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The Israeli settlement of Almon in the occupied West Bank. Polls show that most Israelis still support a two-state solution, but their leaders and the reality on the ground are heading in the opposite direction. Credit Ahmad Gharabli/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images JERUSALEM — Israel’s Parliament passed a provocative law late Monday that would retroactively legalize Jewish settlements on privately owned Palestinian land, pressing ahead with a statement of right-wing assertiveness despite the likelihood that the country’s high court will nullify the legislation. It was a defining — opponents said frightening — moment in Israel’s ever-more-distant relations with Palestinians and amid fading hopes of ending decades of conflict through a two-state solution. While polls consistently show that most Israelis still support two states, their leaders and the reality of what is happening on the ground are consistently heading in the opposite direction: Fifty years after Israel defeated Jordan and captured the West Bank and East Jerusalem, many right-wing politicians say that now — with negotiations with the Palestinians frozen — is the moment Israel must decide what it wants and act decisively on it. The new law is “deteriorating Israel’s democracy, making stealing an official policy and bringing us one step closer to annexation” of more land Palestinians claim for a future state, said Anat Ben Nun, the director of external relations for Peace Now, an anti-settlement group. Continue reading the main story RELATED COVERAGE What You Need to Know About Trump’s Statement on Israeli Settlements FEB. 3, 2017 Israel Ejects Settlers in Last Stand at West Bank Synagogue FEB. 1, 2017 Israel Defiantly Cranks West Bank Settlement Plans Into High Gear FEB. 1, 2017 Israel’s Hard-Liners Want to ‘Go Big’: Annex a Settlement JAN. 30, 2017 Only a few months ago, the law was believed to have little chance of coming up for a vote. Even Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was flying back from a meeting with Britain’s leaders as the law was being debated, seemed to oppose its passage for fear of further international censure. The bill had been so contentious that the nation’s attorney general, who described it as unconstitutional and in contravention of international law, said he would not defend it in the high court, which seemed in any case likely to nullify it. That is partly because the law applies to Palestinians and their property rights. Since Palestinians in the occupied West Bank are not Israeli citizens and cannot vote for candidates for Israel’s Parliament, or Knesset, critics of the legislation say it is inherently anti-democratic. Under the law, Palestinian landowners will be offered compensation for the long-term use of their property but will not be able to reclaim it. But the bill gained internal momentum through several forces: Mr. Netanyahu is determined to show his support to the powerful settler movement, and is under pressure from hard-liners on the right and from corruption investigations that even his supporters say appear serious. That pressure intensified last week after Mr. Netanyahu’s government carried out a court order to evacuate about 40 settler families at the Amona outpost, declared illegal a decade ago. “Today Israel decreed that developing settlement in Judea and Samaria is an Israeli interest,” said Bezalel Smotrich, a right-wing lawmaker, using the biblical names for the West Bank. “From here we move on to expanding Israeli sovereignty and continuing to build and develop settlements across the land.” At the same time, Mr. Netanyahu and the right — some allies, some opponents — have taken into account that they have more leeway under President Trump than under President Barack Obama, who regularly condemned settlement building. It is uncertain, however, just how firm the support from the new administration in Washington is: Last week, the White House issued a statement, amid announcements here about thousands of units of housing for settlers, saying that further expansion “may not be helpful” in achieving a deal with the Palestinians, which Mr. Trump has said he wants. A clearer sense of how Mr. Trump differs from Mr. Obama and from nearly 50 years of American opposition to settlement building is expected to emerge from a meeting between Mr. Trump and Mr. Netanyahu on Feb. 15 in Washington. Morning Briefing: Europe What you need to know to start your day, delivered to your inbox. Enter your email address Sign Up Receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. PRIVACY POLICY The vote on Monday, which passed, 60 to 52, retroactively legalized several thousand housing units in 16 settlements on about 2,000 acres of Palestinian-owned land. The law provides for compensation to Palestinian landowners. Opponents said the law would encourage more settlements on Palestinian land, with the expectation that they, too, would be legalized. “Looting is illegal,” Saeb Erekat, the Palestinians’ chief negotiator, said in a statement after the vote. “The Israeli settlement enterprise negates peace and the possibility of the two-state solution.” Yair Lapid, the opposition politician seeking to succeed Mr. Netanyahu, said before the vote: “It’s unjust, it’s not smart, and it’s a law which damages the state of Israel, the security of Israel, governance in Israel and our ability to fight back against those who hate Israel.” He added, “They are passing a law which endangers our soldiers, will undermine our international standing and undermine us as a country of law and order.” Israel’s settlement activity has come under intense international criticism. In December, the United Nations — with the tacit support of the outgoing Obama administration — condemned Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem as an impediment to a two-state solution. Settlers and right-wing Israelis say the West Bank and East Jerusalem, captured from Jordan in the Arab-Israeli War of 1967, belong to the Jewish people. The international significance of the vote on Monday was underscored during Mr. Netanyahu’s quick trip to visit Prime Minister Theresa May of Britain. On one hand, she noted that her first meeting with Mr. Netanyahu came 100 years after the Balfour Declaration, in which the British government governing the area supported the creation of Jewish state. She said, however, that Britain remained “committed to a two-state solution,” adding, “It’s the best way of building stability, peace and prosperity in the future.” Appearing before reporters with Mrs. May in London, Mr. Netanyahu, who has in the past tepidly supported a two-state solution, did not do so on Monday. As voting neared, tensions rose in the divided Knesset. “You are only passing this law so that the Supreme Court will later overturn it, and then you’ll be in the position to blame the judges,” Revital Swid, a member of the Zionist Union Party, told the governing Likud Party’s science minister, Ofir Akunis. “The land of Israel is ours, and this cannot be disputed or be divided,” Mr. Akunis responded. “The concept of settlement blocs is no longer relevant because there are no Arabs to negotiate with anymore.” The vote came on the same day as a rocket fired from Gaza landed near the Israeli city of Ashkelon. No one was hurt. The Israeli military responded with artillery fire and airstrikes in northern Gaza. It was unclear if the rocket attack was related to Monday’s vote.

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LIKE many red-blooded American children, I spent high school study hall poring over the pages of car magazines. I ignored my English homework (surprise, Mrs. Oberg! I’m that Tom Voelk); my interest was in art. Ferrari and Lamborghini sculpture, that is. Years later, I joyfully slid behind the wheel of my first exotic — a Lamborghini Countach in the 1990s — and emerged from a long drive thinking: Who on earth could live with a car this cramped, loud and stiffly sprung? McLaren takes a softer approach with the 570GT. Compared with its companion, the performance 570S version, the GT’s front suspension firmness is relaxed by 15 percent in front and 10 percent in the rear. Acoustical insulation is added to the cabin. Special Pirelli tires include a foam liner of sorts to cut road noise. The GT gets a tamer exhaust note, too. The result is high performance, high style and high livability. Oh, and high price. Chances are slim that the car, starting at just over $200,000 ($215,000 as tested), will grab market share from the Toyota Corolla and Honda Civic. But in the four days I had the GT, my wife was astonished at my eagerness to run errands of any kind. Kept in its most docile drive mode, the 570GT is relaxed motoring about town. Modern technology has given supercars better manners. The McLaren, along with the Porsche 911 Turbo S, get my votes for most livable day-to-day performance cars. Remarkably decaffeinated while cruising from drugstore to pizza place, the GT is never jittery. And yet, employ launch control and the car will sprint from 0 to 60 in 3.3 seconds. Surely, few people buy cars this expensive, but such vehicles are important because they pioneer technology that trickles down to everyday cars. Recall that anti-lock brakes showed up first on supercars in the late 1970s. (The 570GT’s brakes are very good, by the way.) Perhaps McLaren’s carbon-fiber tub chassis structure will be common in the future. Shaving weight has improved efficiency. With an E.P.A. fuel economy rating of 16 city and 23 highway on specified premium gas, the car matches many crossovers. Fun fact: No McLaren gets saddled with a gas-guzzler tax. Those special, foam-lined rear tires are driven by a 3.8-liter twin-turbo V8 pumping out 562 horsepower and 443 pound-feet of torque. A 7-speed dual-clutch automatic is smarter than most drivers, but there is also a manual mode. Gearbox and throttle mapping can be altered. Suspension stiffness can be set, too. So really, the GT gives up little to the firmer-sprung S model. The 570GT is quiet for a car of this ilk. (If it’s an isolation chamber you want, buy a Lexus or Buick.) When the road bends hard, the rear-drive McLaren is an automotive Veg-O-Matic, slicing and dicing curves with ease and efficiency. The rear-drive dynamic allows for oversteer with a blip of the throttle. Entertaining? Oh, yes. Choose from an array of leather and stitching colors to personalize the cabin. Built in Britain, the 570 feels more handcrafted and small-volume than cars from other high-end automakers. Features like the transmission operation (which requires deliberate button pushing) and the touch-screen interface take awhile to get used to. The power seat controls, hidden on the lower front of the chairs, are vexing and perhaps the worst I’ve used. Visibility out the front is quite good, but thankfully a backup camera is standard. The car has a small front trunk, and the rear glass yawns open to accept a second suitcase (passers-by can see through the glass, so make it the better-looking bag). Some practical 570 buying advice? Go with the GT rather than the S. McLaren claims most buyers load up the lighter, less expensive S (beginning at around $186,000) to the same price and weight as the GT, so you might as well enjoy the livability. The swept aluminum skin is especially impressive in person. Children who skip homework to ogle cars on the internet know what a McLaren is, but most eyeballs that lock on to the exotic shape confuse it with a Lamborghini. The striking 570GT could be the most outrageous way to travel comfortably and rapidly.

Q. How do I delete my Yahoo account on the web and move on to Outlook.com? A. First, set up a new account on Outlook.com (Microsoft’s free webmail service) if you have not done so already. Next, switch over any social media, e-commerce or other online accounts that use your Yahoo mail address to your new Outlook.com email address. Go through your Yahoo mailbox and forward any messages you want to keep to your new address. If you use a desktop mail program like Mozilla Thunderbird, Windows Mail or Apple Mail, you can also add Yahoo as either a POP or IMAP mail account in the program’s settings to download the messages there so you have a copy on your computer. If you want to take your contacts list with you, export your Yahoo address book. To do so, click the Contacts icon, select Actions and choose Export. Save the contacts as a .csv file that you can import later into Outlook.com. Photo Yahoo gives you a long screen of information and warnings before you delete your account. Credit The New York Times As an alternative approach, you may also be able to import all your Yahoo mail into your Outlook.com account. A page on the Microsoft Office site explains the process with illustrated instructions. The company has another online guide to linking contacts to your Microsoft account from other services, which may be helpful. According to a recent report by the Associated Press, however, Yahoo’s automatic mail forwarding service was turned off earlier this month and a note in Yahoo’s help site says the feature is “temporarily disabled” because the long-standing setting is “under development.” (After the A.P. published its original story, Yahoo did tell the news service that it was working to get the feature restored as soon as possible, and did so a few days later.) Once you have copied all the content you need from the Yahoo account, you can shut it down. While no straightforward link for deleting the account appears in your Yahoo settings, you can get there by logging in and going to https://edit.yahoo.com/config/delete user. (To get there another way, open your Yahoo account settings, click the Help link, search for “delete Yahoo account” and select the “Terminating Your Yahoo Account” page listed in the results.) Once you are on the Account Termination page, read through the information and enter your password as directed to close the account. However, be warned that if you have a Flickr photo-sharing account or use other Yahoo-owned services, your content on those sites will also be deleted — so you may want first to download the files you want to keep from those sites. Once you terminate, Yahoo says, it takes 90 days to fully remove your account from its site.

Samsung killed the Galaxy Note 7 smartphones this week after the devices continued to burst into flames. But the tech behemoth has not extinguished scrutiny over its safety record. The South Korean manufacturer, which makes an array of consumer electronics, including kitchen appliances and television sets, is in the middle of juggling other safety problems. Those include a recall in Australia for more than 144,000 Samsung washing machines that were prone to causing fires, and a potential recall of defective laundry units in the United States. Over the years, Samsung has faced other safety situations that have resulted in regulators taking action. The larger incidents include a 2003 recall of 184,000 microwave ovens in the United States, and 210,000 refrigerators in South Korea in 2009. There have been other smaller recalls, including one in 2009 of about 43,000 microwave ovens in the United States because of a shock hazard and 20,000 washing machines in 2007 because of a fire risk. Those episodes have been compounded by consumer frustration. People who have faced safety hazards with Samsung kitchen and home appliances said they frequently had to jump through hoops to get replacement products or refunds. To them, Samsung’s bungled handling of the Galaxy Note recall this week was not surprising. Ed O’Rourke, a resident of Boston, said that over the span of four years, Samsung replaced his malfunctioning induction range three times before the fourth one’s glass cooktop exploded in 2013. After that, Samsung declined to issue a refund until 2015, after his wife fought the company in small-claims court and won. The couple now uses an Electrolux range. The panoply of other Samsung product recalls shows that the Galaxy Note 7 fiasco was not an isolated case, though it was the company’s largest by far, with more than 2.5 million devices. Combined with Samsung’s often bureaucratic process for rectifying these consumer issues, it raises questions about whether the company prioritized profit over customer safety. “I thought, why doesn’t this happen to Apple or G.E.? And is Samsung playing it a little too cute in pushing things to limits that other companies aren’t pushing in terms of engineering-safety ratio?” Mr. O’Rourke said. Product recalls are common among consumer electronics companies, so given the large portfolio of Samsung products and the size of the company, some problems to its lineup are to be expected. Apple, Samsung’s chief rival, has had a number of smaller recalls for products, including one for thousands of Beats speakers last year after receiving complaints of overheating, and a recall for some iPod Nanos in 2011 because of issues related to overheating. A Samsung spokeswoman pointed to an earlier statement about its washing machines in Australia, in which the company said thousands of refunds and replacements had been made and that customer safety was its top priority. Yet the scale and prominence of the Galaxy Note 7 problem renews the spotlight on Samsung’s safety record in other product areas, even as the company grapples with the smartphone recall. On Wednesday, Samsung revised its third-quarter profit estimates to absorb $2 billion in losses. The company said it earned 5.2 trillion won in the third quarter, 33.3 percent less than the 7.8 trillion won profit it had estimated last week. It said it had also cut its sales estimate for the quarter by 2 trillion won, to 47 trillion won. The revised profit for the third quarter showed a 29.6 percent drop from the same quarter last year. Shares of Samsung fell 0.65 percent on Wednesday after plunging 8 percent on Tuesday. “Samsung has not been communicative with consumers, regulators or the media as clearly as it should have during this recall, especially for a hazard as dangerous as this one where your phone can catch on fire, damage your property and harm your family,” said William Wallace, a policy analyst for Consumers Union, the advocacy arm of Consumer Reports. The smartphone recall is most likely unrelated to other Samsung product recalls that are now unfolding, like the one for the washing machines. That is because consumer electronics like TVs and kitchen appliances are made by a different Samsung division than the mobility group that is responsible for the smartphones. In Australia, Samsung is in the process of a recall it started three years ago for top-loading washing machines that were prone to catching fire as a result of an internal electrical defect. Samsung said that as of last month, it had resolved the problem in 81 percent of the affected washers. Yet many owners of the troubled Samsung washing machines contend their problems are far from resolved. For the recall in Australia, Samsung repaired the machines by fitting plastic bags over some connectors. A Facebook group with more than 4,000 owners of the recalled machines crowdfunded money to hire forensic experts to analyze the fix. The forensic reports concluded that the plastic bag was ineffective because it did not prevent moisture penetration of the connectors. “It’s quite extraordinary that consumers who are scared for their lives had to get these scientific reports done,” said Tarn Allen, an owner of a recalled Samsung washing machine who is an administrator for the Facebook group. Ms. Allen, who lives in Sydney, Australia, said the South Korean manufacturer had refused to issue refunds to many members of the Facebook group until an Australian government agency issued a statement saying it was looking into the matter. Samsung may also be preparing to recall top-loading washing machines in the United States. Some models of the top-loading washers made between 2011 and this year are at risk of causing property damage or personal injury when the machines wash water-resistant clothing and bulky items including bedding, according to the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission. “C.P.S.C. is advising consumers to only use the delicate cycle” with those items, the agency said late last month. “The lower spin speed in the delicate cycle lessens the risk of impact injuries or property damage due to the washing machine becoming dislodged.” The affected units may experience abnormal vibrations, Samsung said in a statement. The commission and Samsung said they were working toward a fix.

NEW DELHI — For days, many in Delhi have been living as if under siege, trying to keep the dirty air away from their children and older parents. But it is not easy: Open a window or a door, and the haze enters the room within seconds. Outside, the sky is white, the sun a white circle so pale that you can barely make it out. The smog is acrid, eye-stinging and throat-burning, and so thick that it is being blamed for a 70-vehicle pileup north of the city. If in past years Delhi’s roughly 20 million residents shrugged off wintertime pollution as fog, over the past week they viewed it as a crisis. Schools have been ordered closed for three days — an unprecedented measure, but not a reassuring one because experts say the concentration of pollutants inside Indian homes is typically not much lower than outside. Levels of the most dangerous particles, called PM 2.5, reached 700 micrograms per cubic meter on Monday, and over the weekend they soared in some places to 1,000, or more than 16 times the limit India’s government considers safe. The damage from sustained exposure to such high concentrations of PM 2.5 is equivalent to smoking more than two packs of cigarettes a day, experts say. Photo A family rode a scooter during heavy smog and dust in Delhi on Sunday. Credit Harish Tyagi/European Pressphoto Agency “There is so much smog outside that today, inside my house, I felt as though someone had just burned a few sheets of paper,” said Amaan Ahuja, one of dozens who shared their families’ experiences in response to a request from The New York Times. “You can literally see smoke in the air, and when you breathe, you can smell it, too,” he said. “We are trying to keep the kids indoors with all the windows closed.” Another reader, Tulika Seth, described her family’s life over the past week as “unnatural and disturbing.” Asked where she lived, she responded, “a gas chamber.” Photo Construction continued on a building on Monday. Credit Dominique Faget/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images To understand the health consequences of the dense smog that settled over India’s capital over the past week, scientists are looking back decades in search of a historical precedent: to the 1952 Great Smog of London, which is believed to have caused as many as 12,000 premature deaths. In that case, a layer of dense pollution — caused largely by emissions from burning coal — dissipated after four days, when the weather changed. But an uptick in deaths continued for weeks afterward, so shocking the public that it spurred a wave of environmental regulations. Delhi’s chief minister on Sunday announced a series of emergency measures, including a five-day moratorium on construction, a 10-day closure of a power plant and a three-day closure of about 1,800 public schools. On Monday, the city government released a list of health guidelines, advising citizens to wash their eyes with running water and to go to a hospital if they were experiencing symptoms like “breathlessness, giddiness, chest pain and chest constriction.” But experts said mitigating the conditions would have required policies to be put in place months ago. Continue reading the main story “These are all decent emergency measures, but they’re not solving the long-term problem,” said Bhargav Krishna, who manages the Public Health Foundation of India’s environmental health center. “The best we can hope for, in a way, is to plan for next year,” he added. “This year is almost a washout.” Photo Runners struggled through a 10-kilometer race on Sunday. Credit Dominique Faget/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Changing weather conditions are likely to disperse the dense cloud of pollutants over the next few days. But they will also bring the beginning of the widespread burning of trash, including plastic and rubber, for warmth by Delhi’s poor. Among the persistent problems for policy makers is that the sources of the pollution — vehicles, construction, crop burning and holiday fireworks — fall under the authority of half a dozen city, state and federal government bodies, which are in some cases at odds with one another politically, Mr. Krishna said. “Where exactly is the responsibility for implementing these plans?” he said. “At whose desk does this all lie?” He added, “The diffuse nature of power means that it is easy to pass on responsibility to others.” Public anger over Delhi’s air is more palpable than in previous years, and people are more likely to identify pollution as the cause of their health problems. Anumita Roychowdhury, who runs the air pollution program at the Center for Science and Environment, said that sense of urgency would have to be sustained if the city were to impose lifestyle changes, including restraints on car travel. Photo A game of cricket amid heavy smog on Sunday. Credit Dominique Faget/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images “This has to translate to very strong support for very hard decisions,” she said. “All soft options are over.” First, though, people here must get through the next few days. Sherebanu Frosh, who lives in Gurgaon, south of Delhi, said she and her children were “cowering by our air purifiers,” which had become overloaded with the concentration of particles in the air. “So we’re putting both our purifiers in one room and spending the day there,” she said. “If we leave, we wear masks.” Jessica Farmer, whose children attend the American Embassy School in Delhi, said she had moved five purifiers into three rooms of her house, but the concentration of PM 2.5 in some places remained at 300, five times the W.H.O. recommended limit. “It is as though we are under siege,” Ms. Farmer said. “We can’t go outside, to malls or movies where the air is not purified. “How can one live like this?”

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Certain institutions in the world are so powerful and po[CENSORED]r that we are just lucky that they are a force for good. Like Oprah. If she decided one day that she would like to try out villainy, we would all be in a lot of trouble. Then there’s Google. It’s a company that many consumers rely on and love. It is also a company that has an immense impact on online commerce, in the United States as well as in many other countries where its search engine dominates. Show up high in a Google search and business is good. Vanish and business dries up. Given that Google offers products that sometimes compete with those of other companies — internet browsers and online shopping services, to name just two — there is the risk that the mysterious algorithm that determines search results will favor the company that created and controls that algorithm. That’s why European regulators have charged Google with antitrust violations. But these charges tend to focus on a kind of general harm to the market, often expressed as an anxiety that competition could be stifled. Examples of specific companies that have been harmed by Google, in a material way, are rare. But in this episode, we meet a company that thinks it might fit that description. Q. The email service that I use, ProtonMail, recently wrote a blog post on its company site about how Google nearly put it out of business. You’ve written about Google before, and I thought you might be interested. Is this an example of the search giant exploiting its market power? Peter Smith Boston A. The blog post in question, titled “Search Risk — How Google Almost Killed ProtonMail,” tells a fascinating story. ProtonMail is based in Geneva and offers encrypted email, a product that puts it in competition with Gmail from Google. ProtonMail started in 2014, and by the next summer it had half a million users. In searches for “encrypted email” and “secure email” ProtonMail had been turning up on the first or second page in its first year in business. Not bad. In October 2015, though, the company was turning up many pages deep into a search, which is tantamount to disappearing. ProtonMail consulted search engine optimization experts and none could explain why. If a company tries to snooker Google with what are known as “black hat” search tricks, Google will sometimes retaliate. ProtonMail says it was staying on the right side of Google’s many rules. The company was still doing well on other search engines, like Bing and Yahoo. The company tried twice to contact Google, without success. It wrote to a regional Google president in charge of strategic relationships. Nothing. In August, the company privately contacted Matt Cutts, then the head of Google’s web spam team, on Twitter. “We know Google is intentionally hiding ProtonMail from search results,” the company wrote. “Interested in talking before our data goes public?” Mr. Cutts wrote back the same day, sounding responsive. A few days passed. ProtonMail nudged on Aug. 9, and by Aug. 11 ProtonMail tweeted to Mr. Cutts that “the problem seems to be mostly fixed now.” Currently, ProtonMail is ranked No. 1 in searches for both “encrypted email” and “secure email.” But the damage incurred during ProtonMail’s months in the internet’s version of timeout was huge. “Google directly caused ProtonMail’s growth rate worldwide to be reduced by 25 percent for over 10 months,” the company wrote in its blog post. The company went from covering its monthly expenses to drawing on its emergency reserve fund. So what caused this near-death experience? The closest that Google ever came to an explanation was to write that it “fixed something,” according to Andy Yen, a ProtonMail co-founder. That’s pretty vague. The Haggler wrote to Google seeking illumination. A few days later, a company spokeswoman, Kara Berman, responded: “While we understand that situations like this may raise questions, we typically don’t comment on how specific algorithms impact specific websites. We’re continually refining these algorithms and appreciate hearing from users and webmasters. While in many cases search ranking changes reflect algorithmic criteria working as intended, in some cases we’re able to identify unique features that lead to varied results. We’re sorry that it took so look to connect in this case and are glad the issue is resolved.” Google has long erred on the side of opacity when discussing algorithm issues because, as it often says, the more that is known about the algorithm, the easier it will be for bad actors to game it. Fair enough. It is also worth noting that while ProtonMail did a lot to get Google’s attention, it did not use the path that Google recommends — a post to the company’s webmasters, who can be reached through a number of links collected on a Google webmasters page. When asked why he had not tried that route, Mr. Yen responded that friends in the S.E.O. world said the chances of getting a response via that channel were not good. It seems highly unlikely to the Haggler that Google set out to sabotage ProtonMail. But this episode is a reminder of a conflict of interest at Google’s core. It is like a football team that gets to write the rules, own all the equipment and control the referees. No opposing franchise in its right mind would compete on those terms, but Google’s po[CENSORED]rity and its singular role in online commerce mean that rivals don’t have a choice. They just have to hope that Google can resist the never-ending temptation to place profits over fairness. And that whenever the company needs to “fix something,” it does so lickety-split.

SAMARKHEL, Afghanistan — There is one country in the world that is now taking in more Afghan migrants than all the countries in Europe and South Asia put together this year. That would be Afghanistan itself. By the end of the year, aid officials here expect some 1.5 million migrants to return to Afghanistan — many of them forcibly, and including some officially registered as refugees. Some will come from Europe, which has recently signed a deal with Afghanistan to return tens of thousands of migrants who were not granted asylum. A far larger number are being forced back by Iran and, particularly, Pakistan, where the United Nations says there are 1.3 million registered Afghan refugees and an additional 700,000 undocumented Afghans. Many Afghans report that concerted harassment and discrimination by the Pakistani authorities have become too much to bear. And Pakistan has flatly given Afghans a Nov. 15 deadline to obtain legal documents like passports and visas — a near impossibility for most — or they will face arrest and deportation, which could lead to even greater numbers leaving Pakistan in the coming weeks. Continue reading the main story RELATED COVERAGE Europe Makes Deal to Send Afghans Home, Where War Awaits Them OCT. 5, 2016 KABUL JOURNAL For $14.50, Afghan Refugees Make a Desperate Bet on a Way Out SEPT. 13, 2015 ‘Afghan Girl’ in 1985 National Geographic Photo Is Arrested in Pakistan OCT. 26, 2016 The last straw for Ghulamullah, a father of 10 who had sons in Pakistani schools and one married to a Pakistani woman, was when a soldier entered his house with a dog. “I came to Pakistan to save my honor and my religion,” he said, “but I see there is no more honor in Pakistan. The Pakistani Army gave me 15 days to leave.” He has now settled in a camp near Jalalabad, in eastern Afghanistan. Official or unofficial, many of the Afghans had lived abroad for decades, and they are returning to a country where the war is at its most traumatic since 2001. And as they come back, they are redrawing the demographic map of a region that has long been defined by its displaced po[CENSORED]tion and where cities are already straining to deal with rapidly expanding tent camps and shanty towns. “With all these returns from Pakistan and Iran as well, and looming returns from Europe, it’s a perfect recipe for a perfect storm because that puts a strain on the capacity of the government to respond,” said Laurence Hart, the head of the International Organization for Migration office in Kabul. Aid groups do not have budgets to care for many of the new arrivals, who are expected in many cases to end up swelling the ranks of the internally displaced — people who have lived often for years in squalid conditions in camps around cities. Photo Afghans arriving at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees repatriation center in Torkham, as they crossed back into Afghanistan. Credit Noorullah Shirzada/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images “It’s a poverty competition here now,” Mr. Hart said. Referring to internally displaced people, he added, “Existing I.D.P.s are increasingly vulnerable because of new arrivals.” Within Afghanistan, the worsening war with the Taliban has sent record numbers of people fleeing their homes in conflict areas. Just in the past two months, according to Afghanistan’s Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation, 600,000 people have been displaced from their homes by conflict, swelling the ranks of the 1.2 million internal refugees or displaced people in Afghanistan from previous years to as much as 1.8 million. That could mean more than three million internal or returning refugees inside the country, more than Afghanistan has ever experienced. Many of them will have nowhere to go, pitching up at existing camps, making new settlements and crowding into already overcrowded villages — since few of the returnees can go back to their original homes, often in war-torn areas that they left decades ago. Add to that mix programs that have quietly ramped up in recent months to return Afghans from Europe who are judged ineligible for asylum there. This year, Norway has sent back 442 Afghans, more than half of them forcibly, while Germany has returned 2,900 Afghans, nearly all voluntarily. Early in October, the European Union signed an agreement with Afghanistan to return Afghans whose asylum appeals are rejected — most likely resulting in tens of thousands of repatriations. Known as the Joint Way Forward declaration, which critics say Europe made a condition of continued development assistance to Afghanistan, it even provides for building a dedicated airport terminal in Kabul to handle the expected repatriations. Many of those returning spent many years and even decades in their host countries, including many people born there who are now adults with children of their own. “I don’t remember a time this difficult,” said Maya Ameratunga, the Afghanistan director for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. She had previously worked in Pakistan. “Now we’re dealing with the po[CENSORED]tion who left Afghanistan in the 1980s and don’t know this country.” Every morning now, a parade of trucks loaded 15 feet high with household possessions, firewood and small children — and even sometimes a cow or two — pulls up at the Samarkhel Encashment Center outside Jalalabad. The center is run by the United Nations refugee agency, and catches the traffic coming from the main border crossing with Pakistan, at Torkham. By FAHIM ABED 00:26 Families Sent Back to Afghanistan Video Families Sent Back to Afghanistan Pakistan has ordered thousands of Afghan migrants and refugees to return to their war-torn home country. With their possessions piled high onto cargo trucks, many stop at the United Nations-run aid station near Jalalabad, in eastern Afghanistan. By FAHIM ABED on Publish Date November 4, 2016. Photo by Fahim Abed/The New York Times. ShareTweet Each day, about 400 refugee families come through the encashment center, which, as its name suggests, is the place where registered refugees get cash from the United Nations agency to start new lives — about $400 per family member, expected to last them six months. By contrast, only 467 families came through Samarkhel in all of 2014 — a busy day’s worth now. After relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan soured in June, anti-refugee campaigns by the Pakistani authorities began driving many people to leave. Today’s Headlines: Asia Edition Get news and analysis from Asia and around the world delivered to your inbox every day in the Asian morning. Enter your email address Sign Up Receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. SEE SAMPLE PRIVACY POLICY “We believe if it continues at the same rate, no more Afghans will be left in Pakistan by next July or August,” said Ahmed Wali, who manages the center for the refugee agency. Refugees say they have faced a campaign of police and official harassment in Pakistan ever since relations between the two countries hit a new low last summer. Among the Afghans who have been suddenly rounded up on various legal charges, often after decades of residence, was Sharbat Gula, who became internationally famous as the “Afghan girl” who appeared on a cover of National Geographic magazine in 1985. SAMARKHEL, Afghanistan — There is one country in the world that is now taking in more Afghan migrants than all the countries in Europe and South Asia put together this year. That would be Afghanistan itself. By the end of the year, aid officials here expect some 1.5 million migrants to return to Afghanistan — many of them forcibly, and including some officially registered as refugees. Some will come from Europe, which has recently signed a deal with Afghanistan to return tens of thousands of migrants who were not granted asylum. A far larger number are being forced back by Iran and, particularly, Pakistan, where the United Nations says there are 1.3 million registered Afghan refugees and an additional 700,000 undocumented Afghans. Many Afghans report that concerted harassment and discrimination by the Pakistani authorities have become too much to bear. And Pakistan has flatly given Afghans a Nov. 15 deadline to obtain legal documents like passports and visas — a near impossibility for most — or they will face arrest and deportation, which could lead to even greater numbers leaving Pakistan in the coming weeks. Continue reading the main story RELATED COVERAGE Europe Makes Deal to Send Afghans Home, Where War Awaits Them OCT. 5, 2016 KABUL JOURNAL For $14.50, Afghan Refugees Make a Desperate Bet on a Way Out SEPT. 13, 2015 ‘Afghan Girl’ in 1985 National Geographic Photo Is Arrested in Pakistan OCT. 26, 2016 The last straw for Ghulamullah, a father of 10 who had sons in Pakistani schools and one married to a Pakistani woman, was when a soldier entered his house with a dog. “I came to Pakistan to save my honor and my religion,” he said, “but I see there is no more honor in Pakistan. The Pakistani Army gave me 15 days to leave.” He has now settled in a camp near Jalalabad, in eastern Afghanistan. Official or unofficial, many of the Afghans had lived abroad for decades, and they are returning to a country where the war is at its most traumatic since 2001. And as they come back, they are redrawing the demographic map of a region that has long been defined by its displaced po[CENSORED]tion and where cities are already straining to deal with rapidly expanding tent camps and shanty towns. “With all these returns from Pakistan and Iran as well, and looming returns from Europe, it’s a perfect recipe for a perfect storm because that puts a strain on the capacity of the government to respond,” said Laurence Hart, the head of the International Organization for Migration office in Kabul. Aid groups do not have budgets to care for many of the new arrivals, who are expected in many cases to end up swelling the ranks of the internally displaced — people who have lived often for years in squalid conditions in camps around cities. Photo Afghans arriving at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees repatriation center in Torkham, as they crossed back into Afghanistan. Credit Noorullah Shirzada/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images “It’s a poverty competition here now,” Mr. Hart said. Referring to internally displaced people, he added, “Existing I.D.P.s are increasingly vulnerable because of new arrivals.” Within Afghanistan, the worsening war with the Taliban has sent record numbers of people fleeing their homes in conflict areas. Just in the past two months, according to Afghanistan’s Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation, 600,000 people have been displaced from their homes by conflict, swelling the ranks of the 1.2 million internal refugees or displaced people in Afghanistan from previous years to as much as 1.8 million. That could mean more than three million internal or returning refugees inside the country, more than Afghanistan has ever experienced. Many of them will have nowhere to go, pitching up at existing camps, making new settlements and crowding into already overcrowded villages — since few of the returnees can go back to their original homes, often in war-torn areas that they left decades ago. Add to that mix programs that have quietly ramped up in recent months to return Afghans from Europe who are judged ineligible for asylum there. This year, Norway has sent back 442 Afghans, more than half of them forcibly, while Germany has returned 2,900 Afghans, nearly all voluntarily. Early in October, the European Union signed an agreement with Afghanistan to return Afghans whose asylum appeals are rejected — most likely resulting in tens of thousands of repatriations. Known as the Joint Way Forward declaration, which critics say Europe made a condition of continued development assistance to Afghanistan, it even provides for building a dedicated airport terminal in Kabul to handle the expected repatriations. Many of those returning spent many years and even decades in their host countries, including many people born there who are now adults with children of their own. “I don’t remember a time this difficult,” said Maya Ameratunga, the Afghanistan director for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. She had previously worked in Pakistan. “Now we’re dealing with the po[CENSORED]tion who left Afghanistan in the 1980s and don’t know this country.” Every morning now, a parade of trucks loaded 15 feet high with household possessions, firewood and small children — and even sometimes a cow or two — pulls up at the Samarkhel Encashment Center outside Jalalabad. The center is run by the United Nations refugee agency, and catches the traffic coming from the main border crossing with Pakistan, at Torkham. By FAHIM ABED 00:26 Families Sent Back to Afghanistan Video Families Sent Back to Afghanistan Pakistan has ordered thousands of Afghan migrants and refugees to return to their war-torn home country. With their possessions piled high onto cargo trucks, many stop at the United Nations-run aid station near Jalalabad, in eastern Afghanistan. By FAHIM ABED on Publish Date November 4, 2016. Photo by Fahim Abed/The New York Times. ShareTweet Each day, about 400 refugee families come through the encashment center, which, as its name suggests, is the place where registered refugees get cash from the United Nations agency to start new lives — about $400 per family member, expected to last them six months. By contrast, only 467 families came through Samarkhel in all of 2014 — a busy day’s worth now. After relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan soured in June, anti-refugee campaigns by the Pakistani authorities began driving many people to leave. Today’s Headlines: Asia Edition Get news and analysis from Asia and around the world delivered to your inbox every day in the Asian morning. Enter your email address Sign Up Receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. SEE SAMPLE PRIVACY POLICY “We believe if it continues at the same rate, no more Afghans will be left in Pakistan by next July or August,” said Ahmed Wali, who manages the center for the refugee agency. Refugees say they have faced a campaign of police and official harassment in Pakistan ever since relations between the two countries hit a new low last summer. Among the Afghans who have been suddenly rounded up on various legal charges, often after decades of residence, was Sharbat Gula, who became internationally famous as the “Afghan girl” who appeared on a cover of National Geographic magazine in 1985. Almost none of the Afghans leaving Pakistan are doing so in the belief that Afghanistan is now safer to live in. Official pressure and discrimination are the most common reasons given. Under international law, Pakistan is obliged to allow registered refugees to stay, and most of those who leave are doing so voluntarily — in theory. “I personally don’t see this as a voluntary repatriation,” said Mohammad Ismail, the head of the United Nations refugee office in Jalalabad. “When you are harassed, intimidated, rounded up by police, taken to court, forced to pay bribes, you are being forced to leave.” Shaqiullah, 46, fled the Soviet invasion to Pakistan at age 17. Last month, he returned with his two wives and their 20 children, ranging in age from 6 months to 28 years, all born in Pakistan. He stopped in Samarkhel to collect his reintegration payment before heading on to Jalalabad. “They are all sad and unhappy in their new home,” he said. “They had friends there, schools there, everything there. They didn’t know anything else.” Shaqiullah is luckier than most, however, since he is a mullah and has already found a job — as the mullah for a refugee camp in Afghanistan for newly homeless Afghans. Undocumented returning migrants, who never succeeded in being registered as refugees but have often spent years abroad, are even worse off. Since they are not entitled to cash reintegration payments from the United Nations agency, the International Organization for Migration screens those who come back and singles out the 40 percent who are most vulnerable — a sort of triage brought by funding shortfalls. Typically, the vulnerable returnees receive $500 a family, and other emergency services, from I.O.M., which has begun an emergency appeal to be able to fund even that level of service. The United Nations refugee agency also says it is greatly underfunded to help the returnees. Other than the cash payments, when available, most of the refugees have little to come home to in Afghanistan. While the Afghan government has promised them plots of land, that is unlikely to come about any time soon; internally displaced refugees already have been waiting for years for promised land grants to materialize. “There are more than a million people on the move,” Ms. Ameratunga said. “And this is happening at a time when winter can be a life-or-death challenge, and when donor fatigue is stretched with all the disasters happening all over the world.” e in. Official pressure and discrimination are the most common reasons given. Under international law, Pakistan is obliged to allow registered refugees to stay, and most of those who leave are doing so voluntarily — in theory. “I personally don’t see this as a voluntary repatriation,” said Mohammad Ismail, the head of the United Nations refugee office in Jalalabad. “When you are harassed, intimidated, rounded up by police, taken to court, forced to pay bribes, you are being forced to leave.” Shaqiullah, 46, fled the Soviet invasion to Pakistan at age 17. Last month, he returned with his two wives and their 20 children, ranging in age from 6 months to 28 years, all born in Pakistan. He stopped in Samarkhel to collect his reintegration payment before heading on to Jalalabad. “They are all sad and unhappy in their new home,” he said. “They had friends there, schools there, everything there. They didn’t know anything else.” Shaqiullah is luckier than most, however, since he is a mullah and has already found a job — as the mullah for a refugee camp in Afghanistan for newly homeless Afghans. Undocumented returning migrants, who never succeeded in being registered as refugees but have often spent years abroad, are even worse off. Since they are not entitled to cash reintegration payments from the United Nations agency, the International Organization for Migration screens those who come back and singles out the 40 percent who are most vulnerable — a sort of triage brought by funding shortfalls. Typically, the vulnerable returnees receive $500 a family, and other emergency services, from I.O.M., which has begun an emergency appeal to be able to fund even that level of service. The United Nations refugee agency also says it is greatly underfunded to help the returnees. Other than the cash payments, when available, most of the refugees have little to come home to in Afghanistan. While the Afghan government has promised them plots of land, that is unlikely to come about any time soon; internally displaced refugees already have been waiting for years for promised land grants to materialize. “There are more than a million people on the move,” Ms. Ameratunga said. “And this is happening at a time when winter can be a life-or-death challenge, and when donor fatigue is stretched with all the disasters happening all over the world.”

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PARIS — For perhaps the first time at a major international auto salon, the stars of the Paris Motor Show are electric cars. The 2016 show, open to the public through Oct. 16, also has the usual sampling of futuristic designs and prototypes. And of course there are some conventional new models soon to hit dealer showrooms. But this show may end up being best remembered as a tipping point for an electric car revolution poised to challenge the automobile industry’s internal-combustion status quo — although some of the excitement is still speculative, of course. Volkswagen, trying to move beyond the diesel-emissions cheating scandal that has tarnished its brand, is displaying an all-electric concept car it calls the I.D. VW already sells the all-electric e-Golf, but its limited range between charges is a big drawback. The e-Golf is considered a “city electric” for short commutes, not a long-distance road warrior. Continue reading the main story RELATED COVERAGE TRILOBITES An App to Help Save Emissions (and Maybe Money) When Buying a Car SEPT. 27, 2016 In a Switch for Paris Show, Automakers Turn From Diesel SEPT. 22, 2016 STATE OF THE ART How Did G.M. Create Tesla’s Dream Car First? SEPT. 14, 2016 PARIS MOTOR SHOW Less Tension, More Optimism SEPT. 26, 2014 ADVERTISEMENT Advertisement Continue reading the main story But at next month’s Los Angeles Auto Show, Volkswagen plans to introduce a new e-Golf, with a range the company says exceeds 124 miles, measured using the Environmental Protection Agency’s test protocols. Photo Karl-Thomas Neumann, chief of Opel, with the brand’s new Ampera-e electric car. G.M., which owns Opel, says the Ampera-e has a range of over 300 miles on a single charge. Credit Christophe Ena/Associated Press The new e-Golf, to be sold in more locations than the current model, will serve as a “bridge vehicle,” the company says, to the new all-electric based on the I.D., whose debut is planned for 2020. Volkswagen says it will have an electric self-driving car by 2025, which is why the I.D. on display here features a steering wheel that retracts into the dashboard when the car is in autonomous mode. Mercedes-Benz used the Paris show to announce a new subbrand of electric cars, Generation EQ (a play on I.Q.). The vehicles are scheduled to roll out in stages over the next three to seven years. The inaugural model, on display here, is a sport utility vehicle. Almost every other manufacturer in attendance is offering at least one new model with full electric operation or a hybrid combination of gas and electric. Exhibit A came from the Opel division of General Motors, which unveiled the production-ready Ampera-e — the European version of its all-electric Chevrolet Bolt, which is supposed to go on sale late this year in North America. The five-passenger subcompact Ampera-e promised the trifecta of electric car must-haves: considerable utility for a car its size, a mass-market price and an all-electric range of more than 500 kilometers, or 310 miles. (The Chevrolet version has a stated range of 238 miles, based on E.P.A. standards, which are tougher than their European counterparts.) Six years ago, when the Nissan Leaf, the industry’s first mass-produced electric vehicle, went on sale, the company said its range was less than 100 miles. That proved to be a deal breaker for many buyers, who viewed it as insufficient for everyday driving. Technical tweaks to newer models of the Leaf have lifted that slightly above 100 miles. But new hardware that might significantly expand its range is still awaiting introduction. Four years ago, Tesla pulled ahead as the new standard-bearer, with electric cars that could go up to 265 miles on a charge. The company said here that its new Model S P100D was rated at 315 miles. But its $135,000 price puts the car well out of the reach of mainstream buyers. The electric autonomous-driving Renault Trezor concept car on display in Paris. Renault said that future production models based on the Trezor, which has a red cockpit, would appear only after 2020. Credit Benoit Tessier/Reuters Tesla’s long-promised, lower-price Model 3, which is to sell for $35,000 to $42,000 and is heavily subscribed with advance orders, is still only in prototype form and will not be available until late next year, at the earliest. Tesla did not display a production-ready Model 3 here, to the vocal disappointment of some attendees. Extending an electric car’s range has been G.M.’s goal since the demise of its ill-fated EV1, which it produced from 1996 to 1999. The EV1 had a range of barely 100 miles. But G.M. claims to have solved the problem. As evidence, the company announced here that its engineers had driven the Ampera-e 417 kilometers, or 260 miles, from London to the Paris show via the Channel Tunnel. “When we arrived, we still had a further 80 kilometers of range left,” said Pam Fletcher, the project’s executive chief engineer. “That is substantially more than we just announced for this car two weeks ago.” While she did not detail the exact methodology, route or road conditions of that drive, “any careful driver, on a national road, could have driven this car 500 kilometers,” Ms. Fletcher said. “We are presenting a real production car, not something that is two to three years away.” The Ampera-e’s price was not announced here. But its nearly identical cousin in America, the Chevrolet Bolt, has a base price of $37,495. And a range of possible tax credits and incentives offered in the United States could lower the final cost by more than $7,000. “I’m impressed,” Chris Paine, writer and director of the 2006 documentary film “Who Killed the Electric Car?” wrote in an email about the Ampera-e. “The real question is when it will hit showrooms for us to drive, or have Lyft pick us up in one.” Dieter Zetsche, chairman of Daimler, Mercedes-Benz’s parent company, presented the brand’s new Generation EQ electric vehicles, which are scheduled to appear in stages over the next three to seven years. Credit Ian Langsdon/European Pressphoto Agency The Ampera-e will go on sale in Europe next spring, the company said. Another Paris debutant was a next-generation Renault Zoe EV, with a projected range of 400 kilometers, or 248 miles. But the Zoe, the first generation of which made its debut in 2012, has been offered for about $27,000 without a battery, less expensive than the Bolt. Buyers then lease a battery pack from the manufacturer for about $100 a month. Renault said the new Zoe would probably have a battery purchase option. The sexiest concept model at the show is probably the Renault Trezor autonomous-driving electric car. This aircraftlike flight of design fancy is likely never to see production — especially its cornea-scorching red plexiglas cockpit. Renault said future production models based on the Trezor would appear only “beyond 2020.” Mercedes-Benz built the largest stage here and rigged it for a huge light show with pulsating sound to introduce its Generation EQ vehicles. “We’re now flipping the switch,” said Dieter Zetsche, chairman of Daimler, Mercedes-Benz’s parent company. “We’re ready for the launch of an electric product offensive that will cover all vehicle segments, from the compact to the luxury class.” The attention devoted to electric cars at the Paris show stole the spotlight from diesel-powered cars, once a staple of the European automobile market and past stars of this show. Diesel’s inherently dirtier emissions are not welcome in Paris these days. To address the city’s notoriously bad air quality, the municipal government has since July 1 prohibited cars that were registered before 1997 from operating on the streets on weekdays from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. By 2020, environmental activists predict, all diesels might be banned in Paris. And the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, has proposed expanding car-free areas. One just approved will transform a major thoroughfare along the Seine into a pedestrian zone. But this city, where the electric-car-sharing service Autolib’ has been operating for nearly five years, would presumably be hospitable to more e-cars — as the electric revolution at the Paris Motor Show may have foreshadowed.

Mr. Dorsey was in the middle of a major turnaround effort, an attempt to stanch the bleeding of users and reinstall faith in the company with new efforts around live streaming video. Mr. Dorsey, executives and many on the board wanted more time to prove Twitter could work as an independent company, even as they had a fiduciary duty to consider all options. A Twitter spokeswoman declined to comment. Salesforce also declined to comment. The internal state of affairs at Twitter and its likely options was described in interviews with more than a dozen current and former employees. Rank-and-file staff members are frustrated about being in the dark on the company’s future, and a handful of employees have stopped showing up for work entirely, several insiders said. Morale has deteriorated over the last year, especially amid rumors of more layoffs at the company — some took place a year ago. Employees said management handled the situation poorly when at one point, some of them discovered access to a digital folder on Twitter’s network that had the names of people who were to be dismissed, before any announcement being made. Eventually, Twitter announced it would cut more than 300 jobs. Mr. Dorsey has been trying to rally the troops, sending two companywide memos, one in mid-September and one last week, which were obtained by The New York Times. In the September note, Mr. Dorsey struck a consoling tone to employees, and noted the progress around Twitter’s live streaming of a Thursday night N.F.L. game to be broadcast that day. But he did not offer clarity on the rumors surrounding the company’s potential acquisition, leading to further internal speculation and grumbling. Despite the drama, there is a bright spot for Twitter executives: The company’s focus on live efforts, however nascent, are beginning to bear some fruit. Twitter Stock Price One measure that is on the rise is Twitter’s logged-out live stream viewers — that is, people who watched the live streamed N.F.L. game who do not hold Twitter accounts — accounting for about 15 percent of total viewership of the company’s first handful of N.F.L. games, according to two people with knowledge of the viewership numbers. That syncs with Twitter’s overall thesis that its platform extends beyond those who hold Twitter accounts. As far as logged-in Twitter accounts are concerned, the company reported three million new users last quarter. People familiar with the company’s metrics expect that growth to continue. Twitter executives are also focused on making Twitter profitable. Since going public in November 2013, the company has yet to turn a profit, particularly because of a large stock-based expenses related to employee compensation and high research and development costs. As a result, Twitter is looking at divesting some noncore businesses. Those includ Mr. Dorsey was in the middle of a major turnaround effort, an attempt to stanch the bleeding of users and reinstall faith in the company with new efforts around live streaming video. Mr. Dorsey, executives and many on the board wanted more time to prove Twitter could work as an independent company, even as they had a fiduciary duty to consider all options. A Twitter spokeswoman declined to comment. Salesforce also declined to comment. The internal state of affairs at Twitter and its likely options was described in interviews with more than a dozen current and former employees. Rank-and-file staff members are frustrated about being in the dark on the company’s future, and a handful of employees have stopped showing up for work entirely, several insiders said. Morale has deteriorated over the last year, especially amid rumors of more layoffs at the company — some took place a year ago. Employees said management handled the situation poorly when at one point, some of them discovered access to a digital folder on Twitter’s network that had the names of people who were to be dismissed, before any announcement being made. Eventually, Twitter announced it would cut more than 300 jobs. Mr. Dorsey has been trying to rally the troops, sending two companywide memos, one in mid-September and one last week, which were obtained by The New York Times. In the September note, Mr. Dorsey struck a consoling tone to employees, and noted the progress around Twitter’s live streaming of a Thursday night N.F.L. game to be broadcast that day. But he did not offer clarity on the rumors surrounding the company’s potential acquisition, leading to further internal speculation and grumbling. Despite the drama, there is a bright spot for Twitter executives: The company’s focus on live efforts, however nascent, are beginning to bear some fruit. Twitter Stock Price One measure that is on the rise is Twitter’s logged-out live stream viewers — that is, people who watched the live streamed N.F.L. game who do not hold Twitter accounts — accounting for about 15 percent of total viewership of the company’s first handful of N.F.L. games, according to two people with knowledge of the viewership numbers. That syncs with Twitter’s overall thesis that its platform extends beyond those who hold Twitter accounts. As far as logged-in Twitter accounts are concerned, the company reported three million new users last quarter. People familiar with the company’s metrics expect that growth to continue. Twitter executives are also focused on making Twitter profitable. Since going public in November 2013, the company has yet to turn a profit, particularly because of a large stock-based expenses related to employee compensation and high research and development costs. As a result, Twitter is looking at divesting some noncore businesses. Those include Vine, the six-second video sharing app, which has been bleeding users and executive staff. Twitter is also considering selling off Fabric, a mobile developer platform that the company launched in 2014, from which effectively it did not make money. Twitter earlier held separate talks with Microsoft about a potential acquisition of Fabric, according to four people involved in the matter. Those preliminary talks stalled when rumors of a possible sale of Twitter to Salesforce spilled out since Microsoft and Salesforce compete with one another, these people said. It is unclear if the talks will resume. I.B.M. was also approached about a deal. Microsoft and I.B.M. declined to comment. Twitter is also considering new layoffs. As of the company’s most recent earnings report, Twitter employs nearly 4,000 staffers in more than 35 offices worldwide. “I empathize with the feelings that come from the constant critique, the constant negativity, and the constant doubt,” Mr. Dorsey wrote in the companywide memo last month. “But hey, that’s life in the arena. All we control is how we choose to react to it.” e Vine, the six-second video sharing app, which has been bleeding users and executive staff. Twitter is also considering selling off Fabric, a mobile developer platform that the company launched in 2014, from which effectively it did not make money. Twitter earlier held separate talks with Microsoft about a potential acquisition of Fabric, according to four people involved in the matter. Those preliminary talks stalled when rumors of a possible sale of Twitter to Salesforce spilled out since Microsoft and Salesforce compete with one another, these people said. It is unclear if the talks will resume. I.B.M. was also approached about a deal. Microsoft and I.B.M. declined to comment. Twitter is also considering new layoffs. As of the company’s most recent earnings report, Twitter employs nearly 4,000 staffers in more than 35 offices worldwide. “I empathize with the feelings that come from the constant critique, the constant negativity, and the constant doubt,” Mr. Dorsey wrote in the companywide memo last month. “But hey, that’s life in the arena. All we control is how we choose to react to it.”

SEOUL, South Korea — Samsung Electronics is killing its troubled Galaxy Note 7 smartphone, a humbling about-face for the South Korean giant and its global brand. In an unprecedented move, the company will no longer produce or market the smartphones. The demise of the Galaxy Note 7 is a major setback for Samsung, the world’s largest maker of smartphones. The premium device — with a 5.7-inch screen, curved contours and comparatively high price — won praise from consumers and reviewers, and was the company’s most ambitious effort yet to take on Apple for the high-end market. But Samsung has struggled to address reports that the Galaxy Note 7 could overheat and catch fire because of a manufacturing flaw. Last month, the company said it would recall 2.5 million phones to fix the problem. But in recent days, Galaxy Note 7 users emerged with reports that some devices that had supposedly been repaired were overheating, smoking and even bursting into flames. And on Monday, Samsung asked Note 7 customers to power off the phones while it worked on the problem. In a statement filed with the South Korean stock exchange late Tuesday, Samsung said it had made a “final decision” to stop production. The company will no longer make or market the phones, said a person familiar with the decision, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because Samsung did not publicly disclose details. Continue reading the main story RELATED COVERAGE Samsung Halts Galaxy Note 7 Production as Battery Problems Linger OCT. 10, 2016 TECH TIP What to Do if You Have a Samsung Galaxy Note 7 SEPT. 16, 2016 Samsung Stumbles in Race to Recall Troubled Phones SEPT. 15, 2016 Samsung to Recall 2.5 Million Galaxy Note 7s Over Battery Fires SEPT. 2, 2016 ADVERTISEMENT Advertisement Continue reading the main story Samsung has a strong position in modestly priced smartphones and has made progress in challenging the Apple iPhone for the high end of the market. Samsung showed its confidence in the new Galaxy Note 7 by skipping a sixth version in the series and offering the new phone beginning in August, before Apple’s introduction of its iPhone 7. It was unclear where the Galaxy Note 7’s problem began. But Samsung’s fight to catch up with Apple by cramming increasingly sophisticated features into the device may have been the phone’s undoing. Industry experts are scrutinizing Samsung’s supply chain to see whether the rush to market caused technical problems or led to corners being cut. “With the Note 7, Samsung strengthened its power as a speedy competitor,” said Lee Seung-woo, an analyst with IBK Investment & Securities. “But one wonders whether it hasn’t raced ahead alone, without helping its component suppliers to catch up.” The company is facing an immediate, and substantial, financial blow. On Tuesday, even before Samsung had announced it was killing the Galaxy Note 7, its South Korea-traded shares fell more than 8 percent, its biggest daily drop since 2008, knocking $17 billion off the company’s market value. Strategy Analytics, a research firm, had earlier estimated that Samsung could lose more than $10 billion from the phone’s troubles. Samsung’s smartphone business also helps its other divisions by buying their computer chips and panel screens. Tougher to predict is how badly the Samsung brand itself will suffer. “It’s difficult to estimate now the damage it has caused to Samsung’s mid- and long-term brand value,” Mr. Lee said, “as well as its impact on Samsung’s smartphone sales in the future.” An editorial in South Korea’s largest newspaper, the Chosun Ilbo, said: “You cannot really calculate the loss of consumer trust in money.’’ It said that Samsung must realize that it “didn’t take many years for Nokia to tumble from its position as the world’s top cellphone maker.” No major manufacturer has killed off such a high-profile smartphone at the height of its po[CENSORED]rity. But the person familiar with Samsung’s decision to terminate production said that the company had determined that simply removing the Galaxy Note 7 from the market would be the quickest way to stem further confusion and anxiety about the phone, albeit a costly one. It is an embarrassing moment for Samsung, whose name has come to be synonymous among South Koreans with cutting-edge technology and manufacturing prowess. The Galaxy Note 7 was one of the most ambitious products Samsung had begun marketing under the leadership of Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong, who took the helm of the country’s largest family controlled conglomerate, or chaebol, after his father, Chairman Lee Kun-hee, became ill in 2014. The senior Mr. Lee, who has not been seen in public since, famously burned a pile of 150,000 defective Samsung phones 21 years ago to demonstrate the company’s commitment to quality. Initially, Samsung watchers credited Lee Jae-yong — also known as Jay Y. Lee — with acting with similar decisiveness when Samsung first recalled the 2.5 million Galaxy Note 7 devices. But as the phone’s problems lingered, scrutiny intensified. The troubling part for many is that Samsung recalled the devices, but then had to try to fix the problem a second time. “Maybe they should look harder and closer at what is happening at the management level,” said Roberta Cozza, a research director with Gartner Research, who cited the damage to Samsung’s credibility with customers and with telecommunications carriers. Earlier Tuesday, the Korean Agency for Technology and Standards, a government organization, recommended that Samsung stop selling the device, saying that it had enough reason to believe the replacement model also had a “possible defect.” The agency did not provide details. The government also ordered South Korean airlines not to accept Galaxy Note 7 phones in luggage and to ensure that those who carry them on board powered them down. Just hours before the Galaxy Note 7’s demise, Samsung said it would stop selling the model around the world, essentially pulling it from the market as it sought to determine what had caused the fires. It said it had asked telecom carriers and retailers globally to stop sales and exchanges of the device. Samsung had also asked all consumers with original Galaxy Note 7s or replacement models to power them down and to stop using them while the company worked with regulators to solve the problem. Just a few hours before that, Samsung said it had temporarily halted production of the Galaxy Note 7 to try to fix the problem. In South Korea, the company apologized to consumers and business partners, while mobile carriers offered refunds to owners of the phones or allowed them switch to other Samsung models. The decision to end production came on the same day that the recall spread to China. Samsung had said earlier that models sold in China contained batteries that were different from those that had caught fire. But on Tuesday, before it announced the end of the Galaxy Note 7, Samsung said it was recalling nearly 191,000 of the devices in China. That did not go over well with many Chinese consumers. “Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7 explodes, and they recall their phones in every other country except for China. They really look down on us,” wrote one user on Weibo, a Chinese social media platform.

JÉRÉMIE, Haiti — Things had been looking up in Jérémie, a coastal city marooned on the tip of Haiti’s southern peninsula. It had recently gotten its first decent road link to the rest of the country, a new highway through the rugged mountains that brought development. Cellphone service had finally begun, enabling farmers and businesses to flourish. The city was racing into the 21st century, dreaming of advanced agriculture and tourism in one of Haiti’s few nature preserves. But now, Hurricane Matthew has turned back the clock. The rich forests and vegetation are now splinters and a saltwater swamp. Roads are blocked with detritus, trees turned to tinder, homes reduced to mounds of stone and rusted tin shards cleaved from roofs. Jérémie’s ambitious economic plans have been eviscerated. “Instead of going forward, we have to restart,” said Marie Roselore Auborg, the minister for commerce and industry in the Grand Anse department, where Jérémie is the capital. “This storm leveled all of the potential we had to grow and reboot our economy.” Photo Hurricane Matthew left Jérémie, Haiti, devastated and in a tragically familiar state of disaster. Credit Dieu Nalio Chery/Associated Press Hurricane Matthew’s toll in Haiti has been hard to measure: the deaths and injuries, the number of people still stranded, the cases of cholera contracted in the week since winds of 145 miles an hour blew the country back to a tragically familiar state of disaster. So, too, is the economic impact of the devastation on the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. For Jérémie, isolated and underdeveloped for decades, recent history had been relatively kind, bringing new hotels and a robust coffee crop. But as so often in the past, whenever Haiti tries to pick itself up, something always seems to knock it back down, including, and perhaps especially, the forces of nature. “In 2010, before the earthquake, we had a growth rate of 5.7 percent,” said Jude Célestin, a presidential candidate who toured the devastated area on Sunday afternoon. “It’s the same in Jérémie. It was going up. People from Port-au-Prince were investing here.” As a crowd shouted in the background, trying to get closer to the candidate in the scrum, Mr. Célestin looked around at the homes stripped to their foundations and the mounds of refuse piled up to his shoulders. Continue reading the main story Hurricane Matthew Hurricane Matthew’s Toll Rises; Flooding Strands 1,500 in North Carolina OCT 11 Hurricane Matthew’s Toll Rises; Flooding Strands 1,500 in North Carolina OCT 10 Photos and Detailed Maps Reveal Hurricane Matthew’s Brutal Aftermath in Haiti OCT 10 Hurricane Matthew Toll Climbs to at Least 17 as North Carolina Suffers Record-Breaking Flooding OCT 9 Scenes From Hurricane Matthew’s Capricious Path OCT 8 See More » RELATED COVERAGE Seeing ‘Nothing to Live For’ as Haiti Seeks a Body Count After Hurricane Matthew OCT. 8, 2016 Toll Rises by Hour in Haiti Amid Ruin Left by Hurricane Matthew OCT. 7, 2016 After Hurricane Matthew, Devastation in Southern Haiti OCT. 7, 2016 Hurricane Matthew Makes Old Problems Worse for Haitians OCT. 6, 2016 Hurricane Matthew: Photos of the Destruction in Haiti OCT. 5, 2016 FROM OUR ADVERTISERS Continue reading the main story Hurricane Matthew’s path Gonaives Port HURRICANE FORCE WINDS DOMINICAN REPUBLIC HAITI Jérémie Port-au-Prince TUES. OCT. 4 8 A.M. Petit-Goâve Les Cayes Chantal TROPICAL STORM FORCE WINDS 50 miles Source: National Weather Service By By By The New York Times “And now, this,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s the way it is.” The vista in Jérémie was a familiar one, of devastation more profound than the sum of its parts. Fetid water pooled along the only entrance and exit from the town, and just about everything on the wind-strafed hillsides had been leveled — trees, houses, cellphone towers. Helicopters and convoys of sport utility vehicles descended on the city on Sunday, choking it with traffic after the highway, blocked for the better part of a week, was reopened. Collecting the dead in Jérémie has become a cruel pastime. The government tally for all of Grand Anse was up to 191 on Sunday, but locals put the figure closer to 450, and the grim work of counting the dead has only begun. New outbreaks of cholera were reported in stretches of the south that were still inaccessible by road, and dozens of victims were said to be making their way to hospitals on foot to seek care. In Jérémie, cholera may be one of the hurricane’s worst aftereffects. Of all departments in Haiti, Grand Anse has the least access to fresh water and modern sanitation, according to the World Bank. The smell of feces and soured storm water filled the streets closest to the city’s waterfront, a recipe for a sustained crisis. For now, though, residents were more focused on the immediate problem of shelter. Gary Guerrier, 36, a schoolteacher, saw the storm rip the metal roof off his house, leaving him, his wife and their week-old baby daughter exposed to the elements. After being driven back twice by the raging winds, he finally wrapped the infant in a bundle of bedsheets to protect her for the journey to a neighbor’s house. Photo For all the shattered lives, Jérémie was bustling on Sunday. A few businesses were open, mostly out of necessity, to begin earning back what was lost. Credit Carlos Garcia Rawlins/Reuters “I’m still in a state of shock,” Mr. Guerrier said. “We’re lucky we didn’t lose anyone. But as for material things, I lost everything.” Houses in Beaumont, a town on the outskirts of Jérémie, fared even worse. Constructed of white stones and red earth, they were no match for the winds and pounding rain, and few were left standing among the felled coffee plants and orange trees after the storm passed. Residents farther up in the hills were still hunting for family members, while those along the lower rungs of the mountain had already interred their loved ones. “We found my father in his home, suffering several broken bones,” said Desir Luckner, 49, pointing to what remained of the house — a concrete foundation with one timber beam still upright. “We carried him down the hill to find help, but he died on the way.” GRAPHIC Photos and Detailed Maps Reveal Hurricane Matthew’s Brutal Aftermath in Haiti The storm killed hundreds of people and left a path of destruction in western Haiti. Entire towns were turned into a mix of mud and debris. OPEN GRAPHIC For all the shattered lives, the city of Jérémie was bustling on Sunday. Vendors squeezed between the wreckage on the roadsides, selling bread patties and overpriced spring onions magically procured from somewhere. A few businesses were operating, mostly out of necessity, to begin earning back what was lost. Claudia St. Louis opened her small bakery, selling comparettes, a local sweet bread, to those who could pay. “I lost my home, but I have to keep going, because it’s my livelihood,” she said, swatting at bees whose hive had been crushed during the storm. “There will be fewer people to buy these now, but there is nothing to be done about it.” Ms. St. Louis said her business had been booming before the storm, with sales up 50 percent in the last year, and she was planning to expand into other baked items and perhaps even open a cosmetics shop as well. A damaged church in Jérémie on Sunday. Credit Carlos Garcia Rawlins/Reuters “I can’t do that now,” she said. The head of the chamber of commerce in Grand Anse, Monode Joseph, said the situation would be dire for a while. Along with the stores, hotels and small restaurants that gave the city its ambience, the farmers of the region were struggling, he said. Mr. Joseph traveled to Port-au-Prince, the national capital, after the storm to ask investors to keep supporting the coffee planters and bean farmers of the region as they tried to restore their land and start over. “The people were beginning to better organize themselves, which was increasing our business,” and he persuaded the investors only last year to put in more capital, Mr. Joseph said. “It’s going to be hard to get the credit we need now.” Without that money, he said, the repercussions for farming will be catastrophic: “We don’t even know everything that’s been lost.

Welcome to csbd Have fun !!

Welcome To Csbd Have Fun !

Each Saturday, Farhad Manjoo and Mike Isaac, technology reporters at The New York Times, review the week’s news, offering analysis and maybe a joke or two about the most important developments in the tech industry. Mike: Aloha, Farhad! I’m back from a week of vacation in paradise, and everything compared to Hawaii is terrible. Usually for a week or two after returning from vacation I bemoan the advent of capitalism until I finally get used to working for a living again. How have things been while I was away? Farhad: Capitalism is great! While you were away I created a multibillion-dollar business conglomerate, which some of my deputies are now running while I take some much-needed “Farhad time” thinking big ideas on the couch. Look, Mike, if you work as hard as I do, you’re sure to see a big payoff someday. Mike: Hmm ... right. Well, I did get a taste of work from vacay. I was pushing for the dateline on this Twitter story to be from “on da beach sipping mai tais, Hawaii.” The brass didn’t go for it. Farhad: I think it’s pretty obvious from the story that you were sipping something. Mike: O.K., news time. This week, it came out that Disney is kinda, sorta mulling a possible bid for Twitter, adding yet another suitor to the shortlist of companies that are kinda, sorta thinking about making offers. I had heard an inkling of this, too, but I kinda, sorta didn’t feel it was worth writing. Perhaps I was wrong? Farhad: I’m with you. Recode’s Peter Kafka pointed out the many reasons it would be silly for Disney to consider Twitter. Twitter would be very expensive for Disney, and it’s not at all clear that Disney would have any capacity to fix Twitter’s user growth problem. There’s also the brand conflict between the two companies (Disney is the happiest place on earth; Twitter is for the worst people on the planet). But the big one is about media: Twitter wants to sign up lots of content companies to provide programming on Twitter. As Peter points out, if Disney owns it, why would competing companies want to play along? They wouldn’t. Continue reading the main story RELATED COVERAGE Elon Musk’s Plan: Get Humans to Mars, and Beyond SEPT. 27, 2016 REVIEW Can Tesla’s Autopilot Be Trusted? Not Always SEPT. 23, 2016 Twitter Is Said to Be Discussing a Possible Takeover SEPT. 23, 2016 SpaceX Rocket Explodes at Launchpad in Cape Canaveral SEPT. 1, 2016 YouTube Introduces YouTube Red, a Subscription Service OCT. 21, 2015 Mike: Yeah. It was a leak made to help Twitter, methinks, but ended up dinging Disney’s stock price. Ouch! Farhad: But wait, there was one more bit of Twitter news: Marc Andreessen, the famous venture capitalist and somewhat controversial tweeter, announced that he was taking a break from the platform. At an industry event this week, he explained the move served as a kind of liberation. “I feel 50 pounds lighter,” he said. I think this is terrible news for Twitter. Whether or not you’re a fan of Andreessen’s tweets, it’s a pretty bad sign if one of your more prolific producers of content decides he needs a break — and then says he feels much better after quitting. But I’m doubtful this will last long. Andreessen seems to really love the daily scrum of Twitter. As someone who shares that affection, I suspect it must be hard to stay away too long. I predict he’ll be back in six months. Mike: I mean, if you’re a person with outlandish and often controversial opinions willing to defend them vehemently in public on the internet, I guess I could see how getting off Twitter would be a refreshing change. Or you could just, you know, not tweet. Subscribe to the Bits Newsletter Get caught up on the latest from Silicon Valley and the technology industry, plus exclusive analysis from our reporters and editors, delivered to your inbox six days a week. Enter your email address Sign Up Receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. SEE SAMPLE PRIVACY POLICY In other news, Google has rebranded its set of work and productivity apps. It is now called “G Suite,” continuing the company’s streak of vaguely risqué product names. Facebook, meanwhile, is supposedly readying for release its enterprise collaboration product, which essentially makes it easier to talk to co-workers and extended family members throughout the workday. Somehow I don’t think this will take off. Farhad: More ways to talk to co-workers like you? Sign me up! Mike: Uber is promoting its self-driving trucking division, Otto, which expects to start putting actual trucks on the road next year after expanding its fleet of trucks and creating new partnerships this year. Oh, also YouTube hired a music bigwig, Lyor Cohen, who created the legendary Def Jam label and currently runs the label home to Fetty Wap, an artist I am told is beloved by “the kids.” It’s in the same vein as Apple picking up Jimmy Iovine or Spotify poaching Troy Carter, I gather. If you’re a tech company that has generally bad relationships with the music industry, you hire a veteran to be the face of negotiations for your company and hopefully do a bunch of repair work over the long haul. Funny thing is, after asking about Cohen on Twitter yesterday, everyone told me the guy is sort of notorious for being, um, brusque, so we’ll see how well that charm offensive goes. Farhad: Look, anyone who signs Fetty Wap is good in my book. “Trap Queen,” amirite? Mike: Indeed. The big thing this week, however, had little to do with traditional technology stuff and was more about space: The final frontier, as it were. In a nutshell, Elon Musk, everyone’s favorite playboy billionaire and “Iron Man” inspiration, showed off his plans to take us to Mars within the next eight years. A few hitches: It’ll cost $10 billion if everything goes to plan, and we’ll probably have to be O.K. with the first people to go up possibly dying. Sounds good to me. Thoughts? Each Saturday, Farhad Manjoo and Mike Isaac, technology reporters at The New York Times, review the week’s news, offering analysis and maybe a joke or two about the most important developments in the tech industry. Mike: Aloha, Farhad! I’m back from a week of vacation in paradise, and everything compared to Hawaii is terrible. Usually for a week or two after returning from vacation I bemoan the advent of capitalism until I finally get used to working for a living again. How have things been while I was away? Farhad: Capitalism is great! While you were away I created a multibillion-dollar business conglomerate, which some of my deputies are now running while I take some much-needed “Farhad time” thinking big ideas on the couch. Look, Mike, if you work as hard as I do, you’re sure to see a big payoff someday. Mike: Hmm ... right. Well, I did get a taste of work from vacay. I was pushing for the dateline on this Twitter story to be from “on da beach sipping mai tais, Hawaii.” The brass didn’t go for it. Farhad: I think it’s pretty obvious from the story that you were sipping something. Mike: O.K., news time. This week, it came out that Disney is kinda, sorta mulling a possible bid for Twitter, adding yet another suitor to the shortlist of companies that are kinda, sorta thinking about making offers. I had heard an inkling of this, too, but I kinda, sorta didn’t feel it was worth writing. Perhaps I was wrong? Farhad: I’m with you. Recode’s Peter Kafka pointed out the many reasons it would be silly for Disney to consider Twitter. Twitter would be very expensive for Disney, and it’s not at all clear that Disney would have any capacity to fix Twitter’s user growth problem. There’s also the brand conflict between the two companies (Disney is the happiest place on earth; Twitter is for the worst people on the planet). But the big one is about media: Twitter wants to sign up lots of content companies to provide programming on Twitter. As Peter points out, if Disney owns it, why would competing companies want to play along? They wouldn’t. Continue reading the main story RELATED COVERAGE Elon Musk’s Plan: Get Humans to Mars, and Beyond SEPT. 27, 2016 REVIEW Can Tesla’s Autopilot Be Trusted? Not Always SEPT. 23, 2016 Twitter Is Said to Be Discussing a Possible Takeover SEPT. 23, 2016 SpaceX Rocket Explodes at Launchpad in Cape Canaveral SEPT. 1, 2016 YouTube Introduces YouTube Red, a Subscription Service OCT. 21, 2015 Mike: Yeah. It was a leak made to help Twitter, methinks, but ended up dinging Disney’s stock price. Ouch! Farhad: But wait, there was one more bit of Twitter news: Marc Andreessen, the famous venture capitalist and somewhat controversial tweeter, announced that he was taking a break from the platform. At an industry event this week, he explained the move served as a kind of liberation. “I feel 50 pounds lighter,” he said. I think this is terrible news for Twitter. Whether or not you’re a fan of Andreessen’s tweets, it’s a pretty bad sign if one of your more prolific producers of content decides he needs a break — and then says he feels much better after quitting. But I’m doubtful this will last long. Andreessen seems to really love the daily scrum of Twitter. As someone who shares that affection, I suspect it must be hard to stay away too long. I predict he’ll be back in six months. Mike: I mean, if you’re a person with outlandish and often controversial opinions willing to defend them vehemently in public on the internet, I guess I could see how getting off Twitter would be a refreshing change. Or you could just, you know, not tweet. Subscribe to the Bits Newsletter Get caught up on the latest from Silicon Valley and the technology industry, plus exclusive analysis from our reporters and editors, delivered to your inbox six days a week. Enter your email address Sign Up Receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. SEE SAMPLE PRIVACY POLICY In other news, Google has rebranded its set of work and productivity apps. It is now called “G Suite,” continuing the company’s streak of vaguely risqué product names. Facebook, meanwhile, is supposedly readying for release its enterprise collaboration product, which essentially makes it easier to talk to co-workers and extended family members throughout the workday. Somehow I don’t think this will take off. Farhad: More ways to talk to co-workers like you? Sign me up! Mike: Uber is promoting its self-driving trucking division, Otto, which expects to start putting actual trucks on the road next year after expanding its fleet of trucks and creating new partnerships this year. Oh, also YouTube hired a music bigwig, Lyor Cohen, who created the legendary Def Jam label and currently runs the label home to Fetty Wap, an artist I am told is beloved by “the kids.” It’s in the same vein as Apple picking up Jimmy Iovine or Spotify poaching Troy Carter, I gather. If you’re a tech company that has generally bad relationships with the music industry, you hire a veteran to be the face of negotiations for your company and hopefully do a bunch of repair work over the long haul. Funny thing is, after asking about Cohen on Twitter yesterday, everyone told me the guy is sort of notorious for being, um, brusque, so we’ll see how well that charm offensive goes. Farhad: Look, anyone who signs Fetty Wap is good in my book. “Trap Queen,” amirite? Mike: Indeed. The big thing this week, however, had little to do with traditional technology stuff and was more about space: The final frontier, as it were. In a nutshell, Elon Musk, everyone’s favorite playboy billionaire and “Iron Man” inspiration, showed off his plans to take us to Mars within the next eight years. A few hitches: It’ll cost $10 billion if everything goes to plan, and we’ll probably have to be O.K. with the first people to go up possibly dying. Sounds good to me. Thoughts? Farhad: I’m split. On the one hand, this is so great! After the Cold War-inspired space race, the United States government has long forgotten about big bets on space exploration. Whether you care about space for high-minded reasons — you think that exploring the universe is the highest purpose of humanity — or for more practical ones (you believe, like Musk does, that we need a backup plan in case the Earth goes to pot), the news that someone is finally pouring resources and ingenuity into a big extraplanetary goal should warm your heart. Mike: It does! Also it seems like people who go to Burning Man really love it, too. Farhad: On the other hand: Man, isn’t this guy stretched too thin? It does kind of seem like he keeps raising the stakes in order to distract everyone from his problems, right? Just look at his schedule: In the past few months Musk showed off Tesla’s first mass-market electric car, the Model 3; presided over a controversial merger of Tesla and SolarCity; outlined a new “master plan” for Tesla that suggests it will one day compete with Uber as a ride-hailing company; set out huge and potentially unfeasible production goals for the car company while dealing with fallout from accidents involving Tesla’s self-driving tech; tried to rally his workers in the face of a cash crunch at Tesla; and, on top of all that, Musk’s rocket that happened to be carrying another billionaire’s satellite exploded on the launchpad. That’s so much stuff! If he ever wants to finish anything, shouldn’t he, like, focus? Mike: This is why you will never be a billionaire playboy, Farhad. Focusing on stuff is for losers. Blasting out ideas in a shotgun spray of creativity is how history is made and old industries are disrupted. Just ask me, Mike “Playboy” Isaac, a wellspring of creativity. Anyway, the people have voted and you’re on the first rocket ship to Mars, not me. Any last words before possibly making the ultimate sacrifice? Farhad: On the one hand, I will dearly miss my wife and kids. On the other hand, I will no longer have to do this insufferable weekly chat with you. Tough decision, but I think I’m going with Elon. Mars or bust! Farhad: I’m split. On the one hand, this is so great! After the Cold War-inspired space race, the United States government has long forgotten about big bets on space exploration. Whether you care about space for high-minded reasons — you think that exploring the universe is the highest purpose of humanity — or for more practical ones (you believe, like Musk does, that we need a backup plan in case the Earth goes to pot), the news that someone is finally pouring resources and ingenuity into a big extraplanetary goal should warm your heart. Mike: It does! Also it seems like people who go to Burning Man really love it, too. Farhad: On the other hand: Man, isn’t this guy stretched too thin? It does kind of seem like he keeps raising the stakes in order to distract everyone from his problems, right? Just look at his schedule: In the past few months Musk showed off Tesla’s first mass-market electric car, the Model 3; presided over a controversial merger of Tesla and SolarCity; outlined a new “master plan” for Tesla that suggests it will one day compete with Uber as a ride-hailing company; set out huge and potentially unfeasible production goals for the car company while dealing with fallout from accidents involving Tesla’s self-driving tech; tried to rally his workers in the face of a cash crunch at Tesla; and, on top of all that, Musk’s rocket that happened to be carrying another billionaire’s satellite exploded on the launchpad. That’s so much stuff! If he ever wants to finish anything, shouldn’t he, like, focus? Mike: This is why you will never be a billionaire playboy, Farhad. Focusing on stuff is for losers. Blasting out ideas in a shotgun spray of creativity is how history is made and old industries are disrupted. Just ask me, Mike “Playboy” Isaac, a wellspring of creativity. Anyway, the people have voted and you’re on the first rocket ship to Mars, not me. Any last words before possibly making the ultimate sacrifice? Farhad: On the one hand, I will dearly miss my wife and kids. On the other hand, I will no longer have to do this insufferable weekly chat with you. Tough decision, but I think I’m going with Elon. Mars or bust!