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Goncalo Ramos hat-trick in the 6-1 soccer game against Switzerland shows a Portugal team at its best. 

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DJT raises issue of NATO countries Turkey Hungary and Slovakia others buying Russian oil and gas + EU trade with China while asking for US help. Britain is a NATO country expanding trade with China while being strident about Russia. Germany has over two decades built economic relations with China through a period of Russian attacks on Ukraine including the Scholz administration approving China's stake in the port of Hamburg. India has been singled out by the EU and US, and by DJT with high tariffs while Britain and Germany carry on expanding trade with China. DJT believes China's support has emboldened Russia in its policy in Ukraine including pausing peace negotiations.

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Prince William's quiet faith and his meetings with Dame Sarah Mullally, new Archbishop of Canterbury. The prince will attend the ceremony at Canterbury Cathedral for the new Archbishop on Wednesday March 25, 2026.

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Private investment in U.S. Infrastructure is growing with investment in renewable energy and in digital communications. About $89 billion was raised in 2020 following $226 billion in 2019 for infrastructure deals.

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Van Dam says its not that great being a worker in the U.S. because it is hard for the unemployed resulting from competing with workers in other countries with lower wages, and for those who are unemployed harder because worker collective bargaining is weakened over 3 decades. He cites a 296 page OECD report showing very little government support for unemployed and at risk American workers. It says this has contributed to higher income inequality and larger share of lower income people than almost any other advanced a nation. Only Spain and Greece are shown as having more households earning less than half the median income- showing large numbers of people are poor or close to being poor. In the U.S. an average of 1 in 5 lose their jobs each year, and 23% of workers 15 to 64 are in their job less than a year in 2016. The job churn hurts workers because of firing and layoffs being frequent, more than is healthy for a economy. The U.S. and Mexico are the only two countries not requiring advance notice before firings. And fewer than half of workers find a job within a year in the U.S. Two in three families with a displaced worker fall in poverty for some time. Unemployed workers with typically 26 weeks support get less support than any other country in the study. Only 12% of workers in U.S. are covered by collective bargaining. ...

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President Biden becomes the first US president to be present at the picket line. Biden says through a bullhorn at the UAW strike picket line in Detroit- "Unions built the middle class. It's a fact." He is pushing for auto companies to reach an agreement with the UAW union, and avoid any effects in the economy. He told union workers outside a Belleville Michigan GM plant near Detroit- "You've heard me say this many times. Wall Street did'nt build this country. The unions built this country. And the unions built the middle class. That's a fact. Let's keep  going. You deserve what you earned. And you earned a hell of a lot more than you get paid now." When he handed the bull horn to Shawn Fain the UAW leader, Fain said about billionaires and the executive class- "They think they own the world. But we make it run."

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In the New York Times Interview January 2026 the US president says about international law- it all depends on what you mean by international law. Presumably saying that if it is ok under international law to send drugs in to the US that kill hundreds of thousands of young people a year as is happening with gangs in Mexico and Venezuela, Colombia, and this is not a problem under international law for a decade now, then there is something wrong. The local population in these countries also suffers from such gangs and crime and this destroys the rule of law in these countries. Not much appears in the BBC, The Guardian, the Times of London, and the NYT, raising this issue in the name of international law and the rule of law. This leaves the president of the US to take actions based on his own sense of what is morally right in the case of Venezuela. On Greenland DJT has this to say. There is a long term lease of bases in Greenland but ownership is critical for it's defense and for protecting the eastern seaboard of the US. This is nothing new as Secretary of State Seward sought to get Greenland along with the Alaska Purchase in 1867. US made offers in the 1900's. And in 1946 Democrat Harry Truman offered $100 million in gold for Greenland. Today as in 1946 in the words of the US Commanders in chief "it is completely useless for Denmark." Denmark is a colonial power from Europe and has done little to develop Greenland. Less than 60,000 people live in the harsh climate of Greenland and mostly Inuits tribes. The US can better develop Greenland and invest in it. “Ownership is very important,” Trump said, adding: “Because that’s what I feel is psychologically needed for success. I think that ownership gives you a thing that you can’t do with, you’re talking about a lease or a treaty. Ownership gives you things and elements that you can’t get from just signing a document.” On China and Taiwan DJT says- “This was a real threat … You didn’t have people pouring into China. You didn’t have drugs pouring into China. You didn’t have all of the bad things that we’ve had. You didn’t have the jails of Taiwan opened up and the people pouring into China,”  DJT also said that no criminals were “pouring into Russia”. ...

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Greg Ip says in WSJ that China turned to lender after 2010 and financed loans for development, for roads, highways and infrastructure in Asia and Africa. Between 1970 and 1990 the World Bank was extensively involved in infrastructure projects, by 1990 it retreated from this role and China after 2010 was lending at double the rate of the World Bank for it Belt and Road Initiative programs. At G20 New Delhi, India, Biden and Modi, leaders of Brazil, and South Africa, agreed on advancing the World Bank's loan capacity by $100 billion for next decade under leadership of Ajay Banga. Thjis is happening at the meeting of finance leaders in Marrakech, Morrocco in 2023. The IMF and the World Bank were set up after World War II under the agreements signed at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, as postwar finance system. The IMF was to serve as lender to countries facing short term finance crises, and the World Bank to finance development in poor countries such as India, Indonesia and after 1990 China. The largest borrowers from the World Bank were India, China and Indonesia. India is at $37 billion loans outstanding in 2021, China at about $21 billion after repaying much of its loans. By 2010 Brazil, Mexico, China and India had shifted to international capital markets for development support. Total outstanding debt of World Bank is $460 billion in 2021. ...

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Boris Johnson 5 million pounds of speeches over 2 years 2022-2024 after leaving office, some with risks of moral hazard.

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The US consumer price index went up at the fastest rate since 1990. The Labor Department says consumer price index was up 6.2% in October 2021. This is the fifth month it is up by over 5%.

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Cecilia Wang is herself a birthright citizen from parents on student visas from Taiwan hence her views reflect her position before the the Court on DJT Executive Order.  She says the admission of Wang Kim in an 1898 case to US citizenship is a 128 American tradition when history shows very little sentiment in the American public and in the US Congress favoring legal immigration of any form from Asia (Japan, China and India). In fact a deal made by Teddy Roosevelt with Japan included an understanding with the Japanese government in the 1900's that Japan would restrict immigration from Japan to the US. Throughout the period 1850-1960 for 110 years one finds very little immigration of Asians to the US- mostly European selectively in phases after 1900 by steamboat as can be seen at the Smithsonian museum exhibits in Washington DC. Thus the Court is taking up a narrative that was never true. It was only JFK and LBJ who changed this by the 1960's- if one reads JFK and his grasp of the events in Indonesia, India, of Asia in WWII from his experiences as a soldier in the Asia Pacific region- not as the narrative suggests as an extension of civil rights for Black people, but for a deep respect and understanding of Asian people's aspirations that he opened up immigration to the US in the 1960's for Asians. This is why it is a stretch of the imagination for Cecilia Wang to say- Cecilia Wang -"your ancestors could be on the Mayflower or be undocumented immigrants but you and I are exactly the same as US citizens." Even after 60 years of reading the speeches and writing of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, TR and FDR, JFK, of Carl Sandburg's volumes of Lincoln, the poetry of America of Walt Whitman, committing Robert Frost poems to memory, there is more a sense of humility and even greater earnest  desire to learn about this Nation, and of the scientific endeavors of Europe since 1600 that eluded Asia, than making statements about the first voyages and the people who ventured out on the Mayflower. One has to look with awe at the sculptures in Geneva, Switzerland, of these brave people in the 1600's who for religious and other reasons made their way in difficult voyages over the Atlantic to America, much less say were the same as them. It is more about honoring JFK's words in appreciation of his opening for Asia, on thinking more about what you can do for your country than what your country can do for you. ...

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BBC cites a report from ProPublica site that shows US billionaires pay little or no taxes. BBC has not confirmed this, yet it comes at a time when president Biden's plan is for American recovery with $1.8 trillion in spending on infrastructure, education and healthcare, services for elderly. This Biden plans to finance with taxes for people with the highest incomes. Earlier reports have shown some large corporations pay only a fraction in taxes that they normally would pay under a fair tax code. In some cases such as tech companies the tax code has not been updated, in others companies have used overseas tax locations. Much of the American public is unaware of how this affects the overall shape of society and the condition of America's infrastructure, the state of its educational system and its healthcare system, and of public services, the conditions for the elderly and children. The affluent have simply looked the other way.

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Inflation is receding as an issue in the 2024 elections as the CPI index dropped below 3% in July as reported by the Labor Department. It was 2.9% lowest since 2021. Greg Ip says when Trump is saying bacon costs 5 times more now he needs to find another supermarket. That is the joke as Trump is really getting ripped off. Ip says bacon prices are up 18% since 2020 when Biden took office. Trump says at rallies grocery prices are up 70%, Ip says fact correction -up 21% since January 2021 not 70%. Trump says gas prices are $5.00 a gallon. Fact correction- gas prices are $3.75 a gallon and falling, says Ip. Trump wildly exaggerates. Trump says he will cut energy and electricity prices by 50% in 12-18 months. His answer "Drill Baby Drill." Experts cited by Greg Ip say even if new offshore and onshore leases are given, increase in supply is marginal and years away. Gas prices are determined by the world price determined by OPEC and Russia, says Ip.  Trump will increase inflation says this report because of tariffs he plans of 60% on imports from China and 10% from other places. That would increase inflation by 1.4 to 1.7% say analysts. Greg Ip of WSJ offers more clues. Inflation linked bonds see inflation dropping to 2.2% in 2025 instead of 2.6% predicted earlier. Jerome Powell at the US central bank the Fed and president Biden hav done their job well and are not letting up, continue to work on it diligently every day. ...

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Deforestation makes way for soyabeans planting in Brazil 2026, increasing the acreage devoted to soyabeans agriculture. This is happening with changes in politics in Brazil even under government of Lula Da Silva of the Worker's Party, with Greens in the administration asked to make room for economic development.

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Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor from Arizona was a pioneer of women's rights in the workplace, and had her own struggles before being the first woman appointed to the US Supreme Court. Born on a vast 200,000 acre cattle ranch in El Paso she was much of a cowgirl. She is considered to have blazed a trail for other women through her life and work. She was appointed by Reagan in 1981 and served till 2006. In 1952 when she graduated from law school at Stanford women had a hard time working in the legal profession.

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“I would advise none of the countries to panic. I wouldn’t try to retaliate because as long as you don’t retaliate, this is the high end of the number.” This is the ceiling number Bessent told countries around the world about the Rose Garden Tariffs chart of April 2, 2025. Just don't retaliate and negotiations would work things out. Bessent said some countries say they would work with China. I have this to say to Spain about China, he said, it is like someone with brooms and a bucket of water, it keeps on going, production never stops, that is the Chinese model. What Bessent is saying is that the Chinese model is to keep doing what they have always done non stop with no intention to change- build capacity, overcapacity, and ship production overseas to saturate markets with production and destroy industrial base of other countries- from computers to solar panels to electric cars. China is also looking at it's very recent history just the last 15 years as proof of its superiority in cost and quality and efficiency in production as evidence that US and EU is in decline. Forgetting that this was possible with US assistance and desire to lift the Chinese people out of centuries of poverty. For the 19th and 20th century Britain, the US and Europe were leaders in cost, quality and efficiency. US , India and the EU are coming back using their ingenuity, creativity and talented workers and engineers. ...

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Pictures of big moments in Euro 21 soccer round of 16 matches from FR24 including Cristiano Ronaldo and Karim Benzema together after the France game with Portugal.

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This editorial in the WSJ describes the sharp increase in premiums under the Affordable Care Act of president Obama. The average premium increase is about 24.2% according to a Barclay's analysis, and as high as 43.9% in states such as Illinois. Bill Clinton calls it the craziest thing with small business affected, and some premiums doubling. Of the 17 million people in the individual market eight million buy without subsidies. One in five enrollees cannot qualify for subsidies. Democrats say subsidies are too small. Hillary Clinton has proposed to have a Medicare "buy-in" for people ages 55-65, and a "public option" government run plan. Republicans want to rewrite the law. But this depends on which party wins the Senate, with the election in Missouri giving Democrats an opportunity to maintain a Senate majority.

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Israel's prime minister Netayahu and U.S. president Obama move further apart with serious disagreement on when to impose further sanctions on Iran for nuclear weapons development. Netanyahu accepts an invitation from Speaker Boehner to address the U.S. Congress in 2015. Republicans face a serious divide with the U.S. president with serious disagreements in domestic policy, including immigration, taxes, and ways of addressing increasing inequality.