“Nature,” said New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, assessing the damage to his city, “is an awful lot more powerful than we are.”

More than 8.2 million households were without power in 17 states as far west as Michigan. Nearly 2 million of those were in New York, where large swaths of lower Manhattan lost electricity and entire streets ended up under water — as did seven subway tunnels between Manhattan and Brooklyn at one point, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority said. The New York Stock Exchange was closed for a second day from weather, the first time that has happened since a blizzard in 1888. The city’s subway system, the lifeblood of more than 5 million residents, was damaged like never before and closed indefinitely, and Consolidated Edison said electricity in and around New York could take a week to restore.

“Everybody knew it was coming. Unfortunately, it was everything they said it was,” said Sal Novello, a construction executive who rode out the storm with his wife, Lori, in the Long Island town of Lindenhurst, and ended up with 7 feet of water in the basement.

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After Sandy, New Yorkers pick up the pieces, adapt to a changed city — and talk to each other

NEW YORK (AP) — Stripped of its bustle and mostly cut off from the world, New York was left wondering Tuesday when its particular way of life — carried by subway, lit by skyline and powered by 24-hour deli — would return.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the power company said it could be the weekend before the lights come on for hundreds of thousands of people plunged into darkness by what was once Hurricane Sandy.

Bloomberg said it could also be four or five days before the subway, which suffered the worst damage in its 108-year history, is running again. All 10 of the tunnels that carry New Yorkers under the East River were flooded.

Sandy killed 18 people in New York City, the mayor said. The dead included two who drowned in a home and one who was in bed when a tree fell on an apartment. A 23-year-old woman died after stepping into a puddle near a live electrical wire.

“This was a devastating storm, maybe the worst that we have ever experienced,” Bloomberg said.

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Plethora of circumstances joined forces to darken a flooded and vulnerable New York City

NEW YORK (AP) — Blame a very high tide driven by a full moon, the worst storm surge in nearly 200 years, and the placement of underground electrical equipment in flood-prone areas for the most extensive power outage in New York City’s history.

It’s like what happened at the Fukushima nuclear complex in Japan last year — without the radiation. At a Consolidated Edison substation in Manhattan’s East Village, a gigantic wall of water defied elaborate planning and expectations, swamped underground electrical equipment, and left about 250,000 lower Manhattan customers without power.

Last year, the surge from Hurricane Irene reached 9.5 feet at the substation. ConEd figured it had that covered.

The utility also figured the infrastructure could handle a repeat of the highest surge on record for the area — 11 feet during a hurricane in 1821, according to the National Weather Service. After all, the substation was designed to withstand a surge of 12.5 feet.

With all the planning, and all the predictions, planning big was not big enough. Superstorm Sandy went bigger — a surge of 14 feet.

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Obama forced to defend Democratic turf, as Romney goes after Minnesota, Pennsylvania

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Mitt Romney is suddenly plunging into traditionally Democratic-leaning Minnesota and Pennsylvania, and his GOP allies are trying to put Michigan into play. It’s forcing President Barack Obama to defend his own turf — he’s pouring money into television ads in the states and dispatching top backers — in the campaign’s final week.

The question is: Why this Republican move?

GOP efforts in the trio of Rust Belt states could indicate that Romney is desperately searching for a last-minute path to the needed 270 Electoral College votes — without all-important Ohio. Or just the opposite, that he’s so confident in the most competitive battlegrounds that he’s pressing for insurance against Obama in what’s expected to be a close race.

Or perhaps the Republican simply has money to burn. Use it now or never.

Former President Bill Clinton was dispatched in response on Tuesday. “Barack Obama’s policies work better,” he declared on the University of Minnesota campus, one of his two stops in a state that offers 10 electoral votes and hasn’t voted for a Republican presidential candidate since Richard Nixon in 1972.

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Anti-regime activists say Syrian regime kills 23 in Damascus suburb in airstrikes, clashes

BEIRUT (AP) — Airstrikes by Syrian jets and shells from tanks leveled a neighborhood in a restive city near the capital of Damascus on Tuesday, killing 18 people, and at least five rebel fighters died nearby in clashes with regime troops, activists said.

The airstrikes on the city of Douma, northeast of the capital, left residents scampering over a huge expanse of rubble and using their hands to dig up mangled bodies, according to activist videos posted online.

Scenes of vast destruction like those from Douma on Tuesday have grown more common as rebels seeking to topple President Bashar Assad have made gains on the ground, and Assad’s forces have responded with overwhelming air power.

In the past weeks, anti-regime activists say about 150 people have been killed a day in fighting. Since the uprising against Assad began in March 2011, they say 35,000 have died.

Tuesday’s airstrikes came a day after what activists called the heaviest and most widespread bombing campaign nationwide, on what was to be the final day of an internationally sanctioned truce that never took hold.

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Disney to make new ‘Star Wars’ movies, buy Lucasfilm for $4.05 billion from George Lucas

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A decade since George Lucas said “Star Wars” was finished on the big screen, a new trilogy under new ownership is destined for theaters after The Walt Disney Co. announced Tuesday that it would buy Lucasfilm Ltd. from him for $4.05 billion.

The seventh movie, with a working title of “Episode 7,” is set for release in 2015. Episodes 8 and 9 will follow. The trilogy will continue the story of Luke Skywalker, Han Solo and Princess Leia beyond “Return of the Jedi,” the third film released and the sixth in the saga. After that, Disney plans a new “Star Wars” movie every two or three years. Lucas will serve as creative consultant in the new movies.

“I’m doing this so that the films will have a longer life,” Lucas, the 68-year-old creator of the series and sole owner of Lucasfilm, said in an interview posted on YouTube. “I get to be a fan now … I sort of look forward to it. It’s a lot more fun actually, than actually having to go out into the mud and snow.”

Disney CEO Bob Iger said Lucasfilm had already developed an extensive storyline on the next trilogy, and Episode 7 was now in early-stage development. He said he talked with Lucas about buying the company from him a year and a half ago, but they didn’t decide on a deal until very recently as Lucas set in motion his retirement.

“The last ‘Star Wars’ movie release was 2005’s ‘Revenge of the Sith’ — and we believe there’s substantial pent-up demand,” Iger said.

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News of Disney-Lucasfilm merger sends Twitter abuzz with ‘Star Wars’ puns

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Movie nerds went nuts on Twitter upon hearing the news Tuesday that Disney was buying Lucasfilm for $4.05 billion. Many were psyched about the prospect of three new “Star Wars” movies, starting with the tentatively titled “Episode 7” in 2015, while others were worried that the Disney empire would ruin the Evil Empire.

Either way, fans had fun thinking up mashups of these two cultural institutions, flooding Twitter feeds with the hashtag “DisneyStarWars.” Among the most amusing mixes:

— When You Wish Upon a Death Star.

— Finding Greedo.

— Song of the Sith.

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Scientists: Global warming didn’t brew superstorm, but it might have heated up key ingredients

WASHINGTON (AP) — Climate scientist Michael Oppenheimer stood along the Hudson River and watched his research come to life as Hurricane Sandy blew through New York.

Just eight months earlier, the Princeton University professor reported that what used to be once-in-a-century devastating floods in New York City would soon happen every three to 20 years. He blamed global warming for pushing up sea levels and changing hurricane patterns.

New York “is now highly vulnerable to extreme hurricane-surge flooding,” he wrote.

For more than a dozen years, Oppenheimer and other climate scientists have been warning about the risk for big storms and serious flooding in New York. A 2000 federal report about global warming’s effect on the United States warned specifically of that possibility.

Still, they say it’s unfair to blame climate change for Sandy and the destruction it left behind. They cautioned that they cannot yet conclusively link a single storm to global warming, and any connection is not as clear and simple as environmental activists might contend.

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Just over a year after Steve Jobs’ death, his superyacht Venus launched by Dutch shipbuilder

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — The sleek, white superyacht glistens under a gray autumnal sky, a posthumous testament to the design aesthetic of Steve Jobs.

Just over a year after the Apple founder died, the luxury motor yacht he commissioned and helped French product designer Philippe Starck make has finally slipped into an anonymous Dutch backwater.

Looking like a floating Apple store, it bears all the hallmarks of a new Jobs-inspired creation — crisp white lines, polished metal, glass. And secrecy.

Late Tuesday, shipbuilder Feadship announced it had launched the “78.2-meter (256-foot) all-aluminum, full custom motoryacht Venus” at its yard in Aalsmeer, just south of Amsterdam, two days earlier.

Starck said in a statement emailed to The Associated Press that he is “proud of Venus as he feels it reflects Steve Jobs expectation and vision.”

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Crowned: LeBron James and the Heat get their championship rings in glitzy pregame ceremony

MIAMI (AP) — LeBron James held his index finger aloft, then turned and took a walk nine years in the making.

A few moments later, a championship ring — finally — was his.

James and the Miami Heat celebrated their NBA title once again Tuesday night, with the ring-and-banner ceremony replete with an indoor fireworks show that immediately preceded their season opener against the Boston Celtics.

NBA Commissioner David Stern handed Heat owner Micky Arison the first ring of the night, and Arison handed the others out to executives, coaches and players.

James went last, as the crowd roared for the reigning NBA MVP.