NPR Blogs

Hurricane Sandy only sideswiped Haiti during its early days. But reports so far suggest that even this indirect hit led to nearly as many deaths there as in the U.S. after the storm made landfall on the Mid-Atlantic coast.

As of Wednesday, Haiti had documented 54 deaths caused by Sandy — most in the nation's southern peninsula, which points toward Jamaica. Another 21 Haitians were still counted as missing, and many fear the death toll will rise as officials reach affected areas isolated by impassable roads and ruined bridges.

Yesterday, we brought you a voice from Breezy Point, N.Y., the Queens neighborhood ravaged by fire.

Today, our Newscast unit spoke to Doug Doyle, the news director of NPR member station WGBO. Doug was making his way back to his apartment in Union Beach, N.J.

Except whole sections of shore city were destroyed by the storm surge. Doug was escorted to his apartment by emergency crews and he was fully expecting to find everything in tatters.

A thick and creamy shake sounds deliciously satisfying, and adding that kind of "mouth feel" to low-fat foods has become a multi-billion-dollar business. But are we really fooled?

The border between India and Pakistan has long divided two bitterly embattled nations. Any stable relationship between them has seemed far off.

This morning, though, Pakistan's Federal Cabinet ratified four agreements with neighboring India that are aimed at improving business, trade, and travel relations.

A friend of mine — whose opinion is shared by hosts of viewers — has griped about Lena Dunham and the fame of Girls and its cast members: "Everybody talks like they're the voice of our 'lost generation,'" she said. "But their parents are all famous people." In other words, the complaint goes, the extent of the Girls cast's success comes from the connections available to them.

It wasn't Caesar's Palace. It was the Loya Jirga Hall at Kabul Polytechnic University -– a building where Afghanistan's elders gather to discuss matters of national importance.

But for one night, there was boxing with all the hype of Las Vegas –- minus the showgirls.

A month ago we wrote about results from an experiment in getting the most effective malaria drugs to more people who need them in Africa.

The idea was to subsidize the cost of drugs, sometimes to a price point below their wholesale cost, and make them more widely available.

It's a commuter's nightmare.

Cars and buses are back on the road in New York City and New Jersey, but workers are still trying to put the subway system and commuter trains back in operation after the devastating effect of Superstorm Sandy. It's a process that could take days or weeks to complete.

The impact on the country's most densely populated metropolitan area has been extensive. Here's a look at what is, and mostly what isn't, working:

NEW YORK CITY:

Yes, we already made one child cry. In that spirit, here's more bad news for the shorter demographic: New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has signed an executive order postponing Halloween until Nov. 5.

Coming from any other governor, the decision would have immediately been met with sensible nods. But Christie has made his name by being tough and blunt.

Vampires and monsters will be out in force tonight, but some of the darkest creatures out there might be your little angels inside those Halloween costumes.

The first computer game that really frightened me to the bones was 1994's The 7th Guest. It's certainly primitive compared to today's games, but parts of it were indubitably scary. Even early on, when a kind of Steadicam slowly led me up a Victorian mansion's stairs, there was a feeling of uncomfortable dread. Don't go there, I said to myself. Yet, like so many ill-fated protagonists in the movies, I went there. And when ghosts moved about on the second floor — damn — that was eerie. It was like that "cold spot" in Robert Wise's The Haunting.

We want to note the death of Letitia Baldrige, who as The Washington Post writes "was social secretary to first lady Jacqueline Kennedy and also became known as a 'doyenne of decorum' and chief arbiter of good manners in modern America."

Baldrige died Monday at a nursing facility in Bethesda, Md. She was 86.