The Recording Industry Association of America, the National Parent Teacher Association, and a group of parents called the Parents’ Music Resource Center announced a voluntary program in which record companies would attach an “Explicit Lyrics – Parental Advisory” notice to albums containing explicit references to drugs, sex, or violence. Recording artist Frank Zappa said that it was an unworkable idea and that he would not abide by it, saying that parents, not the government, should take responsibility for addressing the needs of children.

Historic Union Cemetery in Kansas City, Mo., had been hit by Halloween vandals. They had broken or overturned 75 to 100 headstones and were suspected of setting a fire that destroyed a caretaker’s bungalow. No one had been living in the house, which had recently been restored. The cemetery contained the graves of Civil War soldiers, as well as those of Alexander Majors, found of the Pony Express, and John Calvin McCoy, founder of Westport.