10 things you need to know today: November 25, 2014

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1. Violence follows Ferguson grand jury decision against indicting police officer
2. Hagel resigns as defense secretary
3. Iran nuclear negotiations extended as deadline arrives with no deal
4. Head of troubled Phoenix veterans' hospital fired
5. Oklahoma students protest handling of rape and bullying allegations
6. California man who spent 34 years in prison freed after conviction overturned
7. Snowstorm threatens Thanksgiving travel on the East Coast
8. Ukraine's president promises moves toward forming a new government
9. Ohio teens sentenced to community service for cruel Ice Bucket Challenge prank
10. FAA readies tough rules on flying commercial drones

last updated 13 January 2015

1. Violence follows Ferguson grand jury decision against indicting police officer

Violence erupted in Ferguson, Missouri, after a grand jury decided late Monday not to file charges against a white police officer, Darren Wilson, who shot and killed unarmed black teenager Michael Brown on Aug. 9. At least two police cars and six buildings were set on fire, and protesters, who had been demanding that Wilson be put on trial, blocked Interstate 44. Protesters in Ferguson and around the country have called the killing as an example of police brutality against African Americans.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel resigned on Monday under pressure from the White House. President Obama heaped praise on Hagel, who was the lone Republican on his national security team, saying he had been critical to leading the military "through a significant period of transition" as the U.S. withdrew from Iraq and prepared to leave Afghanistan. Administration aides said, however, that Obama decided that he needed someone with different skills in the job to handle the rising threat posed by the Islamist militant group Islamic State.

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World leaders and Iran agreed to extend negotiations over Tehran's nuclear program for seven months on Monday as a midnight deadline arrived without a deal. Significant gaps remained between Iran and negotiators from six nations, including the U.S., that are trying to limit Iran's nuclear activities to prevent it from developing a nuclear weapon — something Iran denies it is trying to do. Secretary of State John Kerry said progress has been made and this is "not the time to get up and walk away."

The director of a Phoenix veterans' hospital, Sharon Helman, was fired on Monday nearly seven months after being placed on leave during an investigation into allegations that 40 veterans had died while awaiting care at the facility. The hospital was at the center of a national scandal over wait times and the alleged falsification of records to cover them up. A Veterans Affairs Department investigation found that workers at the Phoenix hospital falsified waiting lists as veterans faced chronic delays.

Hundreds of Oklahoma high-school students staged a walkout on Monday to protest administrators' response to the alleged bullying of three students who reported being raped by the same student. The teenagers and their families say Norman High School administrators did not do enough after receiving reports of the alleged rapes and bullying. Police are investigating the allegations but haven't charged anyone. The local schools superintendent said administrators aim to respond quickly to reports of rape and bullying.

Sixty-nine-year-old Michael Hanline, who was convicted of murder in 1980, was freed on Monday after Ventura County, California, prosecutors told a judge they were no longer sure he was guilty of killing Ventura resident J.T. McGarry. The development came after the California Innocence Project reexamined the evidence in the case. Testing showed that DNA found at the crime scene did not match Hanline or his alleged accomplice. Prosecutors will decide by February whether they want a new trial.

Weather forecasters are warning that a storm could disrupt Thanksgiving travel with a barrage of snow and ice from the Northeast south to Georgia on Wednesday, the busiest day of the holiday week on highways and at airports. AAA said that 41 million Americans will be traveling this Thanksgiving, the most in seven years, and millions of them are in for a mess. The New York area, parts of which are digging out of last week's massive snowstorm, could get up to another 10 inches of snow.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said Monday that his country this week would launch steps toward forming a new government. The U.S. and other Western countries have been critical of Poroshenko's failure to get a coalition in place following October parliamentary elections, apparently due to a conflict between Poroshenko and Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk over key appointments. The new parliament is scheduled to hold its first session on Thursday, as a tense truce with pro-Russian separatists holds despite sporadic violence.

A juvenile court magistrate on Monday ordered three Ohio teens to perform 100 to 200 hours of community service and write apology letters for dumping urine, tobacco, and spit on an autistic classmate in an "Ice Bucket Challenge" prank. During the hearing, an attorney read a message from the 15-year-old victim to his attackers in which he said, "Why would you do that to me? I trusted you guys. How dare you?" The case became public after the victim's mother found a video of the Aug. 18 incident on his cellphone.

The Federal Aviation Administration is preparing to place extensive restrictions on the use of commercial drones for such purposes as farming, construction, and filmmaking in the U.S., The Wall Street Journal reported Monday. Operators are expected to be required to obtain a piloting license, and their flights will be limited to below 400 feet, and only in daylight hours. If enacted, the long-awaited rules could disrupt projects by Amazon and Google to use drones, because they have been looking at directing drones using algorithms — not pilots.

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Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.