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SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

Twelve days after Hurricane Sandy smacked the eastern seaboard and beyond, tens of thousands of people still lack basic necessities - food, water, even shelter. NPR's Richard Gonzales sent us this postcard about three men from Chicago who took it upon themselves to bring some comfort to Sandy's victims.

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The 2012 elections will be remembered for the pivotal role female voters played in re-electing President Obama. But in New Hampshire, it will be remembered as the year women swept all major races.

Democratic Congresswomen-elect Ann McLane Kuster and Carol Shea-Porter will join Sens. Jeanne Shaheen and Kelly Ayotte in the nation's first all-female congressional delegation.

But another Granite State woman who won big Tuesday, Gov.-elect Maggie Hassan, is quick to stress that putting women in top offices is nothing new here.

The U.S. Supreme Court said Friday it would consider eliminating a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, the federal law that for decades has been the government's main tool for fighting discrimination at the polls.

The law, first enacted in 1965 and reauthorized three times by Congress since then, is generally considered the most effective civil rights legislation in American history. Its provisions were extended by a Republican Congress in 2006 and signed into law again by President George W. Bush.

Now that the election is over, Washington is transfixed by the fiscal cliff, the automatic tax increases and spending cuts due to take effect Jan. 1 if nothing is done.

The sudden shock could seriously damage the economy.

But some Democrats and policy analysts are suggesting that going over the fiscal cliff could help break the political logjam.

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ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

When Democratic Senator Kent Conrad announced his retirement, his seat in North Dakota was all but written off to the Republicans. Instead, on Tuesday, North Dakota voters chose Conrad's onetime protege at the State Tax Commissioner's Office, the state's former attorney general, Heidi Heitkamp, and she joins us now from her home. Welcome to the program.

SENATOR-ELECT HEIDI HEITKAMP: Thank you so much for having me.

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ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

Here are some statistics from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. By November 1st, Hurricane Sandy had poured some 600 million gallons of water into the train and auto tunnels of New York. The corps' pumps can expel 696,000 gallons of water per minute. To a lot of us, this sounds like a set-up for an algebra problem, but for the Corps of Engineers and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, these have been the measure of real life for the past nearly two weeks.

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ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Robert Siegel.

MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:

And I'm Melissa Block.

One lone county in Florida is still tallying ballots. It's Palm Beach County. Yes, that Palm Beach County, which was central to the presidential recount in 2000.