¶ This is the sort of story that can stop my day in its tracks. “Imagining an Attack on the Cybergrid.” Retired North Dakota Senator Byron Dorgan has co-written a disaster novel that contemplates an attack on the nation’s power grid. Whoever can bring that about will be wielding a weapon of mass destruction. November is rarely a fun month, but it’s certainly not going to be one this year.

But life is increasingly imitating Mr. Dorgan’s potboiler. More than 200 utilities and government agencies across the country, from Consolidated Edison to the Department of Homeland Security to Verizon, are now expected to sign up for the largest emergency drill to test the electricity sector’s preparation for cyberattack. The drill, scheduled for November, will simulate an attack by an adversary that takes down large sections of the power grid and knocks out vast areas of the continent for weeks.

¶ The timing of this story is palpably ironic: “Sadness, and Bargains, as Mall at South Street Seaport Shuts Down.” The mall and the Seaport Museum together promised something new and shiny for New York, and that’s what they delivered, as long as they were shiny and new.

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