10 things you need to know today: August 20, 2015

(Image credit: (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren))

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1. Fatal police shooting sets off protests in St. Louis
2. Ex-Subway pitchman Jared Fogle to plead guilty to child porn and sex charges
3. Three firefighters die in Washington wildfire
4. Trump gains on Clinton in hypothetical general election
5. South Korea on highest alert after exchange of artillery with North Korea
6. U.N. reportedly plans to let Iran inspect its own nuclear site
7. Bush, Trump hold mutually antagonistic town halls in New Hampshire
8. Hacked Ashley Madison user data includes thousands of government email addresses
9. Eight Turkish police killed in flurry of alleged terrorist attacks
10. Researchers give e-cigarettes mixed reviews

last updated 20 August 2015

1. Fatal police shooting sets off protests in St. Louis

St. Louis police arrested nine people late Wednesday for protests that broke out after two officers fatally shot a black 18-year-old, Mansur Bal-Bey, who allegedly pointed a gun at them. Bal-Bey and another man reportedly fled when the two officers, who are white, were issuing a search warrant at a house where police said they found several guns and crack cocaine. Local tensions were already high after violence marred peaceful protests marking the one-year anniversary of the fatal shooting of unarmed black teen Michael Brown in Ferguson, a St. Louis suburb.

Former Subway spokesman Jared Fogle agreed Wednesday to plead guilty to charges that he received child pornography and traveled to New York City to have paid sex with minors. Under the agreement, Fogle will pay $1.4 million in restitution to 14 victims, and could face up to 12 and a half years in prison. The charges stem from evidence found in a raid of Fogle's Indiana home in July. The sandwich chain that made him famous severed ties with Fogle after the raid.

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Three Forest Service firefighters were killed Wednesday and four others injured fighting a fast and unpredictable central Washington wildfire, one of more than 100 that have scorched more than a million acres across the West. The three who died were on an "initial attack" operation when their vehicle crashed. Then the flames overtook them. ""It was a hell storm up here," Okanogan County Sheriff Frank Rogers said. "The fire was racing and the winds were blowing in every direction, and then they would shift."

Donald Trump, who leads the Republican presidential field in polls, is gaining on Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton, according to a CNN/ORC survey released Wednesday. In July, Clinton led Trump by 17 percentage points in a hypothetical general-election matchup. In the new poll, Trump was only seven percentage points behind. His gains came as Clinton's favorability rating fell to a new low as she faced questions about her use of a private email server when she was secretary of state.

On Thursday, North Korea fired an artillery shell into South Korea, Seoul said, apparently aiming for a loudspeaker that the has been blaring anti-Pyongyang propaganda north of the DMZ for a week, since South Korean soldiers were maimed by a mine. South Korea fired dozens of shells back, and its military is now on its highest alert as national security officials gather in Seoul to discuss how to react. Some residents of Yeoncheon, near where the North Korean shell fell, were evacuated to bunkers. There have been no injuries reported.

The United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency has struck a secret deal to let Iran use its own inspectors to investigate a site Tehran allegedly has used for nuclear-weapons research, The Associated Press reported Wednesday. The news sparked harsh criticism from Republican critics of the diplomatic deal to curb Iran's nuclear program in exchange for lifting economic sanctions. The inspections issue raised tensions weeks before Congress begins debate on the proposed deal in early September.

During their dueling town hall meetings Wednesday in New Hampshire, both Donald Trump and Jeb Bush made jabs at each other, with Trump saying Bush's crowd was "sleeping" during his event and Bush questioning Trump's political loyalties. "Mr. Trump does not have a conservative record," Bush said. "He was a Democrat longer than he was a Republican." Before the town hall, Trump told reporters Bush is "low energy" and "out of touch" when it comes to women's health. "I don't see how he's electable," he said. A Franklin Pierce University/Boston Herald poll has Trump leading the GOP presidential candidates in New Hampshire with 18 percent support. Bush is in second place with 13 percent.

The personal data of cheating-site Ashley Madison users that hackers posted online this week included profiles linked to 15,000 government and military email addresses, although some appeared to be fake. The highest rate of membership for the site, geared toward married people looking to have affairs, was in Washington, D.C. The massive data dump included 37 million records, with full names and contact information.

Violence on Wednesday heightened tensions in Turkey as President Tayyip Erdogan said the country was "heading rapidly towards an election again" due to the failure to form a coalition government. In one attack, two people identified by authorities as members of a "terrorist group" shot at police outside an Istanbul palace. In another, a bomb killed eight soldiers in the southeast. The violence came weeks after Turkey declared a "war on terror" and agreed to let the U.S. launch airstrikes against Islamic State forces from its bases.

E-cigarettes are 95 percent safer than traditional tobacco products, according to a study by British health officials released Wednesday. The authors even said the "game-changing" devices, which allow users to inhale nicotine-laced vapor without tobacco, could help smokers quit. A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, however, found that ninth-graders who used electronic cigarettes were more likely to try cigarettes, cigars, or hookahs than peers who had never tried e-cigarettes.

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Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.