USA - US Senator Rand Paul said he will introduce legislation that would cut US funding to the Palestinian Authority unless its government recognized Israel as a Jewish state. Paul (Republican for Kentucky), a likely contender for the Republican presidential nod in 2016, said the law was needed because of the interim governance agreement last week between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority. He said he would introduce the legislation this week if there is no such statement after five weeks — the deadline set by Hamas and the Fatah faction to establish an interim government that would lay the ground for elections.

JERUSALEM, ISRAEL - Israeli authorities have arrested two young Jews after hanging a poster on one of the gates of Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Al-Quds (occupied East Jerusalem), calling for the eviction of Muslims from holy site to pave the way for the construction of the "Temple Mount." In a statement, the Israeli police said an Israeli court has banned the two from entering the Old City of Al-Quds for 30 days. In recent months, groups of extremist Jewish settlers, often accompanied by Israeli security forces, have repeatedly forced their way into the Al-Aqsa complex.

UK - European election candidate accused of religious and racial harassment after he repeats wartime prime minister’s words on Islam during campaign speech. Paul Weston was arrested on the steps of Winchester's Guildhall. Chairman of Liberty GB was detained on suspicion of racial harrassment. He quoted a passage from Winston Churchill's 1899 book The River War. The passage from the book, written by the wartime Prime Minister and first published in 1899, focuses on Churchill's observations about Islam while serving during the Anglo-Egyptian reconquest of the Sudan.

USA - At least 17 people have been killed by tornadoes as a huge storm system swept across the central and southern United States. Sixteen of the victims were in several suburbs of Little Rock in Arkansas, officials said. One other person was killed in the town of Quapaw in the north-east of Oklahoma where officials said many buildings were badly damaged. Tornadoes also struck in Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa and Missouri.

USA - We’ve pointed out for 4 1/2 years that banks create money out of thin air. Specifically, it has now been conclusively proven that loans come first … and then deposits FOLLOW. This odd and counter-intuitive – but crucially important – truth has now gone mainstream … Specifically, the Financial Times’ Martin Wolf – one of the world’s most influential mainstream financial writers - says that, since banks create money out of thin air, they should be stripped of this power, and limited to normal depository functions.

RUSSIA - Iran and Russia are negotiating a power deal worth up to $10 billion. The construction of new thermal and hydroelectric plants and a transmission network are in the works. Iran’s Energy Minister Hamid Chitchian met his Russian counterpart Alexander Novak in Tehran to discuss the power deals, according to the Mehr news agency. They include the possibility of Russia exporting 500 megawatts of electricity to Iran. Moscow is discussing with Tehran the trade of 500,000 barrels a day of Iranian oil for Russian goods. The deal could be worth as much as $20 billion, and has rattled Washington because it could bring Iran's crude exports above one million barrels a day which is the threshold agreed upon in the nuclear deal.

CHINA - Demolition teams began destroying parts of a Chinese church that has become a symbol of resistance to the Communist Party’s draconian clutch on religion, activists and witnesses said on Monday. Sanjiang church in Wenzhou, a wealthy coastal city known as the "Jerusalem of the East", made headlines earlier this month when thousands of Christians formed a human shield around its entrance after plans for its demolition were announced. Church members accused Communist leaders in Zhejiang province of ordering an anti-church crackdown and claimed there were plans to completely or partially demolish at least 10 places of worship. Officials rejected those accusations, alleging the church had violated building codes.

USA - The US Department of Homeland Security is advising citizens to use alternatives to Microsoft's Internet Explorer web browser until the company fixes a security flaw that hackers have used to launch attacks. The United States Computer Emergence Readiness Team (US-CERT) said in an advisory that the vulnerability in versions 6 to 11 of Internet Explorer "could lead to the complete compromise of an affected system". Microsoft warned customers over the weekend that a vulnerability in its Internet Explorer browser could allow hackers to gain access to their computers.

SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA, USA - Steve Upton thinks of himself more as an "Officer Friendly" than a water cop. On a recent sunny day, the water waste inspector rolled through a quiet Sacramento neighborhood in his white pickup truck after a tipster tattled on people watering their lawns on prohibited days. At least 45 water agencies throughout California, including Sacramento, are imposing and enforcing mandatory restrictions on water use as their supplies run dangerously low. Sacramento is one of the few bigger agencies actively patrolling streets for violators and encouraging neighbors to report waste. They teach residents to avoid hosing down driveways, overwatering lawns or filling swimming pools. While gentle reminders are preferred, citations and fines can follow for repeat offenders.

USA - "And he causes all, the small and the great, and the rich and the poor, and the free men and the slaves, to be given a mark on their right hand or on their forehead, and he provides that no one will be able to buy or to sell, except the one who has the mark, either the name of the beast or the number of his name.…" Revelations 13:16-17. Technologies designed specifically to track and monitor human beings have been in development for at least two decades. In the virtual realm, software programs are now capable of watching us in real time, going so far as to make predictions about our future behaviors and sending alerts to the appropriate monitoring station depending on how a computer algorithm flags your activities.

USA - At least 12 people have been killed by tornadoes as a huge storm system swept across the central and southern United States. Eleven of the victims were in several suburbs of Little Rock in Arkansas, a state official said. One other person was killed in the town of Quapaw in the north-east of Oklahoma where officials said many buildings were badly damaged. Tornadoes also struck in Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa and Missouri. Congressman Tim Griffin told Reuters news agency an "entire neighbourhood of 50 homes or so" in Faulkner County had been destroyed, with many "completely gone except the foundation".

UK - Cabinet Office report has issued a stark warning of the dangers posed to Britain. Not by terrorism, economic collapse or global warming, but by the eruption of so-called 'supervolcanoes' in nearby Iceland. These hazards include extremes of cold in winter and heat in summer, catastrophic crop failure and deadly clouds of sulphur dioxide. The Cabinet Office commissioned the study by scientists from the Met Office, universities and British Geological Survey (BGS), following the eruption of Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano in 2010 which caused months of disruption for airlines because volcanic ash posed a threat to plane engines. The report will be presented at the European Geosciences Union meeting in Vienna.

EUROPE - What the European Union needs is someone like John Jay. Appealing in 1787 for the ratification of the US constitution, the American founding father said “a cordial Union, under an efficient national government” would provide “the best security that can be devised against hostilities from abroad.”

ISRAEL - Housing Minister Uri Ariel slammed European Union Foreign Minister Catherine Ashton Sunday for supporting the Hamas-Fatah unity deal. “On the eve of Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Memorial Day, she spit in the face of those who fight against terror around the world," he accused. "European support for the deal will encourage Hamas terror, and will ensure that Europe loses its moral authority as a party that can help solve the conflict."

Israel - Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu compared the existential danger posed by Iran to Israel with the Nazi war machine, and vowed that a Holocaust will not take place again.