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Closely contested seats in Long Island, an area just east of New York city could decide the control of Congress. Republicans see their messaging on crime and immigration deflected by recent reports for a freshman Congressman in the area. In 2020 New York issues on crime affected control of Congress for Biden. Since then New York Governor Hochul and others have paid strong attention to this and crime is down in New York and across the country in 2024.

Hochul, Walz and Whitmer are some of the governors who have a strong committment to Biden's program for infratructure and investments in industry to create jobs in the Nation.

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Priti Patel, former UK Home Secretary, calls Nigel Farage's comments on UK riots about two tier policing "deeply misleading" and not relevant right now.  Patel told Times Radio: “There’s a clear difference between effectively blocking streets or roads being closed to burning down libraries, hotels, food banks and attacking places of worship. What we have seen is thuggery, violence, racism." The riots started after stabbings by a youth at a Southport U Taylor Swift themed dance and yoga party for elementary school children. Misinformation spread about the identity of the attacker. Riots happened in Nottingham, Liverpool, Hull and other cities. 

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Times/Ipsos poll of January 2025 shows-

On transgender or children struggling with gender identity

71% say no one under 18 should be  prescribed puberty blocking drugs and hormones.

Nation's political system is broken

US system is a broken system for decades about 60% agree.  

On illegal immigration and crime, fentanyl flows

large scale deportation illegal immigrants who arrived here in the last 4 years- 63% agree and support such deportation

for illegal immigrants with criminal records 87% of Americans polled agree that they should be deported

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Margarethe Lihotzky of Vienna, Austria, designed the first kitchen designed for the modern age by a woman for women. Ernst May started building homes on industrial scale after World War II for Frankfurt and had Lihotzky design this first kitchen that has stood the test of time. It was designed for the workers who came to the cities for work and for working class people.

After the Second World War Lihotzky played a role in the women's and peace movement and designed apartments and kindergardens. 

This Vienna based architect created the form follows function movement in housing that has remained ever since.

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The election of Merz in Germany as chancellor means a sharing of minds with Macron of France, the two leaders share the same approach, coming 3 years after the inertia under chancellor Scholz. It means the steps will be taken for European defense and for a European alternative to NATO. It also means efforts will be made for the French-German economic engine to be revived. 

UK's prime minister Starmer also supports this effort for a united Europe to tackle defense and economic challenges in 2025. Leyen, head of the European Union is also a member of CDU party of Merz and led the defense ministry under Merkel.

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The  Washington Post review of archived radio transmissions in this report suggests a possible cause of the Palisades Los Angeles wildfires- reignition from a previous fire on a mountain ridge just 6 days prior on New Year's Eve. That fire was knocked out only to reignite. Smoldering fire can stay in wood and underground only to reignite in very windy conditions even for 10 days. In though very windy conditions were expected LA Fire Department lacked the resources to stay on it for a few days - in what the Washington Post citing the LAFD says is in a stretch of Temescal Ridge in the Santa Monica mountains.

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The first president to install solar panels at the White House. The first to enter a nuclear reactor space for 89 seconds on a US nuclear submarine. The first to adopt zero based budgeting which requires all agencies to start from zero to justify spending. The first to teach Sunday School with the Bible in hand while president. The first southern governor as evangelical to say that racial discrimination in education had no place in his state or the country. The first former president to fight tropical diseases in Africa including the Guinea worm for their eradication. The first president to live an active life style well into his eighties.

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Of the 104 deportees on the C-17 military aircraft to Amritsar in the Punjab state one third are from Punjab, another one third from Haryana, and one third from Gujarat. India's rapid development towards Vikshit Bharat 2047 means it does not support such illegal migration. The adjoining article in Times of India reports that job scarcity is not the reason- more about governance or social security or a better life. Of the 82 comments on this article in India all do not favor such illegal migration. Indian attitudes in general are in favor only of legal migration and with rapid industrial development of attracting people back to India to develop the nation.

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How European countries Germany, Poland, Britain, France, and Italy are increasing their defense forces and defense budgets to counter Russia's invasion of Ukraine and its military preparations is shown here in DW.com. Under chancellor Merz Germany plans to invest 5% of its GDP in defense for the first time and build Bundeswehr defense forces as the best in Europe. A key factor says DW.com was the speech of chancellor Scholz three days after the invasion of Ukraine, a speech that changed minds in Germany about the needs for defense in the 21st century. It is called the Zeitenwende or turning point speech on Feb 27, 2022.

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US and Chinese trade negotators vice premier Lifeng for China and Scott Bessent, Treasury Secretary, Jamieson Greer USTR, meet in Switzerland, for talks on tariffs of 145% and 125% on each others goods. An agreement for a 90 day pause is reached. During that pause period tariffs will be 30% by the US, and 10% by China on imported goods. The 30% tariff of the US includes the original 10% tairff on all nations and the 20% tariff for China not doing enough to stop flow of fentanyl  into the US. China says it now recognizes the seriousness of the damage to communities in the US from fentanyl.

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Because of large cash needs with underfunded pension plan, losses in Europe, increased capital spending plans, and plans to repurchase shares held by the U.S. government, GM is in talks with banks in 2012 to increase its $5 billion line of credit to $10 billion.

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Laurent Berger, head of the French Confederation of Labor, C.F.D.T., is a moderating force in France as president Macron leads an effort to make a revision to France's labor code. With a large parliamentary majority president Macron is expected to push for a shift to a Scandinavian version of "flexible security," that allows companies and the economy to adjust the work force, introduce retraining and create flexibility so that new jobs can be created. His union is now the largest, after surpassing the militant General Confederation of Labor. Issues in labor changes proposed by president Macron are- direct negotiations between management and employees bypassing unions, and a cap to compensation in unfair dismissal cases. Berger's view is that though the interests of labor and management conflict, there has to be dialogue instead of constant confrontation. He is willing to see some jobs lost if business creates new jobs with improvement in the economy. Macron has summoned labor leaders for marathon talks. ...

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Gerald Seib of the WSJ describes the huge wave of young supporters who helped Labor party leader Corbyn in Britain's 2017 general election. He cites an analysis by the Financial Times that shows young people backed Labor over the Conservatives by 51 points more than the national average. People over age 65 backed Conservatives by 32 points more than the national average. This points to a staggering age gap of 83 points, said the Financial Times. Young people failed to turn out in large numbers during the Brexit vote, and this was a large factor in the pro Brexit win. One exit poll shows turnout went up by 12% in 2017 compared to the 2015 parliamentary election. Only 26% of voters in a WSJ/NBC poll for ages 18-34 years say they approve of U.S. president Trump's performance, 64% disapprove. Seib says the movement of Corbyn is similar to the Bernie Sanders movement in the U.S. and has implications for a similar surge of support showing up in the U.S.

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Landler and Barry say in this report in the NYT that the situation of government paralysis in the U.S. parallels the one in the UK with no-deal Brexit around the corner. President Trump wants a border wall (steel or other kind) on the border with Mexico as a campaign pledge. In the UK Conservative party faction supporting Leave from the European Union, including supporters of Boris Johnson, seek Leave at all cost. Johnson called the shortage of Mars bars a small inconvenience, as the Theresa May government prepares to push its own Brexit deal through Britain's parliament. In a separate report the NYT tries to show that over 80% of the drugs come in through entry ports and the border crossings are largely families or unaccompanied children. For the first time -since the 1950's and the segregation struggles in the U.S. -populists battle the elites in the large cities, say Barry and Landler. The rural urban divide, is seen in both sides of the Atlantic, in Europe and the U.S. ...

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Varghese George of The Hindu provides this analysis of the elctions in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhatisgarh.  He points out that primeminister Modi's own popularity may have prevented a worse result. There are questions about how much Hindutva politics will play a part in 2019 elections and the role Yogi Adityanath plays after campaigning in this election. There is alo a question of how the opposition can unite if the Congress party becomes an alternative to the BJP, and the lack of any particular leader in the non-Congress opposition. How will the campaign take shape in the 2019 election in which a national election without the local incumbency politics and local issues makes a national focus emerge between competing visions for the future- that of the Congress and the BJP. And how these visions are articulated and not lost in the clamour and din of political wrangling particularly in the case of the BJP's focus on development that pushed it forward in the last election. ...

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This is a heartwarming story from the BBC in beautiful video of how Maria Baltazzi went back to her family's land in the buffer zone outside Nicosia, Cyprus, and turned a wasteland into a farm with olive trees. In 1974 Turkish forces invaded Cyprus turning this land near Nicosia airport into a war zone. Since then UN forces patrol the area which was wasteland in the buffer zone separating Greek Cypriots from Turkish Cypriots.

Maria Baltazzi took a look at this land which was part of her family's land, a 54 hectare farm part of it in the buffer zone and part outside. Here in the buffer zone she with a colleague Netien introduced organic farming for olive trees and turned this area into an olive growing farm which produces some of the best olive oil in the region.

Olives grown here are hand picked in the farm and crushed in mills outside. Nutrients testing show this to be some of the best and healthiest olive oil in the region.

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Canada's Bombardier based in Montreal launched the C series in 2008 to develop aircraft to compete with Airbus 320neo and Boeing 737 MAX, narrow body commercial airplanes. After cost overruns and delays Bombardier has $9 billion of long term debt and its financial condition deteriorated to the point where it needed a $1 billion loan from Quebec government in 2015. About 40,000 workers in Quebec are in the aerospace industry. In 2018 Airbus acquired a 50.01% stake in the Cseries program to provide marketing muscle because sustainablility became a marketing issue in Bombardier's severely weakened financial condition resulting in weak sales. Quebec government holds 16%, Bombardier 34%. Now Bombardier is planning to sell its stake in the A220 jet program to Airbus to cut its debt. Airbus will cover $350 million in losses for 2020. It is also negotiating to sell its core jet division to Textron Inc. The ambitious strategy appears to have failed for Bombardier as Airbus takes control.     ...

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The CEO of Salesforce Mr. Benioff was able to win support from president Trump for an initiative to plant a trillion trees as a way to improve the environment. Mr. Trump is skeptical about climate change and has withdrawn the U.S. from the Paris Climate Change Agreement. But he is enthusiastic about planting trees.

As trees grow they absorb the gas emissions that cause climate change. Estimates from experts show 1.2 trillion trees could absorb as much as 25% of carbon in the atmosphere.

Mr. Benioff says planting trees is the ultimate bi-partisan issue, and who isn't pro-tree. Young Republicans are shifting away from the party on the issue of climate change and Republican leaders are making modest proposals as a way to show they are also concerned about protecting the environment. Some say Mr. Trump's views on this issue are shifting even though he has his own views on how quickly to move away from fossil fuels. 

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This is a very informative interview with Joe Biden. So far Biden has given few interviews where he talks freely at length about how he plans to run his administration and what is most important to his heart. The title is very misleading in this respect. Unlike the inexperience of Obama with his "we won" we must be doing something right, Biden with his years of experience comes closer to Lyndon Johnson or Truman and the same drive to get things done. He says in this interview "there is no elation." He just wants to get somethings done as quickly as he can and he knows Congress as well as Lyndon Johnson did when he tried to get his vision of "the Great Society." It is almost as if the Biden sequel to the inexperience of Obama, is like the Johnson sequel to the inexperience of Kennedy.   To understand Biden is to know what hurts him most. Biden feels the pain that every rural county in America did not vote for him. He knows something is deeply wrong that this should happen as it has never happened before. It may be time to define diversity differently - people of diverse backgrounds not just ethnic or race but also whether with rural or urban backgrounds as they are today totally different. He also feels the pain that seventy two million Americans voted for Trump. He will judge his success or failure in winning over about half of them to bring this down from 47-48% to 25%. These issues will define and shape the Biden presidency. Can he deliver to the rural counties, health care, education, broad band connectivity, everything that has disrupted life in rural America from the way it was in the Truman and Eisenhower administrations when it comes to the social fabric. The China issue simply fits into this. European societies are feeling the pain of the fragmentation in their social fabric with starkly different opportunities for life in rural vs urban. Respect for fellow Americans comes before respect for China- or Japan, or India, or Europe. Biden understands what three decades of shift of manufacturing jobs to China and other countries have done to American communities, to small towns and the rural areas surrounding them in America. For this reason Biden does not plan to change the Agreement China made with the Trump administration for 25% tariffs on a portion of imports from China and China's written agreement to buy $200 billion of American products. For this reason his response to China's challenge emerging from trade policy set in motion by the Clinton administration, and allowed to continue by the Bush and Obama administrations with the addition of foreign wars that dissipated the country's finances urgently needed for infrastructure building and investments in education and advancing science and technology, is to reverse all the negative trends. Biden plans to make the investment in America that Mr. Trump started but to do this more effectively, he says.   ...

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Comments in the WSJ on the Trump - Putin meeting in Helsinki, and what the U.S. president should watch for in conversations and negotiations.  It says Mr. Putin's top priority is to shore up his prestige at home, to enhance his political standing. It says Mr. Trump is intent on showing the two countries can get along well but is skeptical of Mr. Putin's intentions on arms control and other issues. The efforts to increase the discord between the European Union and the U.S. are seen by the WSJ as Mr.Putin's effort to erode the will of the West to add to its capabilities. That any American president has to be wary of this effort especially in light of recent events.   From Mr. Putin's point of view the Russian economy is now in much better shape than when the "liberals" were running the country with a collapse of the Russian currency. The need to restore Russian prestige. That the expansion of the EUropean Union and NATO to the borders of Russia, and the situation in first Georgia and then Ukraine, required Russia to respond to protect its defense from foreign threats.This led to wars and intervention in Georgia and then Ukraine as part of Russian policy in response to advances of the West to its borders, and support of proxy governments in the Middle East. The response to economic sanctions was to turn to influence elections in the U.S. and Europe and the U.S. to soften sanctions. On the issue of sanctions this has not happened and the goal of Russia is to mitigate the effect of sanctions. ...