NPR News

The latest and last NPR Battleground Poll for 2012 shows former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney holding the narrowest of leads in the national sample, but trailing President Obama in the dozen states that will decide the election.

The poll adds evidence that the Oct. 3 debate between the two men redefined the race. But the movement toward Romney that emerged after that night in Denver also seems to have stalled after the race drew even — leaving the outcome difficult to call.

New York City has seen some of the worst damage from Sandy. Large parts of Manhattan were without power on Monday night, a building crane was knocked loose, and there were reports of flooding in the city's subway system.

Robert Siegel talks with Associated Press correspondent Katie Zezima, who was in Atlantic City, N.J., close to where Sandy made landfall.

Sandy hit the East Coast on Monday and knocked out power for millions of people. Utility companies face major challenges to get power back online after the massive storm.

Doug Smith and his girlfriend Trenor Bender thought the worst of Hurricane Sandy had passed them by when they looked out the windows in the wee hours today. At their rental home, three rows back from the beach in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, there was no water in the yard at all at 3:30 this morning. But that didn't last.

"When I woke up, I couldn't believe it," says Smith of the view just a few hours later, "I saw this sheet of water on the ground."

There's big news in the world of publishing: The two conglomerates that own Random House and Penguin announced Monday that they were merging their book businesses to form a new company.

German media company Bertelsmann, the owner of Random House, will own 53 percent of the new firm, Penguin Random House; Pearson, which owns Penguin, will control the rest. The merger, subject to regulatory approval, is scheduled to be completed in the second half of 2013.

Chris Hillman and Herb Pedersen make their second appearance on Mountain Stage, recorded live on the campus of the North House Folk School in Grand Marais, Minn. As members of The Byrds, The Dillards, The Flying Burrito Brothers and the Desert Rose Band, Hillman and Pedersen have been part of the fabric of American music for nearly half a century.

The Brooklyn band People Get Ready has been combining music and performance art since 2009, when the group first performed at The Kitchen's Dance and Process series in New York. The band released its self-titled debut earlier this month, and it's a fine collection of harmony-rich pop.