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Dang Dongming a Chinese Han in Kashgar, Xinjiang province. With its Turkic people the Uighur and their own language and culture ad Muslim religion Kashgar is 2 places one Han Chinese and then there is the old city with its mosques and bazaars where the Uighurs live. And both live separate segregated lives with the better jobs going to the better educated Chinese. This area has become a flashpoint of ethnic tension between the two communities in a way parallel to wha happened in Lhasa, Tibet.

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Men all in their 20's and at different points in their careers, from all parts of the US are interviewed by the WSJ 6 months into the DJT administration to see what they think of performance so far.

Young men as a demographic group are optimistic about the economy even with high interest rates restricting housing access. Young men supported DJT in 2024 by 15 percentage points 57% to 42% giving the president an edge. Overall on foreign affairs messy international disputes, on immigration and hurdles in resolving returning migrants to home countries, they are considerate about what difficulties the president faces. They are optimistic about president DJT and his ability to handle tariffs, inflation, and the economic growth that will improve their lives in the coming years.

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Paul Peterson, a professor who heads the Program on Education Policy at Harvard, says that public school education has not done as well as private or charter school education. In two areas character or values, and school discipline, public schools lag far behind private schools or charter schools. Private schools score 59% and 46% in these two areas, public schools lag far behind at 21% and 17%, in the 2016 Education Next Survey, says Peterson. He says by appointing Betsy DeVos as Education Secretary, the Trump administration sees the need to think how public schools can benefit from improvement in these areas.

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New obesity prevention grocery store rules in Britain require that no food high in salt, sugar or fat can be placed within 2 metres of a checkout or queueing area and restricted to certain areas in the store.

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With inflation up, cost of living increase, the $15 per hour wage in high cost of living states such as California and New York does not go very far in tackling cost of living in 2026. Astoundingly 20 states many in the SOuth still follow the $7.25 per hour federal minimum wage that has not changed since 2009. Axios shows the minimum wage by state. In Michigan workers in youth age earn 85% of the minimum wage of $12.80 and hour. As workers lost leverage with the decline of trade unions since the 1990's administrations of Clinton, Bush, Obama, the situation is a difficult one for lower wage workers in many states. The lower wages in retail and hospitality industries also creates downward pressure on all wages which have not kept up till recently in auto and other manufacturing industries. Outshoring increased pressures over the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations and as Democrats failed to do much about outshoring, it took a Republican DJT and Democrat Biden who followed to reverse the trend and create a push for higher wages. This also has failed as inflation surged during 2022-2023 and outshoring created new problems in sourcing parts from overseas in autos and other industries. The middle class is also not much better off and engineers making $90,000 a year are also living from paycheck to paycheck, with less access to housing that has gone up in price and become less affordable. This cost of living surge and the open borders migration pressure on public services led to DJT's reelection in 2025. ...

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India European Union Trade Agreement of 2026- game changer in world trade reconfiguring supply channels with 2 billion people market. EU's Leyen says she is determined to push ahead and make this the defining trade arrangement of this century. That the EU will deliver. For India it gives a reliable partner for modernization of its logistics, its infrastructure, and its industrialization, India's modernization in a rapid way. Similar to what China gained over 2 decades with its trading relationship with the EU, even surpassing that because of newer technologies in 2025-2050. It is a relationship based on two cultures and two civilizations, on respect for European and Buddhist/Vedic civilization for each other, totally different from the Imperial Japan of the 1930's that overran China, and the CCP in China ambitions for China Dreams based on belligerent action or support for belligerent action as in Ukraine. Leyen goes as far as citing Romain Rolland, a western philosopher of Indian civilization in the concluding point in her speech. In fact the first translation of the Bhagavad Gita was done by Charles Wilkins in 1765 taking it out of the hands of the Brahmins in Varanasi similar to how William Tyndale translated the New testament into English from Greek in 1534.  The Bhagavad Gita was then translated by German philosopher Frederick Schlegel into German from Sanskrit, spreading learning of Asian languages throughout Europe. India owes a lot to Europe and Europe to India, for two civilizations that speak the same human language of spiritual aspirations. ...

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Questions raised by Nicholas Kristof of the NYT on Russian hacking during the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Kristof says the implausible or far fetched idea of foreign interference in U.S. elections is not as implausible as it may appear.

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This report by James McCauley of the Washington Post, points to the uncertainties in the French presidential election. About one third of French voters are undecided. Le Pen and a surprise candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon are pulling in voters on the far right and the far left. There are questions whether Macron's effort to pull together centre right and centre left voters will work in such an environment. McCauley says the gist of Macron's approach is summarized in a line in his 2016 book- removing "the obstacles on the road," making equality of opportunity a reality in a land of elite government and business running the country, and key being " renewal of ideas and men."  It is not exactly a way forward, more about renewal in French society. His opponents are pitching exiting the European Union and different visions of a protectionist welfare state. Macron is pitching continuity with renewal and changes to bring more opportunity to young people by investing in vocational education, recreate French schools, and expand health services, lower residency taxes. A lot depends on centrist voters coming out to vote as happened in the recent Dutch election, and undecided voters looking for renewal instead of the uncertainty of drastic changes. ...

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The pandemic's effects on children with one in three going hungry and one in five growing up stunted, according to a report by UN agencies- UNICEF, FAO and the World Food Programme, is shown in this report in The Guardian.

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The fight against cancer cannot be done only on the finding a cure,  it is also about returning to the time when ingredients such as titanium dioxide and others were not added to food and when people did not consume processed foods. This report says the FDA spokesperson says contact the manufacturer. After the EU has banned titanium dioxide for causing the inflammation that causes cancer, the FDA should have banned it. See the recent article in The Washington Post on the microplastics that release nanoparticles that cause cancer. The culture in the US has developed a tolerance for behaviours and actions that harm the health and mental health of the American people making it necessary to change this so that microplastics and ingredients such as titanium dioxide are removed from the widespread use that is happening.

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The pharmaceutical companies are reducing the size of their sales forces, but increasing the number of MSL's or Medical Science Liaisons. The drug companies are using the MSL's to discus the science behind a particular drug, and how the drug can have increased applications. Pharmaceutical companies are barred by the FDA from promoting unapproved drug uses, or "off-label" use.

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Action the Indian government has taken so far to control cryptocurrency in India and prevent the kind of losses that have taken place in other countries. This includes a 1% tax on digital transactions above a certain amount and a 30% tax on cryptocurrency.