"To preserve our long-term fiscal health, we must also address the growing costs in Medicare and Social Security," Obama said to a joint session of Congress soon after he was inaugurated. And McConnell adds that Biden, the president's lead negotiator in the debt talks, said last January that "everyone talks about we have to do something about Social Security and Medicare, and we do."

Though Geithner didn't rule out savings from Medicare, Medicaid or the like, he said fundamental reform cannot be done in the next few weeks. Republicans say the same applies to raising revenues in these talks. However, House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer, Democrat for Maryland, said Tuesday, "It's hard to see how you get to $2 or $4 trillion in reductions without revenues or Draconian cuts that Democrats would not support."

But Republicans say any changes, other than savings from ending some subsidies, such as ethanol, belong in entirely separate talks about tax reform. "Some Democrats are insisting that they'll only agree to cuts if Republicans agree to raise revenue," McConnell said. "That's Washington-speak for tax hikes, and it's absurd."

"It is unusual," Ramey said. "Here it is the last day of spring." A winter storm advisory has been posted in the mountains of Colorado above 10,000 feet until 6 pm local time, and at least one tornado was reported in Kansas, according to the weather service. The Northern Hemisphere summer starts at 1:16 pm New York time tomorrow.

Ramey said the lingering effects of the La Nina ocean cooling are still playing havoc with local weather patterns. Normally at this time of year the daytime high temperature in Grand Junction, at an altitude of almost 4,600 feet, is 88 degrees Fahrenheit (31 degrees Celsius), according to the weather service. Yesterday it was 59, Ramey said.

La Ninas can bring more rain and stormy conditions to the northern US, while drying out the southern half of the country. The most recent La Nina was declared over earlier this month by the US Climate Prediction Center in Camp Springs, Maryland. The atmosphere is still showing signs of the phenomenon, however.

According to reports, the plant has been in shutdown mode since April for refueling, and is allegedly still dry inside, despite being literally surrounded in every direction by massive flood waters. However, after the notification of an unusual event was announced, as well as the cryptic FAA declaration that no aircraft is permitted to fly anywhere near the plant, some are questioning what is really going on at the plant.

What is apparent just from the official pictures released of the plant is that it is currently an island, of sorts, sitting in the middle of an ocean of water. Reports say that flood barriers have been set up around the plant to protect it, but how long can these barriers last in the presence of continually rising flood waters? And despite being in shutdown mode, the plant's spent fuel rods, electrical control devices, and other crucial equipment are all threatened by a potential breach in these barriers, which could potentially lead to a Fukushima-type situation right in the heartland of the US.

If everything is really under control at the plant, and officials expect it to stay dry and protected, why has the FAA restricted aircraft from flying within a two-mile radius of it? When asked why the FAA made this decision, Jeff Hanson, spokesman for the Omaha Public Power District (OPPD), told reporters it was for "security reasons that we can't reveal." This is hardly reassuring.

The US Department of Agriculture estimates 90 million acres of crops were scheduled for planting this year, which is 1.5 million acres less than expected. Did a rainy Spring planting season and talk of the planned flooding by the US Army Corps of Engineers keep farmers out of their fields?

A lack of corn will be felt far beyond the dinner table. Corn is a key ingredient in ethanol gasoline, feeds America's livestock and is found in many food products including soft drinks and cereal. Prices will undoubtedly increase steadily at the grocery store, gas pump and butcher shop throughout the summer as Midwest flooding continues along the Missouri River basin. Not only are farmers losing their homes, land and fields - ultimately their bank accounts will also suffer this season. And let's not forget all that genetically modified seed washing south to contaminate natural fields.

The United States produces the most corn of any country, according to an Associated Press news report. With Midwest flooding in Iowa, South Dakota, Missouri, Montana, Wyoming and Nebraska, acres of crops planted along the Missouri River and its tributaries will get devastated by flood waters.

US plants hold about four times OVER capacity in their spent fuel pools PLUS all the new and recently removed fuel from Calhoun... the plant was officially being refueled. Be aware that Fort Calhoun isn't a BWR [boiling water reactor] like Fukushima - it's a PWR [pressurised water reactor]. But that doesn't matter, because the fuel is all sitting OUTSIDE the reactor waiting to wash away or explode - which will destroy about 15,000 square miles of what used to be the corn belt. That's all being washed away by the flood waters anyway.

Calhoun may already be spewing radiation into the flooding Missouri... the public will be the last to be told. Therefore, everything the river water touches on its way downstream will or could become contaminated. This could be nothing... or, it could wipe out the middle of America.

Last week, tens of thousands of people were stranded as airlines grounded flights, and now the ash has returned. The plume is said to be too low this time for airlines to fly under it. The ash cloud from Chile's Puyehue-Cordon Caulle volcano is circling the Earth for a second time. Last week, some airlines, such as Virgin Australia, flew below and around the ash cloud, but this time they have been advised against doing so.

The ash cloud is reported to be hovering at between 20,000 and 40,000ft (6-13km). Qantas said its policy was not to fly below the ash cloud, because it brought risks that it was simply not prepared to take. "We estimate that we will be cancelling in excess of 200 flights on Wednesday," Qantas spokeswoman Olivia Wirth told reporters. "The experts say we simply won't be able to operate in this situation."

Australia's Bureau of Meteorology estimates Adelaide will be affected for 24 hours, Canberra and Sydney for around 36 to 48 hours, and Melbourne for 36 to 48 hours from Wednesday. International flights inbound to Sydney have been diverted to Brisbane, ABC News reported. Virgin's domestic cancellations alone will affect 170 flights - and an estimated 120,000 passengers.

* Nuclear plant inches from being totally flooded

* Damage would be likely to cause energy prices to soar

* Six to 12 inches of heavy rainfall over the last few weeks

* Record floods hit 44.4 feet, topping 44.3 feet record set in 1993

* Levees fail to stem surge of water from rain and melting snow

* Flooding expected to continue until August

* Residents begin burning wood to avoid it becoming flood debris

* Meanwhile, engineers close the Bonnet Carre Spillway near New Orleans

The river is expected to rise as much as five to seven feet above the official 'flood stage' in much of Nebraska and Iowa and as much as 10 feet over in parts of Missouri. The corps predicts the river will remain that high until at least August. The Cooper Nuclear Plant remains operating at full capacity today but the Columbus-based utility sent an emergency 'notification of unusual event' to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission when the river rose to 899 feet early on Sunday morning. 'We knew the river was going to rise for some time,' Becker said. 'It was just a matter of when.'

Water flooded two highways, several homes were under as much as five feet of water and there was extensive farmland flooding, said Diana Phillips, clerk and flood plain manager for the village of Big Lake. 'It's only going to get worse because there is lots of water coming in,' Phillips said. The Corps increased water releases on Saturday from two dams - Oahe above Pierre, South Dakota's capital, and Big Bend Dam just downstream - to make room for expected potentially heavy rains through early next week. They have been increasing water releases from five dams in North Dakota and South Dakota to roughly double prior records to relieve reservoirs.

Mike Crecelius, the Fremont County Emergency Management chief, said that in Hamburg, Iowa, the river was expected to crest at 10 feet over flood stage in the coming days. Crecelius said the river has been over flood stage since late April, and that forecasters are projecting river flows of 150,000 cubic feet (1.1 million gallons) per second through August. '[The levees] are not designed for this amount of pressure for this length of time,' Crecelius told CNN. 'They've never been tested like this.'

Peak releases are planned until at least mid-August and high flows are expected until December. The National Weather Service said that the six to 12 inches of rainfall in the upper Missouri basin in the past few weeks is nearly a normal year's worth of rain, while runoff from the mountain snowpack is 140 per cent of average levels.

The international markets know it: long-term Greek government debt is trading at around two-thirds of its nominal value. Indeed, the only people who still believe (or pretend to believe) that Greece can remain solvent are the eurozone finance ministers, who have just agreed another bailout.

In a statement of stunning complacency, they praised Athens for a 'significant and necessary adjustment effort' which would contribute to 'avoiding a default'. They took the same line a year ago, when they offered Greece 110 billion euros to get through what they insisted was simply a short-term cash crisis. Now, despite those assurances, they are set to release another 80 billion euros. Such bailouts are not useless, but actively harmful: the last thing an over-indebted country needs is more loans.

Why, then, are the eurozone governments doing it? They know that the bailouts are unpopular with their own constituents. Every week, German newspapers bulge with stories about wealthy Greeks avoiding tax. Why, Germans ask, should we have to pay more tax so that Greeks can pay less? Why should we have to work until 67 so that they can retire at 63? For many Greek professionals, paying your dues to the taxman has become a lifestyle option.

A series of legal and semi-legal exemptions for the better off have left the country with a tiny revenue stream - shipping magnates, who run the biggest sector of the economy, pay virtually no tax at all. One of the reasons the crowds in Athens are so angry is because they suspect that the cost of the bailout will not fall on the rich.

The technique could eventually allow pigs to grow human organs from patient's stem cells for use as transplants, according to the Daily Telegraph. The method would help reduce the risk of the transplanted organ being rejected. As it's the patient's own stem cells being used, the risk of the transplanted organ being rejected is minimised. It would also provide a plentiful supply of donor organs.

'Our ultimate goal is to generate human organs from induced pluripotent stem cells,' said Professor Hiromitsu Nakauchi, director of the centre for stem cell biology and regenerative medicine at the University of Tokyo in Japan and who led the research. The technique, called blastocyst complementation, provides us with a novel approach for organ supply. We have successfully tried it between mice and rats. 'We are now rather confident in generating functional human organs using this approach,' he added.

Professor Nakauchi and his colleagues injected these cells taken from rats into the embryos, or blastocysts as they can be called, of mice that were unable to grow their own pancreas, the organ that produces important hormones including insulin. When the mice matured to adulthood, they showed no signs of diabetes as they had developed a pancreas that was almost entirely formed from the injected rat stem cells. The researchers claim the rat stem cells grew inside the mouse in place of the absent pancreas. If replicated using human stem cells, the pancreas of diabetic patients could be replaced via this technique.

The Prime Minister said he would make his position clear this week at a summit for the 27 European Union leaders - a meeting which will be dominated by the debt crisis. He spoke as eurozone finance ministers gave Greece two weeks to approve stricter austerity measures before they are prepared to sign off a second emergency loan of 11 billion pounds.

Asked if Britain should contribute to the bailout, Mr Cameron said: 'I absolutely don't believe we should. I don't believe that we will and I shall be fighting very hard to achieve that at the European Council this week.' Speaking at The Times newspaper's CEO summit, the Prime Minister said: 'The first Greek bailout was done by eurozone members and I see absolutely no reason why Britain should be dragged in through European financial mechanisms or other mechanisms to support a subsequent Greek bailout. We are not in the euro, we chose not to join the euro and so I don't think we share responsibility for this.'

A Treasury minister warned last night that Britain was preparing for the end of the euro. If Greece's debt crisis forced it to quit the euro, it would have 'a very significant economic impact' on Britain, said Mark Hoban, the Financial Secretary to the Treasury. Officials said UK banks stand to lose 8 billion pounds if the Greek economy goes under. It came as former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw led MPs from all sides in predicting the death of the single currency, warning: 'Is it not better that it happens quickly rather than a slow death?'

He said the Government should be honest and admit the single currency is on the brink of collapse. He told the Commons: 'The eurozone cannot last. In its current form [it] is going to collapse.' The IMF also warned the Greek crisis could threaten the stability of the entire eurozone, Britain's biggest trading partners. Mr Hoban admitted the Government was preparing contingency plans for a euro meltdown with the Bank of England and the Financial Services Authority.

He refused to say whether 'the eurozone will stay intact', a coded reference to Greece ditching the single currency. But he added: 'This crisis demonstrates the huge strain the eurozone is under. That's why it was right for us to stay out of the eurozone.'

This month's flooding - the worst since 1955 - has already left about 170 people dead or missing, reports say. The government has mobilised troops to evacuate hundreds of thousands of people. China's disaster alert has been raised to the highest level, four. Downpours earlier this week triggered landslides that buried houses and killed at least two people in Zhejiang and another two in Hubei.

The floods come after months of crop-destroying drought in the centre and north of the country. Some areas along the Yangtze River have suffered their worst drought in half a century. Despite the rain, officials have warned that the crop shortages and dislocation caused by drought will remain severe. Analysts say crop shortages in China could affect prices around the world.

The water companies targeted Positive Weather Solutions (PWS), a small independent forecasting firm based in Wales, after it warned of the possibility of a drought and hosepipe ban. PWS was one of the first forecasters to warn of drought conditions that were later confirmed by the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology and the Environment Agency. Their chief forecaster also highlighted the threat of water restrictions months ago.

Water UK's legal letter came days after the announcement of water price increases of up to 7.8 per cent, and weeks before water companies' annual results showed vast profits including United Utilities banking 329.2 million pounds, Severn Trent making 288.6 million pounds and Northumbrian Water 181 million pounds.

In the email Water UK's legal and policy adviser, David Strang, told PWS senior forecaster Jonathan Powell: 'Your company stated there is a "stark and real danger of drought this summer" and some places will "inevitably" see hosepipe bans at some point.'

'Such statements have the potential to cause loss to our members, a number of whom are quoted companies.'

'We ask you to refrain from making any further statements of a similar nature. I trust any future comments reflect the relatively secure position in which our members find themselves.' Mr Powell said: 'I thought it was intimidating to receive an email of this nature. I believed the public had a right to know some parts of the UK would see a drought. We just relayed what our system told us - and the proof is now evident, as the drought has been confirmed.'

And after a brief boost in levels after the rain, river flows are dropping again. Many are below average for the time of year, including the Dove and Derwent in central England, the Tone and Frome in south west England and the Coln in the Thames Valley. East Anglia had its driest spring in more than a century with just one inch of rain - a fifth of its normal total for the season, while it was the driest spring in England and Wales since 1990. Parts of the South West, South East, Midlands and Wales have also experienced near-drought conditions.

Water companies say there is little chance of hosepipe bans this year.

The guidance paper says that while 'a person's sexual orientation is, in itself, irrelevant to their suitability for episcopal office or indeed ordained ministry', candidates can be required to be celibate. The issue of whether openly gay men should be ordained is highly contentious in the Church of England. Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams has described divisions over the topic as 'a wound in the whole ministry'. Gay, celibate cleric Jeffrey John was blocked from becoming Bishop of Reading because of his sexuality. The advice lists as a relevant factor 'whether he (the candidate) had expressed repentance for any previous same-sex sexual activity'.'

This was last night branded 'double standards' by Canon Dr Giles Fraser, the Canon Chancellor of St Paul's Cathedral. A campaigner for gay inclusion within the Church, he said it was 'indicative of institutional homophobia in the Church of England'. 'It is important that the church has made such a clear statement that gay bishops are acceptable,' he said. 'But I don't see why gay people have to remain celibate to be bishops.'

'To go on to insist that what a gay person might have got up to at in their past is significant, but not that of a straight person, is an obvious double standard. And just more of the same old institutionally homophobic C of E.'

In a statement during the broadcast, NBC commentator Dan Hicks said, "We began our coverage of this final round just about three hours ago and when we did it was our intent to begin the coverage of this US Open Championship with a feature that captured the patriotism of our national championship being held in our nation's capital for the third time."

"Regrettably, a portion of the Pledge of Allegiance that was in that feature was edited out. It was not done to upset anyone and we'd like to apologize to those of you who were offended by it." The words "under God" were not in the original pledge from 1892 and were not added until 1954.

A hole in the side of a Holt County levee continued to grow Sunday, deluging the state park and recreational area of Big Lake, a community of less than 200 people located 78 miles north of Kansas City. Jud Kneuvean, chief of emergency management for the corps' Kansas City District, said the Missouri River dipped by almost one foot after the Big Lake breach but that the water level started to rise again by Sunday afternoon.

Meanwhile, the Nebraska Public Power District issued a flooding alert Sunday for its Cooper Nuclear power plant near Brownville, Nebraska, as the Missouri River continues to rise. The declaration is the least serious of four emergency notifications established by the federal commission. The plant was operating Sunday at full capacity, and there was no threat to plant employees or to the public, said Mark Becker, a spokesman for the Columbus, Nebraska-based utility.

The Fort Calhoun Station, another nuclear plant along the river in eastern Nebraska, issued a similar alert June 6. That plant near Blair, has been shut down since April and will not be reactivated until the flooding subsides. The corps said Sunday that the river level at Brownville, had surged about 2 feet from Saturday morning to Sunday morning. Water was flowing over a levee there and into farmland but the levee was being built up to alleviate that, said Jodi Fawl, spokeswoman for the Nebraska Emergency Management Agency.

The officials are predicting another breach, which could displace up to 200 more people. "That would be worse case scenario," he said. "The information we are getting from the corps is that it's possible."