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The impact on families of thousands fentanyl deaths in America each year for the last decade. NYT looks at one such family and the turmoil and struggles of this family in 2025.

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A law that is in the Must Have category for Parents, School teachers and Educated Children in the US, Canada, Britain and India, finally gets passed in Australia. Of huge benefit to Australian Parents and School Teachers- after December 10 2025 social media Meta Tik Tok and You Tube are required to remove all under 16 accounts. Chinese children and school teachers, parents have the benefit of such laws regulating the use of social media which in the current climate of license, of leaving childrens, parents and school teachers to fend for themselves, leaving young girls to fend for themselves, has not happened in other nations.

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Bezos talks about his acquisition of the Washington Post in conversation at the Business Insider Ignition conference, Dec. 2014. He says he was initially skeptical about the acquisition as he knows little about the newspaper industry. His decision was based on his expertise in internet related technologies and the potential of bringing the newspaper into the digital age. One of the steps taken is to introduce a free Washington Post app for the Amazon Kindle, which will cost $1 following a trial period. He is working closely with Shailesh Prakash, the Post's head of technology. Bezos sees The Post newspaper not just as a local paper, but a paper with national and global reach using the internet for access.

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The suicide of celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain who had a popular television program, brings new attention to the increase in middle age suicides ages 45 to 64 in the U.S.  The CDC figures show a 60% increase for women and 37% for men between 2000 and 2016. A clinical instructor in psychiatry and medicine at Cornell, Ms. Boardman says life satisfaction is low at this age,a dip in satisfaction called the U curve. A 2016 study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine  shows stress factors as problems with intimate partners job/finances, health, family, and criminal/legal problems.  The demographic group driving suicide rates up is mainly white people without a 4 year college degree, who have done poorly compared to that group in a previous generation, say experts at Columbia University. 

Generally isolation and loneliness is also a factor, and social connections a big antidote to depression type stress.

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James Galbraith's ideas on the bailout in the Washington Post. He would remove the cap of $100,000 on FDIC insurance and put $500 billion into the FDIC and more resources for the FBI and hire the auditors and investigators needed to clean up the mess. Next he would use $200 billion to buy the preferred shares in the banks that need the money. He would let the investmet banks and hedge funds to themselves. And he woul provide federal funds to stte and local governments in a Nixon administration type of revenue sharing scheme so that local governments do not cut essential services and investments in education and so on. And he would focus on energy and climate change issues for the next 10-20 years as national goals. His point that even with freeing up the illiquid assets two things dont change one the borrowing still will be weak as the economy slows, and the recession and slowing economic conditions will not change.

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The Vice Chief of the Indian Army explains in detail how the scheme that is rolled out for Agnipath is a pilot project and how the lessons learned will be incorporated over the next 5 years. He says the recruits leave with something like 24 lakhs rupees for a second innings at age 22, with the opportunity to get 13 lakhs in preferential basis loans in government assistance to start an enterprise. Others could choose to enhance their education and go on to get degrees under preferential educational setup. The idea is not to set them up for life but get them off to a good start as they are only about 22 years and with special technical skills acquired during their 4 years in the armed services. Technical skills acquired in the airforce could be even more advanced. Private industry in an India almost twice the size of the economy that exists today and the fastest growing economy in the world would easily absorb 30,000 of such highly trained disciplined people in the scheme who leave. The US GI Bill and other similar programs for the military have shown that this works and private industry is eager to take in these people on a preferential basis. These in fact have proven to be even more attractive opportunities using the example of the US experience than a government job. Lt. Gen. Raju says about the All India regiments replacing the homogenous units of the past. The Rastriya Rifles  and similar units in the Army have shown that the bonding happens for people from different parts of the country. He could have said that it is seen in the cricket teams where the bonding is between people from different regions and places. These units have performed very well says Raju in the LAC, in Kashmir, in border areas and in other situations. ...

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Companies in the U.S. automibile market are again increasing their dependence on incentives to promote sales. GM's average incentive per vehicle was $3,732 in February 2011, according to Credit Suisse, up 13% from 2010.

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Elena Mayors Taylor gold medalist at Milan WInter Olympics 2026 age 41 years, is th eoldest gold medalist in Olympic history. Her colleague in the winter sport of bobsledding is Armbruster Humphries who has 3 gold medals and is 40 years She says-  "You get a lot of people that like to write you off as soon as you reach 40, it's all downhill from there, is what you hear. I think Elana and I are both proof that that's not true." Former bronze medalist from Britain Jon Jackson says of Elena- "She is not only a ferocious athlete but also a beautiful human being and a genuine person. It has been a real show of dedication to keep going through the struggles of now being a mum in a high-performance sport, the dedication that takes to maintain that level of physical fitness and the hard work of being a parent. It shows her true nature." Elena has 3 children with disabilities and is an advocate for mums. "It should be celebrated that they're both mums, using mum power, both in their early 40s and it's great to see them competing at the top of the world not only physically but the drive and experience too,"   ...

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The terms of the bailout loan to GM and Chrysler prohibit a threat to strike or a strike by the UAW during the negotiations with GM that take place between now and Feb 17, 2009. These are the terms between the Treasury Department and GM. Smaller strikes at GM and a longer strike at American Axle and Manufacturing cost the supplier and GM billions of dollars in cash at a perilous time for GM, showing that steps by the union have not been in the interests of the union and its workers in the long run. GM and the union now have the government also as a part of the negotiations, and more pressures are inevitable to become competitive in wages, benefits and other costs with the Japanese manufacturers.

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Differences over Gaza policy in the ruling coalition in Israel lead to the reisignation of the defense minister Mr. Lieberman. The result could be early elections which Mr. Netanyahu called "irresponsible" considering the situation in Gaza and Israeli security.

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Former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta's "Worthy Fights" provides a better perspective on the Syria-Iraq conflict- about a conflict in Syria that was the result of president Obama not acting when a "red line" of the use of chemical weapons was crossed. A similiar point is made by U.S. Secretary of State Clinton. Both advisors to Obama were ignored in favor of Mr. Donilon and other White House adviosrs who lacked the experience of Panetta and Clinton. On the Iraq conflict Maliki's misguided sectarian policies were not sufficiently constrained by U.S. effort to preserve earlier hard won gains under the Bush administration. At the end of the Bush administration Iraq was returning to a peaceful period and the war had largely been won against old Saddam loyalists in Anbar province. Ultimately Obama's lack of experience in foreign policy and his failure to heed the advice of people with that experience such as Panetta and Clinton, was the basis of the crisis inadvertently created in Syria by a tendency of inaction. The Syrian situation was not fully grasped as leaving Sunnis to suffer Assad regime air attacks creating 2 million refugees, something that should have prompted action by the international community. With Sarkozy gone in France and Cameron unable to convince the U.S. alone, or move forward with the French unilaterally, the inaction phenomenon of the Obama White House left the entire Sunni communty throughout the Middle East without any support as they watched the destruction in Syria. ...

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The term "populist" is used with negative connotations about the uneducated masses and people making decisions without careful thought. Kimball says the word was used in this way to suggest demagoguery during the Brexit vote, the U.S. election with Trump and the French election. He says he found Brexit yes voters to be rational in the way they favored British sovereignty, even though they were seen as populist.

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Spain's Budget minister, Cristobal Montero, said the government would have a new credit line and provide an early infusion of $10 billion to aid financially troubled regions. Many of the regions are in such financial straits that they are unable to pay suppliers, and this is putting many small businesses in serious difficulties. Spain's prime minister Rajoy says the Spanish government needs to be concerned about what is happening in the regions, and that he would help regions as long as they meet their budget goals. Spain adopted a decentralized model after the years of the Franco dictatorship, and regions handle education, health care and social services, culture and providing services. With the economic crisis following years of free spending by the regions, the extent of this autonomy and the lack of budget controls is being called into question. Officials from regions such as Aragon, Valencia and Murcia have called on the federal government to play a bigger role.

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This report from Brazil is of major relevance to India in its growth efforts, and for aging societies such as China. In many ways showing the price countries and the people pay when growth is mismanaged. A major crisis is hitting countries such as Brazil as fewer young people and young workers support an aging population of retirees. This is to be seen in the money allocated in Brazil's budget- only 3% goes to infrastructure, 3% to education, health gets 7%, and retirement system takes up as much as 43% of the budget. Increasing retirement obligations are nearly bankrupting the Rio de Janeiro state government.  At the core of this crisis is a steadily aging population that is happening now faster than in the developed world. Also part of this is the fact that fertility rates have dropped rapidly in Brazil, the rest of Latin America, and in China. It took just 27 years in Brazil and 11 years in China for fertility rates to drop from 6 to below 3, creating a situation where there are fewer young people to join the workforce as retirees live longer and the retired population increases. This report shows that it took 82 years for the fertility rates to drop from 6 to 2 in the U.S. so that the U.S. had a longer period in which to build up infrastructure.  Only 50% of Brazil's sewage is treated, and sanitation systems need investment. The average adult has about 8 years of schooling. An unfunded and unfundable social security system means infrastructure, health and public services such as transportation will remain unfunded for years to come. China's policymakers have done far better by building infrastructure rapidly yet face the same squeeze of aging population lower fertility rates as China's modernization continues. India needs to learn from such failures and successes in framing its own policies. Unrealistic giveaways or promises such as Brazil's retirement age of 55 and poor priorities of soccer stadiums in the northeast over sanitation, health, education, have a steep price. Good intentions are not enough as the Workers Party in Brazil granted pensions to farmers and informal workers without generating the sustained growth needed for funding the pension system, with $3 billion paid in and $36 going out for this added benefit.    ...

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Russian prime minister Putin makes a road trip that stretches for 1,240 miles from Khabarovsk, near the Pacific coast, to Chita, a city near the Mongolian border. For half of the distance Putin drove a Russian made Lada compact, and for the other half he used a minivan. He seemed to be enjoying the trip shown on state media. The Wall Street Journal shows a picture of him filling gas in his yellow Lada car at a gas station somewhere in Siberia. Political analyst Alexei Makarkin, says the Medvedev-Putin partnership seems to work well, with Medvedev appealing to educated urban middle class, and Putin to the working classes with his informal style and manner. Driving on the soon to be completed Amur highway -which is historic because it links eastern and westen Russia for the first time- Putin was able to connect with local people and working class folk in small towns on the way.