'Oh my God, you're my brother': Man in his 70s discovers 6 unknown siblings
After receiving a DNA kit one Christmas from his son-in-law, Hugh McCormick soon discovered that he had six unknown siblings, with whom he shared the same birth parents.
Iranians will vote Friday on who should be the country's next president amid tensions with the West over its tattered nuclear deal with world powers.
While the race is wide open due to President Hassan Rouhani being term limited from running again, authorities barred his allies and nearly every reformist from entering the race.
That has analysts believing hard-line judiciary chief Ebrahim Raisi is the clear front-runner.
The only competitor who represents a stand-in for Rouhani's administration, the former Central Bank chief Abdolnasser Hemmati, has argued others in the race serve as proxies for Raisi and allow the cleric to avoid criticizing him directly.
Here's a look at the candidates competing.
Raisi, 60, is a hard-line cleric close to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who has vowed to combat poverty and corruption.
In 2016, Khamenei appointed Raisi as head of the Imam Reza charity foundation, which manages a vast conglomerate of businesses and endowments in Iran. Khamenei called Raisi a "trustworthy and highly experienced" person, causing many to wonder if he might also be a possible successor to the supreme leader himself.
He lost his 2017 presidential challenge to Rouhani, though he earned over 15 million votes in the contest. After the loss, Khamenei appointed the former law professor to be the head of the country's judiciary. There, he's waged a televised anti-corruption campaign that resonated with a public frustrated by graft.
His candidacy also has revived the controversy surrounding the 1988 mass execution of thousands in Iran, one of the darkest moments of Iran's post-revolution history still not recognized by its government.
Raisi served on a panel involved in sentencing the prisoners to death. He hasn't commented publicly on the accusation.
Hemmati, 64, served for several years at the head of Iran's Central Bank under Rouhani and amid the renewed American sanctions that followed the U.S.' unilateral withdrawal from Tehran's nuclear deal.
Though serving in Rouhani's government, he's repeatedly described himself as an independent candidate.
Hemmati, an economics professor, has worked as the head of both private and government banks, as well as Iran's central insurance agency. He also once served as Iran's ambassador to China for a short period.
The technocrat has drawn attention for appointing his wife, Sepideh Shabestari, as one of his representatives and top advisers in Iran's short election season. He's a black belt in karate as well, something that drew the public's interest.
Hemmati has said his goals as president include decreasing poverty through better economic ties with the world, implementing a smaller government and getting the country off of the black list of the Financial Action Task Force, an international agency that monitors terrorism funding.
Other candidates include:
Hashemi, 50, is considered by analysts to be a low-profile conservative politician. He's served as a parliament member since 2007 and now is a member of the parliament's board of chairmen, which manages the legislature's affairs.
An ear-nose-and-throat specialist surgeon by profession, Hashemi has vowed to restore Iran's stock market in the first three days in office, a tough goal as the market's value has nearly halved in the last year.
Rezaei, 66, is a former leader of Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard and has been a hard-line candidate in several elections.
He's wanted by Argentina on an Interpol "Red Notice" over his alleged involvement in the 1994 bombing on a Jewish centre in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people.
Both Rezaei and the Iranian government deny orchestrating the attack. He also faced criticism over allegedly mismanaging battles in the 1980s Iran-Iraq war and his tension with Iran's regular military.
He serves now as the secretary of Expediency Council, which arbitrates disputes between parliament and Iran's constitutional watchdog, the Guardian Council. Rezaei also threatened in Iran's first presidential debate to imprison Hemmati.
After receiving a DNA kit one Christmas from his son-in-law, Hugh McCormick soon discovered that he had six unknown siblings, with whom he shared the same birth parents.
Four years on, the controversy over whether airlines owed refunds to passengers after cancelling hundreds of thousands of flights during the pandemic continues to simmer, aggravated by a sluggish, opaque complaints process.
Many foods fall under the category of ultraprocessed foods, depending on their exact ingredients. This type of food has been studied a lot lately, and the results aren’t great.
Dozens of Ontarians are expressing frustration in the province’s health-care system after their family doctors either dropped them as patients or threatened to after they sought urgent care elsewhere.
A new study projecting declining rates of cancer cases and deaths in Canada demonstrates the success of prevention and early detection programs, but also highlights areas where more work is needed to save and prolong lives, researchers say.
Brock Boeser had two goals and an assist, and the Vancouver Canucks hung on for a 4-3 win over the Edmonton Oilers in Game 3 of their second-round Stanley Cup playoff series.
An Ottawa pizzeria is being recognized as one of the top 20 deep-dish pizzas in the world.
Police are searching for a male suspect after a man was “slashed in neck” on Sunday morning in downtown Toronto and died.
There were some scary moments for several people on a northern Ontario highway caught on video Thursday after a chain reaction following a truck fire.
English, history, entertainment, math and geography: high school trivia teams could be quizzed on any of it when they compete at the Reach for the Top Nationals in Ottawa in June.
An Ottawa pizzeria is being recognized as one of the top 20 deep-dish pizzas in the world.
A family of fifth generation farmers from Ituna, Sask. are trying to find answers after discovering several strange objects lying on their land.
A Listowel, Ont. man, drafted by the Hamilton Tigercats last week, is also getting looks from the NFL, despite only playing 27 games of football in his life.
The threat of zebra mussels has prompted the federal government to temporarily ban watercraft from a Manitoba lake popular with tourists.
A small Ajax dessert shop that recently received a glowing review from celebrity food critic Keith Lee is being forced to move after a zoning complaint was made following the social media influencer’s visit last month.
The Canada Science and Technology Museum is inviting visitors to explore their poop. A new exhibition opens at the Ottawa museum on Friday called, 'Oh Crap! Rethinking human waste.'
The Regina Police Service says it is the first in Saskatchewan and possibly Canada to implement new technology in its detention facility that will offer real-time monitoring of detainees’ vital health metrics.
Just as she had feared, a restaurant owner from eastern Quebec who visited Montreal had her SUV stolen, but says it was all thanks to the kindness of strangers on the internet — not the police — that she got it back.