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The huge surge in demand for coronavirus testing equipment that has results provided in a short time. The nasopharyngeal swab test is the most in demand. The inability of the manufacturing system to deliver these tests in large enough numbers is still a major problem in fighting coronavirus.

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India closes state borders and stems the flow of migrants as it tackles the spread of coronavirus. The Home Ministry ordered states to effectively seal their borders. The whole country is in a lockdown and prime minister Modi says this is the only way to tackle coronavirus spread.

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Rishi Sunak, UK prime minister, faces questions of why he appointed Nadhim Zadhawi as head of the Conservative party, following his dismissal of Mr. Zadhawi as recommended by the inquiry done by his ethics adviser for serious breaches of the ministerial code on Zadhawi's tax affairs.

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Tight skinny swim suits that can take 20 minutes to put on and intense hydration, having to be ready and report 15 minutes before the starting time, all make it hard for swimmers to resist nature, and peeing in the pool is far too common, says the WSJ.

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Escalating dangers of social media to democracy in the UK and the US through misinformation are covered here in this Guardian report. Prime minister Starmer of the UK calls it out in the current UK riots saying - "Social media is not a law-free zone."

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Effects of the hurricane in the hard hit rural western part of North Carolina and the controversy surrounding the Republican candidate for governor are likely to affect voting in the state in 2024. The margin is razor thin for Republicans says this report in WSJ, less than 0.8%.

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The federal Voting Assistance Program run by the Department of Defense says there are 606,000 Americans living in Canda that are of voting age. Many of them can vote in 2024, and many live near border states Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania. Some even commute daily to the US.

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The hard ones Hegseth at Defense and Gabbbard at National Intelligence. The one that depends on RFK Jr convincing Senators about his position on vaccines is for Health and Human Services. WSJ looks at where the Senate stands on each important nomination and who are the swing votes.

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Biden administration slightly changes wording using  "statehood" as it relates to Taiwan, a well functioning Democracy nation of 23 million people just south of the Korean peninsula. China protests and weeks later it is reversed. The DJT administration is restoring this wording on grounds that US does not want ambiguity, it wants to see a democratic nation be able to follow peaceful coexistence in Asia. Early hints how the world situation is changing with DJT administration's return to "common sense" in policies is that it seeks to bring Russia back into the community of western nations. Restoring relations  reminiscent of when China breaks away from the Soviet bloc in the 1970's, Russia moving away from its subordinate position to China.  American Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg seeks to avoid losing a whole generation of young people in Russia and Ukraine with continued war. America's idea is consistent with Wilson support of China during Sun Yat Sen's 1911 Revolution, FDR and Gen. Joe Stilwell support for China during the Imperial Japanese Army rampage through Asia in 1930's. America does not want to see fellow Europeans an entire generation of young men from Ukraine and from Russia lose their lives in a senseless war. DJT shows America is listening when he says Russia would never accept Ukraine in NATO and some voices in Europe (British, East European) have made it appear that this is possible.. Kasyanov a former senior Russian policymaker says Russia wants to see a new generation structure replacing old outdated institutions from the Cold War. NATO needs to be rethought, and a new institution be formed to replace it that puts behind us the Cold War. This is also a European idea expressed by Macron and other leaders.   ...

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Freeman contrasts the speeches given by Obama and Trump, one in Cairo after becoming president, and the other in Riyadh. Freeman says Obama did not give enough credit to American leadership and progress on women's rights, and was not critical of Iran during a period in which sectarian strife has led to the situation in Syria and Iraq. 

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The Dow Jones Average drops again 300 points on Dec 27, after a record 1000 point gain on Dec 26, 2018. All S&P sectors are no in the red for the year after losses for the quarter. Investor anxiety stems from the Fed winding down easy money policy, interest  rate increases, the trade war with China, and slower economic growth,

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Nigerians 18-20 years old in Lagos and Abeokuta talk to BBC News as a new generation prepares to vote. A big priority for many is good roads and electricity reaching out to more places, better water supplies and sanitation, more pay for teachers, better jobs and better opportunities to get higher and professional education. Everybody wants the country to be better.

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Italy's president Conte tells Italians to follow the rules for quarantine, and not to follow old habits of "furbizia" that were used mostly to overcome the bureaucracy by working around rules. The Lombardy region including Milan is now under quarantine for the coronavirus. Programs on television urge people not to mingle, and to stay at home. 

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ESPN is shifting from its traditional television business for which viewers pay cable television companies to a full streaming service with the expected demise of cable television.

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The Biden administration plans debt relief for student borrowers with 10 year of monthly payments in public service professions such as teaching, public interest law and nursing. 

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US GDP growth is 2.9% in 4th quarter 2023, down slightly from 3.2% in the third quarter, after interest rate increases by Jay Powell at the Fed.

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Situations in school reopening where students take virtual classes in classrooms where teachers are exposed to coronavirus. Many schools are having teachers work remotely in these situations.

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Congressional Budget Office analysis that shows 14 million more people uninsured in 2018 under the Republican House health care plan, this increases to 24 million by 2026.

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US Fed's Powell says in Feb 2025 that the strong US economy gives more room to wait for rate cuts.  

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Orange juice from Brazil, copper from Chile, electronics and pharma from India, and aircraft from EU, are part of broad exemptions in US tariffs plans. The exemptions are designed to give flexibility to US negotiators where it helps the US economy to import these items. 

This month negotiating teams from Japan, EU, South Korea and othere countries are trying to get exemptions for other items. BMW is seeking export rebates for exports of SUV's to EU from its US factories. And VW is seeking to use investments it says it will make in the US manufacturing as a way to get exemptions in tariffs or lower tariff rate similar to the way Apple has negotiated a tariff exemption for its Chinese exports to the US by saying it will invest $100 billion in the US manufacturing. US negotiators have to get the firm guarantees that these investments are going to be made.

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The Trump administration is looking at ways to protect U.S. automobile manufacturing by enforcing stricter environmental rules for automobile imports. The EPA is looking at whether VW which has 3.5% of the American market can be asked to meet stricter standards because the diesel emissions scandal gives the U.S. legal justification to set stricter emissions rules. VW has accepted that it used illegal software to evade government emissions tests. Such non tariff barriers are faced by the U.S. companies in Japanese, South Korean, Chinese markets. It is not clear how this would affect the 17.1 million cars made in NAFTA factories with parts made in one country and shipped for assembly in another country, between Canada, Mexico and the U.S.

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In exceptional reporting from Seoul, WSJ's John Lyons shows how the opinion has shifted in a matter of months in South Korea over installing the anti-missile Thaad system provided by the U.S.  Gallup South Korea polls show that since the election campaign earlier in 2017 opinion has shifted sharply, from 52% supporting Thaad to 72% support after the July 28, 2017 North Korean launch of an ICBM missile recently. When he took office president Moon halted installation of 4 addition Thaad anti missile launchers, now Moon supports installation. and it is moving ahead.  Anti-war activists earlier protested the installation at a golf course in Soseong-ri, and formed a group supporting Moon. Now only a few protesters are to be seen, says Lyons. 

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A decade after a precipitious decline in its stock price during the global financial crisis of 2008 stemming from its GE Capital unit, GE struggles with faltering stock price and poor performance stemming from other strategy errors in its core infrastructure business.  GE Capital is being shut down. Now one of its subprime lending units is likely to be put into bankruptcy protection. WMC Mortgage had losses under its GE Capital parent  of $1 billion during the financial crisis in one year alone. It has since faced a series of legal settlements and investigations. GE Capital has turned out to be a poor investment and a huge distraction for management for a company which considered its core business as infrastructure related.

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Microsoft CEO completed 36 major acquisitions since taking over from Steve Ballmer in 2014. In this report Jay Greene of WSJ points out a significant change under Nadella. Under Gates and Ballmer the heads of companies acquired were not brought into company executives discussions. Nadella invited these heads to join the rest of the company's top managers to meetings to hear different views. Nadella says Microsoft would not have missed big trends had it listened more. Under Ballmer acquisitions such as Nokia were not properly handled. Even under Gates in the earlier period products in Search later developed by Google did not get the attention they deserved and heads of companies acquired did not get  to actively participate. The Not Invented Here Syndrome applied to Microsoft managers. The aggressive attitudes did not produce the best results. Like Apple's Cook who has a collaborative style, Nadella has set out to open up the company to different ideas and people. Nadella has shifted the company away from earlier products to cloud computing and mobile computing to produce better results. Under Nadella open source software programming receives the openness and respect it deserves, after the Ballmer years. The change in attitude is real and Nadella as a Microsoft veteran for 24 years has been able to steer the company in a new direction. ...

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Gerry Adams of Sinn Fein in Northern Ireland says in the NYT that some way has to be found to respect the vote of 55% in Northern Ireland in favor of remaining in the European Union. He says Northern Ireland and Scotland should not be made to leave the EU because of a different preference expressed in England and Wales. He points to one of the most harmful effects of the Brexit i- the return to a hard  border between the EU state of Ireland and Northern Ireland. This will affect the economic, healthcare, tourism, business and cultural links of Ireland in the north and south, and reverses the gains of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. He calls it a result of factional infighting in the Tory party, the rise of far right anti immigrant groups such as UKIP, and the Gove faction which never really supported the peace deal in Ireland that has brought two decades of peace. Adams says concurrent referendums for a united Ireland is one solution to this problem. Another is an All Ireland forum of political parties and civic partners to meet, and for the Irish Government to stand behind the Good Friday Agreement, so that the Brexit does not hurt the interests of Ireland as a whole. ...