Morning Must Reads: October 16

U.S. Scrambles to Contain Ebola

The Texas health care worker who tested positive for Ebola traveled on a plane just a day before she reported a fever, officials said, as the third diagnosis of the deadly disease in the U.S. stoked fear in travelers and sent officials scrambling to contain it

6 Ways Apple’s iPad May Change

The tech giant is getting ready to make some major announcements Thursday, and there’s a lot of speculation about what consumers can expect to see

Royals Are the Future of Baseball

Kansas City, which heads to its first World Series since 1985, represents the changing game of baseball, writes TIME’s Sean Gregory

Neil Patrick Harris Will Host the Oscars in 2015

The actor, best known for his work on How I Met Your Mother, has become in recent years a semiprofessional host of sorts, tackling the Emmys twice and the Tonys four times, and exerting a great deal of energy in the process

ISIS in Retreat From Syrian Border Town, Kurdish Official Says

The Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria has suffered setbacks and begun retreating from parts of the Syrian border town of Kobani, according to a local official, who said Kurdish forces were advancing against the militant group

Bloomberg Helps Democratic Governors Close Gap on GOP

A national Republican group devoted to helping elect GOP governors has outraised its Democratic counterpart, but reports filed Wednesday with the Internal Revenue Service show that the gap is narrowing, fueled by labor unions and the former New York City mayor

Netflix’s Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

Stocks in the company fell more than 25% in after-hours trading Wednesday, after the company said it had missed its quarterly subscriber growth forecast, and on the back of news that HBO would begin offering a stand-alone streaming service in 2015

Stock Markets Are Waking Up to Economic Reality

A significant drop by the Dow, as well as big losses in the European and Asian markets, shows they are reacting to what should have been obvious to investors for some time, “and we can blame some pretty gutless policymaking for it,” writes TIME’s Michael Schuman

U.S. Calls for Probe Into Beating by Hong Kong Police

The State Department asked for a “swift, transparent and complete” investigation into the beating by Hong Kong police of a local activist during one of the most violent demonstrations in nearly three weeks of pro-democracy protests

John Grisham Says Child-Porn Sentences Often Too Harsh

The legal-thrillers author spoke at-length about issues he believes are facing the American criminal justice system today, and shared the story of a friend from law school who served time in prison for downloading child pornography

Both Parties See Downside to Winning the Senate

Democrats and Republicans quietly agree that the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on the campaign for control of the Senate might not be worth the prize, with political gridlock expected to prevail no matter which party takes the midterm elections

Another Good Wife Star to Exit at Season’s End

Emmy Award winner Archie Panjabi, who plays private investigator Kalinda Sharma on the CBS drama, will leave the show after Season 6, when her contract expires, in order to star in a pilot for a 20th Century Fox Television drama

We will hold an #AskTIME subscriber Q&A this Friday, October 17, at 1 p.m., with TIME Washington bureau chief, Michael Scherer, who wrote this week’s cover story on the most interesting man in politics, Rand Paul.

His other stories can be found here.

You can submit your questions beforehand on Twitter using the #AskTIME hashtag or in the comments of this post. We depend on smart, interesting questions from readers.

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