Morning Must Reads: October 3

Hong Kong Backlash Begins

A hundreds-strong pro-government mob destroyed one of Hong Kong’s democracy protest sites Friday afternoon local time, attacking students, trashing their tents and hurling obscenities as they tore through the site in Mong Kok, on the Kowloon peninsula

One Man’s Story of Surviving Ebola

Foday Galla, a 37-year-old ambulance-team supervisor in the Liberian capital of Monrovia, describes his ordeal — “I went to hell and back” — and how he made it through

‘Flaw’ Led to Ebola-Patient Release

The Dallas hospital treating the first diagnosed case of Ebola in the U.S. suggested that a technical flaw led to the decision not to admit Thomas Eric Duncan on the first visit

JPMorgan Says 76 Million Households Hit by Cyberbreach

The biggest bank in the U.S. revealed in a regulatory filing Thursday that a cybersecurity breach disclosed over a month ago affected 76 million households, exposing customer names, addresses, phone numbers and email addresses

Ashton Kutcher, Mila Kunis Reveal New Daughter’s Name

But, in a tease to celebrity-baby watchers, new father Ashton Kutcher declined to reveal what the newborn girl looks like, posting to a website six photos of tiny tots plus two cute animal shots. “Can you guess which one is ours, or does it really matter?” he asked

Poll: 2 of 3 Americans Back Strikes in Iraq, Syria

A new Associated Press-GfK poll finds nearly two-thirds of Americans back U.S. air strikes in Iraq and Syria to combat the threat from Islamic extremists, yet half also think there’s a high risk of a future terrorist attack on American soil

Obama Plays Politics in ‘Nonpolitical’ Economic Speech

With 33 days until the midterm elections, President Obama was attempting once again to pivot the national conversation back to the economy after months dominated by foreign crises in West Africa, Iraq, Syria and Ukraine

Facebook/WhatsApp Deal Gets Europe’s OK

The 28-nation bloc’s executive Commission said Friday it approved Facebook’s proposed $19 billion takeover of messaging service WhatsApp and that the deal may go ahead because consumers will still have a wide choice of communication apps they could use

Appeals Court Rules Texas Can Enforce Abortion Restrictions

A federal appeals court ruled Thursday that Texas can immediately begin to enforce strict new abortion restrictions that will in effect close all except seven abortion facilities in the second-largest state in the country

Author of The Notebook Faces Bigotry Allegations

The former headmaster of a private school founded by Nicholas Sparks alleges in a lawsuit filed Thursday that the best-selling author, along with other school officials, forced him out of office after he tried to recruit black students and faculty

Good News, Southern California: The Smog Is Going Away

A new study says cancer-causing pollutants have dropped over 50% on average since 2005, the last time the South Coast Air Quality Management District checked air quality extensively — a result attributed to efforts to reduce emissions from diesel trucks and other vehicles

Study Tracks Down Where America’s Bachelors Live

The Pew Research Center created an interactive map to showcase which parts of the U.S. tend to have a bumper crop of employed bachelors and bachelorettes. There isn’t a single city in the nation where employed, single women outnumber the men

We will hold an #AskTIME subscriber Q&A today, Friday, October 3, at 1 p.m., with Joe Klein, TIME political columnist and the author of six books, including Politics Lost. Joe is currently on his annual road trip, which has taken him on a Southern swing to North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas and Kentucky, where he has been talking politics at town meetings, political rallies, meet-and-greets, and at Lansky Brothers, the “Clothier to the King.”

His other stories can be found here.

Please 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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