Spain is battling to avert a fully-fledged sovereign rescue after borrowing costs spiralled out of control, with dangerous knock-on effects in Italy and Eastern Europe.

The yields on closely-watched two-year debt surged by 78 basis points to a modern-era high of 6.42pc, leaving it unclear how long the country can continue funding itself. Italy's two-year yields vaulted to 4.6pc.

"We can't keep going like this for another 15 days," said Prof Miguel Angel Bernal from Madrid's Institute of Market Studies. "The European Central Bank has to bring out its heavy artillery."

Andrew Roberts, credit chief at Royal Bank of Scotland, said the dramatic spike in short-term borrowing costs marked a key inflexion point in the crisis, replicating the pattern seen in Greece, Ireland and Portugal as they lost access to market finance. "We are fast approaching the endgame," he said.

Exchange clearer LCH Clearnet raised margin requirements on both Spanish and Italian bonds, a move that will automatically cause further selling by some funds.

Scituate, Massachusetts - The anger hasn't subsided in Humarock after 4th of July celebrations were cut short due to safety concerns.

The neighborhood met Sunday morning to plan their next move in a quarrel with the Town of Scituate.

Nearly 100 people attended a meeting at the South Humarock Civic Association Clubhouse. At the meeting, some residents went so far as to call Scituate town officials "Fascists," and say Humarock needs to break away.

The latest aggravation began earlier this month, when residents claim the town was heavy-handed in enforcing a ban on bonfires.

"That was a full military operation... I mean hummers up and down the beach, state police helicopters, horseback, bomb squad, [and] a command post up the center," said Fred Hayden, who owns a summer home in Humarock.

While the author is almost certainly on the right track, it's important to bear in mind that psychopaths, while sharing some essential qualities (or the lack thereof), appear to come in all shapes and sizes and that most of them don't resort to outright violence to get what they want.

There's going to be a lot of finger-pointing and hand-wringing in the coming days as we begin to process the awful tragedy that unfolded early this morning in Aurora, Colorado. In particular, it seems that right-wingers are eager to point fingers and are being hypersensitive about any suggestion of right-wing politics being even remotely involved in this case.

Of course, one of the foremost facets of events like these is that premature speculation is almost always wrong. It's wisest to let the facts emerge first, at which time we can begin making a rational appraisal of the event and its underlying causes. (We will, of course, be keeping a close eye on just what is in those "items of interest" found in the home of the suspect, James Eagan Holmes, since that will tell us a great deal.)

Unlike a lot of the talking heads out there, though, it seems silly to run and hide from the political dimensions of these kinds of tragedies, especially when it comes some of the broader social ramifications, most notably the role of the mass proliferation of handguns in American society that's occurred in recent years. Just ask folks in Seattle if that conversation isn't already under way here.

Diana Reeves was furious when her state legislators caved into threats by Monsanto to sue the state of Connecticut if it passed a GMO labeling law. Lawmakers effectively told Connecticut's voters, who had clearly expressed overwhelming support for GMO labeling, "oh well."

Unlike her gutless state legislators who rolled over, Reeves is determined to keep the fight for transparency in GMO ingredients alive - and she's taking her fight national. She's started a group called GMO Free USA which plans to pressure food manufacturers into revealing which of their products contain GMOs. The ultimate goal is to organize national boycotts of those companies that refuse to switch to non-GMO ingredients.

GMO Free USA is Reeves' first foray into activism. The mother of three was on the fast track at a major accounting firm when her son was diagnosed with cancer. She walked away from her job to take care of him.

"I never looked back," she said. Her son died before he turned five.

"This is one of those things that act as a catalyst, that bring people together," Reeves said. "You learn to live with it, to try to make some good come of it, to find better ways to channel the grief."

Having lost one child to disease, and with two daughters who were also suffering from health problems, Reeves became increasingly interested in the relationship between food and health, About 4 or 5 years ago, she began reading about the potential hazards of GMO. "I started sending emails to my friends, telling them to 'say no to GMOs," she said. "I was probably driving them all crazy."

Then a few months ago, a friend introduced her to NonGMO Hartford, which eventually led to her involvement with the Connecticut Right to Know group which was pushing for a state labeling law. She began distributing information, and campaigning for HB 5117, which included a provision for mandatory GMO labeling.

The elderly are among the hardest hit by the U.S. housing crisis, with 600,000 Americans over the age of 50 facing foreclosure.

The American Association for Retired Persons (AARP) found that to date, more than 1.5 million Americans have already lost their homes - and the elderly are increasingly more likely to join them.

Those over the age of 80 are in the worst condition, with one out of every 30 facing foreclosure. Often having burnt through their savings, receiving an inadequate pension, and dealing with the loss of a deceased spouse's retirement benefits, the elderly struggle to make their mortgage payments.

"These are people who in many instances have never missed a payment in 20 years,"said Rep. Elijah Cummings."You see grown men crying because of the potential loss of a home."

Fifty Years of US Targeted 'Kill Lists': From the Phoenix Program to Predator Drones

"A broad-gauged program of targeted assassination has now displaced counterinsurgency as the prevailing expression of the American way of war." - Andrew Bacevich ^[1]

This spring the US drone killing program has come out of the closet. Attorney General Eric Holder publicly defended the drone killing of an American citizen ^[2], while Obama's counter terrorism czar John Brennan publicly explained and justified the target killing program ^[3]. And a New York Times article by Jo Becker and Scott Shane chronicled Obama's personal role in vetting a secret "Kill List." ^[4]

Most Palestinians, whether they supported their late leader Yasser Arafat or not, were in agreement that he did not die of natural causes. They believed he was murdered by Israel or its agents.

But are Palestinians justified in blaming Israel for his death?

French doctors treating Arafat did not issue a conclusive report identifying the cause of his illness. The French public medical report pointed to the destruction of red blood cells as a reason for his death, but did not identify the cause of the red cell failure.

According to an Al Jazeera report, tests by scientists at the Institute of Radiation Physics in Lausanne, Switzerland, suggested that traces found on Arafat's stained underwear and other personal belongings pointed to an "unexplained, elevated amount of unsupported polonium-210", which could explain his red cell abnormality.

The Swiss lab is the same medical institute that uncovered traces of the radioactive isotope polonium-210 on former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko's belongings.

The Russian dissident died in 2006 following a meeting with Russian officials after ingesting tea laced with the substance.

After scanning Arafat's belongings, lab officials found an "unexplained level of polonium", concluding the possibility that he died of "poisoning".

Israel is the only nation in the region with a proven capability to produce polonium-210.

A recent Gallup poll shows that an all time low of on only 20% of the public trusts the news as citizen journalism continues to rise.

Bias and bungled reporting on US news networks are behind plummeting audience numbers, according to the Gallup Poll.

As far as the 20% who do still trust the news I would suppose they simply either don't have internet access or when they go online the don't dare stray to far from sites owned by the corporations that own the corporate media.

For anyone who happens to land here that still believes the news is trustworthy these will instantly make you non-believers as well: Caught: Staged CNN Syria Interviews Faked By Activist Danny and Wag The Dog - Media Caught Faking Syria News Stories.

Of course that isn't even the tip of the iceberg.

RT reports on the Gallup Poll and the continual decline of the corporate media in the video below which also looks at a cutting-edge project that's encouraging ordinary Americans to drive our country's news agenda instead.

Experiment in New Mexico will try to establish the possibility of cooling the planet by dispersing sulphate aerosols

Two Harvard engineers are to spray sun-reflecting chemical particles into the atmosphere to artificially cool the planet, using a balloon flying 80,000 feet over Fort Sumner, New Mexico.

The field experiment in solar geoengineering aims to ultimately create a technology to replicate the observed effects of volcanoes that spew sulphates into the stratosphere, using sulphate aerosols to bounce sunlight back to space and decrease the temperature of the Earth.

David Keith, one of the investigators, has argued that solar geoengineering could be an inexpensive method to slow down global warming, but other scientists warn that it could have unpredictable, disastrous consequences for the Earth's weather systems and food supplies. Environmental groups fear that the push to make geoengineering a "plan B" for climate change will undermine efforts to reduce carbon emissions.

Keith, who manages a multimillion dollar geoengineering research fund provided by Microsoft founder Bill Gates, previously commissioned a study by a US aerospace company that made the case for the feasibility of large-scale deployment of solar geoengineering technologies.

Firefighters say they are still trying to determine the cause of a fire that broke out on Desert Way between Rio Rangler and Alexander Lake just before 11:00 p.m. Sunday night. Witnesses tell News 4 they saw an aircraft crash at the site of the fire, but firefighters would not say if they found any pieces of aircraft and they suspect it could have been a meteor. Firefighters say airport officials have confirmed all planes are accounted for. The fire was contained at one acre. An investigation into the cause is being conducted.