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Intel's quarterly sales for 4th quarter 2008 fell by 23% from a year ago, to $8.23 billion. And Intel cannot estimate what 2009 will be like or the first quarter of 2009. In semiconductors the situation is complicated by declining prices with DRAM chips falling by 24% in the fiscal quarter ending Dec 4, 2008 for Micron Technology, and flash memory chips falling by 34%. This is also because of overcapacity and excess inventory. The netbook craze is putting downward pressure on all PC prices across the board, according to Gartner Research.

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The immigration issue in alocal race for Mayor in the Chicago North Shore suburb of Waukegan. Here Hispanic organizations helped defeat a Democratic party mayor who had put ordinances in place that allowed the police to arrest people purely on immigration charges.

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The two candidates on ways they would help the auto industry recover. Obam woul provide more federal dollars to help push R&D in the development of new fuel efficient technologies and make the R&D tax credit permanent. McCainwould offer more tax incentives and infrastructure support for developing new technologies for fuel efficient automobiles and expanding availability of alternative fuels.

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India's largest IPO for the government owned phone company BSNL for $10 billion .

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Wells Fargo acquires Wachovia, upending a deal for Citigroup to acquire Wachovia that was reached earlier. Wachovia management believes the acquisition by Wells Fargo, a stronger company, will be better for Wachovia.

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Elections in Ghana with 2 technocrats vying for the vote. With new oil discovered in Ghana additional revenues of $10 billion may be generated according to government estimates. Ghana is one of the few African countries with a long history of democratic processes.

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For two decades young computer specialists in their 30's have tried to say the right things to the American people to gain approval- with AI this is where it all ends. Watching Murthi and Altman on Stern's interview in WSJ one senses a lack of awareness that this is too big a technology to be handled by a few computerized work  specialists. Murthi says the right things with a faltering conviction, Altman lacks conviction, yet both cannot take on the responsibilities for AI on their shoulders. The chief technology officer of OpenAI takes over role of Interim CEO with the departure of Sam Altman. She graduated from the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth. She worked at Tesla before joining OpenAI. Murthi was in charge of Operations, managing the teams that delivered ChatGPT product in 2022, and handling the relationship with Microsoft which invested $13 billion for a 49% stake in OpenAI.

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The breakdown of railways in Iraq. A major contribution of the European powers was the rail systems built throughout the Middle East and Asia. Iraqi Railways which once connected farflung provinces in the Middle East in Syria, Iraq and Turkey, is now in a dilapidated state after years of wars and conflict. Tim Arango visits the Baghdad Central Railway Station as a new Chinese built train leaves Baghdad for Basra. Most of the rest of the country is now not reachable by train. Mosul and the north is in a war zone with the ISIS and Kurdish army engaged in battles. A project manager at the station shows plans for a $60 billion new rail system that connects all of Iraq's cities.

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Serbia ranks high in the countries with successful vaccination drives. About 29.5 people of every 100 have been vaccinated. About 2.2 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine were bought in August 2020 followed by separate deals for the Russian Sputnik vaccine and the Chinese vaccine. Serbian prime minister Ana Brnabic says the success is a result of their approach to vaccination- "A health issue, not a political issue, negotiating with all, whether East or West."

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Joe Biden, US president says the US will have 300 million vaccine doses by the end of July. 200 million more vaccine doses, with 100 million from Pfizer and 100 million from Moderna are part of new finalized purchases by the Biden government in February 2021. Biden says vaccine supplies were in much worse shape than he thought after the last 2 months of the Trump administration led to distractions that affected handling of the pandemic.