The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act, enacted in August 2008 as a response to the high-profile 2007 recalls involving Chinese-made toys containing lead, covers not just playthings but all consumer products intended for use by children 12 and under. That includes books, audiobooks and sidelines, no matter where they are manufactured, even though most books have lead levels that are well below the Act's most stringent safety standards.

Chip Gibson, president and publisher of Random House Children's Books, goes further. "This is a potential calamity like nothing I've ever seen. The implications are quite literally unimaginable," he said, noting that children's books could be removed from schools, libraries and stores; nonprofit groups like First Book would lose donations; and retailers, printers, and publishers could ultimately go out of business. "Books are safe. This is like testing milk for lead. It has to be stopped."

Most observers have read the Act as including used books, which could wipe out many retail and online vendors of used children's books, as well as prevent thrift stores and antique malls from selling children's products, and possibly requiring libraries and schools to dispose of their holdings. On January 8, the CPSC clarified that resellers such as thrift stores and consignment shops could sell used products that haven't been tested, as long as they're confident they do not contain high levels of lead or phthalates. This would seem to put resellers in the clear as far as children's books go, but Adler believes the clarification is contradictory to the Act and would not necessarily protect resellers from liability.

According to the report, the U.S. has grown so dependent on modern technologies without respect of what the sun can and has done, that it's risking major communications, finance, transportation, government and even emergency services meltdowns. And if one of the sun's periodic, catastrophic storms hits the earth the way Hurricane Katrina hit the U.S. coastline, the report estimates that damages from the "space weather Katrina" could top $1 or $2 trillion. The sun is currently near minimum on its 11-year activity cycle, the report explains, but is expected to produce solar storms that will increase in intensity and frequency AS IT APPROACHES PEAK ACTIVITY LEVELS IN 2012.

The NASA report warns that if the sun's activity over the next few years flares to the level of the May 1921 "superstorm" or the so-called Carrington event of 1859, a "perfect storm" that Space.com called "the most powerful onslaught of solar energy in recorded history," the U.S. may not be equipped to handle the damages. "The impacts of severe space weather events," the report states, "can go beyond disruption of existing technical systems and lead to short-term, as well as to long-term collateral socioeconomic disruptions."

The report listed possible cascading effects of a major solar storm as "disruption of the transportation, communication, banking and finance systems, and government services; the breakdown of the distribution of potable water owing to pump failure, and the loss of perishable foods and medications because of a lack of refrigeration." In addition, the researchers warn, "Emergency services would be strained, and command and control might be lost."

Richard Fisher, head of NASA's heliophysics division said, "To mitigate possible public safety issues, it is vital that we better understand extreme space weather events caused by the sun's activity."

The so-called "atheist buses" in London were inspired by columnist Ariane Sherine of The Guardian and backed by the British Humanistic Association and Professor Richard Dawkins. Soon after philosopher, Anthony Grayling, journalist Polly Toynbee and the British Atheistic Association also voiced their support for the campaign.

The campaign now has some $250,000 in donations and has spread to other British cities, where some 600 buses carry ads that read, "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life." On Monday 1000 ads will be posted on London's subway network.

Now, the Spanish media is reporting that "atheist buses" are circulating in Barcelona, and the Madrid city government said it would not oppose the ad campaign as long as it does not violate any advertising norms.

Overall, 16 per cent of voters want Britain simply to withdraw from the EU, while 48 per cent would like to see a much looser relationship, with the government taking back powers from Brussels and ending the supremacy of the European Court of Justice over British law.

Added together this makes 64 per cent in favour of weakening Britain's ties with the EU, compared with just 22 per cent in favour of keeping the UK's current full membership including the Lisbon Treaty, which was passed by parliament without a referendum.

Matthew Elliott, chief executive of the TaxPayersAlliance, which with Global Vision has launched a campaign to propel European issues up the political agenda in the coming weeks, said: "THE MAIN POLITICAL PARTIES HAVE LET PEOPLE DOWN BY AVOIDING OR FUDGING THE EU ISSUE, but it has such a big impact on our day-to-day lives that it must be dealt with."

The genius of our numbering system is that we can signify massive quantities in short spaces. One billion takes no longer to write than one million, points out Andrew Dilnot, an economist at Oxford University and author of The Numbers Game.

But that similarity trips us up when it comes time to imagine how those figures translate to the real world, where three more zeroes make all the difference. "My favorite way to think of it is in terms of seconds," says David Schwartz, a children's book author whose How Much Is A Million? Tries to wrap young minds around the concept.

"One million seconds comes out to be about 11 and a half days.
A billion seconds is 32 years.
And a trillion seconds is 32,000 years.

I like to say that I have a pretty good idea what I'll be doing a million seconds from now, no idea what I'll be doing a billion seconds from now, and an excellent idea of what I'll be doing a trillion seconds from now."

Only two of the airport's four runways were operating, national television TVE said, citing comments by the head of communications for Spanish airports operator AENA. An estimated 985 flights were expected to take off and land on Saturday, compared with 1,200 normally, according to AENA data.

The airports operator said it was meeting Barajas officials to try to re-establish normal service after one of the heaviest snowfalls in decades caused the international airport to shut down for five hours on Friday. Spain, like many other parts of Europe, has had an unusually cold winter so far.

Corn plants were damaged this week when temperatures soared to more than 34 degrees Celsius (93 degrees Fahrenheit) and humidity levels plunged, said Stella Maris Carballo of the National Institute of Agriculture Technology.

Some farmers may lose as much as 50 percent of their crops in eastern areas of the country because dry weather slashed potential yields, Carballo said. "Temperatures are very detrimental to yield prospects" in Argentina, said Mario Balletto, a grain analyst for Citigroup Global Markets in Chicago. Flowering corn crops are at the "most heat-sensitive stage," he said in an interview today.

Argentina will reap the smallest wheat harvest since 1989 after weather conditions curbed yields, the exchange said in a separate report today. The crop will be no more than 8.7 million tons, down at least 5.4 percent from a previous forecast, the exchange said. Wheat harvesting is almost 98 percent complete, the organization said. It predicted a harvest of 9.3 million tons last month.

Chavez said he knows a group of opposition leaders recently flew to Puerto Rico to meet with "U.S. advisers" to discuss strategies to defeat the president's proposal to eliminate his term limits in a referendum this year. Chavez said U.S. Embassy representatives may have been present. "If I can confirm this, I'll throw them out of the country," Chavez said at ceremony in Caracas commemorating the launch of Venezuela's first satellite.

The socialist Venezuelan leader expelled the U.S. ambassador in Caracas in September and has repeatedly accused President George W. Bush of supporting opposition groups in Venezuela. VENEZUELA IS THE FOURTH-BIGGEST SUPPLIER OF FOREIGN CRUDE OIL TO THE U.S.

There was a trip to Jerusalem last week undertaken by a bunch of British Christian evangelicals — by coincidence, just as the Israelis began lobbing rockets into Gaza. They hadn't planned it like that, although retrospectively they may claim to have seen it. The whole shebang was described as a 'New Year's Prophetic Summons' and the organisers were, in the main, American evangelical Christian Zionists, but there were plenty of Brits in attendance.

You may be familiar with this little by-way of religious fervour, this rather bizarre cul-de-sac of supernaturally imposed bigotry — partly because it has helped determine US government policy towards the Middle East for 30-odd years. THESE ARE THE MILITANT END-TIME CHRISTIANS WHO ARE, INDEED, YEARNING FOR THE END. It was all foreseen — a final conflagration between the Antichrist in the blue corner (that'll be the Muslims, then) and the forces of Christianity in the red, with the Jews looking a bit askance in the middle, unless they have returned to the fold, in which case they're OK. They also wish to build a new embassy in Jerusalem and indeed a 'third temple' to prepare for his coming. In the past these groups have been lauded and honoured by the Knesset for their unwavering support of Israel; however, of late, even the hawkish Israelis are beginning to find them ludicrous and dangerous.

Does any of this matter? THESE PEOPLE ARE CLEARLY MADDER THAN A BOX OF FROGS and cannot possibly be of any resonance, any real consequence, in the wider geopolitical scene, can they? And it is good news, surely, that even the Israelis have had enough of their ministrations, their letters of apology, their support for a form of Zionism which even the Israeli government considers racist and extreme. And not all Christian Zionists oppose peace settlements with the Palestinians and yearn, without cessation, for Armageddon.

WELL, THEY HAVE HAD A LOT OF INFLUENCE, both the extremists who returned home from their Jerusalem jaunt last week and the marginally more moderate of them. Evangelical Christianity, in its ever more fabulously literal and authoritarian marque, is Britain's fastest-growing repository for spiritual belief. And it follows that its mutant offshoot, CHRISTIAN ZIONISM, IS GROWING APACE TOO. THAT SHOULD WORRY ALL OF US, regardless of whether right now we're cheering on Hamas or Israel.

The Chairman of the Foreign Policy Committee of the German Bundestag, Ruprecht Polenz (CDU), is contemplating a Bundeswehr deployment in the Gaza Strip. This corresponds to a suggestion made by Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, who would like to establish a "monitoring system" in the war zone, for the verification of a cease-fire and the prohibition of "arms smuggling", meaning the disruption of the logistical routes, making Israel's hermetic sealing of the Palestinian territory even more impermeable.

"If Germany is asked to participate in a multilateral deployment like the Unifil mission in Lebanon, then Germany should take part." This is how Polenz circumscribes the planned violation of Palestinian (factually nonexistent) sovereignty. SINCE 2002 GERMANY HAS SIGNIFICANTLY EXTENDED ITS PRESENCE IN THE MIDDLE EAST. Germany is militarily participating in the UN's UNIFIL Mission in Lebanon and is using this participation to arm and train the Lebanese Army.

Under the direction and with the equipment of the German Navy, the Federal Police and the German customs service, Lebanon has been fortifying its terrestrial borders, also to reduce Syria's influence and thereby strengthen the Western positions in that country. With German participation, the EU is running a training program for police officers in the Palestinian Autonomous Territories

The programme, run by University College London (UCL), paves the way for a new approach to preventive medicine involving widespread screening. It will also prompt greater demand for screening of embryos by parents who carry a defective gene and want to avoid passing it to their children.

Embryo screening, which is licensed for certain serious conditions, such as Huntington's disease and cystic fibrosis, continues to attract controversy, with claims that it is paving the way for the creation of "designer babies". However, doctors' leaders argue that a technique that can prevent a child from developing a life-threatening illness should not be restricted.

Windows were smashed and policemen were injured - with one officer knocked unconscious in the running battles and two requiring treatment for facial injuries. The protesters - mainly young men - knocked down barriers threw missiles including eggs, red paint, sticks and shoes as 300 officers in full riot gear tried to maintain the peace.

The violence, which broke out in front of the Israeli Embassy, appeared to be led by a hard-core of masked and hooded youths. A national demonstration against Israel's attack marched from Speakers' Corner at Hyde Park today to the Israeli embassy in High Street Kensington. It was estimated there were around 100,000 protesters in total across London, including the Trafalgar Square, Hyde Park and Kensington protests.

Elsewhere in the world, some 20,000 people took to the streets in Berlin and other German cities. Protesters threw snowballs at two Israeli flags that hung from the windows of a house along the demonstration route, but otherwise no incidents were reported. In Amman, Jordan, more than 2,000 took to the streets and in Syria, another 2,000 marched in a Palestinian refugee camp near Damascus shouting anti-Israeli slogans. There were also demonstrations in the U.S., France, Norway, Greece, Malaysia, Sweden, Bosnia, Lebanon, Thailand, South Korea and India.

"I was very surprised at the number of questions that we put to Treasury for which we received no response at all," said Elizabeth Warren of the Congressional Oversight Panel. She said she was "deeply surprised." Elizabeth Warren's Congressional Oversight Panel asked the Treasury Department 45 questions. But says Treasury "did not provide complete answers" and "failed to address a number of questions at all." THEREFORE, MORE THAN THREE MONTHS INTO THE BAILOUT, THE PANEL "STILL DOES NOT KNOW WHAT THE BANKS ARE DOING WITH TAXPAYER MONEY."

Called TARP for short (Troubled Asset Relief Program), the largest part of what was known as the $700 billion bailout package) was supposed to buy failed mortgage assets but morphed into an entirely different approach - invest the funds in big banks. The oversight panel said their initial concerns have grown due to Treasury's "shifting explanations."

Today a Treasury spokesman said they are trying to track the funds but that there will be no shift in strategy to make banks more accountable. The bailout was supposed to bolster faith in the economy, but the oversight panel says for the Treasury to have given the funds without more transparency erodes the very confidence they seek to restore.

The embryo was screened for the altered BRCA1 gene, which would have meant the girl had a 80% chance of developing breast cancer. Women in three generations of her husband's family have been diagnosed with the disease in their 20s. Paul Serhal, the fertility expert who treated the couple, said: "This little girl will not face the spectre of developing this genetic form of breast cancer or ovarian cancer in her adult life."

"The parents will have been spared the risk of inflicting this disease on their daughter. The lasting legacy is the eradication of the transmission of this form of cancer that has blighted these families for generations." Pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) involves taking a cell from an embryo at the eight-cell stage of development, when it is around three-days old, and testing it. THIS IS BEFORE CONCEPTION - DEFINED AS WHEN THE EMBRYO IS IMPLANTED IN THE WOMB.

Doctors then select an embryo free from rogue genes to continue the pregnancy, and discard any whose genetic profile points to future problems. The couple, who wish to remain anonymous, wanted to eradicate the gene flaw from their family. The husband's grandmother, mother, sister and a cousin have been diagnosed with the disease. If the 27-year-old woman and her husband had had a son, he could have been a carrier and passed it on to any daughters.

Josephine Quintavalle, of the campaign group Comment on Reproductive Ethics, said: "This is nothing personal towards the girl, but I think we have gone too far. UNDERLYING ALL THIS IS EUGENICS." Mrs Quintavalle said the message was that "you are better off dead, than being born with this gene. I hope 20 years down the line we will have eradicated breast cancer - not eradicated the carriers."

The $17bn bail-out of General Motors and Chrysler last month was already a step across the Rubicon TOWARDS A PROTECTIONIST INDUSTRIAL POLICY, even if that was not the motive. The EU is exploring a World Trade Organisation complaint over "illegal state aid." But the latest Buy American move is much more explicit.

"This is quite dangerous," said Peter Sutherland, chairman of Goldman Sachs International and a former director-general of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). "The US is the key to keeping a one-world trading system, BUT THERE IS ALWAYS THE TENDENCY TO GO FOR PROTECTIONISM IN A RECESSION, and this is the worst one I've ever seen."

Hans Redeker, currency chief at BNP Paribas, says the US risks setting off a collapse in discipline across the world. "The US has a leading role so this could set off a huge response in other countries," he said. "THERE IS ALREADY TALK OF A €100BN (£91BN) FUND IN GERMANY to save its industry from being sold off cheap."