NPR Topics: Story of the Day Podcast

On Election Day, voters in Colorado and Washington state legalized marijuana for recreational use. Residents can't just walk in and buy a dime bag yet, however; the states need to set up some ground rules first.

Some scientific research can't be completed in days or months — projects can take years, or even decades or centuries. This poses a challenge for scientists who must make plans for experiments that often outlive the experimenter.

Whether by choice or by circumstance, a lot of Americans are spending Thanksgiving alone. Some are too busy with work or school, or can't afford to travel. Others have family tensions or prefer to skip the dinner-table questions and bad jokes. A few are even crossing to Canada, where it's just another Thursday.

In the early 1990s, Colombian drug cartels had a problem: They had more money than they knew what to do with. So a pair of federal agents created an offshore bank.

Every year, the president pardons a turkey in a lighthearted Thanksgiving tradition. But while the business of pardoning humans is more serious, it's also increasingly rare. President Obama has granted just 1 pardon for every 290 applications — a much lower rate than other recent presidents.

Debate over the so-called fiscal cliff has dominated the post-election agenda. But the challenge of dealing with long-term debt and the annual deficit has been brewing for years. And one man who has kept his focus and money on that target is the billionaire Peter G. Peterson.

As the number of shootings goes up, police are making fewer and fewer arrests for those violent crimes, leaving a staggering number of cases unsolved. Police blame a long-standing attitude for the failure to make arrests: you just don't snitch to police.

For the most part in American culture, intellectual struggle in school children is seen as an indicator of weakness, while in Eastern cultures it is not only tolerated, it is often used to measure emotional strength.

The retired four-star general was on a fast track from an early age. David Petraeus was a West Point graduate with a doctoral degree from Princeton, who made a national name for himself by helping the Army rethink how it fights wars. Petraeus resigned as CIA director Friday, citing an extramarital affair.

President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner both made their opening bids Friday on how to deal with tax, spending and debt problems. Their proposals sound strikingly familiar, but Obama says this time he has proof the majority of Americans agree with his approach to taxes.

One of the biggest challenges Mitt Romney faced in his presidential campaign was the question of likability. Almost everyone who knows him likes him, but that likable guy was hard to find on the campaign trail — until the very end.

"Our message was rejected by millions of Americans who went to the polls," says Albert Mohler of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He says evangelicals now need to approach politics in a fundamentally different way.

A nor'easter Wednesday promises new electricity outages in a region already reeling from Hurricane Sandy. The Long Island Power Authority is facing intense criticism for not acting more quickly to restore power in Sandy's wake, and beleaguered residents' patience is wearing thin.

Some 100 evacuees from towns like Seaside Heights are now staying at a Red Cross shelter on the New Jersey mainland. They don't know where they will live, or what they will do, or what tomorrow will bring.

The beachfront, blue-collar town in Queens, N.Y., was hit hard not only by Superstorm Sandy's raging winds and floodwaters, but also by a massive fire that tore through the area. More than a hundred homes were destroyed as firefighters battled for nearly 10 hours. A local fire commander says he's hopeful Breezy Point will recover but knows it will take time.