Underwear Declared National Wildlife Refuge.
UPDATE 1: Briefs destroyed in firefight with National Guard

A local pair of briefs was declared to be a National Wildlife Refuge, following the discovery of over 14,000 different types of flora and fauna living within it, of which more than 3,000 are unique to the underwear and previously unknown, and another 5,000 are endangered.

Shortly after scientists for the EPA discovered the underwear, they began the study and classification of the many organisms living within the briefs. After three days of study, the scientists knew that the briefs needed to be declared a protected wildlife refuge before energy companies bought the rights to harvest the methane gas stored within. According to the EPA report, there was enough methane contained within the fabric of the briefs to power the city of New York for six months. Said one EPA scientist, "any effort made to harvest the energy would have lead to irrepairable damage to the underwear's ecosystem and could have wiped out as much as 99% of the lifeforms."

Citing an intense desire to continue studying the vast and complex new ecosystem, as well as the numerous new species of plant and animal wildlife, the head EPA researcher petitioned an emergency session of congress to declare the underwear a Wildlife Preserve, thus making it off-limits to harvest energy resources.

The declaration was made official by Congressional bill THX1138, passed by both houses of Congress and signed by President Bush.

--UPDATE--

The underwear has tragically been destroyed following a tense stand-off and battle with Police and the National Guard.

Early Saturday morning, the briefs apparently became sentient and escaped from the EPA labs. Police responded to numerous 911 calls concerning a rampaging article of clothing. When police initially arrived on the scene, the saw the underwear rampaging down the street, destroying many cars and buildings. The Police ordered the underwear to halt, then opened fire when it did not. The briefs seemed unharmed by the small-arms fire and retaliated, using its insidious telekinetic powers to kill 3 officers and seriously wound 8 others.

The Police Commissioner ordered the remaining officers to withdraw to a safe distance and maintain surveillance on the briefs, while the Governor was alerted and the National Guard was deployed. Arriving from a nearby Army National Guard station, soldiers used shoulder-fired missiles and artillery to contain the underwear and prevent it from advancing further. The tense stand-off continued for several hours, while the briefs and National Guardsmen traded fire.

Eventually, the National Guard deployed an experimental Electromagnetic Pulse device, developed by the DoD, and used it to disrupt the underwear's complex brain waves. While the underwear was confused and disoriented, F/A-18 Super Hornets deployed from a nearby Marine base were able to neutralize the underwear with incendiary warheads.

"This is a great tragedy all around," said a scientist who specializes in Spontaneous Development of Sentience. "Our previous experiences with SDS had been limited to small quantities of Potato Salad. We could have learned so much from this underwear. But the tragedy is ten-fold worse for the underwear itself. It had its whole life ahead of it and could have accomplished anything it wanted to, had it used its powers for good."