President Donald Trump had a big day today, meeting Israel President Benjamin Netanyahu and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, separately.   The White House called President Donald Trump’s Tuesday meetings with leaders from Israel and Ukraine "positive and productive.”     Trump then paid tribute to Senator Graham at his National Cathedral funeral service .  Netanyahu and Zelenskyy also attended. About the Iran War, mediators are trying to work out a peace discussion plan.  However, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei keeps saying his country has not asked to resume talks and has no immediate plans for a next round of negotiation. The good news, however, is that both sides have stopped attacking each other.  Yet, the Strait of Hormuz continues to be severely restricted and oil flow through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait is around 50%. I have been posting on my life, three phases, each 27 years long, and am now into Part 3, retireme...

Well, Honolulu remains beautiful.  A couple of photos from where I sit composing this posting. There have been good trips and bad.  Since I retired a quarter century ago, the 50 or so I've taken have all been good to great.  However, I've been thinking about all my travels, and a few did not go right. Some particularly worried me.  For the next few Tuesday nostalgia days, I'll focus on the worst ones.  There was danger in Papua New Guinea, concern that I might not be able to leave China, an incident at Machu Picchu, Peru, the weirdness of Cairo, Egypt and scare in Delhi, India.  These experiences were sufficient so that I can't imagine my ever returning to those countries. The first I'll report on occurred in 2010.  This was a global journey, and here is how it started. Today, I begin my journey. I will visit Seoul, Hanoi and other parts of Vietnam, Cambodia, Chiang Mai and Bangkok in Thailand, New Delhi, Barcelona, Munich, Helsinki, Copenhagen, A...

There are  very few places in the world where you can breathe air clean enough to meet WHO standards . The focus is on a type of air pollution called PM2.5, which is smaller than 2.5 micrometers in diameter, and mostly comes from auto emission and burning of biomass and fossil fuels.  This fine particulate matter is associated with a wide range of heart and lung disorders, plus cancers. In the  study,  scientists examined pollution data from monitoring stations in 6,475 cities in 117 countries and territories.   Only 3.4% got an acceptable grade. 93 cities had PM2.5 concentrations  10 times higher  than WHO standards. Central and South Asia had 46 of the world's most polluted cities. In Africa only one of 65 cities examined met WHO air quality standards. Asia?  Only 4 of 1887 cities. Europe should be okay, right?  Nope.  Only 55 of 1588 cities achieve this. What about the USA? This report  said:  not a pretty picture. 2408...