Travel by vehicle or foot will be dangerous during and after the storm, due to icy roads and falling trees and power lines. Metro areas from Dallas to Little Rock, Arkansas; Cape Girardeau, Missouri; Memphis, Tennessee; Evansville, Indiana; and Louisville, Kentucky; will be affected by a period of freezing rain that will build up on exposed surfaces, including trees and power lines.

In some locations, the storm has the potential to allow one half an inch or more of ice to accumulate on the ground and accrue on elevated surfaces. The storm is similar in size and may be similar in magnitude to a storm just several years ago. According to Jesse Ferrell, weather expert and storm chaser for AccuWeather.com, "This will be the worst ice storm for the United States since January 2009 and will affect many of the same areas as that storm."

The New York Times reported that 1.4 million homes and businesses lost power in that late January storm. Lingering, and in some cases intensifying, cold air in the wake of the storm will prevent the ice from melting quickly and can make immediate cleanup difficult, if not impossible. Many road crews have limited ice-melting compounds at their disposal.

Adding to potential damage or complicating cleanup further, a second round of ice will follow in some areas over the weekend, as a second large storm rolls in from the Southwestern states.

Crowds paid tribute, dancing and singing in front of Mr Mandela's former home in Soweto throughout the night. Flags flew at half mast after President Jacob Zuma announced his death in a late night national TV address. Mr Mandela spent 27 years in jail before becoming South Africa's first black president in 1994.

Eight banks have agreed penalties with the European Commission (EC) over allegations they formed cartels to fix two key rates used to set the price of trillions of dollars of financial products from mortgages to complex financial products.

RBS will pay €391 million (£325 million) for its role in the attempted rigging of the Yen Libor and Euribor - the Tokyo and euro area equivalents of the London interbank offered rate (Libor). But Barclays is immune from a potential €690 million (£573 million) penalty after blowing the whistle on the Euribor cartel. The sanctions - the first from the EC on rate manipulation - are the highest yet for European antitrust enforcement.

Barclays and state-backed RBS have already been fined following an investigation into the rigging of Libor, paying penalties of £290 million and £391 million respectively. Joaquin Almunia, EC vice-president in charge of competition policy, said: 'What is shocking about the Libor and Euribor scandals is not only the manipulation of benchmarks, which is being tackled by financial regulators worldwide, but also the collusion between banks who are supposed to be competing with each other.'

'Today's decision sends a clear message that the commission is determined to fight and sanction these cartels in the financial sector.'

Alan Rusbridger, editor of the British paper, was testifying in front of a British parliamentary committee Tuesday when lawmakers suggested that the Guardian had helped terrorists by revealing the clandestine activity conducted by the American and British intelligence agencies.

Critics have already compared the MPs line of questioning to the infamous anti-communism hearings conducted by US Senator Joseph McCarthy at the height of the Cold War. Writing in the Guardian, Ben Emmerson, the UN special rapporteur on counter-terrorism, said Tuesday’s hearing was disheartening for those hoping for less surveillance in the future.

“The astonishing suggestion that this sort of journalism can be equated with aiding and abetting terrorism needs to be scotched decisively,” he wrote. “Attacking the Guardian is an attempt to do the bidding of the services themselves, by distracting attention from the real issues. It is the role of a free press to hold government to account, and yet there have even been outrageous suggestions from some conservative MPs that the Guardian should face a criminal investigation.”

In a letter to the British Medical Journal, a group of doctors and senior academics from the Medical Research Council and two leading universities said that the effect of Government policies on vulnerable people’s ability to afford food needed to be “urgently” monitored.

A surge in the number of people requiring emergency food aid, a decrease in the amount of calories consumed by British families, and a doubling of the number of malnutrition cases seen at English hospitals represent “all the signs of a public health emergency that could go unrecognised until it is too late to take preventative action,” they write.

Despite mounting evidence for a growing food poverty crisis in the UK, ministers maintain there is “no robust evidence” of a link between sweeping welfare reforms and a rise in the use of food banks. However, publication of research into the phenomenon, commissioned by the Government itself, has been delayed, amid speculation that the findings may prove embarrassing for ministers.

It was after 4:30 am, the air cold, the sky black. As they got their bearings, the half-lit bell tower of St Michael’s Golden-Domed Monastery beckoned. Inside, the fleeing demonstrators found more than warmth and safety. They had arrived in a bastion of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyivan Patriarchate, where they were welcomed not only on a humanitarian basis but because the church, driven by its own historical tensions with Moscow, is actively supporting their uprising. It strongly favors European integration to enable Ukraine to break free from Russia’s grip, and has joined the calls to oust the Ukrainian government.

In recent days, the Kyivan Patriarchate, which controls St Michael’s, has emerged as a powerful ally of the thousands of protesters demanding the resignation of President Viktor F Yanukovich and the revival of the far-reaching political and trade accords with the European Union that he has refused to sign. Some priests have even led prayer sessions in Independence Square, which has been occupied by protesters.

“Our church is together with the people,” the Kyivan Patriarchate’s 84-year-old leader, Filaret, said in an interview. “It supports Ukraine entering the European Union. We pray to God that he will help us enter the European Union in order to keep our statehood, to keep peace and to improve the life of the people.”

In extremely high-security environments it is common practice to create an “air gap” between PCs containing sensitive information and others which are connected to the internet, in order to prevent remote malicious attacks. This research proves that it would be possible to use computer speakers and microphones to bridge this gap and send sensitive information back to a remote attacker, which authors warned was a “considerable threat to computer security”.

In the proof-of-concept attack from Germany's Fraunhofer Institute for Communication, Information Processing and Ergonomics, researchers were able to use the built-in speakers and microphones of computers to transmit passwords and other data at a rate of 20 bits per second over a distance of almost 20 metres, allowing the malware to “secretly leak critical data to the outside world”.

“If we want to exploit a rigorously hardened and tested type of computing system or networks of this type of computing system, we have to break new ground,” said the paper.

Strawberries pollinated by bees were of far higher commercial value than fruit that was self-pollinated or pollinated by the wind. They were heavier, firmer and redder and had a longer shelf life, researchers in Germany found.

Bee benefits may partly be explained by the effects on achenes, the tiny seeds that dimple the strawberry's sides. Bee-pollinated strawberries had far more fertilised achenes than other fruit, because the insects, with their typical diligence, pollinated all of the plant, rather than just part of it.

The achenes are important because they control levels of a plant hormone called auxin, which in turn influences a second hormone called gibberelic acid. Higher levels of the two hormones delay fruit-softening proteins called expansins. Bees are under threat from hive "collapse", a disorder that some have linked to pesticides and pollution.

The move is being spearheaded by a Harvard university professor and if successful could see other animals also given human rights. Steven Wise, President of the Nonhuman Rights Project said: "In this case, we are claiming that chimpanzees are autonomous."

"That is, being able to self-determine, be self-aware, and be able to choose how to live their own lives. Once we prove that chimpanzees are autonomous, that should be sufficient for them to gain legal personhood and at least have their fundamental interests protected by human rights."

Campaigners say that chimps have all the rights of habeas corpus – according to law, science and history – and therefore their detention can be ruled as unlawful and they should be freed. Mr Wise, who lectures on the subject at Harvard, said if the case succeeds similar ones for dolphins, gorillas, orangutans, whales and elephants could follow.

According to KATU-TV, Madison Root and her father were selling bags of the hand-cut, hand-wrapped Christmas favorite Saturday morning next to the Skidmore Fountain in downtown Portland, where the city holds a weekly market. Everything was going well until a security guard told her that she had to stop selling due to a city ordinance that bans such activity in a park "except as expressly permitted under the terms of a lease, concession or permit."

The guard then told Madison that she could sell her mistletoe outside the boundaries of the park where the fountain and the market are located, away from the crowds, or she could simply ask for donations to cover the cost of her braces.

"I don't want to beg! I would rather work for something than beg," Madison told KATU reporter Dan Cassuto. "It's crazy. People can get money for pot. But I can't get money for braces. I'm working for this! They're just sitting down on their butts all day asking for pot." A Portland Parks Bureau spokesman told the station that begging is a form of free speech and is protected by the First Amendment.

For his customers, Spitznagel's multi-billion-dollar fund acts as an insurance policy against the next meltdown in the financial system. When the market is doing well, they lose modest amounts of money. But they cash in as soon as prices take a nosedive, even when all other investments are going up in smoke. The hedge fund manager has made a lot of money in the past with his prognoses, and he is convinced that substantial turbulence is on the cards for the near future. "The setup is there for it," says Spitznagel.

Since the last crisis, central banks around the world have pumped trillions into the economic cycle, both by lowering interest rates and buying up securities in the markets. For central bankers like United States Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, the aim of the policy was to stimulate the economy and rescue banks that could no longer raise capital elsewhere. But this "grand monetary experiment," as Spitznagel calls it, has side effects.

Because it makes borrowing cheaper than even before and saving all but pointless, it encourages investors to pursue reckless deals. Share prices are exploding on stock exchanges around the world, while real estate prices are rising at an alarmingly fast pace. And many US companies are now in as much debt as they were before the financial crisis.

To take Spitznagel's metaphor a step further, the flood of money coming from central bankers acts like a highly aggressive, artificial fertilizer. It generates enormous yields in the short term, but eventually leads to potential devastation. Other tech stocks are also doing extremely well, just as they were in the heyday of the New Economy. Amazon's share price has almost doubled in two years, while electric car manufacturer Tesla has gained 300 percent in market value in the same period.

"It is a complete joke," says hedge fund manager Spitznagel. He explains that the market is driven by investors' confidence that prices will continue to rise in the future. He says it is "a self-reinforcing process entirely disconnected from economic reality."

Which means that as of a few days ago, gold is now trading well below not only the cash cost, but is rapidly approaching the marginal cash cost of $1125… Of course, should the central banks of the world succeed in driving the price of gold to or below its costs of production (repressing yet another asset class into stocks) then we fear the repercussions will backfire from a combination of bankruptcies, unemployment, and as we have already seen in Africa – severe social unrest.

It is at that point where one must apply the New Normal supply and demand curve, when one can predict a $0 per ounce price for gold, as physical demand continues unabated, while actual physical, not paper, production has now started going offline.

Joking aside, not even Bernanke, Yellen, or all the paper Gold ETFs in the world will be able to do much to suppress gold prices from reaching their fair value when gold production hits a standstill, and when demand, especially by China, is still in the hundreds of tons each year.

He accused Eurocrats of trying to ‘subvert’ the position of nation states and said they have ‘lost touch’ with the people of Europe. Mr Grieve, usually a moderate voice who urges other ministers to be more positive about Brussels, said he was ‘frankly astonished’ at how EU institutions have attempted ‘to reduce the freedom of action of sovereign member states’.

Addressing a meeting of EU lawyers, judges and advocates in Brussels last night, Mr Grieve said: ‘Time and time again, we see cases where European institutions engage in “turf wars” – in some cases, quite flagrantly. To put it bluntly, the UK plays by the rules and we expect others to do so too. This is something we take very seriously. We have brought a number of legal challenges to protect our interests and we will not shy away from doing so in future.’

He also accused the European Commission of “arrogance or aloofness” in pressing for pay rises for its own officials. He spoke out after Supreme Court Judge Lord Sumption criticised the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) for ‘straying beyond its remit into policy-making and issues that most people would regard as inherently political’.

‘I am going to Brussels to speak – partly in French – as a lawyer, to lawyers and spell out what lies at the base of Britain’s and other member states’ frustrations with the EU.’ The European Commission has declined to comment.

Each week, hundreds of Jews ascend the creaky wooden ramp built above the Western Wall and enter what is often called the most contested real estate on Earth. Many then embark upon a game of hide-and-seek with their police escorts — whispering forbidden prayers while pretending to talk into cellphones, and getting in quick but banned bows by dropping coins and then bending to pick them up.

Their proposals, long dismissed as extremist, are now being debated in the Israeli parliament and embraced by an expansionist wing in the ruling coalition government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. These political leaders, many in Netanyahu’s party, want Israel to assert more, not less, control over the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Old City, including the place known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as Haram al-Sharif, or the Noble Sanctuary.

“We’re looking for it to be divided between Jews and Muslims,” said Aviad Visoli, chairman of the Temple Mount Organizations, which claims 27 groups under its umbrella. “Today, Jews realize the Western Wall is not enough. They want to go to the real thing.”

“This place belongs to the Muslim people, and no others have the right to pray here,” said Sheik Azzam al-Khatib, director of the Waqf, the Islamic trust that administers the site. Khatib said the mosque is a unifying symbol for the world’s 1.2 billion Muslims. “If they try to take over the mosque, this will be the end of time,” Khatib warned. “This will create rage and anger not only in the West Bank but all over the Islamic world — and only God knows what will happen.”

The Labour peer and former security minister under Gordon Brown said Britain’s proud naval tradition was at risk from bureaucratic and political neglect. He told the House of Lords the three frigates planned by the Ministry of Defence were insufficient.

As Admiral Alan West, he was Chief of the Naval Staff from 2002 to 2006. Today, he asked Defence Minister Lord Astor of Hever: "Have we really decided that this great maritime nation of ours only needs 13 frigates? "Only four years ago, 18 was considered too risky. At the time of the Falklands we had 40."