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Steven Press of the Stanford History Department says "buying Greenland is not a new idea."  Actually Denmark sold hubs in India to the British Empire, offered Greenland for sale to US in 1900's,  and US president Harry Truman offered $100 million in 1946 for Greenland because of it's strategic value in the Cold War. Then why are the EU countries sounding indignation. Denmark was a colonial power in India in the 19th century. Denmark was explored in its widest extent by Robert Peary in the 1880's who proved it was an island by reaching it's northernmost side. Peary advocated for Greenland to be part of the US and the Commanders in Chief all agreed in 1946 the island "was completely worthless to Denmark," yet was vital to the United States, to protect its eastern seaboard. DJT is hardly the first to say this even though the Europeans want to excoriate hime for doing so. In fact it was Secretary of State William Seward in 1867 who looked at acquiring Greenland, when he negotiated the purchase of Alaska from the Russian Empire. Alaska is a lot ,a lot better for natives compared to it being under Russia, and this would be true for Greenland than being under Denmark. Denmark's claim was not even accepted till 1921 with Norway disputing it.  Denmark had not explored the northern part of the country when Robert Peary reached it for the US Navy and claimed it for the US inthe 1880's. It can be said that for these reasons Denmark has little reason to be in Greenland except as a colonial power. Its claims are from 1814 Treaty of Kiel with Prussia. Denmark can hardly protect Greenland's vast shoreline with 6 dogsleds, and security less than the New York Police Department, from Russian and Chinese submarines and ships in the Arctic. The native Inuit population of Greenland has little in common with Denmark as a colonial power. About 60,000 Inuit origin native residents, in the whole island, most of them would fit into one or several American bases, Okinawa alone has 80,000 people. Who would have per capita incomes many times what they are today with better living conditions and standards of health and education, security and air transport under the US.    ...

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Car repair costs surged 28% over the last 3 years from 2021 to 2024. A fender bender can end up costing a lot. Even a rear view miror can end up costing $1200 to $1500 for a 2020 car with the heating element and sensors on these cars. It compares to $200 to $400 on a 2013 car. The average repair cost in 2023 was $4700 for an insurance claim up 7.5%.

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Anne Applebaum of the Washington Post points out that after the faltering campaign of Republican Party nominee Fillon, the only serious candidates remaining in the presidential election in France are Marie LePen of the National Front, and the former Economy minister in the Hollande government, Emmanuel Macron. Macron is now the only person with enough popularity to win over LePen's nationalist movement. Macron launched his En Marche movement in 2016 and his strategy is to bring together the centre right and the centre left moderate voters, and voters who favor remaining in the European Union. Older voters in France unlike that in the U.S. and the UK are favoring candidates other than LePen because they fear the impact on the French economy and their pensions from leaving the European Union. LePen favors holding a referendum to decide whether France should remain in the EU. Macron takes an opposite view fully supporting France's role in the European Union. He has not advocated the huge cuts that Fillon has for job cuts in the public sector, and is able to draw moderate centre left voters to his side. A look at the French presidential election in another piece in the Economist magazine shows that further out one goes from major cities in France there is a surge in the support for the National Front. Moderate parties other than the National Front draw support in most of the major cities and urban areas. Another similarity with the UK and U.S> is that more educated voters support moderate parties other than the National Front. As polls have been proven wrong in other elections it is difficult to know what is likely to happen in this election. Unemployment is high in France at 10% with little change since the election of the Socialist Hollande government. Other issues such as terrorism have unsettled French voters, making this election difficult to predict. Voter dissatisfaction is especially high among younger voters who face a high unemployment rate and stagnant economy. Neither candidate Macron or LePen offers a way out of the low economic growth and lack of new jobs. A lot depends on whether French voters are willing to take the risks of a LePen administration and the further uncertainty from a referendum for leaving the EU which cannot enhance the economic prospects of France.     ...

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Life in Kharkiv, Ukraine's second largest city, is shown alongside as the city struggles with most of its infrastructure destroyed in the war. The $61.5 billion aid to Ukraine was passed in the US Congress only with the efforts of Mitch McConnell who never gave up even in February and March when bills passed in the Senate were stalled in the House as the former president and some of the Republican base wavered. Mitch McConnell says now after the vote of 79 to 18 that passed  in the Senate that "at times I felt I was the only Reagan Republican left." At a meeting with the president in late February he wanted to start the meeting because he says-" I wasn't trying to convince Johnson of anything other than we had a time problem. I did't think we had time to fool around." Speaker Mike Johnson had wavered in calling for a House vote of a Senate bill on Ukraine aid after the former president had declined support. "He had a spine of steel and wouldn't give in to pressure from those in our caucus who did not have the depth of understanding of the stakes and who had reached different conclusions" says  Susan Collins who visited Ukraine in 2022 with McConnell. She calls him "steadfast and unwavering." Pat Schumer says "I give him a huge amount of credit. we were shoulder to shoulder on this." As he stays in the Senate till his term ends in January 2027, Mitch McConnell can look back on two decades of leadership in Senate realizing he had added nine Republican votes to get it 31 Republicans for Ukraine aid at a critical time. He says of two rules he has followed for 18 years - you take a lot of arrows, and yet you never speak about your members on or off the record, and in that sense he is free to pursue his own interests and has a lot of latitude now till 2027. He will be sorely needed in the Senate as the voice of experience and depth of understanding.   ...

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Nicola Clark's interview in NYT with Mathias Dopfner, CEO of Axel Springer which owns German newspapers Die Welt and Bild. Dopfner describes the digital transformation underway at Axel Springer, and the changing mindset of its managers for a cultural transformation.

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Weymouth interviews Colombian President, Juan Manuel Santos. Santos was finance minister, foreign trade minister, and defense minister under former president Alvaro Uribe. The U.S. is negotiating a free trade agreement with Colombia. Santos has improved relations with neighboring Venezuela, which under Uribe were strained upto the breaking point. He is also improving relations with Ecuador, and working to strengthen the Andean Development Council. Santos says Colombia has a smaller drug problem after defeating the major cartels, though mini-cartels still operate in the country. On fiscal responsibility Colombia has introduced a rule in the constitution to limit deficits to 1% of GDP. Santos expects 5% growth in 2011. He hopes to protect Colombia's growth in a global financial crisis by strengthening regional reserve funds, multilateral cooperation of Andean countries, and central bank monetary policies. Santos plans to abolish the DAS intelligence agency in 3-4 months. He plans to create a new intelligence agency and transfer functions such as immigration that were under DAS to other agencies. He has also launched investigations and action against corruption in the government and against public officials working with local mafias. To do this he is working with the attorney general, prosecutor general, the controller general, and police. This has led to criticism from Uribe who sees the changes in policy pointing to deficiencies in the Uribe administration. Colombia is a country with a population of 46 million and plays a significant role in the northern part of Latin America. Santos assumed office in 2010 and was the choice of Alvaro Uribe. His policies have won him a 71% approval rating....

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The step back to larger vehicles in the sales of automobiles in the US in 2010.

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Chile and the dilemma of copper exports taking up 57.8% of exports in 2009, from 54.4% in 2005, making 15.5% of GDP. With the surge in China's growth Latin America remains as tied to commodities exports as it has been for decades, facing boom and bust cycles and not able to diversify into value added and industrial products. A regional economic commission says in a report, that Latin American and Caribean exports were over 50% in raw materials in 1980 and declined to 27% in 1999, and back up to 39% in 2009.

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American women in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio- including the cousin of Teddy Sawka, a Chrisitian missionary in the Japanese fishing village of Shichigahama- send colorful exotic yarn to the "Yarn Alive" Japanese women knitting club in Shichigahama.

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The NYT's Sanger and Gordon give readers glimpses of what happened inside the negotiating rooms at the hotel in Lausanne, Switzerland, where the outlines of the nuclear agreement with Iran were laid out. Wendy Sherman led the American negotiating team, and Javad Zarif led the Iranian side.

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Obama outlined his views on fuel efficiency goals in his speech to the Detroit Economic Club in May 2007. The thinking of the new President on this issue developed in the last few years as he met with different environmental and conservation groups and studied what was happening in the area of energy. He has used Paul Volcker, Austin Gollsbee, a professor of economics at the University of Chicago, and Joshua Steiner, a former Treasury official with abackground in restructuring, as advisors during the bailout discussions. His speech at the Detroit Economic Club faulted the UAW for joining with management in continuing to stall development of fuel efficient automobiles as retooling costs were high and the companies were being required to support high retiree and health benefits costs. In effect the management-UAW staus quo of continuing to turn out the same mix of pickup trucks and SUV's and leaving the gap in small and medium sized cars without the necessary invesments to turn out winners, may have led GM into the situation it faced even before the credit crisis, when sales of larger vehicles just went over the cliff. ...

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During question time in the US Congress US Senator Rand Paul stated that the US money was used to fund research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. A ban on gain of function research on virus was lifted by the US in 2018. Following the lifting of this ban which was strongly opposed by scientists at Cambridge, Massachusetts, research was conducted that many of these scientists considered dangerous and risky. This report in the BBC shows Dr. Anthony Fauci. director of the NIAID, the Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases responding to Dr. Rand Paul, Senator from Kentucky. Much of the discussion goes into definition of "gain of function research" and misses the broader implications. Scientists in Cambridge had warned early of the danger of doing research because of earlier mishaps such as the one involving anthrax research from accidents that are always a risk. Epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch of the Harvard Chan School of Public Health warned of just such an "accidental pandemic" in Three Questions, Three Answers in the January 2018 issue of the Harvard Chan School of Public Health journal. He stated that an "accidental pandemic" could result from the lifting of a ban on a risky kind of research favored by some virologist professionals. Most of the medical and scientific community in Cambridge fiercely opposed the lifting of the ban on what they saw as risky research with little benefit in 2018.    ...