1. Hurricane Matthew battered the Bahamas Wednesday and now it continues its march towards the U.S.
Thousands of residents are now boarding up their homes as Florida’s governor is already asking President Obama to deploy additional National Guard members and request federal assistance.
Mass evacuations continue through Florida’s Atlantic coast and the Carolinas as the region prepares for a projected direct hit from Matthew later tonight into Friday.
The storm is continuing to pack maximum sustained winds of around 115 miles per hour.
2. It's a day that makes or breaks school funding here in Michigan: Count Day.
Grand Rapids Public Schools says they had a historic Count Day on Wednesday.
The district says they saw an increase of 160 students over the last year, making them one of the few urban districts in Michigan seeing growth.
90 percent of per-student money is accounted for by the October count. The rest will come on the next count day in February.
3. If you're hoping to help name the next winner of ArtPrize, you only have until midnight tonight to let your voice be heard.
The Top 20 were unveiled on Sunday, which began round two of voting.
Once the clock strikes midnight, the process ends, and then the ArtPrize awards will be given out Friday.
The artist who gets the most public votes will win $200,000. It's the same for the juried grand prize.
Then there are the public and juried category awards, each worth $12,500.
All winners will be unveiled Friday evening.
4. Want to cover your tracks when you have some super juicy gossip? Or maybe you need to send a bank account number or other sensitive info via text and you're feeling a bit nervous.
You now have a way to send super-secret messages on Facebook.
The social media network added a feature called “secret conversations" to the Messenger app.
The company says the texts are encrypted on the devices that send and receive the messages.
So if you're using the feature on a specific smartphone, you won't see the messages on your desktop.
The conversation is also deleted after a certain amount of time.
Facebook says the government won't even have access to the messages.
To use the new feature, tap on the new conversation icon at the top right and then hit the word "secret."
5. The biggest mall in the nation says it's going to close on Thanksgiving Day.
The Mall of America announced it will be the first time they'll shut down operations on Thanksgiving.
But, its 520-plus stores will have the option to stay open.
Still, the mall's 1,200 employees will have the holiday off. Officials told CNN they're excited to give the day back to workers, and that the mall's smaller businesses were happy about the news as well.
Last year, the mall opened at 6 p.m. on Thanksgiving day.
