Dispatches

Open doors

A day after the announcement that a Liberian national had brought the Ebola virus to Dallas, Texas, the White House said it will not institute travel restrictions on visitors from West African nations where Ebola is widespread. Presidential spokesman Josh Earnest said screening at West African and U.S. airports is enough to prevent the “wide spread” of the deadly virus. On Oct. 2, government officials said the Liberian national, Thomas Eric Duncan, may have exposed up to 100 people. He died on Oct. 8, and by Oct. 15 two of the hospital workers who tended to Duncan had tested positive for the disease.

Fatal plays

Tom Cutinella of Shoreham-Wading River High School on Long Island, N.Y., became the third American high-school football player to die in less than a week. Cutinella, 16, died at a hospital after undergoing surgery related to a head injury sustained in the third quarter of a varsity game against John Glenn High School. Two players died following Sept. 26 games: Demario Harris Jr. of Charles Henderson High School in Troy, Ala., and Isaiah Langston of Rolesville High School in North Carolina.

Thursday, Oct. 2

Chase hacked

JPMorgan Chase, the nation’s largest bank, revealed that a cyber attack over the summer had compromised the information of tens of millions of customers. The data breach began in June and the bank discovered it in August, but spokeswoman Patricia Wexler said the hackers had not stolen account numbers, passwords, Social Security numbers, or dates of birth. They had, however, stolen names, addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses. The breach reportedly affected the accounts of 76 million households and 7 million small businesses.

Death penalty sought

Prosecutors in Oklahoma filed a motion seeking the death penalty against Alton Nolen, the convert to Islam who allegedly beheaded former co-worker Colleen Hufford at the Vaughan Foods plant in Moore, Okla., on Sept. 25. Nolen also allegedly tried to behead a second co-worker before plant manager Mark Vaughan, a reserve deputy, shot him with a rifle. Cleveland County District Attorney Greg Mashburn told The Oklahoman that he met with Hufford’s family, who approved of the death penalty motion: “I let them know it was my ultimate decision, but I wanted to know their feelings.”

Friday, Oct. 3

Murder in Iraq

ISIS said it beheaded a fourth Western hostage in less than two months, this time murdering Briton Alan Henning in what it said was retaliation for airstrikes. Henning, 47, was a former taxi driver and an aid worker captured at a warehouse in Syria. ISIS previously beheaded American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff on Aug. 19 and Sept. 2, and Scottish aid worker David Haines on Sept. 13.

Saturday & Sunday, Oct. 4-5

‘Baby Doc’ dies

Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier, former brutal dictator of Haiti, died of a heart attack at his home in Haiti at the age of 63. The son of Haitian dictator Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier, Jean-Claude was “elected” president for life by a vote of 2,391,916 to zero near the end of his father’s life in 1971. Once in power, he began extorting foreign aid to finance a lavish lifestyle, including a $3 million wedding. Exiled to France in 1986, he returned in 2011, was arrested for embezzlement and other crimes, but lived the rest of his life in luxury.

Drawn to terror

FBI counterterrorism agents arrested 19-year-old Mohammed Hamzah Khan of suburban Chicago at O’Hare International Airport, where the teen allegedly planned to fly to Vienna and then Turkey in order to meet an ISIS contact and join the terrorist group. He reportedly had left a letter to his parents explaining his decision to join ISIS. Neighbors in Bollingbrook, Ill., expressed surprise at Khan’s alleged actions: “The kid was polite,” said Steve Moore. “I didn’t expect anything like that in the least bit.”

American givers

A study from The Chronicle of Philanthropy found the recession put a dent in the charitable giving of wealthy Americans even as middle- and lower-income Americans increased their giving. Americans earning more than $200,000 per year gave 4.6 percent less of their income in 2012 than in 2006. Americans earning less than $100,000 per year gave 4.5 percent more of their income over the same period. Other findings: Americans overall gave away only 3 percent of their income in 2012, and the top 17 states for highest charitable giving as a share of income all voted for Mitt Romney in 2012.

Monday, Oct. 6

ISIS advances

Kurdish fighters in the Syrian city of Kobani waged a fierce battle to hold back ISIS militants as they advanced on the city near the Turkish border. While Turkey said that the United States should do more than send airstrikes against ISIS, U.S. officials said it was Turkey’s role to help on the ground and pressed the country to do more. “You’ve got to have willing partners on the ground,” Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. John Kirby told Fox News. “You’ve got to have ground forces.”

Nonruling ruling

The U.S. Supreme Court without comment refused to hear appeals from five states seeking to protect marriage as between one man and one woman. Appeals courts had struck down the marriage laws of Indiana, Oklahoma, Utah, Virginia, and Wisconsin, and with the Supreme Court’s inaction those rulings stand. Within four hours of the announcement, same-sex couples in those states began applying for licenses. The high court’s nonruling could affect marriage laws in six other states.

Tuesday, Oct. 7

Actor abuse

Actor Stephen Collins, best known for portraying Rev. Eric Camden on the TV show 7th Heaven from 1996 to 2007, faces allegations that he molested one young girl and exposed himself to two others. The revelations came from his estranged wife, who secretly recorded sessions the couple had with a therapist in which she says Collins admitted to the abuse. Authorities in California and New York, where the abuse allegedly happened, are investigating. Meanwhile, ABC announced that Collins will no longer appear in any season four episodes of the show Scandal, and he will no longer appear in the film Ted 2.

District down

A federal court rejected a congressional map in Virginia that concentrated African-Americans into one district, ruling the Virginia legislature unconstitutionally used racial factors to create the district. The overruled map will remain in place for November’s election, but lawmakers must create a new one by April.

Wednesday, Oct. 8

View finders

Two Americans were among the three scientists who won this year’s Nobel Prize in chemistry. The winners, announced by the Nobel Committee in Sweden, were Americans Eric Betzig and William E. Moerner and German Stefan W. Hell for their work on optical microscopy that has allowed scientists to track proteins in the nanoworld.

Bad bills

AT&T will pay $105 million to settle a “cramming” case brought against it by the federal government and all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) said AT&T billed wireless customers for unauthorized charges by third-party companies. AT&T will pay $80 million to mobile customers and the rest in fees and fines. The FTC has brought seven cramming cases since 2013.

Friday, Oct. 10

Dictator disappears

North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un missed the celebration of the 69th anniversary of the country’s ruling party, after being absent from public view for more than a month. Analysts speculated that Kim had a serious illness or had been deposed in a coup. Photos released on Oct. 14 showed Kim using a walking stick while touring the newly built Wisong Scientists Residential District and another new institute in Pyongyang, although officials didn’t say when the tour occurred.

Another scandal

The Obama White House faced questions about a possible cover-up after The Washington Post revealed records that showed a volunteer member of the White House advance team’s involvement in the prostitution scandal in 2012. (It resulted in the firing or discipline of about two dozen Secret Service agents and military members.) At the time the White House cleared Jonathan Dach, son of a major Democratic donor, without revealing his name. The Post’s report came nine days after Secret Service Director Julia Pierson resigned in the wake of revelations about security lapses.

Sunday, Oct. 12

Wind power

A powerful cyclone hit the eastern coast of India, bringing down trees and buildings and destroying electricity and telephone lines. By Oct. 14, the death toll had risen to 25, a figure that would have been higher except the government had evacuated 400,000 people from their homes in the states of Andhra Pradesh and Odisha.

Ordered by the court

Alaska District Judge Timothy Burgess overturned the state’s law protecting marriage as between a man and a woman. The ruling came less than a week after the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which includes Alaska, ruled that similar laws in Idaho and Nevada were unconstitutional in Idaho and Nevada. Same-sex couples the next day began applying for marriage licenses.

Monday, Oct. 13

Back in business

The FAA’s air traffic control center in Aurora, Ill., reopened after being out of operation for more than two weeks. The Chicago Air Route Traffic Control Center, which controls the air traffic of both O’Hare and Midway airports, had been closed since Sept. 26 due to damage from a fire set in an apparent suicide attempt by an FAA employee.

Stock slide

Stock prices suffered through their worst three-day performance in two years. The Dow Jones industrial average slumped 222 points, or 1.4 percent, to close at 16,321 on Oct. 12. That came after two days of sharp drops to close out the previous week on Oct. 9 and 10.

Catholic quake

A committee of bishops selected and convened by Pope Francis released a preliminary report urging the Roman Catholic Church to recognize “positive aspects of civil unions and cohabitation” and see “constructive elements” in those relationships. While the report said the church’s marriage sacrament should not change, the church should with regard to homosexuals be “accepting and valuing their sexual orientation.” Forty-one bishops objected to the shift toward acceptance of unbiblical sexuality, worrying the report would give “the impression of a positive evaluation” of homosexuality and cohabitation. They pointed out that one word barely appeared in the document: sin.