Morning Edition

Immediately after last week's election, Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon announced the state would not be setting up its own health insurance exchange. Next door in Kansas, Gov. Sam Brownback announced that Kansas will have no involvement in running a state exchange either. The moves open the door for increased federal involvement in health care in staunchly Republican territory.

Toothbutter: noun. Butter spread so thickly as to reveal teeth marks upon biting.

The fact that this word exists in the Danish language should help to explain what politicians were up against when they introduced the "fat tax" just over a year ago. This is a country that loves it some butter (and meat, and all things dreadful to the arteries).

President Obama meets with labor leaders at the White House on Tuesday to discuss how to steer clear of the so-called fiscal cliff. It's the first of many meetings aimed at avoiding automatic tax increases and spending cuts at the beginning of the new year.

A week ago, the president proved again that he and his team are good at winning elections. The question now is whether he can translate victory at the ballot box to success in shaping policy.

Last week's election may have settled the fate of the federal Affordable Care Act, but its implementation after months of uncertainty has caught many of the players unprepared.

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Good morning. I'm Renee Montagne, with news from the world of Oz.

(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "THE WIZARD OF OZ")

JUDY GARLAND: (As Dorothy) There's no place like home.

The city of Long Beach, on Long Island's Nassau County was one of the hardest hit by Hurricane Sandy, with entire neighborhoods ravaged by floods and wind. It seemed unlikely that the high school's football team would get to finish its season. But the Long Beach Marines saw action over the weekend.

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Let's look now at the impact of some shocking revelations on the other side of the Atlantic. Britain's media has had a pretty rough year. First, the phone-hacking scandal that led to the closure of Rupert Murdoch's popular tabloid News of the World. Now the esteemed BBC is in trouble. Over the weekend, the head of the BBC resigned, plunging the world's largest public broadcaster into its second crisis within weeks. NPR's Philip Reeves has more.

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It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Renee Montagne.

With the election settled, Washington, Wall Street and much of the rest world, it seems, are focused on whether Congress and a reelected president can avoid the fiscal cliff. To tell us what's at stake, we turn now to David Wessel. He's the economics editor of The Wall Street Journal and author of "Red Ink," a new primer on the federal budget and the deficit.

Officials in Washington are still trying to make sense of the sudden resignation last week of CIA Director David Petraeus. More details are emerging about the extramarital affair that brought Petraeus down. It came to light following an FBI investigation, which was not focused originally on the CIA director but soon led to him.

A second term means some new Cabinet appointments for President Obama, including at the Treasury. After four pretty grueling years, Secretary Timothy Geithner has made it clear he will be leaving Washington.

White House press secretary Jay Carney said last week that Geithner would be staying on through the inauguration. He's also expected to be a "key participant" in "fiscal cliff" negotiations.

In 1979, when Jim Stigler was still a graduate student at the University of Michigan, he went to Japan to research teaching methods and found himself sitting in the back row of a crowded fourth-grade math class.

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Here in Washington, House Speaker John Boehner addressed a major economic issue this morning. In a press conference, the Republican talked about the so-called fiscal cliff. That's the combination of higher tax rates and spending cuts due to take effect at the end of this year.

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The governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, also held a press conference yesterday, and gave a warning that Sandy could end up costing his state $33 billion in economic damage, which could worsen the state's already-perilous fiscal situation.

NPR's Jim Zarroli reports.

JIM ZARROLI, BYLINE: Cuomo said the initial estimates are that the storm will cost the region $50 billion in lost economic activity and infrastructure damage. And he said two-thirds of that will be borne by New York.

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Hundreds of thousands of customers in the Northeast still don't have power after being pounded by Sandy. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is calling for an investigation, claiming some of the utilities were not prepared. A snow storm this week has made the situation worse. NPR's Jeff Brady reports from Brick Township on the New Jersey shore.

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This year, we've had not one, but two movies about the sixteenth president of the United States. This spring, "Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter" slashed its way into theaters. This week, a more historically accurate Lincoln shows up onscreen.

Kenneth Turan has this review.

KENNETH TURAN, BYLINE: Daniel Day-Lewis is a two-time Oscar-winning actor, but he surpasses himself and makes us see a celebrated figure in unanticipated ways in Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln."

In January 2010, more than a year before Mitt Romney had formally announced he was running for president, political historian Allan Lichtman predicted President Obama would be re-elected in 2012.

Tesla Motors usually makes headlines for its technology. Its new Model S is the first entirely electric vehicle to be named car of the year by Automobile Magazine.

Friday's news is less flattering: A judge in New York will take up a lawsuit against the company about how Tesla sells its cars.

When Mark Seeger bought a Tesla in Seattle, he was actually just looking for a pair of shoes.

Harvey Hilbert enlisted in the Army in 1964. He was in the infantry, and in January 1966, he was sent to Vietnam to fight. Five months later, his unit was sent into the jungle. That was the last time he fought in Vietnam.

"It was coming on dusk, and we went into what's called a hot landing zone — means we were under fire," Hilbert told StoryCorps. "We jumped off the helicopters and took a position. And then the enemy stopped shooting."

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Good morning. I'm Renee Montagne. Fans of William Shatner out there with a yen to write poetry, there's an app for you. The Shatoetry app allows users to compose poems from 400 words recorded by the former Star Trek captain in his signature staccato voice, like this example on YouTube.

WILLIAM SHATNER: She who lives with caffeine joyously fears not the dark.

MONTAGNE: Shatoetry on MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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Good morning. I'm Steve Inskeep, with congratulations to Lance Gilman. He's a newly elected member of the county commission in Storey County, Nevada. Mr. Gilman is a business owner, who won 62 percent of the vote. But as he takes office, Gilman is unlikely to be one of those people who disparages politics by, say, comparing it to a brothel, because Gilman runs a legal brothel, one of the most famous in the country: Nevada's Mustang Ranch. You're listening to MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright National Public Radio.

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Opposition groups working to bring down the regime in Syria are meeting in Doha, Qatar in a furious bid to reorganize and reinvigorate themselves. The aim is to form a legitimate government in exile that would be recognized by the international community. This new effort to bring together the Syrian opposition is strongly backed by the U.S. NPR's Kelly McEvers is in Doha and joins us to talk about it.

And let's start by you telling us exactly who is there.

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Last night, a nor'easter blew hard along the coast bringing new misery to those in New York and New Jersey, already without heat, power or, in some cases, a place to live.

We're joined now for more on that storm by NPR's Martin Kaste who's in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Good morning.

MARTIN KASTE, BYLINE: Good morning.

MONTAGNE: Tell us where you are and what you're seeing, Martin.