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American folk singer continued the folk song tradition set by Woody Guthrie with songs such as "Good Night Irene." He came from a family deeply committed to music, with his father a music teacher and mother a concert violinist. His own career spanned the period from the 1940's when he toured with Guthrie as part of the Almanac Singers, all the way to 2009 when he sang "This Land is Your Land," with Bruce Springsteen at the Lincoln Memorial. The key to the future said Seeger is to find the optimistic stories and let them be known. He lived in a wood cabin on 17 acres near the Hudson River in New York, and was the inspiration for other contemporary singers like Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen.

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Boris Johnson wins the race to lead the Conservative Party and become the next prime minister of Britain. Several ministers resigned underlining the problem he faces lacking support from the Conservative party members who do not support exit from the European Union without some deal or arrangement with the EU. He will lead a minority government that could fall with the loss of support from within the Conservative Party itself. Boris Johnson beat Jeremy Hunt by 92,153 votes to 46,656. He now has a margin of only three votes with the help of the Unionist Party of Northern Ireland and faltering support from members of the Conservative Party who see Boris Johnson's idea of simply leaving the EU on October 31st deal or no deal as problematic. 

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Social media is doing irreparable damage to health. Julie Jargon in WSJ says self-harm, sad posting, disordered eating videos abound on TikTok. It's worse because it is doing the most damage to young people. When only 20% of 8th graders can get a passing grade in civics and history, most can't read proficiently, what does social media like Facebook as shown in a WSJ investigation, and TikTok as shown here do but damage health, damage global literacy levels, hurt democratic forms of government that require civic education, limit exercize and outdoor living, and the ability to think or concentrate essential to lead a healthy productive life? 

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The takeaway from Calgary to go big and go bold applies to American cities. Calgary's downtown like many downtowns in large cities in the US had about 30% vacant office space. The 2014 oil price crash had already hit the city before the pandemic hit. Calgary responded with a plan to convert 6 million square feet of vacant office space into apartments. Developers were to be given $75 per square foot as an incentive out of a $200 million fund setup by the city. Calgary is now a fourth of the way through this transformation after getting broad community buy-in and support. Permitting process is less than 2 months.

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With a straw hat, Japanese hat for a helmet, a young carpenter from Japan covers most of Japan on a small scooter. He is now doing this in Australia. Something like this could only happen after Covid when there is a sense of release from everything that happened and a sense of discovering something new. Ryokei Mifune simply did not want things to get complicated so he says he chose Australia simply because he says he wanted to get out of Japan for an adventure and Australia looked that large. He is setting off from Melbourne to Sidney than up the coast to Cairns, a journey of 2000 miles from the southernmost airport to the easternmost one.

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About 14 million people or 16% of Turkey's population is in the earthquake zone. Much of the area is in rubble and people say there is not the equipment and support to find family members trapped in the damaged buildings. Millions are homeless, sleeping in tents, cars, and next to open fires in the wintry cold, says this report in WSJ. Criticism is mounting says this report that the response in the first 48 hours was slow and uncoordinated leading to loss of lives. Turkey which faces 200 earthquakes above magnitude 4 each year has faced earthquakes before, and knew that one like that in 1999 could happen again.

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India's foreign minister S. Jaishankar says a lot has been done at the G-20 meetings in India. He says 95% of the countries agree on the communique put out by the G-20. The idea that peace in Europe can be achieved at G-20 meetings in India is not realistic he says as the G-20 was not designed for this purpose of tackling troublespots like Ukraine. What the G-20 has done is bring countries in Europe and North America together with India to understand the problems stemming from the conflict in Ukraine on food security and from the debt crises in some parts of Asia. 

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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.

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Fear of homelessness is a big problem for Ukraine refugees among the elderly. Many people who are in their 80's, with little in savings and no relatives in the western parts of the country refuse to leave. Some have not left when the Russian army is only two miles away as shown in towns like Bakhmut near the front lines in Donetsk eastern part of Ukraine. One elderly woman says they would drop her off at the station at Lviv or Dnipro, and then what, where was she to go. Rescue units volunteers take people to safety every day in these towns. Some leave when the artillery shelling becomes unbearable.

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With the lack of action from House Speaker Mike Johnson on a bill for $61 billion in Ukraine aid bill which passed in the Senate  France, Germany and Britain are speeding up their defense supplies manufacturing and making larger investments with a coordinated effort with other EU nations. The problem say former NATO officials is the lack of investment in spare facilities. Rheinmetall is working on the German side and French defense firms are contributing to increased defense manufacturing.The European Defense Agency's deputy chief executive says production will require sustained investment ant finalized contracts. The European Defense Agency says EU nations have invested $52 billion in 2022 on defense gear.

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The effects of declining rainfall, higher temperatures in causing the wildfires of 2023 in Hawaii. Researchers show that rainfall has declined by one third since 1990 in the wet season. The fires are striking because of the lush vegetation that one generally associates with Hawaii. Yet Hawaii is like other places on the planet, also susceptible to climate change and its effects. With rising temperatures about 36% of Maui County is in severe or moderate drought. Dry and invasive grasses make it worse, as one expert puts it the island is covered with flammable stuff. Blowing winds provide an additional condition. Flavelle and Andreoni provide this NYT report on Hawaii and climate change.

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A New York federal jury convicts Sam Bankman-Fried on all 7 counts. The US Attorney in Manhattan had this to say- "While the cryptocurrency industry might be new, and the players like Sam Bankman-Fried might be new, this kind of corruption is as old as time. This case has always been about lying, cheating, stealing, and we have no patience with it." In ways similar to the continuing war that is taking place across many sectors Mr.Bankman-Fried's lawyers tried to paint a different picture that turns out to be far from the truth- that he was a math nerd and an entrepreneur building a new business using innovative ways.

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Former president Trump is indicted by a federal grand jury for his efforts to reverse the results of the 2020 election. Charges in this criminal case include attempt to defraud the US, obstructing an official proceeding, and conspiring against the rights of voters. The 45 page indictment by special counsel Jack Smith says Trump leaned on election officials in Arizona, Georgia and Michigan to support his efforts to overturn election results, and later on vice president Mike Pence. WSJ shows a graph of the series of indictments Mr. Trump now faces including payments to a porn star, Georgia election interference, handling of classified documents, Jan. 6 violence, and in other cases.

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The Ukraine frontlines in March 2024 after the deep fortifications and the trenches built on the Russian side that stalled any Ukraine advances. Ukraine is building its own trench fortifications as it expects a Russian spring offensive. Ukraine is dependent now on Britain and Germany, France, as the US House of Representatives controlled by Republicans under Speaker Mike Johnson have not taken up the Senate bill for aid to Ukraine that passed by 70 to 30 on a bipartisan basis. The result is uncertainty in Ukraine and in Eastern European nations. Sweden joined NATO and has conducted exercises with Finland which has the longest border of any nation with Russia.

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The Guardian shows what J.D. Vance really thinks from his words in 2016 before his run for the US Senate depended on the backing of the former president. Most important are Vance's thoughts on whether the policies of Trump would work in a second term to meet the needs of Americans struggling to make a living. Like the yellow vest supporters before the pandemic in France, another burden was placed on ordinary Americans when the pandemic hit with the cost of living crisis. Vance did not think the economic policies of a Trump second term  would work in his thoughts expressed in 2016 before his run for the Senate.

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NYT reporter Neuman takes a17 hour road trip across the island of Cuba in a 1956 Ford Fairlane. He heads west from Havana near the west end of the island to Guantanamo on the east end. He sees a changing Cuba with houses for sale, little sign of ideological signs in the countryside, old cars, oxcarts, horsecarts, a Cuba that looked like it was stuck in the past. In the five years that Raul Castro took over from Fidel Castro, money and business have gradually taken the place of politics. The average salary of $20 a month is not enough for most workers even with free healthcare and education, and most people dream of making more money to enjoy a better life. Many rely on relatives abroad for additional funds, or buying and selling on the black market, or a second job.

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An analysis done for the Wall Street Journal by real estate portal Zillow.com, shows the median down payment in nine major U.S. cities rose to 22% in 2010 on properties purchased with conventional mortgages. Banks favor higher down payments today because it reduces the chances of delinquencies. Median down payments were at about 20% in 1990, then the payments declined in the nine cities Zillow looked at: Chicago, Stockton, Las Vegas, Miami, Phoenix, San Diego, San Francisco and Tampa. The drop went as far as 4% in 4th quarter 2006, and in some places close to zero. Experts say these are the markets where more home buyers are under water. A 2009 study by the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis shows that buyers with smaller down payments are more likely to default in unfavorable economic situations. A contributing cause of the 2008 sub-prime mortgage crisis was the very low down payments. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation chairwoman Sheila Bair, says she supports minimum 20% down payments....

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Matt Dickinson says in The Times that Pep Guardiola goes at it with fascination for the game, and with a singular drive and curious search to find the best he can in his players. It is not just that he has players like Kevin Bruyne, Foden and Mahrez. It is not just the money that backs the team. There is he says an extraordinary amount of creativity that Guardiola brings to his coaching efforts. Manchester City are now in the finals of the Champions League ready to face either Chelsea or Real Madrid.

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Germany's increased borrowing and tax breaks for business to increase growth- Germany's version of DJT's US Tax Cuts Bill.

Chancellor Merz and Finance Minister Klingbeil of the two main parties CDU and SPD have put forward this bill to increase growth and productivity, with increased investment from business and government. The debt brake in the German constitution was taken out for increased borrowing.

Merz told the German parliament-

“None of us is doing this lightly. We know that this will place a considerable burden on future budgets, including interest obligations in future budgets. But the alternative — doing nothing, not enabling investment, especially from the private sector in Germany — is not a better option.”

Germany like the US is taking an approach of investing for growth to chart a new future.

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What will China do for a 2200 mile or 3500 kms border from Ladakh to Arunachal Pradesh in the east with India? That is the question. This is not the British Empire, it is a modern nation like China. India is in the same rapid movement forward that China experienced in 2000-2020 period and Japan in the 1900-1930 and again in 1950-1970. Much of the Tibetan and Himalayan region is relatively even today uninhabited or sparsely inhabited high country and remote from China for all of China's history, till 1950 and its entry into Tibet the culmination of the struggle with policies of colonial empires of Britain and Japan. It has nothing to say about the world in 2025 or 2050 with two ancient civilizations, part of the fabric of Buddhism in Asia side by side, having accepted the modern world of the European civilization that came with the scientific and industrial revolutions between 1600-2000.

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Prof Richard Thaler of the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago, sees an acute underestimation of risk as a common element in recurring crises- both the crises of a financial type and the crises like the one in the BP Gulf Oil Spill. Tony Hayward, CEO of BP said that BP had perceived the risk of such a spill as one in a million.

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Glaxo, like other pharmaceutical companies facing severe competition from generics, aggressively marketed the treatment for Restless Legs Syndrome (RLS) with its drug Requip. Glaxo made a strong marketing push for Requip with advertising in medical journals even before approval of Requip by the FDA, sending specialists to discuss treatment with general practitioners, and advertising strongly to consumers. Half of Requip's sales come from treatment of Parkinson's disease for which it was originally designed, the other half comes from RLS. Are their pressures to treat an expanding array of diseases merely to increase sales.

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Collapsing sales for all automakers with GM results 45% decline in October 2008 over October 2007, and Toyota saw decline of 23%, Honda 28%, Ford 30%. One GM marketing executive said its like the lights were turned off in October. Dire consequences for the US and global economy. Toyota once seemingly immune to all this is affected not just here but back in Toyota City in Japan as the area around Nagoya is going into shrinking mode, and the Japanese economy will likely contract by 1% in 2009.

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British establishment Labour's Mandelson and Conservative's Prince Andrew -the Epstein connections in the Epstein files and the political fallout for Labour and the Conservatives. This happens as they approach local elections with the Greens, Liberals, and Reform UK already taking 50% of Labour's 2024 general election voters with disillusionment over results in the first 2 years of Labour. Labour assumed it had the immigration issue under control with some headline grabbing  stories of it taking tough action when it won in 2024. That has not deterred illegal migrant trafficking. Labour soon lost sight of the ball, and did not realize that the cultural issues around excessive tolerance of such migration itself had not been resolved such as ECHR rights which were completely misinformed when written to approve of such illegal migrants rights and ignore the citizens and women of the neighborhoods in which people had lived for generations. After decade and half of Conservative Cameron austerity Labour needed time to wrestle with the issues of levelling facing Britain's north and the Midlands. Instead Labour found itself on the backfoot and Farage was brought out of retirement after issues in towns like Epping and all across England, where migrants were put in hotels as women and locals loudly disapproved. Labour thought under Conservatives  that over 50,000 were in asylum hotels in 2023 and this has come down to 35,000 in 2025 under Labour, as a kind of improvement not realizing that the public mood questioned the whole idea of the migrants in hotels itself, of little tolerance for any illegal migrants in neighborhoods itself. It shows the political processes have great importance and a series of mediocre leaders from Blair, Brown, Cameron, Johnson, Sunak, Starmer and Farage over a period of 4 decades can change the trajectory for nations and region. A similar period for India in 1720-1760 with warring factions and regions inviting British East India Company troops to opposing sides fractured the country and led to losing its grip on itself. Gandhiji describes this for introspection in Hind Swaraj (1905) not taking the easy road most now discredited anticolonial writers after 1950 took in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Where does this leave Britain in 2026? It can only come to grips with it knowing that the quality of education, quality of leadership, honesty and introspection of the kind suggested by Teddy Roosevelt in Applied Idealism in his Autobiography, chapter 5, and in Gandhiji's Hind Swaraj are essential.  ...

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The Guardian in its Editorial on Keir Starmer on February 10, 2026, says Labour was in the political wilderness for 18 years, and yet it has taken only 14 months for the project which put it into power to implode. It is referring to the project of McSweeney from County Cork, Ireland, and others to put a centrist to replace Corbyn, and selecting Keir Starmer. This was a weakness from the start as a candidate has to emerge on his own merits not be put in place by handlers like McSweeney, as he would not be able to govern on his own thinking and make his own decisions.  McSweeney was a campaign organizer and not successful at that as portrayed as Labour could have taken more than the 34% of the vote it received after 18 years of Tory rule without the likes of McSweeney. The Guardian says "excessive power and influence" was given by Starmer to McSweeney, and that the outsourcing of Britain's direction served neither the prime minister or the country well.  This is aserious flaw. McSweeney did not have the long experience of advisers that backed up Biden in the White House. And even the long experience of Biden group of advisers failed Biden when it came to immigration policy and the Border. And yet the question remains why was there such a lack in the talent pool for good governance for Labour, as it was for the Conservatives, for 3 decades since the 1990's? Similar to the situation with Bush-Clinton-Bush-Obama governance in the US, why is there not a good talent pool for effective governance in the UK and the US? The Guardian goes on to question the judgement of Starmer and the clique around him including McSweeney for their attitude towards helping the working class in support payments during a cost of living crisis- what it calls a contempt filled approach of the cliques to the normal priorities of a Labour party. The Editorial concludes that Labour has lost control of the trajectory of events- as more Mandelson emails are expected- and that it is hard to see how this trust can be won back. For Britain having 5 prime ministers over 4 years is a shocking lack of the talent, of confidence, that once prevailed in the nation that once led the world with the Industrial Revolution, and in science and technology. ...