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Two weeks after votes were cast, Tea Party firebrand Allen West conceded he lost his Florida Congressional race to Democrat Patrick Murphy. He was one of just a few Tea Party activists to be defeated.

Some Mississippi parents are learning a new routine when they drop their kids off at day care centers that are taking part in a new pilot program aimed at combating fraud and saving the state money.

Under the program, the state scans parents' fingerprints to capture biometric information, and that information is turned into a number. Then, at a day care center, parents dropping off or picking up their kids put their fingers on a pad, and a small keyboard records the exact time a child is checked in or out.

The drummer Pete La Roca, a top freelance drummer during New York's post-bop heyday in the 1950s and '60s, died early this morning in New York. The cause was lung cancer, according to Randa Kirshbaum, a former girlfriend. He was 74 years old.

Since an escalation in fighting between Gaza and Israel last week, there have been more than 100 casualties on Gaza's side of the border. On Israel's there have been three. That low death count in Israel, despite many rockets fired into its territory, is thanks largely to the Israeli "Iron Dome" air defense system. For more on how that system works, Robert Siegel speaks with Barbara Opall-Rome, Israel bureau chief for Defense News.

The war between Israel and the Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip could end up as a victory of sorts for both sides. Hamas' popularity in the Arab world has skyrocketed. Hamas leaders say they've forced Israel to the negotiating table by launching rockets at Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, and held their own for the last week. Their rivals in the Palestinian Authority have been marginalized. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, has received a huge boost to his popularity in the midst of an election campaign. Sheera Frenkel talks to Audie Cornish.

Transcript

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

Russia has a problem with drunken passengers on airplanes. On its national airline, for example, more than 1,000 incidents of disorderly conduct in the past three years, most of them involving drinking. Now, aviation officials are considering drastic measures, as NPR's Corey Flintoff reports from Moscow.

Robert Siegel talks to Aaron David Miller, Vice President at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars who has worked on Middle East policy at the State Department under past Republican and Democratic administrations. Miller points out that while the world is focused on the issue of a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, the leadership in the other Palestinian territory, the West Bank, is seeing diminished clout. Milller says the militant approach of Hamas is drawing support from many Palestinians.

Berlin is known as the "wild boar capital" in Germany, with thousands of the animals roaming its residential neighborhoods. In the past, the city and animal rights activists battled over hiring hunters to kill the streetwise swine, who cause a lot of damage. But with attacks like the one in late October in which four people were injured by a male boar, curbing the wild pig population in the German capital is a growing priority.

With the conflict in Gaza on its seventh day on Tuesday, Egypt dispatched its foreign minister to Gaza City at the head of an Arab delegation. Egyptian officials say a ceasefire deal could be reached soon, but meanwhile the Israeli air strikes and Hamas rocket attacks continued. Anthony Kuhn talks to Audie Cornish.