A bankruptcy filing by Desert Hot Springs, a city of 26,000 about 110 miles east of Los Angeles, would make it the third California city along with San Bernardino and Stockton to seek court protection from creditors. San Bernardino and Detroit - the biggest US city to seek Chapter 9 protection - are likely to set precedent on whether retirees or Wall Street bondholders suffer the most when a city goes broke.

The problems in Desert Hot Springs came to light last week when a new finance director reviewed the city's records and discovered a $3 million shortfall in its budget of $13.5 million. Amy Aguer, the interim director of finance, did not have details on how the shortfall occurred but said it was the result of higher-than-expected pension and salary costs, especially in the police department, and overly optimistic estimates of revenue.

"I believe that supporting the recovery today is the surest path to returning to a more normal approach to monetary policy," she said in remarks prepared for delivery to the US Senate Banking Committee on Thursday.

In one of his strongest-worded homilies since he was elected in March, the Argentinean pontiff said Christians who lead “a double life” by giving money to the Church while stealing from the state are sinners who deserve to be punished. Quoting from the Gospel of St Luke in the New Testament, he said “Jesus says: It would be better for him if a millstone were put around his neck and he be thrown into the sea.”

While he did not allude directly to corruption within the Catholic Church, his remarks come just days after a scandal erupted inside an ancient religious order linked to the Vatican, and as he forges ahead with a determined effort to root out cronyism within the Holy See and financial irregularities in the scandal-tainted Vatican bank.

The Pope described people engaged in corruption as “whitewashed tombs”, explaining that “they appear beautiful from the outside, but inside they are full of dead bones and putrefaction.” A life based on corruption is “varnished putrefaction”, the Pope said.

The Jesuit Pope may have been hailed for adopting a softer, more inclusive stance on sensitive subjects such as homosexuality and divorce since his election in March, but his sermons and homilies often include stern, fire-and-brimstone language and references to the Devil. It was the second time in just a few days that he had targeted the evils of corruption.

In October of 2012, Apple had replaced the iPad 3 with the iPad 4, much to the chagrin of many new iPad 3 users who has only just purchased that tablet earlier in March of that year.

I’ve long suspected that tech companies and manufacturers participate in planning the phasing out of old products by deliberately limiting the functionality of new ones and effectively slowing them down and forcing users to upgrade over time. An example of this planned obsolescence can be seen with the iPad 1. The first gen iOS tablet was introduced in 2010 and after only 3 years, it has largely become a slow and virtually obsolete device. In fact, it can only be upgraded as far as iOS 5. Most users now complain that the iPad 1 is barely usable for certain tasks beyond basic web browsing and watching movies.

Just consider how well older desktop computers (and I’m including laptops) hold up over the years, new mobile devices such as tablets and smartphones seem to not fare quite as well.

When a consumer purchases an iOS or Android handset, it seems as if the product life cycle is only about 12 months before they fall behind the technical curve and are suddenly unable to run the latest games and software. For desktop computers this is usually a longer period, perhaps 2–3 years in some cases. One has to wonder if this constant progress and rampant consumerisation is caused by the speed by which the mobile market is developing and how quickly manufacturers are innovating.

It adds: "The global currency wars are heating up again as central banks embark on a new round of easing to combat a slowdown in growth. The European Central Bank cut its key rate last week in a decision some investors say was intended in part to curb the euro after it soared to the strongest since 2011. The same day, Czech policy makers said they were intervening in the currency market for the first time in 11 years to weaken the koruna. New Zealand said it may delay rate increases to temper its dollar, and Australia warned the Aussie dollar is “uncomfortably high.”

For the most part Bloomberg's account is accurate, although it has one fundamental flaw: currency wars never left, but were merely put on hiatus as the liquidity tsunami resulting from the BOJ's [Bank of Japan] mega easing lifted all boats for a few months. And now that the world has habituated to nearly $200 billion in new flow every month (and much more when adding China's monthly new loan creation), the time to extract marginal gains from a world in which global trade continues to contract despite the ongoing surge in global liquidity, central banks are back to doing the one thing they can - printing more.

The moves threaten to spark a new round in what Brazil Finance Minister Guido Mantega in 2010 called a “currency war,” barely two months after the Group of 20 nations pledged to “refrain from competitive devaluation.”

Based on average monthly outgoings of £1,500 they would only last five days before running out of funds but, for a quarter of people, it would be almost immediate as they have no savings at all to fall back on. It is difficult to find any spare cash to save in the current climate when incomes are dropping and bills keep rising but it is important to try and build up a fund as a financial cushion.

The general rule is to have a minimum of three months’ salary to see you through any unexpected financial glitches in life. Getting into the habit of putting even small amounts into a regular saver account makes good financial sense and will mean you gradually build up a safety net – and don’t risk having to resort to building up debt.

If there were a synoptic map for diplomatic storms, the National Weather Service would be putting out a hurricane warning right now. The winds are blowing cold, tensions are on the rise and tempers are beginning to flare in the Bermuda triangle of relations between Israel, the US and the American Jewish community.

There is an obstacle in the path of the relations between Israel and the United States; one that could crack, if not smash, those relations. The harshest manifestation of the deep dispute between the two governments was Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s unbridled response to US Secretary of State John Kerry’s efforts vis-à-vis Iran on the nuclear issue.

With the parties on the threshold of signing a groundbreaking agreement in Geneva, which could pave the way to a reduction of Iran’s nuclear threat, Netanyahu continues to view the very diplomatic move itself as an existential threat, because it will leave Iran with a nuclear capability that could be transformed within a short period into bomb-making capability. “Israel is not obliged by this agreement” Netanyahu said, nudging Israel toward the status of a country that is threatening the international consensus.

This consensus could indeed be mistaken. There is still no assurance that Iran does not seek to attain a nuclear weapon; it is possible that agreements achieved in Geneva, at least in the first phase, will leave Iran quite a bit of room to continue enriching uranium, while weakening the sanctions against it.

And yet, it would be a historic mistake to seal the diplomatic channel in a way that does not allow full exploration of an end to the crisis without resorting to a military option, the chances and implications of which are impossible to predict.

Jews across the world must ratchet up pressure on their governments to stand in the way of an impending "bad deal" on Iran's nuclear program, Diaspora Affairs Minister Naftali Bennett wrote Saturday night. In a letter sent to AIPAC, Jewish Federations of North America, Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Russian Jewish Congress, and other groups, and later posted on his Facebook page, Bennett said that "the Free World stands before a fork in the road."

Bennett warned that easing of international sanctions against Iran now is a mistake that will allow the Islamic Republic to develop nuclear weapons in the near future. "It would be dangerous to lift the sanctions and accept a deal which allows Iran to retain its entire uranium-production line," Bennett wrote. "When Iran launches a nuclear missile at Rome or Tel Aviv, it will have happened only because a Bad Deal was made during these defining moments."

Bennett's letter comes as world powers and Iran meet in Geneva where they reportedly are near an agreement by which Iran will freeze uranium enrichment in return for a lifting of certain financial and trade restrictions on Iran. Israel-US relations are already strained after public disagreements on the proposed deal with Iran. Israel believes the United States is making too many concessions in the negotiations with the Islamic Republic.

"We have said to the negotiating sides that we will not answer to any threat, sanction, humiliation or discrimination. The Islamic Republic has not and will not bow its head to threats from any authority," he said during a speech at the National Assembly, Iran's ISNA news agency said.

"For us there are red lines that cannot be crossed. National interests are our red lines that include our rights under the framework of international regulations and (uranium) enrichment in Iran," he said. On Saturday, Iran and six world powers failed in talks to clinch a deal to curb Tehran's nuclear program but said differences had narrowed and they would resume negotiations in 10 days to try to end the decade-old standoff.

Rohani, who was elected in June, is the chief architect of Iran's diplomatic drive for a nuclear deal to alleviate harsh economic sanctions on its oil and banking industries. His negotiating team is pushing to agree a framework for steps to resolve US suspicions that Tehran wants nuclear weapons capability.

At a superficial level, one could be excused for assuming that Iran’s position in the nuclear negotiations with the P5+1 should not be that strong. After all, Iran violated its commitment to the international community not to work on a military nuclear program, leading to the imposition of a long list of UN and unilateral (mainly US and EU) economic and financial sanctions. Moreover, when facing the P5+1 at the negotiating table, Iran faces the combined political, military and economic strength of these six powers that far outweighs its own.

But as is quite well known, for a number of reasons that go to the structure of these talks, Iran’s bargaining position has actually proven to be quite robust. One of the less appreciated, but probably more effective bargaining tactics that Iran has employed in dealing with the international community – in the hope of further strengthening its hand – is what might be called the “frame game.” This refers to Iran’s attempts to rhetorically frame issues relating to the negotiation in a manner that is in line with its own interests and positions, and with the hope of ultimately basing them as the widely accepted interpretation.

Several rhetorical tactics employed by Iran in order to turn its own messages and interpretations into the generally accepted ones can be identified. One commonly used tactic is quite straight-forward: The incessant repetition of certain messages, in every context, and at every turn, until they begin to sound like accepted common knowledge.

This tactic has been employed regarding statements that Iran has an “inalienable right” to enrich uranium; that the international community accuses Iran of working on a military program but has never come up with evidence to support this; that Iran has answered all outstanding questions to the satisfaction of the IAEA; and that Iran has no intention of developing nuclear weapons. These statements are either untrue or only partially true, but by incessantly repeating them, Iran intends to make them sound absolutely true.

Mohammad Javad Zarif rejected US Secretary of State John Kerry's claim that Iran had been unable to accept the deal "at that particular moment". He said "no amount of spinning" could change what had happened in Geneva, but it could "further erode confidence".

Mr Zarif appeared to blame France for "gutting over half" of a US draft deal. Representatives from Iran and the so-called P5+1 - the US, UK, France, Russia and China plus Germany - will meet again on 20 November. Iran stresses that its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes only, but world powers suspect it is seeking to develop nuclear weapons.

Some reports said the latest talks failed because France had wanted to place tight restrictions on the heavy-water reactor being built at Arak; others that the Iranian government's insistence on formal recognition of its "right" to enrich uranium had been the major obstacle.

Tehran says the reactor is intended for the production of radioisotopes for medical purposes, but its spent fuel will contain plutonium suitable for use in nuclear weapons. Questions also remain over Iran's stockpile of uranium enriched to a medium level of purity, or 20%. Experts say it could be enriched to 90%, the level required for a nuclear bomb, in a relatively short time.

A delegation of high-ranking US officials arrived in Jerusalem on Sunday to update the Netanyahu government on the weekend talks in Geneva about Iran’s nuclear program. The delegation is led by Wendy Sherman, the US undersecretary for political affairs, who heads the US negotiating team on the matter.

The talks between Iran and six world powers began Thursday and continued into Saturday, in an unscheduled extension. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took his case against a nuclear accord with Iran directly to the American public on Sunday, appearing on American TV to decry "a very bad deal" being pursued by the Obama administration.

"All Iran gives is a minor concession of taking 20 percent enriched uranium and bringing it down to a lower enrichment," Netanyahu said on CBS TVs Face the Nation program. "But they could cover that within a few weeks, given the capabilities that they keep for enrichment." He added that the fact that the deal would not require Iran to dismantle uranium-enrichment centrifuges would effectively turn Iran into "a threshold nuclear power," able to build an atomic weapon quickly once it decided to do so.

While Washington has been trying to smooth relations with its closest ally in Europe, arguing that the US presidents had no clue about the eavesdropping program and that the NSA has stopped the surveillance of German leaders, fury was reignited when German newspapers exposed the White House statement as a blatant lie.

Bilateral relations have turned cold, with the US cowering in a defensive stance, while Germany is pressing ahead by utilizing its diplomatic and economic prowess. What started with an angry phone call between Merkel and US President Barack Obama developed into a diplomatic middle finger when German MP and Green Party member Christian Ströbele met NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden in Moscow on Thursday.

The top secret meeting between the two was mainly around the question of whether and under what conditions Snowden would be willing to testify on the NSA affair before an investigative committee of the German parliament or a German public prosecutor. Given that Ströbele is the most senior member in the parliamentary control committee on Germany's intelligence services, his visit holds a well-founded amount of political weight.

But German efforts to pin the US on this issue have not stopped here. Together with Brazil it has submitted an anti-spying resolution to the UN General Assembly to curb NSA surveillance. In cooperation with Paris, Berlin is demanding a "no-spying" agreement equal to the alliance known as the "Five Eyes." Germany is considering a unified position with all 27 member states to suspend free trade negotiations with the US. The amount of political and economic force Washington is facing from Berlin is mounting with every passing day and every new document leaked.

Conceived by the Intelligent Systems, Robotics and Cybernetics unit at Sandia National Laboratories, the “Multi-Modal Vehicle Concept” would travel land, sea, and air by transforming itself to accommodate different terrains. Its wings become fins as it dives into water, or underwater paddles that shed casings to reveal wheels as it moves toward land — wheels with the ability to jump 30 feet into the air. An entire campaign could be conducted by a remote operator or, more likely, semi-autonomously.

As it stands now, carrying out a similar mission would require coordinating a team of unmanned aerial, undersea, and ground vehicles made by different manufacturers with different communications systems. It would take careful planning to make sure all vehicles are in place at the right time. But Sandia says that because the Multi-Modal Vehicle is designed modularly and works off one interface, it won’t be subject to those same hang-ups, and that it can adapt mid-mission as conditions change.

“The real value added [of the Multi-Modal Vehicle] is that it allows maximum flexibility in highly complex missions without the concern over whether or not all of the vehicles are positioned just right,” said Jon Salton, a Sandia engineer working on the project. Multi-Modal Vehicle does have its limitations. Because it sheds parts and material as it transforms from one mode to another, recovery is almost impossible — making every mission an expensive one-way trip.