In a new CNN/ORC national poll released Wednesday morning, GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump boasts a double-digit lead over his closest competitor, picking up 39 percent support from GOP voters.

Sen. Ted Cruz trails in second place with 18 percent, while Ben Carson and Sen.Marco Rubio are tied for third with 10 percent.

The rest of the GOP contenders place in the single digits. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie got 5 percent, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul came in at 4 percent and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush got 3 percent. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and Ohio Gov. John Kasich came in at 2 percent while Carly Fiorina earned 1 percent support.

The poll was conducted following the latest GOP debate this past Tuesday. In response to a question about who did the best job in the debate, Trump came out on top as well with 33 percent support followed by Cruz, Rubio and Christie.

Yesterday a Quinnapiac poll had Trump with only a 2-point lead on Cruz in terms of national support. That same poll found that 50 percent of respondents said a Trump presidency would be "embarrassing."

The poll surveyed 438 registered voters who described themselves as Republicans or as Independents who lean Republican. The sampling error was plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.

Moscow (AFP) - Russia said on Wednesday it had issued an international arrest warrant for top opposition leader Mikhail Khodorkovsky, as Moscow ramped up the pressure on a leading critic of President Vladimir Putin.

The announcement from the Investigative Committee, a top law enforcement body which reports directly to Putin, came nearly two years to the day since the Kremlin strongman stunned Russia by announcing that his political enemy, who had spent a decade in prison, would be pardoned and set free.

Khodorkovsky said he might apply for asylum in Britain, and that the arrest warrant showed Putin still saw him as a threat.

"Definitely I'm considering asking for asylum in the UK," the Kremlin critic told the BBC.

"I'm considered by President Putin as a threat, economically, because of the possible seizure of Russian assets abroad, and politically, as someone who will potentially help democratic candidates in the coming 2016 elections."

A French court earlier this month backed the freezing of Russian assets in France at the behest of shareholders in Khodorkovsky's former oil firm Yukos.

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Mikhail Khodorkovsky spent a decade in prison on charges of tax evasion, fraud and embezzlement whic …

They blame Moscow for driving it into liquidation for political reasons before taking it over.

Russian investigators earlier this month charged the former oil tycoon in absentia with organising the 1998 murder of a mayor in Siberia.

Khodorkovsky, 52, was also charged with the attempted murders of two other people.

Investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin said in a statement that an international arrest warrant had been issued for the Kremlin critic, who lives abroad and spends much of his time in London.

- 'Kremlin ghouls' -

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Supporters of Mikhail Khodorkovsky protesting the oil baron's imprisonment in Moscow in 2004 (AF …

In a statement released by his opposition group Open Russia, Khodorkovsky said Russian officials had "gone mad".

His spokeswoman Kulle Pispanen dismissed the warrant as political pressure.

"Mikhail Borisovich will by no means limit his movements because of the hysterical actions of the Kremlin ghouls," Pispanen told AFP, referring to the former business magnate by his first name and patronymic.

Khodorkovsky's lawyer Vadim Klyuvgant said it was up to foreign countries to decide whether to comply with the warrant.

Speaking on Echo of Moscow radio, he called the arrest warrant announcement "another bout of fraudulent activities".

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While in prison, top Russian opposition leader Mikhail Khodorkovsky frequently traded barbs with Pre …

Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov insisted that there was no contradiction between the president's move to pardon the ex-tycoon and the arrest warrant.

On Tuesday, investigators raided the apartments of employees of the Moscow-based Open Russia group, set up to help nurture civil society in the country, as well as its offices.

The searches appeared tied to a 2003 case which led to the criminal prosecution of one of Russia's most powerful oligarchs and the dismemberment of his Yukos oil company which have become defining events in Putin's presidency.

- 'Revenge for the arrest' -

The Investigative Committee has said it is also checking information provided in foreign courts by Yukos shareholders, who are seeking $50 billion in damages from Russia.

Supporters and Khodorkovsky's staff ridiculed the raids.

"In revenge for the arrest of Russian property in France, the Investigative Committee arrested Kulle Pispanen's MacBook and iPhone, a letter to Father Christmas and a portrait of Khodorkovsky," Open Russia employee Maria Baronova said on Facebook.

Khodorkovsky spent a decade in prison on charges of tax evasion, fraud and embezzlement which he and his supporters say were trumped up in revenge for his political ambitions.

He was suddenly pardoned by Putin in 2013 and flown out of the country.

Khodorkovsky vowed to steer clear of politics upon his release from prison but the extent of his ambitions became apparent when in September 2014 he called on pro-European Russians to use his Open Russia platform to work together in the run-up to 2016 parliamentary polls to influence the fate of their country.

When investigators announced earlier this month they planned to press new charges against Khodorkovsky, he openly challenged the Kremlin, calling a news conference in London and saying that revolution in Russia was inevitable.

While in prison, Khodorkovsky frequently traded barbs with Putin, notably saying in 2010 he pitied a man who could only feel love for dogs.

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — A couple in Ecuador is making history with a unique pregnancy: The father-to-be is carrying the baby of his transgender partner.

Fernando Machado and Diane Rodriguez announced their pregnancy, believed to be the first of its kind in South America, on social media earlier this month and it's received widespread attention in a continent that has seen a sudden explosion in the rights and visibility of trans people.

Rodriguez, who was born Luis, is one of Ecuador's most-prominent LGBT activists and says she and her Venezuelan-born partner, whose birth name was Maria, decided to publicize the pregnancy to help change attitudes in the staunchly Roman Catholic society. Although both take hormones, neither has undergone gender-reassignment surgery, so the child-to-be was conceived the old-fashioned way with no known medical complications to date.

"We're trying to break the myths about transsexuality," Rodriguez told The Associated Press.

So far, church leaders have remained silent, something that Rodriguez says both surprises and pleases here.

"The church is always criticizing gays and homosexuals for adopting children, so it would be a contradiction to criticize us for giving birth naturally," she said from her home in Guayaquil.

The trans community has made major advances across South America. About six months ago, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos issued a decree allowing individuals to change their gender on the national ID cards with little more than a trip to a public notary. To date, at least 340 people have made the switch.

Argentina has gone even further with legislation guaranteeing free hormone treatment and gender reassignment surgery.

However, trans people still face widespread discrimination in the region. Between 2008 and 2011, 79 percent of the murders of transgender people reported throughout the world took place in Latin America, with a total of 664 cases, according to a study by the International AIDS Alliance.

Pope Francis kisses a statue of baby Jesus as he leads the Christmas night Mass in Saint Peter's Basilica at the Vatican December 24, 2015. REUTERS/Tony Gentile

By Philip Pullella

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Francis led the world's 1.2 billion Roman Catholics into Christmas on Thursday, urging those "intoxicated" by possessions and superficial appearances to return to the essential values of life.

Celebrating a Christmas eve Mass in St. Peter's Basilica, Francis, whose nearly three-year-old papacy has been marked by calls for sobriety and compassion for the less fortunate, said Christmas was the time to "once more discover who we are".

He said everyone should allow the simplicity of the child Jesus, born into poverty in a manger despite his divinity, to infuse their spirit and inspire their lives.

"In a society so often intoxicated by consumerism and hedonism, wealth and extravagance, appearances and narcissism, this Child calls us to act soberly, in other words, in a way that is simple, balanced, consistent, capable of seeing and doing what is essential," he said in his homily.

The service for about 10,000 people in St. Peter's Basilica started with a long chant in Latin, known as the Kalenda, the traditional proclamation of the birth of Jesus.

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Pope Francis leads the Christmas night Mass in Saint Peter's Basilica at the Vatican December 24 …

The great bells of St. Peter's then rang out and the pope, dressed in white vestments, kissed a statue of the infant Jesus to start the solemn Mass.

Security was tighter than normal for Christmas, with many police carrying out spot checks in the Vatican area. Everyone who entered the basilica, the largest church in Christendom, went through metal detectors.

The 79-year-old Argentine pope encapsulated in his homily some of the key themes of his papacy: mercy, compassion, empathy and justice.

"In a world which all too often is merciless to the sinner and lenient to the sin, we need to cultivate a strong sense of justice, to discern and to do God’s will," he said.

Francis, who said earlier this week he had a slight flu, seemed tired and spoke with a slightly hoarse voice at times.

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Pope Francis holds the book of the gospels as he leads the Christmas night mass in Saint Peter's …

While not changing fundamental Church doctrine, Francis has been calling for a more merciful and less judgmental Church, one that is more compassionate toward groups such as homosexuals and the divorced who have civilly remarried.

Conservatives have criticized some of his statements, such as the now-famous "Who am I to judge" comment about homosexuals who were seeking God and had good will. The conservatives say statements like these only sow confusion among the faithful.

The pope said child Jesus was calling on everyone to rethink the way they treat others.

"Amid a culture of indifference which not infrequently turns ruthless, our style of life should instead be devout, filled with empathy, compassion and mercy, drawn daily from the wellspring of prayer," he said.

On Christmas day, Francis will deliver the traditional "Urbi et Orbi" (to the city and the world) message from the central balcony of St. Peter's Square, from where he first appeared to the world after his election on March 13, 2013.

(Additional reporting by Antonio Denti; Editing by Andrew Hay)