10 things you need to know today: October 22, 2014

Bradlee being awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2013.

(Image credit: (AP Photo/Evan Vucci))

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1. Former Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee dies at 93
2. North Korea frees American Jeffrey Fowle
3. U.S. tightens Ebola safeguards on travelers from West Africa
4. Hong Kong activists debate government officials on democracy
5. Ebola vaccine trials could start in January
6. Colorado teens suspected of trying to join ISIS
7. Wyoming becomes 32nd state to legalize gay marriage
8. Michael Sam cut from the Dallas Cowboys' practice squad
9. NBC cameraman declared Ebola-free
10. Giants beat Royals in World Series opener

last updated 13 January 2015

1. Former Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee dies at 93

Legendary Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee, who presided over the Watergate reporting that brought down Richard Nixon's presidency, died on Tuesday. He was 93. Bradlee took over leadership of the Post in 1965, and helped make the newspaper one of the world's great dailies. Bradlee was widely praised for making tough calls, including publishing the Pentagon Papers, a secret Pentagon history of the Vietnam war. "For Benjamin Bradlee, journalism was more than a profession — it was a public good vital to our democracy," President Obama said.

North Korea unexpectedly released Jeffrey Fowle, one of three Americans held by North Korea, on Tuesday, six months after he was arrested for leaving a Bible in a club in the reclusive communist country. Fowle, 56, was first flown on a U.S. military plane from Pyongyang to Guam, then to his home state, Ohio, where he landed early Wednesday. State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf declined to say how Fowle, a municipal worker who had traveled on a tourist visa, was freed, to avoid complicating efforts to get the other two captive Americans released.

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The federal government tightened its precautions against Ebola on Tuesday by requiring travelers from the three hardest hit West African countries to enter the U.S. through one of five major airports performing enhanced screening for the virus. People flying into the U.S. from Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea will be limited to New York's John F. Kennedy, Washington Dulles, Newark, Atlanta, or Chicago O'Hare international airports, starting Wednesday.

Hong Kong pro-democracy activists debated city officials on Tuesday in an event intended to jumpstart talks on ending three weeks of demonstrations demanding free elections and the resignation of the Chinese-controlled former British colony's leader, Leung Chun-ying. Protest leaders said they didn't believe the debate, beamed live on big screens around the city, would lead to change, but that it would show viewers "the difference between right and wrong." City leaders said there was room for negotiation.

The World Health Organization said Tuesday it hopes to begin testing two experimental Ebola vaccines as early as next January. The vaccines will be given to more than 20,000 health-care workers in West Africa's hardest hit areas. Even if a vaccine works, it would not be expected to be enough to stop the outbreak, partly because there won't be enough to immunize everyone. An effective vaccine would, however, provide crucial protection to doctors and nurses fighting the disease. So far, more than 200 of them have died.

The FBI is investigating whether three Colorado teenage girls detained in Germany were trying to reach Syria to join the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, also known as ISIS. The teenagers — all of whom are under 18 — were persuaded by a contact in Germany to leave home "to fulfill what they believe is some vision that has been put out on a slick media campaign," a law enforcement official said. The families of the girls — two of Somali descent, the other of Sudanese descent — reported them missing last week.

Wyoming filed a legal notice on Tuesday declaring that it would not defend its recently overturned gay-marriage ban, making the state the 32nd in the nation to legalize same-sex marriage. The decision means that county clerks can immediately begin issuing marriage licenses to gay couples, and state officials will have to recognize same-sex couples married in other states. Wyoming became a focal point in the gay-rights debate after Matthew Shepard, a gay college student, was killed in a 1998 hate crime there.

The Dallas Cowboys cut rookie Michael Sam, the first openly gay player drafted by an NFL team, from the team's practice squad on Tuesday. Dallas had given Sam, a linebacker, a shot after he was waived in August by the St. Louis Rams, who drafted him out of Missouri in the seventh round. Sam said he would not give up. "While this is disappointing, I will take the lessons I learned here in Dallas and continue to fight for an opportunity to prove that I can play every Sunday," Sam tweeted.

Freelance NBC News cameraman Ashoka Mukpo — the fifth Ebola patient flown to the U.S. for treatment — was told he could leave a Nebraska hospital on Wednesday after a blood test showed he was free of any sign of Ebola. Mukpo, 33, contracted the virus while working for NBC in Liberia covering West Africa's Ebola outbreak, which has killed more than 4,500 people. "Recovering from Ebola is a truly humbling feeling," Mukpo said, according to the hospital. "Too many are not as fortunate and lucky as I've been."

The San Francisco Giants trounced the Kansas City Royals, 7-1, on Tuesday in Game 1 of the World Series. Giants pitcher Madison Bumgarner held the Royals to just three hits in seven innings, helping lead the Giants to their seventh straight victory in World Series games. The Royals won a spot in their first World Series in 29 years with a surprising sweep of the Baltimore Orioles. "We didn't come in here and expect to sweep the San Francisco Giants," Royals manager Ned Yost said.

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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.