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NYT's Brad Plumer looks at the assessment of a report from REPEAT (Princeton), MIT, and Rhodium on how well the Biden Climate laws are building renewable energy- how well this is working to tackle climate change goals. The goal set by BIden was a 40% reduction over 2005 greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. Electric car sales are moving at a pace that is consistent with the goals but renewable energy instead of being at an average of 46 gigawatts of carbon free electricity for 2023 and 2024 is falling short as it was at 32 gigawatts carbon free electricity for the US in 2023.

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Benchmark jet fuel at $1838 on April 16 2026, compared to $838 before Iran War. The need to replace 50% of EU fuel imports from Middle East to last 6 weeks till June. At 75% replacement OK till August. US and Nigeria provide alternative supplies to Middle East sources of jet fuel. Airlines could feel shortages it it is not replaced. Jet fuel is 20-40% of airline costs.

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Russia and Ukraine agree to a Black Sea Maritime Ceasefire. Russia hopes this will remove a barrier to Russian agricultural exports. It wants western sanctions on Agricultural Bank of Russia and other sanctions that hurt Russian agricultural exports to be lifted.

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Germany scraps 3 year path to German citizenship replaces it with 5 years and B+ in German. The change in the law by SPD coalition to 3 year path was criticized by CDU as "turbo path." Dual citizenship will be retained. The new law for 5 year path to citizenship is the policy of the new government the CDU-SPD coalition led by CDU's Merz. Those non citizens who pose a risk to the democratic order will be sent back to their home countries.

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Its called the most one side win in Champion League's history, the win of PSG Paris over Inter Milan May 31, 2025.

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Stories of German athletes, soccer players and working mothers in this video of staying in shape and good mental health in DW.com.

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 Housing and lack of rental housing units in Amsterdam a top issue in 2025 elections. There is an estimated shortage of 400,000 homes in Netherlands, about 5% of the total housing units in the country. D66 party of centre-left has proposed 10 new cities. The Labour- Greens propose a tax on vacant properties. Geert Wilders Freedom Party proposes a "crisis plan" and fewer rules. Young people from overseas find the situation worse than in New York City. A 2024 law on affordable rents has led to landlords selling off properties instead of renting out space.

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The owner of Manchester United in an interview with Sky News points out that UK had a population of 58 million in 2000 up now to 67 million in 2025, an increase of 9 million mostly from immigrants, with the burden of benefits putting a large strain on resources, and creating social divisions that detract from addressing serious economic problems and issues. 

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DJT and US diplomacy given a chance, patient waiting for Iran to make a unified proposal with split in Iran government, while the US naval blockade goes on- April 21 2026. About 2 million people lose their jobs in Iran as inflation exceeds 50% and economic activity, steel, car making and petrochemical industries are affected with major disruptions and supply chain issues.

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Republicans gave US Congress 63% rating when DJT was elected in Jan 2026- this has since dropped in Gallup polls to 20% in 5 months. Overall US Congress has only a 10% approval rating one of the worst in its history. Only once was this exceeded- in 2013 when Obama was president with the budget impasse and 16 day federal government shutdown.

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This report in WSJ shows that remote work is a lasting trend because companies can now hire talented individuals from anywhere in the country or the world, and pay less for the same talent. In the past talented individuals were attracted with high pay packages to cities such as San Francisco, Seattle, New York, Boston and Los Angeles. Companies can now choose to avoid paying these high pay packages and have a broader talent pool to choose from. This is because these cities became costlier and less attractive with cramped apartments relative to the choices for remote work. In the example cited here a machine learning expert shifted from a small cramped apartment in San Francisco to work for Twitter from a small town named Katy in Texas where she has a 5 bedroom large apartment and a nicer community of 20,000 people to live in west of Houston. One in 8 jobs posted on Linked In as of August 2021 are for remote work, many times the percentage of remote work job postings in 2020, showing this trend is here to stay. There is a large shift of millions of workers in tech related fields exiting the cities of San Francisco, New York, Seattle, and Boston for smaller cities in other parts of the country such as Utah, Texas and other states in the US. A similar trend is observed in Europe. America's professional classes are moving to hybrid or remote work in large numbers says this report in WSJ. At one point in 2020 about 35% of workers in the US or 50 million workers were doing remote work during the lockdowns. In August 2021 this figure is closer to about half of these workers even as workers return to work offices. It is believed that the BLS statistics understate the number of remote workers at 20 million and 14% of workers in August 2021. Large crowded and hugely expensive cities are no longer attractive for employers or for tech employees or professional workers. ...

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Much of the US jobs market is stalled with a "noticeable deterioration" by June says the Fed. Companies are not laying off people, yet they are also not hiring. The class of 2025 faces a job market with a real slowdown. Hiring has dropped 44% compared to June 2022 says one payrolls company Gusto looking at data from 400,000 businesses. The economy has 4% unemployment, yet for new college graduates it is 6.6% for 12 months ending May 2025. Some companies are pushing back dates of hire into 2026. 

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Independents make up the largest voting bloc in Arizona. Mr. Biden swung 60 precincts to win by 10,000 votes in 2020, and did well with independent voters. NYT looks at the situation in Arizona for 2024. Much depends on Maricopa county which includes Phoenix. About 60% of Arizona votes are in Maricopa county. Other states which are closely contested are Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Georgia.

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Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is the only Treasury Secretary who also served as the chairperson of the US central bank the Federal Reserve 2014-2018, and the only woman in these roles. Here she says she toured the country in 2022 a year after joining the Biden administration as head of the finance ministry. What she has seen are the early results of president Biden's  two trillion dollar bills, the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 and the Science and CHIPS Act 2021, which give manufacturing and new infrastructure building a critical role in a new revitalized America. All across this vast country aging infrastructure is being rebuilt and new infrastructure is changing the landscape. Yellen says the US economy is resilient and growing amidst a global economic slowdown and higher interest rates. The labor market is strong and household balance sheets are healthy, consumer spending robust, says Yellen. It provides the basis for American global economic leadership in the years ahead. ...

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War in Ukraine after failed Alaska effort by US to end the war. In September 2025 Russia holds out, spurning peace efforts from the US president, to see if the economy holds out over the next 24 months and Russia can get Ukraine to abandon it's efforts to join the EU and Western European alliances. The baffling aspect of this war is that the neutral aspect adopted by Finland before the war, by Sweden, by the Swiss, was never considered as a realistic option by Ukraine, looking beyond the problems of the 1930's and having awareness that there were weaknesses in both the capitalist and the Soviet systems, to take the broad larger view. And with that being realistic that a better effort would be to reflect on the corruption and lack of clean government, the need to build the healthy institutions that would serve the people best. The approach taken by Gandhi in India in its relations with Britain, to preserve the best and improve on what failed the Indian people, and reflect on the integrity, the right attitude needed for India in the Modern World. From the Russian side the failure to use the period before the shift to renewable energy to invest the capital used in the war of $200 billion a year for a stronger economy and industrial base in 2022- 2027- an investment of a trillion dollars that would make it the industrial power and support its position as the preeminent power in Northern Europe. ...

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Nathaniel Tapin says about China's debt laden economy and struggling property developers that this has been seen before. What matters most is the confidence household borrowers have in the country to buy homes and spend versus putting more money into savings. And this confidence that that has been the strength of the economy for three decades is fading. About 12 million jobs in the internet platform economy were lost in 2020-2022. This absorbed a fourth of the Chinese graduating from colleges each year. The manufacturing sector is affected by declining demand overseas and cannot pick up for this. Much of this is a result of Xi's government efforts to tamp down debt of housing developers, to reduce housing speculation, to limit the power of internet companies, and develop a fairer economy, and these were policy decisions not easily reversed. A pervasive pessimism is leading to a disinclination to spend or buy a house. Surveys of Bank of China show inclination to save increased by 15 percentage points to 58% in second quarter 2023. In the past Chinese put money in homes as a way to deposit money in a savings account, homes were sold even before they were built. This cash was passed on to property developers and in turn the local governments benefited by selling the land to property developers. After property developers could not pay interest on debt and collapsed the households decided to pay down their mortgages and $28 billion went to pay down residential mortgage debt in first 6 months of 2023.  ...

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1.2-2 million barrels a day go from Iran's Kharg island through Straits of Hormuz for ship to ship transfers in South China Sea, then labeled Emirati oil and unloaded at refineries on Shandong coast. These refineries are called teapot refineries. In this way US sanctions are avoided. Shipments of oil were about 700,000 barrels a day before 2023. After 2023 this more than doubled. China gets this at a 10-15%  discount costing Iran about a third of revenues it would otherwise be able to sell this oil if it decided to work with the US in a new arrangement. This report in FR24 shows China as limiting it's relations with Iran to oil, careful to not let it affect more important trading relations with US European Union, and Germany. This is similar to the situation for Venezuela -which under a new arrangement the US has with Venezuela- now gets market prices for its oil increasing it's revenues substantially by about one third to benefit the Venezuelan people suffering from high inflation and economy wrecked by sanctions. ...

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Mr. Ambani's Jio company is targeting both ends of the pyramid. It is investing $25 billion on a 5G network coming in late 2023. At the lower end a new $12 mobile phone calld JioBharat by India's largest telecom provider aims to reach 250 million people who use 2G mobile phones. Mobile phone penetration in India is about 46% in 2021, up from 17% in 2016, according to World Bank. This is largely due to the efforts of Mr. Ambani who built a 4G network from scratch and has 440 million subscribers with some of the lowest data rates in the world. The new phone has a smaller screen, physical keyboard, camera and runs on 4G. 

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UK student survey shows 49% of students have  financial issues affecting their diet, missing meals or not having enough food or poor quality of food. It also shows 55% have financial issues that affect their mental health. Loans were falling short of covering living costs by 582 pounds a month in 2023, it was 439 pounds in 2022. Maintenance loans for students increased by only 2.8% in 2023-24 in Britain,for a maximum of 9978 pounds a year outside London. Shown here is an engineering student who gets up at 4am to do a supermarket shift, a law student who works 20-25 hours a week as a receptionist and missing one third of her lectures.

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Victor Webanyama of the San Antonio Spurs in Game Three of NBA Finals 2026. Wemby gets 32 points in a win for the Spurs to end a 13 game losing streak. It is now Knicks 2 and Spurs 1 as the games head into the 4th of 7. New Yorkers gave a rousing reception to their team at Madison Square Garden, it just revved up the city.

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US president Biden makes a pledge that the US will send vaccine doses overseas to other countries after it has met American needs. This is hugely important because the US has contracted with pharmaceutical companies for a major part of the world's vaccine supplies. It is part of the humanitarian assistance the US will soon be in a position to provide to African, Asian and Latin American countries. It is also in the American interest to reduce the potential for new variants and new sources of the virus entering the US through airline travel by helping vaccinate a large part of the world's population in 2021-2022.

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US public companies, manufacturers and retailers that make up more than half of the S&P 500 index, came out with strong sales per share of 24% increase in 2022 over 2019. This means slower growth is expected ahead in 2023, says Justin Lahart in the WSJ.  The shift to consuming more services such as dentist visits and tourism from buying washing machines and appliances will mean slower sales for these large companies that are manufacturers and retailers. Fed chairman Jay Powell's higher interest rates will also limit growth in sales in 2023. Overall the US economy may barely skirt a recession, and this depends on which forecaster one talks to.

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Strategic siting in renewable rich areas (Dallas center the largest is in renewable rich area) and fair cost allocation to not burden small businesses and households are major issues in Data Center building. Data centers for AI -rows and rows of servers 5000 in hyperscale data centers- used 4% of the US total electricity use in 2024. This is growing rapidly. By 2030 this is expected to grow by more than double, by 133%. About 60% of this to power the servers and 30% for cooling the servers. About a third of these servers are located in Virginia, Texas and California. How will this affect Cost of Living concerns, affect electricity prices? Carnegie Mellon working with North Carolina State University did the modeling on the energy and emissions implications of data center buildup in the US in their Open Outlook Initiative. A 8% annual increase in electricity prices is expected on average and as high as 25% in Virginia by 2030.  Total of about 40% increase over 5 years. Between 2014 and 2024 10 year period average cost for a home electricity use went up 25% from $114 a month to $142. This would now go up by 40% to about $200 by 2030 in just 5 years significantly impacting cost of living in the US. In which states will it strain electricity grids? In 2023 data centers consumed 26% of the total electricity supply in Virginia. In North Dakota 15%, Nebraska 12%, Iowa 11%, Oregon 11% according to Electric Power Research Institute. What are the energy types used? Natural gas is used for 40% of the data center electricity, wind and solar 25%, nuclear 20% and coal 15%.   ...