Good morning and welcome to Kid News. I'm Tori. Today is Friday, December 21st, 2018.

And we begin with everyone in the Northern Hemisphere waking up to what will be the shortest day of the year at 523 p.m. the also known as the winter solstice, which loosely translated from Latin means,

the sun stands still. The sun will appear at its most southerly position today,

directly overhead at the traffic of Capricorn. Starting tomorrow, every day until the

summer solstice in June will be a little brighter for a little longer.

Today also marks 50 years since the Apollo 8 launch as millions around the globe watched and listened

astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders rocketed into orbit and became the first humans

to orbit the moon.

On Christmas Eve, after circling ten times, it was time to come home.

Mission Control then waited anxiously for word that Apollo 8's engine burn to leave lunar orbit had worked.

The news came Christmas morning when Lovell radioed.

Roger, please be informed, there is a Santa Claus.

Yesterday we told you how busy the airports will be this holiday season, so imagine the

chaos in London when the United Kingdom's second biggest airport had to be shut down

off and on for more than 24 hours starting Wednesday night because

someone repeatedly flew drones over the airfield.

Gatwick Airport officials are hoping to reopen this morning, but the closure stranded hundreds of thousands of passengers and forced flights from all over Europe to be rerouted.

Police call the acts deliberate, and a manhunt is on for those responsible.

It is illegal to fly drones within one kilometer,

or a little more than a half mile of an airport boundary.

In Washington, D.C.

The US government is on the verge of shutting down.

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