PENSACOLA, Fla. — Juggling politics and storm preparations, Mitt Romney dangled a plea for bipartisanship before early voters in Florida on Saturday as Barack Obama worked to nail down tiny New Hampshire’s four electoral votes. Both campaigns scrambled to steer clear of a most unlikely October surprise, a superstorm barreling up the East Coast.

LLANO DE CHAJNANTOR, Chile — Earth’s largest radio telescope is growing more powerful by the day on this remote plateau high above Chile’s Atacama desert, where visitors often feel like they’re planting the first human footprints on the red crust of Mars.

The 16,400-foot (5,000-meter) altitude, thin air and mercurial climate here can be unbearable. Visitors must breathe oxygen from a tank just to keep from fainting. Winds reach 62 mph (100 km) and temperatures drop to 10 below zero (minus 25 Celsius).

But for astronomers, it’s paradise.

BEIRUT — Two deadly car bombs and sporadic fighting marred a shaky holiday truce Friday in Syria, although thousands of protesters used the brief respite in the civil war to pour into the streets and demand President Bashar Assad’s ouster.

Chants of “Syria wants freedom!” rang out in the streets in the largest demonstrations in months, suggesting that a 19-month-old crackdown and sustained violence has not broken the spirit of those trying to rid the country of Assad’s rule.

WASHINGTON — Their lives on hold for years, young adults are now making big moves in the fledgling economic recovery, leaving college towns or parents’ homes and heading out of state at the highest rate since the height of the housing boom.

New census data released Thursday offer a detailed look at U.S. migration as mobility begins to revive after sliding to a record low last year.