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The government of Hamid Karzi released Mr Dastagir from jail 2 months ago even though he was aTaliban commander in an area near Turkmenistan. This fuels feeling among ordinary Afghan people that the corrupt or criminal can get themselves out of jail. In this case the tribal elders who advocated his release may themselves have faced threats from the Taliban and argued for his release. He was killed in a US pinpoint bombing raid.

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Balancing medical work and family for young doctors. How a new generation of young doctors looks at the balancing of work and family and time for relaxation, the gym and so on. A whole new way of taking care of patients is taking shape that may promote better health of doctors themselves, better balancing the demands and stress in their lives from family members and their own personal needs for relaxation and exercize.

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Peter Baker quotes Obama as saying "I am like a Rorschach test," even if people find me disappointing ultimately, they might gain something.?" So what does this mean someone may ask. By setting up people's hopes in so many places, and especially among long disenfranchised black Americans, and in so many other groups and constituencies, and the possibilities of human beings limited in what they can do, how will all this turn out?

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US president's sweeping powers to use tariffs as a tool for policy when American people's jobs, communities, health, is threatened by fentanyl and concentration of manufacturing jobs in China, unfair trade by EU and Japan, is the issue presented to the US Supreme Court. The US president presented it in this way- tariffs as a foreign policy tool, not a way to impose economic policy in the form of a tax on American importers or buyers which is the power allocated to Congress by the US Constitution. Justices who mentioned these powers called them sweeping powers but would not say the word fentanyl or look back at the recalcitrant behaviour of Asian nations Japan and China when it comes to unfari trading practices, where the US could literally negotiate forever and get no result, or to the enormous concentration of manufacturing power and supply channels in China that not only ships out American jobs but leaves Americans at the mercy of foreign powers for cost of living. Nowhere was this more evident as during covid years and now in rare earths export restrictions from China. The Justices assumed it was just alright to ignore this or leave it unsaid.  The cost to American buyers is small because most of the tariffs are borne by foreign suppliers in China, Japan and Germany, who as in the case of automobiles unfairly benefitted for decades and are now bearing most of the cost of tariffs. The large business in the US have increased their margins so much in the 2020-2024 period that they are now bearing some of the cost of the tariffs, as reported in WSJ. So that inflation in the US is at 3.0 % in the US less than anticipated, when average tariffs are at about 10% overall, not what the headlines say of 15-20% because of the product exceptions made in the tariffs for each nation. Justice Roberts may be right when he says more care should be exercized in the placing of a tariff, but even Roberts and Justices Barrett, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and others know that the US has used this as a last resort, as a policy tool to protect the American people. Sweeping powers need care and caution as Justice Roberts stated- “power to impose tariffs on any product from any country in any amount for any length of time. It does seem like that’s a major authority."   ...

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US president DJT outspoken in "The Conversation," with Dasha Burns in The Politico magazine about dangers of "civilizational erasure" for the Europe that people knew in the past as its population changes with uncontrolled migration of the past two decades. DJT comments on a wide range of topics centering on the migration that has changed the life and politics of Europe by 2025 and what the future holds for Europe if it does not preserve it's own identity handed down for generations. Dasha Burns starts with Ukraine- the reports say DJT said this or that about Ukraine but look at the question she put to DJT- Which country is in the stronger negotiating position? Most people know the answer in the winter of 2025 is that Russia is in a much much stronger position in 2025 and a big part of this is it's size 40 million people in Ukraine to 120 million in Russia and oil revenues. Then Burns asks if it is Zelensky who is responsible for the stalled progress what's going on here, all the time giving DJT something that he might take up that would make a headline grabbing interview. She prompts DJT with the starter phrases and pausing for DJT to pick up on it- If Zelensky rejects this deal, do you think Ukraine has lost this war, and the consensus in Europe is to keep supporting Ukraine until they can win this war. And DJT does no more than what he has said many many times about the difficult situation Ukraine is in. Asked if the US may walk away from supporting Ukraine as Trump Jr. has said, and DJT says- "No it isn't correct. But it's not exactly wrong" because they have to play ball. And that is exactly what the European states UK, France, Germany, Italy, have done as they keep talking and modify the original plan devised by Russia and the US. What this says is that the European states are not trying to win this war and at the same time not willing to let this war be lost and the principle of invading another country be seen as acceptable. This is where there are limits to DJT's diplomacy as he attributes the problem to the hatred between the leaders of the two countries. DJT does not say Zelensky would lose the election if one were held in 2026 as he calls for elections.   ...

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Verizon's deal to buy Hughes Telematics, a maker of wireless systems for vehicles, for $612 million in cash. Verizon paid $12 a share, a huge premium over the Hughes closing price of $4.35 on May 30, 2012.

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This merger is part of a process that happened after 1970 when Penguin Books a national institution in Britain in the war years 1939-1945 was acquired by Pearson Plc, and later sold in 2013  to German publisher Bertelsmann. Penguin became a part of British culture because it sold a million cheap paperbacks at 6 pence in 1939 and continued to provide low cost access to books to all parts of the English speaking world from UK to Asia till the 1960's. The astonishing period of creativity and design of founder Allen Lane ended in 1970 after Pearson Plc focused on profitability and acquisitions. Under this new deal in 2021 a large part of the world publishing industry would come under the control of German publishing house Bertelsmann. Penguin Random House is owned by Bertelsmann and the deal would bring its rival Simon and Schuster under its control. The US Justice Department filed a lawsuit to block it. Attorney General Merrick Garland says- "American authors and consumers will pay the price of this anticompetitive merger- lower advances for authors, and ultimately fewer books and less variety for consumers." Penguin Random House already controls 22% of titles published in the US. The US publishing industry has already seen mergers leading to reduced competition. News Corp. acquired Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in May and merged it into Harper Collins. Largadere Hachette acquired Workman in September. ...

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The variant first identified in India called the Delta variant is 60% more infectious than the Kent variant found in the UK. The Delta variant is now the dominant variant in the UK. There is concern that this could lead to another wave just as the UK is reopening in the summer. There are over 6000 daily cases in the UK this week. The estimated R number is now 1.00 to 1.2 following the number being 1.00 to 1.1 in the earlier week. A R number over 1.0 suggests greater spread of the coronavirus. An R number of 1.1 suggests the number of cumulative cases is taking off meaning that the UK is at risk of a sudden surge in the coronavirus in June or July 2021. India faced a wave from the new variant's higher rate of infectious spread. leading to a sudden surge in May 2021 to 400,000 daily cases before it was brought down by June 1 to about 100,000 The number of hospitalizations in such a wave is estimated to be higher in UK than the previous waves, requiring the government to be more vigilant today. Restrictions on travel from Portugal are being put in place in UK as a precaution. After repeated waves as a consequence of complacency with the coronavirus the lesson now is to take steps early and take aggressive action in advance. ...

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With vaccine hesitancy in the US the goal of vaccinating a large part of the US population is still elusive. Less than half of the US population is fully vaccinated as of July 30. The vaccination rates in the US are now much slower than India even taking into account the population difference. The vaccination in India is at the rate of 4 to 5 million a day for the past week in India. In the US this report in The Guardian shows 4.7 million vaccinated in the past 2 weeks. On July 30 856,000 people were vaccinated in the US compared to over 5 million in India.  Newspaper reporting that encourages vaccine hesitancy people to delay getting vaccinated because of poorly reported headlines is adding to vaccine hesitancy in the US. This has led to much frustration at the White House. The threat of the Delta variant is making more people to take vaccination. Southern states are seeing a jump in vaccinations. Many prominent Republicans are now endorsing vaccination.  One of the problems in tackling the Delta variant is the confusing nature of the CDC guidance on masks. On May 13 CDC issued guidance saying masks were not necessary indoors and outdoors. Now 3 months later in July the CDC says the threat of Delta variant means mask wearing is essential particularly indoors because of the higher transmissibility of the delta variant.  ...

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On September 26 Germany holds a general election to decide who will lead Germany after Merkel. Olaf Scholz of the Social Democrats is seen as personally popular for his work in government with 48% support in recent polls, with Armin Laschet of the Christian Democrats at 24% and Annalena Baerbock at 27%. The Social Democrats poll 24% and are expected to form a government with the Greens at 16% and the FDP party. Baerbock of the Greens and Armin Laschet of the Christian Democrats have lost support in recent weeks with the floods and other events. The figures are from Deutschlandtrend poll by Infratest dimap Institute.  The CDU of Merkel looks less likely to form a government under leadership of Armin Laschet today compared to a few months before. Merkel is still popular with most Germans but this support does not carry over to Armin Laschet. There may also be some sense among Germans that it is time for a change in government after the Merkel years even though she is personally popular. The difficulties imposed by the pandemic on the German people, and the added problems of the floods could lead voters to look for change in government under new leadership more sensitive to the problems of today- infrastructure, employment participation of people held back by the pandemic, and rebuilding healthcare, education, childcare systems, tackling climate change issues. ...

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Housing construction makes up a fourth of China's economy. Chinese government is leery of the huge buildup of debt at housing developer companies in China. Banks are involved with their loans to housing developer companies. Some of these bank loans are nonperforming and this percentage of bad debt is growing. It was always a sense of someday this would stop working. That someday may be today. Efforts are being made to tighten controls on these companies and their way of doing business- raising cash from presold apartments from millions of householders who have accumulated their savings for a speculative investment in a second or third apartment or fulfilling a dream of first home ownership. For two decades it worked as the Chinese economy with the aid of US and European Union transfer of technology and capital grew rapidly. With the US and European Union changing policies and building new supply chains in the competition with China, and China entering the period of a mature economy with less room for growth as Japan did in the 1990's, this buildup of debt  has ominous overtones. Chinese government is making an effort to regulate the housing sector to reduce any potential damage to the economy. The result could be a repeat of the way the Japanese economy after growing rapidly in the period 1960 -1985 slowed rapidly after 1987. ...

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Days after the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore's outer harbor, a key part of the industrial and jobs infrastructure in Maryland, this WSJ report shows 8 other bridges in the same dilapidated condition and at risk of collapsing. The eight bridges are- The Verrazano Narrows Bridge  NY-NJ,             The George Washington Bridge NY-NJ, The Golden Gate Bridge and the Oakland- San Francisco Bridge in California, the Chesapeake Bay Bridge in Maryland, the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in Washington state,  the Lewis and Clark Bridge and the St. Johns Bridge in Oregon. Note that all but one are older than Scott Key built in 1977, and all have "fracture critical" elements according to their WSJ report, meaning that even the failure of one steel component in tension could cause a collapse. Jennifer Homendy, chair of NTSB safety authority doing the investigation into Scott Key says that there are 17,000 bridges in the US that are fracture critical, showing how much of US infrastructure is aging and in need of investment that is today being sucked up in mad sprees of venture capital investing in startups, and in misallocation of capital, that contribute little to the ease of living, to jobs and essential infrastructure for the American people.                  ...

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Lane Forsheim has this interview with tennis player Andre Agassi who won the Grand Slam in The Open era in 2003. Agassi suggests living in the present and avoiding future tripping thinking and solving problems for the future which may not exist. Agassi describes his daily routine. He says pickleball is a great way to exercise without thinking of exercise especially for over 50's. Agassi works for 3-4 hours a day and then plans his daily life around this. He loves the way Alcaraz, Sinner and Medvedev have brought new life into tennis as an exciting game to watch. Agassi talks about marraige- he is married to Steffani Graf, who also played tennis in the top ten. He says know yourself and you can't come into a relationship needing the other to be complete.  For breakfast he has oatmeal with protein or some granola and fruit. Less well known is that Andre Agassi is from Las Vegas, and has a thoughtful autobiography "Open" that is remarkably honest about his survival in the competitive world of tennis after many struggles with parental pressure to win. Yet he comes through having made his own choices. He started the preparatory Agassi Tennis academy for underprivileged children. When Sinner won the Australian Open yesterday he thanked his parents for not putting pressure on him for letting him try different sports. ...

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Brian Deese and other economists remind us that the government is still not able to negotiate the prices of drugs with pharmaceutical companies something that government was instructed not to do under a Republican administration with a George W. Bush administration rule that has hurt millions of Americans since 2003. In fact December 3, 2003 may be a day of ignominy for Americans who face high cost of pharmaceutical drugs, and actions that send money from the pockets of government that would go into fixing aging infrastructure, and from pockets of ordinary Americans that would go into meeting the cost of living to improve ease of living. President Biden without the needed majorities in Congress was able to only specify certain drugs on which negotiation could take place. There is a need to cut pharmaceutical costs for the American public, there is a need to be like everybody else in the community of nations in Europe and Asia that pay only so much for pharmaceuticals not many times more. Making the US worse off than Indians and Chinese who can access these drugs and find it affordable for most of the people of 3 billion in these countries. The contrast makes one question what is a developed and a developing country as what has happened in the last 3 decades in America has turned this  question on its head- with irresponsible presidents and irresponsible Congress. ...

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Senators approved the U.S. Republican tax bill 51 to 49 votes on December 1, 2017. The 500 page bill was approved with arewritten version containing more changes made at the last minute to get it passed in the early morning hours. It was passed along party lines with all Democrats opposing. The last minute changes were made to get Collins of Maine and Johnson of Wisconsin on board. A concession was made on DACA young undocumented immigrants for Flake of Arizona. In this way its passage was ensured after failure to repeal Obama health legislation. The Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation report says the bill would increase the deficit by $1 trillion over a decade. Corker of Tennessee opposed the bill for this reason, but failed to convince other senators who believe the bill will generate robust growth and the deficit report is too pessimistic. The tax cut bill helps 70% of middle class families and may not help others because of removal of deductions such as the one for state and local income taxes. Business gets a permanent tax rate of 20 percent instead of 35 percent which is made permanent. Owners of small business not set up as corporations also get a tax break for small business. To offset the cost of the changes the Alternative Minimum Tax for corporations is retained and a tax on corporations with assets held overseas was increased. ...

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Guardian's David Smith has short memories as he compares response at Obama's stops and visits in 2012 and compares that to Biden's as he visits Detroit and Atlanta in May 2024. In 2012 in the last weeks of the election Mitt Romney was much closer than is remembered today. Obama was at risk of being a one term president and depended on a strong turnout from Latino voters. Mariachi bands were called out in states where Hispanic vote was critical in these closing weeks. This is also just after the pandemic once in a century event that has affected younger people more than other groups, and after the dislocation and misinformation, the suppression of real information about the massive investment in the economy by president Biden for the first time in 50 years. Obama then lacked the kind of bipartisan support from all groups including Republicans and suburban voters that Biden now has that were never part of the Obama coalition. As shown by Nate Cohn in NYT what Biden is after are the disengaged younger voters and new voters in 2024 that have no awareness of the president's efforts to improve standards of living of the American people, who president Biden is working hard at campaign stop after campaign stop to reach about 6 months before the election. ...

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The Genbaku Dome shown here was the only structure left standing after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945.  It is shown here on the UNESCO Heritage site. We show this on the day of the Nolan movie "Oppenheimer" at Oscars that shows the life of the scientist who headed the Los Alamos laboratory that invented the first atomic bomb, yet does not show the effects on the people of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. As recently as May 2023 prime minister Kishida of Japan had the G7 meeting in Hiroshima Japan, where he is from. He wanted people to see the Peace Memorial in the city and its new exhibition. NHK television Japan showed a documentary of the exhibition of the people who survived the bombing on that day, their lives on that day of those who died and those who survived the bombing including children, what they were doing at that very moment. G7 leaders visited the exhibition. Having seen that NHK documentary of the black and white pictures of the exhibits only 8 months back, one could say the winning of awards by Nolan's "Oppenheimer" without showing the Genbaku Dome and some of the exhibits from the museum leaves the story incomplete in missing the consequences of the research in the desert in New Mexico in 1944. ...

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Deep polarization is seen also in South Korea. Policy issues are not being discussed with eligible voters divided evenly among progressives in their 40's and 50's and conservatives over 60 years, and about 20% of the voting public that are independents and younger voters deciding the elections in South Korea. As in the US cost of living is an issue, down to the price of onions of which president Yoon is seen as not paying attention to. Conservative People Power Party of president Yoon is expected to gain only about 100 seats of 300 seats in the National Assembly in the parliamentary election in South Korea. Yoon won in a tight race with Lee a candidate from the Liberal Democratic Party in 2022, which is expected to win about 200 of 300 Assembly seats. Yoon is building a close relationship with the US and Japan and visited the US for talks with Biden. The election is not expected to affect the close relations of US with South Korea. It reflects the polarization in South Korea, Yoon's effort for corporate tax cuts may not go through. The opposition has made allegations of corruption and abuse of power, and the cost of living, as campaign issues. About a third of 44 million eligible voters have cast votes. Younger voters and moderates appear not to trust Yoon. ...

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Kamala Harris is profoundly influenced by the Gandhian ideal of public service coming from the influence of her mother Shyamala and her mother's father P. V. Gopalan, who was a leading civil servant in the transition to independence under Gandhi in India in the late 1940's. P.V. Gopalan was 31 years old during the Quit India Movement launched by Mohandas Gandhi in 1942. In this sense what even Martin Luther King Jr experienced about Gandhiji from a distance came to her directly in ways that may be inscrutable even to Kamala herself.  Robert Draper looks at Kamala Harris at different points of her childhood, university education and work as District Attorney for Alameda County, California, and Attorney General of California. He describes her as a daughter of highly educated yet stoic parents and one with a reverence for law and order, methodical and diligent, a caring and compassionate person to the people in the communities she lived in. As one who would experience disrespect as a woman of color many times she chose not to complain but to do something about it in bringing about a better life for all Americans. Not only did she do this, Kamala Harris also was always striving to do better for the people she served, putting all her energies into that task, always keeping in mind "We the People." ...

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Joe Biden will hit the campaign trial in key states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin starting Labor Day. This is the Joe Biden who stood on a picket line in Detroit. Across these states white working class voters see Biden as having their interests at heart. The United Auto Workers endorsed Biden and Harris. And Kamala Harris says this of Biden in interview with CNN Dana Bash- "History is going to show, not only has Joe Biden led an administration that has achieved those extraordinary successes, but the character of the man is one that he has been in his life and career, including as a president, quite selfless and puts the American people first.” The extraordinary successes are the bipartisan legislation only Biden with 50 years in Congress could have achieved in this century- trillions of dollars going to fight the pandemic, fight inflation, fight the battle for bringing manufacturing home to America. And instead of Trump doing nothing for infrastructure after talking for years about it Biden has launched the biggest infrastructure effort in the US in 50 years. Never in recent history has so much been done in so short a time, with so much to follow, and never has it been so little reported or discussed. Yet history will show what Biden has set out to do and given the opportunity for his vice president to do in her turn.  ...

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Much of this report concentrates on big name schools ignoring the facts about student debt and value delivered, and the shifts in perceptions in companies that see big name schools as not necessarily an asset as inthe past. In this new situation looking objectively at value delivered the US state university system is its strongest asset and the state universities offer higher value for local students without the unneeded debt loads of big ticket institutions with a lot of debt overhang, and little additional value. In the end education is about persistence, hard work, grit and determination. A  Kamala Harris at Hastings in San Francisco can do as well or better than someone from the big name schools. After the Supreme Court decision opposing quotas for affirmative action the first results of enrollment by ethnic group and race are mixed and sometimes confusing. Some colleges and universities are seeing the same enrollment and some are moving in opposite directions for ethnic groups and race. This NYT report says if universities can get to a fair enrollment for different groups without racial quotas then these quotas may not be essential to achieve their purpose. Schools are looking at students from rural areas in ways they did not in the past, and trying innovative approaches to building a better America after the pandemic because they think it is the right way. ...

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Farhad Manjoo takes us through the origins of News Feed at Facebook, and its origins with Chris Cox who set up the News Feed operation in 2006 after leaving Stanford's computer science program at the age of 24. Manjoo describes the pain in Silicon Valley and many parts of America at the way the News Feed has acted as mere way of reinforcing people's own biases and creating different echo chambers for different biases. It has fragmented more than brought people together. The very idea of wiring people into the app as connecting people to talk to each other from different parts of the world and share different views is now called into question. Social media founders are also questioning whether wiring and connecting mean positive things in the context of what has happened with Google News, Facebook News Feed and Twitter in 2016-2017. The worst impulses have come to the fore, and it has happened to the point of shocking people who believed only positive things would come from technology and its application in news. Algorithm based news is open to error in many more ways than news discerned by human eyes and intuitive sense, and has the dangerous aspect of spreading misinformation like a wild fire on the internet. As Tim Berners-Lee points out the news is taken to the lowest common denominator because it is based on clicks, the social media sites make money on clicks and how often we click on something. Berners Lee says- “ the net result is that these sites show us content they think we’ll click on - meaning that misinformation, or ‘fake news,’ which is surprising, shocking, or designed to appeal to our biases can spread like wild fire.” Worse bots and people with bad intentions can game the system. The view at Lyrarc is that news was never intended to be taken up by algorithm based computer programs in the driver seat. Google started in 1998 and Google News started in 2006 making it only a decade old today,  Facebook started in 2004, and Facebook News is even more recent- less than a decade old. This is a period when “news” is experimenting with new technologies, and social media or search engines may never have been intended to serve as purveyors of news- that may never be their real role or purpose. For corrective action new developments have to take place taking technology out of the driver seat, and yet harnessing technology in other ways to help human eyes and intuitive sense work more productively, which is the vision at Lyrarc.   ...