Here is what's happening across the United States and around the world today.
After lengthy review, Hagel to promise shakeup in how nuke force is managed, plus more money
WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is ordering top-to-bottom changes in how the nation's nuclear arsenal is managed, vowing to invest billions of dollars more to fix what ails a force beset by leadership lapses, security flaws and sagging morale.
Hagel is scheduled to announce Friday the results of two reviews — one by Pentagon officials and a second by outside experts — and to spell out actions he has ordered to improve nuclear force management. Two senior defense officials discussed the Hagel plan Thursday on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to be cited by name.
Hagel's moves, while not dramatic, are designed to get at the core of the problem, the officials said.
Hagel's reviews concluded that the structure of U.S. nuclear forces is so incoherent that it cannot be properly managed in its current form, and that this problem explains why top-level officials often are unaware of trouble below them. The senior defense officials said the reviews found a "disconnect" between what nuclear force leaders say and what they deliver to lower-level troops who execute the missions in the field.
To illustrate the degree of decay in the intercontinental ballistic missile force, the reviews found that maintenance crews had access to only one tool set required to tighten bolts on the warhead end of the Minuteman 3 missile, and that this single tool set was being used by crews at all three ICBM bases in North Dakota, Wyoming and Montana. They had to share it via Federal Express delivery, the defense officials said. The crews now have one at each of the three bases.
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In Myanmar, Obama oozes support for pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi
YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — President Barack Obama mounted a warm show of support Friday for Myanmar's opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, voicing opposition to a constitutional rule that's keeping the pro-democracy icon off next year's ballot. While crediting Myanmar for progress in its transition to democracy, he offered a blunt assessment of the distressing shortcomings that have called that transition into question.
In his joint appearance with Suu Kyi, on the back porch of her lakeside home, Obama stopped short of an explicit endorsement for her potential campaign for president. But his affection and deep admiration for Suu Kyi was clear, from his praise for her efforts to liberalize the government to the ease with which he whispered in her ear as they walked arm in arm into the home where she was once confined as a political prisoner.
Although Obama was quick to caution he didn't want to dictate how Myanmar should pick its next president, he said told President Thein Sein the night before that he saw little wisdom in a rule barring the 69-year-old Suu Kyi from running next year because her children hold British citizenship.
"I don't understand a provision that would bar somebody from running for president because of who their children are," Obama said. "That doesn't make much sense to me."
Suu Kyi, a member of Parliament demure in her support for changing that provision, said it was flattering to have a constitution written with her in mind. But she said that wasn't how it should be done in a democracy, urging supporters not to get too caught up in whether she wins next year's pivotal elections.
AP source: Doctor sick with Ebola in West Africa coming to US for treatment in Nebraska
NEW YORK (AP) — A surgeon working in West Africa's Sierra Leone has been diagnosed with Ebola and will be flown to the United States for treatment on Saturday, according to a person in the federal government with direct knowledge of the case.
The surgeon, Dr. Martin Salia, will be treated at the Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, the person said. A Sierra Leone citizen, the 44-year-old Salia lives in Maryland and is a legal permanent U.S. resident, according to the person, who was not authorized to release the information and spoke on condition of anonymity
The doctor will be the third Ebola patient at the Omaha hospital and the 10th person with Ebola to be treated in the U.S. The last, Dr. Craig Spencer, was released from a New York hospital on Tuesday
In a statement Thursday, the Nebraska Medical Center said it had no official confirmation that it would be treating another patient, but that an Ebola patient in Sierra Leone would be evaluated for possible transport to the hospital. The patient would arrive Saturday afternoon.
Salia is a general surgeon who had been working at Kissy United Methodist Hospital in the Sierra Leone capital of Freetown, according to the person familiar with the case. He came down with symptoms of Ebola on Nov. 6 but test results were negative for the virus. He was tested again on Monday, and he tested positive. Salia is in stable condition at an Ebola treatment center in Freetown. It wasn't clear whether he had been involved in the care of Ebola patients.
Shiite domination of Iraqi capital on display during holy month, fueling tensions
BAGHDAD (AP) — Red and green Shiite banners line the streets of Baghdad, portraits of religious figures and slain "martyrs" stare down from billboards, hymns blare from shops and cafes, and grim-faced militiamen prowl the streets in pickup trucks.
The holy month of Muharram has brought an unprecedented show of strength by Iraq's Shiite Muslim majority, underscoring its domination of the bitterly fractured capital and the vulnerability of the once-dominant Sunnis, while raising fears of a new round of sectarian cleansing by Shiite militias allied with the government.
"They want to turn Baghdad into a purely Shiite city," said Abu Abdullah, a community leader in Baghdad's Sunni enclave of Azamiyah, who asked that his full name not be published for fear of retribution.
Muharram — a period of mourning over the death of Imam Hussein in a 7th century battle that cemented Islam's Sunni-Shiite divide — is observed with grieving and fasting by Shiites across the region.
But this year in Iraq the traditional Muharram banners are being unfurled at a time when large numbers of Shiite militiamen are battling alongside the army against the Sunni extremists of the Islamic State group, which has seized a third of the county and massacred hundreds of Shiites, whom it views as apostates.
Parents of 43 missing Mexican students cling to hope, reject official view their sons are dead
TIXTLA, Mexico (AP) — Maria Telumbre knows fire. She spends her days making tortillas over hot coals, and experience tells her a small goat takes at least four hours to cook. So she refuses to believe the government's explanation that gang thugs incinerated her son and 42 other missing college students in a giant pyre in less than a day, leaving almost nothing to identify the dead.
The discovery of charred teeth and bone fragments offer Telumbre no more proof of her son's death than the many graves unearthed in Guerrero state since the students disappeared Sept. 26. She simply does not accept that the ashes belong to her 19-year-old son and his classmates.
"How is it possible that in 15 hours they burned so many boys, put them in a bag and threw them into the river?" Telumbre says. "This is impossible. As parents, we don't believe it's them."
For the government of President Enrique Pena Nieto, the account, delivered by the attorney general and based on the confessions of detained gang members, begins to solve the mystery of the missing students. But for Telumbre, her husband, Clemente Rodriguez, and other parents, it is merely the latest lie from an administration that wants to quiet the poor and put this mess behind it. Their demands for the truth are fueling a pent-up national outrage at the government's inability to confront the brutality of drug cartels, corruption and impunity.
The Rodriguez family's chronicle of disbelief is rooted in collusion between Mexican officials and organized crime. The students of the Rural Normal School of Ayotzinapa were last seen in the custody of police in the city of Iguala, allegedly at the behest of the mayor. Soldiers and federal police didn't respond to the parents' urgent appeals for help. Federal officials waited 10 days before intervening. And when they did, parents say, authorities focused on finding graves rather than live students, so graves were all they found.
House set to pass 9th bill clearing way for Keystone pipeline - and this time Senate may join
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Republican-controlled House is on track to easily pass a bill Friday to approve the Keystone XL oil pipeline, and this time, the Senate may follow.
The bill marks the ninth attempt by the House to secure approval of the pipeline, which has been repeatedly delayed by environmental reviews, legal challenges to its route and politics. Prior votes in the Senate on the issue have failed to get enough votes, but supporters said Thursday they were close to reaching that threshold.
Both the GOP and Senate Democrats hope the votes will give an edge to their party's candidate in the Louisiana Senate race, where Republican Rep. Bill Cassidy and Sen. Mary Landrieu are headed for a runoff and both touting their energy credentials in an oil and gas-producing state.
While Landrieu pushed for the vote planned in the Senate next week, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky credited the Republican sponsor, Sen. John Hoeven of North Dakota, for the progress Thursday.
"We never would have gotten to this point without the tireless leadership of Sen. Hoeven in the Senate, and Congressman Cassidy in the House," said McConnell. "Like the experts, Sen. Hoeven also knows that Keystone would also have almost zero net effect on our climate."
G-20 summit to be test of staying power for global forum seen as having lost its way
BRISBANE, Australia (AP) — The annual G-20 leadership summit that groups democrats with authoritarians and rich nations with poor has long suffered from a perception it's all talk and no action. This year, leaders are under extra pressure to produce something tangible.
The global forum is regarded as having been at its most successful during its first summit in 2008 when an alarming financial crisis that was nursed into being on Wall Street rippled around the world, toppling giant banks and casting tens of millions out of work.
Since then, the gathering has been criticized as having produced a lot of lofty goals, but little follow-through despite its member countries representing about 85 percent of the global economy.
Prompting pressure for tangible results at the Group of 20's Brisbane summit this weekend, experts say, are comments from the International Monetary Fund warning about a "new mediocre" for the global economy, with Europe teetering on the brink of recession, China's growth slowing and Japan in a malaise.
"What the world really needs is a little burst of confidence," said Mike Callaghan, Program Director of the G20 Studies Center at the Lowy Institute, an Australian think-tank. "There is the pressure on the G-20 to provide signs of confidence that the countries are cooperating together."
Health woes abound in Nepal village that was stalked by kidney traffickers for years
HOKSHE, Nepal (AP) — Under crushing financial strain, Kumar Budathoki sold one of his kidneys to organ traffickers for $5,000, a sum he hoped would help set him up for a lifetime free of money problems.
Instead, he got a lifetime of health problems — and only a fraction of the money promised to him by a shady broker in Hokshe, a village of tiny farms and mud huts that has been the center of the illegal organ trade in Nepal for more than a decade.
Only about 4,000 people live here, yet at least 121 of them have sold their kidneys, said Krishna Pyari Nakarmi, who has been leading the campaign against the kidney trade in Hokshe. Those are only the cases she has been able to document, and she believes the number could be much higher. The scars are easily hidden under a shirt, and many villagers have moved away — possibly after going through the surgery.
Despite a recent clampdown on the trade, authorities warn that the promise of easy money could easily erase any gains made against the organ traffickers. And villagers who already sold their kidneys continue to suffer the health consequences.
"I sold my kidney because I wanted to buy some land to give my family a good life," said Budathoki, 37, outside the two-story mud home where he lives with his mother, his wife and two teenage children.
Facebook's privacy update: 5 things to know about how your data are tracked and used
NEW YORK (AP) — Facebook is once again trying to simplify its privacy policy, largely to address criticisms that it's too complex and lengthy for the average user.
Laid out with illustrations into short subsections, the new policy explains what types of information Facebook collects and how it uses the data. The new policy is 70 percent shorter than the old one.
Many of the changes are cosmetic, designed to make the policy easier to digest. Still, it helps to go through it to get an idea of all the things Facebook knows about you.
Users have until Nov. 20 to comment on the proposed changes or ask questions. A finalized version will take effect soon after that.
Here are five things to remember about Facebook's data policies.
Dolphins finally get a breakthrough against Buffalo, beat Bills 22-9 to help playoff chances
MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. (AP) — Put simply, the Miami Dolphins were due.
They had been on a disastrous stretch against the Buffalo Bills, with one touchdown in a span of 33 possessions overlapping four games — three of which they lost, the fourth one looking like it would have the same outcome.
"I wasn't aware of that statistic," Miami coach Joe Philbin said. "Certainly didn't pass it along to the team."
Then came a breakthrough, and just like that the Dolphins' playoff chances look a whole lot more realistic.
Ryan Tannehill threw touchdown passes on back-to-back drives in a five minute span in the second half, Miami's defense held Buffalo without a touchdown and the Dolphins beat the Bills 22-9 on Thursday night.
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