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New York City and Northern Virgina are selected as the second and third locations for Amazon headquarters. Amazon will evenly split operations for the HQ locations between Long Island City and Arlington County's Crystal City locations. About 25,000 employees will be hired for each location. The location in Northern Virgina is close to Washington Reagan International Airport and metro stops making it appealing. Long Island City was a former industrial neighborhood that is going through a residential housing boom with 16,000 new apartments built since 2006. It is close to airports and subway lines.

Amazon had as criteria for the selection that the locations have flights with easy access for Seattle, job creation impact, and prominence as the main company in the area.

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The Medicare for All movement in the U.S. gathers momentum after the U.S. midterm elections with states. Governor Newsom of California says he will seek federal authority to setup a state single payer plan for health insurance. An expert at Georgetown University says there is a new burst of energy for broader coverage or universal health coverage. States with new governors or seeing this momentum are California, Washington, New Mexico, Maine, Nevada, Delaware, Oregon, Connecticut, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois. Polls show a large majority of Americans now support Medicare for All as a form of universal health coverage for all Americans, a system that prevalent in Canada for the last 50 years. Two hearings will be held in Congress on Medicare for All in 2019.

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As a group Hispanics are reported to be hit hardest by this recession, harder than African Americans. In a Feb 9, Washington Post poll, both African Americans and Hispanics were optimistic about the future for the next generation, even with the dismal economic prospects, because things have improved greatly for this generation of black people and Hispanics compared to their parent's generation. And this progress is projected into the future. As a group the most pessimism was shown by white people. Whites say the Obama administration is doing very little for their families, and not doing enough for the middle class and working class Americans and small businesses. They were much more critical about the the administration's cozy relationship and doing "too much" for Wall Street financial institutions. By a 2 to 1 margin whites saw the Obama administration's economic program as harming the national economy.

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Blake of the Washington Post says president Trump finds himself in the same situation as president Obama, who came into office wanting to scale down the effort in Afghanistan, and early in his presidency signed off on a troop surge under commander McChrystal. Trump in the election campaign expressed strong disapproval of interventionist policies. The deteriorating situation in Afghanistan makes it necessary to make an infustion of American troops- a policy being developed by Gen. Mattis. The change now is to insist vigorously on anti-corruption measures and good governance in return for aid. 

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Time Berners Lee is in Washington DC in an effort to prevent a rollback of Obama period Net Neutrality laws. Here he repeats his warning about the way the internet is being used by digital gatekeepers using advertising efforts to control or manipulate parts of the internet.

The founder of the internet from its early days says the whole system is failing, that the way ad revenue works it is distorting for people and information. Specially placed AI works to distract viewers, and is not healthy for truth or democracy, says Lee.

 

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CDC in the US provides this look at life expectancy in the US in 2020. The life expectancy in the US dropped by 1.8 years to 77 years for men and women in 2020. The highest life expectancy in the US is in the northeastern states including New York and in the western states including Washington, Oregon and California. The lowest is in the southern states such as Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama. Ohio, Missouri, Indiana, in midwest have lower life expectancy,