QUICK HITS

1 Midwest without power: Hundreds of thousands of households in Iowa and Illinois remained without electricity Wednesday, two days after a rare wind storm that hit the Midwest devastated parts of the power grid, flattened valuable corn fields and killed two people. Much of Iowa and parts of several other states suffered outages Monday as straight-line winds toppled trees, snapped poles and downed power lines.

Hundredschant ‘shame!’: 2 Hundreds of women rallied across Belarus’ capital Wednesday to protest a brutal police crackdown that left hundreds injured and thousands detained while challenging election results extending the 26-year rule of the country’s authoritarian leader. In several parts of Minsk, groups of women formed human chains, chanting “Shame!” and calling for an end to the crackdown in a bid to soften the ruthless official response to peaceful protests.

Ford recalls midsize SUVs: Ford 3 is recalling more than 558,000 midsize SUVs in North America because the brakes may not work properly. The recall covers certain 2015 through 2018 Ford Edge and 2016 through 2018 Lincoln MKX vehicles. Ford said Wednesday that some front brake hoses can rupture, causing brake fluid to leak. If too much fluid leaks, it could take more effort to stop the vehicle, and stopping distances could increase.

4 Court tosses antitrust ruling:

A federal appeals court has overturned an antitrust ruling against Qualcomm, dismissing arguments that it unlawfully squeezed out cellphone chip rivals and charged excessive royalties to manufacturers such as Apple. The three-judge panel sided with the San Diego chipmaker in tossing out a district court’s earlier ruling on a lawsuit brought by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.

Uber threatens shutdown: Dara 5 Khosrowshahi, chief executive officer of Uber Technologies Inc., threatened to temporarily shut down service in California if it loses a drawn-out fight over a state law seeking to reclassify contractors as employees. Before then, Uber will continue a lengthy political and legal battle it has been waging since before the law was enacted.