Dispatches

Sept. 25: Retiring New York Yankee Derek Jeter celebrates after hitting the game-winning single against the Baltimore Orioles in the ninth inning of his final baseball game in Yankee Stadium. The Yankees won 6-5.

Wednesday, Sept. 17

A call to arms

Congress voted to approve President Obama’s plan to train and arm Syrian rebels in the battle against the Islamic State, but some lawmakers expressed skepticism: The plan calls for training 5,000 Syrian fighters, while Islamic State militants number at least 30,000. Other lawmakers suspected the rebels might use the weapons to fight Syrian President Bashar al-Assad—not the Islamic State. U.S. Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., told WORLD he worried the militants could turn on the United States: “The danger is you’re going to be training an army of people that hate us.”

With or without you

Apple Inc. surprised some 500 million iTunes subscribers by loading an entire U2 album onto their devices, without asking if they wanted it. Some customers revolted against the unsolicited download, and Apple created a web page dedicated to showing how to remove the music. Technology expert Marco Arment explained the core problem wasn’t the inconvenience: “It’s that Apple did something inconsiderate, tone-deaf, and kinda creepy for the sake of a relatively unimportant marketing campaign, and they seemingly didn’t think it would be a problem.”

Space taxi

NASA awarded a $7 billion contract to private companies Boeing and SpaceX to build a spacecraft to shuttle astronauts to and from the International Space Station. Since NASA shut down its space shuttle program in 2011, U.S. astronauts have hitched rides to the space station on Russian craft. The cost per seat: $70 million.

Thursday, Sept. 18

Abortion dollars

A report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) revealed taxpayer dollars likely are funding abortions under the Affordable Care Act. The GAO study revealed that several insurance companies participating in Obamacare violated a federal provision requiring a separate itemization and charge for abortion coverage. Penny Nance of Concerned Women for America said the study showed “the so-called ‘surcharge’ for abortion is simply an accounting gimmick.”

Terror down under

Australian officials said they foiled a grisly plot by Islamic State militants to execute violent attacks against citizens in Australia. During raids in Sydney, authorities detained at least 15 people and searched a dozen properties in the country’s largest-ever counterterrorism operation. When reporters asked Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott whether the militants had planned to behead a random victim in Sydney, the prime minister confirmed: “That’s the intelligence we received.”

Friday, Sept. 19

United they stand

After Scotland’s festive buildup to a referendum on independence from the United Kingdom, Scots opted to stay in the U.K. by a vote of 55 percent to 45 percent. British Prime Minister David Cameron—who had pleaded with Scotland to stay in the union—promised U.K. officials would give the country more powers over taxing, spending, and social welfare. If the nation had seceded, Scotland would have been independent for the first time in 307 years.

Don’t waste your rhyme

Christian rapper Lecrae Moore’s album Anomaly hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200 charts, selling 88,000 copies in the first week. The artist—who also appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon—has used his music to lament hip-hop music’s focus on drugs and sex, and has named one of his songs after a John Piper book: Don’t Waste Your Life.

White House scare

Iraq war veteran Omar Gonzalez managed to scale a White House fence, sprint across the lawn, and enter through the unlocked front door before Secret Service agents tackled him. President Obama and his family had left the White House four minutes earlier. Gonzalez—who faces up to 10 years in prison—carried a small folding knife, but officers found a larger cache in his car: 800 rounds of ammunition, a hatchet, and a machete. Virginia police had arrested Gonzalez in July after a high-speed chase on Interstate 81. Among the items found in his vehicle: 11 guns and a map of Washington, D.C., with a line drawn to the White House.

Saturday & Sunday, Sept. 20-21

Supreme statement

Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan officiated a same-sex wedding in Maryland for her former law clerk and his partner. A court spokesman said it was Kagan’s first time to preside over a same-sex ceremony, though retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg have both officiated at similar occasions. The Supreme Court could rule as early as next session on the constitutionality of gay marriage.

Monday, Sept. 22

Secret cell

U.S. officials began airstrikes against Islamic State militants in Syria, but they also dropped a separate bombshell: The targets in Syria included Khorasan—a secretive terror cell planning an imminent attack on American or European soil. U.S. officials said they have worried about Khorasan agents for at least two years, though President Obama mentioned the group publicly for the first time after the U.S. campaign in Syria began. The group’s plot apparently included a plan to attack airliners. The U.S. airstrikes may have killed Khorasan’s leader—an al-Qaeda veteran once in the inner circle of Osama bin Laden.

Slow Lerner

Former IRS official Lois Lerner broke her silence in an interview with Politico, after refusing for months to speak about an IRS scandal involving the agency’s targeting of conservative groups. Despite mounting evidence suggesting Lerner may have had some culpability in stonewalling Obama critics, Lerner was resolute: “I haven’t done anything wrong.”

Tuesday, Sept. 23

D’Souza avoids prison

Conservative author and filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza avoided jail time for orchestrating $20,000 in illegal straw donations for Republican Senate candidate Wendy Long in 2012. (Long lost by a landslide.) D’Souza pleaded guilty to the crime, and a federal judge sentenced him to five years of probation and a $30,000 fine. D’Souza will spend the first eight months of his probation in a community confinement center in San Diego.

Judge Richard Berman scolded D’Souza for claiming in many media appearances that prosecutors were targeting him because he’s conservative. Berman said he wasn’t convinced D’Souza had accepted personal responsibility for his actions: “I’m not sure, Mr. D’Souza, that you get it.”

Flames in Ferguson

Protests erupted again in Ferguson, Mo., after a makeshift memorial to teenager Michael Brown caught fire. Demonstrators said they believed someone set the fire intentionally at the memorial for the teen shot and killed by a white police officer in August. Protesters responded by vandalizing a beauty supply store that had just opened after weeks of unrest following Brown’s death. Firefighters said the fire likely started because of candles at the memorial.

Thursday, Sept. 25

Vacancy at Justice

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder resigned after six years as head of the Justice Department. Holder, 63, plans to stay in his post until President Barack Obama names his replacement. Holder’s legacy includes vigorous activism for homosexual marriage: The attorney general declared the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional and refused to defend it in court. Holder also declared gay marriage “the defining civil rights issue of our time.”

Forty days out

Politicians entered the last leg in the race for fall elections, with 40 days to go until midterm contests on Nov. 4. Both parties scrambled, as Republicans gained ground on snagging six seats needed for the GOP to retake control of the Senate. Some races are delivering particularly colorful contests, including a Wild West showdown in Montana (see “Majestic, messy Montana”).

Grand finale

New York Yankees slugger Derek Jeter thrilled fans by ending his final home game at Yankee Stadium with a game-winning single in the ninth inning. Jeter’s retirement comes after a 20-year career, five World Series championships, and 14 All-Star Game appearances.

Saturday & Sunday, Sept. 27-28

Underestimating terror

Weeks after the terror group Islamic State executed thousands, seized cities, and drove out Christian populations in northern Iraq, President Barack Obama acknowledged his administration had goofed. During an interview with 60 Minutes, the president responded to questions about Director of Intelligence James Clapper’s admission that the United States had underestimated ISIS and overestimated the Iraqi military’s ability to battle the militants. “That’s true,” Obama said. “That’s absolutely true.”

Cruz to the top

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, won the presidential straw poll at the annual Value Voters Summit in Washington, D.C., for the second year in a row. Cruz, a tea party favorite, won 25 percent of votes cast by audience members at the conservative event sponsored by Family Research Council Action. Ben Carson—a famed physician and an Obama critic—won 20 percent of the votes. Other potential GOP presidential candidates—particularly moderate ones—didn’t appear on the ballot: New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush weren’t invited to the event.

Monday, Sept. 29

Hong Kong moment

Pro-democracy demonstrations swelled in Hong Kong, as thousands filled the streets in the city’s most serious confrontation with Beijing in a decade. The protests began after an Aug. 31 decision by Beijing to allow Hong Kong citizens to choose the city’s next chief executive. But the concession came with a caveat: Voters may only choose from a list of candidates approved by a committee full of pro-Beijing members. In a sharp challenge to Chinese authority, thousands of students and other residents flooded Hong Kong’s streets and demanded the opportunity for open elections.

Travel ban

Sudanese officials banned five attorneys from leaving Sudan after the lawyers helped Meriam Ibrahim in her battle against apostasy charges and a death sentence. Ibrahim won her legal battle, and eventually traveled to the United States, but Sudanese officials are harassing the attorneys who helped her. The lawyers told Morning Star News they didn’t plan to leave Sudan, but they now have concerns for their safety. Ibrahim has used her freedom in the United States to advocate for persecuted Christians. “There are many Meriams in Sudan and throughout the world,” she said. “It’s not just me.”

Tuesday, Sept. 30

Stateside Ebola

U.S. health officials in Texas confirmed they diagnosed a patient with the Ebola virus after he developed symptoms on U.S. soil. Thomas Frieden of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) described the patient as a man who had traveled from Liberia to the U.S. on Sept. 20 to visit family. After he fell ill, doctors admitted the patient to an isolation room at a hospital in Dallas. The development was significant: U.S. doctors have treated at least four patients with Ebola after they were diagnosed in Africa, but the Texas patient was the first person diagnosed on U.S. soil.

Frieden said the patient may have exposed a handful of people—mostly family members—to the virus, but authorities also were identifying others who may have had contact with him. The Ebola virus has killed at least 3,000 people in West Africa, and the CDC warned as many as 1.4 million people in the region could contract the virus by early next year without massive global intervention.

Obamacare deadline

More than 300,000 Americans faced a deadline to verify their income and prove their eligibility for federal healthcare subsidies under the Affordable Care Act. Government officials say the applicants’ estimates of their 2014 income didn’t match similar data from their 2012 tax returns. If applicants don’t verify their incomes, they may have to pay back their subsidies. Another 115,000 applicants hadn’t supplied requested documents to verify their citizenship or immigration status. A July report from the Department of Health and Human Services said the federal government still lacked the system capacity to resolve the mismatches.