Congress is expected to decide by year's end whether to continue providing emergency unemployment benefits for up to 99 weeks in the hardest-hit states. If the emergency benefits expire, the proportion of the unemployed receiving aid would fall further. The ranks of the poor would also rise. The Census Bureau says unemployment benefits kept 3.2 million people from slipping into poverty last year. It defines poverty as annual income below $22,314 for a family of four.

Yet for a growing share of the unemployed, a vote in Congress to extend the benefits to 99 weeks is irrelevant. They've had no job for more than 99 weeks. They're no longer eligible for benefits. Their options include food stamps or other social programs. Nearly 46 million people received food stamps in August, a record total. That figure could grow as more people lose unemployment benefits.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has noted that the long-term unemployed increasingly find it hard to find work as their skills and professional networks erode. In a speech last month, Bernanke called long-term unemployment a "national crisis" that should be a top priority for Congress. Lawmakers will have to decide whether to continue the extended benefits by the end of this year. If the program ends, nearly 2.2 million people will be cut off by February. Congress has extended the program nine times. But it might balk at the $45 billion cost.

As of this writing, the total debt is $14.97 trillion, so moving beyond the symbolic $15 trillion is a foregone conclusion. When the unwelcome milestone is reached, it will come at a volatile time both in this country and abroad. Across the Atlantic, President Obama is in Cannes, France, for the G-20 summit that takes place as Europe is trying to finalize a bailout for debt-ridden Greece.

In Washington, a polarized Congress has ground to a halt in the dispute on how to jumpstart the economy and reduce the country's deficits. Only a few months ago, the acrimonious debate on Capitol Hill about raising the debt ceiling - a debate that almost caused the Treasury Department to default on its debts - illustrated the enormous partisan divide that still shows no signs of improving.

The approaching $15 trillion debt milestone is not even the only piece of bad economic news for the country. The jobs report for October - released this morning - showed that US employers added an estimated 80,000 jobs to their payrolls last month, worse than economists expected. The unemployment rate decreased to 9.0 percent, down from 9.1 percent a month earlier, small consolation for a nation still struggling to recover from a severe recession.

The quake was centred near the town of Sparks, some 44 miles (71km) north-east of Oklahoma City, at a depth of 3.1 miles (5km). It shook a packed football stadium at Oklahoma State University. Nearly 60,000 fans were leaving the stadium having watched Oklahoma State's victory over Kansas State when the stadium shook for several seconds.

"Everybody was looking around and no one had any idea," said Oklahoma State quarterback Brandon Weeden, who was in the locker room with the other players at the time."We thought the people above us were doing something. I've never felt one, so that was a first," he told Associated Press.

The quake struck at 10:53pm local time (03:53 GMT Sunday) and followed a 4.7 magnitude tremor that had been felt near the town of Prague earlier on Saturday. Observers say that if the 5.6 magnitude reading given by the US Geological Survey stands, then it would be the most powerful earthquake ever recorded for Oklahoma, which is more used to dealing with tornadoes.

'You come from an island, so maybe you don't understand the subtleties of European construction,' he snapped at BBC Newsnight's economics editor Paul Mason. Mr Sarkozy had been asked whether it was right for the European Union to be attempting to block an EU referendum and install a coalition government in Greece.

His outburst was quickly seen as evidence that the diminutive French premier has contempt for both Greece and Britain. His comments come less than two weeks after he snapped at David Cameron at a Brussels summit, telling the Prime Minister to stop telling the eurozone 'what to do' about the economic crisis. 'You have lost a good opportunity to shut up,' he said. Also at the Brussels summit Mr Sarkozy publicly snubbed Mr Cameron by turning away as the Prime Minister offered his hand in friendship.

Eurosceptics fear the big eurozone countries are using the economic calamity to rush headlong into the fiscal union they have always wanted - and see an effective end to independent nation states. They accused Mr Sarkozy of having 'contempt' for Britain and democracy.

Tory MP Philip Davies said: 'This just shows what the project is all about. President Sarkozy is not interested in what we have to say. He is only interested in getting his hands on our money. He's behaving like the new Charles de Gaulle, another French leader who didn't want us in Europe. But I'm right behind him. I don't want us in the EU either.'

In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, Chris Grayling, the employment minister, said that the EU had launched a "land grab" and that "pre-emptive action to stop this" was now necessary. "We are not going to be rolled over on this, it's a hugely sensitive issue," Mr Grayling said.

The action is the first sign that Conservative ministers are determined to act on David Cameron's pledge to begin renegotiating Britain's relationship with Europe. Mr Grayling said that he was sympathetic to the calls from dozens of back-bench Conservative MPs for a referendum on Britain's EU membership and that the "renegotiation" of the relationship was now the minimum requirement.

He also said that in this country a "big bang" of radical deregulation to help business was now necessary to help kick-start economic growth. In September, it emerged that the EU was threatening Britain with legal action after this country refused to pay some benefits to other European citizens who have not worked or lived here. Britain has been given a two month deadline to reverse the decision but will refuse and is braced for court action. But a "new front" of the battle has been opened up as the EU has begun agreeing reciprocal benefit arrangements with other countries.

However, ministers have learnt that negotiations are beginning with other poorer nations beyond the EU's borders and the "point of principle" must now be challenged. Mr Grayling added: "This is something that's catching up with us very fast. Something has to happen about this. We are concerned about benefit tourism, we want tighter rules. We want the rules changed and they're just not listening."

It was a telling tidbit of news. This week, the French bank BNP Paribas announced that it had slashed its holdings of euro-zone government bonds, including 2.62 billion euros worth of Greek debt. But it wasn't just bonds from Athens that the bank dumped. BNP Paribas also indicated that it had drastically reduced its holdings of Italian debt. In the three months prior to the end of October, the bank sold off 8.3 billion euros worth of bonds issued by Rome, reducing its exposure by 40 percent.

Not surprisingly, stock markets were elated by the news and the bank's stock price shot upwards. After all, Italy promises to be the next battleground in the fight to save the euro zone from collapse. And world leaders, gathered in Cannes, France for the G-20 summit this week, have taken notice. On Thursday night, they pressured Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to agree to have his halting steps toward austerity monitored by both the International Monetary Fund and the European Union.

"He himself knows that the question is not so much the content of the package but the implementation," said French President Nicolas Sarkozy. "That is what we need to work on."

Scientists at the federal Space Weather Prediction Center say that area is the most active part of the sun since 2005. It has dozens of sunspots, including one that is the size of 17 Earths. Sunspots are kinks or knots in the sun's magnetic field. "It's beautiful," said forecaster Jess Whittington. "It's still growing. The size is what blows me away."

Thursday's flare wasn't aimed at Earth. However, this active region is now slowly turning toward Earth, and scientists say it will be directly facing Earth in about five days. That storm region will only affect Earth if it shoots off flares and they hit our planet, which doesn't always happen with stormy areas, said prediction center space scientist Joe Kunches.

The region will be facing Earth for about two weeks as it rotates, he said.

Solar flares send out bursts of electromagnetic energy that can occasionally disrupt communications and electrical systems. For the past several years, the sun has been at a quiet end of its cycle and only recently has gotten more active. Solar cycles go in 11-year periods. This cycle has had fewer storms than usual for this time in its cycle. But that may be changing. "The sun is looking more like we think it should at this point in the solar cycle," Kunches said. "It's got a number of active centers."

The Lancet review says children are often at particularly high risk. Many of the world's major cities are on fault lines, including Los Angeles, Tokyo, New York, Delhi and Shanghai, putting millions of people at risk from earthquakes. In the past decade, earthquakes have caused more than 780,000 deaths - almost 60% of all disaster-related mortality. Other disasters, such as floods and hurricanes typically cause many deaths from drowning, but fewer injuries.

It is estimated that for every person killed in an earthquake, three others are injured. Depression can also be common after earthquakes - affecting up to 72% of the population. Following the 1999 Turkey earthquake, 17% of the population had suicidal thoughts. Children are often at higher risk of injury and death during earthquakes than adults. In Haiti in 2010, 53% of patients were younger than 20 years old and 25% were under five.

The team, led by Dr Susan Bartel of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative in Boston, wrote in the Lancet: "Because earthquakes frequently affect populous urban areas with poor structural standards, they often result in high death rates and mass casualties with many traumatic injuries."

Mark Lowen BBC News, Athens, reports:-

By winning the vote George Papandreou has crossed a hurdle, but several more remain. He will seek a broad consensus on last week's bailout deal for Greece negotiated in Brussels, reaching out to the opposition. And he will inform the president that he intends to begin talks on forming a national unity government.

The question now is whether Mr Papandreou is simply buying time, trying to rebuild his credibility by voting through the bailout before calling a poll which he still hopes to win. Or is his aim to secure a ratification of the deal and then to seek a dignified exit? With the opposition New Democracy party calling for his resignation, it would be difficult for Mr Papandreou to take the reins of a national unity government.

But the prime minister has shown himself to be a deeply unpredictable leader. Greeks - and all of Europe - are watching anxiously for his next move.

"The question of the deployment of our armed forces will most likely be posed more often in the future," reckons Defense Minister Thomas de Maiziere in an interview with the magazine "Internationale Politik." Particularly so-called minor wars have to be expected, declares a senior officer in the magazine's current edition, focusing on the topic "what kind of troops does Germany need for the future."

"Minor wars," for example, include counterinsurgency. By concentrating on this theme, "Internationale Politik" would like to initiate a larger debate on warfare. The German society has difficulty "openly discussing power - which in the end includes military force," according to the head editor. BERLIN IS INCREASINGLY SEEING WAR AS AN ORDINARY FOREIGN POLICY INSTRUMENT. The defense minister is underlining this, when he declares, "military means are the ultimate and not merely the last means."

An asteroid the size of an aircraft carrier is set to pass closer to Earth than the moon - the nearest anything this big has come to our planet in 35 years. The space rock has been classed as a 'potentially hazardous object' because it will shave our planet .8 lunar distances away on Tuesday, November 8. Experts have calculated that if something of that size were to hit Earth it would cause a 4,000 megaton blast, a magnitude 7.0 earthquake, and if it hit water a 70-foot high tsunami would spread within 60 miles of the crash site. The last time a rock this big passed so close was in 1976, but it was missed by everybody, including NASA.

NASA's Near-Earth Object manager Don Yeomans said this week that they are to carefully study 2005 YU55, which will be 200,000 miles away, because it will give 'clues as to what it was like when our solar system was forming. Without objects of this type, we probably wouldn't be here,' he added. This asteroid is in orbit around the Sun and has not been this near to Earth for some 200 years.

It will not be visible to the naked eye, but amateur astronomers could see it if they use a telescope at least 6in in diameter as it approaches from a sunward direction. Encounters of objects this large, this close to our planet, will not happen again until 2028 when an asteroid will pass near Earth to within .6 lunar distances. NASA will use its super-sensitive Goldstone radar antennas in California's Mojave Desert, usually used to study quasars, as well as map planets and comets.

A vote of confidence, expected at around 10pm tonight in the Greek parliament, could yet see the present government collapse. Last night it was still not entirely clear what the Greek government has decided to do - though it is certain that Mr Papandreou has been cowed into calling off his proposed referendum.

Extraordinary details then emerged of how German Chancellor Angela Merkel threatened the Greeks not only with an end to bailout cash and ejection from the single currency, but also expulsion from the EU for at least ten years.

But hopes in Brussels that a new coalition government led by someone other than Mr Papandreou could be installed were scuppered when the opposition insisted it would not join such an administration and instead demanded elections within six weeks.

Mr Papandreou had horrified other EU leaders days ago by announcing that he would seek popular support for an agreement that would see half of Greece's towering debts written off in return for a decade of deeply unpopular austerity measures. Pension payments are being slashed by 20 per cent, VAT has been hugely increased and a new property tax is being introduced. But economists argue the debt write-down is not dramatic enough to offer Greece any hope of emerging with a stronger economy.

Last night the Greek prime minister suggested he would be ready to drop a referendum on the bailout deal, as long as he could secure opposition support in Parliament.

'If we had a consensus we wouldn't have to go to a referendum,' he said. 'If the opposition is willing to negotiate then we are ready to ratify this deal and implement it.' However, Mr Papandreou said the government was not afraid of asking the Greek people for their opinion in a referendum if necessary. Germany and France, fearing the single currency could collapse if the Greeks voted 'no', had already threatened to cut off existing cash lifelines for Athens until the vote was held.

They also insisted any referendum must be on the country's future membership of the EU and eurozone, rather than a more narrow question relating to deeply unpopular austerity measures, to maximise the chances of a 'yes' vote. And as the day went on, their threats escalated - culminating in the suggestion that Greece would not only have to ditch the euro and reinstate the drachma unless it supported the rescue deal, but also leave the EU.

According to a message being circulated by local school and government officials, there is "great concern in local police and emergency management circles about undue public anxiety over this test. The test message on TV might not indicate that it is just a test," according to one email being circulated by a Washington area school district.

"Fear is that the lack of an explanation message might create panic. Please share this information with your family and friends so they are aware of the test." The test is being conducted jointly by the US Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Federal Communications Commission and the National Weather Service. "We're asking everyone to join us by spreading the word to your neighbors, co-workers, friends and family... please remember: don't stress; it's only a test," FEMA said in a blog post.

The test is part of the Emergency Alert System designed to transmit, via TV and radio, emergency alerts and warnings regarding weather threats, child abductions and other types of emergencies, according to officials. While state and local tests already take place frequently, a simultaneous, nationwide test of the national EAS "emergency action notification" code has never occurred.

Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr said he's not satisfied with President Barack Obama's pledge to pull all US troops from Iraq by the end of the year, calling it a partial withdrawal because of the thousands of diplomats and security guards who will stay behind. "The American occupation will stay in Iraq under different names," al-Sadr told Al-Arabiya TV in his first interview since Obama announced the troop pullout last month. Al-Sadr noted the Pentagon's recent reminders that it will keep an estimated 40,000 troops across the region.

"America is not only occupying Iraq but also other Islamic countries," he said. "Occupying Iraq means occupying what is around Iraq, and then to control the Middle East." The Pentagon is preparing to boost the number of US forces just across the Iraqi border in Kuwait and across the region to prevent a power vacuum when the tens of thousands of US forces who have served in Iraq are gone. There are currently 33,000 US troops in Iraq.

US Army Major General Jeffrey S Buchanan, the chief American military spokesman in Iraq, told a news conference Thursday that US troops stationed around the Mideast are there as part of a partnership with their host nations.

Netanyahu is said to believe that the two, Meir Dagan and Yuval Diskin, wanted to torpedo plans being drawn up by him and Ehud Barak, the defence minister, to hit Iranian nuclear sites. Tzipi Livni, leader of the opposition Kadima party, is also said to have been persuaded to attack Netanyahu for "adventurism" and "gambling with Israel's national interest".

The paper suggested that the purpose of the leaks was to prevent an attack, which had moved from the stage of discussion to implementation. "Those who oppose the plan within the security establishment decided to leak it to the media and thwart the plan," it said. Both Dagan and Diskin oppose military action against Iran unless all other options - primarily international diplomatic pressure and perhaps sabotage - have been exhausted. In January the recently retired Dagan, a hawk when he was running the Mossad, called an attack on Iran "the stupidest idea I've ever heard".

The Kuwait paper has a track record of running stories based on apparently high-level leaks from Israeli officials. Even well-informed Israeli observers admit to being confused about what is going on behind the scenes. The debate in Israel was further fanned on Wednesday when Israel successfully test-fired a missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead and striking Iran.