Events at a Glance

THE ECONOMY

U.S. unemployment surged in October as American employers laid off more workers than in any month in the last 21 years. The government report portrayed an economy damaged by the September terrorist attacks and slipping into recession.

MILITARY FRONT

In asking for patience, President Bush declared that “this is not an instant gratification war” and said he won’t order the military to hold back during Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting and prayer that begins in about two weeks.

PROTEST

In a violent confrontation that revealed the explosive tensions simmering in New York, several hundred firefighters clashed with police officers at the World Trade Center site, protesting plans to reduce the number of firefighters working to retrieve human remains from the wreckage.

ANTHRAX

Traces of anthrax were found in the office mailbox of a New Jersey bookkeeper, a discovery federal authorities said may offer clues to one of two cases of women who contracted anthrax despite having no direct connection to contaminated letters.

RELIGION

Pakistan’s annual Congregation of Preachers is one of the largest gatherings of Muslims in the world, but it gets little of the attention paid to the much smaller fundamentalist movements because it is almost always conducted in a spirit of moderation and civility.