Most of the attention heading into Election Day may be on the presidential race, but the stakes are also high in the battle for the U.S. Senate, where there are close contests in about a dozen states.

According to an NPR analysis of Kantar Media CMAG data, outside groups are spending more than $100 million blanketing the airwaves. This won't come as a surprise if you live in a state with a competitive Senate race.

According to The New York Times, the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service pulled a report from its website after "after Senate Republicans raised concerns about the paper's findings and wording." The unit of the Library of Congress did so, despite objections from its economic team.

New Yorkers were ready to get back to work on Thursday, but the region's transportation system wasn't ready to handle all of them. At bus and subway stops there were long lines and frustration, while drivers had their own long waits for the city's bridges and tunnels.

China, which along with Russia has repeatedly rejected international intervention in the civil war in Syria, issued a cease-fire proposal on Thursday.

The proposal, reports The New York Times, calls for a "phased-in truce" and the "establishment of a transitional authority," but does stop short of calling for the ouster of President Bashar Assad.

Amid the devastation caused by Sandy, there are signs the superstorm might have blown a fresh breeze into the nation's politics. Suddenly, everyone's talking about something that seemed impossible just days before — bipartisanship.

Nothing sums that attitude up better than the actions of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. Republican Christie, who has worked closely with GOP hopeful Mitt Romney's campaign and has consistently proved one of President Obama's harshest critics, put that aside in the aftermath of Sandy.

Residents of Moonachie and Little Ferry, N.J., are beginning to clear the damage after their communities were inundated by floodwaters. The flooding occurred when a system of levees and berms was unable to control the storm surge pushed ashore by Superstorm Sandy.

Geologist Jeffrey Mount of the University of California, Davis, isn't surprised. "There really are only two kinds of levees," he says, "those that have failed, and those that will fail."