10 things you need to know today: October 6, 2014

(Image credit: (AP Images/Kin Cheung))

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1. Fifth Ebola patient flies home to the U.S. from Africa for treatment
2. Hong Kong deadline passes with some demonstrators still in the streets
3. Brazilian president faces runoff in reelection bid
4. Parents release letter from hostage threatened by ISIS
5. Typhoon batters Tokyo
6. Eight bodies found in Mexico after attack on teaching students
7. Nobel Prize for medicine honors work on the brain's navigating system
8. HP to split into two companies
9. Michael Phelps enters treatment program after DUI
10. Peyton Manning throws his 500th touchdown pass

last updated 13 January 2015

1. Fifth Ebola patient flies home to the U.S. from Africa for treatment

A fifth U.S. Ebola patient was flown out of Africa on Monday to receive treatment in the U.S. The man, Ashoka Mukpo, 33, became ill last week while working as a freelance cameraman for NBC News. He will start treatment in an isolation unit in Nebraska as Thomas Eric Duncan, the first person to develop symptoms after returning from West Africa to the U.S., takes a turn for the worse. Health officials said Duncan did not appear to be receiving experimental drugs. Supplies of one, ZMapp, were "all gone."

Pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong removed some of their barricades near the government's downtown headquarters ahead of a Monday deadline to clear the streets. Crowds of demonstrators thinned near the government buildings as the deadline passed, although students vowed to maintain a long-term presence at another protest site near the Chinese-controlled city's financial center. Student protest leaders have been meeting with a recently appointed representative of Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying.

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Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff finished far ahead of her rivals in a Sunday election, but she did not get the majority she needed to avoid a runoff. Rousseff, a champion of the country's left, will face pro-business rival Aecio Neves, who surged ahead of environmentalist Marina Silva — briefly considered a contender to win — to finish second. The second round is scheduled for Oct. 26. Rousseff, who is touting her ambitious social programs, is expected to beat Neves, who is calling for greater austerity.

The parents of a humanitarian worker threatened with beheading by ISIS issued a statement pleading for his life, and released a letter in which he said he was "pretty scared to die" but at peace after converting to Islam in captivity. Kassig was kidnapped in Lebanon by ISIS in October while providing aid to Syrian refugees. He wrote that his parents should be comforted knowing he "went out as a result of trying to alleviate suffering and helping those in need."

A powerful typhoon briefly battered Tokyo, Japan's largest city, Monday with winds up to 112 miles per hour on Monday before heading out back to sea. The storm, Typhoon Phanfone, cut off power to thousands of people, and forced the country's two largest airlines to suspend flights. Phanfone had already killed at least one U.S. airman and left two others missing after they were pulled into the surf while taking photos on the island of Okinawa, where the U.S. has a military base.

Mexican authorities found at least eight bodies in clandestine graves over the weekend in the southern Mexican city of Iguala, officials in Guerrero state said Sunday. A government spokesman said it was not yet clear whether the bodies were those of some of the 43 teacher trainees who disappeared in an attack a week earlier that killed six students and left another 25 wounded. Relatives of the missing students are calling for a nationwide march to demand a speedier and more thorough investigation.

The Nobel Prize in Medicine was awarded on Monday to John O'Keefe of the U.K., and May-Britt and Edvard Moser of Norway for their work on cells that form a positioning system likened to GPS for the brain. The Nobel Committee said in a statement that O'Keefe 1970s work identifying so-called place cells that register locations, and the Mosers' discovery of grid cells used for navigation solved the mystery of how the brain maps the world around it. The next Nobel — for physics — will be awarded Tuesday.

Computer-maker Hewlett-Packard announced early Monday that it will be splitting itself into two companies. HP's personal computer and printer division will make up one of the new entities, and its computer hardware, software, and services for businesses will make up the other. The move comes as many tech giants are reorganizing to remain competitive as consumers shift from personal computers to mobile devices and cloud services.

Olympic swimming champion Michael Phelps said Sunday that he was entering a six-week treatment program after his DUI arrest, and putting his comeback on hold. "Swimming is a major part of my life, but right now I need to focus my attention on me as an individual," Phelps said in a tweet. The 29-year-old, 18-time gold medalist came out of retirement early this year to begin training for a bid to make the 2016 Olympic team.

The Denver Broncos' Peyton Manning on Sunday threw his 500th touchdown pass, becoming only the second NFL quarterback to reach the milestone. The score came when Manning hit tight end Julius Thomas with a seven-yard bullet in the first quarter of the Broncos' 41-20 defeat of the St. Louis Cardinals. Manning is now in position to surpass all-time leader Brett Favre's record of 508 TD throws in the next month or two.

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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.