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France and Germany agreed to begin talks on a common nuclear umbrella in Jan 1997 as reported here in The Washington Post on Jan 25, 1997. 

The post cites Le Monde- "Our two countries see themselves exposed to the same risks. We are ready to open a dialogue on the role of nuclear deterrence in the context of European defense policy." Says the document signed by Germany's Helmut Kohl and Frances Jacques Chirac on Dec. 9, 1996. France had clashed with the US under De Gaule and De Gaulle had pursued an independent nuclear deterrent. Chirac took up this stance in 1996 with nuclear tests in French Polynesia and offered to share its nuclear deterrent with Germany.

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DJT calls Macron and Starmer "nice guys," but guys who did nothing to end the Ukraine war. He says the effort for a minerals deal with Ukraine was made in the context of Europe making loans to Ukraine and the US having given outright aid and the need for the US to be treated same as the Europeans. 

CDU's candidate for Chancellor in next week's German election says Germany should consider taking a stake in the British and French nuclear arsenal, now that NATO Article 5 may not be honored by the US under DJT. Offers were made by the French for this to happen many years back.

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This Editorial Board Opinion in the WSJ reminds readers that it is the Government Accountability Office of the US itself that made these estimates of annual losses from fraud and waste.

A Government Accountability Office report of 2024 estimated the “federal government could lose between $233 billion and $521 billion annually to fraud.” The GAO report said “a government-wide approach is required to address it,” and advised that Treasury take up and “leverage data-analytics capabilities” for the job of stopping questionable payments and payments that look dubious. This was suggested as a necessary step to cut waste and fraud in a bureaucracy that is this large.

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The Times of London offers this Analysis of Chinese president Xi's visit to Russia for a Victory Day Parade to be attended by 20 countries including Serbia, Venezuela's Maduro, and Brazil's Inacio Lula Da Silva. Soldiers from China will March in the Red Army Parade. Other countries attending are Indonesia, Egypt, Iraq.

XI and Putin have a new common view of the war as aginst the Nazis and Japanese Imperialism. The role of US Gen. Joe Stilwell in uniting Chinese forces to fight the Japanese is not mentioned in history books in China as the focus under Xi has shifted to increase the importance of the common fight in Russia and China aginst Germany and Japan.

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South Korea prepares for new elections with about a third or quarter of the people strongly supporting Yoon whose impeachment was upheld by the Constitutional Court April 4, 2025. Adjoining BBC Special Report shows how Yoon went astray. The gist also shows how South Korean democracy is only since 1988 compared to India's 1948, and how India's democratic traditions were formed under the Birtish with representation in parliament, first British then Indian, and in state assemblies in the 1930's, under Nehru in 1950's.

Today with the US imposing 25% tariffs on South Korea there is no government to make a response or strategy to deal with this.

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McNeil unit of J&J fails to provide information on the actual number of bottles involved in the recall of its products. Different practice of P&G is cited for a recall of its Scope product- the size of the recall being 35,000 bottles.

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Low voter turnout and record abstentions were a significant aspect of the parliamentary election in France. Voter turnout was about 52% in the the first round and expected to be low in the second round.

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Us natural gas prices are down 40% from August highs after warm autumn weather, record gas production, and gas storage facilities that are filling up fast. This will be a relief for Americans this winter.

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US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan has confidential conversations with Nikolai Patrushev a key adviser to Russian president Putin to avoid any further escalation of the war including nuclear threats, says this report in WSJ.

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The US looks at outpacing Europe with faster economic growth because of a rapidly progressing vaccination drive. The slow pace of Europe's vaccination drive will affect tourism in Europe in the summer of 2021.

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NPR, National Public Radio, CEO, 41 years old, was for 5 years CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation. NPR listeners have raised questions about its coverage and issues it covers, shown in this report in WSJ.

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A fun water workout with water aerobics is shown here in the NYT as an alternative or an addition to swimming in the pool this summer. This is serious exercise and is gentler on the body.

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This objective look at the situation of Black Americans comes from a American -Jamaican. Educated in the West Indies and in Britain, Patterson is able to bring another perspective to look what has happened and what is the way forward. Here he is interviewed by the Harvard Gazette. Patterson is a professor of sociology at Harvard. A separate Saturday Essay by Orlando Patterson appears in the Wall Street Journal on June 6, 2020. Patterson points out that the big problem is de-ghettoization is not happening. Progress is not about integration first, it is about successful de-ghettoization taking place first, says Patterson.  And here he faults white liberals for not putting their money where their mouth is. For this to happen black families have to be able to move into suburbs. Strict zoning laws and limits to building moderately priced housing in some of the most liberal parts of the country keep out families wanting to move to the suburbs.  It is the social contact even side by side in suburbs with a leap in quality of housing and neighborhoods, schools, that can change people's own perceptions of themselves and their interactions with the communities around them. A lot of whites Patterson says have liberal views but when it comes down to making the concessions needed to make black lives better they are not willing to do that.   Patterson offers his own experience in Britain walking down a street in Cambridge. He lived on Trowbridge Street. He enjoyed walking through the Cambridge Rindge and Latin School. And while walking he observed the easy interaction of black kids and white kids, and realized how different this was from the 1960's and 1970's. Having this sort of interaction comes from a more integrated setting, so that people grow up not having that awkwardness or lacking social contact.      ...

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A former solicitor general questions the 4 page summary of Attorney General Barr as a misrepresentation of the findings of the Mueller investigation following the protest by Mr. Mueller himself that the findings were distorted in the summary. It defeated the very purpose of appointing the Special Counsel. It was upto Congress to come up with its conclusions according to how the U.S. constitutional process was intended to work on questions of national importance, and not the Attorney General appointed by the president. Neal Katyal helped draft the regulations about the way a special counsel is supposed to operate. He can show the findings on each matter whether the president is cleared or not cleared, bu it is Congress that has to make up its mind and come up to its own conclusions. That is Congress's role and not the Attorney General's role. By taking on Congress's role and drafting a 4 page report that exonerates the president Mr. Barr has violated the letter and the spirit of the regulations set for the Special Counsel's office. Mr. Katyal concludes this article saying -"There is no more sacred duty for Congress than gettting to the bottom of whether our president has taken care that the laws of this country have been faithfully executed." He says in drafting the special counsel office regulations he and others had thought of the possibility of there being "a nefarious Attorney General" though "we didn't predict this amount of duplicity."  The U.S. Congress now faces the challenge of getting to the bottom of the matter and drawing its own conclusions. Katyal questions polls showing that the public does not want further inquiry because he says the Attorney General has created confusion, misrepresented Mr. Mueller and delayed the release of the Mueller Report to the public.     ...

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In a 5 to 4 court runling the U.S. Supreme Court gives president Trump the authorization to use $2.5 billion in Pentagon funds for building a border wall with Mexico. This was a campaign promise and energized his election campaign after years of failure to reach agreement between Democrats and Republicans on how to tackle the migration issue. In the court's decision it overturned an appellate court decision.  The Supreme Court stated in its order that the groups challenging the administration did not appear to have the legal right to do so. This indicates that the Court's conservative majority is likely to support the Trump administration in the end.  The surge in migration from Central American countries such as Guatemala through Mexico has revived the issue of migration. President Trump also secured an agreement with Guatemala to cut down on the migration.  President Trump has cited the need to control flow of illegal drugs across U.S. southern border in addition to the migrants from Mexico and Central America. In bringing the case to the Supreme Court the solicitor general, Noel Francisco wrote that the Plaintiff (Sierra Club) "interests in hiking, bird watching and fishing in designated drug smuggling corridors do not outweigh the harm to the public from halting the government's efforts to construct barriers to stanch the flow of illegal narcotics across the southern border."  The dispute between the Trump administration and the Democrats controlled House of Representatives led to court decisions stopping the use of government funds to build the wall. This led to the declaration of a national emergency along the Mexican border by president Trump on Feb. 15, 2019, after a government shutdown during an impasse with Congress on this issue.  Now the Supreme Court has given president Trump access to Defense Department funds to proceed with the wall and meet a campaign promise.   ...

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Powell at the Fed, the US central bank, and DJT have different views on reducing interest rates. Most of the business community and heads of banks see it as essential that the Fed be able to decide independently when to lower interest rates. Jay Powell was selected by DJT in the first term and Biden continued with Jay Powell. Powell carefully monitors the economy, the cost of living, supply chain inflation, jobs reports, and the international situation, to come up with his view, which is that inflation is moderating and job situation and the economy are good, so that the Fed does not need to take action at this time.  In this situation where the president wants to see lower interest rates to lower the interest burden on government borrowings for the larger defense budget and other priorities., including trade action, Bessent has stepped in. His advice to the president as he did earlier on tariffs is to show flexibility. The president listens.  Earlier with Liberation Day tariffs Bessent advised DJT to give financial markets confidence in the new policies by a willingness to reduce them or pause them. ...

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This report shows how the H1-B visa system as it operated for many years till 2025 undercut wages of American workers in the computer and software engineering fields. Changes are being made to accomplish the original aims of such a program. More critical is the number of jobs over a span of years that are lost to US born citizens- in just 5 years 300,000 US born talented engineers and the 3 million workers they could train would simply not be there to power America's reindustrialization and re-modernization 2025-2030. The same is true for India as 300,000 India's talented engineers and the 3 million workers they could train would simply not be there to power India's industrialization and modernization 2025-2030. This hurts the modernization of the two of the most important economies of the world to the year 2030, which would be profoundly felt by 2035. As part of many actions taken by both the US and India this could lead to shrinking the development speed and development gap with China for the US and India to 2035. ...

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Democratic states face a sobering reality- can California, Minnesota, Illinois afford it? It turns out that they cannot and are diverting important funds away from the Nation's priorities in transportation, housing, education, rural healthcare. Here is what happened-- When California Gov. Newsom used state's Medicaid budget for poor citizens and disabled for illegal migrants to give free coverage, Medi-Cal went $6.2 billion over budget in 2025. In Illinois the program for Medicaid coverge to illegal migrants estimated at $112 million annually now costs $800 million and parts of it are now suspended. California had not thought this thing through, with free medical coverage not available to even citizens of the US, why would unrestricted borders not overwhelm a border state's Medicaid system signed into law by a Texan president Lyndon Johnson for the people of this Nation. Democratic States are running into a logical fallacy that the European Union and Germany are already experiencing, stretching straining public services, which has nothing to do with one's sentiments. Gov. Newsom now wants to give this benefit for $100 monthly premiums in 2027. ...

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Long drawn out bombing campaigns such as the US bombing of North Vietnam did not by itself provide results. However there is a difference when it comes to nuclear proliferation, which is a completely different proposition.  Which is also why DJT however he words it has got it right that the US as a world power has responsibilities. In fact being a world power means first and foremost responsibility, not some swaggering walk. It means that whose side you are on in regional conflicts stops when it comes to nuclear proliferation. There is also a deeper understanding of "western powers" as we argue here. The US has to be wary of "western powers" because it is a colonial era concept of the French and the British. Western civilization is the right concept and this includes Russia. What about China and India? China and India owe little to colonial powers, and everything to western civilization, the Enlightenment, the Renaissance and the scientific and Industrial Revolutions that have brought both into the modern world.  ...

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The Affordable Care Act or Obamacare gave families of 4 with incomes of less than 125,000 or single income less than $60,000 a chance to buy insurance with federal subsidies. When these subsidies were increased under the IRA Act of president Biden the enrolment has doubled in the last 5 years to $24 million. These subsidies expire in 2025. Under the One Big Beautiful Act the policy of subsidies for ACA is not being renewed when it expires in 2025. This shows the band aid approach of Obama to healthcare and the lack of a comprehensive approach. The policy on migrants during the Obama and Biden administration also stretched public funding resources. Insurance companies now plant to make up for the los of subsidies from the government by raising prices for this subpopulation in a broken healthcare system in the US by 15-20%. This report in WSJ shows a young woman on ACA insurance in Illinois with a payment of $590 a month to Blue Cross of Illinois facing a new payment of $678, almost the size of a mortgage. ...

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Opening windows and doors to let in fresh air is as important as wearing masks and social distancing to prevent coronavirus. In places where people gather and in homes it is important to let in fresh air so that there is new fresh air circulating in rooms 3-4 times for every hour. It is being used as a strategy in schools in Germany to bring in fresh air. Putting MERV 13 type air filters in central air conditioning and heating systems is important in offices, shops and other spaces. A complete redesign of the systems that are old is needed. There are 36,000 schools in the U.S. that have old failing systems of heating and cooling. It would cost $360 billion to change these systems if each system cost $10,000 which is on the low side. This shows that good intentions are not enough, new priorities need to be set and the old priorities which misallocated funds through existing capital allocation structures in the West coasts and East coast cities no longer serve the purpose of the Renewal of America.  ...

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US president Biden has asked Democrats to first reach an agreement on a social and climate policy package and only then vote on an infrastructure bill. Republicans have supported investments in infrastructure, but not supported the social and climate policy package. Democrats progressive wing supports infrastructure but only after the social and climate policy package is approved. To pull together the different groups in the Democratic party and win support among some Republicans requires a skillful balancing act bringing in support from all sides in the national interest. The Biden plan for $3.5 trillion for Build Back Better has a$1 billion infrastructure plan, and a plan for workers and families on social issues confronting the country including child care, education, income related to reduce disparities, and healthcare. It also includes investments in green energy so reduce emissions to tackle climate change. Because Democrats have a thin majority in the Senate and the House of Representatives this balancing act will also require Democrats to reduce the size of the package to less than $3.5 trillion bringing in the most essential components for investment in 2021-2022 and making additional investments in the following years. ...

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Scientists say 6out of 9 global climate resilience boundaries have been crossed. It is based on 2000 studies and published in the journal Science Advances. Broken boundaries means the systems have been driven far from the safe and stable state that existed, from the end of the last ice age 10,000 years ago, to the start of the Industrial Revolution, says Damian Carrington in The Guardian. We are outside of safe operating space say scientists. Prof. Johan Rockstrom, is head of the Stockholm Resilience Center, who developed the boundaries framework. He says more worrisome than all the extreme climate events we are seeing is the dwindling planetary resilience. For fresh water in lakes and rivers and soil it was crossed earlier in the 20th century. Synthetic pollution from plastic waste in 2022. Nitrogen and phosporous, according to FAO 3 times safe levels added every year. For air pollution it was crossed in South Asia and China. Planetary boundaries is combined with social justice issues in a May assessment so that pro development policies to help the poor can be combined with major investment in climate change action. ...

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About 40% of Americans are obese with BMI, body mass index of over 30. About 71% of Americans are overweight or obese with BMI over 25. This is a finding in a new report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This report does not mention a separate finding covered in the Guardian online newspaper showing less than 15% of Americans get the daily recommended intake of fruits and vegetables, crucial in preventing major diseases such as heart disease, cancer, diabetes. The cost to America for obesity related or weight related medical bills is estimated at $190 billion a year, in three years this would help renovate the aging U.S. infrastructure if people changed their habits and education was designed to help change the way Americans live. Even harder to understand is that only 2% of America's farmland grows fruits and vegetables, according to the Guardian report which says this would need to be 4% to meet the needs of the people in the U.S.. These are alarming facts and need more public awareness by this being getting widespread attention on the internet. ...

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A lack of rules for children growing up has affected an entire generation in U.S. and Europe and other countries. Sociologists say rules are essential for children to grow up and develop the skills for living and the lack of boundaries and rules has taken away this essential component for this younger generation today. Sociologists call this "infantilizing." It has also led to  people living in their own space and not carrying on the conversations essential for young people to develop into responsible persons.  Experts say this process of responding to the rules and learning are essential developmental process to go from childhood to adolescence and adolescence to becoming developed adults. This has been compromised over the last 25 years so that the socialization process that enables transmission of values from parents to children has not been taking place. An unwillingness to have moral based judgements and tell children what is good or right has added to the weakening of this process by which children learn and develop into mature responsible adults. ...