Hello! Here's what you need to know on Thursday.
1. A man was critically wounded from a gunshot Wednesday during the second night of protests in Charlotte, North Carolina, over the deadly shooting of a black man by police. North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory declared a state of emergency and deployed the National Guard to help local law enforcement, who fired tear gas and rubber bullets to break up demonstrators.
2. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan will invest $3 billion into research on curing all diseases by the end of this century. Zuckerberg said their philanthropic organisation, The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, is already "building a world-class engineering team" to help scientists and medical experts research diseases.
3. The Islamic State may have fired a chemical weapon at US and Iraqi troops at a military base in northern Iraq. One official said the mustard agent had "low purity" and was "poorly weaponized," while a second official called it "ineffective," according to CNN.
4. Donald Trump has taken the lead over Hillary Clinton in three states that are considered crucial to a Trump victory. Trump holds a 5-point lead over his Democratic opponent in North Carolina and Ohio and a 3-point lead in Nevada, according to Fox News polls.
5. A big fire at an electricity plant that powers most of Puerto Rico caused a blackout across the island of 3.5 million people. The fire has been extinguished but a spokeswoman for the plant said it is not clear when power will be restored.
6. Rome's new mayor will not support the city's bid to host the 2024 Olympics."We have nothing against the Olympics and sport ... but we don't want sport to be an excuse for more rivers of cement in the city. We won't allow that," Virginia Raggi said.
7. The man suspected of planting explosives in New York and New Jersey had a notebook on him when he was taken into custody that detailed his Islamic extremist ideology. The notebook belonging to 28-year-old Ahmad Khan Rahami mentioned Abu Mohammad al-Adnani, who was the spokesman for the terrorist group ISIS until he died last month, according to ABC News.
8. Anthony Weiner engaged in a monthslong sexting relationship with a 15-year-old high school student, according to a report in The Daily Mail. The former member of Congress and New York City mayoral candidate reportedly sent the teenager graphic sexual messages, including shirtless photographs.
9. McLaren denied a report published in the Financial Times on Wednesday that Apple is in talks to buy the supercar maker."There's no takeover, no strategic investment. It's completely untrue," a McLaren spokesperson told Business Insider.
10. The European Union's probe into Apple's taxes actually began in the United States, according to EU competition chief Margrethe Vestager, who was speaking at a panel at Columbia University. In 2013, a US Senate committee called out the "gimmicks" and "schemes" that allowed Apple to get sweetheart deals by noting that the company had quietly negotiated a special corporate tax rate of 2% or less in Ireland.
And finally ...
Astronomers have finally solved the mystery of these giant glowing space blobs.
