2. Hurricane Florence watch:

Three million people in North and South Carolina stand to lose power and could be without it “for a very long time,” the head of the region’s main electric utility said.

The storm is charging toward the Carolinas and is expected to make landfall early Friday. Above, a woman in Myrtle Beach, S.C., preparing for Florence.

Once it is ashore, Florence’s drenching rains may cause “catastrophic flash flooding and significant river flooding” over a wide area of the Carolinas and the Mid-Atlantic states, the National Hurricane Center said. Some spots on the coast could receive as much as 40 inches of rain.

Given the dangerous nature of the storm, we’ve made our Hurricane Florence coverage available to everyone. Go to nytimes.com for the latest on what’s happening, whether you’re in the path of the storm or elsewhere.