NPR News

Florida is again having problems determining the winner of its presidential vote. But its difficulties are entirely different from the ones that kept the nation in suspense for more than a month back in 2000.

"It was just a convergence of things that were an embarrassment to Florida," says Susan MacManus, a political scientist at the University of South Florida in Tampa.

On Monday morning at about 5:30 (I'm an early riser), I woke up, swung my legs out of bed, and stepped into water.

I live in a basement apartment where I've been for four years, and almost exactly a week after I was blessedly lucky to avoid the superstorm — and at a time when some of my New York and New Jersey friends were still in the dark — a freaky plumbing/heating mishap wound up filling my entire apartment with about an inch of water.

Update at 2:13 p.m. ET. Life In Prison:

Jared Loughner, the 24-year-old who pleaded guilty to killing six people and wounding 13 others during a shooting spree at a congressional meet-and-greet in Tucson, Ariz., will spend the rest of his life in prison.

Loughner was sentenced today as a U.S. District Court in Tucson, Ariz.

Before the judge handed down his punishment, victims and their families addressed Loughner and the court.