A famous request to Air Mobility Command is playing for a large significant pair of mission to move critically-needed power restoration equipment to the Northeast.

 

In New York City, Mayor Michael Bloomberg says progress has been made in restoring electricity and transit lines in the wake of Sandy. The mayor also says food and water are now being distributed in some hard-hit areas of the city. That’s NPR’s Allison Keyes explains.  

 

Bloomberg says police and firefighters continue going door-to-door in search for people in need, and so far the death toll from Sandy in the city is at least 37. The mayor says there will be help for some who have been suffering.  

 

And we will be distributing thousands of bottles of water and thousands of pre-prepared meals at a number of locations in hard-hit areas.  He says volunteers will also go door-to-door to take food to the elderly in homebound. The mayor says Con Ed is working fast to restore power, though some 534,000 people still don’t have electricity, and some parts of the city served by overhead lines might not have it before the end of next week. Allison Keyes, NPR News.  

 

The overall death toll from the storm has risen to 85 on the East Coast. In New Jersey, the National Guard is spending another day delivering food and water to flood victims in Hoboken. 

 

  Another news. Former Penn State University President Graham B. Spanier has become the third school administrator charged with crime in the child sexual assault case of former Penn State football coach Jerry Sandusky. NPR’s Tom Goldman reports prosecutors assert the three men concealed and covered up Sandusky’s crimes. 

 

Graham Spanier was charged with five counts including failure to report suspected child abuse and perjury for making false statements to a Grand Jury. Former school officials Tim Curley and Gary  Schultz, were charged a year ago, but today were hit with the additional counts, the same one as Spanier. Linda Kelly is the Pennsylvania Attorney General. 

 

This was a conspiracy of silence by top officials working to actively conceal truth with the total disregard for the children who were Sandusky’s victims.  

 

All three men denied taking part in the cover-up. Spanier was fired as president a year ago, but still was a tenure professor at the university. Penn State has now placed him on leave.Curley and Schultz are scheduled for trial in January. Attorney General Kelly says all three men should be tried together. Tom Goldman, NPR News.  The Associated Press reports a woman will formally serve as president of the University of Alabama for the first time in the school’s 181-year history. Today the Board of Trustees voted to appoint Judy L. Bonner who previously serve as interim president. She succeeds Guy Bailey who stepped down unexpectedly yesterday, less than two months after he was hired. He said he was leaving due to his wife’s health. 

 

At last check on Wall Street, Dow was up 135. This is NPR.  

 

Officials in Kentucky are still working to control an ongoing blaze caused by a train derailment south of Louisville. As Eric Peterson reports from member station WFPL, the train was carrying toxic substances and several have already lit.

 

  The train derailment happened on Monday when 10 cars carrying toxic chemicals came off the truck. One of the cars carrying the flammable chemical butadiene began leaking. Then yesterday, the tank exploded. Several workers were injured and nearby homes were evacuated. Air monitoring doesn’t show  the spread of any toxic chemicals, but there are concerns the soil and water have already been contaminated. Once the fire is extinguished, there's still a problem of stabilizing the remaining tanks of chemicals. Of particular worry are two tanks of hydrogen fluoride. That chemicals are corrosive gas which turns into hydrofluoric acid when it comes into contact with human tissue. For NPR News, I’m Eric Peterson, in Louisville, Kentucky.  

 

Consumers appear to remain positive about the economy. Lynn Franco with the Conference Board says the group’s consumer confidence index rose to 72.2 last month.  

 

Cautiously optimistic, it’s still a relatively weak reading, not quite what we’ve seen during past recessions. But definitely not a very optimistic consumer.  All the reading is still the highest since February of 2008.   Some optimistic news out of the auto industry today, Chrysler says its U.S. sales rose 10% last month, the best October showing in five years.  Dow was up 132 points at 13,229; NASDAQ gaining 41 at 3,018; S&P 500 up 15.