Residents in one Berkshire village say the scenes are from a "horror movie".

Fourteen severe flood warnings are in place in Berkshire and Surrey, while two remain in Somerset.

PM David Cameron - who is in flood-hit Dorset - said it was not the time to change personnel amid criticism of Environment Agency head Lord Smith.

Communities Secretary Eric Pickles has been answering an urgent question put by Labour in the Commons on the flooding crisis.

Homes in the Berkshire village of Datchet are underwater and hundreds more along the lower River Thames, as far as Shepperton, are under threat, the Environment Agency says.

Several Thames gauges are showing their highest levels since being installed in the 1980s and 90s.

Fire crews, who have been rescuing people from their homes in Staines, say they have never known waters so deep or a flood rescue operation on this scale.

In Windsor, Councillor Colin Rayner pleaded for the police and Army for help.

"We've got 50 volunteers here, we've got the vulnerable people out of their homes, now we need to get everyone else out," he said

Nearby, in the Berkshire village of Colnbrook, resident Asif Khan said his whole street was under water, his house was flooded and his fridge "just went bang".

"It's something out of a horror movie," he said, adding that he was now about to try to evacuate with his two small children.

Hurst village resident Paul Palmer said sewers there were blocked and they have been unable to use the toilet since Friday.

"It's starting to back up into the toilet - it's like going back to the dark ages," he told the BBC.

The urgent Commons question from Labour follows a deepening political row.

Mr Pickles, who is standing in for Environment Secretary Owen Paterson, told MPs that there was a "high risk that the Thames, the Severn and the Wye will flood in the middle of the week".

But he said extra efforts were being made to deal with the problem.

"It is wrong to suggest that I have issued even the slightest criticism of the work of the Environment Agency. I believe we should work together, and not to make silly party political points," he added. Last week, Mr Pickles said ministers had been given bad advice by the agency over river dredging.

Agency chairman Lord Smith hit back, saying his staff knew "100 times" more about flooding than any politician and insisted again he would not resign.

Speaking from Portland, off the Dorset coast, Mr Cameron said: "I am only interested in one thing and that is making sure that everything government can do is being done and will go on being done to help people through this difficult time.

So what exactly is a drone?

For many people, the word drones conjures either dreams of ultra-convenient deliveries and Jetson-like flying robots … or fears of a dystopian future where Terminator-types are patrolling the skies and highflying Peeping Toms are poking around in all kinds of personal stuff.

The definition of a drone has changed over the years, and now refers mainly to aircraft that have the capability of autonomous flight. That means it can be programmed to fly from one point to another, dodging obstacles like power lines and people, through sophisticated sensors. To be considered a drone — or unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) — vs. a remote-controlled aircraft (the kind that hobbyists have used for years), it has to fly itself, from takeoff to landing.

Drones are already delivering goods in some areas of the world. They're also helping with disaster relief, search and rescue, weather monitoring, scientific observation, farming and even sheep herding. And have you seen the aerial photography coming out of some of these backyard beauties? Amazing.

But are we ready for burrito-bombers toting tortillas through our lunchtime rush anytime soon? Not so much.

THE STATE OF DRONES

The FAA is currently working on a way to account for drones within U.S. airspace, with six states currently testing drone flights: Alaska, Nevada, New York, North Dakota, Texas and Virginia. Congress is pushing for a plan to be in place as early as next year, with drones weighing less than 55 pounds being cleared for takeoff even earlier than that. But a watchdog group just came out and said the FAA won't make its September 2015 deadline. What's the rush? The commercial drone industry is projected to create 100,000 jobs and generate $82 billion in economic activity.

But there are still a lot of unanswered questions regarding drones and that has, understandably, caused a good deal of concern. The idea of flying robots crash landing in our front lawns or sneaking unwanted snapshots through our bedroom windows doesn't sit well with anyone.

PERSONAL DRONES ARE A DIFFERENT STORY

The game's official pages on both stores have been pulled, and any sight of Flappy Bird on the top Games charts has been scrubbed.

Fans of Flappy Bird who still have the game on their smartphone or tablet can still play. Others who later deleted the game should be able to download the game again by accessing their purchase history on either iTunes or Google Play.

The removal of the game followed a tweet by Nguyen on Saturday, saying he planned to yank the popular game from app stores. "I cannot take this anymore," he wrote.

ONLINE REACTION: What really happened?

The ascent of Flappy Bird peaked this week, as the game surged to the top of Apple's App Store and Google Play. The game featured a small bird that players flew between green pipes, tapping the touch-screen to keep him airborne. While the game mechanics were simple, moving through the pipes proved very difficult.

During an interview with The Verge last week, Nguyen revealed he was making $50,000 a day from ads displayed within the game.

However, recent tweets from Nguyen suggested the developer might have struggled with the newfound attention his game was receiving. In a tweet sent on Feb. 4, Nguyen asked for "peace," and said the press was "overrating" the success of his game.

"I can call Flappy Bird is a success of mine," wrote Nguyen via Twitter on Feb. 8. "But it also ruins my simple life. So now I hate it."

The company said it might scale down the operations of its development and technical centre in Australia as well.

Last year, Ford and General Motors' Holden unit also announced plans to stop producing cars in Australia.

About 2,500 jobs are set to be lost as a result of Toyota's decision, which it attributed to high manufacturing costs.

"We believed that we should continue producing vehicles in Australia, and Toyota and its workforce here made every effort," said Toyota president Akio Toyoda.

"However, various negative factors such as an extremely competitive market and a strong Australian dollar, together with forecasts of a reduction in the total scale of vehicle production in Australia, have forced us to make this painful decision."

The Japanese auto giant, which first began making cars in Australia in 1963, said it "intends to provide the best support it can, including employment assistance" to those affected by the decision.

Vivek Vaidya, an automotive analyst at consultancy Frost & Sullivan, said he was not surprised by Toyota's decision.

"Toyota was the last producer in Australia after exit of Mitsubishi, Ford and Holden," he said. "Labour cost in Australia is too high to be price competitive in production."

Mr Vaidya also said rival car-producing countries such as Thailand and the US were more attractive in terms of manufacturing costs.

'Disaster'

Toyota's decision comes despite appeals from Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who has been looking to keep the carmaker operating in the country.

According to Australian public broadcaster ABC, upon hearing the news Mr Abbott said that "there will be better days in the future".

"Nothing we say or do can limit the devastation that so many people will feel at this point," he said.

"The important thing to remember is, while some businesses close, other businesses open, while some jobs end, other jobs start."

ABC also reported that Australian opposition leader Bill Shorten called Toyota's decision an "unmitigated disaster".

"The car industry has died under the Abbott government - it's a disgrace," he said.

The Chronicle of Philanthropy reported Monday that Zuckerberg’s donation was the largest charitable gift on the public record in 2013 and put the young couple at the top of the magazine’s annual list of 50 most generous Americans in 2013.

The top 50 contributors made donations last year totaling $7.7 billion, plus pledges of $2.9 billion.

The Chronicle’s editor says the most significant fact from the list was the amount of money coming from living donors, which totaled about the same amount as the two previous years combined.

“It’s a sure sign that the economy is getting better and people are getting a lot less cautious,” said Stacy Palmer, Chronicle editor.

Some of the nation’s biggest givers do not appear on the 2013 list, not because they stopped being generous, but because their donations in 2013 were counted as pledges in previous years.

For example, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and his wife, Melinda, gave their foundation slightly more than $181.3 million last year, but they were paying off a pledge of about $3.3 billion they made in 2004. CNN-founder Ted Turner and Berkshire Hathaway chairman Warren Buffett also made large gifts toward previous pledges.

It took gifts totaling at least $37.5 million to make the list this year. Forty-two of the top 50 made gifts of $50 million or more.

Thirty made big gifts to colleges and universities, but Palmer noted most college gifts went to science and research this year, not to buildings, as in previous years.

Ten of the 50 made the list because of bequests after their deaths, including the second biggest giver in 2013, George Mitchell, a Galveston, Texas, man who made his fortune in energy and real estate.

At No. 3 were Nike chairman Philip Knight and his wife, Penelope, of Portland, Ore., who made a $500 million challenge grant to Oregon Health & Science University Foundation for cancer research. The Knight pledge requires the university match it within the next two years.

No. 4 was philanthropist and former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, who made gifts totaling $452 million in 2013 to arts, education, environment, public health and other causes.

Icahn said in a letter to Apple shareholders posted on his website that he was pleased that Apple CEO Tim Cook and the board have exhibited an "opportunistic" and "aggressive" approach to share repurchases. (r.reuters.com/bug76v)

Apple said last week it repurchased $14 billion of its stock in the two weeks since it reported disappointing first-quarter results.

Bill Gates, at the age of 58, having started young and retired young — a product of the 1980s and 1990s — is now going back to work. He'll be taking a key role in product development and innovation initiatives at Microsoft. In a way, this is heartening and logical. He could well have another, productive, career-focused 25 years. Rupert Murdoch will soon turn 83 at his desk.

But Gates, while personally going strong, is being forced to defend the weakness of the business he built against stronger people from a different time and experience.

They seem like young and vital world beaters, each trying to be what Gates once was. Bill Gates, once the scariest man on the planet, now seems avuncular and benign, the opposite of a threat.

The business generation gap is curiously different from the cultural generation gap in that, culturally, we all grow up and get to the same place. Businesses, on the other hand, while they talk about adapting, remain the same, more than not —and hence recede as their new competitors advance.

Bill Gates' seemingly dreadful predicament is, at 58, to go back to work in a business that was much more powerful and fun to work at when he was 38. And now he has to compete with other businesses, more fun and powerful, run by other people who are 38 — or younger.

At first, this might seem like an example of natural obsolesce or Schumpeter's creative destruction, wherein capitalism is always helpfully making way for the new. But the business generation gap is something quite different. Across the American economic spectrum, you have major businesses falling ever more behind but which are still so large and embedded into supply chains, brand consciousness and the installed base of American commercial life, that they're not going anywhere fast. It's a half-life decline, instead of an absolute decline.

In some ways, contrary to Schumpeter's dynamic view of capitalism, they remain immovable obstacles.

Time Inc., once America's most powerful media company, will shortly be spun off from its parent, Time Warner, which is no longer interested in the low returns of a print publisher. For many years, Time has been slipping into decline and embarrassment. Yet, like Microsoft and hundreds of other important, but far-from-the-forefront companies, it remains in cash-positive shape. Indeed, Microsoft remains a money machine with extraordinary profit margins. And Time remains vastly more successful than all but a few digital media companies.

The page now shows a winter sports competitor above each of the six letters in the U.S. Internet giant's name, set against backgrounds in the six colors on the gay pride flag - red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple.

The page also includes a quote from the Olympic charter underlining the right to practise sport without discrimination.

"The practice of sport is a human right. Every individual must have the possibility of practicing sport, without discrimination of any kind and in the Olympic spirit, which requires mutual understanding with a spirit of friendship, solidarity and fair play," it says.

Google Inc. did not immediately comment.

The international outcry over the law, signed by Putin last year, threatens to undermine his hopes of using the Games to portray Russia as a modern state that has come a long way since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.

Putin says the legislation, banning gay propaganda among minors, is needed to protect young people. Critics says it fosters a climate of discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) groups.

Telecoms company AT&T, a sponsor of the U.S. Olympic team, criticized Russia this week over the law, increasing pressure on other companies to speak out.

The Human Rights Campaign, an LGBT rights organization, praised Google for what it called a move to show solidarity with LGBT Russians and visiting athletes.

"Google has once again proven itself to be a true corporate leader for equality," HRC President Chad Griffin said.

"Alongside Olympic sponsors like AT&T, Google has made a clear and unequivocal statement that Russia's anti-LGBT discrimination is indefensible. Now it's time for each and every remaining Olympic sponsor to follow their lead. The clock is ticking, and the world is watching."

PRESSURE ON SPONSORS

Companies including McDonald's, Coca-Cola and Procter & Gamble pay around $100 million each for rights to sponsor the Olympics over a four-year period and want to tap into a feel-good atmosphere during the Games.

These companies are also facing pressure to speak out over the "gay propaganda" law.

"These brands have spent millions to align themselves with the Olympics, but have repeatedly refused to support the founding principles of the Games," Andre Banks, one of the founders of gay rights group All Out, said earlier this week.

Hon Hai, better known by its trading name Foxconn, may invest in a manufacturing facility in North Jakarta, Eko Hariadi told Reuters on Friday. The letter was also signed by Jakarta Governor Joko Widodo, he said.

Hariadi declined to give the potential investment value.

Hon Hai has asked for up to 200 hectares of land in North Jakarta, said Sattar Taba, President Director of the state-owned logistics and industrial parks developer.

It was a sore point for Republicans, who came out of that election vowing to nullify the Democrats' advantage in gleaning information from voter databases and social media to find potential supporters.

More than a year later that still has not happened. According to interviews with a dozen strategists from both parties, Democrats appear set to maintain their technological edge, potentially boosting their prospects in the 2014 midterm elections just as other factors - such as President Obama's sliding popularity - are likely to favor Republicans.

It is not that the Republicans are not trying.

The Republican National Committee is spending "tens of millions of dollars," spokeswoman Kirsten Kukowski says, to "change the culture of our data and digital program" with new data analysis teams in Washington and Silicon Valley. Meanwhile, independent conservative groups funded by big-money donors such as the billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch continue to have their own digital teams, typically focused more on issues - such as opposing Obama's healthcare overhaul - than on individual candidates.

But in a reflection of some of the divisions between the Republican Party's most conservative members and its more moderate establishment, campaigns and other groups often do not share information about voters and tactics.

And even as party leaders are aggressively pursuing a new digital game plan, Republican strategists acknowledge that some conservative candidates and their supporters remain wary of changing tactics they have used for years, such as reaching voters through television ads and door-to-door campaigning without much help from analyses of voter databases.

Some Republicans' skepticism was fueled in 2012 by the embarrassing failure of the Romney campaign's ORCA project, a data system that was designed to help get conservative voters to the polls and improve communication between campaign offices. ORCA crashed on Election Day, potentially harming Republican turnout.

"There's a fundamental cultural problem" in how Republicans have dealt with technology in recent elections, said Vincent Harris, a Republican digital strategist who this year is helping candidates such as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

The 'Geneva 2' peace conference, which had its first round of talks earlier this month, brought Syria's warring sides together for face-to-face negotiations for the first time since the nearly three-year-old conflict began.

State news agency SANA cited Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal as saying the government delegation would attend the talks and demand a discussion "article by article" of the Geneva Communique, the document agreed by the United Nations and world powers as the basis for talks.

Much of the talks were dominated by debate over the basis of negotiations outlined in the Geneva Comunique. The document calls for an end to violence in a civil war that has killed over 100,000 people and the formation of a transitional government.

President Bashar al-Assad's delegates want to focus on halting "terrorism", the term they commonly use to describe the rebels fighting to end four decades of Assad family rule. The opposition wants to focus on forming a transitional government which it insists must not include Assad.