SWITZERLAND - UBS AG (UBSN) suspended foreign-exchange traders in the US, Singapore and Switzerland as its investigation into the alleged rigging of currency markets widened, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. They include Onur Sert, an emerging-markets spot trader based in New York, and at least three more worldwide, said the person, who asked not to be identified because of the probe. Sert and Dominik von Arx, a spokesman for UBS in London, both declined to comment on the suspensions. Switzerland’s largest bank opened a review of its currency operations last year after Bloomberg News reported in June that traders in the industry had colluded to rig the WM/Reuters rates, a benchmark used by investors and companies around the world.

USA - WARNING! Read labels before buying foods with the name Phenylalanine. I will go one step further — if you need to bring along a chemistry book to the store in order to understand the ingredients on the labels — DO NOT BUY IT! Aspartame, the artificial sweetener linked to cancer, heart palpitations, seizures, weight gain and other severe medical issues, is now going by the name AminoSweet. The toxic sweetener, Aspartame, has been around over 25 years after it was accidentally discovered by chemist, James Schlatter while working for the drug company GD Searle & Company. It was created as an anti-ulcer pharmaceutical drug, but the chemist discovered it had a sweet taste, so the drug company switched its application to the FDA from a drug to a food.

USA - Bloomberg reports that Citigroup has failed the Fed’s new round of stress tests: Citigroup Inc’s capital plan was among five that failed Federal Reserve stress tests, while Goldman Sachs Group Inc and Bank of America Corp passed only after reducing their requests for buybacks and dividends. Citigroup, as well as US units of Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc, HSBC Holdings Plc and Banco Santander SA, failed because of qualitative concerns about their processes, the Fed said today in a statement. Zions Bancorporation was rejected as its capital fell below the minimum required. The central bank approved plans for 25 banks. In reality, Citi “flat lined” – went totally bust – in 2008. It was insolvent.

And former FDIC chief Sheila Bair said that the whole bailout thing was really focused on bringing a very dead Citi back from the grave.

CHINA - A new report from the World Health Organization details how 7 million people are dying from air pollution every year and 40 percent of those are dying from China’s pollution. Too often, politicians treat pollution as just some trade off for jobs, but it has a more lethal cost that most people do not appreciate. China is the nightmare scenario of that environmental meltdown as we have previously discussed. At the same time, China has exported its surveillance technology to help nations like Ethiopia suppress dissent and free speech. According to the WHO, air pollution now causes more deaths worldwide than AIDS, diabetes and road injuries combined. Chinese air pollution is now degrading the air of other countries and radically increasing the death toll.

USA - Forty-eight hours after a recent windstorm blew a wall of tumbleweeds into his community on the high plains of Colorado, Robert McClintock and his neighbors were still working to clear away heaps of the spiny plant. "It was crazy. Some piles were more than 10 feet high," said McClintock, 38, as he and other residents in the town of Fountain, 15 miles southeast of Colorado Springs, toiled to rake up and bag stacks of the thorny weed in the subdivision. Prolonged drought, punctuated by bursts of high winds and untimely rain, has created an explosion of tumbleweeds on the rolling plains of southeastern Colorado, portions of New Mexico and the Texas panhandle this year, federal land managers say.

UK - Households face an "increasing risk" of blackouts because of an investigation into whether the energy industry is ripping off consumers, the boss of Britain’s biggest energy firm has claimed. Sam Laidlaw, Centrica chief executive, said it would now have less "enthusiasm" for investing in new power plants needed to keep the lights on, as an "inevitable consequence" of regulator Ofgem's decision to call for a full Competition and Markets Authority probe into alleged profiteering. Ofgem referred the sector to the top watchdog after concluding the firms had raised electricity and gas prices to unjustifiably high levels, leaving millions of consumers out of pocket.

UK - Two people in England have developed tuberculosis (TB) after contact with pet cats in the first ever recorded cases of cat-to-human transmission, officials have said. The two human cases are linked to nine cases of the Mycobacterium bovis infection in cats in Berkshire and Hampshire last year, according to Public Health England (PHE). Veterinarians believe domestic cats could be catching the disease by venturing into badger setts or from rodents that have been in badger setts.

ISRAEL - The Palestinian Authority (PA) Minister of Religious Affairs Mahmoud Al-Habbash and the former Chief Justice of the PA's Religious Court both recently declared that the PA's Islamic belief and political position is that Jews are prohibited from praying at the Western Wall of the Temple Mount. Palestinian Media Watch has documented that the PA denies Israel's history and rights in Jerusalem, but these statements by top religious leaders go even further.

VATICAN - Assuming Pope Francis makes it to Israel on his planned trip in May and is not delayed by the ongoing strike by Foreign Ministry workers, his stay will include visits to the Church of the Nativity, a Catholic site, as well as to the Temple Mount, where he will visit the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and the Western Wall.

GERMANY - The last bastion is tumbling. Even the venerable Bundesbank is edging crablike towards quantitative easing. It seems that tumbling inflation in Germany itself has at last shaken the monetary priesthood out of its ideological certainties. Or put another way, the Pfennig has dropped that euroland is just one Chinese shock away from a deflation trap, an outcome that would play havoc with the debt dynamics of southern Europe, render the euro unworkable, and ultimately inflict massive damage on Germany.

VATICAN - Pope Francis on Wednesday accepted the resignation of Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst, the bishop of Limburg, whose extravagant spending on renovations for his personal residence angered his congregation and ran afoul of the pontiff’s message of humility and modesty for the Roman Catholic Church.

USA - If you are like most Americans, paying taxes is one of your pet peeves. The deadline to file your federal taxes is coming up, and this year Americans will spend more than 7 billion hours preparing their taxes and will hand over more than four trillion dollars to federal, state and local governments. Americans will fork over nearly 30 percent of what they earn to pay their income taxes, but that is only a small part of the story.

USA - By the 19th century, the Ottoman Empire had become a has-been power whose glory days as the world’s superpower were well behind them. They had been supplanted by the French, the British, and the Russian empires in all matters of economic, military, and diplomatic strength. Much of this was due to the Ottoman Empire’s massive debt burden. In 1868, the Ottoman government spent 17% of its entire tax revenue just to pay interest on the debt.

USA - For the first time in American history, non-whites will make up half or more of the next generation, likely pushing Washington toward a bigger government — and the GOP better tone down their anti-government rhetoric if they want to win them, according to a top polling outfit. At a briefing for congressional aides hosted by the moderate Republican Ripon Society, Pew Research Vice President Michael Dimock said that the trend among younger Americans is support for government programs and acceptance of Democratic Party policies. “Their tendency is more liberal, their tendency is bigger government,” he said of so-called “millennials” born between 1979 and 1995. They will likely set the trend for the still-unnamed next generation.

UK - Teenage girls will be able to stock up on the morning-after pill under new NHS guidance which will allow young women to pre-order the drugs, despite Government fears the move will increase promiscuity. The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) will make the announcement on Wednesday despite concerns from Jeremy Hunt, the Health Secretary, and outrage from patients’ groups and campaigners. The guidance for GPs and chemists says under-25s — including girls under 16 — should be able to obtain the morning-after pill more easily, in advance of having sexual intercourse.