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Cara Buckley provides this intimate look at Garrison Keillor, host of Minnesota Public radio show "Prairie Home Companion." This is a Keillor who is quite different from the person people know from the radio show. Keillor finds release during the show using his imagination about a town he has made up called Wobegon. Strangely, in his own life Keillor is a very private person keeping his thoughts to himself and not saying much. Keillor is 73, and now plans to retire after about four decades hosting this show with music and tales about Lake Wobegon. At its peak the show had 4.1 million listeners in 2006, dropping to 3.2 million today. It is thought of as a homespun quaint, country stories show, yet it can touch on current issues such as the NRA and the gun lobby in a recent show, and builds on its bond with its audience.

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Hybrid work leads to an increase in super commuters who live and work in distant locations in the US, including multiple states. WSJ looks at super commuters.

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Trump turns to early supporters of his campaign in his appointments to key positions. Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama is the new Attorney General. Mike Pompeo, three time Congressman from Kansas, as CIA Director, and Mike Flynn, who headed the Defense Intelligence Agency under president Obama for 2 years, as the National Security Advisor. Among people Trump is meeting to broaden the new administration team are- Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, and Michelle Rhee, a Democrat who was chancellor of schools in the District of Columbia.

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Behind the deal Apple made to buy 100 million chips from TSMC's $165 billion plant near Phoenix is, yes, DJT Tariff exemptions. Yes, it took tariffs to get Apple and TSMC to invest in the US after much if not all of chip manufacturing was sent by Apple to China and Taiwan's TSMC. Was the Biden administration successful in getting Apple to invest in the US on a the scale that was needed? The answer is no. Even when TSMC agreed to invest in plants in the US under Biden it's management described the US as a difficult place to attract talent and build plants as reported in the WSJ at that time. There is a real element of truth in saying that it took a real effort such as the DJT tariffs move to change a situation in which most manufacturing was shipped out by US business to China. The Taiwanese had a condescending attitude that the US could not build advanced technology plants as evidenced in statements by head of TSMC, who was himself educated in the US technology institutions in the 1960's and 1970's. The US business shipped out its industrial and technological knowhow to Asia in a mistaken theory only found in textbooks that this was not going to affect US leadership and US dominance in the world. And with it the dominance of the scientific and industrial revolution culture of Europe and the US that enabled its free institutions of government and ideas of liberty of man. It is an astounding story of our times that this has actually been allowed to happen under previous administrations, technology elites, by economists, and governing elites, with some still clinging on to these ideas found only in textbook economic theory, when something entirely different has happened to neighborhoods, communities and factories now abandoned in the US. ...

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"Once social change begins it cannot be reversed. You cannot uneducate a person who has learned to read. You cannot humiliate a person who feels pride." The United Farmworkers union was formed by migrant farm workers Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta to bring decent wages and good working conditions for farm labour in the US, with most of the work done in California farm areas. March 31st is now Cesar Chavez Day in the US with a Biden proclamation. His niece is shown in the adjoining article as an adviser in the White House and now campaign manager for 2024. She is a softspoken Latina who grew up around Chavez in the fields and farm pickup trucks of the sixties and seventies, as shown in the Washington Post on this page. Biden has proposed an overtime rule for farmworkers, and ensuring farm workers get a fair wage and decent working conditions is the goal of the White House- including recovering $21 million in back pay and wages ensuring 26,000 farm workers get the wages they earned. And remaining steadfast says Biden to ensure workers get paid sick leave, good working conditions. ...

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Family offices of wealthy private investors have $6.9 trillion in 2026 and match Blackstone and Apollo investment groups. This could reach $9 trillion by 2030 and it sthe next big thing in the investments field. These are the investors who have more than $75 million and are a growing number. There are 8000 single family offices in 2026.

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Macron says about the ban of under 15's by social  media platforms-  the emotions of children and teenagers should not be "for sale or manipulated by American platforms and Chinese algorithms." The bad effects  on all adolescents of social media, especially on girls is seen in mental health issues for teenagers and the lack of focus for education in schools. It is a big price to pay for all countries to ruin the prospects in life of a new generation of children who are growing up in ways that no previous generation of children in the history of humanity was exposed to. This is no time for dangerous experiments with our children. It is an interesting comment on today that it is lobbyists (and donations) for platforms that are the problem. And that these lobbyists are from what is called Far Right, Right,  Left, Far Left, it makes no difference they all get paid for work, which shows that such labels have little meaning today- looking for common sense and what is right for (children's) health and education is the best approach not falling in line with Far Right, Right,  Far Left, Left, or Moderate or some such label or a Culture War label that is essentially meaningless when it comes to common sense. Good common sense, that much is sufficient. Many other important issues we face require the same approach. ...

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For the US to do a economic bailout of IRGC Iran now would be a betrayal of the US interest, and of the Iranian people who protested, says WSJ. This strongly worded WSJ editorial from the WSJ Editorial Board says Iran entered 2026 with an economic crisis, then a political crisis with widespread protests and suppression by the IRGC, leading to the Iran war to take out nuclear sites intending to produce nuclear weapons. The US air strikes destroyed Iran's military industrial complex. For the US to do a economic bailout of Iran now, when this is the only time with the naval blockade that Iran can be asked to remove all nuclear materials to a third country, would be a serious mistake. It says the only reason would be close to the midterms and high gas prices. Yet says WSJ letting Iran have its way would mean DJT could lose standing with the American public and see this in the midterms. The US naval blockade should not be lifted until Iran not by words but by actions sends out all the nuclear material out of the country, says WSJ. Lifting the naval blockade for 60 days of talks putting off the nuclear issue is the opposite of what the US has insisted on from the beginning- the nuclear issue is the only issue and it comes first is the US position. The mediation by Turkey and Pakistan, Qatar, has done just the opposite, and in this sense it has failed, according to this view in the WSJ. ...

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For the US to do a economic bailout of IRGC Iran now would be a betrayal of the US interest, and of the Iranian people who protested, says WSJ. This strongly worded WSJ editorial from the WSJ Editorial Board says Iran entered 2026 with an economic crisis, then a political crisis with widespread protests and suppression by the IRGC, leading to the Iran war to take out nuclear sites intending to produce nuclear weapons. The US air strikes destroyed Iran's military industrial complex. For the US to do a economic bailout of Iran now, when this is the only time with the naval blockade that Iran can be asked to remove all nuclear materials to a third country, would be a serious mistake. It says the only reason would be close to the midterms and high gas prices. Yet says WSJ letting Iran have its way would mean DJT could lose standing with the American public and see this in the midterms. The US naval blockade should not be lifted until Iran not by words but by actions sends out all the nuclear material out of the country, says WSJ. Lifting the naval blockade for 60 days of talks putting off the nuclear issue is the opposite of what the US has insisted on from the beginning- the nuclear issue is the only issue and it comes first is the US position. The mediation by Turkey and Pakistan, Qatar, has done just the opposite, and in this sense it has failed, according to this view in the WSJ. ...

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The growing popularity of bakers in France who grow wheat and mill the wheat, or use just the simplest ingredients is the subject of this video report in DW.com. 

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In this insightful essay Peggy Noonan, former spokesperson for president Reagan, says that Republicans like Speaker Ryan with the Republican Health Care bill are making the same error made by president Obama.. Noonan says she had suggested a different way for president Obama to show compassion for the uninsured- first wait till the 2008 financial crisis was tackled, tackled waste and fraud in Medicare first, then look at the option of expanding Medicare to help the uninsured, and not the approach taken of swiftly focussing on the Affordable Care Act early in the first term disregarding Republican objections. She says Republicans are making the same mistake now by ignoring the impact the bill would have on Trump's base of working class Americans who may be affected by the bill's provisions not taking into account incomes in offering incentives or subsidies. Noonan says Trump did get one thing right in calling it a "carnage" for the worsening opioid epidemic in America which has hit rural areas and parts of the midwest hard. Noonan says Eberstadt has correctly documented the collapse in working class Americans wages and standard of living, and Caldwell the opioid epidemic at another level to their health. She also supports journalist Carlson who questioned Speaker Paul Ryan's judgement about eliminating the tax on wealthy investors in new legislation in a Fox News interview, as she says responding to the sense of America at the moment means listening to the sense of being left out of ordinary Americans, who have done not as well as the wealthy who have benefitted from a surging stock market.  ...

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The Chinese negotiating team after the changes in the organization at the senior ranks of the government under Jinping lacks the experience in trade matters of the U.S. team led by Robert Lighthizer. Liu He who leads China's negotiating team is an economist who has the confidence of president Xi Jinping. Lighthizer is a veteran of trade negotiations going back to negotiations he held with the Japanese under the Reagan administration.

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Jay Powell signals that protecting working families from inflation even as he attacks inflation and strong labor market to moderate wage increases that could hurt jobs is a difficult balancing act that he wants to get right. Here are his own words at the Brookings Institution- "My colleagues and I do not want to overtighten because... cutting rates is not what we want to do too soon. That's why we're slowing down and going to try to find out way to what that right level is." He said he did not rely on forecasting that could be inaccurate and is feeling his way through this. It showed - the remarkable humility of this central bank governor unlike any of the last five decades, and he was warmly received by Brookings. He is keenly aware that the pandemic has hurt labour market participation as many have retired and some are still struggling to join the labor market, and there are other working families in the labor market who are being hurt by inflation.    ...