THE BIG STORY

Two people were fatally shot and one person was injured in Kenosha during protests for Jacob Blake

Kenosha, Wisconsin has been plunged into three days of civil unrest after a police officer shot Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old Black man, seven times as he got into his car with three of his children nearby on Sunday. Blake's family and attorney said he has been paralyzed by a bullet.

On Tuesday night, two people were shot and killed, and one was injured during the protests that broke out. The shooting happened following a confrontation between protesters and men armed with guns who claimed to be guarding a gas station.

Kyle Rittenhouse, a 17-year-old white man, was arrested in Antioch, Illinois, in connection with the Kenosha shootings. Antioch is about 20 miles from Kenosha.

Multiple social media posts show the suspect open fire at protesters. In one video, the armed man is then seen walking down the street toward a police car with his hands in the air as armored trucks pass by him. He was not apprehended.

What we know about Rittenhouse: the law-enforcement obsessed suspect was in the front row at a Trump rally in January. Here's everything we know about him.

Fallout from the Jacob Blake shooting:

👉 The Milwaukee Bucks decided to sit out Game 5 of their first round of NBA playoffs, and they were backed by other NBA players. Players in the WNBA and baseball players followed suit. The future of the NBA season is in doubt, as players debate sitting out the rest of the playoffs.

👉 Naomi Osaka, the highest paid female athlete, has withdrawn from a Tennis match in protest of Blake’s shooting.

Chaos in Kenosha. Anadolu Agency / Getty Images

STAYING ON TOP OF THIS

Hurricane Laura could lead to an environmental disaster on the Gulf Coast

Forecasters are not mincing words. As Hurricane Laura bears down on Louisiana and Texas, and half a million people flee, they are predicting an “unsurvivable storm surge.”

On top of that concern, environmentalists are also worried about something else: the more than 60 refineries and petrochemical plants in the path of the category 4 hurricane.

This region has seen some damage before. During Hurricane Harvey, oil refineries and petrochemical plants in that storm’s path took a direct hit, collectively releasing hundreds of millions of gallons of toxic wastewater and more than a million pounds of toxic air contaminants.

The worry with Hurricane Laura is that even after storm waters recede, people could be facing threats to their health from chemical spills, runoff, and air polluted by volatile organic compounds, according to some scientists.

SNAPSHOTS

Mike Pence praised a DHS officer killed during a protest. He didn’t mention he was allegedly killed by a far-right extremist. Dave Patrick Underwood was allegedly killed by a gunman with ties to right-wing extremists during protests against police violence in Oakland.

The ACLU is suing the Trump administration over its repression of Portland Protests. The civil liberties group says protesters were brutalized by federal agents.

Schools cannot discriminate against transgender students when it comes to bathrooms, an appeals court ruled. The decision from the 4th Circuit siding with transgender student Gavin Grimm puts the issue of transgender bathroom use back on track for a US Supreme Court fight.

BUILT TO LAST

China secretly built a vast new infrastructure to imprison Muslims

A new BuzzFeed News investigation found that China has secretly built scores of massive new prison and internment camps in the past three years, dramatically escalating its campaign against Muslim minorities.

This has long-term implications: China's move to these purpose-built, high-security camps — some capable of housing tens of thousands of people — signals a radical shift away from the country’s previous makeshift use of public buildings, like schools and retirement homes, to a vast and permanent infrastructure for mass detention.

Through combining the most extensive investigation of China’s internment camp system ever done using publicly available satellite images, and dozens of interviews with former detainees, our investigation identified more than 260 structures built since 2017 and bearing the hallmarks of fortified detention compounds.

The camp at Shufu, in Xinjiang, seen by satellite on April 26, 2020. BuzzFeed News / Google Maps

THE DARK SIDE OF BEING AN INFLUENCER

Charli D’Amelio opened up about online harassment and body-shaming, and it got real

The 16-year-old is one of the most famous teenagers on the planet, and the most followed star on TikTok, with more 80 million followers.

In a lengthy interview on her family’s YouTube channel, Charli shared her anxieties about existing online and the harassment and body shaming she is subject to. “You always have to worry that something from when you were ten is going to get taken out of context,” she said.

“If you have followers, you're not considered a person. You're just a thing that people get to judge and objectify and call names and bully,” Charli added. Here are the highlights from the interview.

I hope you get to change someone's day with your kindness today,

Elamin