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Remote learning has not fared well during the pandemic in the U.S. as seen by teachers, administrators and students. It may surprise one to know that 20-25% of the homes of students in most southern states in the U.S. including Texas, the west including California, New York in the east, and Illinois in the midwest do not have a relaible internet connection.  Remote learning was used with the idea that young people are tech savy. Not so say experts because being a digital learner is not the same as being a digital consumer. The self discipline of digital learning is not the same as what goes into games and other stuff on the internet for young people. Teachers say they cannot be sensitive to students the way they are in a live class and detect when some students are falling behind. Many students did not turn up online, and homework was not done regularly. As a result preliminary research shows the 50 million students in this experiment in the U.S. will return to school in the fall with roughly 70% gain in reading compared to a typical school year and less than 50% for math (NWEA, Oregon). ...

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Sel-awareness, what it is and how it can help one build on reflection that happens when one slows down not going on at the fast pace of today's life. It gets one to know how ones actions are perceived by others, how to develop the humility to see oneself and others in ways that improves social interactions.

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The word "elderly" is going out of common use, the CDC in the U.S. has crossed it out and uses the words 'over 60." Parents bristle as the term elderly takes on a new meaning in the days of coronavirus in March 2020. One of the baby boomers at age 64, who has completed 40 triathlons in last 7 years asks if she can really be called elderly. Parents bristle with texts and calls from children in the thirties to change travel plans, with most deciding to stay put at home. Yet as other reports show most younger people in their thirties and forties are also working from home with their kids around them.

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Crowley home to Gatwick airport- situation of migrants in UK in one English town, shown in The Guardian. Migrants has become a divisive issue in Britain with Labour shifting to new policy on migrants, many Conservative party leaders joining Reform UK party. The situation is similar across the continent in Italy, Germany and France, Netherlands and Nordic countries. It is also a divisive issue in the US in January 2026, and has been since the Operation Wetback under President Eisenhower in 1954 as the US Border at the time was not secure following large migrant flows similar to the last decade. The issues of citizenship are still what they were in 1904 when US president Teddy Roosevelt in his Annual Message to Congress said- "The citizenship of our country should not be debased. It is vital that we keep high the standard of living of our wage workers, and therefore we should not admit masses of men whose standards of living, customs and habits, are such that they tend to lower the level of the American wage worker, and above all we should not admit any man of an unworthy type, any man of whom we can say that he will himself be a bad citizen, or his children and grandchildren will detract from instead of adding to the sum of the good citizenship of the country."    ...

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Now that finance ministries around the world are trying to save their economies with trillions of dollars in aid packages their finances are stretched to the limit. The so called digital tax is not really a digital tax. And efforts to recover lost tax revenues in Europe are being opposed by the U.S. because tax levies by France go only to France, not the U.S. The U.S. Treasury or U.S. government or the American people would not turn down tax revenues that it normally gets when its finances are stretched to the limit with trillions of dollars for cornavirus leaving little for crumbling infrastructure and essential public health services, other services that determine quality of life in America.  This Washington Post report shows that there is greater awareness that the right approach is to pay taxes based on where revenues are located and by the number of users in each country. But the problem goes deeper than that. The coronavirus changes the entire perspective and take this back to roots. Companies pay taxes because it is the right thing to do. In Japan Panasonic's founder Matsushita felt that it was a national duty to pay its share of taxes as it too was sharing in the benefits provided by society- in the health, sanitation, education and transportation, parks, and hundreds of services provided by government. Once this is seen as dispensable or somebody else's problem, then these very services and infrastructure can be starved of capital. Coronavirus changes this perspective. People crave for outdoor spaces- who is going to maintain them and set up new spaces. People crave for not moving around on crumbling bridges, roads, subway systems. Who is going to provide them? People crave for good schools, community colleges. Who is going to provide them? People crave for good sanitation systems? Who is going to provide them? People crave for good public health systems. Who is going to provide them? Its just good common sense. Is it possible for common sense to be missing? It is- just ask people today, and it is good common sense to have good critical infrastructure such as sanitation, medicine, public health, and local manufacturing of medicine, yet economic experts and economic theories thought it made sense not to do this.  ...

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Prof. Dynarski cites evidence from studies at Princeton and UCLA showing that students with laptops in classes performed worse in knowledge of the lecture given by the professor compared to students without laptops. He says there is growing evidence that laptops and tablets actually do not help in learning and absorbing the lectures- that students learn less when they use laptops or tablets in class. Conclusion: laptops act as a distraction from learning. 

By extension laptops distract also in meetings leading to less productivity, and do the same as lectures in universities in the high school classes.

Research shows that as students type out the material in the lecture as the professor talks, they are not duing the substantive processing in their heads as they should be doing. Also important is the negative effect observed in people around you as you use a laptop in class

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The head of Oxfam International shows how tackling problems such as clean water, health, daycare, can improve participation of women and generate additional employment. A major problem worldwide particularly in the developing world is the lack of enough good jobs. Investing 2% of GDP in healthcare in African, Asian and Latin American countries can generate additional 1-3%  employment. Higher levels of investment are needed in health and other services that improve the quality of life.

About $170 billion in taxes not paid to governments of developing countries because of tax dodging leaves governments short of the funds needed to invest in public services, schools and hospitals.

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As young people borrow more and take on debt and as more money goes into savings after housing price collapse, a new crisis of personal debt is taking place in a country known for the propensity to save.

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It calls for balancing it, taking into account tradeoffs and people's lives in 2025 after the pandemic, cost of living, health and housing vs net zero and speed of net zero targets. Opinion in UK on Net Zero cutting emissions changed over 4 years to split 50-50 on other spending priorities social care immigration NHS, in a focus group of The Times of London. In 2025 40% want to spend less on cutting carbon emissions net zero, large numbers favor more for NHS, then social care, policing and education in equal importance, followed by social housing. 

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Developing monopolies in AI on Apple similar to Apple Google deal on Search on Apple devices for which Apple gets $20 billion from Google. Google pays more than $20 billion a year to be the default search provider on Safari browser. This kind of deal violates the spirit of the anti-monoply laws and the US Justice Department has taken action.

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Outdated equipment in nation's aviation system dire need for more air traffic controllers neglected as $400 billion is invested in AI data centers. Congress is looking at $12.5 billion in upgrades to the nation's aviation system. More will be needed.

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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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Beyond the waste of natural gas when it is flared in areas lacking ways to store and transport small amounts of gas there is the issue of environmental degradation. Large quantities of natural gas in the Permian basin and North Dakota are simply burned to make way for oil production. It is simply uneconomical to transport it to users. Yet this is an issue not just of waste but of the environment too. Flaring of natural gas near oil wells is causing 1% of global greenhouse gas emissions, say experts. 

In places like Iraq this is a problem because of frequent power shortages in the country. Russia, Iran, Iraq and the U.S burn the natural gas near oil wells that is equivalent to the gas used in France, Germany, Belgium combined. In eastern Siberia or in the Sahara desert, North Dakota,  this is in the wilderness areas far from end markets.

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Senators Lankford (R- Oklahoma) Murphy (D-Conn), and Sinema (I- Arizona) are working hard to negotiate a deal which combines aid to Ukraine with an agreement to tighten border security. This report in The Washington Post shows how hard it is to reach a deal on intricate details and how it might not take place till January 2024. It is important to reach a deal as migrant push across the border has happened under both parties and a common solution is needed. 

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Biden is seen in Ireland as the most Irish president Since John F. Kennedy. Biden's great- great grandfather is Owen Finnegan who lived in Carlingford, Ireland, and left for New York in 1849. Two ancestral towns are preparing for his trip in Ireland, one in the county of Mayo and one in the scenic east coast's Cooley peninsula. Some Irish say Biden's interest in Ireland is very genuine, very personal. Biden quotes from Irish poets. He is the most Irish president except for JFK. There are more than 30 million Irish Americans in America and there is a connection with the island that is not found anywhere else. Mr. Biden invited on member of his family to the White House from Ireland for St Patrick's Day. He is all family they say about Mr. Biden. There is great enthusiasm for his visit in Ireland and for what Biden is doing to keep the Good Friday Agreement signed 25 years ago in 1998 so that Brexit does not affect it and border are soft. The Bridge at the border may be called The Biden Bridge. ...

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NYT looks at the $19 billion renovation of Kennedy Airport in New York. Smart ways are being adopted to avoid tying up the highways around the airport with trucks by sending stone and other supplies from quarries 125 miles away by water up the Hudson river to a waterside dock on the 5000 acre Kennedy campus. The executive director of The Port Authority of New York that runs the Kennedy Airport, one of the busiest in the world, says this avoids 300,000 truck trips spanning 1.5 million miles. 

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This special series in the Guardian called Mother Load looks at the situation of mothers in the U.S. who lack the social protections that are taken for granted in England and other European countries. One mother calls it an ever present mental and emotional stress from the lack of social support such as maternity leave and family leave. The constant stress of parenting and motherhood in America is described here in the first person with the stories of many mothers in different parts of the U.S.

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The English translation of the PM's speech at the Ayodya Temple is shown here from the Press Information Bureau of India. It covers the ancient paths and ancient traditions that were given to the lands south of the Himalayas on which the basis of a Just Society that serves the needs of all the peoples of the region can be laid down. Through the concept of Ram Rajya which in the Treta Yuga formed the social concept of a good and Just Society akin to what Abraham Lincoln laid down for America in the words "for the people, of the people, by the people." A reminder of what the peoples of Asia, Africa, Latin America and Europe are striving for after the pandemic. The task of modernity was done through modernization and Empire by Japan and failed yet now revived without Empire, through Communist leadership against the Empire of Japan in China which is in its current formation with an embrace of modernity and science. And now in India and Indonesia, all of South East Asia of over 2 billion people marking out a path to modernity and embrace of science and technology with the united efforts of the whole people with everyone's efforts, of Sabka Prayas- into the future for new generations venturing out, to today's children setting out on this journey. ...

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Portugal leads the world in developing soccer players, no country has hundreds of soccer professional players all over the world. A country of just 10.3 million, the defending European champion, it has 292 professional players in 45 countries. Even Italy, another soccer crazy nation has only 105 pros abroad. Much of the development of soccer players from a very young age happens at sporting clubs Benefica, Porto, and Sporting. They act as scouts, finishing schools after rigorous practice, and places that transfer players to other clubs, all put together in one place with large soccer academies. The uniformity of coaching, and the primacy of soccer as a sport helps Portugal dominate soccer in a way that is not reflected in its size. Soccer fields in all directions is what you see at Benefica's training facilities in Portugal. 10 soccer pitches are not enough for the director of Benefica's youth academy. 10 different teams of exciting preteens to Portuguese pros need to practice every day.  Christiano Ronaldo was found at Sporting, Ricardo Carvalho at Porto. One boarding school at Benefica has 89 students who do their academic studies at the club and play soccer, attend classes in the morning and play in the afternoon. There are 3 different teams under 14. A pathway puts some of them into the senior squads or for them to become attractive enough to draw a large transfer fee outside Portugal. Five different talent centers and 200 people search for talent by watching under 10's or 12's play soccer games. Once they are chosen they move to Seixal, outside of Lisbon for training. The clubs essentially create value through selection and training for years in soccer academies within the clubs. The clubs support their activities by having a lower cost way to access talent at home, and by generating the hefty transfer fees. Since 2014-2015 season the surplus for Benefica is about 540 million euros. Costs are in the eight figures making it possible to generate a profit by having a sale of a few good players to lower profile teams such as Israel, even if they are not at the level of the top players in the Champions League.  ...