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

(Image credit: (Brad Barket/Invision/AP Images))

Jump to category:

1. Malala Yousafzai and Kailash Satyarthi win the Nobel Peace Prize
2. The Supreme Court blocks Wisconsin's voter ID law
3. Signs of slowing growth in Europe contribute to U.S. stock plunge
4. Investigators say crash victim in Ukraine was wearing an oxygen mask
5. North Korea's Kim Jong Un misses important ceremonies
6. Mexico arrests alleged Juarez drug cartel leader
7. Amazon plans its first brick-and-mortar store
8. Texas sheriff's sergeant tests negative for Ebola
9. Prosecutor seeks NFL star Adrian Peterson's arrest over apparent drug confession
10. Jan Hooks, an ex-SNL comic, dies at 57

last updated 13 January 2015

1. Malala Yousafzai and Kailash Satyarthi win the Nobel Peace Prize

Children's rights activists Malala Yousafzai of Pakistan and Kailash Satyarthi of India jointly won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday. Yousafzai, 17, was shot in the head by a Taliban militant for her work promoting girls' education, and has since become an icon for the cause of children's schooling. Satyarthi, 60, has shown "great personal courage" by leading peaceful protests against the exploitation of children, the Norwegian Nobel Committee said. Malala became the youngest person to ever win the prize, by more than a decade.

The Supreme Court on late Thursday blocked Wisconsin from implementing a voter identification law in next month's mid-term elections. The law, passed by the Republican-controlled legislature in 2011, requires voters to produce a photo ID at the polls. A federal judge ruled it unconstitutional, saying it would unfairly burden minority voters. An appeals court reinstated it, but the justices put it on hold while they consider whether to hear the case. On the same day, a federal judge overturned a similar law in Texas.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

The Dow Jones industrial average dropped by 335 points, or 2 percent, to 16,659 on Thursday in the blue-chip-stock index's sharpest one-day plunge in more than a year. The Standard & Poors 500 big-stock index also lost 2 percent, and the small-stock Russell 2000 plunged by 2.5 percent. The losses, which came one day after the Dow and the S&P 500 made their biggest daily gains of 2014, came as data suggested Europe's economic growth was slowing.

Dutch prosecutors revealed Thursday that the body of an Australian passenger on Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was found wearing an oxygen mask. No other bodies were found wearing oxygen masks, but the new evidence suggested that some passengers might have been aware that their airliner was going down after apparently being hit by a missile over a rebel-held area in eastern Ukraine as it traveled from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur in July.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un did not attend ceremonies marking the anniversary of the ruling North Korean Workers' Party — an important national holiday — fueling speculation about his health. Kim, who is believed to be 31 years old, has not been seen in public since Sept. 3. "Today was a crucial day for him to return," said Leonid Petrov, a Korean studies specialist at Australian National University. "More and more questions are mounting and his absence inevitably leads to uncertainty about who's leading the country."

Mexican authorities have arrested Vicente Carrillo Fuentes, the alleged leader of the Juarez drug cartel, government officials said Thursday. His capture was the latest in a series of high-profile gains the Mexican government has made in an offensive against drug lords this year. The Juarez cartel is one of the country's most powerful drug trafficking operations. Carrillo, who is known as "the Viceroy," allegedly led a war with the rival Sinaloa gang that killed thousands between 2009 and 2011.

Digital retail powerhouse Amazon announced Thursday that it planned to open its first physical store — in midtown Manhattan — in time for this year's holiday shopping season. The first brick-and-mortar Amazon outlet will function mostly as a warehouse capable of delivering stocked items within the city on the same day they are ordered. It also will process returns, exchanges, and pickup orders.

Texas health officials announced Thursday that a sheriff's sergeant who had briefly entered the apartment of the late Ebola patient Thomas Duncan had not contracted the virus. The sergeant, Michael Monnig, was hospitalized after reporting to an urgent-care center outside Dallas complaining of stomach pain. He tested negative for Ebola. So far, none of the 48 people being monitored after having contact with Duncan have shown any sign of having contracted Ebola.

A Texas prosecutor has asked a judge to revoke the bond and order the arrest of Minnesota Vikings star Adrian Peterson, after the running back told an employee at a drug-testing agency during a urinalysis that he had "smoked a little weed," according to court papers publicized on Thursday. The Montgomery County District Attorney's office said drug use would be a clear violation of the terms of Peterson's $15,000 bond that got him freed after he was charged with felony child abuse.

Explore More

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.