Venting the fury of a nation, Joan Woolard accused the millionaire bosses of Barclays of being ‘greedy bastards’.

The 75-year-old had travelled all the way from Spalding in rural Lincolnshire to the bank’s annual meeting in London to condemn the City’s bonus culture.

Mrs Woolard lambasted Barclays directors for dishing out seven-figure pay packages and demanded to know why no bankers had been jailed. Banks have brought us down – brought the entire global economy down. Yet none of you have gone to jail. ‘I don’t understand how you can sleep at night.’ The emotional speech was greeted by applause from her fellow shareholders in the audience at the Royal Festival Hall. Many were pensioners whose incomes have been decimated since the 2008 financial crash.

Sir David Walker, who took over last year as chairman to help restore the bank’s sullied reputation, responded to Mrs Woolard. He said: ‘It’s important to – with humility and modesty – recognise the extent to which those comments were recognised and approved of by others in the audience. I readily agree that Barclays overpaid in the past – it’s not going there again.’

Despite claims it is showing wage restraint, Barclays has infuriated investors by paying 428 staff more than £1 million. Last month it came under fire for trying to bury details of a £40 million jackpot shared between nine directors by announcing it on Budget day.

Floodwaters had begun an inch-by-inch retreat in inundated Peoria, Illinois, after the Illinois River crested Tuesday at 29.35 feet, eclipsing a 70-year record. In central Indiana, more heavy rain through Wednesday morning prompted a request for voluntary evacuation along the Tippecanoe River near Lafayette.

The Grand River at Grand Rapids, Michigan, which reached record levels, was expected to fall below flood stage Thursday and some of the hundreds of people evacuated were starting to return home. Along the Mississippi, the biggest concern was that the flood is expected to linger into May, potentially straining longstanding earthen levees and hastily-built sandbag walls. Rain-soaked Chicago had its wettest April on record, the National Weather Service said, according to NBCChicago.com.

In tiny Dutchtown, Missouri, flooding from the Mississippi has become such a fact of life that residents expressed hope that the Federal Emergency Management Agency would buy them out of their homes. Residents in Fargo and neighboring Moorhead, Minnesota, have been filling sandbags ahead of the expected fourth major Red River flood in the past five years after unseasonably cold weather delayed the annual thaw. But the river was still expected to peak at possibly its second-highest level on record, and flood preparations in the north-central United States follow major flooding on rivers in Illinois, Missouri, Indiana and Michigan caused by heavy rain, the AP said.

In addition to discussing the numerous conspiracies and doubts surrounding the flu shot, we’ll take a look at possible side effects, people who shouldn’t get vaccinated, and possible alternatives. It’s Somewhat Ineffective. Critics argue that there’s little evidence pointing to the effectiveness of the flu shot. The efficiency of the flu vaccine varies from season to season; a new vaccine is created each year by a small group of scientists from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Global Influenza Surveillance and Response System (GISRS) who determine the 3 most likely strains to use for development.

Each year, the viruses used to make the vaccination alter based on flu trends and scientific research. Depending on how well-matched the vaccination is with the seasonal trend and the demographics of those who are vaccinated, the effectiveness of the vaccine usually hovers between 60 and 90 percent for healthy adults, meaning that a possible 40% of people who receive the vaccination aren’t adequately protected. It’s these poor results that cause individuals like Dr Michael Osterholm, who has studied medical records and flu-related studies dating back to 1936, to express skepticism over the efficacy of the flu vaccine:

“If we don’t change our current vaccines, we will have some protection, but we will in two ways miss two very important goals: one, protecting old people at the highest risk of death and two, when the next pandemic emerges, we will miss the opportunity to protect against pandemic.” Along with a team of medical professionals, Dr Osterholm also wrote a report in which the current vaccine production was described as “slow, inexact, and outdated.”

But the frustration in her voice was clear enough after a week in which several European allies broke ranks, and in a public challenge to Germany, effectively declared the era of deficit reduction in Europe to be over. "I call it balancing the budget," the German chancellor told her audience at a book presentation. "Everyone else is using this term austerity. That makes it sound like something truly evil."

Five months before Germany holds an election, Ms Merkel finds herself under fire from European partners and the centre-left opposition at home for continuing to insist that euro members "do their homework" - Berlin-speak for reining in spending and enacting deep structural reforms. There are signs the criticism is beginning to grate. German officials turn testy when the word "austerity" is mentioned these days.

In recent months, they have deliberately adjusted their language, adopting the term "growth-friendly consolidation" to describe their policy approach. But Merkel's appearance in Berlin, and the reaction of her closest allies to suggestions by the European Commission that euro member states loosen their fiscal reins, shows Germany will not soften its position.

"Declaring an end to consolidation is absolute nonsense," Michael Fuchs, deputy leader for Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) in parliament, told Reuters. "In truth no one is really saving anyway, they're just issuing less debt than before."

All that may change with MK Miri Regev’s appointment to head the Knesset’s Internal Affairs Committee. Regev (Likud) is planning a trip to the Temple Mount in order to weigh the option of permitting Jewish prayer at the site. In announcing her plans, Regev quoted from the Biblical prophecies of Isaiah, “Even them will I bring to My holy mountain, and make them joyful in My house of prayer; their burnt-offerings and their sacrifices shall be acceptable upon Mine altar; for My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.”

Regev’s announcement has caused anger in the Arab media, where several outlets have mistakenly reported that she is planning a visit to the Al-Aqsa Mosque, located on the Temple Mount, and is planning to allow non-Muslim prayer inside the mosque. One paper cited MK Taleb Abu-Arar of the Ra’am Ta’al party as saying that Regev “is planning a tour for committee members in the Al Aqsa mosque.” Muslim groups in Israel have frequently accused Israel of planning to divide the Temple Mount or to rebuild the Temple. The Al-Aqsa Institute previously accused MK Moshe Feiglin of “defiling” the Al Aqsa mosque during a visit to the Temple Mount.

Regev has issued a clarification that she is not planning to visit the mosque or to seek to permit Jewish prayer within the mosque. She noted the difference between the Jewish approach of “a house of prayer for all peoples” and the Muslim approach, as described by MK Abu-Arar, prohibiting non-Muslims from praying in the mosque – a difference she termed “interesting.”

Designed to be administered by scientists, engineers and technicians, Technocracy insisted that politicians were not capable of making good decisions about technology they knew nothing about. If Technocracy is indeed asserting itself on today’s economic affairs, then it should become the hottest and most debated topic of the day – but it is not! That’s why this writer continues to present evidence that shows it is not only asserting itself, but it is rapidly coming to dominate the entire globalized economic system.

Hagel indicated he had been caught off guard by claims from an Israeli general this week that Syria had fired chemical agents against rebels in recent months, the AFP news agency reported. "When I was in Israel they did not give me that assessment. I guess it wasn't complete," Hagel told reporters in Cairo on a tour of the Middle East that included a three-day visit to Israel.

The United States has warned any use or transfer of chemical weapons would cross a "red line" and possibly trigger military action. Britain and France also suspect Syria has used chemical weapons but Hagel said American intelligence agencies were still evaluating information and were not yet convinced. "Suspicions are one thing, evidence is another," he said. The Pentagon chief added that "this is serious business and you want to be as sure as you can be on these kind of things".

As I have written about previously, the unemployment rate in Greece has now risen to 27 percent, which is much higher than the peak unemployment rate that the US economy experienced during the Great Depression of the 1930's. And as you will read about below, child hunger is absolutely exploding in Greece right now. Some families are literally trying to survive on pasta and ketchup.

But don't think for a moment that it can't happen here. Sadly, the truth is that child hunger is already rising very rapidly in our poverty-stricken cities. Never before have we had so many Americans unable to take care of themselves. Food stamp enrollment and child homelessness have soared to brand new all-time records, and there are actually thousands of Americans that are so poor that they live in tunnels underneath our cities.

But for millions of other Americans, the suffering is not quite so dramatic. Instead, they just watch their hopes and their dreams slowly slip away as they struggle to find a way to make it from month to month. There are millions of parents that lead lives that are filled with constant stress and anxiety as they try to figure out how to provide the basics for their children. How do you tell a child that you can't give them any dinner even though you have been trying as hard as you can?

What many families go through on a regular basis is absolutely heartbreaking. Unfortunately, more poor families slip through the cracks with each passing day, and these are supposedly times in which we are experiencing an "economic recovery". So what are things going to look like when the next major economic downturn strikes?

The secret legal authorization from the Justice Department originally applied to a cybersecurity pilot project in which the military monitored defense contractors' internet links. Since then, however, the program has been expanded by President Obama to cover all critical infrastructure sectors including energy, healthcare, and finance starting June 12.

"The Justice Department is helping private companies evade federal wiretap laws," said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, which obtained over 1,000 pages of internal government documents and provided them to CNET this week. "Alarm bells should be going off."

Germans will never foot the bill and other Europeans will not accept the loss of sovereignty that a supranational state would entail, Védrine told EurActiv.fr on the margins of the Organisation for Econonic Co-operation and Development’s New World Forum in Paris. Védrine suggested that a 'grand bargain' where Germany bailed out struggling European economies in exchange for more solidarity would never gain traction.

“For the Germans, it would mean that the entire euro zone is under German control - of the Bundestag and the Court of Karlsruhe. For others, it would mean that Germany must pay for countries in difficulty. I do not believe for a second in a supranational vision, where the nation-states transfer their competencies to a higher level and where the states will be reduced to regions.”

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has mooted in interviews the idea of a “political union” where countries ceded more sovereignty as a solution to save the euro currency. “We need more Europe, we need not only a monetary union, but we also need a so-called fiscal union, in other words more joint budget policy,” Merkel was quoted as saying June last year.

France so far has been reluctant to take a leap towards federalism but may advocate ceding some fiscal control to Germany in exchange for Eurobonds and debt-pooling under a “grand bargain”. For Germany that would be the end point of a fiscal union.

Volatile price moves ricocheted through markets for stocks, bonds, currencies and commodities around 1 pm EDT on Tuesday after a tweet purporting to be from the Associated Press said there had been two explosions at the White House and that President Barack Obama had been injured.

The move in stocks, described by one futures trader as "pure chaos," briefly wiped out about $140 billion in US market value. When it became clear that the tweet was fake, equities rebounded and more than recovered the losses - the S&P 500 index ended up 1.04 percent. The episode led some investors and traders to ask whether the increasing domination of high frequency trading means that there is an increasing danger that even highly questionable information can have a more dramatic impact than it ever could in the past.

What jolted investors and traders was the source: The Associated Press, which describes itself as "one of the largest and most trusted sources of independent newsgathering." The tweet was sent from its "verified" Twitter account.

The impact quickly started to wear off as traders began to question the veracity of the tweet. Within a few minutes, the AP had told Reuters and other news organizations that the report was "bogus" and the White House confirmed that there had been no explosions and Obama was fine. But the damage had been done, and it appears to have stirred some soul-searching among traders for whom Twitter has become an important source of information.

An inconclusive general election in February left the country in political limbo. Mr Letta said he would aim to change the course in Europe on austerity. "European policies are too focused on austerity which is no longer enough" he said, following the closed-door meeting with the president in Rome.