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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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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.

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

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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.

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And a strike by workers in Milwaukee is pitting a group of Mexican immigrants against their employer: a family-owned business that itself was founded by immigrants. As WBEZ's Niala Boodhoo reports, the dispute - involving workers and their legal status - reflects struggles of other immigrants in the workplace.

NIALA BOODHOO, BYLINE: You could call Palermo's Pizza the quintessential American success story. The company was started by Italian immigrant Gaspare Fallucca from a small bakery and restaurant on Milwaukee's East Side.

Unions poured millions of dollars into ballot campaigns to guarantee collective bargaining rights in the Michigan Constitution and allow state-paid home care assistants to organize into a union. Both were resoundingly defeated.

The effects of a nor'easter is bringing wintry weather to the Northeast. The storm began blowing along the coast Wednesday — bringing new misery to those in New York and New Jersey. A lot of residents there are already without heat, power or in some cases, a place to live.

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Opposition groups working to bring down the regime in Syria are meeting in Doha, Qatar in a furious bid to reorganize and reinvigorate themselves. The aim is to form a legitimate government in exile that would be recognized by the international community. This new effort to bring together the Syrian opposition is strongly backed by the U.S. NPR's Kelly McEvers is in Doha and joins us to talk about it.

And let's start by you telling us exactly who is there.

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And today's last word in business is Mandela money.

That's Nelson Mandela, the anti-apartheid leader and first black president of South Africa. He's now also the first black person to grace South Africa's currency.

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This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Renee Montagne.

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And I'm Steve Inskeep. Good morning.

House Speaker John Boehner says he's ready to work with President Obama on a looming fiscal problem. Republicans kept control of the House on Tuesday, though they also lost seats. Now they have weeks to negotiate over the scheduled higher tax rates and spending cuts known as the fiscal cliff.