Mississippi Emergency Management Agency spokesman Greg Flynn said five people were killed in Choctaw County, 3 in Yazoo County and 1 in Holmes County. No names have been released and details are not available. Two of those dead in Choctaw county are children.

Governor Haley Barbour told The Associated Press there was "utter obliteration" in parts of Yazoo County, an area where he is from. More than 15 other counties were also damaged. The swath of debris forced rescuers to pick up some of the injured on all-terrain vehicles.

The weather hampered crews trying to clean up an oil spill after an offshore rig exploded earlier this week off the coast of Louisiana. Several sporting events and festivals also were rescheduled. The storms also damaged a tank at a chemical plant in Tallulah, causing a small nitrogen leak.

He is expected to visit Birmingham - as part of the planned beatification of Cardinal John Newman - and Scotland. Dates for the trip have not been set. The Pope was formally invited to visit the UK by Prime Minister Gordon Brown last February. Scottish Secretary Jim Murphy also invited him to visit Scotland

The petition states: "We the undersigned, petition the Prime Minister to ask the Catholic Church to pay for the proposed visit of the Pope to the UK and relieve the taxpayer of the estimated 20 million pounds cost. We accept the right of the Pope to visit his followers in Britain, but public money would be better spent on hard-pressed schools, hospitals and social services which are facing cuts." The National Secular Society says that 28,000 people have now signed their petition.

BBC religious affairs correspondent Robert Pigott said Roman Catholics were trying to improve the way they get the Church's message across to an increasingly sceptical public in preparation for the visit. Articulate Catholics are being trained as spokesmen and women to answer some of the awkward questions about contraception and Aids, homosexuality, and the meaning of sainthood in the 21st Century that his visit is likely to prompt. He said they know the visit represented a great opportunity, but also something of a danger.

Our correspondent said: "So secularists have also spotted an opportunity. They can see the potential for creating a coalition of people unhappy with the traditionalist Christian message in a variety of limited fields. The Pope might not exactly be a stick with which to beat religion, but his visit will focus attention on areas which the National Secular Society suspects will inspire scepticism as much as faith."

Scientist Dr Grant Allen, of Manchester University's Centre for Atmospheric Science, uses words of evasion that are almost self-parodying: 'Analysis of these atmospheric measurements is early and still ongoing and being supplemented with new measurements all the time.'

In 1996, Britain spent 7 billion pounds killing millions of the nation's cows in response to the alleged threat of CJD killing humans eating burgers made from cattle infected by BSE. We now know that the likelihood of this was almost infinitesimally slight.

In 2009, the government spent 1 billion pounds on unneeded vaccines against swine flu, which we were told might kill half a million people. The SARS virus, said some 'experts', could prove more devastating to humanity than Aids. It was once suggested that bird flu might kill 150 million people worldwide.

Back to transport. After 9/11, many Americans were reluctant to fly, so drove to their destinations instead. One statistical analysis suggests that 2,500 extra road deaths ensued. Flying would have been much safer.

The British are grotesquely sensitive to rail accidents, though figures show that train travel is by far the safest means of going anywhere. After the Ladbroke Grove rail smash, in which 31 people died, a new Train Protection and Warning System was installed throughout the system. It has been estimated that each life thus saved has cost 15.4 million pounds.

No minister - Tory, Labour or lib Dem - readily defies those who invoke the sacred principle of making us safer. We have become an almost insanely risk-averse society, demanding to be babied from cradle to grave. The great volcanic ash air shutdown is part of the price we pay for this. Until, as a society, we learn to measure risk realistically, we shall continue to face draconian responses to even marginal threats.

The 1,166 requests for information - which relate to the second half of 2009 - came from agencies such as local and national police, and usually formed part of a criminal investigation. France asked for 846 pieces of information, and Germany for 428. The search engine also received 59 requests from British government departments and other official sources to remove items from Google's services.

A Google spokesman said that the company regularly gets asked by governments for information relating to users' emails or on how and where they have logged on. The company added, however, that where broad requests are made it endeavours to release as little information as is necessary by law. It complies with approximately 77 per cent of all British requests for removal.

Google has launched its Government Requests Tool to highlight the extent to which governments are using their legal systems to gather information about citizens or censor the web. However, it admitted it could not provide data for China as Beijing considers such figures as a state secret.

David Drummond, the company's general counsel, said that "We believe that greater transparency will lead to less censorship." Google said, however, that because there is not internationally accepted criteria for requests then presenting data from around the world is impractical. "We're still learning the best way to collect and present this information," the company said. "We'll continue to improve this tool and fine-tune the types of data we display."

He said we found it hard to accept that Germany had become a 'vastly more prosperous nation' and that 'we need to be put back in our place'. His views, outlined in a newspaper article when he was a member of the European Parliament, cast grave doubts over his judgment of international affairs ahead of the second leaders' debate this evening, when the topic will be foreign policy. The jibes threatened to undermine the surge which has taken Mr Clegg from also-ran to serious player in the opinion polls.

'All nations have a cross to bear, and none more so than Germany with its memories of Nazism. But the British cross is more insidious still. A misplaced sense of superiority, sustained by delusions of grandeur and a tenacious obsession with the last war, is much harder to shake off. We need to be put back in our place.'

Tory MP Nicholas Soames, grandson of wartime leader Sir Winston Churchill, said: 'These views will disgust people the length and breadth of the country. They show that Nick Clegg is unfit to lead his party, let alone the country. They are an insult to the memory of Britain's war dead and to a time when the British public all pulled together for the common good. They prove that Mr Clegg shares the European view of Britain rather than the British view.'

Making clear his love affair with all things European, he condemned the British 'belief in our innate difference from our mainland continental cousins'. He went on: 'No other culture in Europe is quite so enamoured by such a false notion of difference. We Brits concoct a historically illiterate notion that we are divorced from outside influences. Maybe it was loss of empire, the choppy waters of the Channel, or the last war.'

The lawsuit filed Tuesday in US District Court in Seattle accuses the alliance of violating Washington state laws barring discrimination. The alliance organizes the annual Gay Softball World Series. Beth Allen, the alliance's attorney, said the lawsuit is unwarranted and that the three plaintiffs "were not discriminated against in any unlawful manner." In any case, Allen said, the alliance is a private organization and, as such, can determine its membership based on its goals.

The three plaintiffs - Steven Apilado, LaRon Charles and Jon Russ - played on a team called D2 that qualified for the 2008 Gay Softball World Series, which is organized by the alliance. The alliance's rules say that each World Series team can have no more than two heterosexual players. According to the lawsuit, a competing team accused D2 of violating that rule. Each of the three plaintiffs was called into a conference room in front of more than 25 people, and was asked "personal and intrusive questions" about his sexual attractions and desires, purportedly to determine if the player was heterosexual or gay, the lawsuit alleges.

The men are asking for $75,000 each for emotional distress. They're also seeking to invalidate the alliance's findings on the men's sexual orientations and to reinstate D2's second-place World Series finish. The men also are asking the court to toss out the alliance's rule limiting the number of straight players on each team. Hypothetically, that could mean a team of all-straight people could form, but "it would be extremely unlikely for that to happen," Rowen said.

The alliance was formed in 1977 and now includes more than 680 teams in 37 leagues across the US and Canada, according to its website.

But scientists have said regulators had few options beyond a ban on flights. Earlier, officials said air traffic in Europe would be back to "almost 100%" on Thursday, although an alert led Qantas to cancel a flight from London. Tens of thousands of people remain stranded around the world as airlines restart services after the unprecedented travel chaos.

Six days after the eruption of the Eyjafjallajokull volcano in Iceland triggered the first airspace closures, the International Air Transport Association (Iata) said airlines had lost $1.7 billion (1.1 billion pounds). "For an industry that lost $9.4 billion last year and was forecast to lose a further $2.8 billion in 2010, this crisis is devastating," Iata chief Giovanni Bisignani said. "Airspace was being closed based on theoretical models, not on facts."

Mr Bisignani said the situation had been exacerbated by "poor decision-making" from governments and called on them to compensate airlines, something which the European Commission has said it is considering. Some airlines are also demanding changes to EU passenger compensation rules, which require them to provide accommodation for those prevented from flying. Michael O'Leary, the chief executive of the low-cost carrier Ryanair, said it was "absurd" that his firm had to spend thousands of euros on someone whose ticket might have cost only a few euros.

In measures more stringent than Wall Street and the City had expected, the fund called for the introduction of a twin-track approach to the three-year banking crisis that would both force firms to pay for any future support packages and raise new taxes on their profits and remuneration. The report, prepared by the Washington-based institution for the G20 group of developed and developing nations, was seized upon by Gordon Brown as evidence that his push for an international crackdown on the banking sector was gaining support.

Leaked in advance of the fund's meeting this weekend, the blueprint emerged as the investment bank Goldman Sachs released better than expected first quarter revenues and admitted its bonus and pay pool had reached $5.5 billion (3.3 billion pounds) in the first three months of 2010. The anticipated study called for a financial stability contribution (FSC), which should be paid by all financial institutions, not just banks, and used to bail out weak and failing firms. It would initially be paid at a flat rate but eventually be tailored to suit institutions' size and riskiness.

Military operations in Afghanistan were intrinsic for the UK's security said 57%, but about a third disagreed. The survey was released ahead of the second of the televised party leaders' election debates, on foreign affairs. Some 58% of those polled thought the UK's best interests were served by maintaining a special relationship with the US, ahead of other strategic partners.

On security priorities for the next government, just over 80% believed tackling terrorism would remain the most pressing task. Both Labour and the Conservatives have said they would renew the UK's Trident nuclear deterrent missile system, a stance backed by 53%.

That proportion agreed that Trident's security and political benefits clearly outweighed its diplomatic and economic costs, but more than a third disagreed. BBC News defence correspondent Caroline Wyatt says all three main political parties have committed to holding a strategic defence review - which will need to decide just what the UK's role should be - after the election.

A new ash cloud heading towards the country has forced all London airports to stay closed. Others in England, including Manchester, are set to open from 1pm, but this is not certain. Scottish airports have reopened this morning with a flight from Glasgow to Stornoway taking off at 7.15am.

BA had intended to resume flights from London airports today but last night it had to cancel those plans. A spokesman for the air traffic control service Nats said: 'The volcano eruption in Iceland has strengthened and a new ash cloud is spreading south and east towards the UK. This demonstrates the dynamic and rapidly changing conditions in which we are working.' The Met Office itself said strong high-altitude winds were blowing the new cloud towards the UK more quickly than the one which followed the first eruption.

Last night the Met Office was accused of unnecessarily triggering the six-day closure of British airspace which has cost passengers, airlines and the economy more than 1.5 billion pounds. Critics said the agency used a scientific model based on 'probability' rather than fact to forecast the spread of the ash cloud.

Matthias Ruete, the European Commission's director general of transport, said the ban should have been restricted to a 20 to 30-mile limit around the volcano. He said: 'The science behind the model we are running is based on certain assumptions where we do not have scientific evidence.'

It also estimated that 1.2 million passengers a day were affected. On Tuesday night, flights started landing in the UK after a six-day shutdown of UK airspace. The decision to lift the ban followed safety tests that showed plane engines could cope in areas of low density ash.

A separate report by the the Centre for Economics and Business Research has estimated the cost to airlines of the disruptions to be 1.08 billion euros ($1.45 billion; 942 million pounds) over the six days. David Frost, director general of the British Chambers of Commerce, told the BBC that the cost to the UK economy of the flight disruptions was likely to have been more than 100 million pounds a day.

Mr Bisignani also criticised governments for the haste with which they closed airspace, and called on them to provide compensation to the airlines. "Airspace was being closed based on theoretical models, not on facts. Test flights by our members showed that the models were wrong."

"[The crisis] is an extraordinary situation exaggerated by a poor decision-making process by national governments. Governments should help carriers recover the cost of this disruption." Budget airline Easyjet said it had lost 50 million pounds during the flight ban and that it would be seeking government compensation.

But the effects of the crisis have also been felt outside of the travel industry, as tens of thousands of people have been stranded, unable to get to work. Producers of perishable goods, such as food and flowers, have also been hit hard. Carmaker Nissan had to suspend production for a day as it could not import components from the Irish Republic.

Aviation officials lifted the airspace ban on Tuesday night, saying it was now safe for planes to fly. For the first time in almost a week, there have been scenes of joy at UK airports with passengers finally arriving home, many with tales of epic journeys. But the departures and arrivals boards at many airports remain full of cancellations.

Heathrow would normally handle about 1,250 flights on an average Wednesday but there were no departures until 0806BST when an Alitalia flight left for Rome. The first two BA flights have left Heathrow for Tel Aviv and New York.

UK air traffic control body Nats said it had handled 130 flights over England and Wales, and 35 in Scottish airspace, between 0100 BST and 0700 BST on Wednesday. About 75% of European flights are due to operate on Wednesday, according to the air traffic agency Eurocontrol.

Goldman also faces the loss of lucrative British government work - including a host of planned privatisations - after the Prime Minister described the bank as morally bankrupt. Goldman was facing further battles in Europe. In Britain, the Financial Services Authority opened an informal investigation to back up the SEC's inquiry, and Germany said it had asked the SEC for information to help it to build a case over the mis-selling of CDOs to the IKB bank.

Goldman, which will announce its first-quarter results today, has lost $10 billion of its market value since Friday and its shares fell again yesterday, although they rallied before the close. One senior figure in the private equity industry who has instructed Goldman in the past told The Times: "The way Goldman treats clients is a disgrace. This is the thin end of the wedge. People won't want to be associated with this sort of behaviour."

Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman's chief executive, admitted in a voicemail to all staff yesterday that the attention that followed the securities fraud charges was "certainly uncomfortable", but that the board and management committee were addressing the charges. The bank also issued a statement again denying the US Securities and Exchange Commission accusations that it or its employees tricked clients into buying bad loans in 2007. Fabrice Tourre, who did the deals over which Goldman has been charged, has been put on paid leave and is at home.

The computer models that guided decisions to impose a no-fly zone across most of Europe in recent days are based on incomplete science and limited data, according to European officials. As a result, they may have over-stated the risks to the public, needlessly grounding flights and damaging businesses. "It is a black box in certain areas," Matthias Ruete, the EU's director-general for mobility and transport, said on Monday, noting that many of the assumptions in the computer models were not backed by scientific evidence.

European authorities were not sure about scientific questions, such as what concentration of ash was hazardous for jet engines, or at what rate ash fell from the sky, Mr Ruete said. "It's one of the elements where, as far as I know, we're not quite clear about it," he admitted. He also noted that early results of the 40-odd test flights conducted over the weekend by European airlines, such as KLM and Air France, suggested that the risk was less than the computer models had indicated.

The acknowledgement that the computer models were flawed is likely to provide ammunition for critics who believe that authorities have shown excessive caution. The closure of much of the airspace over Europe over the past five days is estimated to have cost airlines a total of $200 million a day in lost revenue.

Britain's Met Office, the national weather service, said the vast cloud that has grounded thousands of flights across northern Europe reached Newfoundland on Monday. However, the winds that pushed the ash to the edge of North America are expected to change direction in the next couple of days, preventing the cloud from covering more of Canada and the United States.

Airlines have suffered losses described as being worse than after the 9/11 attacks after aviation officials closed parts of Europe's airspace on fears the ash could paralyze jet engines. "It is just skirting into the Newfoundland area over the next 12 to 18 hours," Bob Syvret, duty forecaster at the Met Office, told Reuters. "It doesn't look as if it is going to get much further west than that, just on the coast and a little further inland."

It showed the cloud jutting south from the volcano in Iceland, covering much of northern Europe and then spreading west over the Atlantic and east over Russia. Estimating the density of the cloud at its extremities is difficult and warnings for aviation in North America would be a matter for US and Canadian officials, Syvret added.