Article:
Ed Wicks secures plywood over the windows of his business to protect from the high winds of approaching Hurricane Sandy, on Oct. 28, 2012, in Ocean City, N.J. (Photo: Mark Wilson, Getty Images) Story Highlights The Halloween holiday was originally expected to generate about $8 billion in spending this year

 How much the storm will affect Halloween purchases is unclear as cancelations grow

 Stores and pumpkin patches are closing all along the East Coast

 Hurricane Sandy is doing her darndest to wash Halloween down the drain.

 But she's only partially succeeding.

 SANDY'S IMPACT: Travel | Jobs report | Gas | Stocks

 The hurricane has barreled into the East Coast just a few days before the national Halloween celebration was expected to generate upwards of $8 billion in spending coast-to-coast. The good news: Most folks already have purchased what they were planning to buy for Halloween. The bad news: Many East Coast merchants that rely on Halloween day, itself, for a big chunk of business appear to be in trouble.

 "Small businesses relying on last-minute shoppers will get hit," says Kathy Grannis, a spokeswoman for the National Retail Federation. "But the storm is happening on a Monday (and Tuesday) after most consumers got their shopping done."

 Sandy is haunting Halloween by:

 - Soaking celebrations. While the gargantuan New York Greenwich Village Halloween Parade scheduled for Wednesday night hasn't been canceled, the number of viewers and participants is expected to be cut in half, and the city's Halloween-related booty sliced from $90 million to $45 million. "We're going to do it, and everyone will get wet," says artistic producer Jeanne Fleming. "We know it's going to rain on our parade."

 Newlyweds from England Christopher and Ingrid Foott, were to march at the head of the parade on their honeymoon. They e-mailed this cancellation: "We may have lost our honeymoon, but we know that there are people who have and may lose so much more."

 - Draining business. Economy Party & Costumes, a Falls Church, Va., store which is normally teeming with customers the final few days before Halloween, had to close early Monday, and its manager projects the storm could cost the family-owned business up to $50,000 — a big chunk of its 2012 profits. "It's the only time we make a profit the whole year," says manager Shawn Dimitriades.

 - Washing-out takeout. While Halloween is not a huge holiday for eating out, roughly one in five Americans opted for takeout food last Halloween. That number could take a hit this year if the storm or its aftermath forces a number of East Coast restaurants to close, says Hudson Riehle, senior vice president of research at the National Restaurant Association.

 - Pummeling pumpkin patches. Cox Farms pumpkin patch in Centreville, Va., which turns Halloween into a celebration of pumpkin-picking and hayrides closed Monday and planned to close on Tuesday. Reservations for both days were being switched to Wednesday, when the weather is supposed to improve.

 - Drowning fundraisers. The Goodwill Gridiron Halloween Party with the Baltimore Ravens, hosted by Goodwill of the Chesapeake (Va.), has been postponed. It's the group's biggest, annual fundraiser, with proceeds helping job-train people with disabilities. "We're heartbroken about it," says Jonathan Balog, director of marketing. "You can't control the weather." ||||| Hurricane Sandy wreaked havoc on the East Coast on Monday night, likely driving Halloween far from the minds of those who witnessed its greatest destruction.

 But for families who escaped the worst of Sandy’s wrath, the question of whether Halloween will go ahead as normal -- and how to celebrate in the midst of power outages and debris-filled streets -- remains.

 New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie addressed the issue directly Monday night by tweeting: "If conditions are not safe on Wednesday for Trick or Treating, I will sign an Executive Order rescheduling #Halloween."

 (This story has been updated. Scroll down for new information.)

 Many communities in New Jersey -- and elsewhere -- are already pushing festivities back until this weekend or next week. "It's only 'trick or treat,” Joseph Maturo, the mayor of East Haven, Conn., told the Hartford Courant. "It's not going to hurt anybody to move it to next Wednesday night." (Not everyone agreed; according to WFSB, another Connecticut town’s Facebook page encouraged residents to use “discretion” if necessary, but noted: "The town does not control Halloween.”)

 On HuffPost Parents’s Facebook page, several readers said their towns had already postponed celebrations. Commenters from the Cleveland and Pittsburgh areas said they had planned to trick-or-treat this weekend, while one woman from New Jersey wrote that she was waiting on instructions from local officials: "We'll go out trick-or-treating whenever the town says we can."

 Another commenter from the hard-hit Atlantic City area wrote: "Yep, it's real down here...but at least thinking about something like this keeps the kids' minds on something fun to look forward to instead of everything else going on."

 With schools closed throughout the New York City area for a third day on Wednesday, daytime Halloween activities (like these Halloween parades in Long Island’s East Hampton) have also been cancelled.

 What should parents who do take their children out on Halloween night be worried about?

 In addition to conventional Halloween safety advice (“be mindful of traffic” and “wear bright colors”), the Boston Police Department’s Virtual Community urges trick-or-treaters to “stay away from downed tree limbs and power lines,” avoid neighborhoods with no power and stick with short costumes that won’t get "caught in debris from trees or slippery wet leaves.” (Boston has not postponed Halloween celebrations.)

 In a HuffPost blog, Safe Kids Worldwide CEO Kate Carr said she hopes people in neighborhoods that haven’t been cleaned up yet will think of “safety first”:

 If you're in an area where fallen trees, flooding streets and loose electrical wires threaten to make it difficult or dangerous to trick-or-treat, please don't hesitate to do the smart thing and stay in this Halloween.

 Lenore Skenazy of Free Range Kids, who has railed against the unnecessary paranoia she said she thinks some parents already bring to Halloween, told HuffPost she thought downed power lines were a legitimate concern. "Maybe in the face of the real danger that just passed through, we can finally laugh at the ones that we usually scare ourselves with, like the idea that our neighbors become psychopathic child poisoners one day of the year," Skenazy said over email. "From what I've seen, neighbors are the people who bring food and flashlights, not strychnine."

 Some children may be feeling fearful of trick-or-treating, even if mom and dad aren't. Heading into the spookiest of holidays on the heels of a threatening natural disaster may take a toll on a young person's psyche.

 Jerry Bubrick, senior director of the Child Mind Institute’s Anxiety and Mood Disorders Center, spoke to HuffPost about how to help kids who might be worried about trick-or-treating after the storm. He stressed that it’s important for parents not to seem nervous about going outside, since kids will note anxiety.

 “We should show our kids on the radar maps that [the storm] is gone,” Bubrick said, adding that parents could “show kids that it’s okay by acting as if everything is okay” and trying to return to a normal routine as soon as possible. (It’s a message his 7-year-old daughter, Maya, has internalized; Bubrick said she told him to tell us, “The kids should take a deep breath and just calm down. Everything’s going to be okay.”)

 If you can’t get outside for a conventional evening of trick-or-treating, the Internet is brimming with ideas -- some as simple as setting up an in-home candy hunt. Speaking to WSJ.com's The Juggle before the storm, social worker Catherine Pearlman said: "Halloween doesn’t have to be just trick or treating in the dark. Everyone should get still get dressed up. ... Parents can also put candy in each room and the kids can run around and get it.” On "Good Morning America,” psychologist Janet Taylor suggested the same thing.

 On TODAY, Elizabeth Mayhew told Savannah Guthrie: "The big question is power. Obviously, you're not going to send your kids into a dark neighborhood. … So you need to check with your town, you need to follow the local news, see what's going on.” She told parents to make a "Plan B" -- perhaps getting a group together for "Trunk or Treat" (dispensing candy from the backs of cars) in a local cul-de-sac or making gingerbread house-style structures with extra candy and cardboard boxes.

 Gawker also provided a list of activity suggestions (not all entirely practical). Our favorite: “In addition to having just as many hyphens as trick-or-treat, hide-and-seek is also the most fun game -- play it with your children. This is a particularly good activity if your kids are getting a little loud, because a large part of hide-and-seek is remaining neither seen nor heard.”

 UPDATE: New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has signed an executive order postponing Halloween festivities in New Jersey until Nov. 5. Gov. Christie said in a statement: "As Governor, it is my responsibility to use all available resources of the state government to protect against the emergency created by Hurricane Sandy -- postponing Halloween celebrations by five days is a commonsense and necessary step to accomplish that."

 On Wednesday afternoon, he tweeted, "Its just not safe yet to be out trick-or- treating tonight, so Halloween has officially been postponed until Monday," following up with "I better see you all out there on Monday with your costumes on and candy in tow."

 Has Halloween been postponed in your area? If you’re staying inside, what are you planning to do? Let us know in the comments below. ||||| Focused crawls are collections of frequently-updated webcrawl data from narrow (as opposed to broad or wide) web crawls, often focused on a single domain or subdomain. ||||| 403 Forbidden

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 GLOUCESTER COUNTY — While most of the adults in the Gloucester County area are worried about tying down outdoor furniture and stocking up for possible power outages as Hurricane Sandy prepares to ravage the county, their children have other concerns.

 The storm has threatened one of kids’ favorite days — Halloween.

 But as kids fret over costume decisions, many municipal officials have made the decision to move Halloween and trick-or-treating to Saturday.

 East Greenwich, Glassboro, Mantua, South Harrison, West Deptford, Westville, Woodbury and Woodbury Heights have all postponed Halloween until the weekend.

 “It just seems to be that after the storm is over, whatever aftermath there will be, it would be less stressful to have Halloween on Saturday,” South Harrison Mayor Jim McCall said. “It’s a really important holiday for the kids but there’s going to be a lot of aftermath and cleanup and we don’t want trick or treaters on the road Wednesday.”

 The remaining 17 municipalities in the county did not make any decisions as of Monday morning, but none of them have ruled out the possibility yet.

 “We haven’t made any decisions at this point. It was a topic of discussion but until we know the full extent of damages from the storm I think it’s a little premature,” Logan Township Mayor Frank Minor said.

 For the towns that have decided to move their trick-or-treating date to Saturday, the curfew times will remain the same as if it were actually Halloween. All children younger than 18 must be off the streets by 8 p.m.

 Full coverage of Hurricane Sandy

  ||||| A casket floated out of the grave in a cemetery in Crisfield, Md. after the effects of superstorm Sandy Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012. Hundreds of people were displaced by floodwaters in Ocean City and in Crisfield. At the same time, 2 feet of snow fell in westernmost Garrett County, were nearly three-quarters of residents lost power. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

 An ambulance is submerged in floodwaters in the wake of superstorm Sandy on Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012, in Hoboken, N.J. Sandy, the storm that made landfall Monday, caused multiple fatalities, halted mass transit and cut power to more than 6 million homes and businesses. (AP Photo/Mike Groll)

 A vehicle drives on a flooded street in the wake of superstorm Sandy on Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012, in Hoboken, N.J. Sandy, the storm that made landfall Monday, caused multiple fatalities, halted mass transit and cut power to more than 6 million homes and businesses. (AP Photo/Mike Groll)

 A firehouse is surrounded by floodwaters in the wake of superstorm Sandy on Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012, in Hoboken, N.J. Sandy, the storm that made landfall Monday, caused multiple fatalities, halted mass transit and cut power to more than 6 million homes and businesses. (AP Photo/Mike Groll)

 A vehicle drives on a flooded street in the wake of superstorm Sandy on Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012, in Little Ferry, N.J. Sandy, the storm that made landfall Monday, caused multiple fatalities, halted mass transit and cut power to more than 6 million homes and businesses. (AP Photo/Mike Groll)

 An emergency vehicle drives on a flooded street in Little Ferry, N.J. in the wake of superstorm Sandy on Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012. Sandy, the storm that made landfall Monday, caused multiple fatalities, halted mass transit and cut power to more than 6 million homes and businesses. (AP Photo/Mike Groll)

 An emergency vehicle drives on a flooded street in Little Ferry, N.J. in the wake of superstorm Sandy on Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012. Sandy, the storm that made landfall Monday, caused multiple fatalities, halted mass transit and cut power to more than 6 million homes and businesses. (AP Photo/Mike Groll)

 Rescue workers help stranded people out of their flooded homes in Seaside Heights, N.J., following the arrival of superstorm Sandy, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012. Sandy, the storm that made landfall Monday, caused multiple fatalities, halted mass transit and cut power to more than 6 million homes and businesses. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

 Rescue workers help stranded people out of their flooded homes in Seaside Heights, N.J., following the arrival of superstorm Sandy, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012. Sandy, the storm that made landfall Monday, caused multiple fatalities, halted mass transit and cut power to more than 6 million homes and businesses. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

 A runway at the Teterboro Airport is flooded in the wake of superstorm Sandy on Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012, in New York. Sandy, the storm that made landfall Monday, caused multiple fatalities, halted mass transit and cut power to more than 6 million homes and businesses. (AP Photo/Mike Groll)

 Homes in Bethany Beach, Del. are surrounded by floodwaters from superstorm Sandy on Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012. Officials said Bethany and nearby Fenwick Island appeared to be among the hardest-hit parts of the state. (AP Photo/Randall Chase)

 Floodwaters from superstorm Sandy surround homes in South Bethany, Del. Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012. Sandy, the storm that made landfall Monday, caused multiple fatalities, halted mass transit and cut power to more than 6 million homes and businesses. (AP Photo/The Wilmington News-Journal, Robert Craig) NO SALES

 Floodwaters from superstorm Sandy surround homes in South Bethany, Del. Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012. Sandy, the storm that made landfall Monday, caused multiple fatalities, halted mass transit and cut power to more than 6 million homes and businesses. (AP Photo/The Wilmington News-Journal, Robert Craig) NO SALES

 Downed power lines and a battered road is what superstorm Sandy left behind as people walk off the flooded Seaside Heights island, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012. Sandy, the storm that made landfall Monday, caused multiple fatalities, halted mass transit and cut power to more than 6 million homes and businesses. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

 This photo provided by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority shows the South Ferry subway station after it was flooded by seawater during superstorm Sandy on Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012. Sandy, the storm that made landfall Monday, caused multiple fatalities, halted mass transit and cut power to more than 6 million homes and businesses. (AP Photo/ Metropolitan Transportation Authority)

 Debris litters the beach north of Indian River Inlet in southern Delaware after waves churned up by superstorm Sandy demolished hundreds of yards of beach dunes and left state Route 1, the major north-south coastal highway, covered in sand. (AP Photo/Randall Chase)

 This photo provided by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority shows the South Ferry subway station after it was flooded by seawater during superstorm Sandy on Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012. Sandy, the storm that made landfall Monday, caused multiple fatalities, halted mass transit and cut power to more than 6 million homes and businesses. (AP Photo/ Metropolitan Transportation Authority)

 This photo provided by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority shows the South Ferry subway station after it was flooded by seawater during superstorm Sandy on Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012. Sandy, the storm that made landfall Monday, caused multiple fatalities, halted mass transit and cut power to more than 6 million homes and businesses. (AP Photo/ Metropolitan Transportation Authority)

 Streets around a Con Edison substation are flooded as the East River overflows into the Dumbo section of Brooklyn, N.Y., as Sandy moves through the area on Monday, Oct. 29, 2012. After a gigantic wall of water defied elaborate planning and swamped underground electrical equipment at a Consolidated Edison substation in Manhattan's East Village, about 250,000 lower Manhattan customers were left without power. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)

 In this Monday, Oct. 29, 2012, file photo, Consolidated Edision trucks are submerged on 14th Street near the ConEd power plant in New York. After a gigantic wall of water defied elaborate planning and swamped underground electrical equipment at a Consolidated Edison substation in Manhattan's East Village, about 250,000 lower Manhattan customers were left without power. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

 Downed power lines and a battered road is what superstorm Sandy left behind as people walk off the flooded Seaside Heights island, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012. Sandy, the storm that made landfall Monday, caused multiple fatalities, halted mass transit and cut power to more than 6 million homes and businesses. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

 This photo taken Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012, shows what appear to be transformers exploding after much of lower Manhattan lost power during hurricane Sandy in New York. After a gigantic wall of water defied elaborate planning and swamped underground electrical equipment at a Consolidated Edison substation in Manhattan's East Village, about 250,000 lower Manhattan customers were left without power. (AP Photo/Karly Domb Sadof)

 Peter Andrews removes belongings from his father's beachfront home, destroyed in the aftermath of a storm surge from the superstorm Sandy, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012, in Coney Island's Sea Gate community in New York. Andrews, 40, who was born in the house, said "we had a lot of storms and the only damage in the past was when a national guardsman threw a sandbag through the window." He added, the house was in the process of being sold. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)

 A small shop that rents personal water craft rests in a huge sinkhole on the bayside in Ocean City, N.J. Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012 after a storm surge from superstorm Sandy Monday night. (AP Photo/Mel Evans)

 A beachfront house is completely destroyed in the aftermath of a superstorm Sandy, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012, in Coney Island's Sea Gate community in New York. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)

 The entrance to a beachfront house is destroyed in the aftermath of a storm surge from superstorm Sandy, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012, in Coney Island's Sea Gate community in New York. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)

 A second floor closet is exposed in a beachfront house in the aftermath of a storm surge from Hurricane Sandy, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012, in Coney Island's Sea Gate community in New York. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)

 People stop along the Brooklyn waterfront to photograph the Brooklyn Bridge and the Manhattan skyline, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012 in New York. Much of lower Manhattan is without electric power following the impact of superstorm Sandy. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)

 Marcus Konner, 22, boards his home in the aftermath of a storm surge from Hurricane Sandy, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012, in Coney Island's Sea Gate community in New York. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)

 People walk through the houses destroyed in the aftermath of yesterday's storm surge from superstorm Sandy, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012, in Coney Island's Sea Gate community in New York. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)

 Carlo Popolano stands outside his beachfront home, damaged in superstorm Sandy, on Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012, in Coney Island's Sea Gate community in New York. Popolano said he was watching the storm with his son and "everything was okay until about 7:30 and then one big wave came and washed away our whole backyard." (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)

 A beachfront house is completely destroyed in the aftermath of yesterday's surge from superstorm Sandy, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012, in Coney Island's Sea Gate community in New York. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)

 A backyard is inundated with floodwaters in the aftermath of Sandy, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012, in Lewes, Del. Sandy, the storm that made landfall Monday, caused multiple fatalities, halted mass transit and cut power to more than 6 million homes and businesses. (AP Photo/Randall Chase)

 A car is upended on a mailbox on Surf Avenue in Coney Island, N.Y., in the aftermath of Sandy on Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012. Sandy, the storm that made landfall Monday, caused multiple fatalities, halted mass transit and cut power to more than 6 million homes and businesses. (AP Photo/Ralph Russo)

 This handout photo provided by NOAA, taken Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012, shows post-tropical storm Sandy off the East Coast of the US. Campaign 2012 is rich with images that conjure the seriousness and silliness that unfold side-by-side in any presidential race. Who could have predicted that a superstorm would overshadow and scramble the presidential campaign in its final days? President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney revised and re-revised their campaign schedules as Hurricane Sandy, a most unlikely October surprise, barreled up the East Coast and then roared ashore in New Jersey. (AP Photo/NOAA)

 A parking lot full of yellow cabs is flooded as a result of superstorm Sandy on Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012 in Hoboken, NJ. (AP Photo/Charles Sykes)

 A beachfront house is damaged in the aftermath of yesterday's surge from superstorm Sandy, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012, in Coney Island's Sea Gate community in New York. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)

 A car is upended on a mailbox on Surf Avenue in Coney Island, N.Y., in the aftermath of Sandy on Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012. Sandy, the storm that made landfall Monday, caused multiple fatalities, halted mass transit and cut power to more than 6 million homes and businesses. (AP Photo/Ralph Russo)

 Damage caused by a fire at Breezy Point is shown Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012, in New York. A fire department spokesman says more than 190 firefighters are at the blaze in the Breezy Point section. Fire officials say the blaze was reported around 11 p.m. Monday in an area flooded by the superstorm that began sweeping through earlier. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)

 Fire still burns at the scene of a fire in Breezy Point, in the New York City borough of Queens Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012, in New York. The fire destroyed between 80 and 100 houses Monday night in the flooded neighborhood. More than 190 firefighters have contained the six-alarm blaze fire, but they are still putting out some pockets of fire. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)

 East Coast Begins To Clean Up And Assess Damage From Hurricane Sandy ATLANTIC CITY, NJ - OCTOBER 30: People stand on a mound of construction dirt to vew the area where a 2000-foot section of the 'uptown' boardwalk was destroyed by flooding from Hurricane Sandy on October 30, 2012 in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The storm has claimed at least 33 lives in the United States, and has caused massive flooding accross much of the Atlantic seaboard. US President Barack Obama has declared the situation a 'major disaster' for large areas of the US East Coast including New York City. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

 Homes damaged by a fire at Breezy Point are shown, in the New York City borough of Queens Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012, in New York. The fire destroyed between 80 and 100 houses Monday night in the flooded neighborhood. More than 190 firefighters have contained the six-alarm blaze fire, but they are still putting out some pockets of fire. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)

 East Coast Begins To Clean Up And Assess Damage From Hurricane Sandy ATLANTIC CITY, NJ - OCTOBER 30: A man walks over debsris where a 2000-foot section of the 'uptown' boardwalk was destroyed by flooding from Hurricane Sandy on October 30, 2012 in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The storm has claimed at least 33 lives in the United States, and has caused massive flooding accross much of the Atlantic seaboard. US President Barack Obama has declared the situation a 'major disaster' for large areas of the US East Coast including New York City. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

 East Coast Begins To Clean Up And Assess Damage From Hurricane Sandy NEW YORK, NY - OCTOBER 30: Ground Zero is seen on October 30, 2012 in the Financial District of New York, United States. The storm has claimed at least 33 lives in the United States, and has caused massive flooding accross much of the Atlantic seaboard. US President Barack Obama has declared the situation a 'major disaster' for large areas of the US East Coast including New York City. (Photo by Andrew Burton/Getty Images)

 US-WEATHER-STORM-SANDY Sailboats rest on the ground after being tipped over by Hurricane Sandy on City Island October 30, 2012 in New York. US President Obama declared New York a disaster area. The death toll from superstorm Sandy has risen to 16 in the mainland United States and Canada, and was expected to climb further as several people were still missing, officials said Tuesday. AFP PHOTO/DON EMMERT (Photo credit should read DON EMMERT/AFP/Getty Images)

 US-WEATHER-STORM-SANDY Boats rest on the ground after floating from their stands at dry dock on City Island , in New York October 30, 2012 following Hurricane Sandy's impact. US President Obama declared New York a disaster area The death toll from superstorm Sandy has risen to 16 in the mainland United States and Canada, and was expected to climb further as several people were still missing, officials said Tuesday. AFP PHOTO/DON EMMERT (Photo credit should read DON EMMERT/AFP/Getty Images)

 Homes destroyed by a fire at Breezy Point are shown, in the New York City borough of Queens Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012, in New York. The fire destroyed between 80 and 100 houses Monday night in the flooded neighborhood. More than 190 firefighters have contained the six-alarm blaze fire, but they are still putting out some pockets of fire. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)

 US-WEATHER-STORM-SANDY Boats rest on the ground after floating from their stands at dry dock on City Island , in New York October 30, 2012 following Hurricane Sandy's impact. US President Obama declared New York a disaster area The death toll from superstorm Sandy has risen to 16 in the mainland United States and Canada, and was expected to climb further as several people were still missing, officials said Tuesday. AFP PHOTO/DON EMMERT (Photo credit should read DON EMMERT/AFP/Getty Images)

 US-WEATHER-STORM-SANDY Residents look at damage left by Hurricane Sandy on City Island, New York, October 30, 2012. US President Obama declared New York a disaster area The death toll from superstorm Sandy has risen to 16 in the mainland United States and Canada, and was expected to climb further as several people were still missing, officials said Tuesday. AFP PHOTO/DON EMMERT (Photo credit should read DON EMMERT/AFP/Getty Images)

 US-WEATHER-STORM-SANDY Boats rest on the ground after floating from their stands at dry dock on City Island , in New York October 30, 2012 following Hurricane Sandy's impact. US President Obama declared New York a disaster area The death toll from superstorm Sandy has risen to 16 in the mainland United States and Canada, and was expected to climb further as several people were still missing, officials said Tuesday. AFP PHOTO/DON EMMERT (Photo credit should read DON EMMERT/AFP/Getty Images) ||||| FULL COVERAGE: Sandy Hits NJ

 Governor Chris Christie has postponed Halloween until Monday, November 5.

 Governor Chris Christie at the Regional Operations and Intelligence Center (ROIC) in Ewing. (Governor’s Office/Tim Larsen)

 “I’ve taken this action to minimize additional risks to lives and the public safety as we begin the process of rebuilding and recovering from Hurricane Sandy,” said Governor Christie. “In too many communities in our state, the damage and losses from this storm are still being sorted out, and dangerous conditions abound even as our emergency management and response officials continue their work. As Governor, it is my responsibility to use all available resources of the state government to protect against the emergency created by Hurricane Sandy – postponing Halloween celebrations by five days is a commonsense and necessary step to accomplish that.”

 Surrounded by his children during Monday’s Ask the Governor on Townsquare Media NJ, Christie said he would likely postpone the holiday after seeing the full effects of Sandy around New Jersey.

 The damage sustained from Hurricane Sandy poses a continued threat to public safety in communities across New Jersey due to flooding, fallen trees, downed power lines, roadway closures, and disruptions in electrical service, making it unsafe and imprudent to participate in traditional celebrations, such as trick-or-treat walks.

 Local officials are advised to notify and encourage their communities and residents to delay any planned celebrations until Monday.

 Toms River postponed its annual Halloween parade indefinately. |||||Summary:

– Now that the worst of Hurricane Sandy is over, we can focus on some important questions like … what happens to Halloween? Don’t worry, Chris Christie is on it: He has now officially postponed Halloween until Monday, citing safety reasons, NJ 101.5 reports. “I can’t imagine that it’s going to be safe for kids to go around for Halloween tomorrow,” the New Jersey governor said yesterday, reports the Star-Ledger. He had earlier tweeted, “If conditions are not safe on Wednesday for Trick or Treating, I will sign an Executive Order rescheduling #Halloween.” That, of course, led to some amused reactions. (“Uh I don’t think it works that way,” reads one reply.) But the storm’s impact on the holiday is undeniable: Christie's not alone: At least eight Jersey cities and towns have postponed trick-or-treating to Saturday, the Star-Ledger reports. Good Morning America and Today both canceled the traditional Halloween specials they had planned for this morning, the Huffington Post reports. Halloween sales, which had been expected to hit $8 billion, will surely see an impact, USA Today reports. "Small businesses relying on last-minute shoppers will get hit," says a National Retail Federation rep. One such small business reports that the storm will cost it as much as $50,000, a good chunk of its profits for the year. Some Halloween events are still happening tonight, like New York’s Greenwich Village Halloween Parade, but the crowds are expected to be much smaller than those of a normal year. Other festivities have been delayed to this weekend or even next, the Huffington Post reports.


News article:

That was the last she heard from the 19-year-old son she described as a fearless athlete with "the sweetest heart."

 "You wouldn’t believe these waves, Mom. I can’t wait to get to them," he told Candace Ransom, who told him to have fun and call afterward.

 Before they plunged into the chilly waters, Ransom pulled out his cellphone.

 No wind, glassy conditions -- they agreed it was going to be a great session for Garcia on his surfboard and Ransom on his beat-up, red bodyboard.

 Six-foot waves were breaking when Lucas Ransom and his longtime buddy Matthew Garcia arrived at Surf Beach west of Lompoc on Friday morning.

 The two young men had been in the waves for about 45 minutes when a shark appeared out of nowhere and pulled Ransom under. There was no warning, Garcia said. The shark appeared to be about 18 to 20 feet long, he said.

 Ransom looked at his friend a couple of feet away and said “Help me, dude,” before getting lost in the waves, Garcia said. "It was very stealth," he said. "You would have never known there was a shark in the water. It was all really quick."

 Ransom’s left leg was ripped off at the pelvis, his parents said. Garcia tried to give him chest compressions as he pulled him to shore, but Ransom was bleeding profusely and died before they got there.

 Witnesses told authorities that the young men were about 100 yards offshore when the attack occurred. Fire personnel from Vandenberg Air Force Base pronounced Ransom dead at the scene.

 Authorities quickly closed Surf Beach and two other beaches nearby for at least 72 hours. Surf Beach is on Vandenberg’s 42 miles of coastline, but the public has access to it from California Highway 246.

 Federal and state wildlife officials are working to identify the type of shark that attacked Ransom. A shark expert said Friday that, based on its behavior and Ransom’s injury, it most likely was a great white.

 "It takes a shark of massive size and jaw to inflict that kind of injury," said Andrew Nosal of the Scripps Institute of Oceanography.

 Great whites seek prey at the water's surface and attack with enormous ferocity from underneath, Nosal said, adding that the silhouette of a surfer on a bodyboard looks a lot like a sea lion on the surface. After they bite, it's too late.

 "It may be mistaken identity," he said.

 About 75% of fatal shark attacks are caused by great whites. Even so, attacks are exceedingly rare, Nosal said. The last fatality in California was in 2008, when a 17-foot shark killed a retired veterinarian who was swimming off Solana Beach.

 -- Steve Chawkins and Catherine Saillant ||||| Spencer Weiner, AP

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 SURF BEACH, Calif. (Oct. 22) -- A 19-year-old surfer who died after getting bitten by a shark today off the Santa Barbara coast likely was attacked by the feared great white shark, an expert told AOL News.Lucas Ransom, a junior at the University of California, Santa Barbara, was attacked shortly before 9 a.m. PDT. Three beaches in Santa Barbara County were closed immediately after the attack. KEYT-TV reported that the shark bit off the surfer's leg and he bled to death.The great white "is the likely culprit," said Steve Blair, assistant curator of the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, Calif., and a shark expert. "There is really nothing else I could think of in a normal course of events who would do this except a great white."Blair said only a dozen out of the world's 400 shark species could inflict a bite like that and great whites are known to troll the coast of California and swim close to shore in search of seals and sea lions."The method is to do a surprise attack, usually from below with great force and inflict one devastating bite and let the victim weaken," Blair said. "They basically swim around a couple of minutes before finishing off the prey."The victim was boogie boarding 100 yards off the beach with a friend when a shark suddenly pulled Ransom under the water, according to the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Department. The animal was between 14 and 20 feet in length, which is consistent with a great white, Blair said.The friend apparently tried to get Ransom out of the water."I think he [Ransom] was dead before he made it to shore," Lt. Julie McCammon of the Sheriff's Department told AOL News.The shark was likely swimming around as the pair fled from the water, Blair said.Swimmers should stay out of the water in the area, but it's unlikely that the shark is out hunting humans, he added."The shark has likely moved on and is very far away by now," Blair said. "But if it's still in the area looking for seals and sea lions and comes across another swimmer, there's no reason why lightning couldn't strike twice."The last great white shark fatality in California was two years ago, when a triathlete swimmer was bitten in the leg off the coast of San Diego. He died a short time later from blood loss.Ransom was a chemical engineering major, according to the school's news director, George Foulsham. He was from Riverside County, just outside Los Angeles.The area where today's attack occurred is a popular surfing spot and is adjacent to the Vandenberg Air Force Base, which responded to the incident. |||||
What is a shorter version of the above article?

– A UCSB student died yesterday after being attacked by a shark while boogie boarding off the coast of Santa Barbara. Lucas Ransom, 19, was pulled off his board about 100 yards from shore just before 9am; his left leg was ripped off at his pelvis, according to the LA Times. Ransom was just a few feet away from friend Matthew Garcia—who said the two had joked the night before about the chances they would be attacked by a shark—at the time. He said, “Help me, dude,” before disappearing in the waves, Garcia said. "You just saw a red wave and this water is blue, and it was just red, the whole wave." Garcia saw his friend's body board pop up shortly thereafter, swam to the body, and did chest compressions as he brought him to shore of Surf Beach, an open-to-the-public spot on Vandenberg Air Force Base, located some 130 miles northwest of LA. Ransom, described by his parents as an avid swimmer once credited for saving a drowning child at a local pool, was a junior majoring in Chemical Engineering. Based on the size of Ransom's injury, experts believe he may have been attacked by a great white. Click here for more.


MARYSVILLE, Calif. (AP) — Decades-old DNA led to the arrests Tuesday of two men in connection with the shotgun slayings of two girls in California more than 40 years ago, authorities said.

 They arrested one suspect in Oklahoma and another in California after comparing their DNA with semen from both men found on one of the victims, 13-year-old Doris Karen Derryberry.

 She and 12-year-old Valerie Janice Lane, both of Olivehurst, California, were reported missing by their mothers on Nov. 12, 1973, after they failed to return from a shopping mall in nearby Linda that the girls had visited the previous day.

 A few hours later, the Yuba County Sheriff's Department was notified that the bodies of two girls had been found alongside a dirt road in a wooded area near Marysville, north of Sacramento, where they had been shot at close range with a shotgun, Sheriff Steve Durfor said.

 Arrested Tuesday were two 65-year-old cousins, Larry Don Patterson of Oakhurst, Oklahoma, and William Lloyd Harbour of Olivehurst, California. Both were age 22 at the time and living in Olivehurst, a small agricultural town in California's Central Valley.

 Durfor said both have since served prison sentences that resulted in their DNA being collected: Harbour for drug offenses in 1997 and 2003, and Patterson for a 1976 arrest on charges of raping two adult women in Chico, also in northern California. Patterson also had a 2006 arrest for failing to register as a sex offender, Durfor said.

 The families "have endured decades of suffering and grief for not knowing who was responsible for the brutal murder of their loved ones," Durfor said. They were informed in a meeting Tuesday and requested privacy, officials said.

 Some of the family members are now elderly and "have waited for something for 43 years for an answer as to what happened to their kids," Yuba County District Attorney Patrick McGrath said.

 The girls' slayings made headlines around the nation at a time when such killings seemed rare, McGrath said. Both men will face murder charges, he said.

 The homicide case remained an active investigation until 1976, when the case went cold following more than 60 interviews but no successful leads, authorities said.

 But investigators meticulously preserved their evidence, Durfor said, and in March 2014 Yuba County investigators reviewed the case for evidence that could be retested with newer technology. Evidence collected during the original investigation was reviewed and submitted to the California Department of Justice Forensic Labs for analysis.

 That December, testing revealed that DNA evidence was matched and identified the two men as suspects.

 It took more time to reopen an investigation so old that several of the investigators and the pathologist who conducted the autopsy have since died, McGrath said. They then had to locate Patterson, who is being held as an unregistered sex offender while he awaits an extradition hearing.

 "We literally were looking in five different states," he said.

 Patterson was arrested in Oklahoma's Creek County, southwest of Tulsa, the U.S. Marshals Service said. Patterson was being held in the local jail on multiple charges involving the deaths, said Tommy Roberts, the supervisory deputy U.S. marshal in Tulsa.

 ___

 Talley reported from Oklahoma City. ||||| This photo provided by the Yuba County Sheriff's Department shows Larry Don Patterson, who was arrested by authorities in Oklahoma on Tuesday, Sept. 13, 2016, on charges related to the 1973 slayings of... (Associated Press)

 This photo provided by the Yuba County Sheriff's Department shows Larry Don Patterson, who was arrested by authorities in Oklahoma on Tuesday, Sept. 13, 2016, on charges related to the 1973 slayings of Valerie Lane, 12, and Doris Derryberry, 13, in Yuba County, Calif. (Yuba County Sheriff's Department... (Associated Press)

 MARYSVILLE, Calif. (AP) — An investigator "with a bit of free time" decided to send for testing DNA samples from a long-dormant cold case, which led authorities to arrest a pair of men linked to the 1973 shotgun slayings of two young girls, authorities said.

 Police in Oklahoma and California arrested the two 65-year-old suspects Tuesday morning for the murders of Valerie Janice Lane, 12, and Doris Karen Derryberry, 13.

 The seventh grade classmates told their mothers they were going to a mall shopping near their homes about 40 miles north of Sacramento on Nov. 12, 1973. Witnesses saw them in their neighborhood that night, but neither girl returned home. Both suspects were living in Olivehurst at that time, investigators said.

 Two boys were target shooting and found the girl's bodies about 20 hours later, according to news accounts at the time. Investigators say the girls were driven to a wooded area and shot at close range.

 Authorities then and now said a large-scale investigation was immediately launched and some 60 people interviewed over a three-year period before the case went cold for a lack of solid leads and was shelved in 1976.

 In March 2014, an investigator doing a routine look through cold cases decided to send semen samples found on Derryberry's body and preserved for 43 years to the state Department of Justice forensics lab for analysis. Seven months later, state DOJ technicians reported that the DNA in the semen matched the genetic profiles of cousins Larry Don Patterson and William Lloyd Harbour, who each committed serious enough crimes since 1973 to have their DNA samples collected and placed in law enforcement computer systems.

 "Over time, anyone that's been assigned to our investigations unit for any length of time looks into some of the unsolved cases that we have," Yuba County Sheriff Steve Durfor said. "And this was one in particular that one of our investigators had a bit of free time and really looked very closely at this case and identified that we should send some things off and see what it might yield for us."

 Durfor said both suspects served prison sentences. Patterson was arrested in 1976 for raping two women and again in 2006 for failing to register as a sex offender, Durfor said. Harbour had felony drug convictions, Durfor said.

 Patterson was arrested Tuesday morning in Oklahoma. Harbour was arrested after a traffic stop two hours later near his home in Olivehurst, where the two victims also lived.

 Durfor said the victims' families were told of the arrests Tuesday morning and have requested privacy.

 The families "have endured decades of suffering and grief for not knowing who was responsible for the brutal murder of their loved ones," Durfor said.

 "We're asking for the family to have time to process this news," said Stan Vantassle, Derryberry's nephew. "We would like to have time to come to grips with this."

 Some of the family members are now elderly and "have waited for something for 43 years for an answer as to what happened to their kids," Yuba County District Attorney Patrick McGrath said.

 "Olivehurst, 43 years ago, was a very small community — still small," McGrath said of the town of about 14,000 people. Harbour lives near one of the victim's families, and "inevitably there will be contact between various families and this is a situation we had to talk to them about. There will be a lot of frustration, there will be a lot of anger, a lot of things that we need to be concerned about."

 The twin slayings four decades ago shocked the small community and the nation, he said.

 "Back in 1973, this simply didn't happen," he said. "This was a big deal. Still is, obviously."

 The girls' slayings made headlines around the nation at a time when such killings seemed rare, McGrath said. Both men will face murder charges, he said.

 It took more time to reopen an investigation so old that several of the investigators and the pathologist who conducted the autopsy have since died, McGrath said. They then had to locate Patterson, who is being held as an unregistered sex offender while he awaits an extradition hearing from Oklahoma to California.

 "We literally were looking in five different states," McGrath said.

 ___

 Talley reported from Oklahoma City. Associated Press writer Olga Rodriguez contributed from San Francisco. ||||| LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Two cousins linked through DNA testing to the 1973 murders of two girls in a small northern California town were arrested on Tuesday, more than four decades after the crime, authorities said.

 William Lloyd Harbour, 65, was taken into custody on Tuesday morning at a traffic stop in Linda, California, 40 miles south of Sacramento, the Yuba County Sheriff’s Department said in a written statement.

 Larry Don Patterson, also 65, was arrested at a secluded compound near Oakhurst, Oklahoma, south of Tulsa. The men were 22 at the time of the murders.

 According to the sheriff’s department, 13-year-old Doris Karen Derryberry and Valerie Janice Lane, 12, were reported missing on Nov. 12, 1973, after failing to return from a shopping trip to Linda the day before.

 The bodies of the two friends were found hours later alongside a dirt road in a wooded area of nearby Wheatland. Derryberry had been sexually assaulted and both girls killed by shotgun blasts at close range.

 The case remained unsolved until March 2014, when investigators reviewing the case with improved forensic testing linked DNA evidence to Harbour and Patterson.

 The DNA hit prompted a lengthy new investigation which culminated in the arrest of the two men, who were expected to face murder charges, the sheriff’s department said.

 Leslie Carbah, a spokeswoman for the Yuba County Sheriff’s Department, said that investigators knew that Harbour was still living in the area but that it took them until Tuesday to find Patterson, with the help of U.S. Marshals.

 Patterson, who was convicted of rape in 1976, was also wanted for failing to register as a sex offender and was hiding from law enforcement for that reason, she said.

 “It took us basically until today to finally put eyes on Patterson,” Carbah said. “A lot of this was hinging on bringing them both into custody at the same time. The challenge was to keep it as quiet as possible, not tip them off and drive them underground.”

 William Lloyd Harbour, 65, one of two men arrested Tuesday for the 1973 murder of two girls in Linda, California, is seen in an undated picture released by the Yuba County Sheriff’s Department in Marysville, California. Larry Don Patterson, 65, was also arrested in connection with the same case in Oakhurst, Oklahoma. Yuba County Sheriff’s Department/Handout via Reuters

 She said Harbour was expected to make an initial court appearance in Yuba County on Wednesday while Patterson faced extradition proceedings in Oklahoma.

 Meanwhile, more than 200 miles to the south in San Luis Obispo, police and FBI agents spent last week digging near a California university campus looking for remains of Kristin Smart, a freshman who disappeared 20 years ago.

 There was no indication that the two cases were related. |||||
What is a one-paragraph summary of the above article?

– Authorities have finally made arrests in the death of two girls in California more than 40 years later. Police say 65-year-old cousins Larry Patterson and William Harbour murdered Doris Derryberry, 13, and Valerie Lane, 12, after they vanished from a shopping mall in 1973. The girls were found dead, each shot by a shotgun, beside a dirt road in Marysville hours after they were reported missing, per the AP. Doris had been sexually assaulted and semen was collected from her body. However, it was only sent for testing in March 2014 by an investigator who "had a bit of free time and really looked very closely at this case," Sheriff Steve Durfor tells the AP. The semen matched DNA samples taken from Patterson and Harbour during previous arrests, police say. Patterson—convicted of rape in 1976 and wanted for failing to register as a sex offender, per Reuters—was arrested Tuesday in Oklahoma. Harbour, who has felony drug convictions, was also arrested Tuesday in the girls' hometown of Olivehurst, Calif. The men were 22 at the time of the murders. After "decades of suffering and grief," Durfor says the girls' families can finally have some closure. They "have waited ... for 43 years for an answer as to what happened to their kids," adds a Yuba County DA. (This missing woman could be buried on the Cal Poly campus.)


Join KPCC's AirTalk with host Larry Mantle weekdays for lively and in-depth discussions of city news, politics, science, the arts, entertainment, and more. Call-in number: 866-893-5722

 Update: Last week, Eva restaurant owner Mark Gold joined AirTalk to discuss his new policy of giving customers who check their phones at the door a 5 percent discount on their bill. Interesting concept, but it didn’t seem that groundbreaking. That is until the Interwebs got a hold of it.

 The Associated Press put the story out on its wire and the story went viral. The next day Gold woke up with an inbox full of media requests and calls from his mother who said CNN was looking for him.

 "I was shocked ... Quite frankly, I didn't have any expectations. We were running for two months, and then, being slow in the summertime at the restaurant here, I figured I'd send it to the local paper," said Gold on AirTalk. "Never did I think it would go this far."

 Since the KPCC interview last week, Eva Restaurant owner says he’s done about 40 interviews with major outlets including Marketplace, CNN and Good Morning America.

 German, Irish and Indian radio stations have requested interviews and his Twitter feed has seen tweets from all over world, including Afghanistan.

 "I've gotten numerous emails from restaurant owners, shop owners from all over the world saying, 'What a great policy' and 'Thank you so much,' and 'We're going to implement something like this.'" said Gold. "It seems like every five minutes there's somebody calling, and it's still going on. This is a week later and we just got German radio calling us right now, and something from India, it's just crazy."

 Gold's new cell-phone policy may have gone viral worldwide, but has it translated to an increase in business? Not so much, says Gold.

 "We've seen a little bit of an increase, but not as much as we expected," he said. "I think it's still summertime, school gets back into session in a week or so. I think once school starts, we're going to see a big increase."

 It’s become part of the restaurant table setting: knife, fork, napkin and cell phone.

 Distracted dining is the new norm with customers constantly texting friends, tweeting an Instagram photo of the meal they’re about to chow down or emailing the boss. For many smart-phone users, it’s hard just to focus on the meal and company at hand.

 Now, one restaurant in Los Angeles is giving diners a reason to turn off the digital world, by offering customers willing to check their phones at the door a 5-percent discount on their bill. Owner/chef Mark Gold of Eva Restaurant, located on Beverly Boulevard near N. Gardner Street, hopes this gives customers a way to truly sit back and relax, enjoy their meal and actually talk to with friends and family in-person.

 "For us, it's really not about people disrupting other guests. Eva is home, and we want to create that environment of home, and we want people to connect again," he explained. "It's about two people sitting together and just connecting, without the distraction of a phone, and we're trying to create an ambience where you come in and really enjoy the experience and the food and the company."

 Gold said instating the suggestion reminds him to keep cell phone usage at bay, too. "I'm guilty of it as well. When [my wife and I] go to dinner it seems like the cell phone is part of the table setting now. Every table you look at, it's a wine glass, the silverware and the cell phone," he joked.

 The husband and wife team runs Eva, a 40-person space with European flair. Gold said a little less than half take advantage of the deal, and no one has gotten upset about it.

 "I think once the server approaches the table and they're presented with the offer, they like the idea of actually talking to each other again," he said.

 Weigh In:

 Is distracted dining a pet peeve of yours? Would you be willing to check your phone at the door? Should more restaurants crack down on cell phone use?

 Guest:

 Mark Gold, Owner/chef of Eva Restaurant in West Hollywood ||||| The owner of a Los Angeles-based restaurant wants his customers to put down their cellphones and talk to each other instead.

 To show just how much he hates it when people pull out their smartphones during dinner, Eva Restaurant owner and chef Mark Gold is willing to pay patrons out-of-pocket for their cooperation.

 Anyone consenting to part with their phones for the duration of the meal by leaving their mobile devices at the door will be eligible to receive a 5% discount.

 "For us, it's really not about people disrupting other guests," Gold told KPCC. "It's about two people sitting together and just connecting, without the distraction of a phone, and we're trying to create an ambiance where you come in and really enjoy the experience and the food and the company."

 Gold claims the incentive is a hit, with just under half of all customers agreeing to the terms.

 [H/T: Foodbeast, photo via Facebook] |||||

Write a summary.

– A Los Angeles restaurant owner is sick of seeing customers spend more time with their cell phones than their dinner companions … so he's offering a cheaper meal to anyone willing to put the phone down. Patrons who check their phones at the door of Eva Restaurant get a 5% discount. "For us, it's really not about people disrupting other guests. Eva is home, and we want to create that environment of home, and we want people to connect again," owner Mark Gold tells KPCC. "It's about two people sitting together and just connecting, without the distraction of a phone." Gold adds that he himself is guilty of using his cell phone as "part of the table setting" these days. "Every table you look at, it's a wine glass, the silverware and the cell phone," he says. But his idea is catching on, with just under half of his customers accepting the offer. (Hat tip to Gawker for the find.)


– As the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 continues, an "object of interest" has turned up in southwestern Australia—but officials are cautioning that it may not offer much of a breakthrough. "It's sufficiently interesting for us to take a look at the photographs," says an Australian official. But "the more we look at it, the less excited we get." An insider tells CNN the object's size is unclear based on photos, but it's "kind of rectangular" with rivets and an apparent fiberglass coating. Meanwhile, the Bluefin-21 underwater robot has completed more than 80% of its planned search without finding anything, the AP reports. But the overall investigation won't stop anytime soon: Indeed, it could continue for years, CNN notes. "The next phase, I think, is that we step up with potentially a more powerful, more capable side-scan sonar to do deeper water," says Australia's defense minister. Adds Australian PM Tony Abbott. "We are not going to abandon ... the families of the 239 people who were on that plane by lightly surrendering while there is reasonable hope of finding something."

Expand this summary.

Story highlights The Bluefin-21 begins 12th mission after scanning more than 90% of search area

 Analysis of photos shows an object found near Augusta isn't a lead in the search

 Passenger's family member asks: Are they searching in the right place?

 Analyst: Search area is "the place they had to look"

 A metal object that washed ashore on Australia's coast wasn't from Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, officials said.

 Detailed pictures of the object were enough to convince investigators that it wasn't a lead in the search for the missing plane, the Australian agency leading the search for the aircraft said on Thursday

 Officials had previously called the piece of metal, which appeared to have rivets on one side, an "object of interest" in the search.

 Police picked it up near Augusta, Australia, roughly 1,000 miles away from the suspected crash site, after many futile days of searching for the missing plane.

 Authorities haven't said what they think the object could be.

 Possible promising leads have turned out to be false alarms for weeks in the lengthy search for the missing plane, which disappeared mid-flight on March 8 with 239 people aboard. One major challenge that's complicated the search: the ocean is full of garbage . Other objects search teams have spotted in the Indian Ocean turned out to be trash, jellyfish and fishing gear.

 JUST WATCHED 'Object of interest' found in Australia Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH 'Object of interest' found in Australia 02:14

 JUST WATCHED Bajc: There's no evidence MH370 crashed Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Bajc: There's no evidence MH370 crashed 02:14

 JUST WATCHED MH370: What's next in the search? Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH MH370: What's next in the search? 04:35

 Bad weather grounded planes searching for signs of debris on Wednesday. And a high-tech underwater drone found no sign of the Boeing 777 jetliner.

 And as the search came up empty again, a key question loomed: Are they looking in the right place?

 "They have been searching for more than a month. All of the ships, the planes, the satellites they're using, not even a small piece of the plane was found," Steve Wang, whose mother was aboard the aircraft, told CNN's "The Lead with Jake Tapper" on Thursday.

 Abbott: 'We may rethink the search, but we will not rest'

 Up to 11 military aircraft and 11 ships are set to search for the plane on Thursday.

 And there's still ground left to cover.

 The Bluefin-21 has scanned more than 90% of the underwater search area set out by investigators and began its 12th mission on Thursday.

 "We will continue with the search operation until we fully cover the search area," Hishammuddin Hussein, Malaysia's acting transport minister, said Wednesday.

 Despite the search efforts for MH370 repeatedly coming up empty during the 48 days since it started, there's no suggestion the hunt in the southern Indian Ocean is anywhere close to ending.

 Quite to the contrary, according to Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, whose country is heading up the search for the missing aircraft.

 "We are not going to abandon ... the families of the 239 people who were on that plane by lightly surrendering while there is reasonable hope of finding something," he said Wednesday. "We may well rethink the search, but we will not rest until we have done everything we can to solve this mystery."

 What comes next?

 Malaysian and Australian authorities are already mapping out a long-term strategy for the search, which could go on for months or years, if the two-year search for Air France Flight 447 is any guide.

 Guidelines drafted by Malaysia raise the possibility of a significantly wider search area should the current underwater search fail to turn up evidence of the plane. The document discusses how best to deploy resources, including new underwater search assets.

 If the underwater search comes up empty, it could ground the air search as well, CNN aviation analyst Miles O'Brien said.

 "If it doesn't pan out, then all the equations that have been put in the mix to determine where debris might be ... all of that is for naught," he said.

 The next logical step after the underwater search is to "rethink all of the information we have at hand," ocean search specialist Rob McCallum told CNN.

 An expanded search area might include the last 370 miles of the plane's flight path, perhaps 15 miles on either side, he said.

 He also said it would make sense to turn to deep-towed sonar, which provides less resolution than the Bluefin-21 but about 10 times the range.

 If the search changes tacks, that doesn't mean investigators did the wrong thing by looking where they did for the plane, said CNN analyst David Gallo, who co-led the search for Air France Flight 447.

 "It's the place they had to look. ... Everything pointed to this area," he said.

 Going forward, he said, investigators may double or triple the size of the search area while using sonar to map the ocean floor "so you see where every pebble is."

 "I just don't know how you leave this place before you take that area of the seafloor apart completely," he said.

 What happens if data recorders are found?

 Investigators would love to find the flight data recorders from Flight 370, a potential treasure trove of information into what happened to the jetliner and the 239 passengers and crew on board.

 If found, the "black boxes" probably would go to the Australian Transport Safety Board's accident investigation lab.

 But the investigation is officially Malaysian, so that country's officials would decide where the boxes would go.

 Australia is just one of a handful of countries that have the capability and technical know-how to decipher what's inside a black box.

 The investigation into Flight 370's disappearance is Malaysia's responsibility. Australia is leading the search for the missing aircraft and participating in the investigation as an accredited representative.

 The Malaysian Cabinet approved the appointment of an international investigation team to look into the disappearance of Flight 370, Hishammuddin said.

 The names of the members will be announced next week, he added. He also said the team will not be looking at the criminal aspects of the investigation, which remain under the Royal Malaysian Police.

 "The main purpose is to evaluate and determine the cause of the accident," Hishammuddin said.

 Malaysia has completed a preliminary report on the incident, as required by the International Civil Aviation Organization, but has not released it publicly, he said. ||||| CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Unidentified material that has washed ashore in southwestern Australia is being examined for any link to the lost Malaysian plane, authorities said Wednesday.

 In this map provided on Wednesday, April 23, 2014, by the Joint Agency Coordination Centre, details are presented in the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 in the southern Indian Ocean.... (Associated Press)

 Police secured the material, which washed ashore 10 kilometers (6 miles) east of Augusta in Western Australia state, the search coordination center said in a statement, without describing the material found. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau is examining photographs to assess whether further investigation is needed and if the material is relevant to Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.

 Augusta is near Australia's southwestern tip, about 310 kilometers (190 miles) from Perth, where the search has been headquartered.

 Meanwhile, Australia's prime minister said Wednesday that failure to find any clue in the most likely crash site of the lost jet would not spell the end of the search, as officials plan soon to bring in more powerful sonar equipment that can delve deeper beneath the Indian Ocean.

 The search coordination center said a robotic submarine, the U.S. Navy's Bluefin 21, had scanned more than 80 percent of the 310-square-kilometer (120-square-mile) seabed search zone off the Australian west coast, creating a three-dimensional sonar map of the ocean floor. Nothing of interest had been found.

 The 4.5-kilometer (2.8-mile) deep search area is a circle 20 kilometers (12 miles) wide around an area where sonar equipment picked up a signal on April 8 consistent with a plane's black boxes. But the batteries powering those signals are now dead.

 Defense Minister David Johnston said Australia was consulting with Malaysia, China and the United States on the next phase of the search for the plane, which disappeared March 8. Details on the next phase are likely to be announced next week.

 Johnston said more powerful towed side-scan commercial sonar equipment would probably be deployed, similar to the remote-controlled subs that found RMS Titanic 3,800 meters (12,500 feet) under the Atlantic Ocean in 1985 and the Australian WWII wreck HMAS Sydney in the Indian Ocean off the Australian coast, north of the current search area, in 2008.

 "The next phase, I think, is that we step up with potentially a more powerful, more capable side-scan sonar to do deeper water," Johnston told The Associated Press.

 While the Bluefin had less than one-fifth of the seabed search area to complete, Johnston estimated that task would take another two weeks.

 Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said the airliner's probable impact zone was 700 kilometers (430 miles) long and 80 kilometers (50 miles) wide. A new search strategy would be adopted if nothing was found in the current seabed search zone.

 "If at the end of that period we find nothing, we are not going to abandon the search, we may well rethink the search, but we will not rest until we have done everything we can to solve this mystery," Abbott told reporters.

 "We owe it to the families of the 239 people on board, we owe it to the hundreds of millions — indeed billions — of people who travel by air to try to get to the bottom of this. The only way we can get to the bottom of this is to keep searching the probable impact zone until we find something or until we have searched it as thoroughly as human ingenuity allows at this time," he said.

 The focus of the next search phase will be decided by continuing analysis of information including flight data and sound detections of the suspected beacons, Johnston said.

 "A lot of this seabed has not even been hydrographically surveyed before — some of it has — but we're flying blind," he said, adding that the seabed in the vicinity of the search was up to 7 kilometers (4 miles) deep.

 The search center said an air search involving 10 planes was suspended for a second day because of heavy seas and poor visibility.

 But 12 ships would join Wednesday's search of an expanse covering 38,000 square kilometers (14,500 square miles), centered 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles) northwest of Perth.

 Radar and satellite data show the jet carrying 239 passengers and crew veered far off course on March 8 for unknown reasons during its flight from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing. Analysis indicates it would have run out of fuel in the remote section of ocean where the search has been focused. Not one piece of debris has been found since the massive multinational hunt began.

 ___

 Associated Press writer Kristen Gelineau in Sydney contributed to this report. |||||