The Federal deficit

The federal deficit for fiscal 2019 reached close to $1 trillion ($984 billion) for the first time since 2012, according to final Treasury Department figures released Friday.  This is more than $200 billion, or 20 percent, higher than last year. The deficit has only surpassed $1 trillion four times in the nation’s history, recently  during the four-year …

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How can you spend £217 million on lobbying?

The five biggest oil and gas companies – BP, Shell, Chevron, ExxonMobil and Total – and their industry groups have spent at least €251m (£217m) lobbying the EU over climate policies since 2010. Researchers say the figure represents the tip of the iceberg, as in some years companies made no declarations of spending in the …

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Measles has made a shocking return to the US. Can it be stopped?

Two doses of the measles vaccine are required for it to be fully effective An estimated 169 million children worldwide have missed out on getting the first dose of a measles vaccine, according to an analysis by the children’s charity Unicef. This includes nearly 2.6 million children in the US, 608,000 children in France, and …

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Nannies

To The Times “The naming of grandmothers as “nanny” has little to do with goats, but is a hypocoristic form found throughout the Indo-European language family, in use thousands of years ago before the language groups split. It was found, for example, in the Indian word ‘nani’ (grandmother) and the ancient Greek word ‘nanna’ (aunt). …

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