Eve Troeh

The $14 billion invested in the New Orleans levee system after Hurricane Katrina has begun to pay off in the latest storm, but what lessons have we learned about cost, benefit and risk?

You don't have to turn on the television to find a weatherman. As businesses need to know more about weather and climate, more meteorology graduates go to work for the private sector.

Since Katrina, the city has focused on evacuation as a response to hurricanes. This time the advice is to stay put, with a few days' emergency supplies. Stores respond as best they can.

Oil refineries are among the many industries that use large volumes of water. A refinery in water-parched southern California turned to waste water for its needs.

Spells, curses, potions and psychics are being dropped by the online auction site.

The beginning of the new semester means that many students receiving financial aid can look forward to large "refund" checks from their grants or loans.

JCPenney is reporting big losses today. Sales were down almost 22 percent last quarter. That's the second straight quarter of steep declines.

The U.S. drought is fueling a corn shortage that's driving up prices around the globe. And yet, federal support for corn ethanol -- a fuel additive -- means some 40 percent of U.S. corn will be turned into ethanol this year.

The big defense contractors -- including Lockheed Martin and Pratt & Whitney -- say they may have to send out mass layoff notices to their employees in a few months. That's because they're worried that hundreds of billions of dollars in expected cuts to the Pentagon's budget will have a big effect on them.

Today the credit rating agency Trans Union said late payments on mortgages have reached the lowest level in three years.