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Russia is planning an offensive in Ukraine, in the south and in the east, on multiple fronts.

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Higher interest rates and the peaking of car prices in 2022, the decline in used car prices, is keeping buyers away from car dealers.

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The US shoots down a Chinese surveillance equipment loaded balloon floating over the continental US after it gets into US territorial waters off the coast of South Carolina. The F-22 fighter jet at 58,000 feet shot the balloon at 65,000 feet over the Atlantic ocean. US president Biden waited till it was over the water so that the surveillance equipment could be retrieved from the coastal waters and examined.

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This report in The Guardian shows that ChatGPT is nothing new. The first version of this kind of generative AI was developed in 1966 at MIT by a computer scientist Weizenbaum, who called it Eliza. The buzz around it like that around ChatGPT was that it was thinking and acting on its own, the way humans like to think it did, but in fact Weizenbaum showed that it was simply code written to take what was given to the computer as input and spitting it out in a different way that made it look that it was acting on its own, when it clearly was nothing but parroting it out like a parrot. The issue of turning our world over to robots based on AI is controversial and even dangerous. A Japanese futuristic movie shows how the man who has written the code for the master computer that runs everything in Japan is disillusioned about it and finds himself in a nightmare world where the machine tries to isolate and eliminate the man who created it. Machines cannot think or have emotions like humans do and it is these emotions, rethinking, that the world depends on for its survival. Can anyone say that a machine would have made the decision that Chinese president Jinping just made in January of making a complete u turn and moving away completely from lockdowns into a complete opening with a plan that appears to have worked and is reviving China's economy following the street protests by informal groups including young women? ...

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A Mauritius connection that the WSJ shows is part of the Adani expansion story. WSJ says one of the largest shareholders of Adani Power is Opal Investment Pvt. Ltd. Adani Power shows Opal as an independent shareholder with no ties to Adani Power beyond its 4.69% stake in Adani Power. WSJ says its review of corporate filings shows that Opal was incorporated in the island nation of Mauritius by Trustlink International Ltd, a financial services firm with ties to the Adani family. WSJ says whether Adani family members or executives wield influence over Opal lies at the heart of allegations by Hindenburg Research of New York City. Companies without a free float of at least 25% of shares risk being delisted under rules set by the Securities and Exchange Board of India. WSJ says in the third quarter of the current financial year ending March 31 Adani family members and companies with ties to the Adani empire held 74.97% of Adani Power shares, according to corporate filings. And Opal's stake in Adani Power accounts for nearly 19% of the shares that Adani Power is required to float to independent shareholders. Off shore investment companies based on the Indian ocean island of Mauritius have limited requirements for corporate disclosures. WSJ says they play a key role in Adani firms' efforts to tap capital markets. ...

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Finance Minister Sitharaman says India's economic image and its macroeconomic fundamentals are not affected by the withdrawal of the Adani FPO. In the last 2 days alone she said, foreign exchange reserves had increased by $8 billion. She said Securities and Exchange Board of India has the authority and ability to see to it that "markets are regulated in prime condition."

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The new budget for Mumbai reflecting the aspirations of people in Mumbai.

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To better reflect a diverse electorate in the presidential nominating process in the state primary elections president Biden is proposing including states with more union voters and diversity. South Carolina comes first with more union and diverse voters, then Iowa and New Hampshire with more rural voters, then Michigan with more union voters, followed by Georgia.

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The US added 517,000 jobs in January 2023. Forecasters had estimated only about 200,000. Much of the coverage focused on tech layoffs. Amazon for instance laid off 18,000 workers and it has a workforce of 1.5 million people. By comparison the US labor workforce is 168.5 million people. And there were 11 million vacant jobs by the end of December 2022, according to the US Labor Department. Some of the tech workers laid off were hired in other business. The labor market is also much larger than tech.

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This editorial board view in the WSJ says the Biden administration should have acted sooner while the balloon was seen over Alaska or even over Montana to be shot down. It says China cannot be allowed to act with impunity for surveillance over the US.

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The Pamban bridge connecting Rameswaram island to the mainland at Mandapam is India's first sea bridge and the longest sea bridge in India till 2010. It was built by the British in 1914 to increase trade with Ceylon. From Dhanushkodi which is connected by rail line to Madras Egmore a ferry can be taken across the sea to Talaimannar on the Ceylon side, with a rail connection to Colombo. India is now building a new rail bridge as it closes a century old Pamban bridge which has suffered from severe corrosion.

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Victoria Azarenka won the Australian Open tennis championships twice in Melbourne then lost in the first round of the Australian Open in 2018. She struggled for two seasons with a foot injury, personal challenges off the court and a child Leo in 2016. Her slump took her to 208 in the world rankings. She had to fight her way back- "I have never really learned to struggle before, so it's a lesson." She says it required hard work, and changing her mindset, conquering her anxiety to return to the semifinals of the Australian Open. Another approach that helped her was to be open minded and to try new things and see what happens.

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As part of sanctions on Russia the price of diesel will be capped at $100 by the US and the rest of the G-7 countries.

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On his first day Jan 18, 2023, Josh Shapiro, Democratic Governor of Pennsylvania, signed an executive order that eliminated the requirement of a college degree for 92% of jobs in the state government, 62,000 jobs. Utah and Maryland made similar changes last year with Republican Governors. The Editorial Board of NYT says- for far too long, too many Americans see  society and economy as unfairly skewed to serve the needs of well connected elites, and people with a college education, looking down and excluding the rest.

 

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The toll in deaths and casualties on the Russian side has already reached 200,000 says this report in the NYT. The fighting in the eastern Donbas around Bakhmut is intense with hundreds of deaths and casualties a day says this report.

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On the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Stalingrad against Nazi German invasion Russian president Putin says of the war in the Donbas region of Ukraine- "The legacy of generations, of values and traditions, that is what makes Russia different, what makes us strong and confident in ourselves, in our righteousness and in our victory." Putin sought to put the war in patriotic terms. This report in NYT shows a rocket attack on Kramatorsk in Donbas, about 20 miles from Bakhmut where intense battles are taking place.