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Sir Anthony Hopkins talks about his new movie "The Father" about a man descending into dementia and his daughter who struggles with his disoriented behavior. Hopkins says the role has helped him become aware of human fragility and frailty. He says he realizes that we are all fragile, all broken in some way. He first watched his grandmother descend into dementia when he was 15. He remembers his father, a baker,  declining too, and he says in the end we are all alone. 

At this time of covid he talks about people in lockdowns and how many turn to increased use of alcohol. His own experience was to seek help in giving up alcohol in 1975 when he found himself in an Arizona hotel room not knowing where he was, and since then forty five years have passed without it. 

He finds contentment these days and is serene about the future. Some of this he gets out of believing in his own insignificance is this vast world.

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Manchester City is questioning the Founder's Agreement of 1990 that set up the Premier League in the UK and brought billionaires and Gulf kingdoms to the soccer game's commercial aspects.

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India has done well with low cost, scalable, low tech solutions in the past. This is also being done now to tackle the coronavirus. This is being used to support what may be the largest lockdown in history. Everyone is expected to remain at home. Only shops selling essential items such as food and pharmaceuticals are allowed to remain open. All but essential offices are closed, with workers told to stay home. Indelible ink that takes two weeks to wash away was widely available following the election. It is being widely used with high numbers of infections having the back of their hand stamped "Home Quarantined." After India announced a nationwide lockdown all wireless carriers were asked by the government to  insert a taped coronavirus health advisory that comes on after callers dial and before the call connects.Th recorded message talks about how to protect against the coronavirus. Prime time news shows are interrupted three times a day for back to back news conferences from the prime minister, and local officials.   ...

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David Gelernter, Yale professor of computer science, says above all things Steve Job was designer-in-chief. At his Stanford commencement address in 2004, Jobs recounts his experience in a calligraphy course at Reed College as one of the singularly important experiences of his life, and something he carried over to the the revolution in portable devices- portable Macs, iPod, IPhone and iPad. The search for and building of elegant, easy to work, fun to use devices. Job was able to grasp the potential of such devices, says Gelertner, from his very first visit to the Xerox research labs in Palo Alto in 1979. In doing this he gives credit for long forgotten pioneers of the personal computer, who were just as important perhaps even more so, Douglas Engelbart and Alan Kay. At Xerox, Kay built on the earlier innovations of Engelbart. Engelbart was first to develop the mouse, onscreen window, and the concept of computers doing more than just computing, such as controlling machinery, doing everyday stuff, and doing things with pictures. Xerox's corporate executives failed to grasp the significance of the developments in their labs. Jobs grasped this rightaway and put all his efforts into developing the Apple Macintosh in 1984 incorporating these ideas. A decade later Gates copied the Mac's eay to use features and created economies of scale, creating the personal computer that we know today. The internet was a parallel development during that decade after the pioneering work of Tim Berners-Lee on the worldwide web. Jobs took the experience one step further and created new devices like the iPhone and the iPad that brought mobility, ease, and refinement to the internet experience....

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Greg Ip of the WSJ says a second term of former president Trump would look very different from the first. Republicans achieved their goal of tax reform in the first two years of that term. Following that trade tariffs ensued against China creating a different environment in world trade. A second term would lead to more action on trade and more tariffs. Ip says the former president could impose tariffs on all Chinese imports and this would lead to retaliatory tariffs from China and be met with EU retaliatory action in a tit for tat manner. The result would be disruption in world trade and affect the world economy. Higher inflation could also be result of such disruptions.

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Hungary under newly elected government of Magyar in 2026  to receive 18 billion euros of EU funds frozen for several years because of Orban's policies. Magyar needed 133 seats in parliament for a majority to change aspects of the Constitution modified by Viktor Orban. It now has two thirds of the seats in parliament to restore rule of law and take action on corruption.

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In India Article 21 in the Constitution and the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (Amendment) Act 2021, provides protection for women. 

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This NYT report looks at the gradual breakdown in Silicon Valley of the "fake it till you make it" culture. A vast misallocation of resources by startups and other business, a waste of hundreds of billions of dollars needed for investment in rebuilding the American economy and manufacturing.

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The Netherlands is negotiating with Google, Microsoft and Amazon to make certain privacy rules are being honored.

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The US sends aircraft carrier group of the US 7th fleet with the aircraft carrier USS Reagan and destroyers on a freedom of navigation mission through the South China Sea. What is a freedom of navigation mission and what is the US goal? "Our presence in the Pacific is to demonstrate our commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific," says commanding officer of the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan, Captain Fred Goldhammer. Seen on a map the Paracel Islands are far from China's coast. They lie on the waters further south in the South China Sea closer to the coast of Vietnam and between Vietnam and the Philippines. Till 1974 the Paracel Islands were part of Vietnam. In that year China took control of these islands after a war with Vietnam. The name Paracel is of Portuguese origin on maps in the 16th century. There are 130 islands or reefs with total area of about 3 square miles spread out over about 6000 square miles of ocean in the middle of the South China Sea near the coast of Vietnam. The French had  weather station there in 1932. After independence South Vietnam controlled the islands. In 1974 the islands were taken over by China from Vietnam. The result is that by taking over the islands China put itself in the position it is in Tibet. In Tibet it has put itself right across the Himalayas in a position that interferes with security on the border with India in the Himalayas that for centuries almost going back to Buddhist times 2500 years ago had very little and most of the time no Chinese presence. The passes in the Tibetan region are at heights over 15,000 feet that were mostly inaccessible except by yaks and other animals for transport for most of the 2500 year period. This is true also of the Paracel and other islands in the South China Sea as they are right in the middle of the seas of open navigation used by traders before the coming of the Europeans and for ocean going trade since 1500. Britain and the US have enjoyed free and open navigation in these oceans which connect past the Philippines into the Pacific to the Japanese islands and on to Hawaii and the US Pacific coast. What the US and European allies are saying is that the free and open navigation of the seas has always been the case for the last thousand years in the Pacific. The taking of the islands in 1974 by China from Vietnam now put it up against the US and European allies, and their Asian allies, as it interferes with navigation in the open seas essential for trade and travel between Asia and the Pacific. This is how the Chinese invasion of Tibet and the taking over of the Paracel Islands have put China into the position of interfering in the normally open and free areas in the Himalayas and the Pacific. This is where the Quad group shares a common interest in preserving what always existed in history-  a free and open Pacific and a free and open Himalayas. It brings together the US, Japan, India and Australia which stretch all the way from the Himalayas and the Indian Ocean uninterrupted all the way through Indonesia to Australia and Japan and the US. From the Mediterranean through Egypt into the Indian Ocean all the way to the Pacific and the US keeping free and open seas for trade and navigation. Or across the Cape of Good Hope into the Indian Ocean and the Pacific to the US. ...

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Brandon Johnson not just won the mayoral election in Chicago but also showed that putting the community effort forward to continue fighting crime, distancing oneself from extreme positions such as unfunding police, and energizing the community through a grassroots campaign works. When people can see and feel the candidate and that he cares for them, is grappling with the problems, it is possible to come from behind, for an unknown candidate like Johnson to win. Julie Bosman talks to people in Chicago to show how this was done. Mr. Johnson, a public school union leader won over a well known Democrat Mr. Vallas who fought the election on tougher action to fight crime, winning 51% to 49%. Mr. Johnson carried wards with black majority population by over 80%. Johnson pitched voters on a public safety plan that went beyond policing while supporting police yet getting the community involved. Johnson also did well in white neighborhoods along the lake and in the northwest Hispanic neighborhoods of Chicago. Bernie Sanders was out campaigning with Johnson in the final days of the campaign. And Representative Jesse Garcia also supported Johnson in the Hispanic neighborhoods. Mr. Quezada, a Cook County Commissioner for the northwest side says people just felt- "we want to be invested in, we don't want to just be punished."  ...

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Scientists worry that microplastics are linked to growing rates of cancer, heart disease, and other diseases. One study says people inhale or ingest 74,000 to 124,000 microplastic particles per year through breathing, eating and drinking. The plastic particles are everywhere around us. Of 10,000 chemicals used in making plastic a fourth of these are toxic. Consider in 1950 2 million metric tons of plastic were made, now 400 million metric tons. Of 8 billion tons produced only 10% recycled so the rest are in oceans, landfills, and around us. Ingested or inhaled they cause inflammation in our bodies that lead to cancer or other diseases.

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Morgan McSweeney acquired power as an organizer removing Corbynite left politicians from the Labour party. He is from County Cork, Ireland, his father an IRA courier, who left Ireland to get a politics and marketing degree from Middlesex University. He helped Labour politicians in London during the Corbyn years and settled on Keir Starmer as the candidate for a shift to the center in politics. There was something strange about Labour's win in 2024 as it got only 34% of the vote and still a large majority. It now appears that this was a highly flawed win, as Starmer was never able to take positions on major issues without depending on McSweeney for advice and backtracking. Worse 50% of Labour's vote disappeared in 2026 polls by February hardly 2 years after the win in 2024, as the support McSweeney helped organize had no depth of conviction- most of it to Liberals and Greens under Polanski. The result is that even the Guardian is disappointed and says McSweeney installed Starmer as PM, and then made him "the most unpopular PM in history." Net favorability in Feb 2026 is -57 similar to Sunak of Conservatives in June 2024. A 75% unfavorable rating in Jan 2026. And 14 points below the Labour party in "like" ratings. Only 18% are favorable for Starmer. ...

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Kansas City as one of the key host cities for World Cup Soccer 2026 hosts training facilities for Argentina, Netherlands and England. Kansas City has built world class stadiums and facilities over the last 2 decades and given a boost to men's and women's soccer leagues. The English team trains at nearby Lawrence, Kansas, with a great deal of privacy and seclusion.

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The growing popularity of rail trips in Europe as companies such as SNCF in France and rail companies in Austria and Germany increase investments in rail infrastructure. The idea is to cut the carbon footprint on short haul flights.Sleeper trains are also increasing in popularity with a new Austrian rail sleeper train between Paris and Vienna. Unlike earlier increases in rail travel this one is getting more support as rail as the potential of being less stressful, more interesting and as more investment is being made on rail infrastructure in Eastern and Central Europe. 

Much remains to be done in integrating the different rail systems in Europe both in infrastructure terms and in ticketing to customers. If this is done rail has serious prospect of becoming genuinely popular.

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Who is this sandwich generation in America? The term refers to young people facing the high cost of raising children and lack of affordability of childcare as well as caring for elderly parents some in their eighties. The problem is acute for these families in 2024 who have already experienced the covid pandemic, loss of jobs, loss of family members. Men and women are squeezed from both sides as they care for children and elderly parents without assistance from the government. Harris's plan in America for childcare assistance of $6000, payment assistance for down payment on buying a home, assistance for starting a small business, increasing supply of housing by building 3 million new homes, has young people with children uppermost in mind.