10 things you need to know today: September 16, 2014

(Image credit: (AP Photo/Abbas Dulleh))

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1. U.S. hits ISIS with first offensive airstrikes under Obama's new policy
2. Obama announces expanded effort to help West African nations fight Ebola
3. Dry conditions fuel 11 big wildfires in California
4. Taped confession released in 1979 Etan Patz murder case
5. U.N. pulls peacekeepers out of part of the Golan Heights
6. Suicide attacker kills three foreign troops in Afghanistan
7. Number of ignition-switch death claims that GM will compensate rises
8. Hurricane takes out power and strands tourists on Mexico's Pacific coast
9. Urban Outfitters' red-spattered Kent State sweatshirt evokes memories of massacre
10. Trump Plaza becomes fourth casino to close in Atlantic City this year

last updated 13 January 2015

1. U.S. hits ISIS with first offensive airstrikes under Obama's new policy

The U.S. launched airstrikes against Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) fighters on Sunday and Monday in support of Iraqi forces fighting the Islamist militants on the ground. The Pentagon said the attacks were the first taken under an expanded mission announced last week by President Obama that goes "beyond protecting our own people and humanitarian missions." The escalation came as an international summit opened in Paris to discuss a coalition to defeat ISIS.

President Obama plans to announce Tuesday that he is expanding a $763 million U.S. plan to help West African nations combat an Ebola outbreak that has already killed 1,848 people. The Pentagon has already committed to establishing a 25-bed portable hospital in Liberia, which has reported the most deaths, 871. Senior administration officials said late Monday that the U.S. now will send up to 3,000 troops, train 500 health workers, and set up 17 treatment centers with 1,700 beds.

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Eleven major wildfires forced thousands of Californians to evacuate their homes on Monday. One of the blazes, the Courtney Fire, destroyed at least 21 buildings and drove out at least 1,000 residents near one of the entrances to Yosemite National Park. The fires were being fueled by hot, dry conditions exacerbating a severe, statewide drought. The state's Department of Forestry and Fire Protection has dealt with more than 4,800 wildfires so far this year, 1,000 more than average.

The videotaped confession of Pedro Hernandez, the man accused in the 1979 kidnapping and murder of 6-year-old Etan Patz, was made public for the first time at a Monday court hearing. Hernandez, 53, said two years ago that he lured the boy into the basement of the Manhattan neighborhood grocery where he worked and choked him. "I wanted to let go but I just couldn't," Hernandez said. The hearing was being held to determine whether the confession, which Hernandez has recanted, could be used as evidence when the infamous case goes to trial.

The United Nations has begun withdrawing its peacekeepers from the Syrian-controlled side of the Golan Heights. The decision came after 45 peacekeepers were captured by fighters of the al Nusra Front — an Islamist rebel group — then released two weeks later. The U.N. said in a statement released Monday that the peacekeepers were being pulled out because of the "exceptionally challenging environment" created by armed rebel groups that have been taking over turf controlled by the U.N. for four decades.

A Taliban bomber detonated his car next to a military convoy near the U.S. embassy in Kabul on Tuesday, killing three foreign troops and wounding nearly 20 other people, including civilians and five other international soldiers. The NATO-led coalition did not immediately release the nationalities of the soldiers who were killed. A fourth foreign soldiers was killed in the country's east, bringing the number of foreign troops killed in Afghanistan this year to 59, including at least 42 Americans.

General Motors will pay compensation for 19 deaths — up from 13 — that were linked to a faulty ignition switch, according to GM's compensation consultant, outside lawyer Ken Feinberg. GM issued a massive recall after problems with the switch, which was installed in 2.6 million GM cars, came to light. The part can slip out of the "run" position, disabling a moving vehicle and its airbags. A total of 125 death and 320 injury claims have been submitted to the compensation fund.

Tens of thousands of tourists were stranded in Cabo San Lucas on Monday after Hurricane Odile slammed into the Pacific coast of Mexico. The storm's 125-mile-per-hour winds downed virtually all of the area's power lines, leaving 239,000 people in Baja California Sur state without electricity. More than 100 people were treated for minor injuries, mostly cuts from windows blown out by high winds. The hurricane, heading north, was expected to be downgraded to a tropical storm on Tuesday.

Urban Outfitters apologized Monday for selling a Kent State sweatshirt with red marks that critics said looked like spattered blood, conjuring up memories of the 1970 killing of four students by Ohio National Guardsmen during an anti-war rally. Kent State said the $129 sweatshirt was "beyond poor taste," and Alan Canfora, who was wounded that day, called it a "crass attempt at free publicity." Urban Outfitters said it never intended to allude to the massacre.

Trump Plaza on Tuesday became the fourth Atlantic City casino to shut down this year. The shuttering of the $2.4 billion Revel, which opened just two years ago, was a surprise, but Trump Plaza had been in decline for years. Donald Trump, who opened the resort in 1984, cut ties several years ago, and last month filed a lawsuit to get his name taken off of it. "It did slip every year," one regular guest said. "This year they had no bedspreads and they totally gave up on the ice machines."

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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.