A Record-Setting White Christmas in Erie, Putin Critic Barred from Running Against Him, Cities Sue over Pentagon's Failure to Report Convictions to FBI: P.M. Links

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  Fadeichev Sergei/ZUMA Press/Newscom

  Erie, Penn., had a whiter-than-thou Christmas with a two-day snowfall accumulation of 53 inches, a record for the state.

• Frequent Vladimir Putin critic Alexei Navalny has been barred from running against Putin because of fraud charges he says are political retribution. He's calling for a boycott of the election.
• New York City, Philadelphia, and San Francisco have filed a federal lawsuit over the Pentagon's lapses in reporting criminal convictions for people in the military to the FBI's database used for background checks for gun purchases.
• The Salt Lake Tribune named Sen. Orrin Hatch as its "Utahn of the Year." Hatch tweeted out his appreciation for this "honor" possibly without reading it and realizing that this commentary was not actually praising him at all but is actually calling for his career as a senator to end in 2018.
• A British woman has been sentenced to three years in prison in Egypt for "smuggling" in prescription painkillers that are legal in her home country but banned in Egypt.
• A Utah police officer punched through the ice of a frozen pond to rescue an 8-year-old boy on Christmas Day.

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