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There was outrage across the nation last November when video of a 2004 beating that a local judge in Texas gave to his 16-year-old daughter went viral.

Within days, Aransas County Court-at-Law Judge William Adams was suspended by the State Commission on Judicial Conduct.

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RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

Good morning. I'm Renee Montagne. Fans of William Shatner out there with a yen to write poetry, there's an app for you. The Shatoetry app allows users to compose poems from 400 words recorded by the former Star Trek captain in his signature staccato voice, like this example on YouTube.

WILLIAM SHATNER: She who lives with caffeine joyously fears not the dark.

MONTAGNE: Shatoetry on MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright National Public Radio.

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STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Good morning. I'm Steve Inskeep, with congratulations to Lance Gilman. He's a newly elected member of the county commission in Storey County, Nevada. Mr. Gilman is a business owner, who won 62 percent of the vote. But as he takes office, Gilman is unlikely to be one of those people who disparages politics by, say, comparing it to a brothel, because Gilman runs a legal brothel, one of the most famous in the country: Nevada's Mustang Ranch. You're listening to MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright National Public Radio.

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RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

And during the presidential campaign, Greece and its crushing debt often came up as a cautionary tale, as in don't let America become another Greece.

That country has now approved yet another round of deep budget cuts to avoid bankruptcy, which in turn prompted another round of protests, as Joanna Kakissis reports.

(SOUNDBITE OF PROTEST)

Several thousand prisoners in California may be eligible to apply for sentence reductions, after voters overwhelmingly approved a ballot initiative Tuesday that alters the state's controversial three-strikes law.

But voters also rejected a proposition that would abolish the death penalty in the state. Proposition 34 would have replaced capital punishment with life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

In an election that highlighted the political divide over abortion, female voters turned out to be a key to victory for President Obama.

Public outcry over Republican Todd Akin's comments on "legitimate rape" ultimately gave Democrat Claire McCaskill a U.S. Senate victory in Missouri. And in Indiana, Republican Senate hopeful Richard Mourdock lost his race at least in part because of his comments about pregnancy resulting from rape.

The Republicans' comments pushed the abortion issue to the forefront — and also united and motivated abortion rights activists.

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RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

The 2012 election was very close in the popular vote, but it was a real blowout in the Electoral College, and that has Republicans sifting through the results for lessons for the future.

NPR's Mara Liasson reports.

MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: Republicans have lots of theories about why they lost on Tuesday. In the months ahead, there will be even more soul-searching and maybe even some renewed family feuds.

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STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

NPR's business news starts with a whole bunch of insurance plans.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

INSKEEP: Maybe also some auto industry stimulus here. As many as a quarter million cars and trucks damaged when Sandy stormed up the East Coast will have to be scrapped. That's according to the National Automobile Dealers Association. The estimate is less than the 325,000 cars ruined by Hurricane Katrina, but it's still an awful lot of cars.