10 things you need to know today: November 2, 2015

(Image credit: AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

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1. Royals rally to beat Mets and win World Series
2. Former presidential candidate and actor Fred Thompson dies
3. Turkey's ruling Islamist party regains majority in parliamentary elections
4. Russian airline rules out pilot error or technical problems in crash
5. GOP candidates discuss demands for greater control over primary debates
6. ISIS takes over Syrian town despite Russian-backed government offensive
7. Bernie Sanders unveils his first TV presidential campaign ad
8. Episcopalians install their first black leader
9. Series of minor earthquakes hit near Phoenix
10. ACC suspends officials over errors in wild final play in Duke-Miami game

published 2 November 2015

1. Royals rally to beat Mets and win World Series

The Kansas City Royals on Sunday came from behind to beat the New York Mets 7-2 in 12 innings and win the World Series, four games to one. Mets ace Matt Harvey pitched eight shutout innings in a must-win Game 5, but Kansas City tied the score with two runs in the ninth inning, then scored another five in the 12th to claim their first World Series championship since 1985. The Royals were one win from taking the World Series last year, but lost to the San Francisco Giants in seven games.

Former senator and actor Fred Thompson died on Sunday after a recurrence of lymphoma. He was 73. Thompson had a widely varied career. He was a Watergate lawyer and longtime star of the television crime drama Law and Order, as well as a U.S. senator from Tennessee and a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination. Thompson "was the same man on the floor of the Senate, the movie studio, or the town square of Lawrenceburg, his home," his family said in a statement.

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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) won back its parliamentary majority in snap elections held Sunday. The Islamist-rooted party lost its majority in June elections. Its rebound, with roughly 50 percent of the vote and an estimated 316 seats in the 550-member parliament, marked a significant victory for Erdogan and his prime minister, AKP leader Ahmet Davutoglu. The margin of victory was too slim, however, to help Erdogan realize his goal of establishing an executive presidency.

The Russian plane that crashed Saturday in the Sinai Peninsula broke apart at high altitude en route from Egypt to St. Petersburg, Russia, Alexander Neradko, Russia's air transport chief, said Sunday. Authorities could not immediately pinpoint the cause of the crash, which killed all 224 people on board, but a top leader of the airline, Metrojet, said Monday that only an "external impact" — not pilot error or a technical problem — could have downed the plane. The first 140 bodies were returned to Russia on Monday in a government plane.

Representatives of at least 11 Republican presidential campaigns met Sunday to discuss their demands for greater control over primary debates. The meeting at a suburban Washington, D.C., hotel was hosted by the campaign of frontrunner Ben Carson. The campaigns will review a draft of the demands on Monday before submitting them to the networks on Tuesday. The consensus list includes a two-hour time limit, opening and closing statements, and earlier deadlines for distributing the rules of each forum.

Islamic State fighters seized control of the town of Mahin in central Syria on Sunday along a highway to Damascus. The victory came despite a government offensive in west and northwest Syria aided by Russian warplanes. A U.S.-led coalition trying to aid moderate rebels also has stepped up its airstrikes on ISIS targets. The Islamist insurgents' ability to make battlefield gains despite the increased targeting of their fighters dampened hopes of moving toward a political resolution to the four-year civil war.

Bernie Sanders' Democratic presidential campaign just launched its first TV ad, a 1-minute spot highlighting the independent Vermont senator's personal history. The ad notes that Sanders grew up in Brooklyn and attended public schools before getting his start in the '80s as mayor of Burlington, Vermont. It also touches briefly on his progressive stances on issues like wealth inequality, climate change, and civil rights. The party's frontrunner, Hillary Clinton, launched her first ads in August.

The U.S. Episcopal Church on Sunday installed Michael Curry, who led the Diocese of North Carolina for nearly 15 years, as its first African-American national leader, or presiding bishop. Curry, 62, was elected last summer to succeed the church's first woman leader, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori. The Episcopal Church, which now has 1.9 million U.S. members, has been struggling in recent years with dwindling membership and a rift over gay rights and same-sex marriage.

A string of minor earthquakes shook the Phoenix, Arizona, metropolitan area on Sunday. The most powerful was a magnitude 4.1 temblor that rattled buildings just before 11:30 p.m. At least three quakes were felt, all of them centered near Black Canyon City, about 20 miles north of Phoenix. There were no immediate reports of damage. Earthquakes are rare in Arizona, which is not near West Coast fault lines, but it has been shaken by several minor quakes in recent years.

The Atlantic Coast Conference announced Sunday that it had imposed a two-game suspension for the replay and on-field referees who officiated during an eight-lateral, 91-yard kickoff return that gave the University of Miami a last-second 30-27 Saturday win over Duke. The ACC said the refs made several errors, including not penalizing Miami for an illegal block, and failing to rule that Miami back Mark Walton was down before tossing one of the laterals. Ruling him down would have given Duke the win.

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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.