Morning Edition

As relentlessly as the candidates have courted voters, they've also shown their love to donors.

A report by the Center for Responsive Politics places the total cost of the 2012 elections at an estimated $6 billion, which would make it the most expensive election in U.S. history

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

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On Election Day next week, Michigan voters will face a question about international bridges and tunnels. It's really a question about one bridge in particularly - a long-planned and highly-contested connection between Detroit and Windsor, Ontario.

As Michigan Radio's Sarah Cwiek reports, it's an electoral twist in a bitter struggle with Michigan's governor and Canada on one side, and a billionaire bridge owner on the other.

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OK. So, it was really hard to get gas in the New York area yesterday. One very simple thing could be done that might change everything: drastically raise the price of gas. Now, if that happened, we would surely consider it price-gouging. But some economists think it would be a really good idea. Here's Zoe Chace of our Planet Money team.

MICHELLE MEDINA: So, everybody here's OK? You guys OK? All right. Yeah, we're still on line with him.

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Climate change was a big part of the announcement Mayor Bloomberg made yesterday endorsing President Obama for reelection.

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Bloomberg owns a media company, is politically independent, and made his endorsement in a memorable way. He said Mitt Romney has taken sensible positions in the past but reversed course on all of them.

MONTAGNE: He also said President Obama's term has been disappointing. But he argued the president was better on a range of issues, especially climate change.

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On a Friday - we've made it to Friday - it's MORNING EDITION, from NPR News. I'm Steve Inskeep.

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And I'm Renee Montagne.

Once a mob began attacking the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, on the night of Sept. 11, officials in Washington, D.C., watched with alarm. Now, new details are emerging about their response to the deadly attack.

President Obama and his entire national security team monitored what was going on half a world away. Army Gen. Carter Ham, who was the regional commander for Africa, happened to be in Washington that day.

Scientists say an Asian elephant at a South Korean zoo can imitate human speech, saying five Korean words that are readily understood by people who speak the language.

The male elephant, named Koshik, invented an unusual method of sound production that involves putting his trunk in his mouth and manipulating his vocal tract.

"This is not the kind of sound that Asian elephants normally make, and it's a dead-on match of the speech of his trainers," says Tecumseh Fitch of the University of Vienna in Austria.