World/Nation
• Ebola patient host family confined to home
DALLAS - Four members of a family the U.S. Ebola patient was staying with were confined to their Texas home under armed guard Thursday as the circle of people possibly exposed to the virus widened, while Liberian authorities said they would prosecute the man for allegedly lying on an airport questionnaire.
The unusual confinement order was imposed after the family failed to comply with a request not to leave their apartment, according to Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins.
Texas State Health Commissioner David Lakey said the order would help ensure the four can be closely watched, including checking them for fevers over the next three weeks.
"We didn't have the confidence we would have been able to monitor them the way that we needed to," he said.
• Ebola patient, scores are sick and dying as virus spreads
MONROVIA, Liberia - Thomas Eric Duncan rushed to help his 19-year-old neighbor when she began convulsing days after complaining of stomach pain. Everyone assumed her illness was related to her being seven months pregnant.
When no ambulance came, Duncan, Marthalene Williams' parents and several others lifted her into a taxi, and Duncan rode in the front seat as the cab took Williams to the hospital. She later died.
Within weeks, everyone who helped Williams that day was either sick or dead, too - victims of Ebola, the virus ravaging Liberia's capital and other parts of West Africa, with more than 3,300 deaths reported.
The disease is spread through direct contact with saliva, sweat, blood and other bodily fluids, and all those who fell ill after helping Williams had touched her. She turned out to have Ebola.
Duncan is now hospitalized in an isolation ward in Texas after falling sick with Ebola following his arrival last month on a family visit. He has become a symbol of how the lethal disease could spread within the U.S.
• Hong Kong protesters set for talks
HONG KONG - Hong Kong protesters on Friday welcomed an overnight offer by the territory's leader of talks to defuse the crisis over demonstrations seeking democratic reforms, though they continued to demand he resign and maintained barricades around government headquarters, frustrating staff going to work.
Student protesters had threatened to surround or occupy government buildings if Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying did not step down by midnight Thursday, and police had warned of serious consequence for the protesters, who have grown into the biggest challenge to Beijing's authority since China took control of the former British colony in 1997.
The government said the Central Government Offices would be temporarily closed after some civil servants and other workers arriving for their shifts following a two-day holiday were unable to get past the barricades. It advised workers to follow contingency plans.
It was unclear what kind of compromise the talks might achieve, though they might be part of a strategy to dampen the momentum of the protesters. A front-page editorial Friday in the People's Daily newspaper, published by China's ruling Communist Party, underlined the leadership's unwillingness to negotiate changes to its decision that all candidates in an inaugural 2017 election for chief executive be approved for the ballot by a committee of mostly pro-Beijing elites.
• JPMorgan: data breach affected 76M households
LOS ANGELES - A huge cyberattack against JPMorgan Chase & Co. this summer compromised customer information for about 76 million households and 7 million small businesses, the bank said Thursday.
JPMorgan Chase said that names, addresses, phone numbers and email addresses were stolen from the company's servers, but only customers who use the websites Chase.com and JPMorganOnline and the apps ChaseMobile and JPMorgan Mobile were affected.
The New York-based bank said there's no evidence that the data breach included account numbers, passwords, Social Security numbers or dates of birth. It also said it has not seen any unusual customer fraud stemming from the data breach.
JPMorgan Chase, the nation's biggest bank by assets, has been working with law enforcement officials to investigate the cyberattack.
The bank discovered the intrusion on its servers in mid-August and has since determined that the breach began as early as June, spokeswoman Patricia Wexler said.
• Colorado board could decide fate of course changes
GOLDEN, Colo. - Students and parents fighting a plan to promote patriotism and downplay civil disobedience in some suburban Denver U.S. history courses blasted the school board Thursday ahead of a possible vote on the proposal, accusing the new conservative majority of trying to indoctrinate students with their politics.
Turnout was so high that the teachers union streamed video from the meeting room - which holds a couple hundred people - onto a big screen in the parking lot outside along with popcorn.
Many inside objected to members of the board's new conservative majority calling students who have walked out of class to protest "pawns."
"This is America. Stop calling us names when we exercise our rights," said Lisa Cooke, a mother of two students.
- The Associated Press