Hong Kong: The chief executive set a Monday morning deadline for pro-Democracy protesters to pull back from the government center and student leaders have begin to comply in a move to clear the way for talks. Protesters still occupy other sites in the city and there’s no indication if or when the police might move in.

Ebola: Thomas Duncan, the Liberian Ebola patient in a Dallas hospital, took a turn for the worse yesterday and is now listed in critical condition. Meanwhile the Centers for Disease control have narrowed the list of people most in danger from exposure to Duncan to just nine.

First Casualty: A Marine corporal who bailed out of an MV-22 Osprey aircraft that was in danger of crashing into the Persian Gulf is described in the press as the first American casualty of military action against ISIS in Syria and Iraq. Shortly after takeoff Wednesday the tilt-rotor aircraft lost power. Cpl. JL Spears and another crewmember bailed out, but the pilot recovered and landed the plane on the amphibious assault ship Makin Island. The other crewmember was rescued, but Spears was never found.

Thaw: North Korea’s number two man visited South Korean officials yesterday in the first high-level in-person talks between the two countries in five years. There were no breakthroughs, but just talking is progress for the divided Koreas. They say they plan to talk again in October and November.

Search Resumes: After a four-month break, the search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 is set to resume in the Indian Ocean. Searchers plan to use new technology to look for the plane that disappeared March 8 with 239 people on board. Three ships will spend up to a year in a 37,000-square kilometer zone about 1,100 miles west of Australia. 

Sports Page: The Washington Nationals held off the San Francisco Giants for 18 innings yesterday before losing 2-1. The Giants ended it with a home run. At six hours, 23 minutes, it was the longest game in the history of post-season play for Major League Baseball. San Francisco leads 2-0 as the series returns to the West Coast.

The Obit Page: Jean-Claude Duvalier, the former Haitian dictator known as “Baby Doc”, died of a heart attack in Port-au-Prince. Duvalier was 19 when he succeeded his father, known as “Papa Doc,” and declared himself “president for life” in 1971. Baby Doc was reputed to have run one of the most bloody and repressive regimes in the Western Hemisphere. Thousands of opponents and perceived enemies disappeared. After plundering the national treasury, Duvalier fled the country in 1986 but ultimately returned to live openly, denying his record of torture, murder, and oppression. He told a judge, “Deaths exist in all countries. I didn’t intervene in the activities of the police.”

Darwin Denied: The Coast Guard yesterday rescued a man attempting to “run” from Florida to Bermuda inside a plastic bubble powered by his hands and feet. It’s a thousand miles. Iranian American Reza Baluchi had said he pulled the stunt to raise money for children in need. He had a supply of protein bars and had rigged a hammock for sleeping inside the bubble. When the Coast Guard first approached him he asked how to get to Bermuda.

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