10 things you need to know today: October 25, 2012

Pablo Sandoval #48 of the San Francisco Giants celebrates with a curtain call after hitting a solo home run in Game 1 of the World Series against the Detroit Tigers. Sandoval went on to hit t

(Image credit: Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images)

last updated 8 January 2015

1. MOURDOCK BACKLASH SPILLS INTO PRESIDENTIAL RACE

With polls showing Mitt Romney and President Obama in a dead heat with the election less than two weeks away, the Obama campaign is trying to tie Mitt Romney to embattled Senate candidate Richard Mourdock's controversial remark that when rape results in pregnancy it's something "God intended." Romney distanced himself from the remarks but is standing by his endorsement of Mourdock. Team Obama put out a video saying that "Romney's solution to extremism against women" is to "promote the extremists." Mourdock said Democrats were twisting his words for political gain, explaining that he "abhors any kind of sexual violence" but that abortion is wrong in all cases because every life is precious. [USA Today]

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San Francisco Giants third baseman Pablo Sandoval became the fourth baseball player in history to hit three home runs in a World Series game, powering his team to an 8-3 win over the Detroit Tigers in Wednesday's game one of this year's series. The only people to perform the feat before him were Albert Pujols, Reggie Jackson, and Babe Ruth, who did it twice. When Sandoval blasted his third homer, in the fifth inning, the crowd erupted in cheers. "I still can't believe it," Sandoval said. "When you're a little kid, you dream about being in the World Series. But I wasn't thinking about being in this situation, three homers in one game, you know?" [New York Times]

Syrian government forces blasted a Damascus suburb with tanks and rockets, killing at least five people a day before U.N.-Arab League mediator Lakhdar Brahimi's proposed weekend ceasefire was scheduled to begin. Brahimi says most rebel groups and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime have agreed to stop fighting for four days to mark Islam's Eid al-Adha holiday, although the Syrian military is expected to announce its final decision on whether to honor the ceasefire on Thursday. [Reuters]

Shares of Facebook surged by 19 percent on Wednesday to close at $23.23, its best one-day performance since the company debuted on the stock market in May. Investors were elated by the news that Facebook had made $150 million in revenue from mobile ads in the third quarter, an indication that the social network had figured out a way to make money from people using Facebook on their smartphones. [Wall Street Journal]

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is trying to douse criticism over newly released State Department emails sent during the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, saying the communication is "not in and of itself evidence" that the administration had immediately concluded the assault was a terrorist attack from the beginning. News outlets say the State Department and White House received alerts as the attack, which killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans, unfolded, saying that the Islamist group Ansar al-Sharia had claimed responsibility. [CBS News]

Rajat Gupta, a former director at Goldman Sachs and Procter & Gamble, on Wednesday was sentenced to two years in prison for his role in an insider-trading ring orchestrated by former hedge fund manager Raj Rajaratnam. "His conduct has forever tarnished a once-sterling reputation," said Preet Bahara, the United States attorney for Manhattan. Gupta is the most well-known figure to go to prison in connection with the ring, which federal authorities say is one of the biggest ever of its kind. [New York Times]

Hurricane Sandy crossed over Cuba early Thursday, headed north toward a possible strike on the U.S. East Coast next week. The storm, which currently has sustained winds reaching 105 miles per hour, is expected to graze Florida with tropical-storm-force winds, then either get pulled out to sea or hit shore anywhere between Delaware Bay and Maine. The storm could clash with a blast of snowy Arctic air, creating an unusual hybrid of hurricane and winter storm. "It'll be a rough couple days from Hatteras to Cape Cod," says forecaster Jim Cisco of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration prediction center in College Park, Md. [Bloomberg, TIME]

Authorities in Pakistan have arrested nine people in connection with the shooting of Malala Yousafzai, a 15-year-old activist who has advocated education for girls and criticized the Taliban. Six men were accused of helping stage the assassination attempt. The other three people arrested weren't charged for involvement in the attack — they were the mother, brother, and fiancee of the primary suspect, 23-year-old Atta Ullah Khan, who's still at large. [CNN]

Federal prosecutors filed a lawsuit against Bank of America on Wednesday over an alleged mortgage scheme that "defrauded the government during the depths of the 2008 financial crisis." In the civil complaint, which seeks $1 billion in damages, the Justice Department implicates a home loan program known as the "hustle," a venture that Bank of America inherited with its purchase of Countrywide Financial during the financial meltdown. Prosecutors say the effort was designed to churn out mortgages at a rapid pace without proper checks on wrongdoing. A Bank of America spokesman said the company had "stepped up" and tried to resolve "legacy" mortgage problems, and shouldn't be blamed for losses "that actually were caused by the economic downturn." [New York Times, BusinessWeek]

The British economy emerged from recession in the third quarter of the year, with a big boost from spending at the London Olympics. The U.K.'s gross domestic product, a measure of the value of everything produced in the country, grew by a far-better-than-expected 1 percent from July to September, the country's strongest growth in five years. Olympic ticket sales accounted for a fifth of that figure, and some analysts warned that the one-time lift masked the underlying weakness of the U.K.'s recovery. Despite the return to growth after three quarters of contraction, British output still hasn't returned to where it was before the 2008 financial crisis. [Reuters]

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