NPR News

If you're using social media to follow the presidential campaign or even if you're related to someone else who's doing that, there's a good chance your cellphone got spammed Tuesday night with an anti-Obama text message.

The messages went out between 7:30 and 10 p.m. They were anonymous but quickly traced to a Republican consulting firm in Northern Virginia.

Yesterday, we brought you a voice from Breezy Point, N.Y., the Queens neighborhood ravaged by fire.

Today, our Newscast unit spoke to Doug Doyle, the news director of NPR member station WGBO. Doug was making his way back to his apartment in Union Beach, N.J.

Except whole sections of shore city were destroyed by the storm surge. Doug was escorted to his apartment by emergency crews and he was fully expecting to find everything in tatters.

Better satellites, smarter computer models and faster computers helped government forecasters correctly predict the devastation from Hurricane Sandy, scientists say.

It's unlikely the forecast would have been nearly as accurate just a couple of decades ago, they say.

"The National Hurricane Center did a fantastic job, particularly with the track forecast and the intensity forecast as it was moving toward the Northeast," says Sharan Majumdar, an associate professor of meteorology and physical oceanography at the University of Miami.

We report from Atlantic City, N.J., on the aftermath of superstorm Sandy and the beginnings of clean up efforts on the barrier island. In the nearby town of Longport, Sandy poured straight through the multi-million dollar oceanfront homes. Casinos in Atlantic City have been closed down since Sunday, with no word yet on when they might reopen. And people who obeyed the order to evacuate the island are still not being allowed back.

A thick and creamy shake sounds deliciously satisfying, and adding that kind of "mouth feel" to low-fat foods has become a multi-billion-dollar business. But are we really fooled?