Catastrophe & Restoration

France was put on the highest terrorist alert after one of the countrys deadliest attacks since World War II killed at least 12 people in shootings at the office of satirical weekly 'Charlie Hebdo' in eastern Paris.

Three crashes which have yet to be fully explained, involving the most modern airliners in the safest phase of flight, made last year the deadliest for air travel in almost a decade.

The federal government overpaid upward of $177.2 million for disaster recovery in Florida in 2004 and 2005, says a new report from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Office of Inspector General.

The Insurance Council of Australia said claims by affected property owners would be given priority.

The aircraft that disappeared Dec. 28 with 162 people on board appears to have flown into a storm cloud, with the jets engines possibly affected by ice formation, researchers from the Indonesia weather office wrote in a report.

Search crews recovering debris and bodies from the waters off of Indonesia are poised to intensify their search for the fuselage of the crashed AirAsia plane and the black boxes that may answer what doomed it.