GORI, Georgia — Here are just a few of the fun facts that visitors learn during a guided tour of the Stalin Museum in Gori, the small Georgian town where the former Soviet leader was born.Joseph Stalin was a good singer. He wrote poems. During his reign, 9,000 state enterprises were started. One of his granddaughters now runs a shop in Portland, Ore. Among the gifts offered to Stalin by adoring citizens was a luxurious fur coat, which now hangs inside a glass case in a room filled with tributes.ImageStalin’s death mask resting on a marble stand. He died in 1953, and the museum was dedicated to him a few years later.CreditDaro Sulakauri for The New York Times“That fur coat was presented to Stalin by a Moscow clothing company,” said the tour guide, an elderly woman with a thick Georgian accent and hair dyed with purple highlights. “But Stalin did not wear it. Not his style.”Dedicated in 1957, four years after Stalin’s death, the museum has an austere exterior in the Socialist Classical style and an interior stuffed with paintings, photographs and personal mementos. To the left of the entrance sits a rail car, the one Stalin rode to the Potsdam Conference in Germany in the summer of 1945, its curtains intact, its bulletproof glass long ago replaced.The tone throughout the museum is admiring, a stirring narrative about a poor kid who, against long odds and despite numerous stints in czarist prisons, soared to the heights of power. The floors have red carpets. Stalin’s death mask rests on a marble stand, like a beloved leader, lying in state.ImageIn 2008, Gori was one of the towns Russia bombed and occupied during a short and disastrous war that left 20 percent of the country — though not Gori — in Russia’s hands.CreditDaro Sulakauri for The New York TimesSandwiched between Russia and Turkey, Georgia is a small country with celebrated cuisine, gorgeous landscapes — and a scarcity of world-renowned tourist attractions. One of the few it does have, unfortunately, is the man born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili, the son of a cobbler who became one of humanity’s greatest criminals.This has presented a quandary for Georgian officials. How, if at all, does a country market a homegrown monster to the rest of the world?Part of the answer may lie in what is missing from the tour. There is no reference to the gulag, the system of slave camps and prisons that claimed more than one million lives. Nor is there a peep about the Great Terror, Stalin’s campaign of purges and executions in the 1930s.A fleeting reference is made to the collectivization of Soviet farms, which led to the starvation of an estimated four million Ukrainians, but if you’d never heard of this atrocity, you might think it was a hard-won success marred by slip-ups.“Many mistakes were made in the Soviet Union during the collectivization,” the guide said, striding briskly from one display to another. “But nevertheless, collective farms were created.”Georgia’s struggle about what to do with Stalin and his legacy has occasionally produced wince-inducing solutions. In 2013, the chief of the National Tourism Administration, Giorgi Sigua, suggested that the country could appeal to the Chinese “just like” Israel has long catered to Christians.ImageDedicated in 1957, the museum has an austere exterior in the Socialist Classical style and an interior stuffed with paintings, photographs and personal mementos.CreditDaro Sulakauri for The New York Times“We can sell Stalin as a tourist product to the Chinese market,” Mr. Sigua said in a public statement. “Just like the Jews are selling Jesus Christ.”Mr. Sigua was fired in 2014.Although Georgia abandoned its state-backed pitch for Stalin-based tourism, he remains a major draw, particularly among Chinese and Russians. Roughly 162,000 people visited the Stalin Museum last year, according to Taia Chubinidze, who sat behind a counter at the tourist center in Gori one recent afternoon.“That’s more than any museum in the country,” she said, beaming.It was not possible to check this assertion because officials with the tourism administration refused to answer a single question about Stalin-related tourism.ImageA guide speaking at the museum, which contains the railcar Stalin rode to Potsdam, Germany, its curtains intact but its bulletproof glass replaced.CreditDaro Sulakauri for The New York TimesThe sensitivity is understandable.Stalin inspires deep emotions in the country where he spent his earliest years, and one of them is reverence. This is especially true in Gori, where many people, especially older ones, regard him as a epochal figure who built an empire and beat the Nazis in World War II.“He was a simple man who grew up and became the leader of a great country,” said Mera B’chatadze, a 70-year-old retired construction worker, who was sitting on a park bench adjacent to the Stalin Museum.“He was a genius,” added a friend, Givi Lursmanashivi.To many younger Georgians, pro-Stalin views like these are both blinkered and disturbing. Never very sentimental about his native land, Stalin victimized this country for decades. More than 400,000 Georgians were deported, a majority of them shot.ImageStalin’s personal railway carriage.CreditDaro Sulakauri for The New York Times“It seems likely that in the terrors of the ’30s, more Georgians were executed, in proportion to the country’s size, than in any other republic,” said the historian Simon Sebag Montefiore, the author of “Young Stalin.” “Probably due to Stalin’s intimacy with Georgian leaders.”Decades after Soviet rule was shaken off, Russia retains an ominous presence here. In 2008, Gori was one of the towns Russia bombed and occupied during a short and disastrous war that left 20 percent of the country — though not Gori — in Russia’s hands.Many of the locals here don’t seem to care. It helps that Stalin brings in plenty of lari, the Georgian currency.ImageThe souvenir shop inside the museum includes T-shirts and tote bags depicting Stalin as a young man.CreditDaro Sulakauri for The New York TimesAcross the street from the entrance to the museum is a collection of souvenir shops, selling a wide assortment of Stalin-themed tchotchkes — decorative plates, coffee mugs, miniature busts, tote bags, paperweights, pens, shot glasses, pipes, lighters, flasks and the list goes on.More important than the financial upside, there is also a widespread sense here that, all evidence to the contrary, Stalin was only pretending to be a communist. Secretly, he was a Georgian nationalist.“A lot of people we talk to say that he kept a cross in his apartment, which meant that he was a Christian,” said Nutsa Batiashvili, an associate professor at the Free University of Tbilisi, who has written about the role of Stalin in Georgian memory.ImageVisitors buying tickets to the museum. About 162,000 people visited it last year, museum officials say.CreditDaro Sulakauri for The New York Times“They say he made Georgian cuisine very important in the Kremlin, and made Georgian toasting part of the etiquette there,” she added. “I know how weird all this sounds because no one can pinpoint anything that Stalin did which actually benefited Georgia.”Unless one counts the international notoriety Stalin has brought to Gori. The town’s fondness for him has occasionally made headlines.In 2010, the government removed an imposing statue of Stalin that had long stood at the center of town, on Stalin Avenue. This past May, as the country marked the 74th anniversary of victory in World War II, a group of activists demanded the statue’s return to its place of pride.ImageThis statue of Stalin once stood in the center of Gori, but it was taken down in 2010 and now lies outside the city.CreditDaro Sulakauri for The New York TimesThat demand was ignored.Likewise, Gori has essentially ignored government demands to tone down the hagiographic glow emitted by the museum. In 2012, the minister of culture announced that the exhibits would be transformed in ways that honored the tyrant’s victims. Once completed, the minister said, the changes would provide the “objective truth” about Stalinism.The overhaul never occurred. Instead, the museum added a room containing a table where confessions were wrung from arrestees, along with a reproduction of a prison cell.It’s a modest, halfhearted add-on and, more to the point, the tour skips it.A group of European tourists missed the room entirely, and after the purple-haired guide ended her patter (“Thank you for your visit. I wish you luck.”), all of them seemed stupefied and faintly amused.“He’s a hero here!” said an exasperated Jochen Dieckmann, a German who was shaking his head in disbelief. “They have very famous writers in Georgia, that everyone is very proud of. They don’t seem to understand that Stalin sent them to the gulag and killed them all.”

PingWest品玩7月1日讯，据9TO5Mac消息，根据苹果公司内部维修人员的文件，苹果在2018款MacBook Air中确认了一个主板问题，尤其是13英寸Renita屏2018年MacBook Air型号的某些序列号产品。苹果称出现问题的型号“数量非常少”，相关文件显示，问题类别归属于电源，但苹果并未透露具体的主板问题细节。目前，苹果已通知苹果商店和授权维修店免费为用户更换受影响机器的主板。苹果还将向受影响的客户发送电子邮件。2018年MacBook Air用户可以访问苹果网站，预约Apple Store或Apple授权服务提供商。当受影响的MacBook Air的序列号输入苹果的内部维修系统时，将发出一条消息，指示技术人员更换逻辑板。

在今年 3 月底的时候，苹果曾经召开了一场「特别」的发布会，，和夏季的 WWDC 软件开发为主以及秋季硬件为主的发布会不同，这场发布会之所以特别是因为这是一场没有硬件只有服务的发布会。在发布会上苹果公布了自己的流媒体服务 Apple TV+ 和内容服务 Apple News+ 等多项订阅计划，希望订阅服务能够代替一部分硬件与内容售卖成为苹果未来收入的第三极。为此，苹果投入了大量的人力财力来进行内容推动和收购，比如在 Apple News+ 上线一年之前，苹果就和 Texture 这个竞争者签署了收购协议，在 Apple News+ 上线之后，更多的收购细节才被披露出来。根据外媒的报道，收购 Texture 的所支付的总体费用至少达到了 4.85 亿美元，首先，苹果需要支付 1 亿美元的预付款给成立 Texture 的四家出版商 ，分别是康德·纳斯特（Condé Nast）、赫斯特（Hearst）、梅雷迪思（Meredith）和罗杰斯传媒（Rogers Media），甚至 KKR 集团作为 Texture 的投资者也能获取一部分收益。不过 1 亿美元只是个前菜，更多细节表示，苹果在收购 Texture 之后的三年里还需要继续支付给这四家出版商不菲的费用，第一年最少支付 1.45 亿美元，而之后的两年苹果还将支付 2.45 亿美元，再加上之前 1 亿美元的预付款才算是吃下 Texture。花费重金买下的 Texture 很快就迎来了结束的命运，在今年的 5 月 28 日苹果将其关闭，从而全力发展自己主推的订阅服务 Apple News+。不过目前来看，恐怕 Apple News+ 的发展似乎并没有那么顺利。上线初期在用户体验和出版商的关系上 Apple News+ 就面临过不少困难，而在运营三个月后，更加困难的事而来了——赚钱。根据 Business Insider 的一份报告显示，苹果最初预计 Apple News+ 推出的第一年，出版商的收入就应该达到他们从 Texture 那里获得收入的 10 倍。然而到目前为止，苹果还远远没能达到这一目标，甚至有一位出版商表示收入是「他们所说的二十分之一」。该报告表示，出版商们认为苹果对 Apple News+ 的细节问题缺乏关注，虽然苹果的硬件一般都有着极高的完成度和出色的用户体验，但 Apple News+ 的服务却像一个半成品一样。为了安抚这些出版商，苹果已经表示将会「努力让产品更直观」，同时尽力解决出版商们遇到的问题，但是一部分遭到伤害的出版商并不觉得苹果真得重视他们的感受，并且认为苹果不会全力以赴解决这件事。此前苹果的高级副总裁 Eddy Cue 表示苹果有数百人的团队在改进 Apple News+。

Alex Morgan is virtually the face of women’s football — and maybe even football, period, for casual fans — in the United States, picking up where Mia Hamm left off in the late 1990s and early 2000s.Nike, Coca-Cola, McDonald’s and others have signed Morgan to sponsorship deals. She has her own line of books for girls that have been turned into a streaming series on Amazon Prime and her combined followers of almost 14 million on the big three social media networks ostensibly makes her the most followed USA footballer online.Part of it is because Morgan is marketable, relatable, and a role model for girls playing for youth clubs and in college. But there is a bigger reason: Morgan scores a ton of goals.She burst into the public consciousness during the 2011 World Cup when she scored in the final against Japan, and she has been a star ever since, amassing 106 goals in 167 matches for USA.Morgan’s form coming into the World Cup was particularly good, with 33 goals in her previous 39 games, her clinical finishing often carrying a team. When she gets the service she needs, she is deadliest when racing in behind defences and finishing from difficult, wide angles. Although she played in France with Lyon for a short stint in 2017 and improved her ability to take on defenders, her bread and butter remains the very American approach of relying on pace and power to blast past the opposition.But after scoring five goals against Thailand in USA’s first game of the World Cup, she has not scored since. That Thailand game was a weird one – it set the record for the biggest win in World Cup history – and since it might have been alarming if Morgan had not scored multiple goals, it is easy to write off.For most strikers, no goals in four World Cup games would be a disappointment but it has allowed Morgan to show off other vital parts of her game.“In general our team has been able to adapt to what the game has given us, and that includes myself,” she said. “I’ve been given different roles within the team defensively and on the attacking side. All I want to do is execute that and I think that I have.”She displayed a different role in the quarter-final against France, which USA won 2-1 thanks to two goals from the effervescent left-winger Megan Rapinoe. Rather than hanging around up top, waiting for balls in behind, Morgan dropped deeper, holding up the ball and finding the wings. She was the one who threaded the ball to Tobin Heath, racing past her on the right for what turned into the winner.“The kudos to Alex is that she has a balance in her game, in terms of penetration or, like in the France game, being more of a player who can hold the ball up for us,” the USA manager, Jill Ellis, said. “Sometimes you get one or the other but Alex has worked on that and has that balance.”The centre-back Abby Dahlkemper said Morgan’s ability to shift from a target striker to a holding player shows why she is so potent. “She is that link player, dropping off the centre-backs to connect for the transition,” Dahlkemper said. “She did awesome and proved why she’s one of the top strikers in the world – not only being able to score goals but set them up as well.”While Morgan is adept at using her movement to drag defenders around and create space, her back-to-goal hold-up play is perhaps the most underrated part of her game. That is especially true when teams target her, just as Spain and France tried to do.“As a No 9 I’m going to be ploughed through quite often and that comes with the job,” Morgan said.At this point, however, teams may be more worried about Rapinoe, who has tied Morgan’s five goals for the competition. Unless Phil Neville mixes it up and asks Lucy Bronze to play in the midfield – a switch he teased was a possibility in his pre-match press conference – then Bronze, who Neville calls the best right-back in the world, will have the opportunity to contain Rapinoe.That could force Morgan to take up more of the goalscoring load again. Though she has almost always played as a central striker for USA, the left-footed Morgan played on the left wing for Lyon and she is comfortable floating wide into different areas in front of goal. That could allow her to be a roaming presence in a bid to overload Bronze.Whether Morgan’s role on Tuesday will involve scoring goals or not, her teammates and manager are sure she will do whatever it takes to reach the World Cup final. “I think there’s a single-mindedness right now in Alex,” Ellis said. “I see that in her play and I see it off the field as well.”Megan RapinoeUnless you’ve been living under a rock, Rapinoe has been the star of the USA team. With five goals in five games, it seems no one can stop her — not even the president of the United States, who apparently has nothing better to do than chastise Rapinoe for declining an invitation to the White House that he hadn’t extended yet. Just look for the player with the pink hair delivering pinpoint crosses from the left wing. That’s Pinoe.Alyssa NaeherThe USA goalkeeper’s biggest flaw is perhaps simply that she’s not as good as Hope Solo, who holds the world record in clean sheets. But Naeher, who is playing in her first World Cup, has had her nervy moments, with a poor decision allowing Spain to score, and another error nearly letting Chile pull one back as well. Given England’s attacking prowess, especially the co-Golden Boot leader Ellen White, Naeher is going to have a good game in the semi-final. If not, that may decide who advances.Crystal DunnShe doesn’t consider herself a defender, but Dunn is the starting left-back for the Americans – and it’s going to be her difficult task to shut Nikita Parris down. That could be deeply worrying, since one-on-one defending has never been Dunn’s strongest skill, but she acquitted herself rather well against France’s Kadidiatou Diana in the quarter-final. Dunn is a modern full-back who pushes high up the field to create a numerical advantage in the midfield, but she will still have to track back and stop Parris, which could be the key to keeping England off the scoreboard.Julie ErtzUnless Jill Ellis mixes things up, look for Ertz to start as a defensive midfielder and play a crucial role in preventing England’s advancement up the field. Ertz, who is easy to spot with her bright blue headband, is a physical player who flies into tackles and is given a huge responsibility in covering a lot of the central-midfield. At times, she’ll drop between the centre backs and help the USA build out of the back, too. But Ertz is the their best player in the air on set pieces, and this tournament has seen set pieces decide plenty of games, which means she may play an especially important role. Topics Women's World Cup 2019 USA women's football team Women's World Cup Women's football features

LONDON (Reuters) - Defensive equity strategies focused on high payouts and steady earnings have gained in popularity this year as investors flock to safety, worried the biggest stock market rally in decades is about to come crashing down. The German share price index DAX graph is pictured at the stock exchange in Frankfurt, Germany, April 12, 2019. REUTERS/StaffInvestors have piled into defensive sectors, which generate higher dividends and have steady revenue streams, for the first time in two years, viewing them as the safest bet as global growth slows and trade tensions rise, data shows. Globally, utilities stocks have pulled in $4.5 billion this year while consumer goods stocks have drawn in $3.2 billion, according to EPFR data. This breaks a two-year exodus from those sectors and is the latest sign of how uneasy investors are with stocks at record-high levels in a worsening economic climate. The inflows accelerated at the start of May, when hopes of a truce in a trade war between the U.S. and China were dashed. The strategy has paid off. Unusually, focusing on the parts of the stock market considered safer not only protected investors from the worst of the sell-off late last year, but also helped them outperform during the first-quarter rally of 2019. High-dividend and “low volatility” stocks, which tend to move less sharply than the average stock, have beaten market benchmarks. That underscores how “defensive”, not to mention hated, this year’s rally has been. “You have your equity market that’s up 16% (year-to-date) but low volatility is beating it. You certainly don’t expect that in any other bull market,” said Nick Alonso, director of multi-asset at PanAgora Asset Management in Boston. “Defensive assets did well in Q4, they protected on the downside and they also picked up that upside in Q1,” he added. The S&P 500 is up a whopping 16.7% this year, soaring to a record high last week, but an index tracking just the “low volatility” stocks in the S&P 500 is beating that, up 17.4% year-to-date. Low volatility also outperformed in 2018. “The return to minimum variance (low volatility) and traditional defensive strategies has been somewhat out of the ordinary,” said Panagora’s Alonso. The interest from prospective clients in Panagora’s defensive equity strategies fund has more than doubled from the same period last year, he added. (GRAPHIC: Investors flock to defensive equities in Q2 - tmsnrt.rs/2YkuAY0) The extent of investor mistrust toward the stock market’s relentless rise is apparent in surveys such as Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Just as U.S. stock markets were hitting record highs, fund managers in the bank’s June survey reported their positioning was the most bearish it’s been since early 2009. The respondents also said they increased their cash buffers to 5.6% from 4.6% as they ramped up protections against a market slide. A dramatic U-turn by global central banks combined with an escalating trade conflict have made investors uneasy about the economy and uncertain about where markets go next, with all eyes on a critical meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese premier Xi Jinping over the weekend. “There isn’t much conviction out there, and it would be surprising if there were,” said Kevin Gardiner, global investment strategist at Rothschild & Co. “It’s not remarkable that we are seeing the market-beaters of late perhaps beginning to break down a little,” he added. Global stock markets have had their best first-half returns since 1997 and yet the risks to the rally are clear. “The bull in the china shop is the political element, the trade war: there’s a chance of a rapid reversal,” said Guillaume Lasserre, chief investment officer at Lyxor Asset Management. Lasserre has an underweight position on banks and industrials, and is overweight pharmaceutical stocks. “We are defensively positioned, always for the same reason. We’re very confident about the ability of the market to perform long-term, but there is a lack of clarity in the shorter term.” Investors are also seeking to lock in returns by backing income funds which promise higher payouts. European investors have been pulling money from U.S. equity funds even as they plough billions into U.S. equity income funds. David Holohan, head of equity strategy at Mediolanum Asset Management in Dublin, is another investor shifting to more defensive positioning, unconvinced central bank support will help sustain markets. “We think monetary policy easing is one last hurrah and once that’s played out, if it hasn’t already, investors will look at fundamentals and see earnings estimates have been deteriorating for several months now, and that disconnect shouldn’t play out much longer before equities give in,” he said. (GRAPHIC: U.S. income funds draw inflows - tmsnrt.rs/2FDC3KK) Reporting by Helen Reid; Editing by Josephine Mason and Raissa KasolowskyOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Jason Bordoff, a Columbia University professor and former energy adviser to President Barack Obama, wasn't surprised by Iran's reaction: "When the president of Russia announces an OPEC decision before an OPEC meeting even starts, that may rub OPEC members the wrong way," he said. "That risks alienating OPEC members."The comments from Iran shine a spotlight on the fault lines within OPEC and its allies."Iran's statements reflect a growing political division between the member states, if not OPEC decision makers themselves," said Clayton Allen, senior vice president of trade, policy and geopolitics at Height Capital Markets. As the world's largest oil exporter, Saudi Arabia is the de facto leader of OPEC. But the cartel includes 13 other members, including Saudi arch rival Iran. Since late 2016, OPEC has teamed up with Russia and other non-OPEC members to try to stabilize the oil market by holding back production.The global economy just dodged another bullet. But the US-China trade truce won't fix it That alliance successfully mopped up some of the glut in oil stockpiles that caused oil prices to crash. However, these major oil producers continue to be challenged by skyrocketingAmerican shale oil output, theUS-China trade warand signs that demand for oil is deteriorating."Iran is pushing back on this notion that OPEC is now being governed by a small minority of its members," said Allen.When CNN asked about these tensions, Saudi Arabia Energy Minister Khalid Al-Falih on Monday stressed that OPEC members are pragmatic, choosing to focus squarely on supply and demand."We have had wars. We have had conflicts, differences between different countries. We keep them outside the room," Falih said.To Falih's point, dissent within OPEC has to some extent been going on since the group formed in September 1960.Saudi Arabia and Iran have long been rivals in the Middle East. Iran and Iraq were at war for nearly a decade beginning in 1980. And in 1990, Iraq invaded fellow OPEC member Kuwait -- an incursion that would start the first Gulf War. Chevron has been in Venezuela for nearly 100 years. It could finally be forced to leave"Just like any cartel, the members have been bitching at themselves since OPEC was started," Allen said. Factions in modern OPEC have been amplified by US sanctions on Iran and Venezuela, which have sidelined hundreds of thousands of barrels of crude.It's unclear whether Iran's concerns about Russia and Saudi Arabia dominating OPEC's decision making will spread to other members of the cartel. The answer could emerge as OPEC faces tougher calls in the future about production. Even Iran's oil minister conceded on Monday that this week's decision was a relatively easy one. OPEC and its allies had little choice but to keep production cuts in place as they try to support prices pressured by the trade war and recession fears. Cutting output would have been difficult given worries that amilitary conflict in the Middle Eastcould derail supply.Saudi Arabia's alliance with Russia reflects OPEC's shrinking market share. Spiking shale output in the United States means OPEC manages a smaller piece of the pie than it used to.Not only has America surpassed Saudi Arabia and Russia to become the world's largest oil producer, but Texas alone will soon pump more than any OPEC member besides Saudi Arabia."OPEC is clearly challenged by the stunning surge of US oil production," said Columbia's Bordoff.

Enlarge this image An honor guard stands at the coffin of assassinated German politician Walter Lübcke at his memorial service on June 13 in Kassel, Germany. Lübcke, a Christian Democrat, was outspoken in his pro-immigration views. His confessed killer is an avowed neo-Nazi with a 20-plus-year history of violence against immigrants. Sean Gallup/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Sean Gallup/Getty Images An honor guard stands at the coffin of assassinated German politician Walter Lübcke at his memorial service on June 13 in Kassel, Germany. Lübcke, a Christian Democrat, was outspoken in his pro-immigration views. His confessed killer is an avowed neo-Nazi with a 20-plus-year history of violence against immigrants. Sean Gallup/Getty Images The assassination last month in Germany of a popular pro-migrant politician has raised alarm about a growing threat of right-wing terrorism. It was the first political assassination in more than half a century, and it has shaken the country.Walter Lübcke, a 65-year-old member of the Christian Democratic Union and a staunch defender of Chancellor Angela Merkel's open-door refugee policy, was shot in the head late at night on June 2 as he sat smoking on his terrace, according to German investigators. The confessed killer is an avowed neo-Nazi with a 20-plus-year history of violence against immigrants. But experts on extremism and some mainstream political leaders suggest the far-right, anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany political party shares at least some of the blame.In recent German history, right-wing attacks have mostly targeted immigrants. The assassination of a prominent German politician is unprecedented, says Hajo Funke, a professor at the Free University of Berlin who studies right-wing extremism."So coldblooded, so prepared, so decisive," he says. "That kind of killing is a new step, and that is what, for me, is right-wing terror."German officials were still calling Lübcke's assassination a mystery at the time of his funeral on June 13 in the German state of Hesse, where he was the district president of the city of Kassel. Gun homicides are rare in a country with strict gun laws. Parallels The 'Very Different' Leaders Of Germany's Far-Right AfD Party The break in the case came on June 15, when a German SWAT team arrested 45-year-old Stephan Ernst, based on DNA evidence collected at the crime scene.Ernst's police record includes an attempt to plant a pipe bomb at a hostel for asylum-seekers in 1993. Investigators say he had ties to neo-Nazi groups, including Combat 18, an extremist group that originated in the United Kingdom, spread to other European countries and has chapters in the U.S. and Canada. Enlarge this image Demonstrators hold a banner with the message "Stop the Right-Wing Violence" during a June 18 march in Berlin against the killing of politician Walter Lübcke. Christoph Soeder/AFP/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Christoph Soeder/AFP/Getty Images Demonstrators hold a banner with the message "Stop the Right-Wing Violence" during a June 18 march in Berlin against the killing of politician Walter Lübcke. Christoph Soeder/AFP/Getty Images "He was closely associated with leading figures of Combat 18," says Daniel Koehler, director of the German Institute on Radicalization and De-radicalization Studies in Stuttgart. "He was friends with them on Facebook."After Ernst was arrested, says Koehler, "Combat 18, for the first time ever in Germany, released a propaganda video in support of the suspect."When Ernst confessed to the killing, he told police he acted alone. But German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said investigators continue to look for accomplices and a network. Two more arrests were made last week.The case is a "game changer, an extremely extraordinary incident," says Koehler. Leading politicians in Germany now feel under direct threat of violence from far-right extremists. "It's not that [extremists] didn't want to do it before, but they simply didn't dare," says Koehler.Over the weekend, media reports — confirmed by Germany's domestic intelligence agency — surfaced of a neo-Nazi network that ordered body bags and compiled a target list of political leaders.When Lübcke's killer confessed, he also spelled out his motives to investigators. He said he was enraged by comments Lübcke made in 2015 in support of refugees in Germany.Lübcke's remarks came during a heated town hall meeting to discuss a new shelter for asylum-seekers, as hundreds of thousands of migrants and refugees began entering the country. Far-right hecklers interrupted the meeting. Lübcke challenged them. Enlarge this image Walter Lübcke, shown here in 2012, was a staunch supporter of Chancellor Angela Merkel's open-door refugee policy. Uwe Zucchi/AFP/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Uwe Zucchi/AFP/Getty Images Walter Lübcke, shown here in 2012, was a staunch supporter of Chancellor Angela Merkel's open-door refugee policy. Uwe Zucchi/AFP/Getty Images "There is this famous town hall where he was telling people in the audience, 'If you don't like human rights, you should go,' " says Mohamed Amjahid, a political reporter for Die Zeit newspaper. "He was very tough."The exchange led to an online hate campaign against Lübcke, who received death threats. He was provided police protection until the storm eventually subsided.In February, his 2015 town hall comments surfaced again in a video posted by Erika Steinbach, a former CDU member of parliament who broke with her party and aligned herself with the political ideology of the AfD, German's far-right party, now the third-largest in parliament.Her post spurred another storm of hate."She herself never actually threatened Lübcke, but she provided the platform for those who did," says Koehler. World Germany's Far-Right AfD Party Is Making Its Presence Felt Koehler connects AfD rhetoric to growing extremism. The AfD's warning of an existential threat to German culture has contributed to extremist violence, he says.Studies produced by his institute show "a significant link between AfD hate speech directed against refugees and the level of far-right, xenophobic crimes in certain areas," Koehler says. A prominent AfD member of parliament was temporarily suspended from Twitter last year after she referred to Muslim men as "barbaric" and "gang-raping hordes.""Statistically, there are three violent, far-right attacks every day in Germany, so that is just significant. We have no other form of violent extremism that presents such a threat," Koehler says.When high-ranking AfD members use language that dehumanizes refugees to create an existential threat, he says, that spurs violence: "Far-right extremists act out on that fear and threat."As the Lübcke assassination investigation continued and alarm rose in Germany, senior members of the CDU charged that the AfD was partly to blame for the politician's death.AfD rhetoric especially demonizes refugees from the Middle East, Funke says."There's an ... indirect link," he says, "being utterly against all Muslims, Muslims in this country, Muslims around the world. Unleashing of resentment is one of the conditions for murder and for violence."AfD leaders and supporters accuse the CDU of attempting to politicize Lübcke's death."Everybody has to condemn a murder," says Armin-Paul Hampel, an AfD member of parliament. Threats, he says, are "my daily business. I got threatened, including 'We will kill you' and things like that. Nobody complained, by the way, in the German media."AfD political leaders have also dismissed fears of an extreme right-wing terrorist network. "The one gentleman imprisoned is saying nothing. So, let's wait," says Hampel.The heated political exchanges come as the AfD hopes to boost its support in a series of local elections in the fall. AfD leaders have accused CDU leaders of "using a murder to discredit political competitors," as an AfD parliamentary leader wrote on Twitter.The AfD has been consistent in criticizing what Hampel calls Merkel's "illegal open-door policy" for refugees and asylum-seekers. AfD leaders demand that most, if not all, of the recent arrivals be sent home. Germany's welfare system will collapse, he believes, under the strain of refugees who refuse to integrate.The central message of his party, he says, is "Do we really want a melting pot from all nationalities, or do we want to keep our identity?"He insists that message had nothing to do with Lübcke's assassination.

Apple design chief Jony Ive isn’t retiring–not even completely from Apple. He’s starting his own design firm, called LoveFrom, and Apple will be the new firm’s first client.LoveFrom? Sort of an odd name on first hearing, right? Well, there’s a story there. The name comes from this Steve Jobs quote, paraphrased by Ives in a Financial Times piece today.“There was an employee meeting a number of years ago and Steve [Jobs] was talking . . . He [said] that one of the fundamental motivations was that when you make something with love and with care, even though you probably will never meet . . . the people that you’re making it for, and you’ll never shake their hand, by making something with care, you are expressing your gratitude to humanity, to the species.” “I so identified with that motivation and was moved by his description. So my new company is called ‘LoveFrom’. It succinctly speaks to why I do what I do.”Ive is considered the main torchbearer of the Apple design aesthetic and vision in the years after Steve Jobs’s death.He was relieved of daily management of the vaunted Industrial Design group in 2015 when he assumed the title of chief design officer—and helped create the company’s new “spaceship” Apple Park headquarters—but then reassumed management responsibilities again in 2017. LoveFrom’s cofounder, Marc Newson, is an Australian designer who arrived at Apple in 2014 shortly before the announcement of the Apple Watch.Since taking control of the Apple design team in 1996, Ive designed or codesigned pretty much every major Apple hardware product including the iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch. He’s said to hold more than 5,000 patents.

Thankfully, we’ve got technology on our side. A nearly endless parade of tools can not only help us remember things, but even get our brains working a bit more efficiently in general. Here are some free apps to help you ramp up your recall.Sometimes the best apps are the ones you already have. Both Android and Apple devices feature quick ways to set reminders for yourself, whether that means leveraging Siri, Google Assistant, or some other AI-powered helper. And while time-based reminders works well for most, try leveraging location-based reminders to make your to-do list work better in the real world. If you’re signed into Google, it’s as easy as typing “Remind me to buy dog food the next time I’m at Whole Foods” into the Google search bar, whereas iPhone owners can use Apple’s built-in Reminders app to set location-based entries by tapping the Info icon to the right of your reminder (see the “Set a place” entry in this Apple help article for more).Now if you’re actually looking to improve your memory, there’s no shortage of brain-training apps on the market. But Peak (Android, Apple) wins points for being equal parts charming, feature-rich, and insightful—with dozens of games designed to improve your recall and mental agility. The free version offers a decent selection to get you started, while the paid version ($5 a month or $35 a year) offers a more personalized experience and access to the complete collection of challenges.If you’re like me, you have a phone half-full of contacts that you couldn’t identify in real life if your real life depended on it. Get your contacts under control by trying Covve (Android, Apple, Web). It scans for news articles about your contacts, reminds you to keep in touch with them, And lets you take notes about meetings you’ve had with them. But it also pulls in profile photos of them, which is exceedingly helpful for jogging your memory when it comes to those “Who the hell is this person?” moments as you’re flipping through your virtual Rolodex. The free version is refreshingly powerful, while the paid version ($15 a month or $90 a year) scans more deeply and continuously for changes, among other features.There’s just something about actually writing things down in your own chicken-scratch to help you remember them better. And wouldn’t you know it: your phone’s about the width of a traditional sticky note. Ergo, you should use your phone to hand-write notes to yourself from time to time. Two simple, straightforward options are Squid (Android) and PocketJot (Apple)—apps that get right to the point when you fire them up, offering you a blank canvas upon which to memorialize your musings. Both are free for basic note-taking; the paid version of Squid ($1 a month or $10 a year) gets you the ability to mark up PDFs and a few other features, while the paid version of PocketJot ($6 one time) lets you save unlimited notes.If you use Google’s Chrome browser and find yourself needing to retain various bits of information from around the web, then be sure to give the free Hibou (Chrome Web Store) extension a try. Hibou leverages the concept of “spaced repetition” to re-surface content you highlight right when you’re most likely to forget it—at first, within a few days, then spacing the reminders further and further apart from when you initially highlight and save the content. The intervals are customizable, allowing you to tweak your review times to best suit your retention style.

Considering he has been one of the biggest advocates of equal rights for men and women on the tennis tour, it is something of an irony that Andy Murray should so far have drawn a blank in his search for a mixed doubles partner at Wimbledon as he steps up his return, five months after hip surgery.The former world No 1, always a voice of reason whenever the odd naysayer raises his head to discuss equal prize money or other occasionally contentious issues, has been putting his name and number out there in the past couple of weeks, almost like a teenager begging for a date. And like a teenager, he has had to deal with more than his share of rejection.Ashleigh Barty, the recently crowned French Open champion who is already down to play women’s doubles as well as singles, said she could not manage three events, a decision she described as one of the hardest she has ever had to make. And France’s Kristina Mladenovic, who won the mixed title at Wimbledon in 2013, also politely declined for similar reasons.The Czech Barbora Strycova and Kirsten Flipkens of Belgium are among those who took to social media to offer their services, while the Australian Casey Dellacqua, who partnered Barty to three grand slam doubles finals, said she would consider coming out of retirement if Murray should come knocking.Murray has yet to decide, but just as he might have been despairing that he might not find an ideal partner, up stepped a rather unlikely possibility: Serena Williams. “I’m available,” the 23-times grand slam singles champion said on Saturday, her tongue perhaps in cheek. “I’m feeling better now, so I’m definitely available.”Williams turns 38 in September and goes into Wimbledon without a warm-up event under her belt, the effect of a lingering knee injury leaving her unable to practise on grass until the start of last week. Whether her coach, Patrick Mouratoglou, would countenance a decision to play mixed in addition to her singles is debatable and, as Williams said, her fitness is her first priority as she chases her 24th major title, a win that would equal the all-time record of the Australian Margaret Court. “Let’s see how my knee’s going,” said Williams, who won the mixed title in 1998 with Max Mirnyi of Belarus. “I’m finally doing good. I don’t want to, like, go back.”Having won the title at the Fever-Tree Championships on his return alongside Feliciano López, Murray will partner Pierre-Hugues Herbert of France – winner of all four grand slam men’s doubles titles – in the men’s event. The possibility of a partnership with Williams, though, clearly piqued his interest. “She’s arguably the best player ever,” Murray said. “It would be a pretty solid partner.”Murray has until 11am on Wednesday to enter and there is no question that his return to the Tour has given the doubles event far more attention than usual. The best-of-five-set format – Wimbledon is the only one of the grand slams not to play best of three sets in the men’s doubles – means very few top singles players feel they can compete in both events.“I think when the top singles players are involved in the doubles, it does draw a little bit more attention to it,” he said. “That’s something that I think will be a positive thing for tennis, if more guys were playing doubles.“But here it’s difficult because of the format, the best-of-five sets. For me, even [though] I’m playing doubles here, it’s even a consideration if I’m going to play mixed, as well. I would never expect a top singles player to enter the doubles here because playing potentially 10 sets in one day is just too much. That’s something that maybe would be worth looking at, to give more value to the doubles event, to get more of the top singles players playing, is to reduce the length of the matches a bit.” Topics Wimbledon 2019 The Observer Andy Murray Serena Williams Tennis Wimbledon US sports news

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Last month, Facebook said that WhatsApp users were vulnerable to a sophisticated exploit capable of hacking into phones with little more than a few unanswered calls. The new exploit was likely part of Pegasus, a spyware suite created by the Tel Aviv-based NSO Group, which boasts of its ability to take over phones and computers on behalf of high-paying government clients, according to WhatsApp and Citizen Lab, a research center at the University of Toronto. While the U.S. Justice Department recently told Fast Company that it is aware of the exploit, a rep for the agency would not comment on whether it is actively investigating it.Though NSO is perhaps the most infamous mobile spyware maker—a recent lawsuit alleges that its Pegasus technology was used to help track murdered Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi—it is only one of many shadowy firms offering smartphone malware that, while officially designed to target criminals and terrorists, can be used to target activists, lawyers, and other members of civil society. Dozens upon dozens of spyware firms offer a range of smartphone surveillance, from video and audio recording to location and text monitoring, including regimes with dubious human rights records. This technology, for instance, has been used by mysterious elements in countries like Bahrain and Ethiopia, who used Milan-based Hacking Team’s Remote Control System and the U.K.-based Gamma Group’s FinFisher spyware, respectively, to target dissidents both at home and abroad.NSO has emphatically denied any role in tracking Khashoggi, with the company’s CEO Shalev Hulio telling Israel’s Yedioth Ahronoth earlier this year that “Khashoggi was not targeted by any NSO product or technology, including listening, monitoring, location tracking and intelligence collection.” In January, an NSO spokesperson told Fast Company that the lawsuits were “nothing more than an empty PR stunt to continue the propaganda drumbeat against NSO’s work helping intelligence agencies fight crime and terrorism around the globe.”Other companies include the Israeli firms Ability (a former NSO Group partner), Verint, and Elbit Systems, which have clients across the globe, as the Surveillance Industry Index toolkit illustrates. And, in recent months, a new alliance of some public and unnamed firms have launched Intellexa, a consortium that hopes to challenges NSO Group and Verint in the burgeoning “lawful intercept” market. In late May, Senpai, a “consulting and R&D company” that specializes in cyberintelligence and AI solutions, joined Intellexa as the fourth official partner (five others are not publicly named), for what seems to be its expertise in AI-based data analytics.Particularly troubling for civil society is the legal uncertainty of these spyware tools. While security researchers like Citizen Lab keep uncovering instances of abuses, and lawyers of targeted individual take the fight to courts, federal contracts for the sale and deployment of such mobile spyware tools continue with little to no oversight. The industry is a veritable wild west of cyberweaponry, with no sheriffs to protect anyone with a smartphone.A market of exploitsKarsten Nohl, a cryptographer and managing director at Security Research Labs, says that there are two dimensions to lawful intercept tools: is the smartphone an iPhone or not, and does the exploit require “help” from the phone’s user. Some exploits require users to do something like install a security update—despite warnings—that downloads malware onto their device. Nohl says the simplest exploits are those for Android phones, and that the preferred exploits work over the internet, while others only work in Wi-Fi range. Nohl says that NSO Group can hack most versions of the iPhone and many Android phones, and that this usually happens remotely.“The most difficult would be a remote exploit of an iPhone, and, as far as I can tell, most of the time NSO Group has a monopoly on this,” says Nohl. “There is nobody else who can promise continuous access to iPhone without help from users.”Still, when it comes to matters of surveillance, whether state or corporate, we very often don’t know what we don’t know.Nohl says an iPhone exploit will set a customer back millions of dollars. An Android exploit, on the other hand, costs only hundreds of thousands of dollars. The iPhone ecosystem is clean, with only one software for a number of devices, which creates highly specialized exploit research and development, hence the high market prices. The Android ecosystem is much more fragmented, requiring less effort to design exploits for various vendors and phones, but requiring more work to maintain the exploits over time.Apple has declined to comment publicly on the capabilities of NSO or other spyware makers. In 2016, after an investigation by Citizen Lab into Pegasus prompted Apple to release a security patch for iPhones, the company neither specified the reason or the culprit, nor did it contact human rights groups. That year, Google and cybersecurity company Lookout said they found traces of NSO spyware on “a few dozen” smartphones in 11 countries, predominantly in Israel, Mexico, Georgia, and Turkey.There are cheaper options. Rather than attacking phones, Nohl says most spyware vendors offer SS7 spying, which takes advantage of vulnerabilities in the mobile network. SS7, or Signaling System No. 7, is a protocol that allows various phone networks to communicate with one another. When an exploit gives hackers access to SS7, they can capture smartphone user information like voice calls, text messages, location information, and other data. “Of course, your iPhone can be strong as you want security-wise, but if the mobile network leaks information, that’s outside the control of the phone and Apple. Companies like Circles are very actively promoting that they can track the location of a phone through SS7.”SS7 exploits, Nohl notes, will set customers back on the order of tens of thousands of dollars. He assumes every spyware maker has access to SS7 networks. But Nohl says Android exploits are growing more sophisticated and new competitors are entering the market, putting these tools in the hands of growing numbers of customers.The Israeli connectionAbility, a Tel Aviv-based spyware firm, sells something called the Unlimited Interception System (ULIN), which, along with a tactical cellular interception system called IBIS (In-Between Interception System) allows Ability to intercept GSM, UMTS, LTE, AND CDMA networks to spy on a target’s smartphone. Mexico spent $42 million on ULIN and other tools in 2016, but Ability has also had customers in China, Singapore, Myanmar, the Czech Republic, Germany, and other countries. The company website states its customers include security and intelligence agencies, military forces, law enforcement, and homeland security agencies in over 50 countries.While its fortunes have faded recently—last year it settled a lawsuit with investors for misleading financials—Ability is still actively developing new exploits, according to Forbes.Verint, which has offices in Melville, New York, and Herzliya, Israel, came close to purchasing NSO Group in 2018 for $1 billion before talks fell apart. The company is best known for its security cameras and systems that allow corporations to monitor work places, but it also sells sophisticated mass communication surveillance tools, including smartphone tracking software to government and enterprise customers. Verint’s SkyLock technology, for instance, can track the location of smartphone users by hacking the SS7 protocol, as evidenced in a confidential brochure obtained by 60 Minutes in 2016.Like a number of known spyware companies, Verint has sold smartphone snooping systems to governments with highly questionable human rights records, such as the United Arab Emirates (UAE), South Sudan, and Mexico. An anonymous former Verint employee , told Haaretz last year that Verint’s phone monitoring technology was used to target gay and transgender people in Azerbaijan.Spyware makers uniteTo compete with the likes of NSO Group and Verint Systems, a number of surveillance startups recently formed a consortium. Known as Intellexa, this alliance aims to become “a one-stop shop for all of our customers’ field intelligence collection needs”—the need, of course, being smart device monitoring, among other electronic devices.The Intellexa alliance is comprised of cyberintelligence firms Nexa Technologies (formerly Amesys), WiSpear, and Cytrox. Nexa’s “Lawful Intercept” solution allows the operator to spy on voice and data across 2G, 3G, and 4G) networks. The company, which is headquartered in Paris with offices in Dubai and the Czech Republic, also offers an internet interception product that allows users to carry out IP probes to analyze high data rate networks, or use what its website says are Wi-Fi sensors designed to detect a target several miles away.Nexa didn’t respond to email requests for comment on its system capabilities. However, John Scott-Railton, a Senior Research at Citizen Lab, says the company’s Wi-Fi sensors are likely radio direction finding technology combined with standard Wi-Fi interception attacks.Intellexa partner WiSpear is a more recent entry into the offensive cyber weapons market. Launched in Israel in 2017 but based in Cyprus, WiSpear sells a specially-outfitted van called SpearHead, which is equipped with 24 antennas that can force a target’s phone or computer to connect to its Wi-Fi-based interceptor at a distance of up to 1,640 feet. After conducting a “man-in-the-middle” attack, SpearHead can download four different kinds of malware onto iOS and Android.WiSpear’s founder, Tal Dilian, a veteran of the Israeli Defense Forces, is also the founder of Circles, a cyberweapons company based in Cyprus and Bulgaria that merged with NSO Group when both companies were under the ownership of Francisco Partners. The other public Intellexa parter, Cytrox, is a European firm that develops exploits that can target and break into a user’s smart devices. The company, which is currently in stealth mode according to its website, was acquired by WiSpear in 2018. Dilian told the publication that in addition to the three firms, there are five other non-public partners in Intellexa.“Field intelligence teams must be prepared to overcome any challenge they face,” said Dilian in Intellexa’s February 16th press release announcing the alliance. “They need to be able to access hard-to-reach areas and successfully intercept any device. To make sure they succeed in doing so, they need a versatile platform—portable, vehicle mounted or airborne—with a comprehensive set of capabilities to choose from, depending on the specific operational scenario they face. Intellexa was established to enable just that.”Intellexa could not be reached for comment on its “airborne” spyware capabilities, but Scott-Railton says drones and other aircraft equipped with intercept technology would be advantageous for firms. “[Drones and aircraft] are actually the best way since you get it via line-of-sight,” he says. “Ground-based has much lower range.”“Trojan system for mobile devices”Another, lesser-known spyware firm is Rayzone, an Israeli company that offers services like location tracking and big data analysis, as well as a “trojan system for mobile devices” that it sells to governments and federal agencies. The Rayzone website mentions malware that allows clients to gather smartphone information like files, photos, web browsing, emails, location, Skype conversations, and other data. The company also boasts that its malware can spy on SMS and other instant messaging services, including WhatsApp.Many of the above spyware firms make their money with overseas contracts, often under the auspices of their governments’ export controls, but there are several companies with more domestic agendas. The UAE, for instance, is home to DarkMatter, a cybersecurity firm that houses Project Raven, a team of clandestine operatives, some of whom have formerly worked for U.S. intelligence services like the National Security Agency (NSA). Reuters reported in January that for the last several years, Raven operatives used a cyberespionage platform called Karma that can hack the iPhones of activists and political leaders, as well as suspected terrorists.One of the Reuters sources, Lori Stroud, formerly of NSA contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, was told in a briefing that Raven is the offensive, operational division of the UAE’s NESA (National Electronic Security Authority, now called the Signals Intelligence Agency), which is equivalent to the NSA. While Raven used Karma to spy on regional rivals like Qatar and Iran, it also reportedly used the malware to target UAE citizens who were openly critical of the monarchy. In an interesting turn, anonymous sources told the Intercept that operatives at Dark Matter had discussed hacking the publication’s staff after reporter Jenna McLaughlin had revealed in an Intercept story how the Maryland-based computer security firm CyberPoint had helped assemble a team of American spies and hacking tools for Project Raven.Across the Mediterranean, the Italian firm eSurv sells an Android spyware platform nicknamed “Exodus.” In March, researchers at the watchdog Security Without Borders said that between 2016 until early 2019 they had found 25 malicious apps uploaded by eSurv to the Google Play Store, where they were disguised as applications from mobile operators. “According to publicly available statistics, as well as confirmation from Google, most of these apps collected a few dozen installations each, with one case reaching over 350,” Security Without Borders reported.Security Without Borders’ research revealed that Exodus is equipped with “extensive collection and interception capabilities,” and that some modifications triggered by the spyware “might expose the infected devices to further compromise or data tampering.” Italian authorities launched an investigation into eSurv and a related company, STM, in the weeks before Security Without Borders’ report. As part of the investigation, prosecutors said they shut down eSurv’s infrastructure.Growing a controversial industryIn March, the New York Times reported that the market for “lawful intercept spyware” has an estimated value of $12 billion. The London-based market research company Technavio, however, estimates the lawful intercept market to be $1.3 billion, noting that a key driver for the market is an “increasing number of government initiatives . . . to increase the use of lawful interception for periodic monitoring and control of criminal, terrorist, and other illegal activities across communication networks.” With more spyware tools and government intercept initiatives, the potential for abuse is very likely to increase, says Scott-Railton.“That said, while the new entrants are chasing after investors, it’s pretty clear that many investors are made uncomfortable by the risks that these companies are running,” he says.Novalina Capital, the private equity firm that recently bought NSO Group from Francisco Partners, has been taking heat the last few months for Pegasus’s human rights record. And with NSO Group facing multiple lawsuits from alleged victims in Canada and Mexico, Novalpina has tried to calm investor nerves with a public relations campaign that is seeing them engage with human rights groups and pledge more stringent internal oversight. NSO is “already relatively permissive about the use of its technology for what Europeans would consider human rights violations,” says Nohl.Meanwhile, the legal terrain surrounding so-called lawful intercept tools remains murky and largely untrammeled. As a group of lawyers and law students recently wrote at Just Security, “To date, neither domestic legal frameworks governing the sale and deployment of spyware, nor industry self-regulation, is effectively preventing or addressing abuses.”David Kaye, the U.N. special rapporteur on freedom of expression, recently called for a moratorium on sales of surveillance software. “Surveillance of specific individuals—often journalists, activists, opposition figures, critics, and others exercising their right to freedom of expression—has been shown to lead to arbitrary detention, sometimes to torture and possibly to extrajudicial killings,” he wrote in a report to the U.N. Human Rights Council. “States should impose an immediate moratorium on the export, sale, transfer, use, or servicing of privately developed surveillance tools until a human rights-compliant safeguards regime is in place.”Nohl points out that what is perfectly legal activity in one country may very well be criminal in another country, especially as it pertains to spying and law enforcement. He says that many countries will feel perfectly entitled to use mobile spyware technologies as tools of political oppression because their laws actually grant them that power.And companies will keep selling them weapons. While NSO and other Israeli vendors currently dominate the marketplace, it may not always be so. “NSO Group is just so phenomenally profitable that somebody else will have to break into that market,” says Nohl. “And the next competitor might well be a Russian, Chinese, or even North Korean vendor, who might have even less trouble dealing with an even wider range of clients.”This story has been updated to include a response from NSO Group.

MR EAZI, EFYA, BLINKY BILL, DJ MOHOGANY at SummerStage in Central Park (Sunday, July 7, 5 p.m. doors, 6-10 p.m. show) cityparksfoundation.orgMOUNTAIN GOATS in East River Park (Saturday, Aug. 10, 6-9 p.m.) cityparksfoundation.orgLILA DOWNS, LIDO PIMIENTA, DJ RIPLEY at SummerStage in Central Park (Sunday, Aug. 11, 6 p.m. doors, 7-10 p.m. show) cityparksfoundation.orgDEE DEE BRIDGEWATER, RAVI COLTRANE, QUIANA LYNELL, CAMILLE THURMAN, NIKARA WARREN AND BRANDEE YOUNGER in Marcus Garvey Park (Saturday, Aug. 24, 3-7 p.m.) cityparksfoundation.orgTHE ORIGINALS at SummerStage in Central Park (Tuesday, Aug. 27, 6 p.m. doors, 7-10 p.m. show) cityparksfoundation.orgLook out for a new stage, canopy, LED screens and more at SummerStage’s Central Park venue after a $5.5 million renovation.

San Francisco has become the first US city to ban sales of e-cigarettes until their health effects are clearer.Officials on Tuesday voted to ban stores selling the vaporisers and made it illegal for online retailers to deliver to addresses in the city.The Californian city is home to Juul Labs, the most popular e-cigarette producer in the US.Juul said the move would drive smokers back to cigarettes and "create a thriving black market".San Francisco's mayor, London Breed, has 10 days to sign off the legislation, but has indicated she will. The law would begin to be enforced seven months from that date, although there have been reports firms could mount a legal challenge.Anti-vaping activists say firms deliberately target young people by offering flavoured products. Not only is more scientific investigation into the health impact needed, critics say, but vaping can encourage young people to switch to cigarettes. E-cigarettes: How safe are they? Juul: The rise of a $38bn e-cigarette phenomenon E-cigarettes 'much better for quitting smoking' E-cigarette use among US teens rises dramatically Vaping - the rise in five charts Earlier this year the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the national regulator, issued proposed guidelines giving companies until 2021 to apply to have their e-cigarette products evaluated.A deadline had initially been set for August 2018, but the agency later said more preparation time was needed.San Francisco's City Attorney, Dennis Herrera, who campaigned for a ban, praised the move and said it was necessary because of an "abdication of responsibility" by the FDA in regulating e-cigarettes.According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the number of US teenagers who admitted using nicotine products rose about 36% last year, something it attributed to a growth in e-cigarette use.Under federal law, the minimum age to buy tobacco products is 18 years, although in California and several other states it is 21. Juul previously said it supported cutting vaping among young people but only in conjunction with tougher measures to stop them accessing regular cigarettes.The company's small device, just longer than a flash drive, has about 70% of the US vaping market.San Francisco's ban would "drive former adult smokers who successfully switched to vapor products back to deadly cigarettes", said Juul spokesman Ted Kwong. It would also stop adult smokers switching and create a "thriving black market"."We have already taken the most aggressive actions in the industry to keep our products out of the hands of those underage and are taking steps to do more." Traditional tobacco products will "remain untouched by this legislation, even though they kill 40,000 Californians every year," he said. Juul, 35%-owned by Marlboro maker Altria Group, has already withdrawn popular flavours such as mango and cucumber from retail stores and closed its social media channels on Instagram and Facebook.

[摘要]据外媒报道，多家杂志出版商分享的最新信息显示，苹果新闻订阅服务Apple News+在发布几个月后似乎就陷入了困境。腾讯科技讯 6月29日消息，据外媒报道，多家杂志出版商分享的最新信息显示，苹果新闻订阅服务Apple News+在发布几个月后似乎就陷入了困境。这些出版商对Apple News+带来的收入并不满意。一家出版商表示，来自Apple News+的营收还不及苹果承诺的二十分之一。另一家出版商则表示，Apple News+带来的收入与《Texture》不相上下，这并不算多。一位出版业高管说，苹果预计，在Apple News+推出第一年结束时，出版商的收入将是他们从《Texture》上获得的收入10倍。这位高管吐槽称：“现在，收入只是他们所说的二十分之一，这不是真的。”其他出版商表示，他们从Apple News+获得的订阅收入低于或相当于他们在《Texture》上获得的收入，而《Texture》最初只是很小的订阅驱动服务。据多位出版业高管说，自推出以来，苹果的Apple News+团队一直在举行会议，征求有关这项服务的意见。据报道，苹果在会议上承认，Apple News用户对免费文章和付费新闻内容之间的区别感到困惑。出版商对以杂志为中心的新闻内容布局感到不满意，管理人员希望通过更简单的方法将杂志内容转换为应用程序内容。一位出版商表示：“我认为他们没有全力支持Apple News+。”不过，有些出版商仍然对Apple News+的未来持乐观态度，因为这项服务还处于起步阶段，需要一些时间来解决这些问题。苹果已经告诉出版商，它正在努力使Apple News+应用程序对用户更直观，因此希望对界面进行改进，使其更容易在应用程序中导航和管理杂志。（腾讯科技审校/金鹿）

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Technology stocks are Wall Street’s top performers as 2019 hits half-way, with investors betting on lower interest rates, although Apple (AAPL.O) and chipmakers face turbulence related to the U.S.-China trade war. The S&P 500 information technology index has surged 9% in June, its strongest month in three years. That rally, and the S&P 500's .SPX record high on June 21, reflect investors' increased appetite for risk as they become more confident the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates to support a slowing economy. It also shows that Wall Street is mostly confident that U.S. President Donald Trump, who has shown a dislike for stock market downswings, will ultimately resolve his trade conflict with China. Investors were looking for signs of progress from the G20 meeting in Japan, where the United States and China agreed on Saturday to restart trade talks after Trump offered concessions, including no new tariffs and an easing of restrictions on tech company Huawei [HWT.UL], in order to reduce tensions with Beijing. After meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the G20 summit in Osaka, Trump called his talks with Xi “excellent.” “The risk to the downside is the greatest. If trade talks break down then we could head lower, probably a lot further, and the tech sector could be a leader to the downside,” said Randy Frederick, Vice President of Trading & Derivatives at Charles Schwab. Other investors say their optimism about the tech stocks is grounded in expectations that the sector’s earnings growth will outperform the rest of the economy over the next several years. David Carter, chief investment officer at Lenox Wealth Advisors in New York, had said going into the meeting that their expectations for genuine progress on tariffs at the G20 were low. “Tech is less of a short-term tactical play, and more a belief in the long-term growth potential of the space. Certainly, it’s affected by tariffs and regulation, but the growth story is still there.” Although just short of its April record high, the technology index is up 26% so far in 2019, leading other sectors by far and easily beating the S&P 500’s 17% return. Among June’s strong performing technology stocks are Nvidia (NVDA.O), Apple (AAPL.O), Xerox (XRX.N), each up over 13%. Facebook (FB.O), Amazon (AMZN.O) and Netflix (NFLX.O) all rose more than 7% in June, slightly outperforming the S&P 500’s increase of just under 7% as investors increased bets on high-growth, volatile stocks. Uncertainty related to the trade conflict and Washington’s blacklisting of China’s Huawei have pushed the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index .SOX down 8% from its record high in April, but it is still up 27% for the year, buoyed by expectations that a slump in global sales is near its bottom and that demand is set to recover. The benchmark chip index has surged over 5% since Tuesday, when Micron Technologies (MU.O) said it resumed some sales to Huawei and forecast a recovery in memory chip demand in the second half of the year. Underpinning not just tech, but most of Wall Street’s recent strength, is the recently increased confidence that the Fed will cut interest rates as soon as July, with interest rate futures pointing to three rate cuts this year to support already dwindling economic growth. The recent strong performance of technology stocks comes even as analysts predict a drop in quarterly earnings for the sector, in part due to uncertainty around the trade war. Many U.S. semiconductor companies rely on China for over half of their revenue. Analysts on average expect the S&P 500 IT sector’s earnings per share to sink 8% in the second quarter, compared to a 0.3% increase predicted for the S&P 500, according to Refinitiv’s IBES data. FILE PHOTO: Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., June 24, 2019. REUTERS/Brendan McDermidS&P 500 semiconductor companies are seen posting a much deeper 28% slump in second-quarter earnings, and a 20% drop for all of 2019. Analysts on average expect Advanced Micro Devices (AMD.O) and rival Nvidia to post declines of over 40% in earnings per share for the quarter. A resolution of the trade conflict would lead analysts to increase their earnings estimates for the technology sector to reflect improved global economic conditions, Frederick said. “The economy really hasn’t slowed down that much. That says we’re still in a cyclical market and there’s still some upside potential, and tech tends to be one of the leaders when you’re in a cyclical market,” he said. Reporting by Noel Randewich; editing by Alden Bentleym, Chizu Nomiyama and Sandra MalerOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

A day after the announcement of the departure of Apple’s design chief Jony Ive, lots of folks are talking about what the departure of the design guru might mean for Apple’s future. Some are breaking out the horns of doom—saying that without Ive, a precious link to the old Jobsian innovation is lost. Others say it only makes room for fresh new talent. While only time will tell, Here’s what some of the experts are speculating:UpsidersStretechery’s Ben Thompson argues that Ive’s departure was actually four years in the making—that it started when he was relieved of day-to-day management of the design group in 2015.Ive was an increasingly rare presence in Cupertino, spending more time in his native United Kingdom and, even when he was in San Francisco, holding meetings in a design studio built near his house. And so, when Ive says this is “a natural and gentle time to make this change,” that is because the groundwork has been laid for a long time: occasionally consulting with Apple’s design team is not a significant departure from what Ive’s role has become.The biggest question in Ive’s departure is who will drive the creative vision of the company once Ive is gone. The line of thinking goes: Jobs was the soul of Apple, the dictator of product > Jobs set up Ive to do the same, to carry on the vision > Ive is leaving and Apple isn’t looking for a replacement > Apple has lost its way. But Apple no longer puts all the decision-making power in the hands of one genius. It’s distributed to a greater number of mere mortals. In this quote from a Financial Times article that coincided with Ive’s departure, Tim Cook describes this.The company runs very much horizontally . . . The reason it’s probably not so clear about who [sets product strategy] is that the most important decisions, there are several people involved in it, by the nature of how we operate.Creative Strategies analyst Carolina Milanese believes a more distributed design decision-making process might be good for Apple:It might work out better for Apple this way, still getting input but having the in-house team being able to drive more of their own thoughts and ideas without being in the shadow.Milanese also notes that Ive’s departure is happening just as Apple’s business is changing:I also wonder if going forward, design will have to be much more comprehensive than it has been in the past, which might require more diversified talent from a UX perspective for content and services.The Verge’s Chaim Gartenberg reminds us that Ive’s influence will linger at Apple.Despite Ive formally leaving Apple, his influence on the company isn’t going anyway. Ive’s new firm LoveFrom counts Apple as its first client, and will “continue to work closely and on a range of projects with Apple.” And no doubt Ive’s aesthetic and design ethos will continue to echo on through Apple’s halls—it’d be hard for it not to, frankly, given that Ive also quite literally designed the company’s new headquarters.DownsidersThe stock market weighed in on Ive’s departure shortly after the announcement . . . Apple stock falls as Jony Ive leaves to start his own design company https://t.co/ori2szY8GY pic.twitter.com/0meaEmmcA4 — MarketWatch (@MarketWatch) June 27, 2019John Gruber wrote perhaps the best take of all on Ive’s departure. He argues that no matter how long in the making, the loss of Ive leaves a leadership vacuum within the heart of Apple. (For now, the design groups will report into Jeff Williams, an operations guy, while the chief design officer role Ive is vacating will not be refilled, at least not immediately):I’ve never been an ‘Apple is doomed without Steve Jobs’ person. But part of what made Apple the Apple we know in the post-1997 era is that when Jobs was at the helm, all design decisions were going through someone with great taste . . . But who’s in charge of product design now? There is no new chief design officer, which, really, is what Steve Jobs always was. From a product standpoint, the post-Jobs era at Apple has been the Jony Ive era, not the Tim Cook era . . . I don’t worry that Apple is in trouble because Jony Ive is leaving; I worry that Apple is in trouble because he’s not being replaced.It’s important to understand the influence Ive held within Apple. It reached well beyond chamfered edges and polished steel, and into decisions over the UX and features and functions. Here’s a quote from Steve Jobs describing what he wanted Ive to be within Apple:[H]e understands that Apple is a product company. He’s not just a designer. That’s why he works directly for me. He has more operational power than anyone else at Apple except me. There’s no one who can tell him what to do, or to butt out. That’s the way I set it up. (Hat tip: Dieter Bohn, the Verge)Analyst and ex-Apple employee Michael Gartenberg believes Ive’s leaving is one of the biggest events in Apple’s history:Ive’s departure doesn’t come as a shock. It’s doubtful he maintained the relationship with Tim Cook as he did with Steve Jobs, who called Ive his soulmate. His departure is likely to have the most impact on Apple, arguably greater than Jobs death. With the completion of the new Apple campus it’s likely we have seen the last products Ive designed and Apple’s challenge is to prove they cannot only innovate from a technology perspective but also from a design perspective.MacWorld’s Leif Johnson seems to think Apple will eventually look for a new Jony Ive, and will have trouble finding him or her.Apple managed to emerge victorious from that uncertainty in 2011, and it will do the same in the wake of Ive’s departure. To do so, though, it will have to find another unnaturally talented lead designer who can lay out a singular, unified vision for Apple’s product line. Preferably that designer will work with an executive that can prod him or her in the right direction while curbing their most impractical design. I don’t know if Tim Cook can find that person.And it turns out Ive wasn’t perfect, as SixColors’ Dan Moren points out.[W]ith his departure, there likely won’t be a single person that wields the same kind of power that he did. Not all will be sad to see him go, either: He’s been a contentious—and at times parodied—figure, especially as Apple’s struggled with the balancing act between form and function in the last few years.Vice’s Jason Koebler says Ive allowed responsible design to be overruled by a desire for miniaturization and visual appeal.But history will not be kind to Ive, to Apple, or to their design choices. While the company popularized the smartphone and minimalistic, sleek gadget design, it also did things like create brand-new screws designed to keep consumers from repairing their iPhones. Under Ive, Apple began gluing down batteries inside laptops and smartphones (rather than screwing them down) to shave off a fraction of a millimeter at the expense of repairability and sustainability.And Fast Company‘s Mark Wilson points out that while Ive talked about designing products that don’t distract us from real life, he contributed to the problem of device addiction perhaps more than anyone else.Ive is leaving Apple at a time when we recognize that the iPhone is actually like a drug that has made us more informed, but less happy. Perhaps the greatest challenge for Ive’s future could be to reconcile with Apple’s past—and the fact that his honeypot design has ushered in our privacy dystopia and turned our times with friends and family measurably less enjoyable.As some of Apple’s biggest design challenges—the AR glasses, the car—sit on the horizon, I suspect that new Apple products will still look unmistakably like Apple products, at least for the next few years. The consumer tech products of the future will not be handheld gadgets, but rather integrated in various ways with the human body. Such products may well be outside Ive’s sweet spot.

Left: Leanna and Xiaoguo in Beijing. Right: Zhongbao and Zhiyong in Shenyang. Over the course of five years, photographer Raul Ariano fulfilled his goal to "share stories of love, dignity and hope in a segment of society that tends to be hidden in China." Raul Ariano hide caption toggle caption Raul Ariano Editor's note: Some of the images below depict nudity.Although China officially decriminalized homosexuality in 1997, activists say the stigma around being LGBTQ — and discussing it publicly — remains today.In the past few years, Chinese Web censors have made headlines for repeatedly targeting depictions of homosexuality. In a 2018 survey by the U.N. and the Chinese University of Hong Kong, only 5% of LGBTQ people in China felt comfortable being out at work.Italian-born photographer Raul Ariano is currently based between Shanghai and Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. He says he traveled from Italy because he was fascinated by "Chinese people and their way of adapting themselves in the fast-paced change of their society."Over dinner during Ariano's first weekend in mainland China, he says he was talking with a friend who called LGBTQ people "sick and dangerous.""I was shocked to hear that," Ariano says.So, over the course of five years, Ariano set out to photograph more than 30 LGBTQ participants across mainland China — eventually turning the project into a portrait series. Dan Dan in his bedroom in Shanghai. He has moved from a small city in Guangdong province to feel free from his traditional family. He wishes to come out with his parents, but he's afraid of their reaction. Raul Ariano hide caption toggle caption Raul Ariano He says his goal was to "share stories of love, dignity and hope in a segment of society that tends to be hidden in China."Because many people avoid coming out to their parents and relatives for fear of being rejected, Ariano says he constantly faced difficulties finding willing participants. He almost gave up on the project several times. Left: Perry and Selina in their apartment in Shanghai. Right: Shawn and Anson met in a rented apartment, as Shawn lives in a distant dormitory and Anson lives and studies in Wenzhou. Raul Ariano hide caption toggle caption Raul Ariano But between commercial and editorial assignments, he reached out to the local community with the help of PFLAG China, an organization based in Guangzhou City. Wan Wan and his boyfriend in their apartment. Raul Ariano hide caption toggle caption Raul Ariano Ariano photographed participants in their apartments, with natural lighting and different colors to show the intimacy between couples.He says he was inspired by Hong Kong filmmaker Wong Kar-wai's 1997 movie Happy Together. The movie is famous for his masterful explorations of colors and blurs and its distinctive style. Renais and Zheng in their apartment in Shanghai. Raul Ariano hide caption toggle caption Raul Ariano Ariano says getting access to such private spaces in people's lives was the most challenging part of the project.But the concept of home was compelling for him. He says it's "the space where the couples share their time, their intimacy, and is a sort of shelter where they are protected and can be their real selves." Left: Weishan and Shiyu in Shanghai. Right: Shawn and Anson. Raul Ariano hide caption toggle caption Raul Ariano Throughout the series, Ariano met LGBTQ people across mainland China. Some had the support of their families. Others had been forced to endure conversion therapy."But the most incredible thing I have felt was the strength and the determination of those people to live the life they want," he says. "Whatever it takes." Perry and Selina in their apartment in Shanghai. Raul Ariano hide caption toggle caption Raul Ariano Raul Ariano is an Italian photographer based in Shanghai and Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.Shuran Huang is NPR's photo intern.

When the great 19th Century American writer Henry David Thoreau made a comprehensive list of supplies for an excursion, he specified obvious items like a tent and matches, and added string, old newspapers, a tape measure and a magnifying glass. He also included paper and stamps, to make notes and write letters. Strange, then, that he omitted to mention the very pencil with which he was making the list. Stranger still, when you realise that Thoreau's family made its money by manufacturing high-quality pencils. The pencil seems fated to be overlooked. It's the theme of an old English riddle: "I am taken from a mine, and shut up in a wooden case, from which I am never released, and yet I am used by almost everybody." We say the pen is mightier than the sword, but not the pencil - it's too easily erased. 50 Things That Made the Modern Economy highlights the inventions, ideas and innovations that helped create the economic world.We don't even give it the courtesy of a sensible name. "Pencil" is derived from the Latin word "penis" meaning "tail", because Roman writing brushes were made from tufts of fur from an animal's tail. "Lead pencils" achieve the same effect without needing ink. Or, indeed, lead - they actually contain graphite. The idea of graphite on a stick of wood is about 450 years old. The pencil has a number of champions. Pencil historian Henry Petroski points out that its very eraseability makes it indispensable to designers and engineers. "Ink is the cosmetic that ideas will wear when they go out in public," he writes. "Graphite is their dirty truth." "Take a pencil to write with on aeroplanes," is the novelist Margaret Atwood's first rule of writing. "Pens leak. But if the pencil breaks, you can't sharpen it on the plane, because you can't take knives with you. Therefore, take two pencils."And then there's the American economist Leonard Read, who was a crusader for the principles of small-government free-market economics. In 1958, Read published an essay entitled "I, Pencil" - written in the voice of the pencil itself. While the pencil in the English riddle seemed resigned to its obscurity, Read's pencil is loud and a touch melodramatic: "If you can become aware of the miraculousness which I symbolize, you can help save the freedom mankind is so unhappily losing."Read's pencil is well aware that it doesn't immediately appear impressive: "Pick me up and look me over. What do you see? Not much meets the eye — there's some wood, lacquer, the printed labeling, graphite lead, a bit of metal, and an eraser."And yet, the pencil goes on to explain, collecting its cedar wood required saws, axes, motors, rope, and a railway car. Its graphite is from Ceylon - modern-day Sri Lanka - mixed with Mississippi clay, sulphuric acid, animal fats and numerous other ingredients. And don't get the pencil started on its six coats of lacquer, its brass ferrule, or its eraser - made not from rubber, it wants you to know, but from sulphur chloride reacted with rape-seed oil, made abrasive with Italian pumice and tinted pink with cadmium sulphide. Read's pencil writes a stirring conclusion: "Leave all creative energies uninhibited. Have faith that free men and women will respond to the Invisible Hand. This faith will be confirmed." The "Invisible Hand" refers to the idea that unseen market forces balance the demand and supply of goods in a free market. That's why critic Anne Elizabeth Moore calls the essay a a "seductive metaphor for spontaneous order", and it garnered wider fame when the Nobel prize-winning economist Milton Friedman adapted it for his 1980 TV series Free to Choose. Friedman drew the same lesson from the humble pencil's formidably complex origins - it was an astonishing testimony to the power of market forces to co-ordinate large numbers of people with nobody in overall charge: "There was no commissar sending out orders from central office; it was the magic of the price system." Go back in time 500 years or so, and you'd have seen the magic of the price system swing into action for yourself. Graphite was first discovered in the English Lake District.Legend has it that a ferocious storm uprooted trees in the idyllic valley of Borrowdale. Underneath their roots was a strange, shiny black substance that was initially dubbed "black lead". It was quickly used as "a marking stone", as celebrated in this 300-year-old market seller's cry: "Buy marking stones, marking stones buy; Much profit in their use doth lie; I've marking stones of colour red; Passing good, or else black Lead."Because graphite was soft yet heat-resistant, it was also used for casting cannonballs. It soon became a precious resource - not quite as pricey as its fellow carbon-based cousin the diamond, but valuable enough for miners to be supervised by armed guards as they changed out of their clothes at the end of the shift, lest they try to smuggle a nugget away. By the late 1700s, French pencil manufacturers were happily paying to import high-quality Borrowdale graphite. But then war broke out, and England's government sensibly decided not to make it easy for the French to cast cannonballs. Tick tock: The importance of knowing the right timeWhat were the pencil-makers to do? In stepped Nicolas-Jacques Conté, French army officer, balloonist, adventurer - and pencil engineer. Conté painstakingly developed a way to make pencil leads from a mix of clay with low-grade powdered continental graphite. For these efforts, the French government awarded him a patent. And this is where we might start to question whether Read's pencil is right to be so fiercely proud of its free-market ancestry. Would Monsieur Conté have put such effort into his experiments without the prospect of a state-backed patent? Economist John Quiggin raises a different objection. While Read's pencil underlines its history of forests and railway carts, both forests and railways are often owned and managed by governments. And while Friedman was right that there is no Pencil Tsar, even in a free-market economy there are hierarchies.Leonard Read's loquacious instrument was made by the Eberhard Faber company, now part of Newell Rubbermaid - and, as in any conglomerate, its employees respond to instructions from the boss, not to prices in the market. In practice, then, the pencil is the product of a messy economic system in which the government plays a role and corporate hierarchies insulate many workers from Friedman's "magic of the price system". Read might be right that a pure free market would be better, but his pencil doesn't prove the case. It does, though, remind us how profoundly complex are the processes that produce the everyday objects whose value we often overlook. The economy that assembles them for us cheaply and reliably is an astonishing thing.The author writes the Financial Times's Undercover Economist column. 50 Things That Made the Modern Economy is broadcast on the BBC World Service. You can find more information about the programme's sources and listen to all the episodes online or subscribe to the programme podcast.

(Reuters) - A partisan fight over a North Carolina congressional contest under investigation for election fraud intensified on Friday after legal developments reshaped a state elections board. FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump greets Mark Harris, Republican candidate from North Carolina's 9th Congressional district, in Charlotte, North Carolina, U.S., October 26, 2018. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque/File PhotoA combination of court rulings and changes to state law left the top vote-getter in an initial tally, Republican Mark Harris, seemingly no closer to taking office. A leading Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives, Steny Hoyer, said his party would object to seating Harris when it takes control in the new Congress that convenes on Jan. 3. “In this instance, the integrity of our democratic process outweighs concerns about the seat being vacant at the start of the new Congress,” Hoyer said in a statement, citing “the now well-documented election fraud that took place” in the contest. Harris filed an emergency petition earlier on Friday to be certified as victor of last month’s election for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. His request was rejected by a state elections board reviewing whether mail-in ballots were illegally handled in some rural counties. But the future of that investigation was thrown into doubt by a state court ruling and newly passed law. The state elections board was disbanded on Friday, after a state court on Thursday declined to extend a stay on a previous order declaring the composition of the board unconstitutional. North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper, a Democrat, said he would immediately appoint an interim board to continue the investigation until a restructured elections board was due to begin operating at the end of January under a new state law. “It is vital that the State Board of Elections finish its investigation of potential election fraud in the Ninth Congressional District,” Cooper’s office said in a statement. North Carolina’s board of elections could order a new vote. The U.S. House could also rule on the election outcome in a contest where Harris initially edged out Democrat Dan McCready by 905 votes. Since the November election, residents of rural Bladen County have stated in affidavits that people came to their homes and collected incomplete absentee ballots. It is illegal in North Carolina for a third party to turn in absentee ballots. Republicans said the investigation has not turned up evidence of sufficient improprieties to change the outcome. “All the Democrats want to do is delay and delay and delay,” Dallas Woodhouse, executive director of the North Carolina Republican Party, said in a phone interview. In a statement, Harris’ attorney David Freedman said the Republican candidate had cooperated fully with the state investigation and looked forward to its resolution “so that he may serve the people of the Ninth Congressional District as he was elected to do.” A representatives for the McCready campaign could not immediately be reached for comment. State Democrats contend that Republicans have undermined the elections system by a Republican-controlled legislature ramming through changes, including the reshaped elections board. “Mark Harris and the Republicans who support him want to steal this election,” North Carolina Democratic Party Chair Wayne Goodwin said at a news conference. “They want to have him certified and sworn into Congress even though we have immensurable questions at this point.” Reporting by Letitia Stein in Tampa, Florida; Additional reporting by Tim Ahmann; Editing by Leslie Adler and Cynthia OstermanOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.