Max-Peter Ratzel, director of Europol, the European Union's police agency, claims the continuing involvement in the war zones has boosted the threat of reprisals from al-Qaeda and represents the biggest single threat to the security of the EU.

The startling conclusion from one of Europe's most respected police chiefs represents a massive embarrassment for Tony Blair, who has repeatedly insisted that Britain's foreign policy has not contributed to the threat of Islamic terror attacks in the UK. A new Europol publication, the EU Terrorism Situation and Trend Report 2007, is a chilling update on the rapid growth of a terror threat that Ratzel warns is "more serious than ever".

But a Foreign Office official last night dismissed any suggestion that British foreign policy had contributed to the terrorist threat back home. "The terrorist influence had been there long before the operations in Afghanistan or Iraq," the official added. "You can go back to the early 1990s to find evidence of al-Qaeda attacks."

The Israeli public security minister said that the Hamas-dominated Gaza Strip should be regarded as a "terror entity" and that the border with Egypt might need to be closed to stop weapons and fighters getting through.

The warning came as the violence which engulfed Gaza last week spread to the West Bank. Hundreds of Fatah gunmen stormed institutions controlled by the rival Hamas group. The Fatah fighters, who are loyal to the Palestinian president, the Western-backed Mahmoud Abbas, wanted revenge for their defeat at the hands of the Iranian-backed Hamas, which has taken control of the Gaza Strip.

A crowd looted the home of former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, destroying one of the strongest symbols of the Fatah movement.

Yesterday, Fatah gunmen attacked a number of Hamas-controlled institutions on the West Bank in an attempt to seek revenge for the Islamic group's takeover of the Gaza Strip, and in an effort to stifle any possible Hamas action. In Ramallah, hundreds of Fatah gunmen took over the Palestinian parliament and other Hamas-controlled government offices, telling staff that those with ties to Hamas would not be allowed back.

In the West Bank city of Nablus, Fatah gunmen took over the Hamas-controlled city council and planted the Fatah flag on the top of the building. In Hebron, Fatah gunmen stormed government offices and ordered senior Hamas-linked officials to stay away. Abbas' newly appointed Palestinian prime minister, Salam Fayyad, moved forward with plans to form an emergency government.

Officials close to Abbas said that the government would also include members from Gaza in a bid to preserve Palestinian unity. But Hamas officials described the move as illegal. Abbas aide Yasser Abed Rabbo said the new government would be sworn in by today.

He rejected dialogue with Hamas until the group withdraws from former Fatah positions in Gaza and dissolves its militia there. "There will be no dialogue with killers who carried out field executions in Gaza," he said.
The international community has sided with Abbas in the dispute. The US consul-general in Jerusalem, Jacob Walles, said Washington would end 15 months of sanctions once the new Palestinian government is formed.

One of their initial acts was to erect a wooden cross on the shore at Cape Henry. At the foot of that cross, Rev. Robert Hunt led the 149 men of the Virginia Company in public prayer, praising God for His hand of safety and pledging that they would follow Him in their venture in this "new world." When those settlers arrived in 1607, they understood the necessity of expressing gratitude to God for His deliverance.

In the first charter of Virginia, these words are found: "Greatly commending..... their Desires for the Furtherance of so noble a Work, which may, by the Providence of Almighty God, hereafter tend to the Glory of His Divine Majesty, in propagating of Christian Religion to such People, as yet live in Darkness and miserable Ignorance of the true Knowledge and Worship of God."

The Second Charter of Virginia, in 1609, stated: "The principal Effect which we can expect or desire of this Action is the Conversion and reduction of the people in those parts unto the true worship of God and the Christian Religion." Virginia's Charter continued: "It shall be necessary for all such our loving Subjects to live together, in the Fear and true Worship of Almighty God, Christian Peace, and civil Quietness, with each other."

Thirteen years later, the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock, in Massachusetts, because they sought the freedom to worship the God of the Scriptures without the dictates of government. The Pilgrims would soon establish the Mayflower Compact, which stated that their purpose was "advancement of the Christian faith."
Just a few years later, in 1643, the New England Confederation was formed, with this statement: "Whereas we all came into these parts of America with one and the same aim, namely, to advance the Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ and to enjoy the liberties of the Gospel, in purity, with peace."

THESE PEOPLE WERE NOT ASHAMED OF THE GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST. THERE WAS NO ACLU TO BRING LAWSUITS AGAINST THEM FOR PUBLICLY EXPRESSING THEIR FAITH.

Later, freedom and liberty, under God, were the basic elements of the Declaration of Independence, which reads: "We hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

In 1787, the U.S. Constitution was drafted, giving Americans the freedoms that were so important to those who traveled those waters. Later, in the first 10 amendments, the drafters wrote that the government could not control or hinder the free worship of almighty God, nor could their beliefs be stifled simply because others may disagree.

Throughout the years to come, our nation boldly worshiped God, commonly holding public days of prayer and thanksgiving. The nation's leaders routinely expressed their dependence on Almighty God. Our schools trained children to love God and read the Bible.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, in his recent book, "Rediscovering God in America," recounts many significant monuments, memorials and documents in our nation's capital that clearly illustrate our nation was founded "under God."

George Washington, our military leader and first president, stated, "IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO RIGHTLY GOVERN A NATION WITHOUT GOD AND THE BIBLE." Imagine the outcry today if one of our nation's lawmakers made such a statement.

IT IS OBVIOUS THAT THERE ARE THOSE WHO WANT TO IGNORE, OR REWRITE, OUR NATION'S CHRISTIAN HERITAGE. IT IS FURTHER OBVIOUS THAT WE, AS CHRISTIANS, MUST FIGHT THIS EFFORT. IT IS OUR RESPONSIBILITY TO DO SO, FOR THE VERY FUTURE OF OUR NATION DEPENDS ON IT.

I don't want to come off as overdramatic, but our country is in desperate need of real fathers, today more than ever before. MOST OF OUR SOCIAL ILLS TODAY CAN BE DIRECTLY TRACED TO THE LACK OF FATHERS IN OUR HOMES. Consider some of our nation's most serious problems. Studies show that the most reliable predictor of these behaviors is neither income nor race, but the absence of the father:

Fact: 90 percent of all homeless and runaway children are from fatherless homes (Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census).

Fact: 85 percent of all children that exhibit behavioral disorders come from fatherless homes (Source: Centers for Disease Control).

Fact: 85 percent of all youths sitting in prisons grew up in a fatherless home (Source: Fulton County, Ga., jail populations, Texas Department of Corrections 1992).

Fact: 80 percent of rapists motivated with displaced anger come from fatherless homes (Source: Centers for Disease Control).

Fact: 75 percent of all adolescent patients in chemical abuse centers come from fatherless homes (Source: Rainbows for all God's Children).

Fact: 71 percent of all high school dropouts come from fatherless homes (Source: National Principals Association Report on the State of High Schools).

Fact: Over 70 percent of teenage pregnancies are to children of single parents (Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services).

Fact: 63 percent of youth suicides are from fatherless homes (Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census).

Alfred A. Messer notes that "father hunger" often afflicts boys whose fathers are suddenly and permanently absent. Sleep disturbances, such as trouble falling asleep, nightmares and night terrors frequently begin within months after the father leaves home.

Children from fatherless families often have less of an ability to delay gratification and exhibit poorer impulse control (that is, control over anger and sexual gratification.) These children also have a weaker sense of conscience, or sense of right and wrong.

In short, innumerable studies indicate fatherless children are at a dramatically greater risk of drug and alcohol abuse, mental illness, suicide, poor educational performance, teen pregnancy and criminality. Without men around as role models, adolescent boys create their own rites of passage, perhaps getting a girl pregnant or dealing drugs or murdering a rival. And adolescent girls subconsciously seek to win back their father's love, often engaging in promiscuity and attention-getting behaviors.

Why are many men today drifting further and further away from family life? What is the cause of the "Fatherless Society" we live in? Is the notion of fatherhood itself becoming obsolete? Researchers at the University of Newcastle in Great Britain claim they are on the verge of creating sperm cells from bone marrow. This would allow women to conceive children completely without men. According to these researchers, men might eventually become biologically unnecessary for women to bear children.

Meanwhile, Kay S. Hymowitz argues that artificial insemination is already redefining the family. In "The Incredible Shrinking Father," she explains our culture is fast moving to recognize a class of persons who never existed before - children without fathers. Or even children with two mothers.

Despite the world's technology and the rejection of the Christian view of marriage as the union of one man and one woman, CHRISTIANS UNDERSTAND THE POTENTIAL IMPACT OF A GODLY FATHER IS ALMOST IMMEASURABLE. Fathers are the visible link their children will ultimately have to their Father in Heaven. The viewpoint our children will develop about God will come from fathers more than any other place.

The famous rapper Tupac Shakur grew up in a New York City ghetto. In 1996, he was gunned down in a drive-by shooting. Of his life he said: "I know for a fact if I had a father, I'd have some discipline. I'd have more confidence. Your mother can't calm you down the way a man can. Your mother can't reassure you the way a man can. Your mother can't show you where your manhood was. You need a man to teach you how to be a man."

Illegal aliens bring in drugs, guns, disease and who knows what else. Illegal aliens drive down wages. Illegal aliens commit a disproportionate number of crimes, clog the court system and fill the jails. Illegal aliens drain social services at taxpayer expense, and the government is helpless - or unwilling - to do anything about it.

DESPITE THIS SPECTACULAR FAILURE - THE INABILITY TO FIND 20 MILLION ILLEGAL ALIENS - THIS SAME GOVERNMENT IS PREPARING TO LOCATE, MONITOR AND CONTROL THE MOVEMENT OF HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF LIVESTOCK ANIMALS. EVERY COW - AS MANY AS 100 MILLION - MUST HAVE A UNIQUE NUMBERED IDENTIFICATION TAG, MOST LIKELY A RADIO FREQUENCY IDENTIFICATION DEVICE.

More than 500 million chickens must be identified with a similar tag. Every horse, every pig, every goat, every sheep - every livestock animal in the United States will be required to have a unique number loaded into a national database, along with the coordinates of the premises where the animal is housed. And should an animal leave the premises for any reason, the owner would have to report it to the government within 24 hours, or face fines and jail penalties.

Why would the government undertake such a ridiculous program, when it has already demonstrated that it has no hope of keeping track of illegal aliens?

Currently, meat products from anywhere can be imported and incorporated into hamburger, hot dogs and other processed meats now sold as American meat. With Country of Origin Labeling, these meat products would have to disclose the origin of the meat contents - like every other imported product.

Have you ever seen the "Made in China" disclosure on almost everything? Why not have your hamburger package say: "30 percent of this product made in Uganda," or some other country? Because it would scare the "sale" out of a lot of people, and the big processors know it.

That's precisely why the NIAA, the National Cattle and Beef Association, the American Farm Bureau Federation and the major meat processors do not want Country of Origin Labeling, but do want National Animal Identification. THIS WAY, THE BIG GUYS CAN KEEP ON SELLING WHATEVER THEY IMPORT FROM WHATEVER SOURCE - AND CALL IT U.S. MEAT. AND WITH NAIS, THEY CAN ALSO EXPORT U.S. PRIME MEAT INTO COUNTRIES THAT NOW REQUIRE AN ELECTRONIC TRACE-BACK SYSTEM - WHETHER THE SYSTEM WORKS OR NOT.

The nation's transformation from what once was a unified Judeo-Christian culture into an angry cauldron of squabbling groups and nationalities grows daily. And the U.S. government's response to this momentous threat to America's national survival? Excuse it, legalize it and encourage it!

Why is the federal government doing this? How can Americans stop it? And most importantly, what is the right way to deal with the nation's overwhelming and ever-worsening illegal immigration problem?

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich calls the government's current effort to fix the problem "madness." Pat Buchanan and David Limbaugh both call it "suicide." And President Theodore Roosevelt, looking forward through the decades to today, warned us sternly: "The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities."

Yet today's government, by allowing and indeed encouraging a Third World immigrant invasion of the United States - encouraging it by offering endless incentives like Social Security, food stamps and free education, as well as refusing to enforce existing immigration laws - is overseeing a radical conversion of America.

My first crop of new potatoes is almost ready for lifting. To many listeners this may not seem an event worth recording, let alone celebrating. But one of the drawbacks of being a city-dweller is not having a garden.
Instead I have a piece of roof, about the size of a rather large tablecloth, on which I do my best to live out my fantasy of being self-sufficient in home grown vegetables.

My potatoes (like my tomatoes) are in large non-matching earthenware containers, on a small terrace among the chimney-pots. When I clamber out to water them, the cool touch and fresh smell of their emerald green foliage fills me with satisfaction, and buoys up my spirits, before I plunge into the Underground for the first of several journeys of the day.

As I plant out my seedlings, or encourage my bean plants to wind themselves around their supporting frame, I have the sustaining sense of connecting back to my childhood and my family history, and of taking pleasure in knowing how to care for my own little bit of earth.

Which in my case is just as well, since as far as I am aware, nobody ever taught me how to garden. When my husband asked me curiously how I knew how to prick out my beetroot seedlings when the first pair of real leaves appeared above the seed leaves, or to earth up my potatoes when the stems reached a certain height, it brought me up short.

Like all the other domestic skills I take for granted, it was my mother who showed me what to do in the garden, just as she taught me how to cast off a piece of knitting neatly, and lay royal icing over marzipan on a cake. NONE OF WHICH I THINK OF AS "KNOWLEDGE".

Knowledge, for me, is learning how to conjugate a Latin verb, or bisect the angle of a triangle using a pair of compasses, or commit to memory the dates of the 17th Century Anglo-Dutch wars. I associate such "knowledge" with formal education, school, university, and the things my father inculcated into me from as early as I can remember.

So now that I have conceded that gardening is something that requires to be learned, I am going to expand my horticultural horizons - resist my urge to succumb to the nostalgia of what I already know. Next season I'm planting chillies, okra and pak choi in my multi-coloured pots among the chimneys.

FLOODS KILL 128, LEAVING 24 MISSING
China has seen 128 people killed and 24 missing in floods by June 15, the Office of the State Flood Control and Draught Relief Headquarters said.

FLOODS WRECK HAVOC IN SOUTHWEST CHINA
Guizhou Province in southwest China is striving to bring life back to normal after being hit by devastating floods, gale force winds, hail and torrential rain.

SUMMER CROP TARGETS THREATENED BY DROUGHT
The Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) warned Friday the lingering drought will damage the year's summer crop output, but analysts say the country's grain crop prices won't be much affected.

DROUGHT AFFECTS 4.8 MILLION PEOPLE
A drought hitting several Chinese provinces has left 4.8 million people and 4.8 million livestock short of drinking water, according to the State drought relief headquarters.

CHINA FLOOD RESCUE EFFORT TARGETS DISEASE
China turned its attention to halting the spread of disease on Friday as flood waters began to recede in parts of the south after storms this week which killed dozens and made hundreds of thousands homeless.

NATURAL DISASTERS KILL 3,186 CHINESE IN 2006
China witnessed frequent natural disasters which claimed 3,186 lives in 2006, an official with the Ministry of Civil Affairs announced Wednesday. Natural disasters damaged 41 million hectares of farmland, toppled down 1.93 million houses and forced 13.84 million people to leave their homes, causing direct economic losses of 252.8 billion yuan, said Li Liguo, vice minister of civil affairs.

FLOODS CAUSE US$16 BILLION OF ECONOMIC LOSS LAST YEAR
Floods claimed 1,841 lives and inflicted direct economic loss of 127.3 billion yuan (16.3 billion U.S. dollars) in China last year, government sources said in Shijiazhuang on Saturday. According to the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters, 145 million people and more than 151 million mu (about 10 million hectares) of cropland were affected by floods in 2006.

US$19 BILLION IN HUAIHE FLOOD CONTROL
China plans to invest 155.4 billion yuan (19 billion U.S. dollars) in the next 20 years to enhance flood control on the Huaihe River, a flood-prone river in east China. The 1,000-kilometer Huaihe River originates in central China's Henan Province and runs through Shandong, Anhui and Jiangsu provinces. The areas along the river have a history of flooding and droughts.

The prime minister and chancellor are now united over the UK's negotiating stance. Government officials said there were four key issues on which the UK would not give ground at the summit. The UK said it would not agree to anything "which requires us to alter labour and social legislation", such as laws that make it harder to fire staff.

The UK said it would not agree to anything "which allows us to be overruled on common law or police and judicial powers". The government said it would "insist on maintaining an ability to conduct our own foreign and defence policy" and resist anything that endangers the UK's seat as one of the permanent five members of the United Nations Security Council.

Finally, the UK will not accept anything that requires it to change the "cost, scope and financial structure" of the UK's social security system.

With less than a week to go to the summit, Mr Brown appears increasingly inclined to accept the provisions of an "amending treaty" rather than go down a road that would seriously damage his relations with Britain's European partners.

However, any agreement at Brussels next week will see Mr Brown facing a tough fight to persuade both the public and the rightwing media that there is no case for a referendum.

Timothy Kirkhope, the leader of Britain's MEPs, insisted yesterday that Mr Blair's successor must hold a referendum on whatever is agreed.

"In the event of a transfer of more powers to the European Union, the British people should have the right to a referendum. No one under the age of 50 has ever voted on the issue of Europe. Conservatives want a referendum focused on the big issues such as globalisation and global poverty, rather than the issues of institutional reform".

"We need a referendum, not only on the Europe we want to see, but on the kind of Europe we don't want to see."

Mr Sarkozy is understood to have discussed the idea with other EU leaders ahead of next week's European summit, Mr Blair's last major international event as prime minister.

His support for Mr Blair taking on a big European job is a remarkable sign of Anglo-French rapprochement since Mr Sarkozy replaced Jacques Chirac as president last month.

German diplomats say Mr Sarkozy put his plan to Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, while EU officials say the French president has also touted his idea around other capitals, including Madrid. But the British prime minister remains unpopular with governments in countries such as Italy and Spain, which opposed the Iraq war. Mr Blair's failure to take Britain into the euro will also count against him.

Mr Blair's aides admit that Mr Sarkozy and other EU leaders have suggested the idea, but Downing Street insisted that Mr Blair was standing down from frontline politics on June 27. He has denied interest in the job.

The highly controversial development - which environmentalists say bears out their charge that the technology is creating "Frankenstein Foods" - is also likely to open the door to a new generation of GM crops.

The rice, which has been called "the Holy Grail" by GM enthusiasts, has been modified to grow two proteins found in human breast milk. It is produced by the California-based Ventria Biosciences, which says that it wants to use them in baby milk and rehydration drinks to fight the severe diarrhoea that kills some two million small children in the Third World every year. Critics dismiss this as window-dressing, citing a US government disclosure that the proteins will be used in "yoghurts" and "granola bars".

Apart from its use of human genes, the rice heralds a new type of crop modified to grow drugs, a process dubbed "pharming". This could lead to people who should not be exposed to the drugs unwittingly eating them in their food. The leading technical journal Nature Biotechnology compared growing such pharmaceuticals in crops to "packaging pills in candy wrappers.".

Clare Oxborrow of Friends of the Earth said: "This product is both risky and completely unnecessary. The solutions to diarrhoea are already out there and we do not need a genetically modified product, especially one that may risk public health."

Mr Blair had pledged to hold a referendum on the planned EU constitution in 2004 before the document was rejected by voters in France and Holland.

Yesterday No 10 insisted that the agreement expected to be sealed next week would lead only to an "amending treaty" that did not need to be approved at the polls. Timothy Kirkhope, the leader of Britain's Conservative MEPs, said: "In the event of a transfer of more powers to the EU the British people should have the right to a referendum. "No one under the age of 50 has ever voted on the issues of Europe. We need a referendum, not only on the Europe we want to see, but on the Europe we don't want to see."

IT WAS CLAIMED LAST NIGHT THAT THE FRENCH PRESIDENT NICOLAS SARKOZY WAS ACTIVELY TOUTING MR BLAIR FOR THE JOB OF THE FIRST FULL-TIME EU PRESIDENT. The Financial Times claimed that M. Sarkozy had discussed the idea with other European leaders. But Downing Street insisted that Mr Blair had no interest in the job. A spokeswoman said: "The Prime Minister has made it clear that he is not going to return to front-line politics."

About 900 Chinese missiles are in place opposite Taiwan, while China is also rolling out far more sophisticated long-range nuclear missiles, combat planes, warships and submarines, the Department of Defense official said.

Richard Lawless, the Pentagon's deputy undersecretary for Asia-Pacific affairs, said the US government urgently wanted to launch a strategic dialogue to discuss China's military intentions, especially over nuclear arms. "I think if we had a true dialogue of depth... we might be able to constrain and put some of those issues of (Chinese) intent to bed," he told a hearing of the House of Representatives armed services committee.

"Not being able to, we must plan and prepare for the worst," he said. "It is an area of intense concern and we're giving it due attention from the highest levels of the Department of Defense and the inter-agency discussion."
China's successful test of an anti-satellite weapon in January could "disrupt, delay and frustrate our ability to operate" in space, he also said.And its growing sophistication in "cyber-warfare" has given China the capacity "to attack and degrade our computer systems," he cautioned.

Lawless was briefing US lawmakers on an annual Pentagon report issued last month that questioned China's lack of transparency in its defense budgeting and suggested that it could be "planning for pre-emptive military options in advance of regional crises."

Although Beijing announced an official defense budget figure of 45 billion dollars for 2007, the US Defense Intelligence Agency estimates China's total military-related spending for this year could be up to 125 billion dollars.The lack of transparency in China's military activities "will naturally and understandably prompt international responses that hedge against the unknown," the report said.

The expensive upgrading of Chinese offensive systems "is tilting the military balance in the mainland's favor" against Taiwan, but also risks upsetting the regional balance of power in Asia and beyond, Lawless said.

As summer begins, half of the country is unusually dry or officially in drought from lack of rain, USA Today reported.

It is the driest spring in the U.S. Southeast since record-keeping began in 1895 and California and Nevada recorded their driest June-to-May period since 1924, the National Climatic Data Center said.

In Southern California's Antelope Valley, the dry spring erased the annual bloom of California poppies and in South Florida, Lake Okeechobee, the second-largest body of fresh water in the country, last week fell to a record low level. So much of the lake bed is dry that vegetation covering 12,000 acres of the area caught fire last month.

Saltwater intrusion threatens to contaminate wells for Atlantic coastal towns as fresh groundwater levels drop and in Alabama more than half the corn and wheat crops are in poor condition.

This drought has been particularly harsh in the Southwest, the Southeast and northern Minnesota.

Go to http://www.drought.unl.edu/dm/monitor.html for details

DENVER -- Drought, a fixture in much of the West for nearly a decade, now covers more than one-third of the continental United States. And it's spreading.

As summer starts, half the nation is either abnormally dry or in outright drought from prolonged lack of rain that could lead to water shortages, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor, a weekly index of conditions.
The index shows Michigan is nearly drought free, with only some counties in the western Upper Peninsula experiencing a moderate drought.

Welcome rainfall from the recent Tropical Storm Barry brought short-term relief to parts of the fire-scorched Southeast. But up to 50 inches of rain is needed to end the drought there, and this is the driest spring in the Southeast since record-keeping began in 1895, according to the National Climatic Data Center.

Meanwhile, California and Nevada just recorded their driest June-to-May period since 1924, and a lack of rain in the West could make this an especially risky summer for wildfires. Coast to coast, the drought's effects are as varied as the landscapes:

- In central California, ranchers are selling cattle or trucking them out of state as grazing grass dries up. In Southern California's Antelope Valley, rainfall at just 15% of normal erased the spring bloom of California poppies.

- In South Florida, Lake Okeechobee fell to a record low of 8.94 feet last week. So much lake bed is dry that 12,000 acres of it caught fire last month.

- In Alabama, shallow ponds on commercial catfish farms are dwindling, and more than half the corn and wheat crops are in poor condition.

Dry episodes have become so persistent in the West that some scientists and water managers say drought is the "new normal" there. On the Colorado River, the water supply for 30 million people in seven states and Mexico, the Lake Powell and Lake Mead reservoirs are only half full and unlikely to recover for years. In Los Angeles County, on track for a record dry year, officials are threatening to cancel Fourth of July fireworks if conditions worsen.

In Minnesota, which is in its worst drought since 1976, the situation is improving slowly, although a wildfire last month burned dozens of houses and 115 square miles in the northeastern part of the state.

The Southeast, unaccustomed to prolonged dry spells, may be suffering the most. In eight states from Mississippi to the Carolinas and down through Florida, lakes are shrinking, crops are withering, well levels are falling.

"The only good news about drought, says Peter Gleick, president of the Pacific Institute, a think tank that stresses efficient water use, "is that it forces us to pay attention to water management."