These are the headlines you Need 2 Know. * **Hurricane Michael:** The storm strengthened to an “extremely dangerous” Category 4 late on Tuesday night and is expected to make landfall along the northeastern Gulf Coast on Wednesday afternoon. Michael had maximum sustained winds of 140 mph on Wednesday morning and is expected to grow even stronger, potentially becoming the strongest storm to hit the U.S. this year. If Hurricane Michael makes landfall as a Category 4, it will be the strongest storm in recorded history to hit the Florida Panhandle. Hundreds of thousands of residents have been encouraged to evacuate, and officials have warned of “life-threatening storm surge.” Track the unprecedented storm [here](https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/#Michael). * **Haley Out as Ambassador:** The U.S. ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, announced Tuesday that she is resigning and will leave the Trump administration at the end of the year. Haley, a former governor of South Carolina, has not revealed her long-term plans but has denied rumors that she will run for president in 2020. Following the news, Trump said his daughter Ivanka would be an “incredible” ambassador to the UN, but the first daughter later said on Twitter she would not be replacing Haley. The president also confirmed that Goldman Sachs exec and former administration official Dina Powell is being considered for the job. Read more [here](https://www.politico.com/story/2018/10/09/nikki-haley-trump-un-885939). * **Pentagon Is Vulnerable, Says New Report:** According to a report by the Government Accountability Office, almost all of the Pentagon’s new weapons are vulnerable to attack. The report drew on data from cybersecurity tests conducted on Department of Defense weapons systems from 2012 to 2017 and found that the Pentagon is “just beginning to grapple” with the potential for tampering and attacks. The GAO said: “DoD testers routinely found mission-critical cyber vulnerabilities in nearly all weapon systems that were under development.” Read more [here](https://www.npr.org/2018/10/09/655880190/cyber-tests-showed-nearly-all-new-pentagon-weapons-vulnerable-to-attack-gao-says). * **Missing Journalist Presumed Dead:** Jamal Khashoggi, Washington Post contributor and prominent Saudi journalist, has been missing since he entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey on Oct. 2. Turkish officials suspect he may have been killed and dismembered by a team of Saudi hitmen inside the building. Khashoggi had initially visited the consulate general to obtain paperwork that would allow him to marry his Turkish fiancée. Read more [here](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/saudis-lay-in-wait-for-jamal-khashoggi-and-left-turkey-quickly-sources-say/2018/10/09/0e283e2e-cbc5-11e8-ad0a-0e01efba3cc1_story.html?utm_term=.e8205643c947). * **A.I. v. Bullies:** Instagram announced Tuesday that it has started to use a new artificial intelligence tech to detect bullying in photos and captions. Once identified, the suspicious photos will be sent in for review by the Community Operations team. This announcement coincides with broader efforts by tech companies to use A.I. to moderate their platforms. Instagram’s parent company, Facebook, introduced its own anti-bullying tools this month, which allow users to remove “troll comments” from their feeds and include an option to report comments on behalf of the victim. Read more [here](https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/instagram-use-artificial-intelligence-detect-bullying-photos-n918291). * **New Gadgets from Google:** Google unveiled a slate of new gadgets on Tuesday, including two new Pixel phones and a new smart speaker/screen combo for the home. All of the products feature Google’s A.I.-powered virtual assistant and will be available later this year. Read more on [Cheddar](https://www.cheddar.com/videos/google-unveils-new-pixel-phone-tablet-and-smart-speaker?utm_source=N2K&utm_medium=email). * **Red Sox Advance:** The Boston Red Sox defeated their rival New York Yankees 4-3 on Tuesday night and will advance to the ALCS. The Red Sox won the nail-biter at Yankee Stadium and will play Houston in the Championship Series, which starts on Saturday. Read more [here](https://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/redsox/2018/10/09/redsox/D66J59viZ1qxyZlhI18l8L/story.html). * **The Swift Effect:** Taylor Swift entered politics for the first time on Sunday night. Sort of. With an Instagram post supporting two Democratic candidates in Tennessee, Swift encouraged her 112 million followers to register to vote. Kamari Guthrie, director of communications for Vote.org, later said, “We are up to 65,000 registrations in a single 24-hour period since T. Swift’s post.” That is more than the total number of new voter registrations nationwide for the entire month of August. Read more [here](https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/claudiarosenbaum/taylor-swift-voter-registration-spike). * **Anthony Weiner Will Go Free:** The disgraced former New York congressman is set to be released from prison in May, about three months earlier than expected, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons. The former Democratic House representative is currently serving a 21-month sentence after explicit conversations he had with a minor online surfaced in 2016. “This projected release date includes credit for good conduct time earned and good conduct time that may be earned throughout the remained of his sentence,” a statement from the Bureau of Prisons to CNN said. Read more [here](https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/09/politics/anthony-weiner-early-prison-release/index.html). Cheddar's Hena Doba gets into the latest. Subscribe to the Need 2 Know newsletter [here](https://theneed2know.com).

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