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The UK by-election in Makerfield that may decide Britain's future for years to come. Andy Burnham takes on Robert Kenyon, a plumber and army reservist who was Reform's candidate in the 2024 elections. Kenyon hopes to present Burnham as an outsider.Yet Makerfield lies close to Manchester where Burnham has been Mayor for 3 terms and brought new hope to the people of Manchester with changes including the city's transportation system and other changes.

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The "floaters and anchors concept" for football of Coach Luis Enrique at Paris St Germain that makes rotating movements possible with centre backs playing up front and those playing forward pulling back. This fluidity makes this team one of the best in football. It now plays Bayern in the semifinals of Champions League 2026. Nuno Mendes is agood example of this rotation. BBC Sports explains with detailed pictures how this style of play is done by Luis Enrique.

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Can Norway expand beyond 2 million barrels a day. Norway has vast reserves  in the Arctic. Higher oil prices have increased Norway's revenues by $5 billion during the Ukraine War. UK could also generate more energy from its reserves in the North Sea if it followed a strategy of using fossil as a transition fuel and provide more funding for the shift to renewables and aid for homeowners to soften impact of higher oil prices.

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John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts renovation with $257 million in private funding halted by Judge May 29 2026. The building would close for 2 years as it needs major repairs to give it and Washington DC a new look in the Nation's capital on the 250th year anniversary.  One of the trustees questioned the plan under the direction of the US president. It will now be appealed above the US District Court level.

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Several military bases used in World War II in Greenland and now in disuse are being activated by Northern Command's Gen. Guillot April 6 2026. The US is only required to "consult with and inform" the Danes under a 1951 Agreement updated in 2004. On April 6 DJT stated that NATO was a paper tiger and that the Europeans had not offered to help the US in the Iran War because of their position on Greenland.

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A native of Cincinnati, Ted Turner, built one of the largest landholdings in the US. He bought 2 million acres which makes him 4th largest landholder in the US when he died this year in 2026 at the age of 87 years. One ranch alone cost him $100 million in New Mexico made up of 586,000 acres, which is now worth $500 million. Turner bought early when land prices were low in New Mexico and Montana. Much of this wilderness was turned into conservation areas. In this sense he will be remembered more for this public land and conservation than for a 24 hour news channel. Much of the audio and video media can be accessed over 24 hours anytime of one's choosing on the internet by 2026, which makes CNN redundant today. CNN and Fox News are more of a distraction today at best and a flawed presentation of the News because of their tendency to take advantage of the audiences and reinforce their bias for profit, CNN and Fox New on opposite sides. CNN has been acquired by Paramount CBS and is about to undergo major changes under the Ellison family. And the Murdoch family is split on how to run Fox News. Both television channels will likely dissipate in influence and viewers as Americans grow out of their biased and often incorrect interpretations of current news events. There is little they do that cannot be done by diligent effort to present the news in alternatives such as Lyrarc.com on the internet that present a range of views from major world newspapers and sites. And yet see America as a beacon of hope in the world and Europe as the place where the scientific and industrial revolutions that changed all our lives for the better started, giving the younger generation of Americans reason for hope in the future. ...

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Martin Feldstein on the U.S. economy in 2014 and the risks of the U.S. Federal Reserve tackling the economy on its own with monetary policy, without Congress taking on the task of policies to promote economic growth. Feldstein points out the 3.6% GDP growth estimate for the third quarter 2013 does not look that good considering that half of this is from buildup of inventory. GDP growth is about 2% as net result. With paralysis of Congress and the Executive branch the Fed's policy of huge buildup of long term bonds to reduce short term interest rates to zero and stimulate stock and home prices, he describes as the only game in town. The problem is that the size of the effect of increase in consumer spending from this increase in household wealth is small and not enough to contribute to significant GDP growth. The risks of this approach are that it contributes to destabilizing the economy as investors buy risky securities and bid up prices. He suggests a five year $1 trillion infrastructure development program, including defense, as a stimulus Congress should consider. Not the kind of stimulus that happened after the 2008 crisis. If not enough investment ready projects are available as in 2008 that will contribute to future growth, Congress should take another one year to prepare for this before moving forward. Debt reduction is key, and debt as a percentage of GDP should be reduced and set on a path to go where it was before 2008 to about 40%, deficits to below 2% of GDP. This should be done by slowing growth of Social Security and Medicare, and increasing revenues by limiting subsidies in the tax code that Feldstein as pushed for since 2010....

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"No amount of misrepresentation or statistical contortion can conceal or blur or smear that record. Neither the attacks of unscrupulous enemies nor the exaggerations of over-zealous friends will serve to mislead the American people." FDR said this  on October 31, 1936, it could also be president Biden.The current Media and Hollywood efforts to choose presidential candidates of their choice runs contrary to "We the People," contrary to views of ordinary Americans, of voters, workers and families. President Kennedy was told he should not take the nomination because he was too young. Kennedys' response was that it was he not Humphrey that went to state after state and won the votes in the primaries, no one else made the effort to run in the primaries in each state. President Biden has the support of 14 million in the primaries. George Chidi from Atlanta reports that undecided voters number about 1 million in the swing states and most are much older than the average. Most may feel insulted by talk about age when they are in the same category.  A 102 years old Lockheed engineer in Atlanta suburbs says he is a Republican but will not vote for Trump. There is also the women's vote in Georgia and Atlanta suburbs with abortion ban as the issue as it was in Kentucky and Kansas. How many vote will also be a factor, making energizing the base a key factor. The idea that one party is doing better than the other is refuted clearly by some of the people in Georgia shown here, and the age factor does not get the prominence the Media have given it, as long as the government is functioning well. Media has failed to look at the policy details of each candidate in a colossal failure that calls for alternatives. Older voters who are the major part of the 1 million or so voters in swing states that are undecided also say that the fact is that with both the candidates- as it is with administrations that are led by young presidents seen as too young to lead (JFK) the opposite of today- many of the decisions are made with an experienced group of advisers around the president. Many if not all also realize that the vast experience of an older president is also an asset. Much of Biden's legislation for chips science, infrastructure, the Inflation Reduction Act have not happened in Germany, France or the UK, and would not have happened in the US without the ability of president Biden to get the bipartisan support from being the one with the most experience in Congress in a long time. The result is the hundreds of thousands of jobs created each month and a growing economy, inflation down from 9 to 3% as the first step to further cost of living action to support ordinary workers and families. Only LBJ comes close and he signed landmark legislation for Medicare and Medicaid, and for civil rights into law 60 years back. By removing America from the wars that Reagan and Bush started and Obama and Trump failed to end president Biden has given the US an opportunity to inspire and lead the free world in a way that has not happened in many decades and build a growing economy, a bright future for the Nation. ...

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After winning the Nation's League final over Netherlands next we will see her playing soccer in the Olympics. Aitana Bonmati talks about her life and experiences. Bonmati has given a boost to women's soccer with her talents, hard work and resilience, and by reaching out to fans all over Europe and the world. Alex Ibaceta interviews Spain's Bonmati in The Guardian. She started out playing with the boys because there were no girls to play with. She signs up for the town's football team Club Depotiu Ribes and Club de Football Cubelles playing with boys. As a cadete (14-15 years) she had to switch to playing on women's teams. This was a change at first as she had to learn to interact with girls. She says we had worse general conditions in life simply for being girls and even more in football. These were years when there was no professional women's soccer. She thought she wold play for a few years and then go to the US for studies, considering the University of Oregon. This is when she gets called to the women's first team. Bonmati talks about her mentality, not just the talent and hard work, but the mentality of sacrifice, resilience, fight and want to be better every day. To every young girl trying out a new sport, she describes this- it is a journey that is not pretty at times, there are bad moments, but these bad moments are what make you better as you learn to keep improving and know how to keep getting better. And to take on difficulties as opportunities. When she was goinghome from training with her father, they would use public transport and get home at 1 am. Looking back to where she is now idolized by young girls , what she has been able to accomplish she says it was not down to luck but all the hard work throughout the years. ...

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This editorial in the Economist says Spain's economy has recovered to pre crisis levels by 2018 with growth at 3 percent. It says Spain had a bigger crisis than Italy and took stronger measures under prime minister Rajoy to fix problems in its banking system, address the housing crisis, and unemployment. Italy's steps by comparison were timid and faltering. Mr. Rajoy had his problems including corruption scandals in his party and a poor handling of the Catalan drive for independence. Yet Spain owes muchas gracias to Rajoy for his leadership in bringing Spain out of the housing and economic crisis, and for running the country for two and a half years after losing his majority in parliament.  Another difference with Italy is the generally favorable attitude to immigration for all parties. Of the newer parties Ciudadanos remains at the centre and the Podemos party remains to the left in politics, as part of the populist changes in Spain during the economic crisis. The new government of Pedro Sanchez has a positive attitude to immigrants and to women, with the largest number of women in the cabinet of any European country. ...

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In talking about the systemic risks of the failure of GM, about 3 million jobs depend on the auto industry with 1,187,000 employed by dealerships of which 325,000 are employed in GM dealerships. Another concern is that GM's pension obligations are underfunded by $18 billion at the end of 2008 according to Deutsche Bank. This would be added to the $11 billion deficit at the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. were GM to fail.

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A report by the Bank of England suggests a more prudent approach for British banks by setting aside more reserves for losses on bad loans from past decisions. Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England, says the Financial Services Authority should talk to banks and tell them to look "more prudently" at their credit levels. King says current capital ratios do not provide a correct picture of the health of the banks. The report says capital ratios of Barclay's, RBS, Lloyds, and HSBC could be overstated by between 5 billion or 8 billion and 35 billion pounds. The goal King says is to restore confidence in Britain's banking system with a prudent approach.

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This is a WSJ special report on Nissan and the failure of Carlos Ghosn's management style at Nissan leading to deep discontent in management ranks and employees, and also in Japan. Ghosn failed to invest in Japan seeing it as an aging society, and preferred the U.S. for investment. This was an affront to many Japanese, not just Nissan employees.  A big problem was that Ghosn's salary was larger than that of all nine top Nissan executives combined. Even during the 2008 financial crisis and cost cutting Ghosn's salary was understated by using accounting methods not approved by its auditor Ernst & Young. Under new Japanese rules oversight on compensation was given to Mr. Imazu who had to uncover the different shell companies that were used to shield the compensation and benefits going to Ghosn from public view. Lack of transparency and frugality was a major issue as one Nissan executive put it- "where is the transparency, and where is the frugality." New laws introduced in Japan in 2015 required release of compensation for any company executive making more than $800,000. Under these rules Japanese prosecutors were able to investigate the situation at Nissan.  In the end when the CEO of Nissan, appointed by Mr. Ghosn announced the arrest and detention of Mr. Ghosn, the Japanese audience applauded, showing how deep the discontent was in Japan. On November 19, in a carefully managed operation that would make a detective type story Japanese prosecutors arrested Mr. Ghosn as his plane landed in Tokyo, and arrested his assistant Mr. Kelly on the same day after his plane landed and his car was taken off the road to a rest area. Ghosn story has also its management lessons as this type of hard driving management with time spent jet-setting more than in contact with people and employees of the company is becoming unpopular. It is bad for employees and presents a rather unhealthy lifestyle, lacking any kind of role model for the rest of the company and society where the company is located. In this case not just Yokohama, but all of Japan, which resented the way it was treated. Recent articles have highlighted the situation at other companies. The General Electric story about the failure at GE in the U.S. - also explored this week in the WSJ -tells a story of hard driving management style of some executives that is increasingly becoming unpopular. A more thoughtful management style, with mindfulness, not based on personality or ego, is more productive leading to better decisions after taking in all views and enabling participation of other top and middle managers. ...

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Martin Feldstein points out why the recent agreement for a "fiscal compact" is no more than an empty statement about fixing the eurozone's finances. In this respect it is no different than the Stability and Growth Pact it replaces, with serious weaknesses. Feldstein cites the weaknesses in the language of the agreement. Each eurozone country is required to limit its"cyclically adjusted" budget deficit to 0.5% of GDP and bring its debt down to 60% of GDP. Compliance will be performed by the European Court of Justice and fines imposed. In practice the questions loom large- for a country like Spain with a 23% unemployment rate, isn't all of the 6% budget deficit cyclical? Again the agreement says deficits are calculated "net of one-off and temporary measures." Under this provision a lot of the stimulus programs would be considered in the category of "one-off." Other language lets eurozone countries frame budgets based on "exceptional circumstances" and "periods of severe economic downturn." Italy has declining economic growth, does it make sense to have a large budget surplus in that situation to lower debt to GDP, and how does that goal relate to "exceptional circumstances."...

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A professor of Environmental Design asks that GM be asked to build innovative transportation systems in addition to fuel efficient cars by the government in return for rescue money. He cites the warnings given by Stewart Udall, an interior secretary under John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson about overdependence on mideast oil. See the article on Exxon's Tillerson's vision of a world based on hydrocarbons for decades still. Someone may rub his eyes and ask whats going on?

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After a career of 30-40 years in business, medicine or other profession, starting when one graduates from school, the first year after retirement can be difficult. As shown here in the story of Sherry Mendelson, a psychiatrist who says she faced a tectonic shift. How she coped in her own words by rethinking roles and old habits. Finding new passions for activities alone, and together with her husband.

Simple things like hearing aids that can make a difference, adapting to bad knees and not being able to ski. But finding a new passion in writing helped her regain her longtime passion for psychiatry and her home office sanctuary. In the process making awkward adjustments to one another and one's spouse, discovering new wisdom, moments of shared appreciation. 

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Britain turns to Labour as the lead for Labour party increases to 27 points after Sunak announces the general election will be held on July 4, 2024. What would a Starmer administration look like and how will it meet the expectations of Britain for generational change after the failure of Brexit, and 14 years of austerity policies that failed to invest in Britain and failed to deliver on infrastructure and housing? These are questions not easily answered as Britain's finances are left in a bad state by the Tories for Labour. Starmer is taking the right approach to first get a grasp of the tremendous challenges facing Labour in this situation. It was easy for Boris Johnson and the Tories to make the promises that were never kept and left the British people in the lurch.

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This essay in the WSJ by Louise Aronson, geriatrician, professor of Medicine at UC San Francisco and author of "Elderhood, Redefining Aging, Transforming Medicine, Reimagining Life," and Teva Brender, UC resident in Internal Medicine, says age should not be a factor  in electing leaders, as over the last century life expectancy has grown by 25 to 35 years. People can be healthy into their eighties and modern medicine provides ways to tackle small physical, auditory or visual impairments. In addition these can be handled with strength training, better nutrition and social support, says Aronson. His point is that there has been an increase in "health span" the years we define as being healthy, a compression of morbidity, the disease at the end of life. As a result people can be productive for many years, early retirement is a bad idea economically and for the people themselves when they feel better working. When there is so much wisdom and experience that they can bring to the job, and when that  wisdom and experience is sorely needed by the nation, that guiding light has immense unreplaceable value. President Franklin Roosevelt was at such a time able to steer the nation in the 1930's through the Great Depression and the 1940's through the Second World War, even though he had disabilities. Aronson says the work of elected leaders is fundamentally cognitive and when the basic physical demands can be met it is possible for leaders to work successfully. ...

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Sophie Egan has put together this wonderful clarification of what works well in foods and what one should eat by taking apart some myths. Myth No.10 is that stuff on nutrition is always changing. It isn't and she gives Michael Pollan's seven words as an example- "Eat Food. Not too Much. Mostly Plants." A recent book has title Ikigai, on people with healthy bodies and minds well into their nineties. It pulls together information from persons in Okinawa, Japan, who passed one hundred years and they say not eating too much, eating plant foods, and community spirit, a passion for doing something worthwhile that you enjoy doing and do well referred to in Japanese as Ikigai, is a way to keep healthy. Other myth clarification- Sophie Egan offers is that soy based foods are good for us, and that plant protein when consumed in different forms can give complete nutrition. Not all fats are bad olive oil and seeds nuts are good for us, and white potatoes are also healthy eaten with the skin. All this adds up to good common sense without getting tied up into knots by too much attention to studies. ...

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Extremely difficult engineering challenges for fueling, refueling in space, the lander for moon's surface, lie ahead for a Moon base planned for 2028. This time the NASA program will go on uninterrupted by swings in public sentiment.

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How to avoid simple errors in Tax filings with the US IRS. A lot of the processing is done by computers even though the IRS has lost 25% of its people or 28,000 in 2025. Tax filings need to be consistent, with all 1099's for IRA's accounted for, Information needs to be consistent and complete as computers catch these errors and ask for information. Prompt replies can clarify, but its best to do this from the beginning and save time.

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BBC looks at France's mayoral elections and the race in Paris between Racida Dati (connected to Sarkozy) and Emmanuel Gregoire deputy to Anne Hidalgo Mayor of Paris. 930 miles of bicycle lanes in Paris have reduced pollution in Paris by 10 years, which helps Gregoire. Dati says Paris "is dirty and unsafe." She points to 10 billion euros in debt for Paris. Dati comes from the conservative side and is a protege of  former president Sarkozy of the Republicain party.

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Barton Swaim editorial page writer of the WSJ on Vladimir Putin Weekend Interview with Beatrice de Graaf of Utrecht Uiversity and Niels Drost of Clingendael Institute in The Hague, Netherlands - how Western World missed Czar Peter the Great's World View and its shaping Putin's World View creating vast misconceptions when US thinks Russia thinks like western norms.  Could the US have missed a key component of the thinking of Russian leaders in putting themselves in the line of Russian kings (Czars) since the Enlightenment with belief in nationality, autocracy and Empire of the Enlightenment. “Of course he (Putin) also refers to the Second World War, and he does refer to Stalin—but not that much. Far more often he talks about the great Russian czars.” And the great Czars that was important to Putin, de Graaf counts 3000 statues built in Russia to these role models for Putin. In the early years says de Graaf Putin talked incessantly about the modernization of Russia, Russia joining the Modern World in the years of the Enlightenment, Russia fighting off Napoleon and under the Soviets Nazi Germans. Graaf says he talked about- “Peter the Great and European interests, of Catherine the Great and literacy and the Enlightenment. He spoke of Alexander I and Europe joining to defeat Napoleon." Deep down Putin felt in these talks 11,000 of them on the Putin site which puts up his speeches and talks over a 20 year period, which Niels Grost with his fluency in Russian has looked at. Of these 3000 talks and speeches are in this reference to the great Czars. Even before Ukraine there was a sense of hurt that considering the vast expanse that Russia occupies in Europe Russia had by restoring the old Russia by 2000 found itself in a odd predicament. As de Graaf and Swain point out the US market based economy based on GDP, the US presidents such as Bush and Obama saw Russia as a  middle power based on its exports and imports, its trade, its commerce which was the only way they could see the world. This led to a special kind of shortsightedness says this interview in the WSJ. Putin's key adviser says of Russia's goal - to be seen as a Northern European Power (from WSJ) in 2025.Putin sees Russia as looking for "respect," as a goal.  This is where US business may have got it all wrong- the authors say about China and India- and the US, seeing themselves as Empires not in today's Modern World as with imperialist ambitions, but with a historic sense of regional presence across Asia and North America with their rapid modernization. DJT's talk of Canada as a 51st state, one finds US business as accepting the idea that Canada is part of the US regional influence. And under the Monroe Doctrine of 1824 revived by no less than Teddy Roosevelt and FDR, in its cooperation form by JFK in 1960, the regional influence of the United States in the Western Hemisphere is also accepted by US business and the American public. It is this context that the authors say offer an alternative view of the Russian leader and his policies. Beatrice de Graaf and Niels Drost are the author of "Putin's Czarist Dream" At that point there is in addition to nationality, autocracy and Empire of the czars the ideas embedded in Eastern Orthodox Christianity which are different says de Graaf of Utrecht University in Netherlands, from Western Christianity. This Eastern Orthodox Christian idea is a bit different from St. Augustine's just war and discussion of what constitutes a just war, and the definition of that being given under Russian tradition by Russian Czars or leaders who Putin identifies himself with such as Peter the Great. Peter the Great  created the beginnings of Russia as a modern European state in St. Petersburg during the years of the Enlightenment. In the Eastern Asian tradition the Bhagavad Gita also has a discussion of what constitutes a just war so that it extends to different regions of the world not just European. ...

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EV sales worldwide in March 2024 went up by 30%. New battery technologies are making EV cost competitive with combustion engine cars. This transition is nearer than we thought. Kurt Kelty of GM who worked on Tesla battery technology for 11 years says “When we reach cost parity with internal combustion engine vehicles, I think that’s one big milestone. When you get there, then you’re really going to see the transition happen very quickly—and we’re not that far away from it.” The EV industry continues to make progress even as the industry has slowed with the new government not behind it with incentives. GM is setting its sight on 2028 and is investing in bringing costs down with new battery technology. It is new battery technology that enabled BYD in China to increase production and sales. In 2024 GM hired a Tesla engineer Kurt Kelty with 11 years experience to lead the effort to reduce cost and increase the power and duration of batteries. Kelty really believes in the EV revolution.“I’m a firm believer. Switching to an electric powertrain means better performance, less maintenance, more space inside the vehicle, a lower center of gravity and a higher crash rating. Evolution away from fossil fuels is unstoppable.”   ...

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Faces in the continuing foreclosure crisis in Spain in 2014 include Xacobo Rodriguez and his mother in Madrid. Foreclosures continued at a high rate in Spain into 2014. The Bank of Spain reports that 38,961 primary residence homes were foreclosed in 2013, a decline of only 1% from 2012. If second residences are included the number of foreclosed house increased by 11% in 2014. This is six years into the housing crisis in Spain with no end in sight. The government has declared a 2 year moratorium on eviction of families that meet hardship criteria- a member of household disabled, expired unemployment benefits, very young children. A Social Housing Fund with 6000 units which provide places to live was created but only a small number of units are given out so far. The social advocacy groups say not enough is being done. The government points out that 90% of houses taken by banks were unoccupied at the time. Bank Association spokesperson says there is an understanding of the depth of the crisis with 6 million people out of work, that action is taken to reduce the stress on homeowners. And point to the data showing only 1% of homes were taken by banks in 2013 of the 6 million home mortages outstanding, with one third of these done with an agreement to have debts erased for the homeowners. Women and immigrants are affected to a larger degree, according to Human Rights Watch. Social housing in Spain is only about 2% of the housing stock making things more difficult, by comparison it is 17% in France, 21% in the UK, 35% in the Netherlands, according to Human Rights Watch. Meanwhile the Spanish government of the Partido Popular under Mr Rajoy, continues a policy of trying to be responsive to the homeowner crisis, and at the same time helping the banking system recover following a $56 billion bailout loan taken by Spain from the European Union. ...