“I got way more than I wanted — a thousand percent this is what justice looked like to me from the beginning and more,” Liss said. Naomi Harris for BuzzFeed News

STAYING ON TOP OF THIS

Republicans railed against secret impeachment hearings, but now say they won't watch the public ones.

Despite loudly decrying the hearings (and even barging in on one), Republicans have decided that no, they won't watch the public hearings.

Some said they would be too busy, others cited a lack of faith in the inquiry itself. Sen. Richard Shelby argued it would be inappropriate to watch the hearings since impeachment will likely lead to a trial before the Senate.

“I wouldn’t want to see that,” he said of the hearings. “That wouldn’t affect

me at all.”

👉After being unified so far, some Democrats are pushing for Trump's racism to be included in articles of impeachment

👉 "I’ve reported in Ukraine for 10 years. Please read this before you say anything else about impeachment."

👉New day, new impeachment podcast. Hayes Brown is breaking down the latest developments in today's Impeachment Today. Listen and subscribe.

SNAPSHOTS

Border Patrol agents are now doing asylum screenings and are approving far fewer people than asylum officers usually do. An asylum officer said the agents “have an enforcement mindset that isn't appropriate for humanitarian work."

An 18-year-old YouTuber broke down in tears recording a vlog about the pressures of being perfect. "The downside of all of this is the pressure: the pressure to not mess up or say anything that’s going to offend anyone," said Hannah Meloche, who has been vlogging since she was 13 and has more than 3 million subscribers across two channels.

Twitter is trying to fix the dunk and ratio. Within the next two weeks, Twitter will debut a series of experiments meant to calm us down — subtly motivating us to use the quote-tweet, reply, and retweet in nondestructive ways.

A man whose legs were severed in a crash is finally getting a wheelchair after being denied by his insurance. It took months of wrangling and national headlines, but Mark Poss said his insurance company finally approved the claim.

Trump's false claims about Dorian created chaos for weather service employees. The president's insistence that the hurricane posed a danger to Alabama residents prompted a barrage of media requests, hate mail, and requests for direction, internal emails show.

"I DON'T KNOW HOW MUCH LONGER I CAN GO"

A gay teen says her Catholic high school threatened to out her if she didn't accept counseling

At Bishop Amat Memorial High School, the biggest Catholic school in the Los Angeles area, it wasn't against the rules to be gay. But Magali Rodriguez was singled out by staff for her sexuality: She said she was forced into disciplinary meetings and counseling, barred from sitting next to her girlfriend at lunch, and kept under close eye by staff members. If she didn't follow these rules, officials threatened to out her to her parents, she said.

The senior tried to stay positive and get through it, but after more than three years, she was at a breaking point. She was crying every day before school, her grades suffered, and spending time on campus brought intense waves of anxiety. So she decided to speak up — first to her parents and now publicly.

"I really don't want it to happen to anybody else," she told BuzzFeed News.

LONGREADS FOR LONG NIGHTS

The sun is setting sooner, so settle in with these pieces

The Terminator franchise has let Sarah Connor down. Linda Hamilton's iconic character is as fit and formidable as ever in Terminator: Dark Fate, Shannon Keating writes, but the movie ultimately squanders the opportunity to say something new. "Sarah is yet another woman who, in her attempt to have it all (in this case, motherhood and world-saving), ends up just kind of crappy at both tasks."

Shia LaBeouf's new movie puts his whole career in perspective. There are two distinct reasons why Honey Boy is both a powerful and deeply painful film to watch. The first is the story — about a young boy trying to make it as an actor while living in a motel with his emotionally and physically abusive father, Scaachi Koul writes. The other is about Shia LaBeouf himself, who wrote and starred in the largely autobiographical piece.

OK, fine. Let's talk about Harriet. It's not unusual for dramatic license to be taken when a writer or director is creating a narrative based on actual events. However, with the recently released biopic of the iconic historical figure Harriet Tubman, such creative license has come under scrutiny. Director Kasi Lemmons, who previously directed 1997’s Southern gothic classic Eve's Bayou and is herself a black woman, spoke with BuzzFeed News at length about the controversy.

Wishing you the freedom to be yourself,
Brandon