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The UK Education Report from Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson as shown in The Times says “In practice, high standards currently too often means high standards for some — our ambition is high standards for all”. It sees the basic emphasis on knowledge depth and excellence in education, the infrastructure as working well and intends to keep this. The change is to bring all schools up to these higher standards. Childcare infrastructure and services would be made available to all.  Rote education and stress on memorization, taking too many GCSE exams, student stress from the large number of exams more than Ireland and twice that of Canada, not enough apprenticeship training programs, will be points that will receive attention. “The national curriculum should remain relevant and up to date while embedding and recognising the importance of cultural knowledge stemming from the past.” More emphasis on developing this kind of national curriculum. ...

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Chip performance that doubles every two years is now the norm. Costs decline proportionately. Of more concern today is investment that pulls educational levels up in schools at even a small fraction of that speed and this investment has sorely been lacking. Investment in infrastructure, in education, in health, in public services that improve the quality of life have declined with the obsession with technology that is showing poor results when it comes to education of children in schools from elementary to secondary to higher secondary schooling.

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Yale's internal report on its failure on price, value and political polarization.  “In its report, the committee calls on Yale to reflect on and take responsibility for our role in the erosion of public trust.” Maurie McInnis, Yale president  wrote- “I accept this judgment fully.” The report cites one fault as tilting admissions in one direction- to the children of the rich and connected. Report has 20 recommendations including removing the tilt to legacies, varsity athletes, children of faculty, staff, donors. This is not the institution or institutions of higher education that promote the social mobility that happened under FDR and throughout the 20th century to create what emerged as a society that made it possible for people of all incomes to rise. This is also what Marco Rubio has made his main complaint in his book -Decades of Decadence How our Spoiled Elites Blew America's Inheritance of Liberty, Security, and Prosperity. How a immigrant family from Cuba was able to raise a child (Rubio) with a decent income from factory work making steel chairs in a Florida factory and give him a good education.  Something Rubio says is no longer possible today. Much of this factory base was shifted to China under the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations, and no longer exists. In its place is a financial services business that does nothing for workers and ordinary Americans and a business culture that puts costs further and further away and out of reach for education in the nation's universities and colleges. ...

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The Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted a U.S. administration request staying the effect of a lower court ruling, giving the government the $3.6 billion in U.S. Defense Department funds to build a border wall. This money goes towards the goal of building 500 miles of the wall by the end of 2020. In a 2-1 decision the court majority cited a Supreme Court order from July 2019 that gave the Trump administration the go ahead to use military funds for border wall construction.

The $3.6 billion is part of a $6.7 billion plan of spending under an emergency declaration by president Trump on grounds of border security. So far 100 miles of border wall have replaced flimsier construction barriers that existed. The government now needs to convince private land owners along large stretches of the border along the Rio Grande and other areas to give up their land for the wall. 

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This exceptional report from rural areas in France by Roger Cohen shows why the support is growing for the far right and the far left in rural areas and smaller towns outside the large cities which have suffered from high unemployment and neglected as technology and capital moved to other areas. Cohen talks to Nicholas Bay, secretary general of the National Front, who says this election is about patriotism, the nation state vs globalization, as the National Front tries to portray its opposition as being less pro-France, and less pro French culture. The centrist candidate Macron stands in front of a statue of Alexandre Dumas in Picardy, an hour northeast of Paris, and says he is for an "open patriotism" that embraces people of different origins and embraces refugees. Cohen attends a Le Pen rally in Metz, Lorraine, talks to a National Front mayor in Picardy and left party supporters in the town, talks to foreigners in the banlieu of Sevran. Cohen says a National Front victory is possible if enough voters who support the far left party of Melenchon do not vote for centrist candidate Macron, and enough voters of centre right Fillon supporting French culture and nationalism drift to Le Pen. As in the Dutch election with Moroccans derided by the far right the immigrant issue is a factor. Against this background is how events play out in the last weeks of the election. In March and April the events in the U.S. show a Trump administration moving to the centre, adopting a quieter and more constructive tone towards Mexico and immigrants. Relations with Russia have worsened after the U.S. response to the chemical attack in Syria, and the French public may now see this as a common threat to NATO and the European Union. As in the Dutch election a lot depends on the last weeks of the election and how well the centrist parties, the centre right and the centre left get their message across about what is to be gained by building anew on the foundations of the past without risking a lot on an uncertain path of referendums and exit from the European Union.   ...

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NYT shows maps of the region hit by the earthquake in Turkey.

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The World Health Organization lists the world's most polluted cities with the highest level of PM2.5 particulate matter as 1. Kanpur, India     173 2. Faridabad          172 3.  Varanasi            151 4.  Gaya                  149 5. Patna                   144 6.  Delhi                    143 7.  Lucknow                 138 8.  Agra                        131 9.  Muzzaffarpur           120 10.  Srinagar                113 11.   Gurgaon                113 12.  Jaipur                     105 13.  Patiala                      101 14.  Jodhpur                     98 15.  li Subah ali Salem      94 A look at the cities most polluted shows that most of the cities are in or near New Delhi, (Gurgaon, New Delhi, Faridabad, Agra) in the state of Uttar Pradesh (Lucknow, Kanpur, Varanasi, Agra). The cities on the list that one does not expect are cities such as Jodhpur in the Thar desert, and Srinagar in the mountainous region of Kashmir. Srinagar is on the list because of inadequate sewage facilities to treat sewage. The Dal lake is polluted from houseboats and tourist hotels dumping sewage into the lake and not connecting to the sewage system. Jodhpur is polluted from auto exhaust and vehicular pollution.. The WHO says India's efforts to control pollution need to follow the steps taken by China recently. In response to citizen pressure and outrage about health conditions China has closed down polluting factories, and is shifting away from coal, away from coal stoves. India's efforts are inadequate and scattered says the WHO. This includes stopping fireworks sales that aggravated toxic conditions in Delhi. A program giving 37 million poor Indian women free gas connections helps a shift from use of dung fired clay ovens or coal ovens. Pollution kills 7 million people each year says WHO, and over half or 3.8 million people die from use of unhealthy cooking stoves which create indoor air pollution. Of cities above 14 million Delhi ranks first, Cairo, Egypt second, Mumbai, India fourth and Beijing fifth in air pollution levels.  ...

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The Nation as a whole falls behind other nations, and becomes weaker as a result of children being asked to absorb learning on empty stomachs or inadequate nutrition. This is one of the major advances of modern civilization and which differentiated Europe and the US from Asian countries. It is now reversed as Europe and the US are cutting back while India and other Asian countries are backing free School lunches. India has gone one step ahead to destroy centuries of malnutrition for children and families backed a plan that provides free and subsidized grain, vegetables to every household of 1.2 billion people. The starvation and malnutrition are seen in India as a stigma that Europeans and Americans had about India an how they looked down upon India for sanitation and malnutrition. These are twin enemies in India and China for a reason both because of health of children and seen as a ticket to oppression by foreigners who ruled parts of India and China for centuries. One of the most remarkable achievements in school lunches that changed the face of Madras State (Tamilnadu) is the free lunch program for children in teh 1950's and 1960's under Tamil chief minister Kamaraj. ...

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WSJ says Tulsi Gabbard posted pictures of herself on a beach in Hawaii when the US action took place in Venezuela to bring Maduro to justice in the US courts for drug trafficking. DJT has increasingly relied on CIA chief Ratcliffe in intelligence matters  says the WSJ. Gabbard failed to recognize the importance of the effort to remove nuclear weapons in Iran after failure in negotiations.

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Prices of gas for cooking and electricity are up 30% in Brazil in 2021 adding to the pain after the pandemic. Countries in Europe and Canada to Indonesia face much higher prices in 2021. Energy prices have jumped and supply bottlenecks have increased inflation. As more people are vaccinated the return to normal activity is also putting pressure on prices. About 72% of Brazilians have at least one dose of vaccine, higher than in the US. There is less vaccine hesitancy in Latin America and Asia.

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Prof. Lasson of the law school at the University of Maryland, teaches civil liberties. He provides perspective on the situation in Baltimore by giving a brief history of the city, and going over the history of Catholics, Jews and black people in the city as they struggled to assert their rights. Thurgood Marshall did not apply to the University's law school because he feared he would not be accepted. He went on to be appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1967. The 1857 Dred Scott decision before the Civil War was written by Roger Tany, who was from Baltimore. Maryland was a slave state before 1865. The law library at the law school of the University of Maryland now has Marshall's name.

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Binance's Zhao,  Zach Witkoff, Eric and Don Trump Jr.,  Luttnick and World Liberty crypto finance dealings are covered in this WSJ Report Feb 8, 2026 by Angus Berwick and Eliot Brown. It shows how the startup culture in finance can have unintended consequences, with new deals on an untested product crypto finance using star quality of the new DJT administration that benefit dealmakers.UAE and other financial firms invested in these products of companies built around crypto finance to gain access to the White House from the latter half of 2025 to early 2025.  

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During a critical 4 weeks in March 9 to April 9, 2025 Germany finds itself without a newly elected government following elections Feb 23, 2025. Only on April 9 is a new CDU/CSU and SPD coalition government in place led by CDU chancellor Merz. Tariffs came to the forefront, the critical issues of world trade and the effect on stock markets, without an elected government in place in Berlin to speak for the European Union and participate in discussions.  Japan's Ishiba and India's Modi offered the US some support as it sought to restore the world trading system to where it was before the serious distortions from China joining the WTO. Much of it the result of American companies outshoring American manufacturing and turning their backs on American workers, and the dignity and pride of workers who rebuilt the US and Europe, and Asia after the Depression and the Second World War.