NPR News

The independent mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg, has just endorsed President Barack Obama for president of United States.

Bloomberg opened his editorial in Bloomberg View by saying his decision was affected by the effect Superstorm Sandy had on New York City. The country, he said, needs a leader who will tackle these issues.

NPR's Margot Adler is covering the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy in New York.

I walked out of my apartment at 5 this morning in a part of Manhattan -– the Upper West Side — that never lost power. Still, I skirted around downed trees on my way to the subway. Across the street, a car was crushed by a tree. Almost no one was on the street.

For the first time in the school's 181-year history, the University of Alabama has named a woman to be its permanent president.

In his new book, Race-Baiter, media critic Eric Deggans says modern media outlets trade in bigotry and bias to build audience and sell advertising.

Deggans dissects media coverage of events such as Hurricane Katrina, the Trayvon Martin case and the 2012 presidential election to build an argument that Americans lack the right vocabulary for having important conversations about race, and that the echo chambers of our fractured media landscape aren't helping. The fix, he says, is a more savvy audience that demands better conversations.

Transcript

NEAL CONAN, HOST:

This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan in Washington. The war in Afghanistan has gone largely unmentioned by both presidential campaigns. When it does come up, conversations focus not so much on what happening now but withdrawal.

If timetables hold, the U.S. and NATO will hand over combat operations to Afghan forces by the end of 2014, but plans call for American troops to stay on for many years in support and counterterrorism roles.

Transcript

NEAL CONAN, HOST:

Transcript

NEAL CONAN, HOST:

Last week, after Donald Trump asked President Obama to produce more records to prove his citizenship, the president used an appearance on "The Tonight Show" to dismiss the issue with a one-liner. Host Jay Leno asked, what's this thing between you and Trump?

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE TONIGHT SHOW WITH JAY LENO")

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: This all dates back to when we were growing up together in Kenya.

File this under "I didn't really think there was anything else I could learn about or care about swing state voters, and then came this."

Swing state voters by 42-38 percent would prefer a President Clint Eastwood over a President Oprah Winfrey.

Republican swing state voters would prefer President Stephen Colbert over President Jon Stewart by a 3-to-1 margin. Flip that for swing state Democrats.