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This report on Mumbai's underground subway by Corinne Abrams was first published in WSJ January 6, 2019 with Lyrarc gist. Then as happened too often in the past it became the victim of a change in government with the new government in December 2019 stalling the rapid work on the project. Only when it was voted out in June 2022 did the rapid work shown in this Jan 2019 WSJ report resume. It has accelerated under Ashwini Bhide's leadership of the METRO organization and work is back to round the clock 24 hours a day. "A 27 station, 21 mile subway is being built under one of Asia's most crowded cities- Mumbai. It is moving ahead at the pace of one mile a month, with 9 miles complete, started in 2016 the $3.3 billion Metro Line 3 is on track to be completed by 2021. The government of prime minister Modi is eager to show that it is able to tackle some of the toughest infrastructure projects like this one and get them done on  time. As the head of the Metro Rail Corporation, Ms. Ashwini Bhide puts it this should have been done yesterday, considering the appalling and difficult rides facing Mumbai's millions of residents every day on its old and creaky rail system. There is she says " a desperation" to get this done as is true for so many of the infrastructure projects that need to be done in India." "When complete it will take 1.6 million riders a day 80 feet underground to destinations across the city in air conditioned coaches." ...

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Perseverance at NASA, and after eight years of patient hard work overcoming the hurdle of doing the Mars Mission during coronavirus lockdown, lead to the final launch of the spacecraft to Mars on July 30, 2020. The mission craft is aptly called Perseverance. Names matter, the ship James Cook used to make the first trip of discovery to Australia was aptly called Endeavour and a replica can still be seen at the British Museum. The mission will provide clues to why the planet Mars once warm and wet turned into a dry desert, what about its ancient history made this happen. The mission will send rock samples back to earth, investigate the geology and climate on the planet, search for any signs of life, and look at the prospects for human exploration. A small helicopter Ingenuity will make the first flight on another planet.  Some facts about this mission- It can only be launched every 26 months as the earth and the planet Mars have to be on the same side of the sun which happens every 26 months for 3 weeks.  It costs 500 million dollars just to store the craft if the mission was delayed 26 months because of the pandemic. Other than the cost the reason for launching now without error was the need to give America enthusiasm about new frontiers to be explored even as it conducted the fight against the pandemic. NASA has 2000 scientists and engineers at JPL in California and 400 technical workers at KSC in Florida who do the work for missions. This mission used an essential team that did the work during the lockdown even as other scientists and engineers worked from home.   ...

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The lockdowns and remote work have led to men spending more time taking care of children at home. The stereotype of the hapless dad as a second grade caregiver is now out of date. Dads have learned a lot during the pandemic.

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Companies in the US hiring older workers in the belief that older workers have a strong work ethic. WIth the Great Resignation and younger workers quick to quit jobs many companies are relying on older workers who are seen as more reliable.

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France's Health minister announces that health care workers will not be allowed to work after September 15, 2021 or receive a salary if they are not vaccinated. Health pass will be required to access bars, restaurants, trains and flights in France.

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Los Angeles school teachers strike for higher pay. Teachers wages remained depressed for two decades leading to teachers ovrburdened during the pandemic shifting to other work. This has created a shortage of teachers in the US. A similar situation exists in Europe.

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How could banks lend so much money in billions of dollars when educational work to educate people gets so little money and when so many billions of dollars are simply wasted on projects that deliver so little to the people or the Nation?

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South Korean workers illegally in the US for Hyundai contractors flown back to South Korea. South Korean government obtained their release and sent a plane to fly them back home. It sends the message that even if they do not work directly for a Asian company, only for contractors or contractors of contractor, and are here illegally, they will be sent back home.

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Hassett and Baker suggest learning from the German experience of the last decade in reducing unemployment, including "kurzarbeit" programs, work sharing, and cooperation between industry, unions and government to reduce unemployment. France is already taking action to learn from the German experience.

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Is the jobless rate in Liverpool, in the one time industrial heartland of Britain about 6% or counting the hidden jobless close to 13%. Is the unemployment rate much higher than the 3% in official statistics for Britain because official statistics do not include the hidden jobless. Learn more about this astonishing quirk in the statistics that distorts reality about social conditions. None less than the OECD, the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development and the Center for cities thinkt tank is of the view that 3 million people are missing from the official jobless figures. The OECD report says that when these 3 million people are counted the UK's unemployment or jobless rate is about 13.2% or abut 4.3 million people. This report shows that the austerity policies of the last ten years in Britain have bit by bit hurt people's chances of finding work.  The OECD/Centre for Cities study shows something else that is striking- it says Liverpool has the highest rate of hidden jobless in its study, with about 20% of working age adults out of work compared to an official rate of 5.8%. The mayor of the Liverpool region, Steve Rotheram, sitting in his office overlooking the Albert Dock on the banks of the Mersey river, where Britain's mighty shipbuilding industry once dominated and now in decay, says sanctioning people does not work,  a decade of cuts have done damage, and that his authority runs Households into Work, in an attempt to treat people as human beings first to get a better response. The government job centres tend to focus on people 25-35, says food bank and job support charity at the Anglican Cathedral on a ridge overlooking the Mersey. That means a lot of people in their forties and fifties are left out. ...

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This New York Times editorial says a smaller Wall Street and growing jobs in other fields will be good for New York as well as good for the country. It says New York politicians should focus on finding new ways for New York to broaden its tax base and get new businesses and new opportunites in fields such as media, advertising, entertainment, health care and tourism. Especially welcome are initiatives such as the science and tech campus of Cornell University promoted by Mayor Bloomberg. Tighter financial rules and higher capital requirements are good for the country and for New York the editorial emphasizes, because they help control reckless banking practices that destroy capital and opportunities for growth elsewhere in the economy. It points to Kevin Rose's Nov. 21, 2011 account in the Times showing a healthy culture shift in New York and the country with the status jobs being seen not at Goldman Sachs but at Google, Apple and Facebook. Rose's account shows that in the last 3 years the number of Wall Street employees of ages 20-34 declined by 25%....

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White collar jobs at risk and white collar professional layoffs are leading to a pause in the jobs market for white collar work.

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President Trump says before a summit meeting with Kim Jong Un of North Korea that the U.S. will not make the mistakes of the past where sanctions relief did not stop the North Korean nuclear weapons program. North Korea will be required to substantially give up and dismantle its nuclear program for serious sanctions relief. The North Koreans favor a phased approach. The U.S. will work to make sure that any dismantling of the nuclear program is such that it is irreversible, so that earlier mistakes where the North Kroeans simply restarted the nuclear work are not repeated.

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Can I do something that matters in people's lives? This is a question more and more people are asking as they return to work. Over  26% of people in one WSJ survey say they now feel that their jobs are not particularly meaningful. Others feel their jobs and job security may be threatened. An April survey showed one in four feel this way, yet things may be improving as people return to work. In May 2.5 million jobs were added in the U.S. according to Bureau of Labor Statistics. 

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After mentioning the transformative game of Van Dijk, Sadio Mane, Firmino, Alexander Arnold, one can only turn to the incredible resilience of Jordan Henderson against many setbacks and being written off more than once. Here he is put forward as the choice for Footballer of the Year. Precept and example counts for more here than individual game performance.

The "mentality monsters" Germany's Klopp talks about in coaching is about calming the mind and continuous improvement, hard work in practice that makes this happen. Henderson shows a lot of this work ethic and resolve.

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Jennifer Szalai of NYT writes about books on inequlity and how it is pervading the public consciousness. She writes about the work of English economist Angus Deaton who settled in the US and could not understand how bad inequality has become in the US.