetent".

"Neither are acceptable," he said. "It is a betrayal, and the cost of that betrayal will be people who served with us will die or spend their lives in prison."

TV traffic reporter Leslie Horton has developed a thick skin over the years because of nasty feedback from viewers, but she unleashed a viral smackdown last week after she says one of them "crossed my line."

The usually unflappable host, who has been at Global Calgary since 1995, was about to give a live report on the morning show when she decided to read out a message she received during a break.

"I'm just gonna respond to an email that I just got saying, 'Congratulations on your pregnancy. If you're gonna wear old bus-driver pants, you have to expect emails like this,"' Horton said.

"So thanks for that," she responded. "No, I'm not pregnant. I actually lost my uterus to cancer last year. And this is what women of my age look like. So if it is offensive to you, that is unfortunate.

"Think about the emails that you send."

The former New York City mayor has already been found liable in the defamation lawsuit brought by Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, who endured threats and harassment after they became the target of a conspiracy theory spread by Trump and his allies. The only issue to be determined at the trial — which will begin with jury selection in Washington’s federal court — is the amount of damages, if any, Giuliani must pay.

The case is among many legal and financial woes mounting for Giuliani, who was celebrated as “America’s mayor” in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attack and became one of the most ardent promoters of Trump’s election lies after he lost to President Joe Biden.

Giuliani is also criminally charged alongside Trump and others in the Georgia case accusing them of trying to illegally overturn the results of the election in the state. He has pleaded not guilty and maintains he had every right to raise questions about what he believed to be election fraud.

The sharp slide in turnout since the last such election in 2019 comes after Beijing imposed a sweeping national security law that has been used to clamp down on dissent, and overhauled the electoral system to shut out democrats and other liberals.

"It can be seen that everyone has begun to feel that the election has no meaning," said Lemon Wong, one of the few remaining democrats still involved in local politics.

"Even pro-establishment supporters are asking themselves why they need to vote because it's all the same."

The previous lowest turnout was 35.8% in 1999. Four years ago at the last such election during Hong Kong's mass pro-democracy protests, a record 71% turnout brought about a landslide victory for the democratic camp in a fiercely contested poll.

The poll was conducted in late October by Aurora Strategies Global, which is headed by Liberal strategist Marcel Wieder, who The Globe and Mail once labelled a “dirty-tricks man” for his use of manipulative tactics.

His firm did not disclose that the poll was done on behalf of the Israeli consulate in its news release or the poll’s full text, a move that flies in the face of conventions set out by the Canadian Research Insights Council, which the major polling agencies in the country follow.

Deborah Cowen, a professor of geography and planning at the University of Toronto, a member of the Jewish Faculty Network, and a former fellow of the Trudeau Foundation called the poll “outrageous.”

“The Israeli state is essentially engaging in covert operations to craft what was meant to pass as ‘Canadian public opinion,’ in an attempt to manufacture support for their indefensible attacks on civilian life in Gaza.”

Smith was imprisoned at the time of the riot after being convicted of attempted murder in the shooting of a University of South Carolina student. That conviction was overturned by the state Supreme Court three years ago. He’s been held since then at a Columbia detention center.

"You must be a legal resident of Iowa and the precinct you live in and bring a photo ID with you to participate," the state Republican party said on Friday in a post on the social media platform X.

The party is scheduled to hold local gatherings, known as the Iowa Caucus, on Jan. 15 in which participants will vote for their choice for the Republican candidate to run in November’s presidential election. U.S. President Joe Biden is expected to be the Democratic Party’s nominee.

The state Republican Party posted its reminder after Casey DeSantis, appearing on Fox News with her husband, the governor of Florida, called on women from across the country to join the gatherings, saying, “You do not have to be a resident of Iowa to participate."