Toronto Mayor Rob Ford has ended his re-election bid but his brother, Councillor Doug Ford, is replacing him in the mayoral race, the Toronto Star reports.

“Rob Ford was polling, after a chaotic, scandal-filled term, in second place, behind John Tory but ahead of Olivia Chow, when stomach pain sent him to the hospital Wednesday. The head of his health-care team at Mount Sinai Hospital told reporters Thursday that Ford has a ‘fair size’ mass in his abdomen.”

A new Survation poll in Scotland suggests 53% will vote in a referendum next week to stay in the United Kingdom while 47% will vote for independence.

A new YouGov poll finds “supporters of Scottish independence from Britain have taken their first opinion poll lead since the referendum campaign began, indicating a real possibility that they might win.”

“With less than two weeks to go before the Sept. 18 vote, the poll put the ‘Yes’ to independence campaign on 51% against ‘no’ camp on 49%, overturning a 22-point lead for the unionist campaign in just a month.”

A new poll finds far right candidate Marine Le Pen would defeat French President Francois Hollande in a runoff by eight points, 54% to 46%.

“The survey confirmed earlier polls showing Le Pen leading all other contenders in the first round. But it was the first time she had been shown ahead of a mainstream candidate in the second round – a scenario regarded to date as unrealistic.”

A new YouGov poll finds support for Scottish independence has risen eight points in a month.

The No camp are now six points ahead of the Yes campaign, 53% to 47%, down from 14 points in mid-August and 22 points early last month, excluding undecided voters.

“British intelligence said a London rapper who traveled to Syria last year to fight with Islamist militants is suspected of beheading American journalist James Foley last week,” USA Today reports.

“British intelligence agencies MI5 and MI6 identified the killer and named Abdel-Majed Abdel Bary, 24, as a key suspect… Abdel Bary, also known as L Jinny or Lyricist Jinn in London, left a budding music career that included appearances on BBC Radio in 2012.”

“Special forces teams and army tanks surrounded the Green Zone housing Iraq’s government as Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki fiercely clung to power Sunday, taking the stability of the country to the brink at a moment when it is already facing a lethal challenge from radical Islamist fighters,” the Washington Post reports.

“In actions that had all the markings of a political coup, Maliki gave a defiant late-night speech in Baghdad saying he would lodge a legal case against the country’s president, who has resisted naming him as the candidate for another term as prime minister.”

Wall Street Journal: “Iraq’s brewing political crisis headed toward confrontation after the country’s president named Haider Al Abadi as the country’s next prime minister, according to state-run media.”

“Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has led Turkey for more than a decade, is set to become the country’s first popularly elected president, apparently cruising to a victory on Sunday that positioned him to be the dominant political figure here for at least five more years,” the New York Times reports.

“The news media declared the victory even though official results will not be published for several days. It came after the most tumultuous year of Mr. Erdogan’s tenure in national politics, when he was challenged by sweeping antigovernment protests and a corruption investigation focused on him and those around him. He has emerged not only as a survivor but as someone who, analysts predict, will look to expand his power from the office of the presidency.”

“Joko Widodo, the governor of Jakarta whose common touch has made him a political phenomenon, was declared the winner of Indonesia’s presidential election on Tuesday, completing an improbable ascent from child of the slums to leader of the world’s fourth most populous nation,” the New York Times reports.

“But the announcement, while widely expected, did not end a simmering controversy, as his opponent, Prabowo Subianto, a retired army general, rejected the results as fraudulent and threatened to withdraw from the race.”

Jakarta governor Joko Widodo “claimed victory Wednesday in a closely fought Indonesian presidential election, but his rival disputed the unofficial vote count and refused to concede defeat,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“Mr. Widodo, who saw his once-commanding lead in opinion polls evaporate in recent months, declared that he won based on unofficial vote tallies by independent organizations that showed him with a lead of 3-6 percentage points. Those organizations had been roughly accurate in using quick counts of a sampling of polling stations to predict results of April legislative elections. But Prabowo Subianto, a former army general from the era of authoritarian ruler Suharto, claimed that he had won a mandate and refused to concede. His camp said pollsters used by his campaign indicated he likely won by 4-5 percentage points.”

“Up to 190 million Indonesians will cast ballots in a tightly contested presidential race Wednesday, with questions mounting about whether one candidate can win convincingly enough to stave off vote challenges and unrest over ambiguous results,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“Pollsters say the race is too close to call between candidates with starkly different leadership styles and backgrounds: Jakarta Gov. Joko Widodo and Prabowo Subianto, a former army general under the late authoritarian ruler Suharto.”

“After more than a decade in power, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan dominates Turkish politics like a one-man-show,” the AP reports.

“He has defanged the once supreme military, reshaped the judiciary and cowed the press. Now, at the peak of his power, he has announced he is running for president – a role he intends to shape into the most powerful job in Turkey.”

“Erdogan engineered a constitutional change for a direct vote as the first of a two-step move to bolster his status as Turkey’s pre-eminent leader. But the second step – his aspiration to increase the powers of the presidency – stalled as he failed to build a coalition big enough to enact the change. Now Erdogan has signaled that he intends to combine the mandate of presidential victory with the force of his own personality to rule Turkey, even with constitutionally limited powers.”

Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy “was held for questioning on Tuesday over suspicions that he received leaked details of an inquiry into alleged irregularities in his 2007 election campaign,” Reuters reports.

“It was the first time a former head of state had been held for questioning in modern French history and is the latest blow to Sarkozy’s hopes of a come-back after his 2012 election defeat by Francois Hollande. The conservative politician denies all wrongdoing in a string of investigations involving him.”

The New York Times notes that former Obama advisers David Axelrod and Jim Messina are advising opposing candidates in the upcoming British elections which is expected to be a referendum on austerity and immigration.

“The British elections in 2015 will be waged over these competing economic visions, the country’s stomach for hard-right anti-immigration appeals, and the candidates’ abilities to manage coalition partners. But the contest is also shaping into a proxy competition between two titans of the “No-Drama-Obama” campaigns who are acting out their ideological and personal conflicts on a faraway stage. As more former aides turn their affiliation with the president into lucrative consulting arrangements, the Battle of Britain crystallizes a concern among some Democrats over whether those most central to Mr. Obama’s rise should be expected in their private business to stand for his public policies and values. And if they are not, some of the president’s supporters wonder what exactly it means to work for Mr. Obama in the first place.”

“European Union leaders are set to meet in Brussels on Tuesday evening under intense pressure to reform the way the bloc is run after insurgent parties secured notable results in four days of legislative elections ending at the weekend,” the New York Times reports.

“Many of the parties that handed a drubbing to more mainstream rivals in the voting for the European Parliament are seeking to diminish, or even dismantle, the six-decade effort to further integrate the Continent.”

“Petro Poroshenko appeared poised to win Ukraine’s presidential elections Sunday without having to enter a second-round runoff, after three exit polls showed the chocolate tycoon had won more than half the vote,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“The wealthy former foreign minister won more than 55% of the vote, according to the three exit polls released Sunday night. According to the polls, he received 55.7% to 57.3% of the vote.”

“The Indian National Congress, which has headed India’s government for nearly all the country’s post-Independence history, conceded defeat to the opposition leader Narendra Modi on Friday, as voters rendered a crushing verdict on their country’s flagging economic growth and a drumbeat of corruption scandals,” the New York Times reports.

“Election officials had not yet finished counting the 550 million votes cast in the five-week general elections, but the contours of Congress’s defeat quickly became clear. Rahul Gandhi, the heir apparent to the political dynasty that forms the Congress party’s backbone, appeared headed for a narrow victory in his own home constituency, a stronghold he won by more than 300,000 votes in 2009.”

The Week notes The Daily Show had its own take on the Indian election.

Foreign Policy reports that Danish parliamentary officials came up with “the perfect mascot for the country’s get-out-the-vote campaign ahead of European parliamentary elections.”