Anglo-Dutch consumer goods giant Unilever has high hopes for India.Hindustan Unilever (HUL), which owns brands like Surf Excel and Lux in the country, expects to double its business here over the next decade, chief executive officer (CEO) Paul Polman told The Economic Times newspaper on Sept. 11.“I am not giving guidance, but the assumption that we double (in India) in the next 10 years or seven-eight years is a no-brainer. Because US is not going to double,” Polman told the newspaper. “India as an economy is going to do better than other parts of the world. If we fail, then we would be the first one to be very disappointed.”Polman was on a three-day visit to the country, which now contributes 9% to the company’s global revenue. For the year ending March 31, 2017, HUL clocked Rs34,487 crore in turnover, making it the country’s largest consumer goods company.Global companies have now pinned their hopes on its huge youth population, growing economy, and expanding middle class to spur consumption. “I would love to have an economy of your size, growing at 5-6%,” Polman added. Of course, a lot hinges on the government, he said hinting that reforms would reap returns in the long run.“What the Indian prime minister is trying to do has two things—it has big ideas, Smart India, Made in India, Swachh Bharat. These are big statements,” Polman said. “We are supportive of many of these initiatives because if it’s beneficial to India, it will be beneficial to HUL as well.”While over the past few months, the goods and services tax and demonetisation (pdf) have temporarily derailed growth, he remains optimistic.“In terms of innovation, in the last 12 months, we probably had about 30-35 major innovations in all our categories,” he said. The company has launched its range of ayurveda products under Ayush Lever in response to the country’s growing appetite for herbal products. Polman indicated that this type of investment (in new products), “…is a sign of confidence of how we think this economy is going to be.”

More than eight hours of emotional testimony were heard from US supreme court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and his accuser Christine Blasey Ford. Both Kavanaugh and Ford fought back tears at times but it was Kavanaugh’s anger that dominated his response. A committee vote to send Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination to the full Senate will be on Friday

ImageEminem’s “Walk on Water,” from his upcoming “Revival” album, has both deft turns of phrase and deeply awkward moments.CreditEvan Agostini/Invision, via Associated PressEvery Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new songs and videos — and anything else that strikes them as intriguing. This week, Elvis Costello croons on a new soundtrack song, Superchunk issues a blast of disillusionment and Betty Davis delivers a dose of “F.U.N.K.”Just want the music? Listen to this Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes). Like what you hear? Let us know at [email protected] and sign up for our Louder newsletter, a once-a-week blast of our pop music coverage, here.Eminem featuring Beyoncé, ‘Walk on Water’On the new Eminem single, there is no sense of mischief or joy, no sense of danger or devastation. Instead Eminem, once a master of playful extremes, is in excavation mode, assessing his diminished place in pop culture, and wondering if all the effort it requires to be him — and to spin the gold he has spun — is worth undertaking once more. “Walk on Water” — the first single from his forthcoming album, “Revival” — is grim and ponderous and, to its credit, seems to understand that it might be perceived as grim and ponderous. “Butterflies rip apart my stomach,” he raps, “knowing that no matter what bars I come with/you’re gonna harp, gripe/and that’s a hard Vicodin to swallow.”Eminem has been self-lacerating before, but perhaps never this soberly. And there are feelings here that are alarmingly, and arrestingly, stark: “Always in search of the verse that I haven’t spit yet/Will this step just be another misstep/To tarnish whatever the legacy, love or respect I’ve garnered?” Rapping about rapping is among his strongest skills, but for every deft turn of phrase here, there are deeply awkward moments, too (“It’s true, I’m a Rubik’s/A beautiful mess”).A song like this, misguided though it may be — Beyoncé sings the chorus, reduced to an unimaginative avatar of dignity and goodness, and Rick Rubin produces what’s little more than a glum piano — can only come from a place of savvy. Eminem is alive to the way he is seen, and astute enough to know he has few moves available to him, especially in a cultural moment likely to abjure his scathing, violent early work. “Now I’m getting clowned and frowned on,” he laments.Still, considering that for almost two decades Eminem has been, for white rappers, both the high-water mark and also the most visible and theatrical personality, it is astonishing to hear him rapping — in mood, tone and, sometimes, pattern — like Macklemore. JON CARAMANICASturgill Simpson on Facebook Live Outside the Country Music Association Awards You could call it a protest, but that would imply that Sturgill Simpson actually cared deeply about what was happening inside the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville on Wednesday night at the annual Country Music Association Awards. It seems very likely he did not. Mr. Simpson won this year’s Grammy for best country album, but has little in common with the genre’s mainstream, which is what the C.M.A.s celebrate. He wasn’t bitter, though. Instead, he set up on the street outside, opened up his guitar case (with his Grammy inside) to take donations for the A.C.L.U. and took questions from fans on Facebook Live. He played a couple of songs, spoke of his love for bluegrass and Kanye West, and when asked to deliver a hypothetical C.M.A. acceptance speech, said this: “Nobody needs a machine gun, coming from a guy who owns quite a few guns.” He continued: “Gay people should have the right to be happy and live their life any way they want to and get married if they want to without fear of getting drug down the road behind a pickup truck. Black people are probably tired of getting shot in the streets and being enslaved by the industrial prison complex. And hegemony and fascism is alive and well in Nashville, Tenn. Thank you very much.” That, for sure, was a protest. J.C.Elvis Costello, ‘You Shouldn’t Look at Me That Way’Elvis Costello is in crooner mode for “You Shouldn’t Look at Me That Way” from the soundtrack of “Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool,” about the later years of a faded movie actress. It’s a piano waltz backed by an orchestra, a throwback style neatly suited to thoughts about the ravages of time and mortality: “From the first flush of affection/to avoiding your own reflection.” JON PARELESEvanescence, ‘My Heart Is Broken’Should you be nostalgic for the self-confident rock ’n’ roll urgency of the mid-2000s, take comfort in the fact that no amount of social, cultural or political change has convinced Evanescence to veer from its lite-opera-rock theater. “My Heart Is Broken” is one of the better songs on “Synthesis,” the group’s fourth album and first since 2011, which sounds like an only mildly restrained version of its earliest work. Amy Lee’s voice remains vibrant, soaring and sweet. She makes disappointment sound like romance. J.C.Superchunk, ‘What a Time to Be Alive’“To see the rot in no disguise/Oh what a time to be alive,” Mac McCaughan of Superchunk sings in the title song from an album due in February. The distorted blare and galloping beat are true to the band’s indie-rock beginnings, back in 1989; the furious disillusionment is from right now. J.P.Ron Miles, ‘Is There Room in Your Heart for a Man Like Me’On his remarkable new album, “I Am a Man,” the trumpeter Ron Miles nestles his light and buoyant sound inside compositions that bespeak an aching memory and a righteous ambition. He has convened an all-star quintet, with Jason Moran on piano, Bill Frisell on guitar, Thomas Morgan on bass and Brian Blade on drums. They play seven Miles originals meditating on the revolutionary potential of spirituality, and the need to reject political oppression. On the album’s epic finale, “Is There Room in Your Heart for a Man Like Me,” tension builds around two repeated notes, just a half-step apart, before opening onto a slowly ascending landscape of twirling, laconic melodies and subtly dazzling interplay. GIOVANNI RUSSONELLOLittle Simz featuring Tilla, ‘Poison Ivy’Simbiatu Ajikawo, the British songwriter who calls herself Little Simz, raps, sings and plays guitar in “Poison Ivy,” a tale of a “toxic” romance that she can’t pull away from. Its minor-key groove transforms itself into R&B, psychedelia and North African desert blues, circling through four chords that offer no way out. J.P.Fuse ODG featuring Ed Sheeran and Mugeez, ‘Boa Me’On “÷,” the most recent album from Ed Sheeran, he teamed up with the Ghanaian-British rapper-singer Fuse ODG for a light, charming duet, “Bibia Be Ye Ye.” Now, he has returned the favor, singing in Twi on Fuse ODG’s new single, “Boa Me,” a song that effectively blends the two artists’ brands of exultant optimism. J.C.Betty Davis, ‘F.U.N.K.’“F.U.N.K.” is part of “Nasty Gal,” the 1975 album by Betty Davis, who was briefly married to Miles Davis in the late 1960s; the full album is to be reissued early next year. Raw and often raunchy funk was her calling; Ms. Davis rasps, teases, moans and screams through songs like “F.U.N.K.” Its lyrics list a funk pantheon, while its groove, elaborated through the crosstalk of guitar and clavinet, and Ms. Davis’s vehement, hopped-up vocals, tell a wilder story. J.P. Oh Pep!, ‘Half Life’“Half Life” is a freeze frame at the moment of a breakup: “We pull apart so patiently,” sing the two women in the Australian folk-pop duo Oh Pep! They’re backed by a plush orchestra and a brisk drumbeat, sharing a melody that’s both angular and affectionate, already looking toward the aftermath: “You will become an echo of a sound once heard/scattered through my universe.” J.P.Errorsmith, ‘Internet of Screws’Errorsmith, which just released the album “Superlative Fatigue,” is the very occasional project of the electronic musician and software designer Erik Weigand; its previous album came out in 2004. The music uses a bare handful of sounds in ways that are transparent, propulsive and, in tracks like “Internet of Screws,” downright comedic. With its minimal vocabulary of syncopated drum taps, nearly nonstop mechanical blipping and silly, sliding tones, the track is like five minutes of sped-up slapstick. J.P.Rez Abbasi, ‘Propensity’“Unfiltered Universe” is the third album in a trilogy from Rez Abbasi, a guitarist of Pakistani descent, who has used each record to look at a different South Asian musical tradition. This one is focused on the Carnatic lineage of South India, and like the others it features Mr. Abbasi’s powerful band, Invocation: the saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa, the pianist Vijay Iyer, the cellist Elizabeth Mikhael, the bassist Johannes Weidenmueller and the drummer Dan Weiss. On “Propensity,” each instrument seems to be advocating for a distinct interpretation of the song’s rhythm; sparks flash between them. Mr. Abbasi flies into the fray after a darting solo from Mr. Mahanthappa, using his creamy distortion and patient phrasing as a ballast in the swarm. G.R.Keith Urban, ‘Female’Don’t do this. J.C.

Brazil's Education Minister Ricardo Vélez says school textbooks will be revised so that children are taught "a wider version of history".Mr Vélez denies that the 1964 military ousting of democratically elected President João Goulart was a coup.He also refers to the 21 years of military rule which followed as "a democratic regime by force".His comments come days after far-right President Jair Bolsonaro announced the coup's anniversary would be celebrated.Mr Vélez told news magazine Valor Económico that school textbooks should "rescue the vision" of the events in 1964 so children could develop a "true and real idea" of what happened. "Brazilian history shows that what happened on 31 March 1964 was a sovereign decision by Brazilian society," he told Valor Económico [in Portuguese].While President Goulart was deposed without blood being shed on the night of 31 March 1964, the 21 years of military rule which followed were marked by brutal repression and heavy censorship. Remembering Brazil's decades of military repression Bolsonaro's coup celebration barred by judge Brazil truth commission begins rights abuse inquiries More than 400 people disappeared or were killed, and thousands more were detained and tortured before democracy was restored in 1985, according to the findings of a 2014 national truth commission.Mr Vélez described military rule as "a democratic regime by force which was necessary at the time" and said the toppling of President Goulart was "an institutional shift, not a coup against the constitution at the time".He said there would be a "progressive shift" in school textbooks to reflect "a wider version of history". The president of the Brazilian Association of Textbooks, Cândido Grangeiro, was critical of Mr Vélez's plan, saying that any changes to didactic material were as a rule based on wide academic research and not on opinions. He said his organisation was "opposed to any type of revisionism based on opinions".It is not the first time the government of President Bolsonaro has been accused of revisionism.The president himself caused outrage earlier this week when he echoed comments made by his Foreign Minister Ernesto Araújo, who described Nazism as a leftist movement. Asked by reporters following a visit to the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial and museum in Israel whether he agreed with Mr Araújo comments, Mr Bolsonaro answered "There is no doubt, right?"He said that the name of the Nazi party was National Socialist Party of Germany, implying that it had a socialist ideology.His statement contradicted the information inside the museum he had just visited, which says that Nazism arose from radical right-wing groups in Germany angered by the rise of communism.

The content, tone and style of Donald Trump’s speech about Iran on Friday was a reminder of how much the current president of the United States relishes conflict.With his domestic legislative agenda stalled and a federal investigation scrutinising his finances and his relations with Moscow, Trump has taken to finding enemies to rail against, including the press and black football players who kneel during the national anthem. The tactic galvanises his core supporters and seems to rejuvenate him. He appeared similarly energised excoriating Iran on Friday. But taken into foreign policy, Trump’s visceral drive for confrontation threatens to add a second nuclear crisis to the one Trump has already escalated in the Pacific with North Korea.The 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran, the Joint Comprehensive Programme of Action (JCPOA), was aimed at ensuring that nearly 40-year feud between the US and revolutionary Iran did not mutate into a confrontation between two nuclear states. In return for sanctions relief from six major powers and the international community as a whole, Iran accepted very deep constraints on its nuclear programme. Its current stockpile of enriched uranium, for example, is just over 1% of what it was before the deal. But in his speech, Trump completely ignored the non-proliferation gains represented by the JCPOA, and portrayed the repatriation of Iran’s previously frozen assets as money for nothing. He made the false claim that Iran had been on the point of “total collapse” when the agreement was signed. His claims that “the Iranian regime has committed multiple violations of the agreement” were also misleading at best. On two occasions, Iran’s stockpile of heavy water flowed over the ceiling imposed by the deal, but the situation was quickly rectified and Iran’s reserve is now below the limit. Nor is heavy water a direct proliferation threat. It is used in certain reactors that produce plutonium as a by-product. However, under the deal, Iran has destroyed the only reactor of that type.Trump’s remark that Iran had “failed to meet our expectations in its operation of advanced centrifuges” appeared to refer to an ambiguity in the deal that has since been resolved and was not declared to be a violation. Trump’s litany of Iran’s past alleged crimes was also highly contentious, including an effort to link Shia Iran with the Sunni militants of al-Qaida, and in particular Osama bin Laden’s 1998 attacks on US embassies in east Africa.The state department did not comply with White House pressure to designate Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organisation, but the Treasury did make that designation – under a relatively obscure clause – marking the first time a major part of a country’s armed forces has been described as terrorist. It was – to say the least – a risky move given that troops from both countries are in close proximity in Syria and potentially elsewhere in the region. Trump’s speech also dimmed hopes that the nuclear deal could escape Trump’s hostility if he passed the decision over its fate to Congress. Congress is deeply divided over the issue and therefore might end up doing nothing, European diplomats had reasoned. But after Trump’s remarks, that escape ramp appears to be blocked. Trump has called on Congress to add conditions to those Iran already complies with under the JCPOA, restricting ballistic missile development and extending restrictions on its nuclear programme indefinitely. Even if a deeply divided Congress agreed on such changes – which would require the support of 60 senators – there is no realistic possibility Iran would accept them. In that case, Tehran would be bound to cast the US as the rogue actor on the world stage – and Washington’s European actors would find it hard to disagree. “Iran is not going to comply with provisions imposed unilaterally by the US. If the US then imposes sanctions or scraps the deal, then the US will be left highly isolated,” said James Acton, co-director of the Nuclear Policy Program and a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “The US will be blamed across the world for the collapse of the Iran deal, other countries will not cooperate with the US in reimposing sanctions on Iran, and the end effect will be that Iran’s nuclear programme will be unconstrained and the US will have no leverage to try to constrain it.”However, if Congress does not agree on new conditions, Trump threatened to “terminate” the deal himself, by executive order. If he sticks to his word, the JCPOA appears doomed in its current form. The other signatories could try to keep it going but major European companies are likely to flee Iran for fear of losing US markets. The benefits for Iran would shrink significantly, as would incentives to abide by its strictures.A change of mind is always possible. Trump on Friday said he was “always open” to negotiation with North Korea after weeks insistenting that he had no intention of talking to the regime. Yet his animus towards Tehran, stoked by Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates seems, if anything, even more deeply entrenched. Topics Donald Trump Iran Trump administration US Congress Middle East and North Africa analysis

LOS ANGELES — The flames raced across brittle hillsides like advancing armies. Up and down Southern California’s canyons and coastlines, they stormed into neighborhoods and engulfed homes where people were using sprinklers and garden hoses as a last, desperate defense against the wind-driven wildfires.On Thursday, the hot, dry winds sparked new fires in San Diego and Riverside Counties and up the coast. Nearly 200,000 people were forced to evacuate, and residents in areas already charred by wildfire worried that the strengthening, erratic winds could ignite new fires at any moment.Fire and smoke forced intermittent closures of the 101 freeway — the main coastal route north from Los Angeles — between Ventura and Santa Barbara, along with several secondary highways and smaller roads. On Wednesday, it had been portions of the 405 freeway closed, which sent long lines of traffic onto surface streets.Several new fires cropped up, including one in San Diego County that spread to more than 2,000 acres in five hours, destroying and damaging a relatively small number of homes but threatening at least 1,000 more.Across the region, people wiped stinging smoke from their eyes and huddled inside to avoid the scrim of acrid air. They stood in their front yards and prayed. They sifted through their charred homes, fled to evacuation shelters and said that even in this wildfire-prone state, they had never confronted late-season blazes as fast and ferocious as these.“We’ve always been under threat of fire; we’re used to it,” said Suzanne White, who drove past curtains of flames above the 101 freeway as she fled her home in the mountain-fringed town of Ojai. “But this year, the fires are raging so fast and furiously that you can’t get ahead of them.”“It burns,” she said, “and it keeps burning.”Some people agonized over whether to stay and defend their homes or join the thousands who had already evacuated. Along Faria Beach, on the edge of the Pacific in Ventura, Steve Andruszkewicz, 75, and his wife, Gloria, had packed both cars in case the firefighters battling spot blazes nearby told them to go.

Brazil’s education minister has been accused of “historical revisionism” after saying school history books will be rewritten to give a positive spin to the country’s 1964 coup and 21-year military dictatorship.His comments came a day after the far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, described the Nazi regime as “leftwing” during a visit to Israel and added to concerns that his new administration is set on rewriting history.“It is historical revisionism of the worst quality,” said Lilia Schwarcz, a historian, columnist and co-author of a bestselling history of Brazil.“There will be gradual changes so a fuller version of history can be redeemed,” said Vélez.Brazilian conservatives argue the military regime saved the country from becoming a communist state at a time of cold war tension.History shows that the presidency of João Goulart was forced out in a secret congress session with support from the military; army marshal Humberto de Alencar Castelo Branco was voted in as president only after leftist lawmakers lost their political rights.Under the military governments which followed, leftist politicians, unionists, journalists and dissidents were exiled, tortured and murdered, along with members of armed Marxist groups.Newspapers, theatre, film and music were censored and thousands of indigenous people killed as military rulers forcibly colonised the Amazon.A CIA telegram from 1974, revealed last year, showed the dictator Ernesto Geisel personally approved summary executions against “dangerous subversives”.“It was a democratic regime of force, because it was necessary at that moment,” Veléz said.Schwarcz called this argument a “contradiction”.“It is an assault on our history and a profound disrespect to the thousands of Brazilians who were tortured and exiled, to those who disappeared at the hands of the military,” she said.She said Brazil’s foreign minister, Ernesto Araújo, has previously “sought to revise history” by arguing that the Nazi regime was left wing – an argument widely contradicted by historians.On Tuesday, during a visit to Israel, Bolsonaro said there was “no doubt” that Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime was leftwing because of its name – the National Socialist German Workers party.He spoke after visiting the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum, whose website describes the Nazi party as a “radical rightwing” group.Under the Nazis, communists and socialists were deemed enemies of the state and sent to concentration camps. Hitler himself said in a 1923 interview that “Bolshevism” was Germany’s “greatest menace” and vowed: “I shall take socialism away from the socialists.”On Thursday, BBC Brasil reported that Bolsonaro’s government had sent a telegram to the United Nations insisting there was no coup and that military governments were “necessary to remove the growing threats of a communist takeover of Brazil”.The telegram was sent by the foreign ministry to Fabián Salvioli, special rapporteur on the promotion of truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-recurrence, after he criticised government plans to commemorate the 1964 coup, the BBC said. Topics Brazil Jair Bolsonaro Americas news

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST: Four U.S. and five Nigerien soldiers died in an ambush in Niger last fall. They were attacked by militants who claimed affiliation with ISIS. For months, the Pentagon has been trying to figure out what exactly went wrong, and today it formally released a summary of its investigation. As NPR reported earlier this week, it found deficiencies in training and communications, but it concluded there was no single mistake that led to the incident.NPR's Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman joins us now. And, Tom, what new details came out today about what happened on October 4 in Niger?TOM BOWMAN, BYLINE: Well, Audie, we learned that all American soldiers who died that day fought to the end, and others risked their lives to help their doomed comrades. And we'll likely see Medals of Valor for both those killed and those who survived. Two of the four dead American soldiers were actually loaded on to ISIS' pickup truck. And only the arrival of French jets prevented the dead from being taken away. And the American and Nigerien forces were outgunned 3 to 1. They did not have enough firepower, and it took a little less than an hour for the French jets to arrive and scatter the militants and prevent more deaths.Now, U.S. officers, including General Tom Waldhauser, the top officer for Africa who briefed today, said there were a number of lapses in training, communications and preparations. But no single factor, he said, or a single mistake was a sole cause of this tragedy.CORNISH: Right. I mean, it's one thing to say there's no single mistake, but did - at least say anything about what could have been done differently?BOWMAN: Well, they kept referring to the training, communications and preparation problems all with the special operators in Africa, the Green Berets in this case. There was a whole list. So I asked General Waldhauser, you know, what's the story here? Are they sloppy? Are they cowboys? Are they taking too much risk? And this is what he said.(SOUNDBITE OF PRESS CONFERENCE)GEN THOMAS WALDHAUSER: Generally, from my observations and the evidence that this investigation found is that special operators are doing a fantastic job across the continent. They work under some extreme conditions in the African continent. They have to be able to make decisions about whether to or not to take - to go into certain operations because if the assets that they need are not there today, they need to be able to come back tomorrow when they have them. So the bottom line is, the special operators on the continent are serving well. They do high-risk missions. And based on my observations, this particular team is not indicative of what they do.BOWMAN: So he's referring to this one team. But the report cites all these problems up the chain of command with the special operators. But you hear General Waldhauser say they're doing a fantastic job. So there's obviously a disconnect there. And also, they cut short the press conference. Another question for him would have been, did you only find out about these problems, you know, after the ambush?CORNISH: When it comes to the changes suggested, could any of them have prevented the ambush?BOWMAN: You know, it's hard to see how any of these changes they talked about could have prevented the ambush. These guys were - needed more firepower, maybe armored vehicles, a drone to keep an eye on any threat so you don't get ambushed. There was a drone overhead, we're told, but it left on another mission before the ambush began. And they needed those French jets to arrive much more quickly, not nearly an hour later. But this is Africa - large countries with few airfields or not enough U.S. or allied aircraft. They have to do with less than the troops in, let's say, Iraq or Afghanistan.CORNISH: Finally, what will the military do differently going forward?BOWMAN: Well, General Waldhauser said troops will now have armored vehicles available, more firepower, though he wasn't specific. And drones will now go along on all missions. And I'm told contract CASEVAC helicopters will be available to get - take away any wounded no more than two hours away. And as far as any future missions, the general said, quote, "we are now far more prudent on our missions."CORNISH: That's NPR Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman. Tom, thank you.BOWMAN: You're welcome.Copyright © 2018 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

This week brought a fascinating spectacle indeed: Donald Trump telling the unvarnished truth. The occasion was a joint press conference with the stoic-looking president of Finland, three days after Hurricane Harvey made landfall and Trump simultaneously announced his pardon of Joe Arpaio – the notorious former sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona, who was facing a possible jail sentence for defying a court order to stop racially profiling Latino people. Up popped the White House correspondent for Fox News with a couple of simple questions: why had Trump done it, and what was his response to those people who insisted he was wrong?There was no reference here to the announcement’s odorous timing, but that was the point Trump chose to address. “In the middle of a hurricane, even though it was a Friday evening, I assumed the ratings would be far higher than they would be normally,” he said. In other words, with Houston succumbing to historic suffering and damage and people glued to their TVs, he saw the perfect opportunity to drop yet another symbolic stunt: a shameful act by any normal political standards – but one that he, being Trump, saw fit to boast about.We all know the daily drill by now: wake up, check phone, boggle at whatever new outrage Trump has perpetrated. We know too that whereas his presidency once threatened to follow a halfway substantial agenda – America First economics, a withdrawal from commitments abroad, the fabled wall – in any practical terms it has now swerved into a swamp of confusion and incoherence.From banning trans people from the US armed forces to America’s withdrawal from the Paris climate change accords, his policy announcements have plenty of real-world consequences. But they seem chiefly chosen for the extent to which they play up the US’s howling cultural divisions – while the hourly blasts on Twitter compound the sense of an administration running on rhetoric and symbolism rather than any prospect of concrete achievement.Viewed from one perspective, all this might suggest desperation and failure. But look at it in a slightly different way, and Trump’s approach might just as well point towards political success. Forty years of what some people call neoliberalism have long since scaled down most people’s expectations of what government can achieve; for most people, politics has tended to resemble a distant game, replete with both irrelevance and tedium, which leaves 99% of lives untouched. In that context, even if he achieves next to nothing, the spectacle of a president endlessly provoking the liberal establishment, speaking to the prejudices of his electoral base, and putting on the mother of all political shows, has an undeniable appeal – to the point that a second Trump term might be a more realistic prospect than many would like to think.In a recent issue of the New Yorker, a fascinating article on Trump supporters in Grand Junction, Colorado – “a rural place with problems that have traditionally been associated with urban areas”, where Trump took nearly 65% of the vote – made all this explicit. Before the election, voters there had tended to see Trump’s stunts and provocations as proof of the combative qualities he would bring to an imagined reinvention of America and its economy. Now, his daily antics were seemingly close to being the whole point.“The calculus seemed to have shifted: Trump’s negative qualities, which once had been described as a means to an end, now had value of their own,” writes Peter Hessler, a rare example of a writer who pushes beyond liberal loathing of the president into the reasons why so many people support him. “The point wasn’t necessarily to get things done; it was to retaliate against the media and other enemies. The assumption has always been that, while emotional appeal might have mattered during the campaign, the practical impact of a Trump presidency would prove more important. Liberals claimed that Trump would fail because his policies would hurt the people who had voted for him. But the lack of legislative accomplishment seems only to make supporters take more satisfaction in Trump’s behaviour.”As evidenced by Blair or Berlusconi, or any number of pre-Trump US presidents, much of politics has long been about performance and provocation, and the frequent imperative to distract the public from awkward realities. Now the Trump experience suggests a new, surreal era with two key elements. First, as evidenced by credible academic studies, many voters’ recognition of his lies does not seem to weaken their support for him. Second, Trump suggests that what might have once been maligned as smoke and mirrors can define the entirety of politics – and, crucially, government – while the increasingly untenable Anglo-American model of capitalism grinds on. Our public discourse is increasingly founded on confrontation, personality cults and dopamine hits. And if everything is a circus, who cares about the bread?Trump is not the only example. On this side of the Atlantic, Brexit was sold to many who voted for it not as a specified set of outcomes but an infectious feeling, laced with the sense of sticking it to a rotten establishment. And for all the exposure of the leave campaign’s serial lies, the lack of a public backlash is remarkable. As they entered this year’s general election, Theresa May and her allies had almost nothing to say about the economy or society, but campaigned instead on a mess of stuff relating to her supposed character, the idea that she was about to stick it to the French and Germans, and the kind of loathing of left-liberal politics embodied by all those front pages of the Daily Mail. The fact that the Tories were so wrong-footed by a Labour offered some hope, but a substance-free Conservative campaign still attracted the party’s highest share of the vote since 1983.On both left and right, meanwhile, the bigger cultural-political picture is not exactly encouraging. The dread term “post-truth” barely begins to describe what’s going on. Overheated commentary increasingly takes precedence over old-fashioned journalism. The symbolic seems more important than the practical, so that it is more fashionable to argue over, say, statues we should or should not take down than to think hard about the condition of society, and how a whole array of massive issues – deepening inequalities, ageing, automation, you name it – might be dealt with.Social media are dissolving the connection between everyday experience and political argument to the point that the latter often seems to take place in its own self-sealed universe, purely as an ever more hysterical kind of entertainment. And from that, no end of awful political consequences could follow.Certainly, Trump will not be the last leader to so brazenly leave reality behind. We have a whole lexicon – rhetoric, presentation, “spin” – for the supposedly ephemeral aspects of politics, as if beneath them lurks the noble stuff to which we can somehow return. But what if it has gone, and there is no way of getting it back? Topics Donald Trump Opinion Brexit Twitter comment

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An arresting image showing an adult elephant and its calf fleeing a mob attack has won a top Asian wildlife photography prize.It shows the two animals running among a crowd that has hurled flaming tar balls and crackers at them, reportedly to ward the elephants away from human settlements.The picture, titled “Hell is here”, was taken by Biplab Hazra, a wildlife photographer from West Bengal state, and won the 2017 Sanctuary’s Wildlife Photographer of the Year award. The Sanctuary Nature Foundation, which awarded the prize, said: “In the Bankura district of West Bengal, this sort of humiliation of pachyderms is routine, as it is in the other elephant-range states of Assam, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Tamil Nadu and more.”“This sort of conflict is increasing every day,” said Christy Williams, the World Wildlife Fund country director in Myanmar, who researches elephants in the region. He said elephants were increasingly being pushed out of existing habitats by human behaviour. “There are forests being cut down, degraded, and also being fragmented by development like new roads and pipelines.”India is home to around 30,000 Asian elephants, 70% of the world’s population, with around 800 in West Bengal, according to the most recent official count.Co-existence between humans and elephants was especially difficult, Williams said. “Elephants are huge – they are the biggest mammal on land and they have huge home ranges, around 800 sq km. Such huge unreserved forest tracts are becoming very rare,” he said. “In the end, humans always win, whatever the species, however powerful it is.” Topics India Elephant conservation Animal welfare Photography Animals South and Central Asia news

One of the most interesting challenges faced by Apple this year is the question of whether consumers are willing to pay more than $1,000 for a smartphone. We’re likely to get an answer later today when Apple reports its second quarter earnings.“Wall Street has major jitters when it comes to Apple’s upcoming earnings release,” wrote Above Avalon analyst Neil Cybart in a Monday research note. Indeed Apple’s stock price has fallen 8% over the past couple of weeks, driven down by Wall Street’s anxiety over demand for Apple’s most expensive phone to date, the iPhone X.Lots of people paid up to $1,000 and more for the iPhone X during the device’s first quarter of availability–the 2017 holiday quarter. Apple sold 77.3 million iPhones during those three months, including an estimated 27 million iPhone Xs. But signs are emerging that the first wave of buyers may not have been representative of the whole smartphone market, and that the big holiday sales bump was followed by a bigger than usual decline in the new year.Several of the companies that supply parts for the iPhone X recently reported weak earnings. A source told Fast Company last week that Apple plans to produce only 8 million iPhone X’s in the second quarter.Many analysts’ eyes will be on the iPhone ASP (average selling price) number that Apple reports, which could suggest how sales of the X have sustained past the holiday quarter. The ASP in the December-ending quarter rose to $796. A significantly lower ASP this quarter would suggest iPhone X sales had fallen off.A couple of important, and negative, macros will be at play in the background. The March-ending quarter is a seasonably slow quarter for Apple. Sales typically fall way off after the holidays. To make matters worse, the global smartphone market is contracting as people are holding on to their own phones longer.Apple already ratcheted down its revenue expectations to between $60 billion and $62 billion for the third quarter, below the $65.73 billion expected by Thomson Reuters analysts. More recent consensus estimates show analysts expecting revenues of around $61.5 billion, and iPhone unit sales of 53 million.Two StoriesApple’s Q2 results will contain two main storylines–one about the company’s actual earnings, the other about how many iPhones it expects to sell through June. The first story is likely to be a (relatively) happy one, while the second may be a little darker.It’s likely that Apple narrowly beats analyst revenue expectations for Q2, and at least comes close to that 53 million number for iPhone sales. One analyst roundup, by Bloomberg, says Apple will report iPhone sales growth of 2% over the same quarter last year.If the troubling signs we’re seeing about iPhone X demand today are legit, the real effects of that will show up next quarter–in the third quarter results. It could be ugly. But some analysts polled by Bloomberg expect iPhone sales in that quarter to be 5% less than the year before, and Goldman Sachs adjusted its model to show sales of around 41 million iPhones.On The Plus SideThere will be things to feel good about, too. The two major knocks on the iPhone X have been that it’s too expensive and its display too small. But Apple’s next group of new phones seem to address those two complaints nicely. That is, they’re bigger and at least one is less expensive.“Apple will have to smartly manage its iPhone product portfolio and pricing, especially in Asia, where some countries still witness smartphone growth,” writes Forrester analyst Julie Ask in an email to Fast Company. “Apple has proven over the past few years that it masters the art and science of managing its product portfolio.”The company will reportedly announce a new 5.8-inch OLED display iPhone, which may be called the iPhone X Plus or something like that. It’ll also reportedly announce a 6.5-inch OLED display iPhone, which would be the largest iPhone ever made. Both these phones would likely have aluminum bodies like the X, as well as facial recognition.While the OLED phones will likely be in the iPhone X’s general price range (nobody knows yet), Apple will release another iPhone with a 6.1-inch LCD display. LCDs displays are about half the cost of OLED displays. The LCD iPhone could be priced as low as $550, says KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, but I’m betting it’ll be priced at between $600 and $700. Still, the phone delivers the big display people want, and the lower price tag. Apple, a source tells me, believes the LCD phone will contribute half of the unit sales of the 2018 lineup during the year after its launch.Apple is also likely to announce the continued steady growth of its content and services business, analysts believe. “Having said that, 2018 is a tipping point for Apple: it has no choice but to demonstrate it can reduce its dependency on iPhone sales and enter new adjacent markets and territories,” writes Forrester’s Julie Ask in an email to Fast Company. “I’d expect again a very strong growth of its content and service revenues . . .”“Despite the dramatic downturn in (iPhone sales) expectations, Apple’s stock price has held up remarkably well,” Above Avalon’s Cybart wrote in the research note. “While many eyes will be on iPhone . . . my suspicion is that the data point won’t have as much influence as consensus assumes. Instead, Apple’s capital return update has the potential to be the major takeaway from 2Q18 earnings.”Apple has been ramping up its programs for investing in itself and returning dividends to shareholders. The company will use most of the profits it is bringing back from overseas (under the lower tax rate provided in the GOP tax law) for both stockholder dividends and to buy back shares. Both of those things could add buoyancy to the stock price, regardless of the iPhone numbers.I will be posting the results, with commentary, after the earnings announcement and Apple executives’ call with analysts.

A federal appeals court on Monday denied a request by the former US army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to be released from jail on bail, and upheld a lower court’s decision to hold Manning in civil contempt for refusing to testify before a grand jury.The ruling marks a blow for Manning, who has been detained since March after she declined to answer questions in connection with the government’s long-running investigation into WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange.A spokesman for Manning and Manning’s attorney could not be immediately reached for comment.The justice department said Assange was arrested under an extradition treaty between the US and Britain.The US government alleges that Assange tried to help Manning gain access to a government computer as part of a 2010 leak by WikiLeaks of hundreds of thousands of US military reports about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and American diplomatic communications.It is not clear if the alleged collaboration between Manning and Assange led to a successful intrusion into any US government computer.Assange plans to fight the US extradition request. Such cases, when challenged, can take years before they are resolved.Manning was convicted by court-martial in 2013 of espionage and other offenses for furnishing more than 700,000 documents, videos, diplomatic cables and battlefield accounts to WikiLeaks while she was an intelligence analyst in Iraq.Former US president Barack Obama, in his final days in office, commuted the final 28 years of Manning’s 35-year sentence.Manning has tried to fight the grand jury subpoena in the Assange case, citing her first, fourth and sixth amendment rights under the constitution.Her attorneys said among other things that the district court had failed to address her concerns that the government was abusing the grand jury process so it could preview or undermine her testimony as a potential defense witness at a trial.Her lawyers have also argued that the courtroom was improperly sealed during substantial portions of the hearing.But a three-judge panel of the US court of appeals for the fourth circuit did not agree with those claims.“The court finds no error in the district court’s rulings and affirms its finding of civil contempt,” they wrote. Topics Chelsea Manning Law (US) WikiLeaks Julian Assange news

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Three suspected suicide bombers who attacked the Chinese consulate in the Pakistani city of Karachi on Friday were killed before they were able to enter the facility, the police chief of the city of Karachi said. “There were three attackers and all three have been killed ... They could not even get in the compound. They tried to get into the visa section,” the police chief, Amir Shaikh, told reporters. Two policemen were killed in the attack which was claimed by the separatist Balochistan Liberation Army insurgent group. Reporting by Saad Sayeed; Writing by Drazen Jorgic; Editing by Robert BirselOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

This week, air pollution forced some 4,000 schools to close in New Delhi, as India’s capital suffers through an air quality nightmare. Now, here’s more bad news on the pollution front: the country is passing China as the world’s biggest emitter of deadly man-made sulfur dioxide (SO2).According to a University of Maryland-led study published in Nature on Thursday (Nov. 9), China’s SO2 emissions have fallen 75% since 2007, while India’s emissions have increased 50% in the same period. That puts India on track to overtake China, the world’s largest SO2 emitter since 2005—if it hasn’t already.Using NASA satellite data, as well as data from primary emitters (such as power plants), researchers from the US and Canada estimated SO2 emission ranges for India and China from 2005 to 2016. Their estimates showed China’s SO2 emissions to be far lower now than earlier projections had estimated—possibly as much as four times lower—while India’s was more in line with what had been estimated. They concluded that the different trajectories were largely due to national policies related to coal-fired power plants, the major contributors to SO2, and to strict emissions controls implemented by China.The estimates for India for 2016 ranged between 9.5 and 12.6 (pdf, p.2) megatons, while the estimates for China ranged between 7.5 and 11.6 megatons.Yet, the number of people living close to substantial SO2 pollution still remains lower in India than in China. Substantial is defined in the paper as people living with an SO2 concentration of around 14 micrograms per cubic meter (μg/m3), compared to the WHO’s 20 μg/m3 for a 24-hour mean. Some 33 million people in India live with substantial SO2 pollution, compared with China’s 99 million, according to the study.Researchers say they chose the 14 μg/m3 concentration because at that level the toxic gas could already affect human health (pdf, p. 4).China has been particularly aggressive in recent years in trying to curb its notorious air pollution. It has built its coal plants to higher emissions standards, and also tried to wean homes and industry off coal. This winter it plans to heat four million homes with natural gas instead, and has asked steel producers in major producing hubs to reduce by one-third (paywall) their coking coal production.

Everyone agrees India’s public education is in a dire state. The blame for this is typically heaped upon bad infrastructure, teacher absenteeism, poor student attendance, inputs-based monitoring, and inadequate teacher preparation programmes. While these issues are valid, all of them taken together do not fully explain the learning crisis apparent in our classrooms.Let’s start with infrastructure. In the wake of the Right to Education Act 2010, school infrastructure has improved tremendously. While usability is still being addressed, much progress has been made in terms of school access and availability of drinking water and toilets. Most children are enrolled in some school and 70% attend school regularly.Yes, teacher absenteeism continues to plague the system, but it is precisely that—a systemic issue instead of something specific to government-school teachers as a people. A recent six-state study by the Azim Premji Foundation reported that, while 20% of teachers were not found in school on average, most teachers were not “absent”; they were away on training or official work, sitting in the state headquarters, or on casual leave.Actual truancy rates were 2.5% which is close to absenteeism rates at any large organisation. Even this small amount of absenteeism needs correction, but clearly absenteeism is not the obstacle to student growth.So, if broadly teachers are showing up, and students are turning up, and classrooms and textbooks are available, what is preventing lakhs of children from acquiring basic literacy and numeracy?Current policy discourse suggests that one of the issues is a lack of student and curriculum assessment. The Ministry for Human Resource and Development (MHRD) is pushing for greater student assessment and states have been conducting “State Learning Achievement Surveys” (SLAS).Standardised assessments are a lot of work and will require a good amount of resources. One must ask, therefore, what are the chances of this “solution” working?To start with, let’s briefly understand large-scale standardised assessments. In the 20th century, standardised tests were institutionalised in almost all domains, especially in fields related to education and employment. A standardised test is an assessment that is rigid, has a pre-determined marking scheme, and is administered to a large base of students. Such tests emerged in the post-industrial era when factories and large business units required many labourers but few thinkers.As a result, a test that told you a little about everyone was preferred to an alternative that told you a lot about one person. This was especially so because the former was more cost-effective. In other words, standardised assessments were designed to suit a system instead of an individual.Today, the economy is markedly shifting in favour of the individual. The gig and contract economy in the West has grown tremendously in the past decade and nine-to-five jobs are shrinking. In India too, as automation increases, individual adaptability will become the most salient skill. Therefore, policy measures today must not return to old world assessment approaches—one test to rule them all, one test to find them.Earlier, customising a test to suit 200 million children was infeasible but that is no longer true. Today, adaptive tests allow students to solve problems at their own pace, and item-wise analysis provides data on gaps in understanding, which in-turn enables teachers to provide remediation real-time.Programmes like Mindspark are doing this in their centres. Instead of getting all schools to administer paper pencil tests, pushing digital infrastructure at the school level for better testing is a more worthwhile pursuit. The current government has a strong appetite for implementation and getting schools connected to good software can be done.However, the main obstacle is not technology or implementation. Instead, the issue is one of mindset. Educational reform remains top down, and the state/national level conversation is always around aggregate data that hides more than it shows.Teachers also mark off test papers with the purpose of sending data upwards rather than using it inside the classroom. If you ask most teachers why this data is being collected, they will tell you it is for the higher ups, or that tests make students take school seriously. Seldom will a teacher articulate how test results can be used to improve teaching. And that is the Achilles heel of test-based reform.Unless teachers change their teaching practices, nothing will change. The real drivers of change at the school level are the teachers and school principals, and the culture of learning they bring into schools. But culture is difficult to engineer so it is relegated to the “oh and also, culture” statement at the end of meetings. This is worrying since heaps of evidence suggest culture impacts student outcomes.The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) finds that students who report higher confidence in their abilities perform better and students whose parents or teachers have higher expectations of them perform better. Academia is flowing with research on social-emotional learning and now, perhaps, even music, and their links to academic performance.If one takes a system approach, these findings seem irrelevant since there is no practical way to apply this to a system. But if one is on the side of children, suddenly these findings become important. One feels compelled to address school culture and for that teachers and principals are the main levers.Therefore, if student learning needs to be improved, the policy prescription is as follows:Scrap old style tests and put in place technology for personalised assessment.Focus on data analysis and use at the classroom level.Decentralise the reform process such that it empowers school principals and teachers to bring about these changes.All three measures target the individual student and the classroom. If classrooms change, schools will change. If schools change, the system will.This post first appeared on India Development Review. We welcome your comments at ideas.india@qz.com.

(In Sept. 13 item, updates to correct spelling of the last name of Michael Beason from Benson, in 19th paragraph and throughout) By Andrew Innerarity and Ricardo Ortiz HOLLYWOOD, Fla./SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (Reuters) - Florida Governor Rick Scott vowed on Wednesday that the state would aggressively investigate how six people died at a nursing home that lost power when Hurricane Irma rampaged through the region, as millions coped with another day without electricity. The death toll from the storm approached 80 as officials continued to assess the damage after Irma powered through the Caribbean as one of the most powerful Atlantic hurricanes on record and slammed into the Florida Keys archipelago with sustained winds of up to 130 miles per hour (215 km per hour). Irma killed at least 36 people in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina, according to officials. Some 4.2 million homes and businesses, or about 9 million people, were without power on Wednesday in Florida and nearby states. Police opened a criminal investigation at the Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills in Hollywood, north of Miami, where three elderly residents were found dead at the facility and three later died at a nearby hospital, officials said. “I am going to work to aggressively demand answers on how this tragic event took place,” Scott said in a statement. “This situation is unfathomable. Every facility that is charged with caring for patients must take every action and precaution to keep their patients safe.” Related CoverageFlorida deaths in sweltering nursing home show post-disaster perilsFlorida nursing home where deaths occurred was not on priority list: utilityMore than 100 patients at the nursing home were evacuated on Wednesday along with 18 patients from a nearby facility that was cleared due to the criminal investigation, Hollywood officials said. “Most of the patients have been treated for respiratory distress, dehydration and heat-related issues,” Randy Katz, a spokesman for Memorial Regional Hospital, told reporters. Memorial Regional is located across the street from the nursing home. Police were first called to the facility at about 4:30 a.m. but did not arrive until after 6 a.m., officials said. The center had been without air conditioning, Broward County Mayor Barbara Sharief told reporters on Wednesday. “The building has been sealed off and we are conducting a criminal investigation inside,” Hollywood Police Chief Tomas Sanchez told reporters on Wednesday. “It was very hot on the second floor.” Florida Power & Light said it had provided power to some parts of the Hollywood nursing home but that the facility was not on a county top tier list for emergency power restoration. The Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills is pictured in Hollywood, Florida, U.S., September 13, 2017. REUTERS/Carlo AllegriIrma caused about $25 billion in insured losses, including $18 billion in the United States and $7 billion in the Caribbean, catastrophe modeler Karen Clark & Co estimated on Wednesday. The Florida Keys were particularly hard hit, with federal officials saying that 25 percent of homes were destroyed and 65 percent suffered major damage when Irma barreled ashore on Sunday as a Category 4 hurricane. Most residents had left by then and police have barred re-entry to most of the Keys to allow more time to restore electricity and medical service and bring water, food and fuel. “I don’t have a house. I don’t have a job. I have nothing,” said Mercedes Lopez, 50, whose family fled north from the Keys town of Marathon on Friday and rode out the storm at an Orlando hotel, only to learn their home was destroyed, along with the gasoline station where Lopez worked. President Donald Trump is due to visit the region on Thursday. Irma wreaked total devastation in parts of the Caribbean, where at least 43 people have died. People who fled their homes in hard-hit islands including St. Martin and the U.S. Virgin Islands that were all but cut off from the world for days arrived in San Juan late Tuesday. Slideshow (13 Images)Michael Beason, 65, of St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands, said he lost everything. “My house, my business, both my vehicles, everything is gone,” said Beason, who was stopping in San Juan before continuing to Boston to seek refuge with his wife’s brother. “But we have life. We rode out that horrible storm in a shower that I had reinforced after Hurricane Marilyn,” Beason added. “I told the man (who installed the shower), I told him, ‘If the hurricane takes the rest of my house, I want this shower sticking up out of that slab like the last tooth in the mouth of a bum. And sure enough that’s what’s left.” Irma hit the United States about two weeks after Hurricane Harvey plowed into Houston, killing about 60 and causing some $180 billion in damage, mostly from flooding. Additional reporting by Zachary Fagenson in Mami, Daniel Trotta in Orlando, Florida, Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles, Letitia Stein in Detroit, Colleen Jenkins in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, Brendan O'Brien in Milwaukee and Gina Cherelus, Peter Szekeley and Scott DiSavino in New York; Writing by Scott Malone; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe and Diane CraftOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Enlarge this image DACA advocates march near Trump Tower in August in New York City. The government says it will resume DACA renewals. Spencer Platt/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Spencer Platt/Getty Images DACA advocates march near Trump Tower in August in New York City. The government says it will resume DACA renewals. Spencer Platt/Getty Images The Department of Homeland Security says it will once again accept renewal requests from recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program in response to a court order."Until further notice, and unless otherwise provided in this guidance, the DACA policy will be operated on the terms in place before it was rescinded on Sept. 5, 2017," U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, a part of DHS, wrote on its website Saturday.The Obama administration began the program in 2012, which enabled certain young immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children to apply for work permits and protection from deportation. As of September, about 700,000 people are currently protected under the program.Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced in September that the Trump administration would wind down the DACA program. The administration said it was executive overreach and called on Congress to come up with a solution to the status of DACA recipients, also called DREAMers.But a federal judge in San Francisco halted that plan late Tuesday and ordered the administration to resume processing DACA renewals while a lawsuit against the September decision moves forward.The statement from USCIS says people who have already been granted deportation deferral under DACA can request renewal, but the agency will not accept new requests from people who have never received deferred action before. If someone's DACA expired on or after Sept. 5, 2016, that person may file a renewal request, the agency says; people who received DACA that expired before then can file a new DACA request. President Trump held a meeting with lawmakers on Tuesday about passing new legislation to allow the DREAMers to stay in the country, though he has pushed for funding for a wall with Mexico to be part of any immigration policy overhaul. He also received widespread criticism this past week after reports that he referred to immigrants from certain countries using a vulgar slur.

据韩国媒体报道，三星旗下显示面板制造商Samsung Display明年将为苹果公司iPhone手机供应1.8亿块至2亿块柔性OLED面板。今年，三星为iPhone X供应的OLED面板数量约为5000万块，这意味着明年年的供应量将是今年的4倍左右。基于调研公司IHS Market预计的每块110美元(包括覆盖玻璃和触摸传感器)，这些显示面板价值198亿美元至220亿美元。业内人士称，三星之所以能大幅提高OLED面板供应量，主要是因为其A3面板生产线的良品率显著提高。今年年初，三星A3面板生产线的良品率约为60%，而今年下半年则提高了80%以上。一位行业观察家称：“三星A3面板生产线的良品率可能已经接近90%。”基于90%的良品率，Samsung Display每年可以生产约2.24亿块6英寸显示面板。该公司起初希望投资建造A5新产线，以满足苹果的需求，但在良品率提升后，三星已经决定利用现有产线为苹果供应OLED面板。据预计，2018年Samsung Display每季度中、小尺寸OLED面板销售额将突破10万亿韩元(约合92亿美元)，而LCD面板销售额将继续维持在2万亿韩元(约合18.4亿美元)左右。我们发现人工智能最早期拿到的钱，最集中的领域发生了改变，它在最大的一个领域是医药和生物工程。医药和生物工程拿到的投资项目笔数超过了金融领域，这是一个很强的信号，就是生物工程和医药在人工智能的帮助下，可以获得的进展是突飞猛进 ... ——阿尔法公社CEO许四清无人驾驶是下一步，原来我们是通过帮助和引导司机去实现调度的，未来可能直接就可以调度硬件。我们也知道这里面竞争的残酷性，我们认为全球今天可能一百家企业在投入，最终能活下来的只有两家。— —滴滴出行CEO 程维Magic Leap更新了自家官方网站，它们的首款硬件产品终于大白于天下，AR智能眼镜市场恐将刮起一场新的风暴。这款AR智能眼镜被命名为Magic Leap One“创造者版”，它的前部搭载了传感器阵列。不过，这款眼镜无法独立运行，它还需要通过线缆连接电池和计算包。特斯拉CEO埃隆·马斯克(Elon Musk)今日在Twitter上发布了一组即将在佛罗里达州卡纳维拉尔角(Cape Canaveral)发射的“猎鹰重型”火箭的照片。到目前为止，这是我们能看到的最清楚、最全面的“猎鹰重型”火箭的照片。IDC发布报告称，今年全球可穿戴设备整体出货量预计为1.132亿部，而2021年将达到2.223亿部，年复合增长率为18.4%。智能手表(基础型手表和智能手表)将成为主流，2021年的出货量将达到1.495亿部，而今年预计为6150万部。这主要得益于更多厂商和更多功能(如蜂窝网络)的加入。欧盟最高法院“欧洲法院”裁定，Uber是一家出租车服务公司，而非其自诩的互联网服务公司。Uber一直自诩为“互联网服务公司”，借助其应用(App)提供中介服务，为乘客和司机牵线搭桥。这一微妙的定位让Uber在许多国家免受与传统出租车公司一样的监管。显然，该裁定将对Uber在欧洲受到的监管产生重大影响。欧洲法院称：“Uber所提供的服务属于交通服务范畴，各成员国可以对这种服务进行监管。”据《财经》消息，在南京测试了十个月的美团打车即将开始扩张，内部已经拟定了七个城市——北京、上海、成都、杭州、福州、温州和厦门。美团打车隶属于美团点评的出行事业部，该事业部于2017年12月成立，由王慧文负责。早在2017年2月，美团打车就在南京上线，为南京用户提供同城出行服务。2017年11月初，美团点评启动了分时租车业务，该业务目前只在成都试点运营。TCL集团公告称，TCL通讯49%股权的转让事项已交割完成。此外，TCL集团董事长李东生将兼任TCL通讯CEO。根据TCL集团此前介绍，引入的战略投资者中，紫光集团在手机芯片平台、射频及混合信号芯片及存储器等核心器件领域具备深厚的产业链上游资源；云南城投于近期受让了手机ODM服务商闻泰科技股份有限公司8.8%的股权，并在半导体硅片领域进行了系列的投资布局；另一受让方团队在通讯及消费电子行业具备较为丰富的管理与投资经验。更多精彩内容，关注钛媒体微信号（ID：taimeiti），或者下载钛媒体App

China has yet to give any details of the corruption charges against Meng Hongwei, the president of Interpol, who disappeared on a visit home and was later said to have been arrested. Whatever the charges are, they are almost certainly not the real reason for his fate. In China, the law is what the Communist Party says it is — more precisely, what President Xi Jinping says it is. And when an official of Mr. Meng’s global stature is nabbed, it’s a political decision — even if, coincidentally, he was corrupt, as is often the case in China.Interpol has asked Beijing for an explanation for Mr. Meng’s detention but has taken no further action. The agency issued a statement on Sunday that it had accepted his resignation as president “with immediate effect” and named a replacement. Whatever else he was, Mr. Meng was the president of Interpol, a venerable international organization based in France that facilitates cooperation among police forces from its 192 member countries. The position of president is largely ceremonial — a secretary general, currently Jürgen Stock of Germany, runs day-to-day operations. But the selection of a Chinese official for the post was a major feather in China’s cap, proudly hailed by Mr. Xi a year ago as evidence that China “abided by international rules.”The crude arrest of Mr. Meng proclaims the opposite. China’s behavior puts it more closely in a league with Russia, another nation whose authoritarian leader is convinced that his country is due global respect and deference by virtue of its wealth and might, and not its actions. It’s a perception seemingly shared by President Trump in his fondness for strong, unaccountable leaders and his America First approach to foreign policy.Tellingly, both China and Russia have brazenly tried to use Interpol to pursue political foes. China put out a “red notice,” in effect a wanted alert, for Dolkun Isa, a self-exiled activist for the rights of China’s beleaguered Uighur minority. Russia tried to use Interpol to catch Bill Browder, a hedge-fund manager turned anti-Vladimir Putin campaigner, among other political gadflies. In these cases, Interpol has properly refused to cooperate.It is possible that Mr. Meng’s failure to pursue the Isa warrant fed Mr. Xi’s anger. According to The Economist, a Ministry of Public Security statement condemning Mr. Meng’s alleged wrongdoings also stressed the need for “absolute loyalty” and for “resolute support” for the country’s leader.What Mr. Meng did to join the lengthening list of officials purged by Mr. Xi may never be fully known outside the Communist hierarchy. What is known, and deeply troubling, is how brazenly China is prepared to wage its internal power struggles without any regard for procedures, appearances or international norms.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTOpinion).