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482,000 VW owners in the U.S. and 11 million worldwide face the uncertainty of waiting for VW to find a technical solution to these cars on the road with highly polluting diesel engines. Resale prices of VW are declining.

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The amazing and unbelievable story of Oakland situated on San Francisco Bay with some of the worst illegal dumping of trash in the nation, 18 million pounds of illegally dumped trash dumped each year is the City of Oakland estimate. This NYT report says two thirds of it comes from local residents and businesses. The problem spiked in 2020 and has not improved much says this NYT report on this city in Northern California, where to the east of it there are hiking trails through redwood forests and natural beauty.

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What would making a new vaccine for the Omicron South African variant look like? How long will it take and how does it happen? Adam Whipple, Science Editor of The Times, looks at the process in the 100 days it would take Pfizer to do this in this excellent article that anticipates and answers readers questions. New mutations are shown to be taking place in the virus, it is shown here that UK and world capabilities have also increased to tackle the problem in the last 18 months.

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This editorial says that those who argue that the spending in the current $1.2 trillion omnibus spending bill in Congress shows restraint by freezing spending for government agencies at 2010 levels, are missing the fact that the 2010 levels are at new highs. The nondefense discretionary spending in 2010 is 24% above that of 2008, and defense spending is 11% higher. This makes it that much harder to bring spending down in the future to 2008 levels.

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Impeachment inquiry of president Biden is launched by Mr. McCarthy in the US House of Representatives under pressure from a minority called the Freedom Caucus. The bar should be set high says the WSJ. It says this will likely imperil the 18 Republican seats in the House where Mr. Biden won the popular vote and could turn the House to the Democrats in 2024. 

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Global price negotiations for natural gas supplies. Europe is looking at diversifying its options and seeking lower prices. Russia is looking for alternative customers to increase its leverage with Europe. China is seeking a lower price from Gazprom than the prices Europe is paying, which average about $11 per million BTU's in 2011. A globalized market for natural gas reduces the premium prices Gazprom can charge.

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Which European port is at the center of Europe's wind energy project. Answer: Esbjerg, Denmark. On May 18, 2022 the heads of state of Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, and Belgium came together to sign the Declaration of Esbjerg. Together the countries want to increase wind energy production in the North Sea to 65 gigawatts (GW) by 2030 and rising to 150 GW by 2050. Esbjerg is one of the few ports in Europe and the key port serving the offshore wind industry. Industry leaders Vestas and Siemens Gamesa ship wind turbines from here, and Orsted provides spare parts that weigh several tons.  German ports such as Bremerhaven lack the infrastructure and it is tied up in disputes ending up in court. Dutch port of Eemshaven is much smaller. The harbor was recently expanded in Esbjerg by 0.5 million square metres to 4.5 million square metres or 45 million square feet. Environment groups are also part of this and there is no dissent in the planning. Here are some useful facts on wind power- Environment cost is 70 times less than that of coal fired power according to Germany's Federal Environment Agency. Within 3  to 11 months wind turbines generate the energy required to build them. No CO2 is produced in the electricity generation process but they do alter the landscape. The future of wind power giants is in the sea where the wind is reliable and strong. One such modern turbine can have an output of 10 to 15 thousand kilowatts to provide electricity for 40,000 people. Pioneers in wind energy are Denmark and Germany. Denmark gets 50% of its energy from wind power, for Germany this is 25%. Jobs are generated installing and operating these wind energy turbines. 1.3 million people are employed in it today. With additional wind propulsion energy consumption of freighters carrying most of the world's freight would be reduced by 30%. Wind and photovoltaic solar can combine for providing most of India's energy because of its sea coastline and having a lot of sun. To get an idea of what is doable in India - in Germany 41% of electricity demand is met from renewables mostly solar and wind. German farmers get 25% of their income from solar energy. Where Germany lags is in use of renewables for transport which falls to about 9% and for heating and cooling where it is about 18%, and it is making great strides to correct this. A big change is technology and how people use transport (more train than airline or automobiles), which will change the entire picture of how energy is created and used in the future. Energiewende the  term for this change is only beginning to take place with urgency in Germany in 2022. India needs to work closely with Denmark and Germany to stay in front of these developments.   ...

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A passenger hears aloud noise near the overhead bin, then sees ahole not far from his head in the fuselage of the plane. This is Southwest flight 2294, June 13, 2009, on a 30 minute 737 Boeing airplane flight from Nashville to Baltimore. outhwest inspected all of its 181 737 planes and found no problems. The National Transportation Safey Board, the FAA, and Boeing are investigating what caused it to happen. In March, the FAA ordered Southwest to pay a$7.5 million fine for aseries of safety violations in which its jets were flying with undetected fatigue cracks. The investigation also uncovered efforts by managers to cover up reports of maintenance problems at Southwest. Two inspectors filed whistleblower complaints aginst the FAA claiming that they were threatened by the superiors after warning that Southwest was flying planes too long between inspections.

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The U.S. Treasury plans to sell off its whole stake in General Motors in 15 months. Treasury will sell about 200 millon shares to GM for $5.5 billion by Dec. 2013. The buying price for GM of $27.50 is about 8% higher than GM's closing price on Dec. 18, 2012. Treasury plans to sell the remaining 300.1 million shares within in the next 12-15 months depending on market conditions. Treasury's breakeven point is about $53 a share, and the government will lose money on the bailout compared to the AIG rescue. The government invested about $49.5 billion to help take GM through a planned Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing and reduce a huge debt load. The key in the auto bailout was preserving over 1 million jobs in the U.S. auto industry during an economc crisis.

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About half of Conservative voters voted for Reform UK in 2024 election says this Ipsos report in 2024 showing how Britain voted by ethnic, gender and education. This brought Reform UK to 17-19% of voters over the age of 45. More recently reports show three in ten voters saying there are too many asylum seekers in their neighborhood and this makes up 70% of Reform UK supporters as reported by Ipsos. This has brought the UK Reform vote from about 17-19% to double to 34% in 2025 polls. Labour is only at 25% and Liberals at 11% and Conservatives doing poorly.

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Sir Edwin Lutyens and Baker- design of Central Delhi North and South Block Secreteriat in New Delhi opened in 1931 under the British Empire and were the offices of the prime minister and ministries till 2025. Independent India emerged only 18 years after Lutyens designed the new capital with broad avenues and huge brick structures in symmetrical lines east to west. The shift to Kartavya Enclave, new parliament buildings takes place in 2025 94 years later. North and South Block buildings will be converted into museums, for years they had become hard to operate as government offices with designs from another age.

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A 1 month study of 2 modified Pfizer vaccines, one targeted specifically for new Omicron variants, and the other targeted at earlier coronavirus and current Omicron variants show increases in anitbodies much higher than what current vaccines do. For Omicron specifically at 13 to 19 times more than what current vaccines increase antibodies, and for earlier variants and Omicron at 9 to 11 times more.

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The high mobility small footprint and precision strike of the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System or HIMARS is shown here in the WSJ. It was supplies to Ukraine to defend itself and has stalled a Russian invasion in Donbas region, and led to retreat of Russian forces in the east Kharkiv region and in the south Kherson region war fronts. Additional 18 Himars are being given by US to Ukraine.

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11 minutes from storage to shelf from smaller 49 warehouse centers in the US. This is how Amazon is changing delivery.The most popular items are stored in these smaller warehouses for fast one day or one afternoon shipping. This compares to older larger Amazon warehouses for 2 day shipping. These centers are located in large metropolitan locations and serve within one hour distance of the warehouse, which for Renton includes Seattle.

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Dilan Isigloz is unusual in the Netherlands or in the EU. She leads the Democracy and Freedom Party of prime minister Rutte into the Dutch 2023 elections with the highest likely vote of 18%, tied with the New Social Contract Party. She is both a woman and an immigrant herself who is trying to curb immigration so that the Netherlands can absorb the immigrants it already has including good housing and other services.

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Biden had his PSA test for prostate cancer about 11 years back in 2014, an astounding fact given that he ran for the presidency in 2019. The nation did not know that all this time this cancer was developing and would affect the manner in which the nation's affairs would be conducted. Putting an unelected Vice President into the White House also has its own serious drawbacks. 

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Iran attributed the shooting down of a Ukrainian passenger plane at Tehran airport to an "unintentional human error." Of the 167 passengers 82 were Iranians, 57 Canadians, and 11 Ukrainians. The plane was on Tehran Kiev flight when it was mistaken for a hostile plane.

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Walmart new CEO John Furner from the University of Arkansas with deep connections to Bentonville similar to retiring CEO McMillon. Mcmillon made a decision not to buckle under pressures of Wall Street/CNBC and NYSE in the fall of 2015 as he invested $2.7 billion to build cleaner better stores and to raise wages from $7.25 an hour to $9.00 an hour that year, even though share price dropped 10% and continued to drop. Wages are now $18 an hour in 2025 and parental leave, free college and technical education, planned promotions, other benefits made Walmart a good place to work. Walmart has grown every year since. Its sheer size with 2.1 millon employees means that it is a bellweather for the US economy. Other companies copied Walmart and this has raised wages across the board for lower income workers. With cost of living concerns in 2025 imagine where we would be as a nation without courage of the men who run the companies that run America's economy if wages had stagnated at levels below this for people who still live paycheck to paycheck. ...

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The Liberal Party led by Justin Trudeau wins an absolute majority in Canada's parliament with 184 seats, defeating the Conservatives. The NDP gets 20% of the vote but only 44 seats.

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The cost of all parts,including display, chips, battery, is $188 for the base model of the iPad Mini, according to IHS estimates. This leaves a 40% profit margin for Apple.

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The learning loss for elementary school children is much worse than projected after 18 months being out of school. In this school in Pheonix, Arizona, teachers were surprised to see children behind by almost 2 years. The pandemic has turned a growing literacy problem into a crisis.This could be true for other parts of the world, in Europe, India, Latin America, other Asia and Africa too. Students from poorer neighborhoods consistently fare much worse.

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This WSJ report cites estimates showing 11 job openings in the US, with 6.9 million people looking for work or unemployed. About 5 million more job openings than people seeking work. Low wage sectors are hit hard with people shunning these sectors. People are quitting jobs looking for higher wages, better benefits and working conditions, better work-life balance. In August 4.3 million workers quit their jobs as the American workforce goes through big changes.

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India begins preparations for the Women's Under 17 FIFA Women's World Cup soccer games. A new effort will be laid on developing soccer in India with focus on infrastructure, grassroots, and women's soccer. The games will kick off on October 11 to go to Oct. 30. The All India Football federation and the Government of India have identified 40 cities, and areas where games can take place.