LyrArc Article Gist
Mohammed Siraj dismisses Jamie Overton after his two boundaries brought England close to the winning score, and in the final ball of the Test series on August 4, 2025, he knocks off Atkinson's wicket to give India a win for the ages by 7 runs- similar to one in which Gary Sobers played for West Indies vs Australia in which the margin was zero runs, the Test tied on December 14, 1960.

LyrArc Article Gist
Senator Edward Kennedy turned a close election around with an ad in 1994 attacking Romney for job cuts. The result was a 58% to 41% defeat for Romney. In Iowa a Perry ad presses this issue saying "Mr Romney made millions buying companies and laying off workers."

LyrArc Article Gist
With better control over the coronavirus than U.S. and Europe, South Korea is not rushing to buy the vaccines developed by Pfizer or Moderna. It is waiting to see how the vaccine rollouts work in other countries before buying the vaccine. South Korea is also looking at getting better price from manufacturers after the rollouts in the U.S. and Europe. South Korea is moving cautiously and has said it wants to get 10 million doses through the Covax initiative the main global effort to provide broad access to vaccines. Another 20 million doses would be secured from private companies. This is in contrast to the approach in Japan where the government has signed deals for purchase of 290 million doses for 145 million people for its population of 126 million. The money allocated is $6.5 billion and the goal is to vaccinate everyone by first half of 2021.  If it works this would prepare Japan for the Tokyo Summer Olympics to open in July, after 1 year delay. South Korea has the freedom to do this and wait to see what vaccine works best with least long term effects because their are relatively fewer cases there. A total of 313 new daily cases on November 18, lower than daily cases in a single county in the state of Michigan in the U.S. Moderna and Pfizer vaccines use anew kind of gene based technology that has never been approved to prevent infectious diseases. Other competition is the vaccine from Oxford and Astra Zeneca which uses an existing technology that is used in existing vaccines modified for use in coronavirus. The Oxford vaccine and a vaccine from Johnson and Johnson are expected to have a lower price. Because life is functioning very close to normal South Korea is in the unusual position of saying that its people have no reason to be anxious for vaccine procurement, as indicated by its deputy director of Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency. Only three fifths of the population is the target for vaccination by fall of 2021. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Baker and Rudoren of the NYT describe how the relationship between Netanyahu and Obama gradually deteriorated over a number of years.

LyrArc Article Gist
Herbert cites figures from the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston which divides households into 10 groups based on annual household income at looks at unemployment levels in eachfot 4th quarter 2009. The highest group with incomes of larger than $150,000 had unemployment of 3.2%, the next group at $100,000 to $149,999 at 4%, households earning $60,000 to $75,000 had jobless rate of 6.4%, with $50,000 to $59,000 a 7.8% jobless rate. Its only when you get $40,000 to $49,000 that you see jobless rates of 9%, that is close to the national average. The worst pain is in the lower middle class groups with the 7.8% and 9% unemployment and in the income groups of $12,500 to $20,000 which have 19.1% unemployment. For workers at the bottom the unemployment rate is 31%! The workers in service industries, such as food preparers, building cleaners, less educated, high school dropouts, blue collar workers, workers in the construction industry, many blacks and Hispanics, are all hard hit. This also gives some idea why the jobless situation does not cause the same anguish in the media coverage as most of it is concentrated among young people, immigrants, illegal immigrants, Hispanics, minorities, and in service and construction industry type occupations. This creates a fragile situation from a social cohesion perspective especially as the lower middle class is also in the same situation and this combined with the working class blue collar and service and construction workers is a large segmet of society....

LyrArc Article Gist
Brazil's Supreme Court bans BIllionaire Elon Musk's app X in Brazil for repeatedly violating court orders and spreading racist and fascist speech ahead of local elections in October.

LyrArc Article Gist
Chandrasekeran looks back on the troop surge ordered by President Obama on the advice of General Petraeus and General McChrystal in Afghanistan, and the results in Afghanistan as the U.S. withdraws troops in 2012-2013.

LyrArc Article Gist
A poll showing 70% of boys and girls 16-17 years of age are missing school from mental health problems. After covid girls are exposed to an explosion of online pornography, and had more exposure to screen time and social media than would be useful for young people. The problem is acute for girls where one third say they "suffer from anxiety."

LyrArc Article Gist
Huaneng Power China's largest power utility company announced that electric power generation went up by 40% in the 1st quarter of 2010. Datang International Power said its electric power output was up by 33%. Continual power plant construction has led to China building 80% of the new generating capacity in recent years. Over the next 10 years China plans to spend $150 billion or so to increase capacity nine fold- it already has 21 nuclear plants being built. Much of the nuclear plant building knowhow is being acquired along the way. The Lingao plant in Guangdong which was started in 2005 and will be completed this year, uses 50% local content. In the next unit to be finished in 2011 it will reach 70%, and by 2012 China expects to reach 100%, and gain the ability to export its knowhow.

LyrArc Article Gist
Some countries such as France are increasing kilometres of bike lanes in Paris and suburbs. Traffic has dropped in Paris and other cities to a point where people living in cities are looking for ways to preserve some of the good things from the public health crisis such as the quieter streets, less or no pollution, less traffic congestion. Some cities are closing areas on their rever fronts so that people have more room to walk and exercize. Cities doing this are Oakland, Denver, Minneapolis, Chicago and Philadelphia in the U.S., and Calgary, Winnipeg, Vancouver in Canada. Cycling and walking is becoming popular.  In Berlin motor vehicle lanes are being replaced with bicycle lanes in many streets. In Bogota 35 kms. of auto traffic laneshave been converted using cones into bicycle lanes. In March the mayor of Mexico City suggested 130 kms of temporary bicycle lanes. This report in the Guardian says London is one of the cities that have not acted quickly to make these changes for larger bike use. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
US president Biden calls on intelligence agencies in the US to complete an inquiry into the origins of the coronavirus in 90 days. Biden said he would publish the results of the 90 day inquiry. During the last months of the Trump administration the idea of the virus originating in a Wuhan lab was supported by parts of the US intelligence community. 

The WSJ reports show the intelligence community in the US saying that 3 members of a key Wuhan lab in China were taken to hospital with covid like symptoms before the first case of covid patient was recorded in Wuhan in early December 2019.

LyrArc Article Gist
Chile and the dilemma of copper exports taking up 57.8% of exports in 2009, from 54.4% in 2005, making 15.5% of GDP. With the surge in China's growth Latin America remains as tied to commodities exports as it has been for decades, facing boom and bust cycles and not able to diversify into value added and industrial products. A regional economic commission says in a report, that Latin American and Caribean exports were over 50% in raw materials in 1980 and declined to 27% in 1999, and back up to 39% in 2009.

LyrArc Article Gist
Parts of China's economy recover yet the risks from covid contagion increase with covid everywhere and few restrictions, says the WSJ.

LyrArc Article Gist
The divisions in the Republican Party as Trump wins in Arkansas, Alabama, Tennessee, and Cruz wins in Texas, Oklahoma, and Alaska, in the March 1, 2016 Republican primaries.

LyrArc Article Gist
Mr. Isom, a seasoned airline manager, is brought in by Doug Parker to fix problems from late flights and related to the working of the merger between America West and US Airways. On time performance has improved. Mr. Isom is working on a long term plan for improvements.

LyrArc Article Gist
The Alternative for Germany AfD party's increasing popularity in the former communist eastern part of Germany based in Dresden, is hurting its popularity in the west. It is expected to do well in elections in Saxony where city of Dresden is located, and in Thuringia and in Brandenburg in election in the fall of 2019. Much of its support has come from being the only opposition to the open door refugee policy followed by chancellor Merkel, seen as goning too far.  Merkel herself and the new CDU leader Ann Margaret Kampbrauer have decided it was not the right policy considering that many or most are economic refugees. This policy is now reversed and migrants are down to a trickle, with a new policy of foreign aid and selective intervention to troubled countries to keep economic refugees in their home countries. This report says any gains in the east could come with loss of many more votes in the west as the party loses its popularity in the west. This is because far right parties always had done better in the east with its older population, higher unemployment and loss of population. This is a legacy from the communist period in eastern part of Germany, and the merging of the two Germanys that led to westward migration and loss of economic potential in the east.  ...

LyrArc Article Gist
The unique methods used by Japan to tackle labor shortages as a result of declining population. Since 2012 working age population declined by 4.7 million, yet people working increased by 4.4 million. The pools used are elderly, women and foreigners, mostly neglected by other countries. This offers important lessons for other countries facing similar problems.