Hordes of the brown rats have escaped flooded drains across the south of England after storms unleashed torrential downpours on vast swathes of the country. The rodents are seeking refuge in homes where there is a ready supply of food and warm shelter to be found in lofts. Pest control firms have reportedly been in high demand in the worst hit areas, as terrified families face another problem to contend with.

The rats are resistant to normal poisons and can transmit life-threatening diseases to humans and farm animals. A study by University of Reading’s Rodenticide Resistance Action Group involving testing the tails of hundreds of rats killed in Berkshire and Oxfordshire, found that many of the rodents were resistant to common forms of poison used by local authorities and professional pest controllers, farmers and gamekeepers.

Other EU countries allow the use of potent poisons, brodifacoum and flocoumafen outside. But in the UK fears over the effect the poisons will have on other wildlife, including owls who feed on rats, has prompted widespread studies by experts.

The group formally submitted its application to a panel that oversees the Capitol grounds, including an artist’s rendering that depicts Satan as Baphomet, a goat-headed figure with horns, wings and a long beard that’s often used as a symbol of the occult. In the rendering, Satan is sitting in a pentagram-adorned throne with smiling children next to him.

“The monument has been designed to reflect the views of Satanists in Oklahoma City and beyond,” temple spokesman Lucien Greaves said in a statement. “The statue will also have a functional purpose as a chair where people of all ages may sit on the lap of Satan for inspiration and contemplation.”

The Satanic Temple maintains that the Oklahoma Legislature’s decision to authorize a privately funded Ten Commandments monument at the Capitol opened the door for its statue. The Ten Commandments monument was placed on the north steps of the building in 2012, and the Oklahoma chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union has sued to have it removed. Similar requests for monuments have been made by a Hindu leader in Nevada, an animal rights group and the satirical Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

The push by The Satanic Temple has rankled elected leaders in this conservative state known as the buckle of the Bible Belt, who say such a proposal would never be approved by the commission. “I think you’ve got to remember where you are. This is Oklahoma, the middle of the Heartland,” said Representative Don Armes, Republican for Faxon. “I think we need to be tolerant of people who think different than us, but this is Oklahoma, and that’s not going to fly here.”

The special fascination of ThyssenKrupp's new Type 218SG submarine is not immediately apparent. It only becomes clear at the sight of the delicate, detailed engineering at its stern. That's where the "air independent propulsion system" is installed, connected directly with a gearless Permasyn motor. Built to glide through the sea almost noiselessly, the submarine is quieter and more durable than any other conventional model.

These are ideal capabilities for a war machine built to function in the depths of seemingly endless waters, over routes that can be navigated without interruption for longer than ever before. It is a design suitable for the largest of all oceans: the Pacific. At the end of November, Singapore, an authoritarian city-state on the edge of the crisis regions of the West Pacific, ordered the first two Type 218SG submarines to be released by German firm ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems (TKMS). The custom-designed machines are to be delivered to the Singapore Navy by 2020. The deal cost the country €1.6 billion ($2.18 billion), which will go directly into the German economy.

The deal is also a contribution to the arms race for military dominance in the Pacific. To underscore its interests, China has already sent its first aircraft carrier cruising over the South China Sea and presented a stealth jet. Japan and the United States are strengthening their engagement in the West Pacific. Vietnam is arming itself with submarines, frigates and fighter jets. Singapore's neighbour Malaysia is involved in scuffles over islands with the Chinese People's Republic.

Even Russia is involved: Last summer they engaged in joint naval exercises with China -- in the Sea of Japan. The entire region is expected to become one of the world's most important focal points for security policy.

By early January, the Dead Sea fell to 427.82 meters below sea level, three centimeters lower than the 427.79 m. below sea level measured the month before, according to Dead Sea and Arava Science Center researcher Eli Raz, citing raw data from the Water Authority’s Hydrological Services.

In comparison, he stressed, Lake Kinneret (Sea of Galilee) celebrated an increase of 11 cm. in the same time period.The additional drop in water level of the Dead Sea brings the basin to 0.93 m. below its level one year ago, the Hydrological Services data said.

Another huge problem with the EU is its acute lack of transparency. Staggering as it may seem, in the last 20 years the Union has not passed a single audit. Indeed, so opaque is the state of its finances that in 2002 Marta Andreasen, the first ever professional accountant to serve as the Commission’s Chief Accountant, refused to sign off the organization’s 2001 accounts, citing concerns that the EU’s accounting system was “open to fraud.” After taking her concerns public, Andreasen was suspended and then later sacked by the Commission.

However, by far the EU’s greatest — and certainly most dangerous — structural flaw is its gaping democratic deficit. To paraphrase Nigel Farage, the stridently anti-EU British MEP, not only is the EU undemocratic, it is fundamentally anti-democratic. While Farage may be treated as little more than an eccentric court jester by the vast bulk of the mainstream media — both in the UK and on the continent — his ideas are fast gaining ground among voters.

A House of Lords committee has cast doubt on the prospects of the bill the Conservatives are seeking to use to guarantee a European referendum in the next Parliament. David Cameron has promised to renegotiate Britain’s relationship with the EU then put the new deal to the people in a referendum after the next election. The Conservatives will make that promise a central part of their campaigning until the next general election.

To answer public doubts about whether that vote will ever be held, the Conservatives are attempting to pass a new law that would commit whoever is in power in the next Parliament to hold a referendum by the end of 2017. Because the Liberal Democrats have withheld support, the law is being taken through Parliament not as Government legislation but as a private member’s bill.

MPs have expressed "extreme concern" that drug manufacturers appear to only publish around 50% of completed trial results and warned that the practice has "ramifications for the whole of medicine". Their conclusions have emerged in a public accounts committee report which examined the Department of Health's decision to spend £424 million on stockpiling the flu drug Tamiflu, before writing off £74 million because of poor record keeping.

The MPs found that experts failed to agree on how well Tamiflu works, but discussions were hampered because important information was held back. Richard Bacon, a senior member of the committee, said, "Research suggests that the probability of completed trials being published is roughly 50%. And trials which gave a favourable verdict are about twice as likely to be published as trials giving unfavourable results.This is of extreme concern to this committee.”

In the 1970s the establishment was screaming about a coming ice age. In the 1980s into the 1990s they were yelling about holes in the ozone layer and how people would be fried to death by solar radiation. Now for the past few decades they have been promoting the threat of global warming as the next looming environmental disaster. The one thing that all of these alleged environmental problems have in common is that they are complete and total lies. We never saw an ice age, people did not get fried from solar radiation and global warming of any legitimate significance is not occurring.

These are invented environmental problems created by statist elites so they can push laws to restrict and control what people can and cannot do under the guise of environmental protection. Many ask why so many scientists accept the notion that man-made carbon emissions are causing the earth to get warmer. This is actually a talking point the global warming propagandists like to use when trying to make their case. The answer to this question is pretty straight forward. Scientists go along with the scam because if they don’t then their research funding will get pulled.

By going along with this fraud they continue getting financing for their projects so it is much easier for them to go along with the big lie versus going against the grain of established orthodoxy. Some scientists have even gone so far as to doctor and manipulate data so it would help substantiate the hoax. With billions of dollars funnelled into this scheme it is easy to see why some would sell their soul for this lie.

The King of Spain admitted privately in a meeting with the then British ambassador to Madrid, Sir Richard Parsons, that it was "not in Spain's interest to recover Gibraltar in the near future". If it did so, "King Hassan would immediately reactivate the Moroccan claim to Ceuta and Melilla," the monarch, who celebrated his 76th birthday on Sunday, reportedly said during the meeting in Madrid in July 1983.

Details of the meeting were released last week by the National Archives in Kew as part of a swathe of secret government papers declassified under the 30-year rule and are likely to cause some discomfort after a year that saw Spain's government reiterate calls for talks over sovereignty.

“The Germans just seem to be very irritated with the US making suggestions. They view the world totally differently,” Lachman said. The Germans believe that their balanced budget and structural reforms have served them very well and remain the right prescription for weaker euro-area countries, he said.

The US believes this belt-tightening medicine is “very problematic for quite a number of countries in the periphery,” which continue to see high unemployment, weak growth and falling prices, Lachman said. A Treasury official told reporters last week that Lew will discuss details of economic reforms announced last month by the coalition German government and will focus on which steps could boost domestic demand.

If Lew’s visit follows past trips from Obama administration officials to Germany since the 2008 financial crisis, the talks between Lew and German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble will be another “dialogue of the deaf,” Lachman said. Lew will meet with Schaeuble in Berlin after talks with senior French government officials in Paris on Tuesday. He will stop in Lisbon for talks with Portuguese officials at the end of his rapid three-day visit.

Europe remains the “big worry” in the global economy while both the US and Japanese economies are appearing to strengthen somewhat, Lachman said. While European officials have said the region has turned the corner, Lachman argued in a recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal that such optimism might be premature.

According to Yediot Aharonot, Regev will formally submit the law on Sunday, to the Ministerial Committee on Legislation, whose role it is to decide what bills will enjoy the Coalition's support in the Knesset plenum. The bill would forbid the prime minister from carrying out diplomatic negotiations on the status of the Holy City of Jerusalem, or on the so-called “refugee issue,” unless the Knesset gives him permission to do so ahead of time.

"Negotiations on these issues, which begin without Knesset approval, will not be binding,” the bill states. “In such a case, its results will not be binding on any governmental body, nor will it or its results have any validity vis-a-vis the state of Israel, the government of Israel, or other governmental authorities of the state of Israel.”

Nonetheless, both Republicans and Democrats in Washington continue to maintain that America requires more unskilled, cheap labor via immigration, despite the loss of 6 million factory jobs between 2000 and 2009. That has been the pitch from immigration reform advocates, who insist that the cure-all for the American economy is an endless supply of less educated migrants to fill “the jobs Americans won’t.”

Meanwhile, Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley (Democrat) is pushing a $4.5 million effort to retrain workers in other industries, including “green jobs.” While 85 former workers at the plant have taken advantage of the program, just 49 have been able to secure permanent employment.

It was the last procedural hurdle for the 67-year-old before taking over from outgoing chair Ben Bernanke on 1 February. She is the first woman to lead the central bank in its 100-year history. President Barack Obama welcomed the vote, saying in a statement: "The American people will have a fierce champion who understands that the ultimate goal of economic and financial policymaking is to improve the lives, jobs and standard of living of American workers and their families."

She will face a difficult road ahead once Mr Bernanke steps down after eight years in office. Although most analysts expect Ms Yellen to continue Mr Bernanke's efforts to boost the US economy by keeping short term interest rates low, she will eventually face unchartered territory once the central bank begins to ease back on its extraordinary measures.

Ms Yellen was a strong supporter of the Fed's current stimulus efforts - a $75 billion a month bond buying programme known as quantitative easing. By buying bonds, particularly mortgage bonds, the Fed has tried to keep long term interest rates low to spur housing activity and encourage investors to spend, rather than save, their money. In doing so, the Fed has amassed close to $4 trillion in assets since it first initiated its stimulus efforts in the wake of the 2008-2009 financial collapse - a fact that some senators criticised during Monday's confirmation hearings.

Krauss-Maffei Wegmann and Rheinmetall were among the companies named. These deals helped inflate the country's debts and were, therefore, in part responsible for escalating the crisis. Others, such as Siemens, had also paid millions in bribes to land lucrative contracts from Athens.

According to a Greek journalist, who has done extensive research on corruption in Greece, German companies are the "main beneficiaries" of Greece joining the Euro zone because they subsequently profited from highly lucrative Greek government contracts. The sumptuous contracts helped plunge Greece into crisis while they, at the same time, helped the German industry to blaze its trail to the predominant position in Europe.

That is because the card giants, owners of the processing networks that handle electronic payments, have quietly decided not to enforce their rules, according to people familiar with their strategies.

Instead, the people said, the companies are following the lead of the federal government, which has said it won't challenge state laws that decriminalize the drug.

Visa said in a statement that it follows federal law and tries to prevent the network from being used unlawfully. But it added that "given the federal government's position and recognizing this is an evolving legal matter with different standards applicable in different states, our local merchant acquirers are best suited to make any determination about potential illegality."