The major highway bridge linking Seattle with Canada and the rest of the Pacific Northwest region collapsed on Thursday evening - dumping a handful of vehicles and people into a river, according to the Washington State Patrol. Authorities said there were no deaths, and that three people were taken to hospital. The collapse came before sundown on a clear day.

The four-lane Interstate 5 Bridge - more than half a century old - collapsed about halfway between Seattle and Vancouver, British Columbia, according to a state trooper. The collapse will raise questions about the nation's infrastructure, which has been a popular issue with US President Barack Obama, who earlier this year warned against "raggedy" roads and wants to focus more money on rebuilding to improve the economy.

The proposal approved yesterday was seen as a compromise, since it allows gay Scouts but not gay Scout leaders. The move was an attempt to prevent a fracture of the organisation which could lead to defections by members and donors. The Scouts stressed that they would not condone sexual conduct by any Scout – gay or straight.

"The Boy Scouts of America (BSA) will not sacrifice its mission, or the youth served by the movement, by allowing the organisation to be consumed by a single, divisive and unresolved societal issue," the BSA said in a statement. Of the roughly 1,400 voting members of the BSA's National Council who cast ballots, 61 per cent supported the proposal drafted by the governing executive committee.

However, the outcome will not end the bitter debate over the Scouts' membership policy. Liberal Scout leaders, while supporting the proposal to accept gay youth, have made clear they want the ban on gay adults lifted as well. In contrast, conservatives with the Scouts, including some churches that sponsor Scout units, wanted to continue excluding gay youths, in some cases threatening to defect if the ban were lifted.

In the first terrorist murder on the British mainland since the 7/7 suicide bombings of 2005, the men attempted to behead the soldier, hacking at him like a “piece of meat” in front of dozens of witnesses, before both were shot by police who took around 20 minutes to arrive. After the killing, one of the men, believed to be a British-born Muslim convert, spoke calmly into a witness’s video phone.

Speaking with a London accent, holding a knife and a meat cleaver and with his hands dripping with blood, he said: “We swear by almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you until you leave us alone. Your people will never be safe. The only reason we have done this is because Muslims are dying by British soldiers every day.

“We must fight them as they fight us. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. I apologise that women had to witness this today but in our lands our women have to see the same. You people will never be safe. Remove your government, they don’t care about you. Do you think David Cameron is going to get caught in the street when we start busting our guns? Do you think your politicians are going to die? No, it’s going to be the average guy like you, and your children. So get rid of them. Tell them to bring your troops back so we, so you can all live in peace.”

When police did arrive, both gunmen tried to rush at the police and were shot, reportedly by a female officer.

On Sunday night, more than 100 cars were set alight, Swedish media report. Police in the deprived, largely immigrant suburb of Husby shot a man dead last week after he reportedly threatened to kill them with a machete. The founder of a local youth group told Swedish media the riots were a reaction to “police brutality.”

Earlier on Tuesday, Prime Minister Reinfeldt said: “We’ve had two nights with great unrest, damage, and an intimidating atmosphere in Husby and there is a risk it will continue. We have groups of young men who think that that they can and should change society with violence. Let’s be clear: this is not okay. We cannot be ruled by violence.” More than 80% of Husby’s 12,000 or so inhabitants are from an immigrant background, and most are from Turkey, the Middle East and Somalia.

Syria has already been dissected into three parts, according to foreign policy experts in Washington: Whereas the Assad government is seeking to consolidate its control over Syria's center and the coastal strip, Sunni and often Islamist-oriented insurgents are in control of large areas in the East and the North of the country. The Kurdish dominated areas to the northeast comprise the third region.

The German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) is proposing that Syria's division be approved. Referring to an "expert" on Turkish foreign policy, the SWP estimates that, in the long run, the Kurdish speaking regions of Syria and Iraq could be integrated into a "federalized" Turkey. The 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement's political configuration of the Middle East is, therefore, facing dissolution.

A new political configuration would allow the establishment of a "secular Sunni counterweight in opposition to a Shiite arc" (Iran and its allies) in the Middle East. The SWP recommends "making every effort" to support negotiations between Turkey and Kurdish organizations toward this objective.

Israel is one of the key players in the region that has attempted to remain quiet and let NATO handle much of the Syrian Civil War from Turkey without getting the publicity itself. Because of this, it has primarily been concerned with a defensive posture so far and the prevention in terms of restricting arms shipments to Hezbollah. But this is changing as Russia steams its way over with greater force and the US fails to play a counter-Syrian role.

Has Russia beaten the US with a decisive direct military engagement? Not yet. But all parties, whether foreign or of Syrian national origin, appear to be increasing their involvement and intensity with Syria’s dirty war.

Beginning 2014, the second Sunday in September will annually be dedicated to the commemoration of the German victims of "flight, expulsion and deportation" as a result of the Second World War. The designation of this memorial day is one of the German political establishment's measures, to seek to embed the notion that the resettlement was "an injustice" in the mindset of future generations.

Based on this - historically erroneous - opinion, Germany can raise advantageous political claims vis ą vis Eastern and Southeastern European countries. Besides the creation of a memorial day, Bavaria is also supporting, with 20 million Euros, the establishment of a "Sudeten German Museum" in Munich.

The German Bundestag has earmarked another 10 million Euros to the project. An exposition, which could serve as the center piece of the museum, put the legitimacy of the founding of Czechoslovakia into question, using controversial quotes from Nazi sources. The Bavarian prime minister will be honored, with a Sudeten German Homeland Association award at Sunday's events for his support of the "expellees."

“Jews can pray at the Temple Mount,” said Regev, who in her new role could play a pivotal part in changing longstanding legislation barring Jewish visitors from praying there. In a statement to the press Wednesday, she added that she will not hesitate to address the highly controversial issue.

“I don’t understand why a Jew is not allowed to pray in the most sacred place for him – the Temple Mount,” she said. “I intend to soon tour there, with an emphasis on freedom of Jewish prayer.” MK Michal Roisin (Meretz) swiftly condemned Regev’s comments in a statement Wednesday, warning that her words could sabotage the peace process and ignite a “third intifada.”

Half of all children born this year will not be living with both natural parents when they reach their mid-teens, and almost all those who suffer family breakdown will be the children of unmarried parents, added the report. The study, based on figures from the national census and large-scale academic surveys, extrapolates from current trends and calculates that just 9 per cent of babies born to cohabiting couples today will still have their parents living together by the time they are 16.

Some insist that the wild money printing that the Federal Reserve is doing combined with out of control government spending will eventually result in hyperinflation. Others point to all of the deflationary factors in our economy and argue that we will experience tremendous deflation when the bubble economy that we are currently living in bursts. So what is the truth? Well, I believe that we will see both.

The next major financial panic will cause a substantial deflationary wave first, and after that we will see unprecedented inflation as the central bankers and our politicians respond to the financial crisis. This will happen so quickly that many will get “financial whiplash” as they try to figure out what to do with their money. We are moving toward a time of extreme financial instability, and different strategies will be called for at different times.

So cash will not be king for long. In fact, eventually cash will be trash. The actions of the US government and the Federal Reserve in response to the coming financial crisis will greatly upset much of the rest of the world and cause the death of the US dollar. That is why gold, silver and other hard assets are going to be so good to have in the long-term. In the short-term they will experience wild swings in price, but if you can handle the ride you will be smiling in the end.

In the coming years, we are going to experience both inflation and deflation, and neither one will be pleasant at all. Get prepared while you still can, because time is running out.

Sadly, that is not the case at all. Right now, the US economy is exhibiting all of the classic symptoms of a bubble economy. You can see this when you step back and take a longer-term view of things. Over the past decade, we have added more than 10 trillion dollars to the national debt. But most Americans have shown very little concern as the balance on our national credit card has soared from 6 trillion dollars to nearly 17 trillion dollars. Meanwhile, Wall Street has been transformed into the biggest casino on the planet, and much of the new money that the Federal Reserve has been recklessly printing up has gone into stocks.

But the Dow does not keep setting new records because the underlying economic fundamentals are good. Rather, the reckless euphoria that we are seeing in the financial markets right now reminds me very much of 1929. Margin debt is absolutely soaring, and every time that happens a crash rapidly follows. But this time when a crash happens it could very well be unlike anything that we have ever seen before. The top 25 US banks have more than 212 trillion dollars of exposure to derivatives combined, and when that house of cards comes crashing down there is no way that anyone will be able to prop it back up. After all, US GDP for an entire year is only a bit more than 15 trillion dollars.

But most Americans are only focused on the short-term because the mainstream media is only focused on the short-term. Things are good this week and things were good last week, so there is nothing to worry about, right?

If food stamps and other welfare programs get cut, that is going to make a lot of people very, very angry. And that anger and frustration will get even worse when the next economic downturn strikes and millions of people start losing their jobs and their homes. What we are witnessing right now is the calm before the storm. Let us hope that it lasts for as long as possible so that we can have more time to prepare. Unfortunately, this bubble of false hope will not last forever. At some point it will end, and then the pain will begin.

In frank comments on the eve of a visit to the Holy Land by William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, Yuval Steinitz, Israel's intelligence and strategic affairs minister and a confidant of Benjamin Netanyahu, voiced fears about British "animosities" towards his country.

Speaking exclusively to The Daily Telegraph, Mr Steinitz suggested that there was growing antagonism – taking the form of hostile media coverage, "incitement" and boycott campaigns – and intimated that a less friendly attitude may be being reflected in official British policy. He also issued a coded warning to Mr Hague and other Western statesman against lecturing Israel about Jewish settlement building in the West Bank, which the Foreign Secretary has repeatedly condemned.

“The problem is not from the Swedish government or from the Swedish people,” the editor in chief of Dispatch International said. “The last 20 years or so, we have seen so many immigrants coming to Sweden that really don’t like Sweden. They do not want to integrate, they do not want to live in [Swedish] society: Working, paying taxes and so on. The people come here now because they know that Sweden will give them money for nothing.

They don’t have to work, they don’t have to pay taxes – they can just stay here and get a lot of money. That is really a problem,” Carlqvist added. Young Muslims who enjoy tolerance, social institutions and welfare while living in Sweden nevertheless refuse to integrate into the West, Gerolf Annemans told RT. Annemans is the parliamentary leader of Vlaams Belang (‘Flemish Interest’), a Belgian far-right nationalist political party.

“They [Muslim youths] have always sought excuse to show that they are not agreeing with the basic values of Western society,” Annemans said, pointing to the recent cases of the Boston Marathon bombing in the US and yesterday’s beheading of a British soldier in the UK. “It’s always the same problem. There is a massive refusal by Muslim youngsters of the basics of Western society... and they take any excuse whatsoever to show that with violence – that is where the problem is,” he said.

Civil disorder in Stockholm started on Sunday, when police shot and killed a 69-old-man in his apartment after he confronted officers with a machete; the unrest has since continued throughout week.

A mile-wide twister lashed a 22-mile strip with 200mph winds, destroying homes, schools and hospitals in the Oklahoma City suburb of Moore, a community of 56,000 people that was left in ruins.

At least two dozen people were killed with more bodies expected to be found by search-and-rescue teams from Oklahoma, Texas, Nebraska and Tennessee.

The storm savaged Moore in 40 minutes after touching down just before 3pm local time on Monday. It was described by Todd Lamb, Oklahoma's lieutenant governor, as like a "two-mile wide lawnmower blade going through the community", while Mary Fallin, the state's governor, said after an aerial tour: "There's just sticks and bricks basically."

Smiling broadly, the Pope initially shook the man's hand, but the South American pontiff's expression changed dramatically after a priest from the Legionaries of Christ, a conservative order, leaned in close and spoke a few words to him. With a more serious expression on his face, Francis placed both hands on the man's head for 15 seconds.

The pilgrim, said to be a 43-year old married man from Mexico called Angelo, then convulsed briefly and emitted a long sigh. His body went limp and his mouth dropped open. "Exorcists who have seen the footage have no doubt – this was a prayer for liberation from Evil, an actual exorcism," said TV2000, which is owned by the Italian Bishops Conference.