Flight: A fire believed to have been set yesterday by an employee at a Chicago air traffic control center created snarls all over the country and led to the cancellation of about 1,750 flights. Passengers were stranded. Authorities say the fire was put out quickly at the facility in suburban Aurora, but the damage may be significant.

A 36-year-old employee was arrested and charged with a felony. The complaint said the employee, Brian Howard, who had worked at the Aurora facility for eight years, had recently been told he was being moved to Hawaii. A message on his Facebook page said he was about to “take out” the facility and take his own life.

War: The US and allies continued to pound ISIS targets in Raqqa Province, Syria today. Britain, Belgium, Denmark, Australia, and the Netherlands all decided this week to join the air war against ISIS. But despite the punishment it’s taking, ISIS has yet to loosen its siege of the Kurdish town of Kobani on the Turkish border.

Nation: Four members of the North Central Texas College softball team died last night when a tractor-trailer crossed the center divide and crushed the side of the team bus. Both drivers survived and the accident is under investigation. > An Oklahoma man fired from a food processing plant beheaded one of the workers and repeatedly stabbed another before he was shot and wounded by the company’s chief operating officer. Alton Nolen, 30, severed the head of Colleen Hufford, 54. A former convict, Nolen is described as a Muslim convert who tried to convert other people.

Ferguson: Police in Ferguson, Mo. have been banned from wearing “I am Darren Wilson” bracelets in support of the fellow officer who shot and killed an unarmed black teenager this summer. Some Ferguson residents were offended to see the bracelets supporting a cop they think should be indicted. An advisory letter from the Justice Department told the Ferguson police chief, “These bracelets reinforce the very ‘us versus them’ mentality that many residents of Ferguson believe exists.” Also this week, Ferguson police Chief Thomas Jackson issued a videotaped apology to the family of Michael Brown for the way the initial investigation was handled and for leaving his body on the street for 4 ½ hours.

Freedom Movement: Hong Kong police arrested 60 people overnight as they cleared pro-Democracy protesters from the main government compound. The protesters want to overturn Beijing’s decision to cancel fully democratic elections that were to be held in Hong Kong in 2017. > The president of the Spanish region of Catalonia has called for an independence vote on Nov. 9^th, much like the recently failed vote for Scottish independence. Catalonia, which includes Barcelona, is one of Spain’s richest and most industrialized areas.

Social Notes: Chelsea Clinton gave birth to a daughter Charlotte early today, making grandparents of former President Bill Clinton and likely presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. The birth was announced on Twitter.

Counter Intelligence: The new iPhone 6 has a feature most users won’t care about, but is of great interest to the National Security Agency. The phone is NSA proof. The phone’s users can generate a code to scramble the phone’s contents. The Apple tech guide says breaking the code could take “more than 5 1/2 years to try all combinations of a six-character alphanumeric passcode with lowercase letters and numbers.” And like, nooobody, is going to have an iPhone 6 by then.

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