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Andy Burnham of Labour says "I am Ready." He also told Labour and the British Nation: "I have a Plan." Even before he assumes office The Burnham Programme is on the web. Burnham has implemented it in the North in the Manchester Region. He is now bringing it to the whole of Britain. What Thatcher did in Britain had reverberations in the US with Reagan. What Boris Johnson did in Britain had reverberations in the US with DJT. What Andy Burnham does in Britain will have reverberations in the US. At Lyrarc.com we had sections on Renewal America, Renewal Europe and Renewal India from its founding period. The US (and Britain) is on the cusp of a national renewal, so is India among the English speaking nations of the world. Modi's work in Gujarat state for industrialization and modernization is similar to the work for reindustrialization and modernization undertaken by Burnham in Manchester region. Like Modi Burnham can now take it to the whole country. For the countries UK and Britain that led the Industrial Revolution, and for India that adopted all the parliamentary and democratic processes of Britain and the UK, there is new hope amid the rubble of factionalism, corruption, and deindustrialization. ...

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BBC's look at Andy Burnham, whom it calls "King of the North" having won 60% of the vote as Mayor of Greater Manchester for three successive terms. A brief look at Andy Burnham's life. His father was a BT enginee and his mother a GP receptionist both strong Labour party supporters. He studied for a Masters degree in English at Cambridge. BBC says he was inspired to join Labour at age 14 years after seeing a documentary "Boys from the Blackstuff,"' about life in the city of Liverpool for the disadvantaged. He is a soccer player and Everton soccer team fan, who played for Lancashire schoolboys cricket team. He starts out as ajournalist working for trade magazines, then as researcher for the MP for Duwich, later joining the Blair movement that returned Labour to power. Under Blair he was junior minister, then MP for Leigh in the Manchester area. He moved to Cabinet Minister under Gordon Brown as chief secretary to the Treasury and Health Secretary. With Conservatives in power he was Shadow Home Secretary under Jeremy Corbyn in the Opposition. He ran against Jeremy Corbyn and Ed Milliband for the leadership of the Labour Party before being elected as Mayor of Greater Manchester three times with 60% of the vote. As Mayor he put the bus and transport system back under government control and built the Bee Network, which is one of his success stories in Manchester. He is seen as the only Labour leader who enjoys confidence of the British public from the way he ran the large local government of Manchester. With UK Reform winning local elections he is seen as the leader who can bring confidence back to Labour, and to Britain as it navigates the post Brexit environment and strives for renewal of Britain, its economy and role in Europe. ...

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A report on a program in the U.S. called Thread that has taken 415 underperforming students in Baltimore, Maryland schools and created an extended family that supports them using 1000 volunteers. 

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After working on improving schools in large cities like Chicago, Philadelphia and New Orleans, Paul Vallas is working on improving the school system in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Bridgeport is typical of parts of America's industrial areas, which now face shortage of funds and failing schools. Dropout rates in the school system are between 23-45%. And only 10% of tenth graders can read and do math to meet the state standards.

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India signed a $78 billion LNG deal with Qatar that will help reach climate goals by changing the role of natural gas from 6.3% today to 15% by 2030. It will produce significant savings of $6 billion. 

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Xi's "Great Rejuvenationof the Chinese Nation" compared favorably to DJT's "Make America Great Again" by Xi Jinping during DJT visit to Zhonghanhai Compound of China's leaders in Beijing. Xi Jinping says during DJT visit to Beijing May 14 2026- “Through strengthened cooperation, both China and the United States can promote their respective development and revitalization." This is important to grasp if one wants to understand China. Much of the media focuses on this or that smaller aspect of the DJT visit to China, including the NYT when it shows DJT invited to a walk on the garden grounds of the Zhonghanhai Compound. It does not accept that president Xi Jinping finds little that is relevant to China today and its aspirations in places like Iran and the Middle East. That Xi admires the US efforts for reindustrialization and renewal in the same way he sees the rejuvenation and renewal of the great Chinese Nation and sees this as shared goals for betterment of their people's lives.  ...

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David Brooks makes the case for reconciliation and renewal based on making room for the African American narrative. He cites thoughts of a moral order shared by Abraham Lincoln as he struggled with the same issues.

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The head of the Germany Program at Institut Montaigne in Paris, France, Robinet Borgomano looks at the renewal of German society under the ideas of "respect" put forward by Olaf Scholz of the SPD party. What does Olaf Scholz see as the main issue of our time? - Borgomano says it is the disintegration of European and American societies under the combined effects of technological progress and globalization. Where does Scholz get his ideas of "respect" for workers and families? Isn't Mr. Biden sharing the same ideas in the US? The SPD party got its start at the Bad Godesberg Convention in 1959 when it embraced the idea of a social market economy as a party of the people. Wily Brandt as chancellor from 1969 to 1974, whose personal struggle against the Germany of World War II was based in the Nordic countries, embodies best this renewal aspect of the SPD. Scholz sees his role as renewal of Germany, Europe, hand in hand with Mr. Biden's renewal efforts in the US on the same basic ideas of respect of the dignity of the worker and families that in Germany were seen with Wily Brandt and in the US with Harry Truman who followed FDR. Scholz rejects the overemphasis on the of merit in German society, European society, or American society, in the way it has taken shape in the last fifty years. Scholz cites Michael Sandel's Essay "The Tyranny of Merit" rejcting it because it makes a case for inequality based on merit, on capital allocation on an implied idea of merit of free markets managed in damaging ways for personal interest. It is wrong because it robs the worker and families of the basic dignity that is the right of every individual and of every person. It is wrong because it makes a false justification for growing inequality, and makes those who do not succeed feel that it is their fault. Meritocratic elites have made the idea that those who work hard and play by the rules get all the benefits and wealth even if the rules were first set in a way that benefits them alone. When these rules become implicit they are rarely questioned as happened in the period after 2000. It is not just in Europe and America that this happens, and not just in the 20th century.  Strange but true- During the 1850's in the heyday of industrialization in Britain the Ethnological Society of Britain justified the inequality between the British and Indians in the British Empire by saying Indians were inferior in exams and did not have the motivation or the aptitude and energy to excel in the way British students did. Dadabhai Naoroji, the first Indian member of the British parliament in Mr. Gladstone's Liberals singlehandedly took up the job Sandel and Scholz and Mr. Biden are taking on today to restore the respect of workers, farmers, and families in America and Europe and in all parts of the world. Sandel goes on to say what Scholz has heard clearly- "the parties that made the offer of upward mobility to workers and families have missed the insult implicit in it to a large number of working people." In a way it is going back to the roots, to the founding fathers in America who said in the 18th century that "all men are created equal and they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, and among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," -nothing less.   ...

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In a nutshell why the economy is lopsided benefitting some, ignoring many. Labour's (salaries of all working people including professional classes) share of gross domestic income is 50% in 2026 the lowest since 1947, and profits highest since 1950 at 12%. Then you have hourly wages up 3% since 2019, while profits are up 50%. Greg Ip of the WSJ says the causes are complex and implications sobering. He says you can be a red blooded capitalist and still worry- is something wrong or unsustainable? Political stability, good governance structures, good institutional structures that were set up since Lincoln (the beginnings for the Industrial Revolution), by TR and FDR/Frances Perkins (the basic institutional and good governance structures of modern America and now the industrialized world that allied labor and capital with fairness to all), the entire setup needs to be rebuilt and renewed. The problems are also appearing in Europe and causing dismay, with calls for rebuilding and renewal. ...

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Michael Gould, CEO of Bloomingdale, talks about the need for intellectual curiosity, and personal renewal as leadership qualities for managers.

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Malanga documents the failure of federal and state spending to achieve urban renewal for a city in industrial decline for decades- Buffalo, New York. Buffalo has a poverty rate estimated at 29%.

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The U.S. and Russia are in agreement on renewal of a nuclear arms treaty and freezing of nuclear warheads on both sides. 

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Astrid Prange says the movement started by Luther against paying for penalties for sins being paid for by indulgences, and seeing faith as a gift from God, helped the renewal of the church and Christianity. It came at the time of the printing press, touching a chord with people in Germany. Luther was not a revolutionary, as he was conservative and principled, his goal being to go back to the Christian church's origins. Prange says that in this he is typically German. On October 31, 2016, Pope Francis joins Protestants in Lund, Sweden, for the Lutheran World Federation's celebration of 500 years since the Reformation. Luther would have welcomed this, considering what Pope Francis brings to the Catholic world with tolerance, spiritual renewal and reviving the original teachings of the Christian church.

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Another and very different side of healing, of healing Nature and our surroundings. "Making horrible things better," the goal for renewal of a New York Canal, the Gowanus Canal that runs through New York's neighborhoods. EPA is part of the cleanup started by brave volunteers. It is a cleaner waterway ready for canoeing and breathing deeply, says this video done by the BBC.

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With the gradual decline in the second wave of the coronavirus in India, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman highlighted some of the progress and the plan ahead -to achieve macroeconomic stability in the face of coronavirus spending and needs, the progress in GST for formalizing the economy and getting tax compliance, the infrastructure investment and forward looking timely completion of projects, increasing foreign direct investment flows into the economy, and making India an important part of the renewal of supply chains of America and Europe. The highest ever GST, Goods and Services Tax collection, helps build the framework for revenue to support investment in new infrastructure. Ease of doing business in India was a key goal to increase new inflows of foreign investment. Coordination of domestic and foreign trade and investment policy was part of the effort to build the environment for partnering with US and European Union countries, and UK, so that implementation in supply chain renewal could take place. ...

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Harris will visit United Autoworkers Union Local 652 in Lansing to remind autoworkers of the support of president Joe Biden for the labor movement in the US. And for the efforts for restoring jobs and wages after decades of neglect by both previous Democratic and Republican administrations. Biden was the first US president to stand on a picket line inthe history of the US. Harris-Walz now look to unions and labor support, support of workers and families in the industrial midwestern states. For the first time old rust belt factories are being revived with new infrastructure renewal and new technologies products in a new concept that is tried for the first time at a scale of investments of billions of dollars that was never done before. This is the breakthrough that Biden and now Harris  are putting through as The Way Forward for a new generation and the Renewal of America.

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The steady calming effect of trees and gardens during the pandemic. Trees have a lot to teach us, their resiliency in winter and blooming again in spring, writes Elizabeth Bernstein in WSJ. They offer a pathway to healing and renewal during the pandemic. Quieting mental chatter, friendship with trees and plants- it is real. 

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Parliamentary group of the ruling LDP party elected Fumio Kishida, member of parliament from Hiroshima, as the new LDP leader and prime minister. He has called the abolition of nuclear weapons his life's work. His grandfather and father were both members of parliament. Kishida was elected in 1993 to the Japanese parliament, and was foreign minister under Shinzo Abe. He supports the Hiroshima baseball team and is said to be good when it comes to washing up and cleaning the bathroom. As a child he grew up in New York and pictures of that time show him at a school in Queens, New York as a child. This has given him a sense of social injustice. He shares this in his plans for Japan with Biden in the US and Scholz in Germany, a sense that there should be a reduction in the income gap, and support for low paid temporary workers, families with young children. He also shares with Biden and Scholz plans to invest hundreds of billions of dollars for renewal of the country- for renewal of US, Germany and Japan in the manner of the postwar renewal in the nineteen fifties. ...

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It is Tuesday afternoon in Volant, Pennsylvania, population 126 residents and a Minnesotan Walz is talking to farmers in rural parts of the state, farmers trudging their way to see him. In this part of midwestern America there is anxiety about the cost of living, about immigration, and about a way forward. It is here in Beaver County that Biden campaigned in 2008 and in 2020, and Walz is back in 2024 in the closing days to get his message across that America can be tough on immigration, and also invest in renewal by investing in the future, and controlling the cost of living, fighting monopolies and corporations that don't pay their fair share of taxes that can fund America's  rural infrastructure that has been neglected for three decades by both parties till the Biden legislation funding rural infrastructure renewal. This means getting the message out and fighting every step of the way in rural America that needs and deserves respect, says Katie Glueck.

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This report by James McCauley of the Washington Post, points to the uncertainties in the French presidential election. About one third of French voters are undecided. Le Pen and a surprise candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon are pulling in voters on the far right and the far left. There are questions whether Macron's effort to pull together centre right and centre left voters will work in such an environment. McCauley says the gist of Macron's approach is summarized in a line in his 2016 book- removing "the obstacles on the road," making equality of opportunity a reality in a land of elite government and business running the country, and key being " renewal of ideas and men."  It is not exactly a way forward, more about renewal in French society. His opponents are pitching exiting the European Union and different visions of a protectionist welfare state. Macron is pitching continuity with renewal and changes to bring more opportunity to young people by investing in vocational education, recreate French schools, and expand health services, lower residency taxes. A lot depends on centrist voters coming out to vote as happened in the recent Dutch election, and undecided voters looking for renewal instead of the uncertainty of drastic changes. ...