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Real Madrid in Champions League 2026 with loss to Bayern in semi-finals. Real Madrid had coach  Alonso last for 7 months, next Arbeola 5 months in 2026 season.

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The National Assessment of Educational Progess (NAEP) test scores in the U.S. for K-12 show a lack of progress since 2013. Scores for math and reading dropped for 8th grade students, and scores for reading were stagnant while dropping in math for 4th grade students. The test scores reflect progress in rural, suburban, urban environments, for communities that are affluent, less affluent and poor, different ethnic backgrounds. The test started in 1990 is the only one measuring national progress. The new results of NAEP are on a scale of 0 to 500, and show that in 2015 64 percent of 4th graders and 66 percent of eighth graders were not reading proficient, 60 percent of 4th graders and 67 percent of 8th graders were not math proficient. Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, do much better in the tests than Mississippi and New Mexico. Experts say a state to state comparison should separate the non native English speaking students from native English speaking, especially in states like Texas. With about two thirds of students failing the math and reading proficiency levels, growing proportions of minority Hispanic students in many states, larger proportion of less affluent students, the tests show the challenges facing America's K-12 education even after the changes introduced by Education Secretary Duncan since 2008....

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Losers in US Tax Mega Bill 2025- Medicaid users, food aid recipients, college borrowers, and EV drivers.

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Shipping and freight statistics show an increase of shipments from Mexico. Trains and truck shipments from Mexico to the U.S. increased by 8.7% by weight in the first 11 months of 2011 compared to the prior year. By comparison shipping containers entering the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach went down by 0.2% in 2011. Mexico stands to benefit from the shift in dynamics as manufacturing costs in China increase with labor constraints, higher wages, higher commercial land prices and recent Asian supply chain issues making firms wary of unanticipated problems. This is expected to benefit the U.S. with the return of some manufacturig jobs and a serious rethink of outsourcing. Because of highly automated factories and advanced technologies the manufacturing process requires fewer and more skilled operators, reducing the labor component of costs. Carlisle Companies CEO, David Roberts says he is expanding tire manufacturing plants in Tennessee. He says he can make tires as cheaply or cheaper in the U.S than in China. This has serious implications as the U.S. gets down to rebuilding and renewal of its manufacturing industry....

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A Defense Department biannual report that is mandated by Congress points to little improvement in the last 6 months in Afghanistan. In 92 districts studied for the their support of the Afghan government or opposition to it, not one supported the government. In 44 districts the people were neutral in this evaluation. The number of districts sympathetic to the insurgency increased to 48 in March 2010 from 33 in December 2009. Clearly the Afghan government of Karzai has little support in the country and this remains the major question: whether this war can be successful in the face of this fact and its continuance, and whether the merits of expenditure of time, effort, resources and lives to keep a government like this in power makes sense for America's security interests. About $6.6 billion is allocated by Congress for the training of Afghan security forces. But the Afghan police force consists of mostly illiterate and poorly trained persons and virtually nonexistent judicial system. Combine this with corruption, incompetence and threats and this force is really ineffective. Overall the Afghan security forces once trained don't appear from this report to be able to sustain themselves in the face of an insurgency whose "operational capabilities and organizational reach are qualitatively and geographically expanding", and with "strength and ability of the shadow governance to discredit the authority of the Karzai government increasing."...

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There is cramped space for renters and limited supply of housing space per capita in Shanghai, China. After a decade of hyper building China still lacks affordable housing space. The residential space per capita in Shanghai is only 183 square feet or 17 square metres per person- about the size of a small room. And estimates by GK Dragonomics Research show one third of China's 225 million households lack kitchens and plumbing. At the same time housing is increasingly unaffordable for the middle class. Government restrictions on price increases reflect growing concern with the fact that the average Shanghai residential home sold for about $276,000 in 2011, even though annual per capita income in Shanghai is about $13,000. Prices for homes in Shanghai increased 2.6 times in 5 years, according to the Shanghai Urban Real Estate Surveyors Company. With the slowdown in construction developers are working through inventories, and more homes were sold than built in 2012, compared to about 1.5 units built for every unit sold in 2011. ...

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The lack of economic opportunities for an increasingly urbanized African younger generation is a major challenge. The median age of 19 makes Africa the world's youngest continent. Megacities are growing up in places such as Lagos and Kinshasha as millions leave subsistence farming to go to cities. Unlike Asia and Latin American countries men and women are coming to shantytowns in cities at a time when Africa is much poorer for a similar level of urbanization that Asian and Latin American nations reached decades earlier. In 1993 this WSJ analysis and graphs show the Asian emerging economies and sub Saharan Africa had similar GDP per capita of $2415, by 2019 this was $4000 for Africa and $12,000 for Asian emerging economies. Latin America was at $10,000 in 1993 and in 2019 was at about $15,000. The gap widened considerably between Asia and African countries. Asian emerging economies increased GDP to 5 time from the same starting point as Africa in 1993, Africa doubled GDP over the period of 25 years to 2019. Latin America started from a much higher point and increased GDP by only 50% over 25 years. Asian economies that performed better over this period did better because of stable even entrenched governments such as in Singapore with Le Kuan Yew and in China with stable successive governments under CPC leadership of prime minister Deng. The difference in Asia was a commitment across all classes and groups to development, a sense of development as a way to make up for the years lost under colonialism of foreign powers in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. A sense of correcting historical injustice and wrongs. This is a missing ingredient in the processes unfolding in Latin America and Africa in the last 25 years. ...

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Alexander Kudascheff of DW.com, says the Berlin Christmas market attack on the Kurfstendamm, is likely to change the way Germany looks at the terrorist threats in the world. Smaller attacks had hit Germany earlier in 2016. This one resembling the attack in Nice on Bastille Day is likely to touch a nerve with Germans who did not see something like this possible for a Christmas tradition of Christmas markets in Germany, and right in Berlin's centre.  This means stormy waters for chancellor Merkel's refugee policies. The comments to this opinion in the DW.com show the public dissatisfaction with current policy. Many of the comments focus on too open an approach of liberal media, what is perceived as a spin on stories for refugees, and on the use of words "suspected terrrorist attack" even when it had become clear to most people that it was a terrorist incident. In other ways this incident is different as it puts Germans in the same situation as Americans, Spaniards, Turks, French, and other people in the way terrorism has made people less safe or unsafe in 2015-2016. Most of this is a result of the situation in Syria and Iraq, as is the refugee situation that has divided European opinion, and American opinion.  ...

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India's emissions rates up by 57% and China's by 34% in the past decade. U.S. contributes 25% of the world's greenhous gas emissions.

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The Economist points to Mexico's potential and compares it favorably to Brazil and China. Mexico's people are better educated and have higher standards of living than most developing countries including Brazil. Technical education is one of Mexico's strengths and it has good management talent. It suffered badly in the global financial crisis of 2008 because of the recession in the U.S., but it does not have to lower its sights and live with lower growth as the U.S. economy suffers a slowdown. As Chinese wages have risen, Mexico is looking better as a place to invest. And even as Brazil's credit markets getting overheated, there is much room for credit growth in the Mexican economy. Mexico could achieve a growth rate higher by about 2.5 percentage points according to one estimate, if it attracts more foreign investment and opens up the oil industry to foreign investment, implements reform for labor markets and opens up many sectors to competition. It needs to restricts the monopolies granted to businesses such as Telefonos Mexico run by Carlos Slim, as well as other cartels and monopolies to achieve higher economic efficency....

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The situation on the inflation front in 2009, as the USA faces productive use of manufacturing capacity under 70% and unemployment at nearly 10%.

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Instead of the long process of negotiating trade deals with individual countries the US negotiates specific agreement designed to include friendly nations in the provisions of the EV manufacturing subsidies for making in America. This type of agreement lets EU and separately Japan benefit from subsidies offered to EV manufacturers in the US. The agreement with Japan is designed to get larger access to EV battery minerals for US and Japan in which China has an early lead. Under the agreement minerals sourced from Japan qualify for the $7500 subsidy for EV vehicles made in the US provided under the Inflation Reduction Act.

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"Cancel Culture"- how Democrats and Republicans Conservatives and Liberals see the shaming of people for their views on social media- it is having accountability for some, and seen as censorship or punishment by others. Pew Researchers show the views of different people by age, gender, political affiliation, on the idea of "cancel culture." Some say does it even help doing this on a platform like social media as it tends to exaggerate and is rarely helpful to educate people and create real conversations to increase knowledge. When people are being shamed for racism or sexism, there is little idea of getting people to change or for patient forgiveness, or educating on why certain behaviours are wrong. Yale University's 58 page document on where it went wrong on "holistic admissions" and "cancel culture," is an example of how "cancel culture" when adopted inadvertently at universities and colleges across the Nation can be misguided and not result in positive actions. In the process can this denigrate the achievements of western civilization through the Renaissance of ideas, the awakening of knowledge in Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries, the Enlightenment, and the Scientific Revolution that resulted from this. Followed by the Industrial Revolution unique in Europe and the US that created the Modern World and the standards of living, of literacy, education and healthcare, and transportation we know today. This is the question Yale and other universities are asking today in 2026. ...

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There is a lot the US can and needs to do in healthcare, pharmaceuticals and housing, in correcting overinvestment in AI that needs to rebuild US infrastructure and industry that creates jobs that Kessler fails to mention. Yet what is clear is that the insight and the knowledge of how to accomplish this will not come without a strong educational background that includes professional courses as well as strong coursework in Economics, Government and History, and Languages. City Journal shows zero schools require Economics and 15% require Government and History to graduate- creating an ill equipped generation of students in 2026, poorly equipped to understand, grasp and tackle the Nation's problems.