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It was the start of a Friday morning commute at the bustling Fulton Street transit hub in Lower Manhattan when, around 7 a.m., a subway rider approached two officers and reported two suspicious appliances.

The officers cleared the station, a busy transit complex where eight subway lines converge, and one train at the platform was evacuated while another was turned around and sent back, officials said.

An hour later, just as the police had determined the two devices were not explosives, they received another call alerting them to a third suspicious device placed by a garbage can farther uptown, in the Chelsea neighborhood.

By 10 a.m., officials announced that all three devices had turned out to be empty rice cookers that posed no danger. But by then the discovery of the appliances, which were initially believed to be pressure cookers, had disrupted commutes and created a flurry of police activity and news alerts that heightened fears and rattled New York City residents.