National

Black Friday may not yet be a bigger holiday than Thanksgiving, but it certainly has a bigger marketing budget. Retailers may have needed it to overcome the term's long and negative history.

After spending millions of dollars in the presidential and Senate campaigns with little to show for it, many superPACs and other outside groups are still tending their wounds. But it's too soon to write off superPACs as a waste of wealthy donors' money.

Consider, for instance, this upset in a congressional race outside Los Angeles.

The governors of New York and New Jersey are beginning to plan for the rebuilding of their states after Superstorm Sandy.

Before the storm, Govs. Andrew Cuomo of New York and Chris Christie of New Jersey were known for their forcefulness — and big ambitions.

But their massive task comes at a time of political transition for both of them.

'It's Got To Be Done'

The ongoing storm response has kept the governors in the national spotlight for weeks now.

It's been almost a month since Superstorm Sandy slammed into the Northeast, and for many people, it means the first Thanksgiving outside of their destroyed homes or without the friends or family they usually visit.

In New York City, Thanksgiving has been mass-produced in shelters, churches and community centers where thousands upon thousands of storm victims can find free meals.

Many of them are sharing their first post-storm Thanksgiving with people who are hungry year-round.

Audie Cornish checks in with two people that were forced from their homes during Superstorm Sandy — Joanna Lula of Staten Island, N.Y., and Chris Neary of Seabright, N.J.

We revisit Coney Island to check in with those affected by Hurricane Sandy.

At least two people are dead and dozens injured in a 100-vehicle pileup on Interstate 10 in southeast Texas that's being blamed on early morning fog on Thanksgiving Day.

KFDM TV reports that the dead included a man and a woman in a Chevy Suburban that was crushed by a tractor trailer. State troopers told the TV station that between 80 and 120 people were hurt; they were taken to hospitals in Beaumont, Port Arthur and Winnie. The crash occurred southwest of Beaumont, 80 miles east of Houston.

Transcript

NEAL CONAN, HOST:

This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan, in Washington. For the fifth year now, the oral history project StoryCorps has put special attention on the day after Thanksgiving, the day often called Black Friday, StoryCorps transforms into the National Day of Listening.