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."

About 3,000 people from 1,700 homes were evacuated south of the city of Sierra Vista where the blaze has been burning for a week but picked up speed Sunday as winds gusted up to 60 mph, Cochise County sheriff's spokeswoman Carol Capas said late Sunday night. The high winds pushed flames down a mountain and into a heavily populated area. Fire crews were forced to abandon their lines and try to set up in new spots as the fire advanced, officials said.

Capas said that some residences were destroyed Sunday, adding to the 44 already reported, but fire officials didn't yet have an exact number. There have been no serious injuries.

Meanwhile, the massive Wallow fire that has been burning in eastern Arizona for three weeks kept about 200 residents of Luna, New Mexico, under an evacuation order for a second day. A containment line that had held through days of high winds was breached Saturday and the fire raced toward the town before shifting winds steered it around the community. It was moving to the north into an area of scattered ranches late Sunday afternoon, fire information officer Michael Puentes said.

The fire started after a person hauling a trailer pulled off the road with a hot wheel bearing, which ignited dry grass nearby, Texas Forest Service spokesman Ralph Cullom said. All of the Arizona wildfires are believed to be human caused. Investigators believe a campfire was the most likely cause of the Wallow fire.

They then formed six columns and converged on the city centre, gathering near Spain's parliament where they met various forms of police resistance, including 12 vans blocking several major roads. Protests over the economic crisis and soaring unemployment began in Madrid on May 15 and fanned out nationwide as word spread by Twitter and Facebook among demonstrators.

On Sunday, protesters insisted that workers and the unemployed would not passively accept spending cuts to help ease a crisis they had no role in causing. "The banks and the governments that caused this situation must know that we do not agree with the measures and the budget cuts, that we intend to be heard", the "indignants" movement said in its call for nationwide protests. The El-Mundo newspaper, quoting police sources, estimated the number of demonstrators on Sunday at between 35,000 and 40,000.

But it will depend on the Greek parliament passing 28 billion euros of new spending cuts and economic reforms. The ministers also committed to put together a second bail-out package to keep the country afloat. Jean-Claude Juncker, Luxembourg's prime minister who chairs the meetings of the 17 eurozone finance ministers, said that as long as the Greek parliament supported the new measures, he was certain Greece would get a second bailout.

The Greek government expects it to be similar in size to the first one. Athens has said it needs funds by July to avoid defaulting on its debt. Earlier, thousands of people gathered outside the parliament building in Athens to oppose any further cuts. Waving banners and Greek flags, they shouted: "Thieves! Traitors!"

Inside, Prime Minister George Papandreou urged MPs to accept his programme of tax increases, spending cuts and privatisation, which is expected to raise 50 billion euros by 2015. "The consequences of a violent bankruptcy or exit from the euro would be immediately catastrophic for households, the banks and the country's credibility," he said at the start of a three-day debate. MPs will vote on Tuesday on a confidence motion in Mr Papandreou's cabinet, which he reshuffled last week amid mounting unrest.

He also believes Britain should pull out of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) because it gives too much power to judges - and too little to Ministers and MPs. Mr Hilton's growing frustration with the EU is one of the reasons he has been involved in heated exchanges in No 10 which have fuelled reports that he may walk out in protest at the Government's failure to press ahead with radical reforms to the NHS, Whitehall and other institutions.

His stance is strongly opposed by Mr Cameron's pro-EU chief of staff, Ed Llewellyn, who worked for former Tory EU Commissioner Chris Patten and passionate pro-European Liberal Democrat Paddy Ashdown. Coalition insiders dismissed reports of a bitter rift between volatile Euro-sceptic Mr Hilton and mild-mannered Europhile mandarin Mr Llewellyn.

But they did not dispute Mr Hilton's dramatic change of heart on the EU. 'Steve is impatient to get things done but time and again he is told that he can't because of this or that European legislation,' said a source. He feels there is strong case for Britain pulling out of the EU and getting rid of the ECHR. The person who usually tells him it can't be done is Ed Llewellyn.'

Standard Chartered is understood to have withdrawn tens of billions of pounds from the eurozone inter-bank lending market in recent months and cut its overall exposure by two-thirds in the past few weeks as it has become increasingly worried about the finances of other European banks. Barclays has also cut its exposure in recent months as senior managers have become increasingly concerned about developments among banks with large exposures to the troubled European countries Greece, Ireland, Spain, Italy and Portugal.

In its interim management statement, published in April, Barclays reported a wholesale exposure to Spain of 6.4 billion pounds, compared with 7.2 billion pounds last June, while its exposure to Italy has fallen by more than 100 million pounds. One source said it was "inevitable" that British banks would look to minimise their potential losses in the event the eurozone crisis were to get worse. "Everyone wants to ensure that they are not badly affected by the crisis," said one bank executive.

Moves by stronger banks to cut back their lending to weaker banks is reminiscent of the build-up to the financial crisis in 2008, when the refusal of banks to lend to one another led to a seizing-up of the markets that eventually led to the collapse of several major banks and taxpayer bail-outs of many more. While the funding position of UK banks is far stronger now than it was back in 2008, the banking systems of several other major European countries, including Spain, Germany and Italy, are showing increasing signs of weakness.

And despite the downside of having to add soya to bind it all together, Prof Ikeda thinks there's no reason why we shouldn't all tuck into his turd burgers. Why would he even think of it, you might ask. Because Tokyo Sewage asked him to. Tokyo is swimming in sewage mud, it seems, and there's only one way it can save itself and that's eat it.

Prof Ikeda found the mud was loaded with protein due to the high bacteria content. Combine it with reaction enhancer and put it in a magical machine called an "exploder" and artificial steak comes out the other end. According to Digital Trends, it's 63 percent protein, 25 percent carbohydrates, 3 percent lipids and 9 percent minerals. It's colored red so you don't know it's poo.

"Initial tests have people saying it even tastes like beef," Digital Trends reports. Prof Ikeda and his colleagues say it's the perfect solution for reducing waste and emissions from flatulent cows. Which is understandable, because if someone told you that Whopper you just ate was actually made from yesterday's leftover feces, you'd probably be too traumatized to masticate meat ever again.

Of course, there's a hitch - besides the fact it's made from poo and soya. The cost of producing Prof Ikeda's stinky steaks at the moment is about "10 to 20 times" the price of carving it off a cow. Leave it to the fast food chains to work out the economics. You can't argue the mass production side of the equation is already sorted...

Bank losses across the Continent would be enormous, and there is mounting concern that Portugal and Ireland would then be hit by a 'domino effect' as international markets turned on other debt-laden nations. Some economists believe the euro could disintegrate as a single currency, causing unprecedented turmoil.

Last night the International Monetary Fund issued an extraordinary warning to debt-laden nations, warning them they were 'playing with fire' unless they took immediate steps to reduce their budget deficits. The IMF said a lack of political leadership in dealing with the debt crisis in countries including the United States could create major financial volatility in coming months.

Jose Vinals, director of the IMF's monetary and capital markets department, said: 'You cannot afford to have a world economy where these important decisions are postponed because you're really playing with fire. We have now entered very clearly into a new phase which is, I would say, the political phase of the crisis.' Another giant bailout for Greece appears inevitable to try to stave off disaster, though there are doubts about whether the country is sufficiently politically stable to agree to austerity measures attached to it.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy held emergency talks in Berlin after a public dispute over whether private investors, rather than taxpayers, should be forced to assume a greater burden to resolve the crisis. 'There is no time to lose,' Mr Sarkozy told reporters with Mrs Merkel at his side. France's banks are particularly exposed to Greek debt and Mr Sarkozy is warning that the row threatens the future of the euro.

Britain is resisting attempts to be drawn into having to stump up more cash towards a Greek rescue package through a European bailout mechanism. Chancellor George Osborne insists eurozone countries must shoulder the burden. The UK was not involved in an original bailout for Greece last year, which was funded via bilateral loans within the single currency area.

Their projections, which strip out the impact of inflation, show butter will be even dearer, costing on average more than 45 per cent more over the next decade than in the last. When inflation is factored in, the nominal prices - what people actually pay - will be still higher, making food bills yet harder to stomach. "People are going be forced, either to literally eat less, or find other sources of income," said Angel Gurria, the head of OECD.

The world's "slow growing" supply of food coupled with high demand will be to blame for the rising prices, according to the experts behind the report.

They expect the steep price of oil and competition for water and land to limit farmers' production, while swelling populations and rising incomes in newer economic powers like China and India will keep demand strong. The use of grain to produce biofuel is also worsening the volatility in prices, the report warned. That phenomenon has already sparked a "food versus fuel" debate.

The OECD and FAO are among those calling for the Group of 20 nations to stop subsidising biofuel, in a bid to prevent spikes in food prices. "The problem is not biofuels in themselves," said Jacques Diouf, the FAO's director-general. "The problem is the policies adopted by certain governments to encourage the development of biofuels."

Rosalina Gonzales had pleaded guilty to a felony charge of injury to a child for what prosecutors had described as a "pretty simple, straightforward spanking case." They noted she didn't use a belt or leave any bruises, just some red marks. As part of the plea deal, Gonzales will serve five years probation, during which time she'll have to take parenting classes, follow CPS guidelines, and make a $50 payment to the Children's Advocacy Center.

She was arrested back in December after the child's paternal grandmother noticed red marks on the child's rear end. The grandmother took the girl, who was two years-old at the time, to the hospital to be checked out. Gonzales who doesn't have custody of the child or her other two children, is trying to get them back, but until CPS feels she is ready the kids are living with their paternal grandmother.

China's disaster alert has been raised to the highest level, four. More heavy rain is expected in the coming days, with little let-up until Sunday. In Jiangxi province in the east, troops helped 122,400 residents move from vulnerable, low-lying areas, the China News Service reported. In central Hubei province, downpours earlier this week triggered a landslide that left six people missing and blocked the Pingdu River, forcing 2,000 residents to flee.

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.