Hurricane Sandy | featured news

Superstorm Sandy didn't just rattle the East Coast, it also jiggled the ground across the country ever so slightly, scientists reported Thursday. Earthquake sensors located as far away as the Pacific Northwest detected the storm's energy as it surged toward the New York metropolitan region last year. The network typically records the sudden release of energy in the Earth's crust, but it can pick up shaking triggered by ocean waves, mine cave-ins and tornadoes.

Congress is sending a $50.5 billion emergency relief measure for Superstorm Sandy victims to President Barack Obama for his signature.

The House has approved a $50.7 billion measure for Superstorm Sandy victims. The 241-180 vote sends the measure to the Senate which is expected to take it up next Tuesday. Northeast lawmakers from both parties have been pressing for the aid for more than two months.

The House has overwhelmingly approved $9.7 billion to pay flood insurance claims for the many home and business owners flooded out by Superstorm Sandy. The vote came more than two months after the storm hit and days after Northeast Republicans erupted over House Speaker John Boehner's decision to delay an earlier vote.

The Congressional members, including Republicans, noted their outrage that the Republican leadership did not present the $60.4 billion package already passed by the Senate for a House vote.

A final vote to provide $60.4 billion to Sandy's victims could come later today.

Americans spent more online in November to start the holiday season and began to replace cars and rebuild in the Northeast after Superstorm Sandy.

The world's attention wavered between the tragic and the silly in 2012, and along the way, Web surfers searched in huge numbers to find out about a royal princess, the latest iPad, and a record-breaking skydiver.

There's new evidence that some of the impact of Superstorm Sandy could have been prevented. A bi-partisan report says that for more than three decades New York politicians were repeatedly warned to prepare for a coming superstorm like Hurricane Sandy but those warnings were ignored.

The bottom is falling out of economic forecasters' expectations for U.S. economic growth in the final months of 2012. And if some of the more bearish estimates prove accurate, it will be the weakest rate of growth since the start of 2011.