Mr Hynes shakes his head. "This is not some esoteric budget issue; we are not paying bills for absolutely essential services," he says. "That is obscene." For the last few years, California stood more or less unchallenged as a symbol of the fiscal collapse of states during the recession.

Now Illinois has shouldered to the fore, as its dysfunctional political class refuses to pay the state's bills and refuses to take the painful steps - cuts and tax increases - to close a deficit of at least $12 billion, equal to nearly half the state's budget. Then there is the spectacularly mismanaged pension system, which is at least 50 percent underfunded and, analysts warn, could push Illinois into insolvency if the economy fails to pick up.

States cannot go bankrupt, technically, but signs of fiscal crackup are easy to see. Legislators left the capital this month without deciding how to pay 26 percent of the state budget. The governor proposes to borrow $3.5 billion to cover a year's worth of pension payments, a step that would cost about $1 billion in interest. And every major rating agency has downgraded the state; Illinois now pays millions of dollars more to insure its debt than any other state in the nation.

The federal dollars are nearly spent. Last month, local governments nationwide shed more than 20,000 jobs. Should the largest struggling states - like California, New York or Illinois - lay off tens of thousands more in coming months, or default on payments, the reverberations could badly damage a weakened economy and push housing prices down still further. "You're not seeing these states bounce back, and that could be a big drag on the national economy," said Susan K Urahn of the Pew Center on the States. "It could be a very tough decade."

Commentators and pundits in Germany were unanimous: Wednesday's laborious election of Christian Wulff as the country's new president was anything but helpful for Chancellor Angela Merkel's already ailing coalition. A survey conducted by Infratest Dimap seems to indicate that voters agree.

According to the poll, commissioned by public television station ARD, fully 68 percent of Germans believe that the election was a "disgrace" for Merkel and 77 percent feel that she no longer has complete control over her own governing coalition. Sixty-two percent believe that Merkel's government, which pairs her conservatives with the business-friendly Free Democrats (FDP), will not survive much longer.

Wednesday's vote highlighted the deep fractures in Merkel's governing coalition after her hand-picked candidate Wulff required three rounds of voting to get elected, despite her government having a sizeable majority in the Federal Assembly, the 1,244-member body that chooses Germany's president. In the first round, 44 coalition delegates refused to back the chancellor's candidate; in the second, 29 balked. He was finally elected in a third round of voting.

On Thursday, a whole series of senior coalition politicians sought to assure the German public that they have learned their lessons from the Wednesday vote. The coalition, said FDP head Guido Westerwelle, who is also Merkel's vice chancellor, "must begin solving problems." Merkel said it is time "that the government does its work."

The public, though, has heard it all before. The bumpy election of Wulff was not the first time this coalition has tripped itself up. Merkel's government has addressed a whole slew of issues in the last nine months - including health care reform, tax reform, nuclear reactor lifespans and mandatory conscription, to name a few - and found convincing solutions to none of them. German voters are not optimistic that such a track record can be changed. Only 31 percent of Germans, according to Thursday's survey, believe that Merkel's coalition can right the ship.

BP and the Obama administration faced mounting complaints yesterday that they are ignoring foreign offers of badly needed equipment and making poor use of the fishing boats and volunteers available to help clean up what may now be the biggest spill ever in the Gulf of Mexico. Based on some government estimates, more than 140 million gallons of crude have now spewed from the bottom of the sea since the April 20 explosion that killed 11 workers on the Deepwater Horizon oil platform, eclipsing the 1979-80 disaster off Mexico that had long stood as the worst in the Gulf.

In recent days and weeks, for reasons that BP has never explained, many fishing boats hired for the cleanup mostly have been waiting around. At the same time, there is mounting frustration over the time that the government has taken to approve offers of help from foreign countries and international organizations.

The Coast Guard said that there have been 107 offers of help from 44 nations, ranging from technical advice to skimmer boats and booms. But many of those offers are weeks old, and only a small number have been accepted, with the vast majority still under review, according to a list kept by the State Department. A report prepared by investigators from the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform for Representative Darrell Issa, Republican for California, detailed a case in which the Dutch government on April 30 offered to provide four oil skimmers that collectively could process more than 6 million gallons of oily water a day. It took seven weeks for the US to approve the offer.

A nuclear fix to the leaking well has been touted online and in the occasional newspaper op-ed for weeks now. Washington has repeatedly dismissed the idea and BP execs say they are not considering an explosion - nuclear or otherwise. But as a series of efforts to plug the 60,000 barrels of oil a day gushing from the sea floor have failed, talk of an extreme solution refuses to die.

For some, blasting the problem seems the most logical answer in the world. Mikhailov has had a distinguished career in the nuclear field, helping to close a Soviet Union program that used nuclear explosions to seal gas leaks. Ordinarily he's an opponent of nuclear blasts, but he says an underwater explosion in the Gulf of Mexico would not be harmful and could cost no more than $10 million. That compares with the $2.35 billion BP has paid out in cleanup and compensation costs so far. "This option is worth the money," he says.

The Soviets first used a nuclear blast to seal a gas leak in 1966. Urtabulak, one of its prized gas-fields in Uzbekistan, had caught fire and raged for three years. Desperate to save the cherished reserves, Yefim Slavsky, then Minister of Light Industry, ordered nuclear engineers to use the most powerful weapon in their arsenal.

"The Minister said, 'Do it. Put it out. Explode it,'" recalls Albert Vasilyev, a young engineer and a rising star in the project who now teaches at the Lenin Technical Institute in Moscow. Vasilyev remembers the technology behind the program with obvious pride. "The explosion takes place deep underground," he says. "We pinch the pipe, break it and the pipe collapses." According to Vasilyev, the blast at Urtabulak sealed the well shut leaving only an empty crater.

Roberts said that after they submitted the proposal to the Army Corps of Engineers last week, Corps officials said last Friday that discussion on the plan would have to be put on hold until the following Monday, because the Corps office would be closed for the weekend.

"Whoever reviews permits, and whatever departments and stakeholders and agencies need to give approval for this... should be working around the clock, just like the people are that are trying to get this oil picked up," Roberts said. According to Roberts, after cooling their heels for the weekend, parish officials are still awaiting an answer. He says, however, he would be very surprised to get a response over the long federal holiday weekend to come.

Roberts told WWL First News that even if some federal responders take the 4th of July weekend off, many parish workers would be working overtime. "We don't take breaks, this is an emergency for us," he said. "We're going to continue plugging away at it."

The Pope made a reflection on the "holy roots" of the Church of Rome when he prayed the midday Angelus on Tuesday, following a Mass he celebrated for the feast of Saints Peter and Paul. It is during the Mass for this feast that the Pontiff traditionally gives out the pallium to new metropolitan archbishops.

"THE TWO PATRON SAINTS OF ROME, though having received from God different charisms and different missions to fulfill, ARE BOTH THE FOUNDATION OF THE ONE, HOLY, CATHOLIC AND APOSTOLIC CHURCH," he said. "May the example of the Apostles Peter and Paul illumine minds and ignite in the hearts of believers the holy desire to do the will of God, so that the Church journeying on earth may always be faithful to her Lord," the Pope concluded.

"Let us turn with confidence to the Virgin Mary, QUEEN OF THE APOSTLES, WHO FROM HEAVEN GUIDES AND SUSTAINS THE PATH OF THE PEOPLE OF GOD."

Europe's banking watchdogs have been holding stress tests to see how lenders would be affected by a sharp downturn in the economy or other shocks, aiming to boost confidence and bring a negative spiral in financial markets to a halt.

They are working ahead of an end-of-July deadline to publish the test results. "I do not believe that any of the 16 German banks tested could fall under the crucial 6 percent in terms of the Tier 1 ratio," a senior banking source said.

This source did not see the country's eight landesbanks - regional wholesale banks owned by local states and savings banks - at risk either, given the high level of support they already have from their current owners.

Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez announced that Venezuela would nationalize the Tulsa, Oklahoma-based company's rigs. He said in a statement Wednesday that Helmerich & Payne had rejected government demands to resume drilling operations for more than a year.

Helmerich & Payne announced in January 2009 that it was stopping operations on two of its drilling rigs, because Venezuela's state-run oil company, PDVSA, owed the company close to $100 million. It said it would shut down the rest of its rigs by the end of July as contracts expired unless PDVSA began to make good on its debts.

The company said Thursday that PDVSA's debt was $43 million as of June 14. President and CEO Hans Helmerich said in a statement on Thursday the company's position has remained clear: "We simply wanted to be paid for work already performed."

"We stated repeatedly we wanted to return to work, just not for free," he said. "We are surprised by yesterday's announcement only because we have been in ongoing efforts in a good faith attempt to accommodate a win-win resolution, including a willingness to sell rigs." The company has worked in Venezuela for 52 years, Helmerich added.

The dollar's trend of moving inversely to the stock market has seemingly been snapped, with the Dow Jones falling over 100 points at one stage today. However, as soon as markets began to claw back losses, the greenback failed to follow suit, indicating that whichever way markets move, the dollar is in big trouble.

The UN report called for "abandoning the US dollar as the main global reserve currency, saying it has been unable to safeguard value," according to Reuters. "A new global reserve system could be created, one that no longer relies on the United States dollar as the single major reserve currency," stated the report, adding that this new system should not be based on a basket of currencies, but on IMF-controlled SDR's.

In May, IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn told elitists in Zurich Switzerland that the introduction of a global currency backed by a global central bank would act as the "lender of last resort" in the event of a severe economic crisis, another lurch towards fascist centralization of power in pursuit of a system of global governance.

The Collier County School District policy specifically allows the distribution of literature by nonprofit organizations, but only with the approval of the superintendent and the Community Request Committee, whose members are appointed by the superintendent. Approval was denied to World Changers, despite the fact that its distribution included a disclaimer of any school endorsement or sponsorship and that receiving a Bible was purely voluntary.

"How sad that on the eve of Independence Day, when we celebrate the religious and political freedom our forefathers won for us at the cost of much blood and great sacrifice, we are compelled to sue to protect the right simply to make free Bibles available to students in public schools," said Mathew D Staver, Liberty Counsel founder.

Meanwhile the eurozone also reported its second successive monthly fall in manufacturing growth. European stock markets closed down between 1.8% and 3% following the news. In the US, the Dow Jones Industrial Average also fell in early trading.

Manufacturing growth in other parts of Asia also slowed, with India's rate of growth down from a two-year high and South Korean manufacturing growing at its slowest rate in six months. In Europe, the PMI measure for the eurozone also fell, raising fears that fiscal tightening measures may already be hitting demand. The UK appears to be faring slightly better, though manufacturing is still growing slower than in May.

Meanwhile in the US, the Institute for Supply Management said its index of national factory activity showed a slowing in US manufacturing. The European figures were of particular concern to analysts. "The second successive drop in the PMI in June suggests that the eurozone's manufacturing upturn may now be flagging," warned Howard Archer, chief European economist at IHS Global Insight. "This could be partly due to inventory corrections drawing to a close in some countries. But it may also be a sign that the eurozone debt crisis and an associated intensified tightening of fiscal policy in a number of countries is having a dampening impact on economic activity."

The USS Nassau (LHA-4) Amphibious Ready Group 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, tasked with supporting the Bahrain-based 5th Fleet area of operations, is cruising around the Bab al-Mandeb Straits where the Gulf of Aden flows into the Red Sea.

Its presence there accounts for Tehran announcing Sunday, June 27 that its "aid ship for Gaza" had been called off, for fear an American military boarding party would intercept the vessel and search it. This would be permissible under the latest UN sanctions punishing the Islamic Republic for its nuclear program. These new arrivals are a massive injection of naval, air and marine muscle to the strength Washington has deployed in the Persian Gulf-Red Sea-Indian Ocean arena in recent months.

The third US carrier group to reach waters around Iran consists of three vessels: The USS Nassau, USS Mesa Verde and USS Ashland.

The USS Nassau Amphibious Assault ship is not just an enormous landing craft for the 3,000 Marines aboard; its decks carry 6 vertical take-off AV-HB Harrier attack planes; four AH-1W Super Cobra, twelve CH-46 Sea Knight and CH-53 Sea Stallion helicopters, as well choppers convertible to fast V-22 Osprey airplanes capable of landing in any conditions. This vast warship has 1,400 cabinets for sleeping the entire Marine-24th Marine Expeditionary Unit aboard.

The amphibious transport dock ship USS Mesa Verde which carries 800 Marines equipped for instantaneous landing.

The amphibious dock landing ship USS Ashland which carries 400 Marines and 102 commandos trained for special operations behind enemy lines.

The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices voted 11-0 with one abstention to recommend yearly flu vaccination for everyone except for children under the age of six months, whose immune systems have not yet developed enough for vaccination to be safe, and people with egg allergies or other health conditions that are known to make flu vaccines hazardous. If accepted by the CDC, this recommendation will then be publicized to doctors and other health workers. The CDC nearly always accepts the advisory committee's recommendations.

Current CDC recommendations call for the yearly vaccination of all children over the age of six months, all adults over the age of 49, health care workers, people with chronic health problems and anyone who cares for a person in one of these groups. These recommendations cover 85 percent of the US population.

Under the guise of "cybersecurity," the government is moving to discredit and shut down the existing Internet infrastructure in the pursuit of a new, centralized, regulated world wide web.

It is important to stress that "cybersecurity" has nothing to do with protecting the infrastructure of the United States and everything to do with taking over the Internet. Cybersecurity is about attacking non-compliant Internet users, not defending against hackers. Non-compliance equates as using the Internet as a political tool to dissent against the policies of the US government. Having already tried and failed in flooding the web with paid disinformation agents, the government is now turning to its only recourse, exploiting hyped or outright staged cyberattacks as an excuse through which to implement an Internet 2 system controlled and regulated solely by the authorities.

We are constantly told that the Internet needs to be subject to government control because cyberterrorists could hack in and bring down the national power grid. However, the vast majority of the US power infrastructure is not connected to the Internet. It will only be connected to the Internet if the government accelerates the implementation of "smart grid" technology, so in this sense, the government itself is leaving the power grid more vulnerable to hackers by its own programs.

Consultant reconstructive surgeon Raj Ragoowansi said despite seeing hundreds of dog bites in his career and one other fox bite, Isabella's injuries were the most severe animal bites he had ever seen: "The bite was a very strong bite because as far as the upper arm was concerned the wound was down to the bone." As she grows, doctors say she will require further surgery into her teenage years.

"We had a police guard on the front door 24/7 for about three or four days and a panic alarm installed in the house because there were lots of things on websites... and they were just concerned that it could potentially be animal activists." They stressed that they had not had a family pet since their eldest child was born and, while they had seen foxes in their back garden and their neighbourhood, they had never fed or encouraged the animals.

Wildlife expert John Bryant said that while rare, the attack on the Koupparis twins should serve as a warning to the general public "that making pets of foxes, feeding foxes, getting them too used to people and certainly going into houses is not a good idea".