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Sanger and Broad offer an assessment of progress in controlling nuclear proliferation and improving security during the two terms of U.S. president Obama. Obama took particular interest in this field as Senator. Today countries such as Belgium, Pakistan, are considered sources of potential problems in nuclear security. Urban security for nuclear materials is a priority. Japan, China, Pakistan and India have not reduced their nuclear materials stockpiles in Asia, and Russia refused to participate in the Nuclear Summit in 2016, led by the U.S. Problems are urgent to secure nuclear materials from terrorists and require high priority from world leaders. Pakistan has moved towards smaller tactical nuclear weapons which creates additional problems of security.

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A New York Times/CBS poll shows 69% of Americans polled between March 21-25, 2012, feel the U.S. should not be involved in a war in Afghanistan. This is up from 53%, in a poll only 4 months before this poll.

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U.S. quarterly seasonally adjusted annual growth rate for GDP for the second quarter 2015 is revised to 3.7% growth from the earlier forecast of 2.3%. The first half GDP growth is still low at 2.2% because of a weak first quarter in 2015. Consumer spending representing two thirds of economic output was up 1.8% in the 1st quarter, and 3.1% in the second quarter of 2015. Another factor relevant to economic growth is gross domestic income or GDI, GDP uses expenditures data and GDI uses income data. GDI was up 0.6% for the second quarter 2015, an average of the GDP and GDI numbers provided by the Commerce Department shows a 2.1% annual growth for the U.S. economy for the second quarter.

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The U.S. Government Accountability Office says only $179.5 millon of the first $1.5 billion- in a five year aid program to Pakistan worth $7.5 billion- has been spent. USAID's director for Pakistan, Andrew Sisson, says the $1 billion from prior ununsed funds was spent in Pakistan in 2010. This includes $500 million for aid during the disastrous floods last year. Projects include the Gomal Zam Dam in South Waziristan, at a cost of $20 million. That project helped build a spillway to apower plant bringing electricity to a remote region in Pakistan. That dam was built by Chinese engineers from the Sinohydro Corporation. The Obama administration wants to see large signature projects to which it can point to as signs of success. With a failing economy, corruption and a weak civilian bureaucracy- especially with a weak and ineffective civilian government- getting projects implemented has proven extremely difficult. The U.S. government has committed to spending 50% of the aid money through the Pakistan government and not through civilian contractors with large overhead expenses....

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Danny Hakim's gives this indepth account on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's connections to the tobacco industry, with reporting from Ukraine, Nepal, the Philippines and other poorer nations struggling with the public health implications of widespread smoking. Since 1997 the Chamber of Commerce, which is viewed in foreign countries as an outpost of the U.S. government, has taken some controversial positions. In the U.S. the chamber has as it members the tech industry leaders such as Google and Microsoft. Yet it is increasingly at odds with these companies. In 2009 the chamber under Mr. Donahue opposed greenhouse gas emissions regulation by the EPA, leading to the departure of Apple from the group and Nike stepping down from the board. In 2013 the American subsidiary of Sweden's construction company Skanska left the group, in protest against the chamber's opposition to green building codes. Michael Bloomberg and Bill Gates have set up an international fund to fight law suits challenging international anti-smoking laws by tobacco companies. The TPP's provision for companies being able to sue foreign governments for violation of trade agreements has no exception for tobacco companies. Similiar concerns are raised about pharmaceutical companies suiing foreign governments where the governments are working to increase access to medicine for poorer sections of the population....

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US life expectancy dropped by 1.5 years to 77.3 years, the largest drop since 1943. This takes life expectancy back to the level in 2003. During the pandemic of 1918 the drop was 11.5 years, showing how much difference vaccines and modern medicine can make. The drop is a result of coronavirus, and added to this are the complications for people with other diseases including chronic liver disease, which is connected to use of alcohol. There was a decline in asthma and cancer related diseases. Delayed treatment for health conditions because of lockdowns and homicide increase were other causes of the drop.

Isolation, stress and disruption of normal diet and exercise will have effects still to be seen, say experts. 

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Negotiations between European leaders, especially Germany's Merkel and the Obama administration on climate change at G8 meeting. The U.S. and Europe try to work out differences. The U.S. is vague about some language such as the starting year against which emissions reductions will be measured, and has resisted the European pressure to set strong goals over the next 10 years. Europe wants 1990, while the USA, Australia and Japan prefer 2005. Europe wants to see language in aformal document that is being developed for the G-8 meeting, which also includes developing countries, for limiting the rise in global temperatures to 2 degrees celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, above pre-industrial levels.

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Robert Morgenthau, a former district attorney for New York County, says the American deportation effort is putting about 1000 people out of the U.S. every day. He calls it a deportation effort that has gone wildly astray. Here he says the new leadership of Jeh Johnson is likely to be better than her predecessor Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano in ensuring that the agency can move in a direction that ensures fairness for immigrants who are law abiding. Morgenthau says in his long experience as district attorney he has learned that the trust and cooperation of the immigrant community in New York is essential to going after the criminal elements that are a danger to society. And some of this trust has been eroded by the actions of the ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency, part of Homeland Security Department, through large scale and record breaking deportation approaching about 400,000 a year. A report for the last fiscal year shows only 14.5% of the deportees in immigration court were criminals or suspected of terrorism....

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Biden will talk to America tonight at 7pm after the passage of the historic and truly bipartisan Bipartisan Debt Agreement of 2023, that sets the pathways for America moving forward on this day in June 2023 meeting the challenge of leadership in the world.

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The Biden administration is now allowing states to use Medicaid money for meeting needs for food, nutrition to prevent chronic diseases and improve health. 

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Closer economic cooperation between the Saudis and China expected after this weeks visit by president Xi to Riyadh. 20 initial agreements worth $29 billion will be signed.