The past ten days or so have mostly focused on our Pride of America cruise throughout the Hawaiian Islands.  So let me continue with one more travel item:   Kilauea Volcano began erupting last night , which was already September 11 for much of the USA, so come to the Big Island of Hawaii.  You can land in Hilo or Kona and drive to this natural attraction, although it's closer from Hilo.  But you ask, how long will this lava activity continue?  Well,it was sort of doing something only 22 days ago.  But it's hard to believe that there has been some continuing activity for the past 40 years or so. I had recently returned from working in the U.S. Senate for three years.  As we normally did in those days, we spent the New Year period with her family in Hilo.  So on January 3, 1983, I was golfing at the Volcano Golf Course.  The ground shook and there was a strange rumbling sound.  Soon thereafter, only a few thousand yards away, we saw a volcanic fountain.  This was the beginning of

COVID-19 summary : With 4% the World population, the USA had 33% of COVID-19 new cases yesterday. While Europe is suffering, ominously, Mexico is now #2 to the U.S. in new deaths. But California had four times more new cases than Mexico yesterday. Apparently, the British virus has mutated and can infect people 1.7 times more efficiently. New cases are increasing in Canada, Indonesia and Japan. China had 23 new cases and no new deaths. Taiwan had 3 new cases and no new deaths. From David Leonhardt of The New York Times : I’ve shown you   a version of this chart before . The basic idea is that if you track the number of new virus cases, you can fairly accurately predict the number of Covid-related deaths about three weeks later. Every 100 new cases in the U.S. has led to an average of roughly 1.6 deaths, with a 22-day lag. (Trevor Bedford, a scientist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle,   explains why  in this Twitter thread.) From colleagues in Florida: Why is this