From CNN, I'm Dan Bloom, with the five things you need to know for Friday, September 8th.

We're well into September, but about 50 million people are under heat alerts across the US.

Temperatures above 100 degrees are expected for parts of the Southern Plains and the Southwest.

Boston hit its highest temperature for 2023 on Thursday, the city running nearly 20 degrees above average for this time of year.

And though a cold front is bringing some relief as it moves toward the East Coast,

a different threat could be on the way as Hurricane Lee strengthens

to a category 5 storm.

CNN meteorologist Derek Van Dam tells us what we can expect.

It will be moving over cooler water, so it will be a weaker storm once it approaches that part

of the Western Atlantic, but one thing's for sure, it is a powerful monster that is currently

in beast mode. It is the strongest storm in the

Atlantic Basin since 2019 with Hurricane Dorian and it has more than doubled the

criteria for rapid intensification. So at the very least we will see large swells and

large waves along the Atlantic seaboard starting Sunday right through next week

but this thing literally blew up overnight. As President Biden is on his way to meet world leaders in India for the G20 summit,

his political rivals are preparing a fight for him back in Washington.

Utah Senator Mitt Romney call the federal government shutdown, quote,

very likely while Republicans try to settle crucial issues within their own conference.

Those include the fitness of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, support for the war in Ukraine,

and the looming prospect of an impeachment inquiry into President Biden.

Congress has only been back in session since Tuesday and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy already has his work cut out for

him. Ukraine says it's making incremental gains in its southern counter-offensive.

...