London — The Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s upcoming return was plastered across UK’s front pages Thursday, as Britons woke to the surprise news that the couple will move back to the country after six years in the United States.

The Sussex family are set to live in a private residence outside London, and both children – Prince Archie, 7, and Princess Lilibet, 5 – are already enrolled in schools in England.

Prince Harry and Meghan’s surprise homecoming will undoubtedly trigger a frenzy of speculation in Britain where the Windsor clan’s family dramas routinely grip the nation. (CNN)

I’m sure all of our friends in England are thrilled!

New York City will need about 700,000 homes built over the next 10 years to solve its housing shortage.

The report, known as the city’s Fair Housing Growth Strategy, which is being released on Wednesday.

It is part of a process to fulfill a 2023 City Council mandate for an estimate of the overall need for new housing in the five boroughs.

It comes three months after Mayor Zohran Mamdani released his plan to spend $22 billion on housing and add 200,000 affordable units in the city over the next decade. (NYT)

What a huge undertaking!

With open eyes I’m walking to the light
‘Cause I’ve been sleeping way too long,
This blurry vision had me living blind
Show me what’s really going on

The world is in need right now
It’s time to let love be loud
We can make a difference

We can do our talking with our hands and feet
Love is on a mission
Let the difference start with you and me

Finding what’s broke so we can build it up
Healing the ones that have been hurt
Even a little just might be enough
We can make a difference

The world is in need right now
It’s time to let love reach out
And let them know what we’re all about

Educators are worried that many students can no longer write essays without A.I.

And it’s costing more than just grammar skills.

After years of studying how human beings write, the cognitive psychologist Ronald T. Kellogg concluded that drafting a basic persuasive essay was as mentally taxing as digging a ditch was physically exhausting.

Writing well requires a command of vocabulary, spelling and grammar.

It forces writers to comprehend a subject, to sift through their working memory of that topic, to organize and plan.

Writing an essay is so difficult that a person in the throes of it can do hardly anything else — as anyone who has shushed a spouse or child while trying to compose a decent sentence can attest.

Yet the American education system expects nearly all students to learn how to write an essay.

It’s little wonder, then, that as soon as a tool arrived promising to lessen the pain people grabbed it. (NYT)

An Unprecedented Debut at Wrigley Field for Báez, a 23-year-old outfielder who is rated as the Cardinals’ No. 3 prospect, was promoted from Triple-A Memphis on Friday to assist with the team’s postseason push.

Batting fifth and playing left field on Saturday, his performance rewrote the record books.

He Launched a monster 449-foot HR to center field on the very first pitch he saw from Cubs starter Matthew Boyd.

2nd at bat he hit a solo HR 382 feet down the left-field line.

Third at bat he Crushed a 368-foot HR over the right-field wall.

Báez finished the historic day going 3-for-4 with 5 RBIs and 3 runs scored before recording his first major league out, a lineout in the eighth inning. (NYT

Much of Europe is in the middle of a severe drought, and major rivers have been reduced to a fraction of their usual size.

Europe’s second-longest river, the Danube, is now facing record lows, recently measuring just 9 inches deep in Budapest.

Part of Italy’s mighty Po River is also at a record summertime low.

And the Rhine, a major outlet for trade flowing from the Alps to the North Sea, is now shallower than at any time since records began.

This summer, the transport of chemicals, oil products and other goods on the Rhine and the Danube ground almost to a halt in places.

The carmakers Dacia and Ford agreed to temporarily cease production in their Romanian factories to save power. (NYT)

We’re getting too much water in some places and not enough elsewhere!

We live in a world in which A.I. tools have found their way to the center of a staggering number of professional, academic and personal interactions.

Lately these chatbots and agents have been doing more than just talking to us.

Students are writing essays with ChatGPT, and teachers are using A.I. to grade them.

Workers are sending lengthy A.I.-generated emails to colleagues, who are responding with walls of chatbot text of their own. 

A.I podcast hosts are holding forth with A.I. podcast guests on topics like gas prices, the Iran war — and artificial intelligence.

Tech wants to take all this even further: In March, Meta acquired a social network designed for bots to talk to one another. (NYT)

Where is all this headed at breakneck speed?

Anything changing our society this fast is impossible for us to understand the future impact on our lives!

Yes, it is moving to a pass or no credit system when grading freshmen.

The plan will go into effect in the fall of 2027.

It will begin in the college of Literature, Science and the Arts.

Its purpose is to help freshmen “start strong” and curb the mental health crisis unfolding among college students.

This system is similar to one used at M.I.T.

A personal note: The same thing is being done with our military recruits.

Not a good sign!

I don’t pretend to be an expert on employment opportunities for recent graduates.

But, here are some facts: 41% to 52% of recent college graduates who do find jobs are underemployed.

That means that they work in positions that don’t require a college degree.

A larger pool of applicants are chasing fewer jobs

The unemployment rate for vocational and trade school graduates, however, generally hovers between 2% and 4%.

This is depending on the specific trade and local economic demand.

So, it seems due diligence must be done before entering a college or trade school so that jobs are there upon graduation.

Ford is the undisputed global leader in pickup trucks. The F-Series is the best-selling vehicle in the US – of any kind – since 1981.

Its latest pickup, the Ford Fathom, will cost a downright cheap $28,350, which should set it up to be a massive seller.

And it absolutely needs to be!

Ford has spent billions beyond the usual costs developing the Fathom ,a smaller electric pickup truck that goes on sale in 2027.

But there is no current US market segment along the lines of electric pickup smaller than a regular truck but still with room for a family of five (CNN)

A HUGE GAMBLE!