Good morning and welcome to Kid News. I'm Tori. Today is Friday, September 14th, 2018.

And we begin with the outer bands of Hurricane Florence slamming ashore in the Carolinas overnight.

High winds and heavy rains are lashing the coast and thousands of homes have lost power.

A big concern now is a possible storm surge, which occurs when strong winds push the sea up and over

sand dunes into streets and homes.

And if flow slows down as expected, she could linger in the area for days, potentially dumping historic amounts of rain and causing unprecedented flooding up and down the East Coast.

FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, has had days to prepare and already has first responders

and supplies in the area to assist homeowners when it's safe to do so.

An interesting footnote about that agency, FEMA also has a Waffle House index, a color-coded

indicator of what Waffle House restaurants are open, closed, or offering a limited menu to gauge

how well an area is faring in a storm and how quickly

the area might recover.

In political news this morning, no official word yet, but most White House watchers believe President Trump will seek a second term in 2020.

It's not yet known if any other Republicans will challenge him.

Interested Democrats, meantime, are starting to make noise about a possible run.

Former Secretary of State John Kerry is out and about, sounding every bit like a candidate,

and former Vice President under Barack Obama, Joe Biden, says he'll decide by January.

One thing that's definitely different about the upcoming election is there are a record number

of young mothers running for office this

November. Many are bringing their children to campaign rallies and including

comments from their kids in their political ads. Some children talk about how their moms are patient and caring which their it for South Dakota Governor are a little more honest. They talk about their mom's

inability to swim and her really lousy dancing skills. One of the most selective

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