EDITORIAL
BY DHIREN SHAH
Hello Readers,
Happy New Year to all of you. I wish 2025 is a peaceful, not political but people friendly and healthy and happy new year.
One of the noble presidents of our time, Jimmy Carter, has passed. He lived 100 years (October 1, 1924 – December 29, 2024). Upon celebrating his 100th birthday, he became the first former POTUS to reach that age. He was a farmer who became the governor of Georgia and then became President of the United States. He was the 39th President and served from 1977-1981). The “Local Talk” team and I will pray for the soul of President Jimmy Carter and offer condolences to his family, friends and followers.
President-elect Donald Trump filed an appeal against the jury verdict for the case E. Jean Carroll asking for a new trial. A federal appeals court denied Trump’s appeal to reverse the $5 million civil verdict.
Also, Trump appealed the verdict for a separate case where a jury awarded Carroll $83.3 million after finding Trump defamed her by denying her account. Carroll alleged Donald Trump sexually assaulted her in a department store and then defamed her by denying the claim. Trump has denied all wrongdoing. Both cases were civil lawsuits, as Trump is not facing any jail time.
A crash killed 179 people in a South Korean Jeju Airplane from Bangkok to Muan International Airport in South Korea. The flight control tower gave permission to land and three minutes later notified, “Mayday, mayday, mayday, bird strike, bird strike, going around.” This is the worst plane accident in South Korea. Out of 181 people on board only 2 survived. Even though it seems horrifying, air travel is the safest traveling amongst all. The South Korea government worked to inspect all of the airlines.
According to USA Facts: “There was a total of 689 serious injuries in US air travel from 2002 to 2022, an average of 33 per year. In that same time, 48 million people were hurt in passenger vehicles on US highways – that’s approximately 2.3 million per year. In 2022, passengers in cars and trucks were injured at a rate of 42 per 100 million miles traveled. For air travel, it was 0.007 per 100 million miles. The most dangerous form of travel was via motorcycle – motorcyclists got injured at a rate of 339.3 per 100 million miles. That’s more than six times the rate of any other form of transportation.”
The world population increased by more than 71 million people in 2024. Now, it will be 8.09 billion people on New Year’s Day.
Have a wonderful week. I’ll talk to you next week.
