It's the latest of about 300 store closures in the US that Sears has made since 2010. The news follows announcements earlier this month of multiple store closings from major department stores JC Penney and Macy's. Further signs of cuts in the industry came Wednesday, when Target said that it will eliminate 475 jobs worldwide, including some at its Minnesota headquarters, and not fill 700 empty positions.

Experts said these headlines are only the tip of the iceberg for the industry, which is set to undergo a multiyear period of shuttering stores and trimming square footage.

Shoppers will likely see an average decrease in overall retail square footage of between one-third and one-half within the next five to 10 years, as a shift to e-commerce brings with it fewer mall visits and a lesser need to keep inventory stocked in-store, said Michael Burden, a principal with Excess Space Retail Services. "I believe we're going to hear a lot more announcements in the coming months," Burden said. It's "an indication that there is a shift in the retail environment and it's one that will continue."

It is a spiritual initiative in which Christian communities have participated for over one hundred years, and is a time dedicated to prayer for the unity of all baptised persons, in accordance with Christ’s will “that they may all be one”. Every year an ecumenical group from one region in the world, under the guidance of the World Council of Churches and the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, suggests the theme and prepares the activities for the Prayer Week.

This year the initiatives were prepared by the Churches and Ecclesiastical Communities of Canada, who have proposed the question posed by St Paul to the Christians of Corinth: “Has Christ been divided?”

“No, Christ is not divided”, said the Pope. “But we must recognise sincerely, although with suffering, that our communities continue to experience divisions, which are a scandal. There is no other word for it: the divisions between Christians are a scandal”.

Evoking the words of St Paul, he added, “Each one of you is saying, ‘I am of Paul’, and ‘I of Apollos’, and ‘I of Cephas’, and ‘I of Christ’. Even those who named Christ as their leader were not applauded by Paul, because they used Christ’s name to separate themselves from others within the Christian community. But the name of Christ creates communion and unity, not division!”

Whilst chairing a discussion between pro- and anti-Syrian regime pundits, Faisal Al-Qassem asked of the Syrian army, “Why don’t they learn from the Israeli army, which tries, through great efforts, to avoid shelling areas populated by civilians in Lebanon and Palestine [sic]? Didn’t Hezbollah take shelter in areas populated by civilians because it knows that the Israeli air force doesn’t bomb those areas?”

“Why doesn’t the Syrian army respect premises of universities, schools, or inhabited neighborhoods?” he continued, in a video shared by the Breitbart website. Al-Qassem, who is famous throughout the Arab world for his provocative style, also noted the differences between the way Israeli and western forces deal with violent demonstration, as opposed to the Syrian security forces.

“The Israeli army, if it wanted to break up a demonstration, would have used water cannons or rubber bullets, not rockets or explosive barrels as happens in Aleppo today,” he said. Al-Qassem’s choice of Israel to compare favorably to the Assad regime in Syria was likely meant to be particularly insulting to Assad, due to Al-Jazeera’s usual portrayal of Israel as a brutal oppressor.

"In every annual speech to parliament I say that, in my judgement as foreign minister, we should join. I am leader of this process because, politically, we want to be inside," Sikorski told a group of journalists in Brussels on Monday (20 January).

"Our judgement is that in the next decade the real European union will be inside the eurozone. And we want to be part of that." He acknowledged that the political, financial and economic case for joining the single currency will have to be made to the Polish people, whose support for the move has slumped from a high of 80 percent five years ago, at the outset of the economic crisis, to 30 percent today.

The deal includes new rules to limit speculation on financial products linked to what we eat. These so-called ‘commodity derivatives’ are derived from commodities, including agricultural commodities such as wheat, corn, soybean or sugar.

In a reaction to today’s deal, Marc Olivier Herman, Oxfam's EU policy advisor, said: “Today’s decision marks a good start in tackling ‘gambling’ on food prices which are a matter of life and death to millions in the developing world. The agreement introduces limits on speculating in spite of attempts by the UK and other governments to block any meaningful reform.”

“The Parliament has succeeded in making significant improvements to the legislation. Limits to the bets that speculators can make will apply to contracts traded ‘over the counter’ and throughout the lifetime of the contracts. This is good news for millions in the developing world, who can spend up to 75 per cent of their income on food, as well as producers who rely on stable food prices. It is also important for people across Europe struggling to cope with high and volatile prices.”

Last Tuesday, on the sidelines of a Social Democrat party caucus in Berlin, German Justice Minister Heiko Maas ran into Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier. Maas pulled his fellow SPD member aside and warned him about what could become a difficult matter. "Something may be coming our way," Maas whispered, and noted that the foreign minister could be affected as well.

Germany's federal prosecutor, Maas intimated, is currently considering opening an investigation into the scandal surrounding the surveillance of Chancellor Angela Merkel's mobile phone by US intelligence. It's a step that would undoubtedly be considered an affront by the Americans.

Steinmeier listened attentively and nodded several times, but he didn't say much. At the start of his second posting as foreign minister (he previously served for four years from 2005-2009), Steinmeier is facing the extremely tricky problem of new discord in German-American relations. The current difficulties got their start in October, when SPIEGEL reported that US intelligence services were interested in Merkel's mobile phone. When the magazine published its report, the National Security Agency's curiosity suddenly became an open act of provocation.

In short, US President Barack Obama allowed Angela Merkel, his "friend," to be eavesdropped upon. It didn't go uncommented either. "We're no longer living in the Cold War," Merkel's spokesman countered. The chancellor also complained personally to Obama. Merkel staffers said Obama's reaction had been contrite, that he said he would quickly rectify the situation and that he offered far-reaching concessions. But Germany has been waiting in vain ever since.

The Government challenged the new powers, granted to the EU's Paris based regulator in 2012, to overrule national financial authorities in order to police financial markets as "unlawful" and an "institutional revolution".

In a binding ruling that will have implications for all new financial regulations from Brussels and that is a significant setback for George Osborne, the Chancellor, the European Court of Justice [ECJ] has thrown out Britain's objection that the new powers go beyond the EU's treaties.

"The power of the European Securities and Markets Authority (Esma) to adopt emergency measures on the financial markets of the Member States in order to regulate or prohibit short selling is compatible with EU law," ECJ judges ruled on Wednesday. "As all the pleas in law relied on by the United Kingdom have been rejected, the court dismisses the action in its entirety."

A spokesman said the Government would "consider the judgment in detail and respond, in full, at a later date". "We are disappointed that the ECJ has chosen not to uphold the UK's challenge on this case and, in doing so, has rejected the opinion of its own advocate general," said the spokesman.

The American military is still far from fielding armies of Terminator-type robotic killers though. Ideas under discussion instead include proposals to see manned lorries and transporters replaced by supply trains of robotic vehicles. Generals are studying proposals as the US Army is to slim down from 540,000 to about 490,000 soldiers by the end of next year. Some reports suggest it could dip below 450,000 by the end of the decade.

David Cameron's plan to give the public a vote on membership of the European Union could be defeated within weeks after Labour peers tabled dozens of outlandish amendments that could halt its progress in Parliament. More than 50 amendments were tabled for the committee stage of the EU Referendum Bill, including holding a petition of a million voters, posing the questions in Cornish and giving prisoners the vote, the Telegraph has learnt.

As a private member’s Bill, it has a limited time to pass through Parliament. It can only be debated on Fridays and must be approved by both houses by February 28. Conservatives said the amendments amounted to a plot conducted on behalf of Ed Miliband to “talk the Bill to death”. That would save the Labour leader, who has refused to set out a clear position on the EU referendum, from being portrayed as anti-democratic.

The warships are traveling on a mission that will span three months. The Iranian media outlet reported that aboard the ships were 30 or so navy academy cadets who were taking part in training exercises, as part of the overall military mission, AP said. The specifics of the military mission and the ports of call — if there were any – were not mentioned in the report.

But Iran is trying to bolster its image of a strong naval power, AP said. As part of that effort, the nation’s deployed several warships off the coast of Africa in recent months to fight pirates near the Gulf of Aden and to protect ships sailing for commercial reasons.

Sailing warships to the Atlantic is a first, and it comes less than two years after Iran vowed to do just that. In 2012, the nation vowed it would have warships placed in international waters near the coast of the United States within a few years.

Researchers from the US and China — including the University of California, Irvine and Peking University — found emissions from Chinese factories are blowing across the Pacific Ocean and exacerbating poor air quality along the West Coast. The study also says some of this exported pollution is a result of US and European business decisions to buy goods made in Chinese factories instead of relying on domestic sources.

“We’ve outsourced our manufacturing and much of our pollution, but some of it is blowing back across the Pacific to haunt us,” UC Irvine Earth System scientist Steve Davis, a study coauthor, said in a prepared statement. “Given the complaints about how Chinese pollution is corrupting other countries’ air, this paper shows that there may be plenty of blame to go around.”

An ambitious task to be sure, especially for the very people who have benefited the most from the record wealth transfer of the past 5 years. Still, while these true Robin Hoods of the modern gilded age are desperate for a few minutes of humanitarian TV exposure, or at least a soundbite or two, their advice to the peasants out there is quite clear: don't get too close.

And just to make sure the appropriate distance of at least a few hundred meters to every member of the great unwashed class they are "saving" is maintained, here is the hotel in which the bleeding heart Davos billionaires are staying: a $170 million fortress surrounded by barbed wire, security cameras, motion sensors and even its own helipad. Oh, and for those dignitaries of the non-private sector staying here, guess who is picking up the bill dear taxpayers?

About two-thirds of the state is experiencing “extreme drought” at the moment, and Governor Jerry Brown says that it is “not likely to rain for several weeks”. Unfortunately for California, the truth is that the weather in the western half of the country is simply returning to historical norms. Scientists tell us that the 20th century was the wettest century in the western half of the United States in 1,000 years, and that extremely dry conditions are normally what we should expect for most areas from the Pacific Ocean to the Mississippi River.

If long-term conditions truly are “returning to normal”, then the state of California could be heading for a water crisis of unprecedented magnitude. But it is not just the state of California that should be concerned. The reality of the matter is that the produce grown in California feeds the rest of the nation. The state produces 99 percent of the artichokes grown in the US, 44 percent of asparagus, a fifth of cabbage, two-thirds of carrots, half of bell peppers, 89 percent of cauliflower, 94 percent of broccoli, and 95 percent of celery.

Leafy greens? California’s got the market cornered: 90 percent of the leaf lettuce we consume, along with 83 percent of Romaine lettuce and 83 percent of fresh spinach, come from the big state on the left side of the map. California also cranks a third of the total fresh tomatoes consumed in the US — and 95 percent of ones destined for cans and other processing purposes.

As for fruit, I get that 86 percent of lemons and a quarter of oranges come from there; its sunny climate makes it perfect for citrus, and lemons store relatively well. Ninety percent of avocados? Fine. But 84 percent of peaches, 88 percent of fresh strawberries, and 97 percent of fresh plums? Come on. Surely the other 49 states can do better. In other words, the rest of us are extremely dependent on the fruits and vegetables that the state of California grows for us.

A Colorado blogger also snapped a picture in a Safeway store referencing a nationwide shortage of specialty and organic eggs. And it seems that supplies of certain kinds of organic produce may also be temporarily limited. Jon Steffy, of Organicproducegeek.com says demand during diet season, which he calls "resolution season", is amplified. "So I think we notice it more as demand continues to grow for wholesome organic food," he said.

Experts say the primary reasons for the shortages are weather and demand. So if your favorite organic produce is in short demand right now, some good bets for availability and decent prices are winter squash and dark leafy greens.

Abe was speaking on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on Wednesday. His comments were provided by Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga after the Financial Times said Abe had told reporters that China and Japan were in a "similar situation" to Britain and Germany before 1914, whose close economic ties had not prevented the conflict.

He also said China's steady rise in military spending was a major source of regional instability, the newspaper reported. Suga said earlier in the day that Abe's comments should by no means be interpreted to mean that war between the two Asian giants was possible, noting that Abe had said dialogue and the rule of law, not armed forces and threats, were needed for peace and prosperity in Asia.

Sino-Japanese ties, long plagued by what Beijing sees as Japan's failure to atone for its occupation of parts of China in the 1930s and 1940s, have worsened recently due to a territorial row, Tokyo's mistrust of Beijing's military buildup and Abe's December visit to a shrine that critics say glorifies Japan's wartime past.