Photograph by Eduardo Munoz, Reuters

AP Business Writers - by Jonathan Fahey and Peter Svensson - August 28, 2011

NEW YORK (AP) -- Below the streets of New York City, a network of pipes, cables and tunnels up to 200 feet deep transports power, gas, water, Internet traffic, trains, sewage and more. When Hurricane Irene hit the city Sunday, this underground network was largely protected from major damage.

On the island of Manhattan, only a handful of its 1.6 million residents lost power. And roughly 50,000 households in the city's outer boroughs of the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island lost power.

Elsewhere, Irene left millions of East Coast residents without power, as winds knocked trees into above-ground power lines.

But while the city's buried infrastructure is safe from wind, it is vulnerable to flooding. Some experts say the city simply got lucky that the flooding wasn't more severe. The subway system is especially at risk, which is why transportation officials preemptively shut it down.

 al.com - August 24, 2011

Oil bubbles to the surface of the Gulf of Mexico within one mile northeast of BP's Macondo well on August 23, 2011. (Press-Register/Jeff Dute)

MOBILE, Alabama -- Oil is once again fouling the Gulf of Mexico around the Deepwater Horizon well, which was capped a little over a year ago.

Tuesday afternoon, hundreds of small, circular patches of oily sheen dotted the surface within a mile of the wellhead. With just a bare sheen present over about a quarter-mile, the scene was a far cry from the massive slick that covered the Gulf last summer.

Floating in a boat near the well site, Press-Register reporters watched blobs of oil rise to the surface and bloom into iridescent yellow patches. Those patches quickly expanded into rainbow sheens 4 to 5 feet across.

Each expanding bloom released a pronounced and pungent petroleum smell. Most of the oil was located in a patch about 50 yards wide and a quarter of a mile long.

Homeland Security Newswire - August 18, 2011

A QuakeFinder network installation // Source: newsvine.com

Researchers at a Silicon Valley company are hard at work developing an experimental network of electromagnetic sensors that could predict large earthquakes as much as two weeks in advance; the theory behind the research is disputed, but Tom Bleier, the inventor and chief engineer behind project QuakeFinder, hopes to prove seismologists wrong.

Researchers at a Silicon Valley company are hard at work developing an experimental network of electromagnetic sensors that could predict large earthquakes as much as two weeks in advance.

The theory behind the research is disputed, but Tom Bleier, the inventor and chief engineer behind project QuakeFinder, hopes to prove seismologists wrong. Under the project, engineers will install roughly 200 five-foot tall sensors near fault lines in California to measure changes in underground magnetic fields and to detect electrically charged particles in the air.

CNN - August 13, 2011

Demonstrators shut down a BART station in July to protest the shooting death of 45-year-old Charles Hill.

In a controversial move that has riled up free speech advocates, San Francisco's Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) subway system said it cut off cellphone signals at “select” stations in response to a planned protest this week.

“BART temporarily interrupted service at select BART stations as one of many tactics to ensure the safety of everyone on the platform,” the transit agency said in a statement on its website Friday.

BART said it took the actions because protesters said they “would use mobile devices to coordinate their disruptive activities and communicate about the location and number of BART Police.”

Demonstrators had planned a rally to bring attention to a number of transit police officer shootings, the latest one resulting in the death of 45-year-old Charles Hill, who was shot last month after a confrontation with officers.

The transit agency said protests during rush hour endangered the safety of commuters and employees.