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Arielle: Hey guys, I am Arielle Hixson. It is Thursday, February 9, and let's get the show going.

All right now, first up, America has a new attorney general. After a bitter battle, the Senate voted to confirm Senator Jeff Sessions.

Senator John Cornyn: He will do an outstanding job, I believe, in restoring the reputation of the Department of Justice.

Arielle: His confirmation comes even as Democrats opposed him.

Senator Al Franken: I know Senator Sessions, and I know his record on voting rights. He's no champion of voting rights.

Arielle: At times the debate got ugly. Senator Elizabeth Warren tried to read a letter from the wife of Martin Luther King Jr., which questioned Senator Sessions’ record on African-American civil rights.

Senator Elizabeth Warren: I tried to read a letter from Coretta Scott King, and Mitch McConnell came to the floor and shut me down.

Arielle: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said reading the 1986 letter was damaging the reputation of her fellow colleague. Senator Sessions' staffers will move to the Department of Justice later today.

Okay, two-thirds of the country is dealing with wicked weather today, from storms in the Midwest, snow in the Northeast to tornadoes in the South. It sounds like a good day to stay home.

In Louisiana it was so bad that a state of emergency was declared. Nearly half a dozen powerful tornadoes barreled through southeast Louisiana over the past few days. People recorded the destruction as it unfolded.

Debris filled the air, and dangerous winds flipped and pushed what appeared to be a trailer through a mall parking lot. Surveillance footage shows the roof of a business blowing off and smashing into parked cars; in the background an 18-wheeler flipped on its side. Near New Orleans a tornado ripped through with 135-mile-per-hour winds, tearing apart homes and knocking out power to thousands.

Okay, after the break, a little-known story about a group of people the UN says are on the brink of being wiped out.

Arielle: Yesterday, we told you about how the country of Myanmar was beginning to open up to the world. But there are still problems with how the government treats some of its people. In fact, last week, the United Nations released a report listing horrible acts of violence against a group of people known as the Rohingya.

The report warned that if the world doesn't get involved, the government of Myanmar would continue this "campaign of terror." Tom Hanson breaks down the struggle for us as we continue our look inside Myanmar.

Tom: All of these graves over here and all of these ones are…

Gravedigger: New.

Tom: Are new? How new?

Gravedigger: These graves are five or two day; this one is yesterday.

Tom: Jossanamuh has seen many people in his community disappear.

Jossanamuh: Since the violence, I have buried more than 1,000 people. In this year, including children, I've buried nearly 500.

Tom: Their names and identity have made them a target.

Jossanamuh: It makes me feel very sad. I feel so sad when I have to bury someone, I don't want to eat.

Tom: These are the many faces — young and old — of Myanmar's Rohingya, called the "most persecuted minority in the world" by the United Nations.

Matthew Smith: What makes Rohingya unique is that they're stateless. This is an ethnic minority Muslim population in the country. And statelessness is also an abuse that leads to many other human rights violations.

Tom: They are a group of about 1 million Muslims in a population that is 90 percent Buddhist and have considered the westernmost part of Myanmar home for centuries. But the government believes they are illegal immigrants from neighboring Bangladesh and doesn't recognize them as rightful citizens.

In the 1980s the Rohingya were stripped of their citizenship, and years of tension boiled over in 2012 in the form of violent riots. The world was shocked to see normally peaceful Buddhist monks fighting against the Rohingya.

Smith: Muslim communities were targeted. They were burned to the ground. People were forced from their homes. We've documented killings, rape, torture, arbitrary arrest and detention. Those who stayed behind or tried to salvage their communities were attacked viciously. Essentially, the city of Sittwe has been ethnically cleansed of all Rohingya.

Tom: On the streets of Sittwe today, you won't find any Rohingya. That is because the mostly Buddhist government forced them to leave their homes temporarily to stop the violence. But now, four years later, this is where more than 140,000 Rohingya still live: makeshift camps that some call open-air prisons. People here live in horrible conditions with almost no freedom, and the government won't allow them to leave.

Man: We have just been surviving. If we cannot get any food, we survive on just rice. We don't know why the government keeps us like this. They treat us like animals.

Tom: The dire conditions even led to a migrant crisis in 2015, with thousands of men, women and children attempting to make it to neighboring Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand, trapped for days on rickety cargo boats unfit for sea with little food or water. After international attention some people were rescued.

President Barack Obama: The Rohingya have been discriminated against significantly, and that's part of the reason they're fleeing.

Tom: But thousands are missing, either drowned or sold off into slavery by international criminals.

Smith: In most cases when Rohingya board these ships, they're essentially treated as property of these human traffickers. They're stripped of all of their belongings, deprived of adequate food, deprived of water. On the ships we've documented torture; we've documented killings.

Tom: Despite obvious suffering, the treatment of this minority is largely supported by the general public in Myanmar. Along with many countries around the world, Myanmar has seen a rise in discrimination and hate against people who are different, like the Rohingya, whose skin color and religion make them a minority. Here, that hate is strengthened by fake news stories and misinformation from the government and nationalist groups.

Smith: What they tried to do was convince the Buddhist population of Myanmar that their way of life, that their religion, was under threat by a growing and — they would argue — violent Muslim population. The reality was far different.

Tom: we spoke with Wirathu. He leads an anti-Muslim movement with growing popularity and has even been called “the face of Buddhist terror.” 

Wirathu video: Muslim children will be a threat to the country. They will destroy our religion and snatch away our lands.

Tom: He has been accused of encouraging violence against the Rohingya.

Is that the teaching of Buddha?

Wirathu: I'm always watching them and giving awareness to my people not to be attacked by them. You see more and more people wearing burkas and hijabs than before. The nationalist movement is mainly about the security of the country and the security of the language we speak and our religion. If there are no Muslims, the country would be at peace. You can see Muslims commit crimes all over the world.

Tom: Many fear his influence and large following make him a threat to stability in a country that is still stumbling toward democracy.

Meanwhile, the Rohingya are losing something that is vital: hope.

Man: We have no hope because if the international community is silent, we have no chance of being freed from this camp.

Tom: Tomorrow, we head inside the camps — a place where journalists are almost never allowed.

Tom Hanson, Channel One News.

Arielle: Thanks, Tom.

All right, next up, learning some powerful lessons from a pretty cool middle schooler.

Arielle: Okay, D, now let's run down a list of things you worry about in middle school.

Demetrius: Let’s do it.

Arielle: Like homework…

Demetrius: That’s one.

Arielle: …friends, after-school activities?

Demetrius: Yeah, sports?

Arielle: Not for me.

Demetrius: No sports for you?

Arielle: No!

Demetrius: What about running your own charity organization?

Arielle: That seems a bit ambitious.

Demetrius: Maybe for you, Arielle, but not for one middle schooler who is using her skills for a greater cause. Check it out.

By most accounts, Juli Bauknecht is like any other sixth-grader.

Juli Bauknecht: Since I was an infant, I just liked animals, like, and then it just kept on going from there.

Demetrius: But she stands out in one unique way.

Carl Hanke: She has her own nonprofit as a middle schooler, as a sixth-grader, which — who does that?

Demetrius: Juli started her nonprofit, Caring Paws, when she was just 10 and has since raised more than $15,000 for abused and injured animals. When she came across the Prudential Spirit of Community Award — the largest youth recognition program based on volunteer community service — she reluctantly applied.

Juli: I didn't really think I would win it, but I said, “Hey, it's worth a shot — I might as well.”

Demetrius: But she was met with a pleasant surprise when an envelope addressed to her came in the mail earlier this week.

Juli: It said, “Congratulations! We'd like to honor you for being a state honoree,” and I immediately started screaming.

Demetrius: Juli may have been surprised, but her teachers were not.

Hanke: It's a great accomplishment, but it’s — if there is anyone that was deserving of it that I know that’s her age, it would have been her. She's very nice, very funny, very kind — the type of student that you would expect to have a nonprofit and be able to be helping out people like that.

Demetrius: And Juli has got no plans of slowing down her volunteer efforts any time soon.

Juli: Yeah, it's never gonna stop. It's just gonna keep skyrocketing.

Demetrius: Demetrius Pipkin, Channel One News.

Arielle: Now Juli will receive $1,000 and an all-expense-paid trip to Washington, D.C. Pretty impressive.

And if you are inspired, well, first you choose a location, then find a cause. But what happens after that? Well, we have the Ultimate Guide to Volunteering up at .

All right, guys, we will see you right back here tomorrow.

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