10 things you need to know today: October 2, 2014

(Image credit: (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite))

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1. The leader of the Secret Service steps down after security breaches
2. Hospital at first sent Ebola patient home
3. Man convicted for murder for killing Florida teen over loud music
4. Beijing warns of "chaos" if Hong Kong protests continue
5. Canadian firm wins action for Atlantic City's bankrupt Revel casino
6. Oregon man sentenced for Christmas bombing plot
7. Turkey considers joining the fight against ISIS
8. Court forces North Carolina to ease voting restrictions
9. Mexico arrests leading drug kingpin
10. Walruses come ashore as Arctic sea ice melts

last updated 13 January 2015

1. The leader of the Secret Service steps down after security breaches

Secret Service Director Julia Pierson resigned on Wednesday under intense pressure over several lapses of security at the White House. Pierson quit less than a day after lawmakers from both parties questioned her over how an Iraq war veteran carrying a knife had managed to get past security and enter the first floor of the White House. Lawmakers from both parties said the security breach left them with deep concerns over the safety of President Obama and others under Secret Service protection.

Doctors sent the first U.S. Ebola patient — identified as Thomas Eric Duncan, 40 — home the first time he showed up in the emergency room last week, health officials said Wednesday. Some doctors were not informed that he had been to Liberia, and his symptoms were not deemed severe enough for admission. Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, said the hospital "dropped the ball." Up to 18 people were exposed to the patient, who vomited outside his home before returning to the hospital two days later.

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A Florida jury on Wednesday convicted Michael Dunn, 47, of first-degree murder for fatally shooting Jordan Davis, 17, in an argument over loud music. Another jury had convicted Dunn of three counts of second-degree attempted murder for firing his pistol at Davis and three other teenagers in the parking lot of a Jacksonville gas station. The first jury had deadlocked on the murder charge. In the retrial, Dunn said he fired because he saw a "very angry-looking young man" and feared for his life.

Hong Kong's police chief warned pro-democracy protesters on Thursday not to follow through on a threat to occupy government buildings if the financial center's chief executive, Leung Chun-ying, does not step down by the end of the day. Thousands of demonstrators have been blocking streets around city government headquarters since last week demanding free elections to choose their next leader. Beijing warned of "chaos" if the protests continue, and backed Leung, signaling its unwillingness to back down.

Canadian asset-management firm Brookfield U.S. Holdings on Wednesday won a bankruptcy court auction to buy the massive Revel casino hotel in Atlantic City for $110 million. The Revel cost $2.4 billion to build, and was open just two years before shutting down a month ago in a wave of casino bankruptcies in the seaside city. Brookfield, which already owns casinos in Las Vegas and the Bahamas, plans to reopen it. The sale still has to be approved in a hearing on Oct. 7.

A Somali-American man was sentenced Wednesday to 30 years in prison for plotting to bomb an Oregon Christmas-tree lighting ceremony in 2010. Mohamed Osman Mohamud, 23, had been given a phony bomb by undercover FBI agents posing as al Qaeda recruiters, and he was arrested after pressing a keypad button on a cellphone that he thought would detonate a truck bomb at the Portland event. Mohamud, a naturalized U.S. citizen, has apologized, saying what he did was "terrible." His lawyers plan to appeal.

Islamic State of Iraq and Syria insurgents continued advancing toward a Kurdish town on Syria's border with Turkey despite coalition airstrikes. Fear of a massacre drove thousands more refugees into Turkey. The country's parliament is expected to begin debating on Thursday whether to join the international fight against the Islamist group, also known as ISIS, by approving military incursions over the border, and letting coalition forces operate from Turkey.

A federal appeals court on Wednesday ordered North Carolina to restore same-day voter registration and count provisional ballots cast outside voters' home precincts. Civil rights groups had said the state's Republican-controlled legislature's decision to scrap the two provisions would have disproportionately harmed minority voters. Election officials said the state would appeal the ruling because the state had already sent out four million voting guides, and changing the rules now would confuse voters.

The government of Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto scored a major drug-war victory on Wednesday with the arrest of Hector Beltran Leyva, one of the country's most high-profile drug bosses. The arrest was expected to be a devastating blow to the Beltran Leyva gang, which had feuded with the powerful kingpin Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman, a former ally. Few details were available on Beltran Leyva's capture. Authorities are conducting tests to confirm his identity.

Thirty-five thousand walruses have come ashore in Alaska because the Arctic summer sea ice they normally rest on has been melting due to warming global temperatures, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Similar sightings were reported in 2007, 2009, and 2011. "It's another remarkable sign of the dramatic environmental conditions changing as the result of sea ice loss," said Margaret Williams of the World Wildlife Fund.

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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.