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Talk of Starmer as "tough as old boots" as he recharts Labour's response to Reform UK. Labour releases videos of people being deported - 16400 deportees in 2025. The Times says half of them left voluntarily and the media telling a different story of small boats and smuggling networks continuing to bring migrants.  Will it work asks The Times of London. Reform UK passes Labour in public support in polls in February 2025. Already it has taken a large part of Conservatives public support with Conservatives split further under Kemi Badenoch whose future is uncertain following repeated changes in Conservative leaders. Here is what Starmer is telling Labour ministers and he is listening to 67 MP's facing Reform UK as the top challenger-that if Labour was not going to be “disrupted”, it had to become the "disruptor." To Reform UK's “politics of grievance”, Labour needed to provide serious “politics of answers”. Instead of “defenders of the status quo”  seek out the spirit of “insurgency of opposition into government”. ...

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Useful and necessary tips on driving not taught at driving school but which should be part of that driving school training requirement. It should also be part of the program at high schools. Getting young people to have good driving habits early that save energy. Here Gil Portalatin, a 25 year veteran engineer at Ford, the Hybrid Propulsion System Applications Manager, talks about Ford's work in hybrids, the best way to conserve energy in driving regular cars, and how to drive hybrid cars. Tip 1: Don't accelerate too hard from a stop, Remember easy on the throttle and then glide. By Glide is meant releasing most of the pressure on the accelerator to use the bare minimum to maintain your speed. Tip 2: Anticipate Traffic. Watch the flow of traffic and distance to the light, then ease off the accelerator pedal to coast up to the next light. Tip 3: You won't believe how much energy it takes to go from 65mph to 75 mph. Gil knows from working in an aerodynamic lab. Its huge and to save energy just ease up on the accelerator pedal. For hybrid drivers he says many accelerate too slowly from a stop, and he advises accelerating a bit more and then lifting off the throttle to engage EV-motoring. About the Fusion hybrid. The 2010 Fusion hybrid gets 41 mpg city and 36 mpg highway. It beats Toyota Camry hybrid by 8mpg and 2 mpg respectively. Ford has its own unique hybrid technology, and is engineered differently with its own unique software....

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The UK government's chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, says coronavirus testing has not been scaled quickly enough. Public health experts warn that Downing Street is in the position to face "an unforgiving reckoning." The UK has done 5400 tests per million population, the U.S. 8894 tests per million, and Germany 15,700 per million, according to data from Worldometer website. UK got off to a slow start.  Experts at Imperial College, London, say a major problem is the lack of contact trace, test, isolate. Contact tracing having fallen behind. The government is relying too much they say on an app from Google and Apple to do the tracing because for this kind of work humans are needed, "boots on the ground" are needed. South Korea and Taiwan have successfully used people to do the contact tracing by using access to cellphone carrier data that was made possible from protocols established in earlier MERS crisis. ...

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Akio Toyoda of Toyota Motors resisted making a full scale commitment to EV's leading to Toyota falling behind in EV technology, ceding leadership to Chinese, American and German companies. This report in WSJ looks at how this happened. Toyota vehicle sales are declining and VW has overtaken Toyota. Toyoda failed to make a commitment to a date for going all electric and this has led to criticism of his management of the company and seen as resistance to the climate transition to EV's in the automobile industry putting behind the period of fossil fuel driven cars. Toyoda is the grandson of Kiichiro the founder of the company when it was in textiles in the 1920's. He says the the role of CEO is very lonely and very hard, as his early years were spent without the team spirit seen at the top and he was closer to the grassroots. He is now chairman and has given the decisions of the transition to EV's to the new CEO, Mr. Koji Sato.

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The Caryle great man theory painted on a corporate canvass is how Collingwood sees the American obsession with all powerful CEO's, with excessive pay packages, surrounded by all powerful top managers selected by them who also have excessive pay packages. The role of middle management, the importance of middle management and the role of younger entrants to the corporation who bring fresh ideas and thinking to revitalize the company is vastly understated and vastly under recognized. Its importance at  a time like this when fresh thinking is needed on a number of dimensions- vision, energy, fresh thinking, dynamism- is growing and a pressing need for corporations. Some corporations and industries would have benefitted vastly from these younger people into the upper ranks of management. Compare the way the new leadership at Fiat and GM, old Chrysler ran their companies and one sees this striking difference of younger managers taking on large responsibilities at Fiat and older management cliques at GM and Chrysler letting the companies suffocate as their adaptability to the new environments was poor. ...

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Bernie Sanders launches his 2020 presidential campaign at Brooklyn College by sharing his personal story of parents who were immigrants from Germany during the Nazi period. His father made a living selling paint to hardware stores and the family struggled in the early years.  He tells students he lived only a short distance away growing up "in a three and half room rent controlled apartment, and going to quality public schools." Mr. Sanders is the top choice in the early primaries including New Hampshire, competing with former vice president Mr. Biden. His campaign raised $10 million in just two weeks at the beginning of the campaign. He is campaigning for Medicare for All, $15 minimum wage, tution free public college. With Mr. Corbyn leading the Labor party in Britain in a new direction, Mr. Sanders is leading the Democratic Party in a new direction, both supporting the pro-working class traditional policies of their parties for most of the twentieth century. ...

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Politics in Britain as Britain prepares for a general election. The UKIP party polls 13 percent and Conservatives 32 percent and only an alliance could beat the Liberals and Labour, Greens combined. So why is Boris Johnson not embracing UKIP and Farage. Boris Johnson top adviser Cummings is said to have kept Farage to a minimum in display during the EU elections, causing resentment. Farage has doubts about the Conservatives and has rejected an alliance. Conservatives see him as playing populist politics and having little interest in the Conservative Party's ideas, somewhat like a Salvini in Italy or Orban in Hungary. Conservatives see Farage as preventing them appealing to moderates.  Boris Johnson hopes to work out new spending to support working class voters in an effort to win broader support for the Conservatives. He also hopes he can go back to voters saying only he could deliver Brexit if given a solid mandate, in dealing with the EU and in dealing with parliament.   ...

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This NYT editorial says the Pfizer bid to acquire Astra Zeneca is an inversion, a tax maneouvre using openings in U.S. and British tax laws that allows an American company to incorporate in London by acquiring a British company. In effect Pfizer beomes a subsidiary of the British company. This reduces taxes owed even though business takes place at Pfizer as before. NYT says 25 companies have adopted inversions since 2008. The top corporate tax rate in Britain at 20% is lower thant the top rate of 35% in the U.S. Additional tax maoeuvres could make it easier for income shifting to tax havens, and make it possible to free up cash held in foreign countries without the need to first repatriate it to the U.S. The problem is that such maneouvres are taking place at a time of large U.S. deficits, and deep cuts in public services and government investment in R&D, infrastructure, education, that would lead to future economic growth.

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China's top trade negotiator is Liu he, Chinese Vice Premier. He is negotiating with Robert Lighthizer, the U.S. Trade Representative who heads the U.S. side in talks. Liu He says China is planning to reduce auto tariffs on U.S. imports to 15%. U.S. exported 266,000 cars to China in 2017. A number of other issues are coming up between the two countries including cyber hacking as federal prosecutors are expected to unseal charges against hackers linked to the Chinese government, according to this report in WSJ. Canada's arrest of Huawei executive was met with China's arrest of a Chinese diplomat.

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DeepSeek China displacing OpenAI/Microsoft in the US, and becoming the most downloaded app on Apple iPhone download rankings, doing the same work at 5.6% of the cost, is leading to a national revival sentiment in China.

Deep Seek is based in Zhejiang province. The state website says of Deepseek's achievement-

“We need to believe that the moon in other countries is not necessarily rounder: Whatever others can do, we can also do it and even do it better.” 

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A report by top FDA officials said that the agency's commissioner, who resigned in January, was improperly influenced by calls from Congressmen, in approving Meniflex. This is a product of RenGen Biologics Inc., a C- shaped pad device to repair injured knees. This after scientists at the agency had rejected it because it was not considered effective or safe.

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A top executive level merger and integration team has been setup for the planned merger of Continental airlines and United Airlines. Under the integration management office which also has been setup there will be five groups for the main functions of the two airlines: commercial, operations, corporate, information technology, and planning for a single operating certificate from the FAA.

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Views of Barrack Obama on economic poliies if he were President including raising the tax rate on capital gains anywhere between 20 and 25% with exemptions for the middle class, keeping the top tax rate at around 39% and keeping economic policy flexible to respond to what the economic situation is in the beginning of 2009 if it changes.

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Innovative marketing techniques at VW where a Beetle car talks to people to tap into Beetle mania, Beetle fans and the curiosity of others.

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O'Malley, Sanders, and Clinton emphasize the issue of wages, income disparities, rising inequality, and a shrinking middle class in the first Democratic debate of the U.S. 2016 presidential election. Clinton points out that "at the center of my campaign is how we're going to raise wages." Sanders says that "the middle class of this country for the last 40 years has been disappearing." Clinton points out her opposition to the Trans Pacific Partnership trade agreement because it does not help raise American wages. Clinton calls herself a progressive, but "a progressive who gets things done," and a moderate when it comes to getting things done. Sanders points to the "deep injustice, an economic injustice that threatens to tear our country apart, and it will not solve itself." Sanders points to the wealth concentration in the U.S. "with the top one tenth of 1 percent owning about as much as the bottom 90 percent, and 57% of all new income going to the top 1 percent." Clinton comes to Sanders defense on the issue saying "it's our job to rein in the excesses of capitalism so that it doesn't run amok and doesn't cause the kind of inequities we're seeing in our economic system."...

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Rohan Bopanna  of India is 45 years old, and yet fit enough to win the Australian  doubles tennis championships in 2024. WSJ's Jason Gay looks at an extraordinary athlete. By 2022 Aussie Ebden, 36 years oid, was looking for a partner and the two found each other. One has this terrific serve and Ebden the mobility in returns on court. For Bopanna Ebden added the extra composure when he would become anxious. The year before Bopanna struggled to find his game with injuries, at one point considering that his time was up.The amazing part is that Iyengar yoga helped calm Bopanna's anxieties down when his knee cartilages had fully worn out and he had to take injections. Holding positions for long periods in a correct alignment in this yoga practice called Iyengar Yoga from a yoga master in Karnataka has delivered results. Bopanna felt relaxed and calm, his pain gone, and internally feeling so great, showing the strength that can be gained from the proper practice of yoga. ...

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The Chinese government's report on the high speed rail accident at Wenzhou, in July 2011. The report said top Railway Ministry officials bear responsibility for focus on "speed of the railway project construction and neglect of safety management." The railway minister Liu Zhijun, who was removed because of corruption charges bears responsibility, and 54 other government and ministry officials, according to the report.

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Lauren Weber interviews online recruiting company Monster CEO, Sal Iannuzzi. Monster is seeing its business upended by social recruiting, niche job boards, and company career websites enhancements. Its share price is down to $7 from a high of $50. The company is developing its own product for social recruiting using Facebook app. Monster's Iannuzzi is also exploring options for sale of the company.

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Regional banks lose more than a third of hteir stock values in Ohio, the southeast and western states. In some cases banks have lost half their value. These banks will neede another $65 billion on top of the $120 billion they have raised so far according to a Goldman Sachs report. The declinig market for commercial real estate will also hit these banks.

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The top fifth of earners in New York City earned 53% and the bottome fifth 3%. The proportion of New York City residents below the poverty line declined to 18,5% from 19.2% in year ended July 1, 2006. The proportion of poor children down to 27.3%. Figures are from the Census Bureau's American Community Survey and the Current Population Survey.