The April 20 explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig drew attention to a dangerous livelihood that helps fuel the United States. There were 126 workers onboard the Gulf of Mexico rig, which was owned by Transocean and leased to BP. Methane gas shot up the well and ignited, killing 11 workers instantly and injuring 17. The survivors later described to journalists a scene of chaos: The fire turned the night sky as bright as day, people swarmed the lifeboats, some even leapt off the rig. The general alarm didn't go off, and when one worker took it upon herself to issue a distress call, she was reprimanded by a superior officer for acting without an order.

Once on the lifeboats, the survivors didn't feel any safer. Oil was on the water, and there was a risk that they could burn up at sea. One man said it felt like they were "waiting to die." The 115 survivors were rescued by the rig's nearby supply ship but idled on the water for at least 15 hours.

When they finally reached shore, the workers were whisked away to a hotel in Kenner, Louisiana, to be questioned by Transocean consultants and investigators. They were urged to sign forms, drawn up by company lawyers, stating that they hadn't witnessed the event that required evacuation and that they were not injured. Transocean employees later told reporters that when some of them sought compensation for psychiatric problems and other blast injuries, lawyers held the forms against them.

For its part, BP established a $100 million fund for the tens of thousands of oil rig workers left unemployed by the accident and by the federal government's subsequent six-month moratorium on offshore drilling. The moratorium left oil workers unhappy: not only were they not working, but they also risked losing a multiyear job if their rigs moved elsewhere rather than sitting idle in the Gulf. Despite the danger, the oil industry has long offered a good living for blue-collar workers on the Gulf Coast.

In October the administration ended the moratorium six weeks early, clearing the way for drilling operations to resume. But the families of the 11 victims are still grappling with their loss. Many said they simply want answers from Transocean, M-I Swaco (the drilling fluid contractor), or BP. The gushing oil spill overshadowed the 11 deaths, but months after the explosion, people continued to leave condolences at the Deepwater Horizon online memorial.

Despite the legal intervention, survivors told their stories at the government hearings in May. Many remained traumatized by the event, however, and filed more than 260 lawsuits in 12 states. Some, however, do plan to return to deep waters. "I just hope we learn from this and nothing like that ever happens again," one 24-year-old engineer told MSNBC. "It just changes the way you look at things, and you have a new respect for things you can't control. You can't take things for granted."

--Cicely Wedgeworth

Mining is one of the pillars of Chile's economy; the country is the world's top producer of copper. Thus, when an August 5 cave-in at the San Jose gold and copper mine in Chile's northern Atacama Desert trapped 33 miners 2,300 feet underground, the disaster was a blow to the nation's identity. For 17 long days, no one knew the miners' fates. Rescuers drilled frantically here and there, sending down probes in hopes of finding the mine's emergency shelter. On August 22, one probe came back with a note tied to the end: "Estamos bien en el refugio, los 33" -- "We are OK in the refuge, the 33."

Joy, however, was tempered. Government officials estimated that it could take up to four months to dig a tunnel wide enough to bring up the miners.

"Los 33" quickly became the nation's No. 1 priority. The bore hole that had reached them was widened enough to send food, water, medicine, clothes, and a mini camera to enable video messages to their families. A telephone line was threaded down, plus a fiber-optic cable for videoconferencing, and they were able to watch live TV and movies on a small projector. Psychologists, health experts, and nutritionists were consulted about how the miners could stay sane and healthy in their 600-square-foot chamber until their rescue.

The miners could roam the intact tunnels, but by early September they showed signs of cabin fever. There were reports of joyriding on mine vehicles; the miners rejected a delivery of peaches; and they grew more aggressive in demanding wine and cigarettes. But there were also bright spots, like the birth of one miner's daughter on September 14, which he was able to watch via video link. The parents had originally planned to name her Carolina, but down in the mine, the father changed his mind. "Call her Esperanza, or Hope," he said. Chilean Independence Day, September 18, brought a special treat of empanadas, a traditional Chilean pastry filled with meat, onions, olives, and raisins.

By early October, Chile's president Sebastian Pinera announced that the rescue would take place in a couple of weeks, well ahead of schedule. Journalists descended on the site as the hour grew near, and more than 3,000 people gathered to watch the rescue on giant TV monitors in the nearby provincial capital, Copiapo, hometown of most of the miners. Millions more watched worldwide on TV or online. Experts warned that the miners might be suffering from ailments brought on from captivity or from their trip up in a tiny capsule. Yet on October 13, they emerged, one by one, looking perfectly healthy and wearing sunglasses donated by Oakley to protect their eyes from the glare. One miner, a former soccer star, bounced a soccer ball on his foot. All reunited with their families, who had kept vigil above ground.

In the weeks that had passed, much of the miners' personal lives had been dissected, including five promised weddings and a more complicated romantic dilemma involving an above-ground encounter between a miner's wife and his mistress. (The drama had inspired one American to compose a song, "Gold n Copper Mine Blues.") But underground, Los 33 had made a pact to tell their story as a group. A few details emerged as they traded interviews for cash -- after all, their workplace was closed, and their employer was on the verge of bankruptcy.

Goodwill and gifts poured in from around the world. The miners played soccer with Chile's president. The sole Bolivian lunched with his nation's president and accepted a job at the state energy company. Two European soccer teams sent signed jerseys with an invitation to visit their stadiums; Apple CEO Steve Jobs sent iPod Touches; a Bosnian factory sent goatskin shoes; a Greek mining company offered a week of rest and relaxation; and Graceland extended a hand to the Elvis fan, who also ran the New York City Marathon.

The miners didn't have to worry about employment, either. Companies lined up to offer them jobs that fit their experience, like bulldozer driver, mechanic, electrician, and risk-reduction specialist. Plus, they're hoping for a book deal. But while one or two of the miners enjoyed the media limelight, the rest were ready to go back to their own lives, and some were ready to return to the mines.

--Cicely Wedgeworth

On August 19, the Army's 4th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, crossed the border from Iraq into Kuwait. The departure of the last U.S. combat brigade closed a chapter in American history that began with the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

U.S. leaders believed that after toppling Saddam Hussein, the vast majority of Iraqis would be happy and grateful. But insurgent forces proved more deeply entrenched than Americans had expected, and the Iraq war dragged on, with U.S. casualties mounting. By the time President Obama made good on his campaign promise to pull combat troops out of Iraq, 4,415 U.S. soldiers had been killed there, and 32,000 had been wounded. More than 1.5 million American troops served in Iraq in total.

The members of the 4th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, were among the lucky ones, and they knew it; many of them had served previous tours in Iraq. Although they were leaving without a decisive victory, the soldiers said they believed they had accomplished something positive in Iraq. After all, the world was now rid of Saddam Hussein, a brutal dictator. The country had held its first free elections in decades (the ones in which Hussein had run without any opponents and racked up 100% of the vote didn't really count).

However, those accomplishments were tainted by the now-debunked justification for going to war in the first place: the accusation that Hussein was making weapons of mass destruction. Then there was the scandal of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib and the controversy over whether waterboarding equaled torture. Because of suicide bombings, homemade bombs, and other violent attacks, the death toll among Iraqis shot up to about 100,000, leaving many ordinary people to wonder if they had been better off under the stable iron fist of Hussein.

The advent of WikiLeaks gave war coverage a truly modern angle. The website, which posts classified information from inside-government sources, dumped thousands of pages of documents into the public domain, much to the government's displeasure. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange drew as much attention for his grandiose posturing and legal troubles (he is being investigated on allegations of rape) as he did for his information war against the U.S. military.

After the Army withdrawal, Iraq remains volatile and dangerous, and plenty of Americans there remain at risk. Private contractors now perform many of the jobs that the military once undertook, and in the first half of this year, more contractors than troops were killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. About 50,000 troops remain to serve as military advisors; they are scheduled to leave by the end of next year.

The 4th Stryker Brigade's long journey home took the troops from Kuwait to Germany to Maine, and finally to Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state, where their families got up before dawn to greet them.

--Cicely Wedgeworth

It's a parent's worst nightmare: A stranger comes out of nowhere, snatches a child, and they vanish. Statistically, it's a rare occurrence. According to the Department of Justice, about 200,000 kids per year are abducted by family members, and almost 60,000 are kidnapped by strangers. Only about 115 kidnappings involve a stranger abductor who transports the child 50 miles or more, holds the child overnight, and intends to demand ransom and to keep or kill the child. Such cases may be statistically rare, but they capture the public's attention.

These terrifying odds made the story of Jaycee Dugard, and her 2009 emergence after 18 years in captivity, all the more compelling. Dugard has stayed out of the media spotlight since reuniting with her family, but in March they released a home video showing Jaycee baking cookies and laughing with her mother and half sister at home. Her family says she and her daughters are happy and well adjusted. But excerpts from Dugard's diary, released by prosecutors in February, provided a glimpse inside the mind of a girl who missed her freedom but had also grown attached to her captors.

This past July, California state lawmakers approved a $20 million settlement for the kidnapping survivor. Her family had filed a suit against the state, accusing officers of failing to adequately supervise Phillip Garrido, a convicted sex offender who, with his wife Nancy, allegedly abducted 11-year-old Jaycee in 1991. Last year Dugard was found living with the Garridos, along with her two daughters, who had been fathered by Garrido. The state estimated that lifetime therapy for Dugard and her girls would cost $7 million.

Indicted on charges including kidnapping and rape, the Garridos will have a hearing in late 2011 at the earliest. A trial is years down the road.

That was the case for another high-profile kidnapping victim, Elizabeth Smart. After waiting eight years, she took the stand this fall to describe her ordeal with Brian David Mitchell, who crept into her home at night and abducted the then 14-year-old from her bed. The trial had been delayed by questions of Mitchell's competency, and Smart recounted her experience in detail for the first time during the October 2009 proceedings.

With the trial finally begun on November 1, Smart once again went into horrifying detail. She described the "wedding" that Mitchell claimed made her his wife (in addition to his co-defendant Wanda Barzee) and the subsequent nine months of her captivity, including the time a detective came close to discovering her.

Now 23 and serving on an evangelistic mission in Paris, Smart was poised and clear as she rejected defense attorneys' claims that Mitchell is mentally ill and believes he is God. In fact, she said, Mitchell only used religion to justify his selfish desires for sex, drugs, and alcohol. Her testimony was backed by Mitchell's wife, who called her husband "a great deceiver."

Not long after her return, Smart had done a few media interviews, but understandably resisted giving any details for years. (Her parents had written a 2003 memoir, which focused mainly on their faith, and which later became a TV movie.)

Jaycee Dugard's silence will not last that long: She signed a deal to write a memoir, set to be published in 2011.

--Cicely Wedgeworth

Circumnavigating the globe isn't the same today as it was for Ferdinand Magellan in the 1500s: A sailor can call home via satellite phone and, of course, can blog. But when the elements are at their worst, it's just you, your boat, and the ocean -- a frightening prospect.

But apparently not for the parents of teen Abby Sunderland, who grew up sailing with her family. Her older brother Zac was the first person under 18 to sail around the world solo, so her parents were probably not shocked when 16-year-old Abby told them her intention to follow in his wake and set a new record. On the morning of her departure, her father, Laurence Sunderland, said of Zac and Abby, "It's great to be able to encourage them in something that's noble and of good character, and help them with those ambitions as opposed to throwing water on the flames of excitement in life."

Unlike her brother, Abby chose a route that stayed mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, where the risk of pirates would be lower but the weather can be more extreme. She set out from California on her 40-foot sailboat, Wild Eyes, on January 23. By March 31, she was rounding Cape Horn, the youngest solo sailor ever to do so. But when she encountered high winds on June 10 that knocked down her boat several times, breaking the mast, Abby activated her emergency beacon. She was in such a remote part of the Indian Ocean that the closest ship was 400 miles away. It took two days for a ship, a French fishing vessel, to reach her.

Abby's dramatic rescue set off a firestorm of criticism. Her parents should never have allowed the teenager to attempt such an endeavor, some people said. Others justified the journey by pointing to her considerable experience as a sailor, plus her older brother's achievement. The controversy was still raging when Jessica Watson, a 16-year-old Australian, proved that a teenage girl could make the trip. Jessica had lived on a houseboat as a child and had decided by age 12 that she would sail around the world. Jessica had a head start on Abby -- she'd left Sydney in her boat, Ella's Pink Lady, on October 18, 2009. Jessica hit some bad weather too, but her boat was not incapacitated. She sailed triumphantly back into Sydney Harbor on May 15.

There's something about teenage girls and the open ocean. Thirteen-year-old Laura Dekker, a Dutch citizen, ran away from home in 2009 when authorities tried to block her from attempting a record-breaking voyage with her father's support. Dutch police issued an international alert, and Laura was found in Saint Martin, in the Dutch Antilles, and placed in the custody of child protective services. A month after her release from state custody, Dekker promptly set out on a second attempt to sail around the world solo. Now 14, she might still make history.

--Cicely Wedgeworth

One year after the horrific 2009 attack at the Fort Hood Soldier Readiness Center, 56 witnesses testified in the military pretrial hearing against Nidal Malik Hasan. More than two dozen of the witnesses were soldiers. Two of the soldiers were members of the team that Hasan, the Army psychiatrist accused of gunning down 13 people and wounding 32, had been scheduled to deploy with to Afghanistan.

The Article 32 pretrial hearing, described as similar to a civilian court's grand jury or evidentiary hearing, was the first time that witnesses to the killing spree came face-to-face with Hasan. The survivors spoke about seeing and hearing their fellow soldiers dying around them, and about knowing that the brutality of war had struck at home. Their recollections -- tense, withering, heart-sore -- contrasted with the defendant's detached but intently observant presence.

"I laid absolutely [as] still as I could because he was shooting everything that moved," said Specialist Megan Martin. "I couldn't stop watching. It was a nightmare that reoccurs every day." Captain Melissa Kale wept as she recalled her futile efforts to pull her friend, Sergeant Amy Krueger, with her. "She didn't move. I had to leave her there," Kale said. Martin and Kale testified via video link from Afghanistan, where they had deployed as scheduled just weeks after the attack.

Specialist Jonathan Sims had been chatting with a young soldier about her pregnancy when the first shots were fired. He remembered her screaming, "My baby! My baby!" The soldier, Private Francheska Velez, was killed.

The first victim, Sargeant Alonzo Lunsford, shut his eyes when he saw the weapon's laser light trained on him. A bullet hit his head. He made it outside, but only after he'd been shot four more times. In the confusion, he heard a woman scream about Hasan, "He's one of ours! He's one of ours!"

Hasan was eventually stopped by two Department of the Army Civilian Police officers, Kimberly Munley and Mark Todd. Hasan shot Munley and was advancing on her when Todd shot him several times. "I rushed him. I kicked the weapon, placed him in hand irons," Todd said.

Through it all, Hasan, who is now paralyzed below the waist, remained impassive. A Muslim who had become radicalized and who resented the American invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, Hasan allegedly had said "Allahu akbar" ("God is great" in Arabic) as he shot his fellow soldiers.

A Pentagon investigation in the wake of the tragedy found that Hasan had ascended smoothly through the military ranks as a psychiatrist, despite displaying signs of psychological instability.

Although Fort Hood is known for having one of the most robust mental health programs in the Army, the psychological well-being of its soldiers continued to be in the spotlight this past year. A rash of apparent suicides claimed the lives of 20 soldiers (none of whom had any connection with Hasan's alleged rampage). A range of psychological issues plague troops, including post-traumatic stress disorder, predeployment anxiety, and strained relationships. Military officials are making an increased effort to provide counseling services for troubled service members, but the system is overwhelmed.

Hasan's pretrial hearing had been delayed twice, the second time to resume after November 5, the first anniversary of the massacre. On that day, a memorial to the victims was unveiled at Fort Hood: a 6-foot-tall granite slab with 13 names carved into it, along with the words, "Death leaves a heartache no one can heal. Love leaves a memory no one can steal." During the ceremony, more than 50 soldiers and civilians received awards for actions that "went above and beyond the call of duty" that day. It was the first time that many of the victims' relatives were able to meet each other, and many cried and embraced, sharing their grief.

--Cicely Wedgeworth

Mexico's drug cartels have long been associated with grisly violence. But killings and intimidation have escalated significantly in recent years, among rival groups as well as against government forces attempting to crack down on lawlessness. Since Felipe Calderon became president in 2006 and declared war on the cartels, nearly 30,000 people have been killed. Last year, a Pentagon study warned that Mexico was on the verge of becoming a failed state.

In 2010 the violence began to seep into previously untouched areas. The resort town of Acapulco, a popular cruise ship port of call, has seen an uptick in drug-gang shootouts, beheadings, and kidnappings -- including of a group of 20 tourists from the neighboring state of Michoacan, out on a guys' vacation. Their bodies were later found in a mass grave, apparent victims of a fatal case of mistaken identity. The cartel wars spilled over the border in September, when American David Hartley was shot and killed while jet-skiing on a Texas lake that borders Mexico, an attack that officials believe was also due to mistaken identity. (See the BBC's report on the underlying reasons for the exponential rise in violence.)

Yet even as drug violence engulfs more people's lives, on-the-ground reporting has grown scarcer. That's because journalists, too, have become targets: Mexico has become one of the world's most dangerous countries for journalists. In August Mexican reporters took to the streets to protest the kidnappings and murders.

That's how "narco blogs" such as El Blog del Narco have grown in significance, with their dispatches from the front lines of the drug war. El Blog del Narco posts graphic videos and photos of killings, some of them apparently from the cartels themselves. The anonymity of the blog format protects these citizen journalists -- in the case of El Blog del Narco, an anonymous computer-security student in northern Mexico -- who are motivated to tell people what was really happening in their country, because the media was too intimidated to do it. Launched in March 2010, the site brings in about 3 million unique visits every month and more than 27,000 Twitter followers -- almost but not yet matching the total number of drug-related deaths thus far.

Posting materials that may have come from the cartels opens the blogger to criticism that he's providing them with a platform or, worse, acting as their mouthpiece. But the blog contributed to the major arrest of a prison warden by posting a video of the warden describing how inmates linked with the Sinaloa cartel would be set free at night and given guns and cars to carry out hits.

The government is making an effort to reform the prison system, constructing a new academy to train prison guards. But the institutions of law enforcement are deeply flawed. Many of Mexico's poorly paid police officers, who don't qualify for minimum wage or a 40-hour-maximum work week, rely on bribes to supplement their paychecks. Although Calderon has tried to reform the federal police by purging corrupt officers and raising pay, the municipal police remain a weak spot, and reform is slow in this federation of 31 states and 2,456 municipalities.

For that reason, traditional journalists may not come out of hiding anytime soon. Mexicans who want to know what's going on in their communities may have to rely on narco blogs for the real story -- or some version of it.

--Cicely Wedgeworth

Times Square, May 1, 2010: Saturday night, and the famous New York intersection was packed with tourists. Faisal Shahzad figured it was the perfect target for a car bomb. Although he failed, the attempt struck a nerve in a city scarred by prior terrorist attacks. The bomb could easily have caused a massacre, if not for the would-be terrorist's amateur mistakes and a few observant New Yorkers.

Shahzad drove into Times Square in a Nissan Pathfinder he'd bought, with cash, from its previous owner in Connecticut. He parked just off Broadway and hurried away, leaving the engine on, hazard lights flashing, and a full load of explosives set to a timer. But street vendors noticed the SUV leaking white smoke. They alerted a policeman, who evacuated the area.

The heroes of the evening gained instant fame. Officials, even President Obama, praised the civic-minded and sharp-eyed street vendor who first spotted the bomb and saved the day. But to whom did the honor belong? Duane Jackson was being interviewed all over the place, giving autographs, and doing a booming business selling purses, scarves, and sunglasses. Then Lance Orton, another fellow vendor, emerged. He didn't care for publicity, but he was irked that Jackson was getting all the credit when, he said, he had been the first to spot the smoke and alert police. "There can't be two heroes," he declared, pointing out that investigators had grilled him and not Jackson. But if there can't be two heroes, can there be three? Yet another vendor emerged to say that he had been first to notice the smoking car. Because he was a Senegalese immigrant who didn't speak English, Aliou Niasse said he asked Orton to call 911. Orton decided to tell a nearby policeman on horseback instead.

That policeman was Wayne Rhatigan. Keeping people safe was all in an extremely long day's work for him -- it was into the wee hours when he got home. He caught a few hours' sleep, then rose early to coach his 9-year-old daughter's lacrosse team. As for his horse, Miggs was rewarded with his favorite treats: carrots, apples, and cupcakes.

Shahzad, a naturalized U.S. citizen, was arrested at JFK Airport two days after the failed bombing as he attempted to flee the country. He confessed soon after, saying he had learned to make a bomb at a terrorist training camp in Pakistan, the country of his birth, and had assembled the Times Square device in his garage. The only problem was that he'd used the wrong kind of fertilizer. The explosive type has been hard to come by since the Oklahoma City bombing. Shahzad pleaded guilty to all charges related to the attack and was sentenced to life in prison on October 5.

Ultimately, it didn't matter who was the first hero, just that people were willing to take action. That vigilance has become more pressing, as "terrorism on the cheap," an Al Qaeda strategy the Washington Post noted back in 2008, has become even more frugal: Operation Hemorrhage, the Yemeni mail-bomb plot, cost $4,200. (Financing for the September 11 attacks was about $500,000.) "To bring down America we do not need to strike big," wrote editors of Yemini online magazine, Inspire. "In such an environment of security phobia that is sweeping America, it is more feasible to stage smaller attacks that involve less players and less time to launch and thus we may circumvent the security barriers America worked so hard to erect." Standing in their way: the players on the American side.

--Cicely Wedgeworth

The accident in a northern Chinese mine in late March seemed to be yet another tragic moment in the country's history of mining disasters. China is the largest producer of coal, contributing about half of the world's supply. But the industry, which employs 3 million miners, remains exceptionally dangerous in China: More than 2,600 people were killed in mining accidents in 2009 alone. So when workers in the Wangjialing coal mine accidentally broke into an old shaft filled with water on March 28, filling the V-shaped mine with the equivalent of 56 Olympic swimming pools' worth of water, blocking the exit, many believed the 153 miners who didn't escape were dead.

After several days of pumping water out of the mine -- more than 11 million gallons of water each day -- weary rescuers got a sign of life from the Wangjialing miners: a faint tapping on the pipes used to pump the water out. Then they pulled out a probe pipe and found a wire tied to the end. Rescuers descended into the mine, used inflatable rafts to navigate the flooded tunnels, and found dozens of men.

On Tomb-Sweeping Day, a holiday when Chinese honor the dead, 115 survivors were pulled out of the mine after being trapped for eight days. They reunited with family and called relatives from the hospital where they were treated after their rescue.

The men described eating belt leather and bark to survive. They drank the fetid floodwater and even their own urine. Some miners tied themselves to the wall with their belts to avoid drowning in their sleep. Although their first meals were glucose and rice gruel, designed not to upset their stomachs after near-starvation, the miners soon upgraded to noodles and asked for sausage and steamed bread.

The timing of the Wangjialing rescue was particularly poignant in the U.S. It came the day after an April 5 methane explosion blocked off the Upper Big Branch Mine in West Virginia with 29 miners inside. Their relatives were left in suspense for four days, until rescue officials determined that all 29 of those trapped had died. The tragedy echoed that of the Sago mine, also in West Virginia, where a 2006 explosion killed 12 men and shocked the nation.

The United States is the world's second-largest producer of coal, and it and China are the top coal consumers. But after Sago, Congress reformed mine safety laws, and mining fatalities fell to 34 in 2009 -- the same year that 2,600 Chinese miners were killed on the job. After the Upper Big Branch disaster, reports emerged of the safety violations racked up by mine owner Massey Energy, and federal investigators opened a criminal investigation into the company's practices. Although China recently enacted more safety rules, they are often not followed, and there are many illegal mines. In a chilling reminder of how lucky Wangjialing's 115 survivors were, a gas explosion on October 16 in central Henan province killed 37 miners. In November, nearly 7,000 miles across the globe in New Zealand (which has a strong safety record), a gas explosion trapped 29 miners in the Pike River mine, and a second explosion a week later left no survivors.

Things may finally change in China: The government now requires mine managers to go down the shafts with their workers. One company tried to dodge the regulations by promoting seven workers, but Beijing promised to crack down on such subterfuge. The rule came down in October, around the same time that a relic of another amazing rescue came to China: a copy of the capsule used to rescue 33 men from a mine in Chile was displayed at the country's booth at the Shanghai Expo, a testament to survival against the odds.

China may have learned something: The State Administration of Coal Mine Safety announced that emergency systems would be required in all mines (that announcement came just days before another rare rescue in late November, broadcast live, freed 29 workers from Sichuan Province's Batian Coal Mine). State-owned and centrally administered mines aim to have emergency shelter facilities in place by June 2012.

--Cicely Wedgeworth

Afriqiyah Airways Flight 771 from Johannesburg, South Africa, crashed on approach to the airport in Tripoli, Libya, on May 12. It was a clear day, without strong winds; investigators' preliminary findings indicated pilot error, possibly low visibility because of mist and sand. The plane was smashed into bits, the pieces scattered across a large field. Out of 104 people aboard, one survived: Nine-year-old Dutch boy Ruben van Assouw was found still strapped into his seat; he sustained only broken legs and some scrapes and bruises on his face.

Although his survival was hailed as a miracle, Ruben had suffered horrible losses: His mother, father, and brother all died in the crash. They had been on a safari in South Africa to celebrate the parents' 12-and-a-half year anniversary, which the Dutch mark as the copper anniversary. Ruben's father, Patrick, had set up a travel blog where he posted updates about their dream family vacation. The last entry was dated May 10.

Ruben's aunt and uncle came from the Netherlands to be with him in the hospital in Tripoli. They broke the news to him that his family was gone, and they flew him back to the Netherlands, to his hometown of Tilburg, where many of his kin -- including his grandparents -- live. He was on a stretcher but reportedly unafraid to travel by plane. Relatives thanked the public for the messages of support (many condolences were left at the travel blog) and asked that their privacy be respected. After a few days in the media spotlight, a veil was drawn around Ruben so that he could grieve in peace.

Ruben's incredible story was reminiscent of the 2009 crash of a Yemeni airliner. In that disaster, the only survivor was a 14-year-old girl. As ABC noted, "Since 1970, 15 people, mostly children, have been plane crash sole survivors." Did the statistic imply that a child had a better chance of surviving a plane crash than an adult? Safety experts have theorized about body mass, but the rarity of sole survivors of plane crashes makes any conclusions impossible. There is, however, plenty of data about which plane seats are the safest: A Popular Mechanics analysis showed that regardless of your age, the safest seat on a plane in the event of a crash is at the back.

--Cicely Wedgeworth