World/Nation
• Governor pulls National Guard from Ferguson
FERGUSON, Mo. - Gov. Jay Nixon on Thursday ordered the Missouri National Guard to begin withdrawing from Ferguson, where nightly scenes of unrest have erupted since a white police officer fatally shot an unarmed black 18-year-old nearly two weeks ago.
Since the guard's arrival Monday, flare-ups in the small section of town that had been the center of nightly unrest have begun to subside. The quietest night was overnight Wednesday and Thursday, when police arrested only a handful of people in the protest zone.
"The last two nights have been really good. I feel we're making progress," Nixon told KMOX-AM, noting that a state of emergency remained in effect in Ferguson.
Demonstrations began after the Aug. 9 shooting of Michael Brown, and authorities have arrested at least 163 people in the protest area. Data provided Thursday by St. Louis County showed that while the majority of those arrested are Missourians, just seven live in Ferguson, a St. Louis suburb. The vast majority, 128 people, were cited for failure to disperse. Twenty-one face burglary-related charges.
Meanwhile Thursday, St. Louis County prosecutor Bob McCulloch reiterated he has no intentions of removing himself from the case, and he urged Nixon to once and for all decide if he will act on calls for McCulloch's ouster.
• Pentagon: Islamic militants hurt by airstrikes
WASHINGTON - U.S. airstrikes have helped Iraqi and Kurdish forces regain their footing in Iraq, but the well-resourced Islamic State militants can be expected to regroup and stage a new offensive, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Thursday.
Speaking alongside Hagel at a Pentagon news conference, Army Gen. Martin Dempsey said that although the Islamic State group can be contained it cannot be defeated without attacking it in Syria.
Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said this would not necessarily require airstrikes by the U.S., although Hagel appeared to leave open that possibility by telling reporters, "We're looking at all options."
Citing the recapture this week of the Mosul Dam that had been in Islamic State militants' hands, Hagel credited U.S. bombing as well as U.S. arms supplies to Iraqi and Kurdish forces and international humanitarian assistance to the thousands of Iraqis displaced across northern Iraq.
• Experimental drug saves life of U.S. Ebola victim
ATLANTA - Calling it a "miraculous day," an American doctor infected with Ebola left his isolation unit and warmly hugged his doctors and nurses on Thursday, showing the world that he poses no public health threat one month after getting sick with the virus.
Dr. Kent Brantly and his fellow medical missionary, Nancy Writebol, who was quietly discharged two days earlier, are still weak but should recover completely, and no one need fear being in contact with them, said Dr. Bruce Ribner, who runs the infectious disease unit at Emory University Hospital.
Brantly's reappearance was festive and celebratory, a stark contrast to his arrival in an ambulance under police escort three weeks earlier, when he shuffled into the hospital wearing a bulky white hazardous materials suit.
"I am thrilled to be alive, to be well, and to be reunited with my family," Brantly said, choking up as he read a written statement. Then he and his wife turned and hugged a parade of doctors and nurses, hugging or shaking hands with each one. For some, it was their first direct contact without protective gear.
After Brantly, 33, and Writebol, 59, were infected while working with Ebola victims in Liberia, their charity organizations, Samaritan's Purse and SIM, reached out to top infectious disease experts for help.
• Israel kills 3 top Hamas military commanders
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Israel stepped up its campaign against Gaza's ruling Hamas on Thursday, killing three of the group's senior military commanders in an airstrike that pulverized a four-story home, the second such attack targeting top leaders in two days.
The pinpoint pre-dawn attack on Hamas' inner sanctum was launched minutes after the men emerged from tunnel hideouts, a security official said - displaying the long reach of Israel's intelligence services.
- The Associated Press