In part, that's because the economists think Americans will spend more freely in the coming months. Higher stock prices have made people wealthier. And a cut in the Social Security payroll tax is giving most households an extra $1,000 to $2,000 this year. American exports and corporate spending, which have helped drive the recovery, are also expected to remain strong, according to the quarterly AP Economy Survey.

The one factor that could make a second recession a possibility would be a jump in oil prices to $150 a barrel, economists say. Oil trades at about $112 a barrel now. The record high, set in the summer of 2008, is about $147 a barrel. "The economy is regaining some of its lost muscle and now seems to have a much thicker skin than it did six months or a year ago, and that's helping it handle various negative forces," said Lynn Reaser, a board member of the National Association for Business Economics.

This bleak forecast comes only hours after some Arkansas communities were devastated by the volatile storm front. "The town's gone," one Vilonia, Arkansas resident told the Associated Press. A tornado peeled through the small town in central Arkansas late Monday evening, with torrential downpours and high winds causing damage across much of the state. Since Monday, this storm has killed 14 people and led Arkansas to issue a state of emergency. Compounding the misery:

More rain is expected to come down Tuesday, not only in Arkansas but also in Missouri, where a levee protecting the town of Poplar Bluff was breached late Tuesday morning. Officials were rushing to evacuate residents. But these storms are hardly localized affairs. The wider Lower Mississippi Valley, already hit by one arm of the storm Monday afternoon into early Tuesday, will be struck by yet another wave of storms this afternoon. In fact, early Tuesday morning, meteorologists were already warning half a dozen states to be on the lookout for funnel clouds: Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi and Tennessee.

Overnight, this system will then continue its tirade north into Illinois and Wisconsin, said Greg Carbin, a meteorologist with the Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma. From there, the storm will sweep east across the nation, reaching as far north as New York and far south as Georgia, dumping inches of rain across a major swath of the Eastern seaboard. And right behind this system is another emerging storm front in the Midwest, already starting to move east.

Erik Britton, a director at Fathom, compared the development to throwing lighter fuel on a barbecue. The question is, he said, "whether the coals are lit". The warning is the result of the extraordinary measures to prop up the financial system, which have seen central banks resort to strategies such as buying up bonds to keep the flow of money circulating.

Fathom's economists are worried that last year may have marked the high point of the global recovery. "It remains unclear how much of the equity market rally has been 'genuine', rather than simply a 'mopping up' of that extraordinary injection of liquidity," they warned. "As that stimulus is gradually withdrawn, further gains in equity markets will be harder to achieve."

The Bank of England was the smallest contributor to the headline figure. So far, it has pumped 200 billion pounds into the system through quantitative easing (QE), its programme of buying government bonds to keep the money flowing. The European Central Bank (ECB), which sets monetary policy across the eurozone, emerged as the biggest contributor to the headline figure.

The group's website calls for a Muslim uprising on the day and warns Princes William and Harry to "watch your backs". The far-right English Defence League has vowed to stop any MAC demonstration. A second group with Middle East links has recently asked police for permission to protest on the day and is in talks with senior officers. Military personnel will be part of the massive security operation around the procession route through Westminster.

Some 5,000 police officers will be joined by hundreds of soldiers in uniform, though sources suggest there will be many others undercover. Assistant Commissioner Lynne Owens said: "Any criminals attempting to disrupt the day, in protest or otherwise will be met by a robust, decisive, flexible and proportionate police response. We want the public to be our eyes and ears and report anything suspicious or unusual."

Around 1,000 police will form a mobile reserve, ready to deal with any trouble on the fringes of the route, where road closures will begin at 6am. Police told a group of West End businesses to carry on as normal on Friday. A senior officer said he was confident an army of thousands of Middle England Royalists would stop any spontaneous anarchist protest around the wedding.

"This savage behavior, which is aimed at keeping the ruling clique in power at the expense of a rising number of civilian lives, calls for immediate international action beyond condemnations," Sawasiah said in a statement sent to Reuters. "The murderers in the Syrian regime must be held accountable. The rivers of blood spilled by this oppressive regime for the past four decades are enough," the statement said.

Sawasiah's board includes Syrian philosophy professor Sadeq Jalal al-Azem, whose book "Self-criticism after the defeat" helped set the stage for a revival in Arab political thought after Israel's victory in the 1967 Middle East War.

Portions of Texas and a small part of eastern Louisiana are the only parts of the nation that rank in the National Weather Service's worst drought condition category, said Victor Murphy, the climate service program manager for the southern region, based in Fort Worth. The "exceptional" drought level happens once every 50 to 100 years, he said.

Much of the rest of Texas and Louisiana are in extreme drought conditions - the worst in 20 to 50 years - as are parts of Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Florida and tiny portions of Colorado and Kansas. Other areas of those states are experiencing severe and moderate drought conditions, along with parts of Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina. May is "pretty much our last chance to mitigate this thing," because that month typically brings the most rainfall in many of the bone-dry states, including Texas and Oklahoma, which need about 4 inches of rain in the next month, Murphy said.

The widespread drought was spawned last year by La Nina, a condition that changes wind and air pressure patterns. It brought warmer-than-normal temperatures and less rainfall to the southern and central US, drying out grass and shrubs that have become fuel for wildfires that have ignited and raged out of control in several states.

The European single currency hit $1.4653 in morning trade, the highest point since mid-December 2009, as many dealers returned from a long holiday weekend. It later stood at $1.4619, compared with $1.4572 late in New York on Monday. The dollar meanwhile tumbled to an all-time low point of 0.8745 Swiss francs. Investors moved to adjust positions ahead of the US Federal Reserve's two-day policy meeting, which was to open later on Tuesday, dealers said.

The central bank's Federal Open Market Committee is widely expected to maintain interest rates at between zero and 0.25 percent, where they have stood since December 2008.

The risk of some sort of incident is not easy to calculate. The police must take into account not only the likelihood of something happening but also the impact, should it happen. For example, the chance of someone in the crowd being motivated to bring a firearm and to shoot at the procession is unlikely. But the potential threat is something senior officers have to take very seriously.

Or what if an anti-monarchist tried to throw a paint bomb at the royal carriage? This wouldn't cause injury (except to the Met's reputation), but is far more likely to happen, and therefore a threat. Police will also be on the lookout for possible attacks by radical Islamists. Since 7/7 Britain has experienced a series of such threats - and one, the attempt to blow up Glasgow airport in 2007, came close to being carried out.

After the recent discovery of a bomb in Newry, County Down, and the government's decision to raise the threat of an Irish dissident attack from moderate to substantial, this is another cause for concern for the security services. With this in mind, the police have already begun systematic searches of drains, lamp-posts, traffic lights and other street furniture. Once checked, a tamper-proof sticker is applied to any door or cover behind which a bomb could be placed.

There will be snipers on rooftops and a police "eye in the sky" helicopter with a camera capable of identifying faces in the crowd. Police sniffer dogs will check the route and the Abbey in advance. The police have turned down a request by the group Muslims Against Crusades to march outside Westminster Abbey, though discussions continue and a static protest can't be banned.

After the recent wave of street demonstrations, during one of which a group surrounded a car carrying the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall, there are concerns that some radical groups might try to get into the route and close to the royal vehicles. To counter this, Scotland Yard is considering pre-emptive action against known activists, some of whom may be arrested in advance based on the suspicion they may be plotting. About 60 people are banned from entering the area around Parliament under their bail conditions, and will be reminded of the fact.

It comes after David Cameron and George Osborne made clear they would veto any move to make Mr Brown the £270,000-a-year head of the International Monetary Fund, a job for which he has been lobbying. Mr Brown's spokesman was quick to say that his new role will be to 'stop the next financial crisis'. His remarks echoed Mr Brown's assertion that he 'saved the world' after the international credit crunch of 2009.

Tory deputy chairman Michael Fallon said Mr Brown has yet to face up to the legacy of debt that he bequeathed to taxpayers. 'This is a case of putting the arsonist in charge of the fire station,' he said. 'It beggars belief that somebody who is yet to apologise for the mess he made in our finances should be advising the rest of the world.'

After not posting $1 bonds, Jones and his associate pastor, Wayne Sapp, were escorted to jail, said District Judge Mark Somers. Somers said Jones and Sapp would stay in Wayne County jail until posting bond. The men posted the $1 bonds about an hour after initially refusing to. Prosecutors had asked Somers to set the bond at $45,000.

Somers ruled Thursday the city of Dearborn didn't violate Jones' free speech rights by denying him a permit to protest outside the mosque. Somers said Jones rejected four alternative sites listed in a city ordinance. Somers said the jury was very concerned with the First Amendment right of freedom of speech. He said that the juror's concerns were similar to the courts because they were more concerned with the protest's time and location rather than its content.

"We are going to be exercising our First Amendment rights. We have some issues we are going to address, actually several issues," Jones told Local 4 at the airport. "We're going to be addressing the issue of jihad and Sharia. We are going to be talking about our president's intentions for re-election. We will be addressing many issues that, I believe, concern us as a nation."

Hamm-Niebruegge said it could take a "couple of months" to fully repair the damage, with some carriers having to use other airport locations in the meantime. Concourse C is used by American Airlines, Frontier, AirTran and Cape Air.

Wes Browning, a chief meteorologist for the weather service, said Saturday that preliminary estimates were that an EF2 or EF3 tornado - packing winds between 111 and 165 miles per hour - hit the airport. In Bridgeton, the tornado's winds were even stronger, blowing between 166 and 200 miles in what the weather service has preliminarily rated as an EF4.

Governor Jay Nixon estimated that, throughout the region, the tornado caused damage to 750 homes - fewer than 100 of which remained uninhabitable. Yet no one lost his or her life. "It is absolutely amazing that an EF4 tornado can come through an airport and a number of municipalities that are highly populated, at a time when people weren't at work, and have no fatalities," Nixon said. "We're talking property, we're not talking about loss of life because of this. That is nothing short of astounding."

The Government raised the warning to 'high' for most of south, east and central England as glorious sunshine and still conditions prevented any dispersal of the tiny particles of soot, dust, dirt and liquid nitrogen dioxide. The unseasonably warm weather, with temperatures reaching 79F (26C) in central London yesterday, means that Britain is on course for the hottest April on record.

Experts said the vulnerable - such as asthmatics, the elderly, young children and heart patients - would experience more difficulty breathing, and warned that long-term exposure to high pollution could cause lung cancer and heart disease. This is the first 'smog warning' for two years. They are normally issued during the summer. But the prolonged dry spell caused by a high pressure system above the UK, and pollution drifting over from southern Europe, have combined to breach European safety limits.

A year ago, it was Russia that bore the brunt of global warming, and with the price of benchmark wheat futures jumping by more than a fifth since the spring in the global market hub of Chicago, farmers everywhere are busy scanning the skies for soothing signs. Traditional Easter fairs in the east and the north of the Netherlands have been cancelled because of the risk of fires posed by the extraordinarily dry weather affecting northern Europe, Dutch news agency ANP said.

In the eastern half of the country, one of Europe's biggest traders, outdoor family barbecues, smoking and camp fires are a strict no-no. In the Swiss canton of Zurich, officials began moving trout this week from the river Toess before their habitat dried up. This year threatens to bring "one of the most significant droughts since 1864," the year when records began in Switzerland, said Olivier Duding, a climatologist from Swiss weather service Meteosuisse. The drought in western Switzerland over the last 12 months is as severe as those recorded in 1884 and 1921, Meteosuisse said.

While the Czech Republic, Slovakia and the Baltic states of northeastern Europe are not reporting drought, the British Met Office warns it has been "incredibly dry in many parts in March and April." Rainfall is at 40 percent of normal levels, and England and Wales had the driest March in more than a century. Beware the ides, as they say. Soon, if the hot, dry spell continues, water use restrictions will be forced on residents and companies there.

Six out of 10 French reservoirs are holding water levels far below what is normal, meaning similar irrigation controls are likely there.

March was already extremely volatile for grains, largely due to growing economic uncertainties and the turmoil in North Africa and parts of the Near East - as well as the Japanese earthquake and tsunami, the Food and Agriculture Organization said after logging a first, slight drop in raw food prices for eight months.

A spokeswoman for European farmers federation Copa-Cogeca said it was too soon to draw conclusions, but Belgian farmer Guy Franck, who heads a dairy collective in French-speaking Wallonia, says gut instinct tells him worse is yet to come. "I've been in this game for 30 years, I've never seen a month of April like this one," he said. "Everything with short roots is seriously dehydrated," he warned.

Some generated tsunamis that claimed more than 100 lives; and it is thought they occurred because the original earthquake, on 26 December, increased stresses along the tectonic plate boundary that lies to the west of Sumatra and Java. So what is the outlook for Japan now, especially for the great city of Tokyo and the Kanto plain on which it sits?

This is home to one-quarter of Japan's population, as well as being the country's administrative and commercial centre. Big quakes struck the area in 1703, 1855 and 1923, with the last claiming the lives of 100,000 people. Were any one of these events to occur today, the economic losses alone would be expected to top $1 trillion (80 trillion Yen). Seismic activity has definitely increased since the M 9.0 event, with the incidence of small earthquakes registered in some parts of Japan, hundreds of kilometres from the source, increasing by a factor of 10.

Hazard assessment in the region is therefore a pressing priority for researchers; but it is far from easy. "The Kanto region is very complex, and the size of quakes triggered there is probably going to be limited by that complexity," says Chris Goldfinger from Oregon State University in the US, who works in collaboration with Japanese researchers.

The island nation of Tonga is regularly hit by tremors - most recently a 6.4 magnitude quake offshore last month. The research expedition will last about one month. The focus of the study will be an unusual zone on the seabed where undersea volcanoes are being dragged into the fault. Scientists want a better understanding of how the submarine mountains affect the likelihood of earthquakes.

The volcanoes lie on the 4,000km-long Louisville Ridge and either act as a brake on the Pacific plate - or intensify the quakes which follow. The area where they are pulled into the seabed suffers relatively fewer tremors than other stretches of the fault line. The study - funded by Britain's Natural Environment Research Council (Nerc) - will carry out surveys and develop 3D models during seven transits of the region.

One of the lead scientists on the expedition, Professor Tony Watts of Oxford University, told BBC News: "We want to know whether subducted seamounts are holding up earthquakes or whether they cause earthquakes. This is important to find out so that we can learn what controls earthquakes and make better assessments about where they may occur in the future." Subduction zones like the Tonga Trench can trigger tsunamis - as happened off Japan last month and off Sumatra on Boxing Day 2004.