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Ms. Lopez from Guatemala and her three children living in Brooklyn, New York.

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This report in the NYT says Hillary Clinton has studied policy briefings, academic papers and taken advice from 200 policy experts, including experts from Bill Clinton's administration such as Alan Blinder, all in an effort to define her own policy positions on issues facing the U.S. This happens at a time different from the period of slow growth when Bill Clinton ran against George H.W. Bush. Since then middle class families face the added problems of not being able to keep up with the rising cost of college education, health care, child care, low interest rates on savings and volatile markets dampening savings growth. For working class Americans in the middle class during Bill Clinton's time in office the problems take the shape of a sharp decline in the manufacturing wages that once supported a middle class life in industrial states of the midwestern U.S., with global competition doing the damage, and few solutions available except improving technology and technical skill of the workforce to compete in higher end products. Consider the points made by Janet Yellen, the Fed chairwoman at a Boston Fed conference in Oct. 2014- Fed information for 2013 showing the average net worth of the lower half of American families representing 62 million households is $11,000. Only this conceals the situation facing one fourth of these families who have zero wealth or negative net worth, and a significant fraction owing more on their homes than they are worth. Hillary Clinton told a audience at the New School in Greenwich Village in New York, this is the defining economic challenge of our time. " We must raise incomes for hard-working Americans so they can afford a middle class life. This will be my mission from the first day I'm president to the last."...

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Memorial Service for Charlie Kirk at St Joseph's Church near Capitol Hill Washington DC, September 12 2025.

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Fall colors destinations shown in NYT- Minnesota, Great Lakes, Arizona Sedona, Finger Lakes Ithaca, for Fall 2025. Plan on October 6 for peak colors in upstate New York, Michigan and the Great Lakes region, later in Sedona.

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Since mid-2014 the dollar has strengthened by 19% against the euro and 17% against the Japanese yen. This is putting new pressure on American manufacturers to come up with efficiency improvements to cut costs and move into markets with better pricing power. This will increase in importance in 2015-2016 as the euro moves towards parity with the U.S. dollar increasing the competitiveness of German and other European manufacturers. The Japanese yen at 116 to the dollar in Jan 2015 gives Japanese manufacturers an edge in pricing competitiveness.

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Reuters gives this video of Zelensky receiving the Charlemagne Prize in Aachen, Germany in an historic visit. It is given in honor of services to Europe and European unity, and has much symbolic value. Monet, Schuman and Adenauer were also honored. This is Germany and the European Union's answer to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Chancellor Scholz, Ursula Leyen of EU, and the prime minister of Poland also speak. Zelensky speaks in Ukrainian.

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The Quad meeting of the US, Australia, Japan and India took place in Hiroshima, as shown here. The leaders expressed their deep concern over the economic effects of the Ukraine war, including "food, fuel and energy security, critical supply chains. The meeting was to take place in Sydney, Australia, but was cancelled due to debt talks taking place between Biden and Republicans in the US Congress. The next Quad meeting is in India in 2024. Biden will meet pm Modi in the US June 22. PM Modi also meets Macron on Bastille Day in Paris on 14 July as a special guest of France.

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Spain's economy contracted 0.3% in the fourth quarter of 2012, according to the Spanish central bank. Unemployment reached 23% in January, 2012. For workers under 25 years age the unemployment rate is 48.6%. The new government of prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, plans to pass labor reform legislation to give companies flexibility to hire new workers, lower dismissal costs and make hiring easier. The economic crisis has a larger effect say experts, because of rigid labor laws. This make it easier to layoff workers than adopt alternatives of lower wages, and which make firms hesitant to rehire. One example is higher dismissal costs- the cost of unfair dismissal is 45 days of pay for each year worked, and 20 days for fair dismissal, which is hard to prove under Spanish laws.

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Funding for US colleges decreases, fewer high school students graduate in 2025. Fewer foreign students. All this is affecting American colleges. For two decades American colleges allowed tution to get out of control making it unaffordable for a middle class that was already hit by the American leaders who allowed America's industrial base to be shipped out to China. As factory towns dwindled in importance and worker jobs and incomes declined across the length and breadth of America, universities and colleges took little responsibility even as young men opted to not go to college. Tution fees kept rising requiring loans that could not be paid off. Today the rust belt is coming to these colleges as the DJT administration has decided to give low priority to funding these colleges and universities and new career paths are being created through apprenticeships and other vocational education.

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New U.S. sanctions on two large Chinese companies, China National Offshore Oil Company, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation, two of the largest companies in oil and chip industries, for ties to the military. The Trump administration is closing its term with sanctions on 35 of China's largest companies.

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The concentration of particles less than 2.5 microns in diameter reached 700- 886 micrograms per square meter in Beijing in Jan 2013, 500 is routine. The World Health Organization says a level of 25 micrograms per square meter is safe, above 300 poses risks calling for one to stay indoors. This is the high cost of rapid motorization of China and lack of strict pollution control laws and enforcement for industry. The pace of car sales in the last ten years was extremely fast and unprecedented in comparison to Europe, the U.S. and Japan in a similiar period of development.

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How melamine a substance that causes kideney damage but also mimics protein powder was added to milk to pass inspection tests for milk for quality. And suppliers of this product did not disclose to dairy farmers what they had inside the packet of so called protein powder. With the relative newness of dairy cows to China many farmers do not know how to feed and care for dairy cows in China so that the quality of milk is low, and thus the need for substances that would help the milk go through tests for companies that tested for milk quality. These farmers were unaware and did not care as long as the milk was not returned, for what they added to the milk. And the big dairies in China like Mengniu Dairy and Nestle did not draw enough attention to this issue so that action could be taken. As for so many things in China today regulators were not on the job and failed to take any action even when suspicions were aroused. In fact for a long time dairy farmers and people in these farming communities were aware of the fact that strange substances were being added to the milk. And factories where melamine scrap was being generated such as the plastics factories in which melamine is used, were aware of increasing interest and demand for this scrap. All this was ignored till about 2300 Chinese children got hospitalized for melamine related kidney problems, at least 3 children died and tens of thousands of others were sickened. The result is that national faith in the safety of the food in China has been badly shaken....