Tesla Motors usually makes headlines for its technology. Its new Model S is the first entirely electric vehicle to be named car of the year by Automobile Magazine.

Friday's news is less flattering: A judge in New York will take up a lawsuit against the company about how Tesla sells its cars.

When Mark Seeger bought a Tesla in Seattle, he was actually just looking for a pair of shoes.

Harvey Hilbert enlisted in the Army in 1964. He was in the infantry, and in January 1966, he was sent to Vietnam to fight. Five months later, his unit was sent into the jungle. That was the last time he fought in Vietnam.

"It was coming on dusk, and we went into what's called a hot landing zone — means we were under fire," Hilbert told StoryCorps. "We jumped off the helicopters and took a position. And then the enemy stopped shooting."

Wednesday, November 07, 2012

The Police as Public Servants

Chris Burbank, Salt Lake City Chief of Police

Salt Lake County Mayor Peter Corroon has proposed a $31 million property tax hike to balance the county budget. He unveiled his 2013 plan today, two months before retiring from his position. Corroon will pass the torch to newly elected Democrat Ben McAdams in January.

David Wilde is Chairman of the Salt Lake County Council. The Republican says he’s not thrilled about a tax increase, but it’s one of only two options the county has for keeping up with inflation, which has outpaced revenue.

The Utah Housing and Community Development Division says while they saw an overall increase in the number of people who experienced homelessness in 2012 their efforts to end chronic homelessness by 2014 is right on track. That number decreased by almost 10 percent last year and is down 72 percent since 2005. Housing and Community Services director Gordon Walker says while it’s a complicated problem, they’ve found success in providing permanent housing with limited restrictions.

The so-called fiscal cliff is a double-edged sword, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says in a new report issued today.

Why? Ignoring the huge tax increases and spending cuts set to take effect at the beginning of the year "will probably cause the economy to fall back into a recession."

But: "They will make the economy stronger later in the decade and beyond."

The promise of a quick boost has made caffeine-rich energy drinks all the rage among soldiers in combat zones.

The troops endure long hours under difficult conditions. But those convenient pick-me-ups could come with a steep price: difficulty sleeping.

Soldiers in Afghanistan who consumed three or more energy drinks daily were more likely to sleep fewer hours and have their sleep disrupted because of stress or illness, researchers found.

Many religious conservatives thought this might be the year of an evangelical comeback, when voters would throw President Obama out because of his support of same-sex marriage and abortion, and his health plan's birth control mandate. It didn't work out that way.

"I think this was an evangelical disaster," says Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky.

As the news spread that the son of the late Barack Obama Sr. — a Kenyan government economist — had held on to the most powerful presidency in the world, the elation across this East African nation was contagious.

One Nairobi radio DJ could scarcely contain himself on Wednesday. "How are your feelings this morning, this Obama Day morning? Talk to me and share your feelings with me," he said.

High Hopes For A Long-Expected Visit

It only took two extra days, but Florida's Miami-Dade County has finished counting votes in the presidential election.

Supervisor of Elections Penelope Townsley said Thursday she was pleased to announce that the state's most populous county, with more than 2.5 million people, was "the first of the large counties to complete its tabulation process."

Townsley was referring to three other large counties — Broward (population 1.8 million), Palm Beach (population 1.3 million) and Duval (population 870,000) — that were still tallying absentee ballots.

A California power crew took on one damaged street on Long Island.

Transcript

MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:

As Barb mentioned, this week, Colorado and Washington State passed measures legalizing the recreational use of marijuana. We're going to hear reaction now from the country where much of America's pot is grown, Mexico. The sale, growth, and use of marijuana there remains illegal. And Mexico's incoming government fears these new laws will force them to rethink how they fight cross-border pot smuggling. But others think the measures could help fight narco-trafficking and cut into the cartels' power.

Transcript

MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:

Now to efforts aimed at restructuring the Syrian opposition. The main opposition group, the Syrian National Council, is increasingly seen as ineffective, so people trying to bring down the government of President Bashar al-Assad are meeting right now in the Persian Gulf state of Qatar. NPR's Kelly McEvers is there and as she reports, the goal is to give the opposition more credibility with Syrians and the international community.

Maybe I've got too many election results on my brain.

But the Pew Research Center's report about how people are using their mobile phones to get health information sent me to the data from the exit polls. Really.

Why?

The bottom line of the Pew report is that cellphone "owners who are Latino, African American, between the ages of 18-49, or hold a college degree are also more likely to gather health information" than other people on their mobile phones.

Pentagon Press Secretary George Little said that Iranian warplanes fired on an unarmed U.S. drone in the Persian Gulf on Nov. 1.

According to Reuters, Little said the MQ1 Predator drone, which returned safely to its base, was in international waters at the time. Reuters adds: