Moscow might not block a meeting of the Polish Communist Party on July 14 that is expected to result in the approval of a side range of liberal changes in Poland's political and economic systems. This was implied in a joint communique published in Moscow and Warsaw after the Soviet Foreign Minister, Andrei A. Gromyko, returned to Moscow after threde days of talks with Polish leaders. The communique spoke of a "businesslike, comradely atmosphere," but left unclear what Moscow intends to do about Poland's push for a more flexible form of Communism. (Page A1, Column 6.)

Near-final election returns in Israel gave Prime Minister Menachem Begin Likudbloc a one-seat lead over the Labor Alignment headed by Shimon Peres. Prime Minster Begin was expected to get a call from President Yitzhak Nacon to form a new government. (A1:5)

Peacemaking efforts in Lebanon were adjourned by the special Arab League committee which expressed "relief" at what it described as the "easing of tension in Beirut and Zahle." But the committee, which has scheduled further beetings in Beirut starting July 25, appeared to be at an impasse over its demand that the Lebanese Christian Phalangists renounce any ties with Israel asa precondition to any political settlement.(A1:3-6)

The army is moving Salvadorans who fled the civil war and had formed a camp 18 miles from the San Salvador, the capital. From 500 to 2,000 people were said to be living in the camp. Soldiers said the army wanted to move the refugees because it was planning a search-and-destory operation against anti-Government forces in the surrounding hills, which are mainly controlled by guerrillas. (A1:3-4)

A second night of clashes in Liverpool between black immigrants and the police got "out of control," a polic spokesman said. Rioters bombarded the police with stones and gasoline bombs, injuring 100 police officers, looted and set fire to shopes and hijacked milk trucks. Community leaders said the rioting resulted from the frustration young people unable to find jobs. (A1:3-5)

Delivery of Cuban journals to the U.S. has been blocked by the Treasury Department. Officials said that the Trading With the Enemy Act of 1917 empowers the Treasury Department to withhold delivery of the journals. The order has blocked delivery of 30,000 copies of Cuban publications to residents of the United States. They have been detained in Boston, where they arrived from Cuba by way of Montreal. (A2:3-6)

Appeals to corporations for money are pouring in from antipoverty groups, universities, cultural groups and many other nonprofit organizations which fear the cutoff or reduction of Federal grants under the Reagan Adimistration. The companies say they cannot in any way make up for the withdrawal of Federal money. (A1:1)

Smuggling of Mexican diesel fuel into Texas is a growing business among organized rings, which are selling the fuel, which is priced at about 17 cents a gallon in Mexico, at up to $1.30 a gallon. The fuel is generally brought in by trucks whose overflowing tankscaught the attention of United States customs agents. As much as 100 million gallons of diesel fuel has been smuggled in the last year, according to some estimates. (A1:2)

City employees walked off their jobs in San Jose, Calf., where the Mayor and the majority of City Council members are women, ub a strike centering on getting woment the same pay as men get for comparable work. About 1,500 librarians, mechanics, janitors, clerical and other workers walkid out after nearly eight hours of fuirtless bargaining. A union spolesman said both sides were so far apart that it was doubtful that "significant talks will occur in the next few days."(A8:1-2)

New fields beyond botanic research will be explored by the New York Botanical Garden. The 90-year-old institution in the Bronx, whose primary research function has been the world wide gathering and classification of plants, plans to establish three privately financed institutes: one dealing with ecology, which will be concerned with halting environmental deterioration, particularly in the Northeast; one devoted to economic botany, which will investigate whether some overlooked food plants could be developed into a agricultural crops, and one concerned with urban planning. (A1:1-2.)

The inquiry into the subway crash in Brooklyn Friday found that the motorman, who was killedwhen his IRT train struck the rear of another Irt train, had not removed his hand from the throttleas he approached the train in front, which had stopped, an action that would have immediately bracked his train. The National Safety Transportation Board is assisting the inquiry. (B1:1-4)

Easing of garbage-dumping rules for 108 New Jersey communities affected the garbage-haulers strike that began six days ago is expected to be announced today.The state's three largest cities - Newark, Jersey City and Paterson - are affected by the strike, but there were no indications of health emergencies.(B2:1-4)

An end to fireboat protection of piers and wharves in New Jersey communitiess bordering onNew YorkBay and the Hudson River has been proposed by New York City officials if New Jersey makes no contribution to manpower costs.(B3:2-6)

Summary: INTERNATIONAL   Moscow might not block a meeting of the Polish Communist Party on July 14 that is expected to result in the approval of a side range of liberal changes in Poland's political and economic systems.  This was implied in a joint communique published in Moscow and Warsaw after the Soviet Foreign Minister, Andrei A. Gromyko, returned to Moscow after threde days of talks with Polish leaders.  The communique spoke of a "businesslike, comradely atmosphere," but left unclear what Moscow intends to do about Poland's push for a more flexible form of Communism. (Page A1, Column 6.)   Near-final election returns in Israel gave Prime Minister Menachem Begin Likudbloc a one-seat lead over the Labor Alignment headed by Shimon Peres. Prime Minster Begin was expected to get a call from President Yitzhak Nacon to form a new government. (A1:5)


IT takes more than $41,000 to earn an undergraduate degree at Yale, but a Briton can get a degree of comparable value at Oxford for virtually no cost at all. The disparity exists because Britain is one of many European countries that offer higher learning cheaply through heavy Government subsidies.

While access to higher education in many European countries is on a democratic financial basis, with governments picking up much of the students' tab, stringent scholastic requirements can filter out many potential applicants. In both Britain and Switzerland, stiff academic demands keep the number of students relatively low compared to other European countries. In Italy, on the other hand, virtually anyone who has completed school can spend a few years at a Government-supported institute.

In West Germany, for example, tuition for students at any of 284 institutes of higher education is free; students in France pay less than $100 a year to attend that country's 70 state universities, and the Government plans a $2.76 billion higher-education subsidy next year. About half the undergraduates at the University of Geneva in Switzerland pay just $60 a year, and a large proportion of the rest pay no more than $385. Britain expects during this academic year to funnel just over $3.6 billion, almost 2 percent of its annual budget, into its 470 degree-granting institutions. Italy is giving its 52 public universities $1.3 billion this year. In Spain, 30 state universities and four private institutions of higher learning will get a total of $276 million from their government.

Low-cost higher education has not always been accessible throughout Europe. In Italy, for example, it was not until 1969, after months of student agitation for ''the right to study,'' that the country's previously elitist institutions were forced by law to lower their costs and open their doors to virtually all students.

Six years earlier in Britain, a higher education committee headed by the eminent economist and professor Lord Robbins declared that universities should be made available ''to all who are qualified by ability and attainment to pursue them and wish to do so.'' The concept, known as the ''Robbins principle,'' then became a keystone of Britain's higher education philosophy.

But in the last few months many observers of the education scene here have expressed the opinion that the Robbins principle may be in jeopardy. It is widely expected that more than 20,000 and perhaps as many as 50,000 university places will be lost over the next four years because of a cutback of more than 8 percent in Government grants. Taking into account the recent removal of Government subsidies to foreign students, who now have to pay full fees, the overall loss of university resources by 1984 is estimated at between 11 and 15 percent of the current figure.

Moreover, 30 polytechnics, which are financed by local authorities and are somewhat like American state universities, may lose 13 percent in subsidies in just one year if proposed cuts are carried out.

British students are not alone in their plight. Although every West German who has achieved the necessary scholastic level has a right to attend a university, there are now as many as 50,000 applicants waiting a year or two for admittance. In dentistry, there are seven applicants for each slot.

In Italy, students have inundated the state universities, which do not generally restrict admission since study and maintenance grants were introduced in 1969. But because the support grants, called ''presalarios,'' have not risen in 12 years, most students have had to turn to a regional assistance offices for further aid.

The ''free,'' or semi-private, universities limit their enrollment through tests and higher costs. In Rome's Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, for example, the medical school this year admitted only 189 of the 722 students who applied.

Switzerland's 10 university-level institutions, which are subsidized either by the Government or by the eight cantons, or Swiss states, prevent overcrowding by winnowing students out at a lower level. According to Henry Kerr, an American who teaches at the University of Geneva, ''only the brightest of the bright can survive here because of the severe selection system imposed at the secondary level.''

In Switzerland as in Britain, where tough scholastic standards keep the number of first-year students in universities to only 12 percent of the total, high standards relieve some of the educational headaches.

A Swiss student who is renting his living quarters may pay up to $6,800 a year, and maintenance grants in Switzerland are rare. But most undergraduates live at home, commuting short distances to the universities, which provide no housing.

In West Germany, by contrast, living support is widely available, though usually in small amounts. The most common source of support is Government aid of as much as $280 a month for a student living away from home, depending among other factors on his family's income. As in Switzerland, no West German universities provide housing. Although Government aid is curtailed once the student's family's income reaches $12,000, there are 10 major institutions - including political parties -and 100 private foundations to which students can turn for support.

In Britain and France, student grants are also graduated according to family income and living arrangements, with French students receiving a maximum of $1,500, and those in Britain $2,775 for a year.

One reason British maintenance is higher than in many European countries is the difficulty students have getting part-time work. The French students' union estimates that as many as 60 percent of university students have to work at least part-time to manage their expenses. In West Germany the academic year lasts only seven months because students often need five months to finance their education.

Could the higher education crisis in Britain be eased by having the students pay their own way, as in private American universities? David Aaronovitch, president of the National Union of Students, doubts it.

''That would be against our tradition,'' he said. ''We have no student loan programs in Britain comparable to those in the United States, partly because we have a different concept of credit. Working people here don't like to be in debt.''

Lord Beloff, who five years ago broke tradition by pioneering Britain's only private institution, the University College of Buckingham, said in an editorial in July that widespread talk of students' rights to higher education in this country was misleading. His students pay nearly $2,000 for each of two years of intensive study.

But Simon Ellis, the academic registrar, said in a reference to private universities in the United States that ''the American system is regarded with some horror by many Britons, who feel that is undemocratic.''

''Education in this country is a right, not a privilege,'' he asserted. This philosophy was underscored in a recent London Times editorial, which commented that ''it defeats the understanding of many, even among the Government's most loyal supporters, why at this time cuts should be imposed'' during record unemployment among young people.

More than 100 years ago Benjamin Disraeli told the House of Commons that ''a university should be a place of light, of liberty, and of learning.'' Many still are, but the task of combining low-cost tuition with adequate facilities is proving to be difficult. b

Illustrations: photo of Magdalen College


CHICAGO, Jan. 11 (AP) - John McEnroe swept to a 6-2, 6-4, 6-1 triumph over Jimmy Connors tonight and captured the $125,000 first prize in the Challenge of Champions round-robin tennis tournament. Both are in the Grand Prix Masters starting next Wednesday in New York.

McEnroe, the world's No. 2 player, capitalized on his vaunted serve, scoring 13 aces. Connors was in a frustrated state after having been broken a second time at the end.

McEnroe won the first two sets by relying on his serve and a variety of offspeed returns that gave Connors, the world's No. 3, few chances to get into his aggressive style. In the third set, McEnroe changed strategy and beat Connors at his own game, hitting with sharp pace.

Connors earned $75,000 of the $350,000 purse in the five-day event. In addition to his first-prize money, McEnroe got $10,000 as a bonus for having made the most aces, 51.

After breezing through the first set, McEnroe moved to a 3-0 lead in the second. Connors played his best tennis, fighting back to 3-3. But he was broken again in the 10th game.

The third set was a runaway for the New Yorker, who has forged into the lead in their career rivalry. Scanlon 5-Set Victor

AUCKLAND, New Zealand, Jan. 11 (AP) - Bill Scanlon outlasted another American, Tim Wilkison, 6-7, 6-3, 3-6, 7-6, 6-0, today to win the Benson and Hedges men's singles tennis final.

Wilkison played well during the early sets in the humid conditions, but in the fifth set he began suffering from cramps and three times collapsed in pain.

In the women's final, Kym Whytcross of Australia defeated Christine Newton of New Zealand 3-6, 6-4, 6-1. Edmonson Prevails

ADELAIDE, Australia, Jan. 11 (AP) - Mark Edmondson of Australia scored his first Grand Prix victory in nearly three years, beating a countryman, Brad Drewett, 7-5, 6-2, today in the South Australian open Aussie Pair Win

LONDON, Jan. 11 (AP) - Peter McNamara and Paul McNamee of Australia beat Victor Amaya and Hank Pfister of the United States, 6-3, 2-6, 3-6, 6-3, 6-2, today and won the $80,000 first prize in the world doubles tournament.

Summary: McEnroe Beats Connors   CHICAGO, Jan. 11 (AP) - John McEnroe swept to a 6-2, 6-4, 6-1 triumph over Jimmy Connors tonight and captured the $125,000 first prize in the Challenge of Champions round-robin tennis tournament.  Both are in the Grand Prix Masters starting next Wednesday in New York.   McEnroe, the world's No. 2 player, capitalized on his vaunted serve, scoring 13 aces. Connors was in a frustrated state after having been broken a second time at the end.


T HIS has to do with Martin Luther King, the Marx Brothers and Count Dracula. It has to do with Elvis Presley, Pat Paulsen's run for the Presidency and the ''Human Cannonball.'' It has to do with a Laurel and Hardy wiper blade campaign, and, if carried all the way back to its legal roots, it has something to do with baseball trading cards.

What Pat Paulsen's Presidential hankerings have to do with Dracula boils down to a person's so-called right of publicity - that is, his right to cash in on his likeness by licensing furry toys or endorsing toothpaste - and to the fuzzy question of whether this right can be left to heirs, in the way that a house or silverware can.

''The question is whether you can use someone's persona without paying for it,'' says Justin Golenbock of the Golenbock & Barell law firm.

The issue has been cast into the spotlight as a result of a flurry of lawsuits seeking to block unauthorized exploitation of celebrities. The ramifications embrace millions of dollars racked up by marketers and producers that may rightfully belong in the banks of heirs.

It throws into doubt such tricky matters as whether a company can introduce a Humphrey Bogart cigarette without the go-ahead from the actor's survivors. The answer, according to the courts, is yes, and no, and maybe.

A major and controversial ruling came just last month, when a Federal court in Manhattan declared that a Broadway musical called ''A Day in Hollywood/A Night in the Ukraine'' violated the right of publicity inherited by relatives of three of the Marx Brothers (Harpo, Groucho and Chico). The musical did so, the court ruled, by including imitations of Marx Brothers routines without permission from the heirs.

The concept of a ''right of publicity'' is not new. The actual phrase was first coined in a 1953 case that had to do with rival bubble gum companies that had obtained exclusive agreements to put the mug of New York Giants catcher Wes Westrum on their baseball cards. The court recognized that there was a right of publicity that can be assigned to one bubble gum concern.

But while it's long been obvious that everyone has this right, it's gotten increasingly unclear how far it extends or how much protection a star has.

There is fairly clear agreement about the scope of protection for the living. A sports-car manufacturer, for instance, can't run an ad featuring Paul Newman without Mr. Newman's assent. Courts made this kind of protection clear as far back as 1907, when Thomas Edison stopped a company from peddling medicinal goods bearing his name.

Still, there have been some awfully muddled areas. Some years ago, Goodyear cooked up a campaign for a Wide Boots tire that featured a singer in the background crooning, ''These boots are made for rolling.'' Now, Nancy Sinatra had cut the hit tune, ''These Boots Are Made for Walking.'' She sued. She lost. The judge said the singer was not sufficiently recognizable as Nancy Sinatra.

As a stunt, the sour-faced comedian, Pat Paulsen, once declared himself a candidate for President. A company promptly started hawking Pat Paulsen for President posters, without recompensing Mr. Paulsen. He sued. He lost. The court said the First Amendment shields fair comment on a Presidential contender, even one as farfetched as Mr. Paulsen.

Where things get truly muddy is when a star is no longer among us. Can fame be inherited? Courts have had trouble making up their minds. The first notable case to treat this question occurred in 1963 in California. Universal Pictures began marketing Count Dracula figurines, jigsaw puzzles and whatnot. Though the vampire's black cape had been donned by an array of actors, the late Bela Lugosi was most commonly linked to the role.

Mr. Lugosi's widow and son sued. Eleven years later, they won, only to have the California Supreme Court, in late 1979, topple the ruling, asserting, among other things, that Mr. Lugosi had to have exploited his right of publicity while alive (by licensing T-shirts and other novelties) for it to survive him. The judge felt that he had not.

The next big case took a different turn. It involved scalpscratching Stan Laurel and chubby Oliver Hardy. Back in 1960, Larry Harmon Pictures had acquired the comedians' licensing rights. Nonetheless, Hal Roach Studios, which produced the early Laurel and Hardy films, licensed a man named Richard Finer to market Laurel and Hardy wares - toys, ash trays, even a jam. Mr. Harmon, who was the original Bozo the Clown, and the widows of the comedians sued. After all, he recalls Stan Laurel, on his deathbed, telling him: ''Listen, lad, you're going to walk in my shoes now. Don't hurt them or let anybody hurt us or our widows.''

In 1975, a Federal court decided not to hurt them. Since then, Mr. Harmon and his lawyers have been vigilant in guarding the Laurel and Hardy persona. Soon after the ruling, for example, Mr. Harmon learned that Anco was planning a wiper blade ad campaign featuring Laurel and Hardy characters. He quickly interceded and nailed down a license.

''If anyone uses the name Laurel and Hardy anywhere where it involves a right I own,'' Mr. Harmon vows, ''I will be there right in front with my lawyer saying, 'No, no, no, no.' ''


The Law Enforcement Assistance Administration, which expired this month, had run through 14 years, five Presidents and $7.7 billion. While it earned a reputation as a bureaucratic white elephant, it was also sadly misunderstood.

The L.E.A.A. was created during the Johnson Administration to help state and local criminal justice agencies make law enforcement more effective. The Nixon Administration imposed bolder plans: it promised victory in a war on crime and generously endowed L.E.A.A. to serve as chief supplier of arms and technology.

The war lasted only a few years before it became clear that the chance of victory was remote. Crime remained a complex social problem, stubbornly resistant to SWAT teams and computer-equipped patrol cars. L.E.A.A. turned back to a research path - only to discover a mortal problem. The Nixon era oratory had pumped up expectations. If L.E.A.A. couldn't reduce crime, people wanted to know, what good was it?

Boondoggle stories didn't help. One famous L.E.A.A. study actually sought to determine why convicts want to get out of prison. But news that the agency had wasted large sums, and the attendant derision, obscured a more important point. Whatever it did not do, L.E.A.A. advanced public understanding of criminal justice out of kindergarten and through some primary grades.

Until the publication of President Johnson's crime commission report in 1967, and L.E.A.A.'s establishment a year later, few people had recognized how much criminal justice is a ''hydraulic'' system in which solving a problem at one level (tougher sentences) may only displace it to another (crowded prisons). L.E.A.A. projects discovered that the number of police officers on patrol may have little to do with the amount of crime, demonstrated the value of prosecutors focusing on ''career criminals,'' found ways to reduce court delays and developed a range of community programs for convicts.

None of the applied research necessarily reduced crime. Even the soundest new approach may only deal with a small part of the problem, and then only when carried out on a scale that can challenge traditional political and economic barriers. But using crime rates to validate such activity is unfair. Crime rises and falls with broad economic, demographic and cultural trends. Criminal justice agencies may never defeat it; their task is to hold the line, without sacrificing their own commitments to fairness and decency.

During the L.E.A.A. years, that task was especially difficult. Funds for criminal justice declined even as fear of crime rose, putting ever more pressure on the police, prosecutors, courts and prisons. In such a bind, the criminal justice agencies were well served by the fresh ideas and management tools developed by L.E.A.A.

The Reagan Administration, preoccupied with deficits and inclined to duck the crime issue, may prefer to remember L.E.A.A. boondoggles. But the successes demonstrated that Washington can in fact do much to help local law enforcement.

Not many police departments would have developed rape squads without leadership and encouragement from L.E.A.A. Few communities could have found the resources to set up programs for victims. The best Federal role is to help localities conduct and apply criminal justice research, with its powerful implications for management. L.E.A.A. may be dead, but the need for such help is greater than ever.


NEW HAVEN IN a comfortable, Victorian-vintage dwelling on the Yale campus, lawyers, sociologists and university students are investigating what they say is perhaps the least understood aspect of American society - the behavior of hundreds of thousands of educational, scientific, cultural or civic groups operating as nonprofit organizations.

These organizations - their ranks include schools, museums, libraries, antipoverty agencies, hospitals and garden clubs - are collectively referred to as the independent or voluntary sector.

''The nonprofits have been a nonsubject for American scholars,'' said Prof. John G. Simon, who has directed the undertaking since it began four years ago. The Yale program on nonprofit organizations is the only one of its kind in the country, although it has spun off a few related research ventures at other universities. The program, conducted within the Institute for Social and Policy Studies at Yale, also has working relations with scholars in 11 countries.

Until recently, the work of the researchers moved along at a leisurely pace and, as Professor Simon acknowledged, had gone largely unnoticed by government, business or the philanthropic community. But in the last few months interest has quickened as a result of President Reagan's budget cuts in spending for welfare, education and the arts, which have sent nonprofit organizations working in these fields scurrying to find alternative financing.

The impact of these developments on the nonprofit community was a recurrent theme recently when Professor Simon and his program participants came together for a brown-bag luncheon discussion, or, the way he describes it, a ''show-and-tell hour.'' As resources, the nonprofits can expect there will be a greater demand for their services, said Professor Simon, underscoring that the next few months are likely to see community leaders trying to pull together information on local needs.

Business leaders in Stamford, for example, have asked members of the program to help conduct an audit of the human resource needs of that city.

One side effect of the budget developments has been to underscore the scarcity of reliable data about the nonprofit sector as a whole, including how it is supported or operated and its relations to government and to the community. As far as scholars are concerned, it has been the ''dark side of the moon,'' said Professor Simon.

Even the dimensions of the sector are uncertain. There are at least 800,000 nonprofit organizations that report to the Government and are accorded tax exemptions. But there are many more that do not seek exemption, or operate as informal neighborhood aid groups or are formed only to work during an emergency and are then dissolved. The total around the country may run into the millions, according to Professor Simon.

The Yale program is an attempt to uncover as much reliable data as possible and also to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of the sector, and it is hoped lead to its more effective functioning.

From a modest beginning, the program has grown into 112 separate inquiries engaging the energies of 140 researchers. The study was initially launched with a $253,000 gift from the late John D. Rockefeller 3d, and contributions from 17 foundation or company donors for a total of $2 million. five-year cycle.

To date, 44 studies have been completed and others are nearing the final stage. One recent report has furnished the first in-depth inquiry into the economic significance of the nonprofit groups. It was undertaken by Gabriel Rudney, an economist on leave from the United States Treasury Department, who documented the growth of nonprofit activities, showing that the sector has become a major contributor to the economy.

Among other findings, he concluded that the philanthropic sector spent $129.2 billion in 1980, a total exceeding the budgets of every country except the United States, France, West Germany, Britain, Japan, China and the Soviet Union.

The philanthropic sector employed 5.6 million workers, more than either the construction or automotive industries. It spent $42.6 billion to purchase goods and services.

Some other areas of inquiry under the Yale program are the operations of public broadcasting, the role of nonprofit groups on human rights questions and the impact of public funding on the arts. In addition, researchers are looking into the issue of fund-raising abuses and assessing the potential of corporate philanthropy to assist the financially threatened nonprofit groups.

The Yale scholars are breaking ground in a number of areas likely to prove controversial. An inquiry by Susan Rose-Ackerman, a Yale faculty member, is looking into the growing practice by nonprofit organizations of turning to income-producing ventures to augment their resources. She has examined the trend among museums to open gift shops and universities to engage in profitable research projects. Some groups are even running travel services - all activities that seem to blur the line between nonprofit and forprofit operations.

The pattern is leading to growing protests that nonprofit groups enjoying tax-exemption, favorable postal rates and other benefits are competing unfairly with business.

Those engaged in the Yale program are encouraged to present the facts as they find them and not to be concerned about causing controversies.

A case in point was the publication of a study by Robert Clark, a former member of the Yale law faculty, who questioned whether there should be nonprofit hospitals. He concluded that voluntary hospitals were ''elitist,'' saying they tended ''to frustrate both political ideals of consumer participation and economic ideals of rational, coordinated policymaking about health care.'' This brought a response from the American Hospital Association that was less than enthusiastic.

Professor Simon himself has insisted that the free-inquiry rule be observed consistently. On one occasion, his own view supporting the Federal tax system of allowing charitable deductions for itemizing taxpayers drew objections from a former law student who contended the practice favored an elite group. Professor Simon agreed but defended the practice on other grounds. He also decided the challenger deserved an opportunity to prove his case and arranged that the Yale program sponsor and pay the costs so the rebuttal could be properly researched.

Illustrations: photo of John G. Simon


A roster of today’s hottest startups would have to include Airbnb and Uber, which allow anyone to become a hotelier or chauffeur, and Pinterest, which lets you create virtual pinboards tied to topics you care about.

SpaceX has visions of becoming the FedEx and JetBlue of outer space. Dropbox makes it easy to store files online and get access to them from any device, and Snapchat lets you send photos that are visible only for a short of time.

Two threads connect that circle of startups, all of which are privately held and have valuations of $10 billion or more.

The first is skepticism that the profit potential of these disruptors justifies the sky-high valuations. Investors, for example, think Airbnb is currently worth $24 billion. Can a website for renting vacation homes and spare bedrooms really be more valuable than Marriott, with a $20 billion market capitalization and more than 3,700 hotels around the world?

The second thread is Boston’s Fidelity Investments, whose mutual funds own shares in each of them.

Fidelity is either helping its shareholders get in on the next Facebook — whose stock Fidelity bought before the social network landed on the Nasdaq exchange — or helping pump up a new bubble in the tech industry. Or a bit of both.

It’s not hard to find media reports expressing shock at discovering that mutual funds like Fidelity, Janus, and T. Rowe Price are buying chunks of risky startups, a couple hundred million dollars at a time. But rules set by the Securities and Exchange Commission allow stock in private companies to compose up to 15 percent of a mutual fund. Fidelity says its house rules limit those holdings to 10 percent.

The job of a mutual fund manager is to hunt for better-than-average returns, and the reason some Fidelity funds are buying shares of these companies is simple, says Andy Boyd, head of global equity capital markets at Fidelity. Tech companies are waiting longer to go public, and if you sit on the sidelines until the initial public offering, you’ll have missed out on much of the appreciation of their value.

How do these deals go down? Sometimes, the companies or their venture capitalists approach Fidelity. Other times, Fidelity initiates discussions after its analysts identify fast-growing private companies that don’t have comparable peers in the public stock markets.

Boyd said his group tries to get in on young companies that have the potential to be “long-term winners” by creating new marketplaces or software platforms that could endure for decades. He sets up meetings with the management teams, often in Boston so that Fidelity fund managers can pepper the executives with questions.

Fidelity makes several dozen investments in private companies each year, with individual fund managers ultimately making the decisions about whether to buy shares of a Dropbox or a Pinterest. Boyd asserts that Fidelity is conservative about the price it will pay for shares; there’s always plenty of internal debate about whether a given company has what it takes to succeed over the long haul. “If the price is too high, we just don’t buy it,” he says. Instead, Fidelity may choose to wait until the IPO or later.

The day before I spoke with Boyd, one of Fidelity’s private holdings, SpaceX, suffered a setback when one of its cargo rockets exploded en route to the International Space Station. Isn’t a rocket-building startup that plans to put humans on Mars by 2026 the classic example of a high-risk venture?

He compared SpaceX to Fidelity’s initial $74 million investment in Facebook, which people thought might be a passing fad with limited revenue potential. (Fidelity today owns more than $5 billion of Facebook shares.) “Ten years from now, we’ll have another conversation” about SpaceX, Boyd says.

Todd Dagres is a founder of Spark Capital, a Boston venture capital firm that was an early backer of companies like Twitter and Wayfair, the home goods e-commerce site. Private company valuations, he says, may have sprinted too far ahead of public companies, based on revenues and cash flow.

But Dagres says timing is everything: “Investors that get in early tend to do well as momentum builds and private company valuations take off.” Those who join in closer to the end of a boom cycle “get their heads handed to them,” Dagres says, and are left holding illiquid assets that plummet in value. “Are we there yet? Probably.”

Boyd says that Fidelity has been looking at more private investments, but getting more selective, in part because valuations have continued to rise. “Our hit rate has gone down,” he says. Boyd believes we’ll have reached the peak of this current boom when Fidelity stops making these investments, “because everything will be priced ridiculously.”

Most Fidelity funds own none of these young, private companies, spokesman Charles Keller says. For the funds that do, private shares represent 1 or 2 percent of their total assets. Still, funds like Fidelity’s Blue Chip Growth own more stock in Uber than they do in stalwarts like Boeing Co. or Bank of America Corp. (Fidelity doesn’t disclose what it pays per share when it buys into private companies, though it does report estimates of the value of each mutual fund’s holdings in monthly reports.)

If you buy shares in Fidelity’s Contrafund, you’ve got more exposure to Dropbox, which was founded in Cambridge before it moved to San Francisco, than Dunkin’ Brands Group Inc. of Canton. And if investors care about how much Fidelity and other mutual companies are putting into startups? Well, it’s easy to read the complete list of a fund’s holdings before you buy in.

Summary: What do Airbnb, Uber, and Pinterest have in common? Fidelity funds are involved.


Baidu Inc. (Nasdaq: BIDU) has agreed to acquire a 59% stake in Chinese group-buying site Nuomi Holdings Inc. from Renren Inc. (NYSE: RENN). The deal is valued at around $160 million.www.baidu.com

Koch Industries said that is no longer considering a bid for Tribune Company’s newspaper unit, according to a company spokeswoman. www.kochind.com

Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) has acquired Embark, a San Francisco-based mass transit tracking app, according to tech reporter Jessica Lessin. No financial terms were disclosed. Embark had been seeded by YCombinator, Start Fund and BMW iVentures. www.letsembark.com Doughty Hanson & Co. has agreed to sell Avanza Group, a Spanish bus and bus station company, to Mexico’s Grupo ADO. No financial terms were disclosed. www.avanzabus.com

Software AG, a listed German enterprise software company, has acquired JackBe Corp., a Chevy Chase, Md.-based provider of real-time business intelligence solutions. No financial terms were disclosed. JackBe had raised around $21 million in VC funding from Blue Chip Venture Co., Darby Technology Ventures, Intel Capital and Harbert Management. www.jackbe.com

Enzymotec Ltd., an Israel-based nutritional ingredients and medical foods company, has filed for a $75 million IPO. It plans to trade on the Nasdaq under ticker symbol ENZY, with BoA Merrill Lynch and Jefferies serving as lead underwriters. The company reports $4.7 million in net income on $28.7 million in revenue for the first half of 2013. Shareholders include XT Hi-Tech Investments (19.2% pre-IPO stake), Millennium Materials Technologies Fund (10.4%), Arancia International (6.8%) and BIP Venture Partners (6.3%). www.Enzymotec.com

Sign up for Dan’s daily email newsletter on deals and deal-makers: GetTermSheet.com

Summary: Baidu Inc. (Nasdaq: BIDU) has agreed to acquire a 59% stake in Chinese group-buying site Nuomi Holdings Inc. from Renren Inc. (NYSE: RENN). The deal is valued at around $160 million.www.baidu.com Koch Industries said that is no longer considering a bid for Tribune Company’s newspaper unit, according to a company spokeswoman. www.kochind.com Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) has acquired Embark, a San Francisco-based mass transit tracking…


Some exchange-traded funds on the New York Stock Exchange's Arca system were briefly halted on Tuesday morning due to technical issues.

The halt started around 10:36 a.m. ET and lasted about 10 minutes. The quote dissemination issue affected tickers starting with letters U through Z.

Read MoreStocks lower; Dow dips 100 points amid data, dollar

The exchange did not immediately disclose what caused the issues.

Arca is an all-electronic exchange within the NYSE. Funds hit by issue include the XLF, or Financial Select Sector SPDR Fund, and XLB, or Materials Select Sector SPDR Fund.

— CNBC's Bob Pisani contributed to this report

Summary: A technical issue hit the New York Stock Exchange's Arca system, causing a halt in some exchange-traded funds for 10 minutes.


Over the last few days, allegations that Varoufakis "gave the finger" to Germany have hit the headlines, although in the last few weeks both sides have accused each other of being "insulting" during recent negotiations to extend Greece's bailout program by four months.

Read MoreGreek, German tensions rise amid swearing claims

Greece has been the recipient of two bailouts worth 240 billion euros ($252 billion) which have been overseen by the "troika" of international organizations, the European Central Bank, European Commission and International Monetary Fund.

Fiscally-disciplined Germany has been pushing austerity as a way to bring the euro zone's economy back on track, making Berlin the target of Greek anger from both the public and politicians. Conversely, the German public are angry at what they see as insults and ingratitude from Greece when they have been the country's largest euro zone creditor.

Read MoreGreek Finance Minister Varoufakis: I try not to be liability

Since the new left-wing government under Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras came to power in January, those feelings have intensified, particularly as Tsipras and his party have sought to change bailout terms and obligations.

As such, the prospect of the "Grexit" has returned to the fore, according to Daniele Antonucci, European economist at Morgan Stanley.

"Contrary to many commentators, we don't think that the probability of a euro exit has diminished," Antonucci said in a note Tuesday, adding that Morgan Stanley put the probability of a Grexit at one in four over the next six months.

"Greece's situation is deteriorating rapidly. The economy is now shrinking, tax revenues are falling short of targets, bank deposits are leaving the system and political volatility seems on the rise, both domestically and in the relations with official lenders. The chance to see a quick compromise has diminished."

Read MoreGreece lashes out as pressure to reform rises

The economic and financial tensions have been matched by an increasingly frosty political atmosphere as Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras' appears to becoming increasingly isolated in Europe.

"The Greek government faces a dire financial situation in the coming weeks, especially as lenders are unlikely to relent on the conditions of last month's loan extension," Wolfango Piccoli, managing director of risk consultancy Teneo Intelligence said in a note Tuesday.

"Leaving aside the cash crunch challenge, the government's nationalist strategy is setting the stage for a period of intense turmoil and uncertainty," he added, saying that Tsipras' lack of experience in power was starting to show as he faces a divided party at home and isolation abroad.

Tsipras will raise the issue of increasing the amount of cash available in Greece's economy at his meetings with top European Union leaders at the margins of this week's summit in Brussels, the government's spokesman told Reuters Wednesday.

Despite this difficult outlook and recent "toughening rhetoric on all sides", there was still an appetite to keep Greece in the euro zone, Piccoli noted, saying "a euro exit is still unlikely (20 percent probability)."

Greece frustrated its main creditors further on Tuesday by refusing to update euro zone peers on its reform progress at a scheduled teleconference, according to a Reuters report, insisting instead that the discussions should be escalated to a European Union (EU) summit scheduled for Thursday.

Showing that patience with Greece is running thin, the EU's financial affairs chief said in a newspaper interview on Wednesday that the EU is not prepared to keep Greece in the euro zone at any price, although he said that a Greek exit would inflict great damage on the currency union.

"The Eurogroup (of euro zone finance ministers) has an overwhelming will to keep Greece in the euro zone," Pierre Moscovici, the financial affairs chief, told German daily Die Welt. "Financial accidents can happen. Our task, however, is not to organize this but to prevent it."

Summary: As frustration mounts with the Greek government, new data shows the majority of Germans are happy to let Greece quit the euro zone.


The Pew report shows Social Security skepticism varies by age. Among the 18-to-29-year-old Americans Pew surveyed, 43 percent expected they would receive no Social Security benefits when they retired compared with 47 percent of 30-to-49-year-olds and 31 percent of 50-to-64-year-olds. Pew polled 1,692 adults in the U.S., as well as 1,700 in Germany and 1,516 in Italy.

Pew researchers were looking at how families in different countries support the elderly. Only 24 percent of Americans said the government should bear the greatest responsibility for people's economic well-being in their old age compared with 48 percent of Germans and 58 percent of Italians. That the elderly should bear the greatest responsibility for their own economic well-being was the most popular answer in the U.S. with 31 percent of Americans agreeing with the statement while 28 percent of Germans and just 4 percent of Italians concurred.

Though the U.S. places a higher value on personal responsibility than Germany and Italy, 43 percent of Americans surveyed by Pew were not saving for retirement. (That compared with 38 percent of Germans and a whopping 76 percent of Italians not saving for retirement.) The reason for not saving in the U.S.? Sixty-eight percent of the non-savers said they didn't have the money, 23 percent haven't started thinking about retirement and the rest either said they don't need to save for retirement or don't know if they should.

Read MoreWill you miss out on Social Security benefits?

Regardless of what happens with Social Security, Americans should be saving money for retirement, say financial advisors. They'd also be wise to factor any concerns about Social Security benefits into their planning.

"I usually recommend reducing the Social Security Administration's benefit estimate by about 25 percent to account for potential trimming in the future due to Social Security funding constraints," said Gilbert Armour, a certified financial planner in San Diego.

Advisors also recommend delaying the benefits until your full retirement age, so you can maximize the amount you collect, something more Americans are doing in part because they are waiting longer to retire. "Since most people will need to rely on Social Security either in part or in full to survive in retirement, we recommend that you delay your retirement benefits as long as possible," said John Fowler, a financial planner in Keller, Texas.

Whatever your age and thoughts on the future of Social Security, advisors agree it will likely be around when you retire. "You can expect at least 77 percent of your benefits," Landis assured. "It's not going to zero."

Summary: More than 40 percent of Americans expect no or reduced Social Security benefits in retirement. How to plan for it.


A jubilant Baltimore headed into a weekend of rallies on Saturday after six police officers were criminally charged over the arrest of a 25-year-old black man whose death led to rioting earlier in the week.

Demonstrations are expected to continue around the United States through the weekend, with a massive rally planned for Baltimore city hall with marchers leaving from the Gilmor Homes housing projects where the victim, Freddie Gray, was arrested.

Many in the largely black city erupted with joy on Friday after the officers were charged with crimes ranging from murder to assault and misconduct in Gray's death on April 19 from severe spinal injuries while in police custody.

Baltimore has largely followed the 10 p.m. curfew put in place after unrest that broke out after Gray's funeral. Dozens of buildings and vehicles were burned, 20 police officers were injured and more than 200 people were arrested in that unrest.

Read MoreBaltimore burns: Buildings, police cars set on fire

U.S. Representative Elijah Cummings, who represents the area where Gray died and has worked to calm Baltimore's streets the past four nights, said he was glad to see charges filed.

"It feels good, it's a relief," he said. "They have to let it play out. It will take time. But so often there are no charges and the process never begins."

The charges served as counterpoint to other police killings of unarmed black men over the past year in cities including Ferguson, Missouri, and New York, where authorities cleared the officers involved. Those cases also led to sometimes violent demonstrations across the country.

Baltimore prosecutor Marilyn Mosby brought charges on Friday hours after the Maryland state medical examiner had ruled the death a homicide and a day after police handed her office the findings of its internal review of Gray's April 12 arrest.

Caesar R. Goodson Jr., a black officer who drove the police van, was charged with second-degree murder, which carries a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison. He and three others also face a charge of involuntary manslaughter and all must further answer to other lesser charges.

All six officers - three black and three white, five men and one woman - posted bond after their arrest Friday and were released from custody. Their union denounced the charges as an "apparent rush to judgment."

While the charges brought relief to the city of 620,000, residents said they needed to see justice served, not only in Baltimore but in other communities where minorities are disproportionately targeted by police.

Summary: Many in the city erupted with joy after officers were charged with crimes ranging from murder to assault and misconduct.


Profit before tax ticked up 8 percent to £2.93 billion from the previous year.

Diageo announced in its earnings release that it would acquire the remaining 50 percent stake in premium tequila brand Don Julio.

In North America, this tequila saw a 5 percent rise in volume. Buellit, a high-end bourbon, saw a 32 percent surge in volume, while volumes in the premium Ciroc vodka rose 4 percent.

Read MoreWant to up your whiskey game? Read these

"The trend to drinking better is a global one, but it's very strong in the U.S. and it's there in a sustained way," India-born Menezes said.

Diageo also plans to invest $400 million in Mexico.

Despite the flat overall sales for the group, Diageo's chief executive was bullish on the outlook for next year, saying the FTSE 100-listed company had "never been fitter."

"In the results you've seen we've had strong cash flow, we kept the dividend growth at 9 percent reflecting our confidence in the business, expanded operating margins, we've grown market share," Menezes said.

"As we look forward I am confident about strong and sustained growth and that's why we've put in our outlook that fiscal (year 20)16 will be stronger than fiscal 15 and as we get into fiscal 17, this business has the runway to deliver mid-single digit growth, good margin expansion, good cash conversion, and continue to do that in a sustained way."

The Asia Pacific region saw a 2 percent decline in sales but China—a market that has caused pain to drinks makers in the past due to an anti-corruption drive—appeared to be turning around. Diageo's sales in the world's second-largest economy increased 15 percent, driven by the success of The Singleton whiskey brand.

Africa was another bright spot, with volumes up 7 percent and net sales 6 percent higher in the year. Latin America showed further trouble, however, with volumes and net sales both down.

In terms of drinks categories, North American whiskey was one of the top performers with sales up 12 percent globally, and Tequila saw a 14 percent surge in sales. Sales of Scotch, however, fell 5 percent over the year.

Summary: Americans are drinking more expensive booze, in particular tequila and whiskey, according to Diageo's boss.


An increasing number of travelers—not just the millennials—are shunning the double decker bus, questing for something rare and authentic and in some cases, even unplugged.

"I think people want to experience something real," said Todd Merry, chief marketing officer for Delaware North Companies, which has operations ranging from Yosemite High Sierra camping to eco-resorts at Australia's Great Barrier Reef. "It's almost like there's no wild places anymore. There are more people looking for things that haven't been done."

In some ways, it's a longing for the days when the old maps marked untamed territory with "here be monsters," Merry said. "There's just not so much of that anymore."

In North America, Europe and South America, adventure travel spending in 2012 reached $263 billion, up from $89 billion in 2009, according to a study by the Adventure Travel Trade Association and George Washington University. Per trip spending (excluding airfare and gear) increased to $947 from $593 over that same time period, according to the report. (For the study, an adventure traveler is any respondent who cited an adventure activity—ranging from caving and heli-skiing to camping and canoeing—as the main activity of their last trip.)

Summary: Travelers are spending more money on a quest for something authentic. "It's almost like there's no wild places anymore," said one industry spokesman.


Cramer has picked up on a pattern when it comes to biotech stocks that could change the game for an investor's portfolio—listen to the darned CEO interviews.

In fact, Cramer would argue that the biotech group has gone from being hit or miss to being totally predictable just based on what the CEOs are saying on "Mad Money."

For instance, BioMarin racked up a 12 percent gain after a successful trial of a drug that combats dwarfism in children. The results of the trial triggered price target bumps from all of the research houses that follow the stock.

Cramer was shocked when he saw this. Not because of the results of the study, but the fact that these results seemed to be much of a surprise in the first place. BioMarin CEO J.J. Bienaime said many times on the show that things looked good for this test and that he was hopeful. And while his demeanor came across as understated and nonpromotional, these results should have been no surprise to anyone who watched "Mad Money."

But most importantly, when looking back at all of these CEO interviews, Cramer saw a pattern. A pattern that revealed that all of these gains are attainable for your portfolio, but require a specialized skill: Listen to the CEOs!

The CEOs are not wasting your time, Cramer's time or their own time. They are helping investors to learn about their products so you can make money—it's that easy.

Read MoreCramer: Secret pattern to unlocking biotech riches

After three years of anticipation, Title IV of the 2012 JOBS Act will finally kick in on Friday. This will allow regular people to invest in privately held startups via mini-IPOs that can raise up to $50 million.

Historically, only accredited investors, some 2 percent of the population, have been able to participate in these start-ups. Now privately held companies will be able to market themselves as an investment to ordinary people.

This is a huge deal for a company like SeedInvest, which is a free online crowdfunding platform that gives investors the ability to invest in vetted start-ups. To find out what this could mean for the future of investing, Cramer spoke with SeedInvest's co-founder and CEO, Ryan Feit.

He gave investors a few pointers. "First of all, you should never invest more than 10 percent of your portfolio into private companies. And if you are going to invest in private companies, make sure you are diversified, so at least build a portfolio of 10 companies," Feit said.

In the Lightning Round, Cramer gave his take on a few caller favorite stocks:

Caterpillar: "I have to tell you, the Baltic Freight Index was up again and I like it. It's literally up about 50 percent in the last few weeks. That to me says even though Caterpillar is probably not going to have a good quarter, I don't mind owning it."

Facebook: "I think Facebook can earn $3.50 in 2017 and, doing the math in my head, that takes it to $100. A big charitable trust name."

Read MoreLightning Round: This stock goes to $100

Summary: “Mad Money” host Jim Cramer gives his take on Wall Street’s recent love affair with the company behind some of the biggest names in booze.


Sometimes a small book with a limited number of pictures can be a better way into an artist's work than a large one, particularly when it comes with notes from the artist himself. Since the early 1960s, William Christenberry has made paintings, drawings, sculptures, installations and photographs inspired by the landscape and history contained within a small stretch of land between Hale and Perry Counties in his native Alabama. In its intensity, and the way he returns again and again to familiar objects and familiar territory, Christenberry's approach is reminiscent of Morandi, or even Cézanne.

Periodically Christenberry has spoken about the motivations behind his work, about the importance of his family history, and of his sense of deep attachment to the places where he photographs. Now these texts have been collected and edited by the writer and curator Susanne Lange into a book of stories, which, with photographs of some of his most seminal pieces, provides a narrative to over 40 years of work.

When art historians discuss the way artists use photography as references for other works, to record scenes they have staged, or as an inquiry into the nature of photography itself, they often cite Ed Ruscha, Gerhard Richter, or Cindy Sherman. Less frequently do they mention Christenberry, who began to make small colour photographs with a box Brownie camera as a reference for his artworks when he was studying painting at the University of Alabama in the 1950s.

In those days Christenberry was influenced by abstract expressionism, and the photographs were less figurative models than spiritual markers, part of an attempt, he said, "to come to grips with my feelings about the landscape and what was in it". He had no interest in photography as a craft and developed his films at the local drugstore. Colour photography, in any case, was considered vulgar by serious art photographers who, with rare exceptions, avoided it.

Christenberry was born in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, in 1936, the same year that Walker Evans and the writer James Agee spent a month in nearby Hale County, living with three white tenant farming families, researching an article for Fortune magazine. When it failed to run the article, Evans and Agee turned the research into a book, published in 1941, called Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. It was republished in 1960, by which time it was acknowledged as a documentary masterpiece, and it was perhaps this edition that Christenberry saw in a bookshop in Birmingham, Alabama, that year. It was a book that changed his outlook entirely. He recognised not only the places, and some of the people, but more importantly he realized the strength of the emotional links he felt to the landscape it described: the old wooden buildings, simple churches, storefronts, billboards and signs he had grown up with. He went back to Hale County and photographed what he could find from Evans and Agee's trip 25 years before.

The memory of a building in one of Evans's photographs inspired a painting, Tenant House 1 (1960). Though it suggested De Kooning's influence, it was recognisably a building, with a black roof and windows and a gaping black hole for a door. It turned him away from abstract expressionism and set him on a path he has barely deviated from ever since.

What the stories in this new collection make clear is how Christenberry's subject matter has developed and deepened over time. From small colour photographs came paintings and drawings and, later, three-dimensional miniature constructions, called "dream buildings" because the first one was inspired by a dream ("I got up and I thought to myself that if Jasper Johns, an artist I respect very much, dreamed that he painted the American flag, and then did it, I could make my dream building," he wrote). In 1977, Christenberry's friend Lee Friedlander suggested he try using a large-format 8"x 10" view camera on a tripod. Since then he has used the camera to make more formally composed photographs, and in turn this has given them a more dominant role in his work.

Yet Christenberry's subjects remain rooted in the same territory: basic, functional buildings, mostly of wood, as well as old metal signs and billboards, which he collects and sometimes incorporates into his works. In certain cases he has made photographic typologies of the same building, which, shown together, illustrate the gradual changes, in colour, patina and structure which mark the passing of time, and signify the shift from reality to memory. With repetition, the basic shapes of these buildings become iconic. The Green Warehouse (Newbern, Alabama, 1978) is a corrugated iron-clad building with a central pitched roof and two lower, sloping roofs extending on either side, shaped like a stealth bomber. The Red Building in Forest (Hale County, Alabama, 1983) was once a one-room schoolhouse and looks like a child's drawing of a house without windows. It is clad in red-brick-patterned asphalt sheeting, including the door.

Sprott Church, between Selma and Marion, is a "lonely little white church with … two towers", which he has known since childhood. In 1974 he began to build a version of it in his studio. In 2005 he made a second version. "The real church and the landscape do not look at all like they did years ago," he explains. "But I want to keep them as memories … Some day I hope they will be seen side by side."

It sometimes seems that, by reworking the same territory, Christenberry creates his own dynamic circle, inside which strange coincidences can occur. Even the titles of his photographs - the House Built by Man with One Arm; the House Painted Only as High as One could reach; the Palmist Building - have a fabulous ring to them. But there is another aspect of his work, still rooted in the south, which is altogether more sinister and surprising.

One evening in 1960, in Tuscaloosa, Christenberry decided to go to a meeting of the Ku Klux Klan. Halfway up a dimly lit staircase in the local courthouse, he saw a Klansman in full robe and hood standing guard on the landing above. He didn't move, but their eyes met for a few moments before the photographer turned and ran. Soon afterwards, Christenberry began work on an installation which is still evolving: it includes Klan dolls, Klan paintings, drawings and other objects, laid out in a separate room, lit with eerie red light, which reflects his lifelong hatred of the racism, prejudice and violence that the Klan represents.

In little over a hundred pages, this modest book provides an entry to an entire world. It includes stories about his friends, including Walker Evans, whom he first met in New York in 1961, and William Eggleston, whom he met after he went to teach in Memphis in 1962. At that time Eggleston was still photographing in black-and-white. "He was interested in and supportive of my little Brownie snapshots," Christenberry recalls. "Our involvement with colour photography developed early on."

In 1968, Christenberry became professor of drawing and painting at the Corcoran College of Art in Washington DC, where he has lived ever since. But every year he returns to Alabama to work. It was on one such trip, a journey to Hale County in October 1973, that he took Walker Evans with him. It was the first time Evans had been back since 1936. He is just visible at the edge of one of Christenberry's pictures of an old green clapboard house, with a palm-reader's sign at the window, the wrong way up. Christenberry had photographed the building for years – it had once been his great-uncle Sydney's general store – and he would return to photograph it again every year as it collapsed and finally disappeared. Since then, he has returned to photograph the site where it once stood.

It is a story that captures the significance of Christenberry's work: his commitment to place. It is a rare and valuable quality in an atomised world, and it gives his work a depth that is reinforced by reiteration.

Summary: With the next in the series, Liz Jobey looks at the work of William Christenberry, a US artist and photographer who poignantly chronicles the changing topography of his native Alabama


The pro-Russian separatists staged swearing in ceremonies for their leaders in eastern Ukraine on Tuesday.

Moscow says the election of Alexander Zakharchenko and Igor Plotnitsky as leaders of the Donetsk and Luhansk "people's republics", which jointly call themselves "new Russia", means that Kiev should now negotiate with them directly.

EU to mull changes to sanctions

Kiev has rejected this, describing the rebels as Russian-backed "terrorists" or "bandits", with no legitimacy.

Mogherini said the EU would assess whether to strengthen or ease sanctions imposed on Russia over its role in Ukraine depending on the situation on the ground.

"This is a process that is going to go on in the coming weeks," she said, when asked if Russia's response to Sunday's rebel ballot could trigger stiffer sanctions against Moscow.

The situation in Ukraine will be addressed at the next EU foreign ministers' meeting on Nov. 17, she said.

"...I would say the main topic of discussion today should be ... how do we make sure that we find a solution to the conflict?" the former Italian foreign minister said.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin said on Monday that the newly elected leaders in eastern Ukrainian separatist regions have a "mandate" to negotiate with Kiev, Interfax news agency reported.

Mogherini said the "so-called elections" in eastern Ukraine were illegal and illegitimate and would not be recognised by the EU. There was a risk they could end chances for rebel dialogue with Kiev and dialogue between Kiev and Moscow, she said.

The EU has gradually tightened sanctions against Russia in response to its annexation of Ukraine's Crimea region in March, after the overthrow of Kiev's pro-Russian president by protesters, and its support for the rebel cause.

Follow us on Twitter: @CNBCWorld

Summary: Russia has moved troops closer to the border with Ukraine and  continues to support rebels in the country's east, NATO's chief said on Tuesday, after an election held by the pro-Russian separatists and condemned by Kiev and Western leaders.


Recent positive data from China may have allayed some doubts about the state of the economy, but PNC Financial Services Group is staying cautious, warning of a "perfect storm" that could surface in two years' time.

"Several problems long on China's back burner are likely to come to a head by 2016," Stuart Hoffman, chief economist at Financial Services Group wrote in a report this week, citing challenges including a weakening credit market, a slowdown in corporate reinvestment of earnings and a correction in the all-important housing market.

These headwinds could slow Chinese real GDP (gross domestic product) growth to around 6.0 percent in 2016, the slowest since 1990, the firm noted.

Read MoreChina's debt soars to 250% of GDP

China's economy expanded 7.5 percent in the second quarter, a touch above expectations of and rising from 7.4 percent in the first three months of the year, as the government's targeted stimulus measures began to pay off.

The so-called perfect storm could unfold with a dramatic slowdown in the flow of credit for investment, especially from non-traditional lenders like trust companies, as corporate credit quality deteriorates, the report said.

"If trust credit does indeed dry up, Chinese borrowers will struggle to roll over their loans and could be pushed into default, throwing even more sand into the gears of financial intermediation," Hoffman said.

Read MoreGlobal economy starts second half on solid footing

Reduced credit would then reinforce a sharp slowdown in capital expenditures, PNC said, noting that spending in labor-intensive manufacturing sector has already slowed amid rising labor costs and an appreciating currency.

"And Chinese private businesses with idle funds are unable to invest in more attractive opportunities in the domestically-oriented service sector [because] regulatory barriers protect state-owned business from private competition," he added.

Housing sector on shaky ground

Any major correction in the country's housing market, an important pillar of the economy which affects more than 40 other sectors, could exacerbate events, PNC adds.

Summary: Upbeat China data may have allayed fears about its economy, but PNC Financial Services is cautious, warning of a "perfect storm" that could surface.


Low-wage workers filled the hallways at the State House Tuesday as legislators considered a number of bills that would have a major impact on their jobs, from giving hourly employees more predictable schedules to raising the minimum wage at fast-food chains and big-box retailers to $15 an hour.

Between a raucous rally inside the State House and a march to a nearby McDonald’s, several workers testified in front of the Joint Committee on Labor and Workforce Development, whose cochairman, state Senator Daniel Wolf, is the sponsor of the $15-an-hour act.

Dunkin’ Donuts worker Theresa Pennington said that a pay bump to $15 an hour would help her save enough money to get her own place in hopes of regaining custody of her 5-year-old daughter. Dan Burke, a server at Temple Bar in Cambridge, spoke in favor of a bill that would do away with the tipped minimum wage, raising wait staff from $3 to $9 an hour.

A woman wearing a Dunkin’ Donuts visor joined the crowd of protesters during the rally and march. One Dunkin’ employee said a pay bump would bolster her savings.

Burke, 28, said that when he worked at an outdoor bar at the Charles Hotel last year, his pay dropped by half as the weather cooled down and fewer customers showed up — forcing him to pay bills late or rely on credit cards.

“I feel really powerless about my wages,” he said.

The push to raise the minimum wage and do away with last-minute schedules is part of a nationwide movement to create better conditions for lower-income workers. Still, it is unclear how successful the local bills will be. The state recently passed laws boosting the minimum wage to $11 by 2017 and mandating earned sick time for most employees, but this new round of bills has not yet generated much buzz on Beacon Hill.

Many industry groups are firmly opposed to further regulations on business. Frank Anzalotti, executive director of the Massachusetts Package Stores Association, testified that the current restrictions are taking a toll.

“If you keep putting this kind of pressure on folks, they’re not going to be able to do it,” he said. “We’re seeing small businesses as we know it disappear.”

Large retailers, however, could adapt to a $15 an hour minimum without reducing profits, said Jeannette Wicks-Lim, a labor economist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Simply raising the cost of a McDonald’s Big Mac by 60 cents, she said, could cover half of the total cost increase of a $15 minimum wage.

Summary: At the State House Tuesday, legislators considered a number of bills that would have a major impact on low-income jobs, from giving hourly employees more predictable schedules to raising the minimum wage at fast-food chains and big-box retailers to $15 an hour.


US President Barack Obama has won Indonesia's endorsement for a contentious trans-Pacific trade deal, with the president of Southeast Asia's largest economy vowing to join.

During a meeting with Obama at the White House, Joko Widodo risked the ire of economic nationalists at home and pledged to join the pact.

"Indonesia is an open economy and with a population of 250 million, we are the largest economy in Southeast Asia," Widodo said in the Oval Office on Monday.

"Indonesia intends to join the TPP."

Twelve countries are currently party to the "Trans-Pacific Partnership" - including Australia, Canada, Japan, Mexico, Vietnam and the United States - creating the world's largest free trade area.

The deal is seen by some as a counterbalance to growing Chinese economic clout in the region.

Widodo's endorsement is a political victory for Obama, who is steering the already completed pact through a hostile Republican-controlled Congress and without the full backing of his Democratic party.

Hillary Clinton, the 2016 election frontrunner, has said the deal falls short of the "high bar" she had set for helping US interests.

Obama has claimed the TPP has the strongest labour and environmental standards of any trade deal signed by the United States.

Widodo's comments will also raise hopes that he will help catalyse the world's most populous Muslim nation, allowing Indonesia to finally punch its weight.

Sketching out a "key strategic partnership" Obama - who lived in Indonesia for nearly five years as a child - said the US needed good relations with Jakarta.

"Obviously I have a very personal interest in Indonesia, given the fact that I spent a bit of time there as a child and have relatives who are Indonesian," Obama said.

"But what is also true is that our partnership is very much in the interests of the United States, given Indonesia's large population, its leadership in the region, its democratic traditions, the fact that it is a large Muslim country with a tradition of tolerance and moderation, and its role in trade and commerce and economic development."

Widodo's visit to the White House was the first by an Indonesian president in a decade and came exactly a year after the former furniture salesman became president.

In the Oval Office, Obama offered his own endorsement, praising the economic reform efforts of a fellow 54-year-old who, like him, swept to power as an outsider promising change.

Indonesia's notoriously protectionist economy has been stymied by systemic corruption, lower commodity prices and China's economic slowdown.

Unemployment among the vast ranks of Indonesia's youth stands at more than 20 per cent, and efforts to attract investors have been undercut by economic nationalism, vested interests and red tape.

Summary: Indonesia's President Joko Widodo says Indonesia will join the Trans-Pacific trade bloc during a meeting with US President Barack Obama.


The OECD sees euro zone economic growth at 0.8 percent this year. This is better than the economic contraction the currency union suffered in 2012 and 2013, but below average growth of 1.1 percent between 2002 and 2011.

By comparison, the OECD expects the world's economy to expand by 3.3 percent this year. As with the euro zone, this is an improvement on 2012 and 2013, but below the 2002-2011 average of 3.8 percent.

"A moderate improvement in global growth is expected over the next two years, but with marked divergence across the major economies and large risks and vulnerabilities," the OECD said.

A euro zone analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit said the risks to the world economy posed by the euro zone were even larger than the OECD forecast.

"The euro zone's fundamental institutional deficiencies are now exacting a damaging price, by hampering the formulation and implementation of policy responses to the ongoing slump," said Aengus Collins in a research note emailed after the OECD report.

"In addition, the OECD overlooks political risk, which is rising sharply in line with voter disaffection."

Major countries expected to post solid growth include the U.S., which the OECD predicts will expand by 2.2 percent this year and 3.1 percent next. China, meanwhile, is seen growing by an impressive 7.3 percent in 2014, before slowing to 7.1 percent in 2015.

The OECD report came after data from data provider Markit on Monday suggested that global business confidence was at a five-year low.

Read More Global business confidence plunges to post-crisis low

"Clouds are gathering over the global economic outlook, presenting the darkest picture seen since the global financial crisis," said Chris Williamson, chief economist at Markit.

Summary: The euro zone poses a serious danger for global growth, with the world's economy already "in low gear", the OECD said on Tuesday.


It hardly takes an orthodox Jungian to note that the most resonant myths have a way of repeating themselves, manifesting anew in the art of different cultures and eras. Strauss once described Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde” in similar terms. He saw it as one of a select few works “that reveal the most exalted truths of the soul, which are not ‘invented,’ but are ‘lent in a dream’ to those favored with them.”

In preparing his Tristan-inspired song cycle “Love Fail” — which was performed with cool clarity and superb skill by the Lorelei Ensemble at the Gardner Museum on Sunday afternoon — the composer David Lang spent time researching the Tristan myth and culling moments from its retellings by writers as disparate as Béroul, Gottfried von Strasburg, Marie de France, and of course Wagner. To form his libretto, Lang adapted their poetry and prose with his own words, and then interpolated brief short stories by Lydia Davis.

The vocal settings Lang then fashioned for his 15 songs manage to ring with both ancient and modern sensibilities. This helps confer a sense of through-line even as the antique truths expressed, for instance, by the 15th-century English writer Sir Thomas Malory (“the joy of love is too short,/ and the sorrow thereof,/ and what cometh thereof,/ dureth over long”) open onto the sharp-eyed contemporary prose of Davis, whose words in the very next song (titled “A Different Man”) describe the play of distance and intimacy hidden beneath the surface of a modern romantic partnership. In this way, centuries of Tristanesque meditations are enfolded in a world of dreamlike and almost incantatory music.

“Love Fail” was originally composed for the vocal quartet Anonymous 4, which recently disbanded after decades of accomplished music-making. It was a wise move for Lang to create an expanded choral arrangement, which here received its first performance. There is now a fullness to the sound achieved without altering the work’s sense of ritual austerity. It also could not have hurt that the Lorelei Ensemble, its members standing in a circle and led by artistic director Beth Willer, performed the new arrangement on Sunday with impeccable musicality and pure-voiced precision.

Ultimately, for a score about tragic love, the sense of pathos in Lang’s music does not emerge as one might expect. It certainly does not rush at you like, for instance, the passion and unsublimated yearning of the “Prelude und Liebestod” from Wagner’s “Tristan.” It does not even surface per se through any one individual song. Rather, it builds slowly through this cycle’s consolatory sense of repetition, its coolly hypnotic meditations on cycles of love and loss which turn out to be as ancient, and as dependable, as the tides.

At Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Sunday afternoon

Summary: On Sunday afternoon, the Lorelei Ensemble performed David Lang’s “Love Fail” at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.


03/18/2016 AT 12:40 AM EDT

clip that didn't make the show,

perfectly impersonates Judy Garland in a made up movie scenario for the "Cinema Channel" segment.

stars Grande as she channels Garland as the captain of a rocket ship who spontaneously breaks into musical numbers whenever possible.

Garland isn't the 22-year-old's only impeccable impression. Clips that did make the episode show Grande

Britney Spears, Céline Dion, Whitney Houston and Shakira.

Summary: Watch the deleted clip


03/22/2016 AT 10:30 AM EDT

President Obama briefly addressed from Cuba

that killed at least 31 and injured 187 people.

"The thoughts and prayers of the American people are with the people of Belgium," said Obama, who was delivering a keynote address at the Gran Teatro in Havana.

Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP

"We will do whatever is necessary to support our friend and ally Belgium," he said, adding that the attacks were "a reminder that the world must unite. We must be together. Regardless of nationality. Regardless of faith, in fighting against the scourge of terrorism."

He added, "We can and we will defeat those who threaten the safety and security of people all over the world."

The twin attacks occurred at the Brussels Zaventem Airport and the Maalbeek Metro Station. Two explosions were reported inside the airport's departure terminal. At least one was reportedly from a suicide bomber.

A third explosion happened later at the metro station, which is located near the headquarters of the European Union.

Witnesses say the airport's ceiling caved in and there were injured victims everywhere. Both the airport and metro system have been shut down.

The attacks come just days after

The terror threat in Belgium has been raised to level four, the highest possible level.

An American couple, Andrew and Denise Brandt, who work for aid agency Jhpiego Health Services,

"You just feel like a wave from the explosion," Andrew Brandt told

while draped in a blanket outside the airport terminal building. "Like a wave moving through your body.

Summary: "We can and we will defeat those who threaten the safety and security of people all over the world," Obama said


BERLIN — A coalition of media outlets on Sunday published what it said was an extensive investigation into the offshore financial dealings of the rich and famous, based on a trove of documents provided by an anonymous source.

The nonprofit International Consortium of Investigative Journalism said the cache of 11.5 million records details the offshore holdings of a dozen current and former world leaders, businessmen, criminals, celebrities, and sports stars.

The Associated Press wasn’t immediately able to verify allegations in articles published by the more than 100 news organizations around the world involved in the investigation. But the German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung said it was confident the material was genuine.

The Munich daily was offered the data through an encrypted channel by an anonymous source who requested no compensation, said Bastian Obermayer, a reporter for the paper.

Provided were internal documents from a Panama law firm, Mossack Fonseca. The firm has offices around the globe and is among the biggest creators of shell companies, the newspaper said. Mossack Fonseca did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

One of the people mentioned in the report is the brother-in-law of China’s current president.

The coalition said the leaked files contain information on 214,488 offshore entities connected to people in more than 200 countries and territories. It said it would release the full list next month.

Obermayer said that over several months Sueddeutsche Zeitung received about 2.6 terabytes of data — more than would fit on 600 DVDs. The newspaper said the amount of data it got is several times larger than a previous cache of offshore data published by WikiLeaks in 2013 that exposed the financial dealings of prominent individuals.

‘‘To our knowledge this is the biggest leak that journalists have ever worked on,’’ Obermayer said. The newspaper and its partners verified the data by comparing it to public registers, witness testimony, and court rulings, he told the AP. Among the countries with people named in the files are Iceland, Ukraine, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Russia.

The coalition said the documents include e-mails, spreadsheets, passports, and corporate records detailing how powerful figures used banks, law firms, and shell companies to hide assets. The data span nearly 40 years, from 1977 through the end of 2015. ‘‘It allows a never-before-seen view inside the offshore world — providing a day-to-day, decade-by-decade look at how dark money flows through the global financial system, breeding crime and stripping national treasuries of tax revenues,’’ the group said.

The media group said banks like HSBC, UBS, Credit Suisse, and Deutsche Bank have worked with Mossack Fonseca to create offshore accounts.

The allegations predate “our significant, well-publicized reforms,’’ HSBC said. The other banks did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Summary: The coalition of media outlets published what it said was an extensive investigation into the rich and famous.


Marco Rubio has been one of his party’s brightest rising stars. On Tuesday evening, he became an earth-bound asteroid.

The freshman Florida senator’s disastrous underperformance in his home state likely ends his presidential ambitions. Worse for Rubio, it could imperil his political future.

In a season that saw several other emerging Republican talents shredded in the buzzsaw of Donald Trump’s campaign, Rubio’s collapse stills stands out. On paper, he presented as storybook: Young, telegenic, with a family story personifying American striving that Rubio, a gifted communicator, spun beautifully. And in a fractious period for the party, he seemed uniquely suited to unite the GOP’s warring factions.

But Rubio’s campaign never did the hard and expensive work of assembling the state-by-state grassroots organization key to grinding out primary victories. Perhaps more fundamentally, his message — a blend of uplift and traditional Republican policy proposals like tax cuts and a muscular foreign policy — proved musty with base voters eager to hear their anger reflected back at them.

Delivering what amounted to a concession speech to a meager crowd in Miami, Rubio offered a qualified acknowledgment of his campaign’s shortcomings that also took oblique aim at Trump. “America’s in the middle of a real political storm, a real tsunami. And we should have seen it coming,” he said, later adding, “From a political standpoint, the easiest thing to have done in this campaign is to jump on all those anxieties I just talked about. To make people angrier, to make people more frustrated. But I chose a different route and I’m proud of that. In a year like this, that would have been the easiest way to win. But that is not what’s best for America.”

The details of Rubio’s Florida loss make it look even worse for him. Over the past three weeks, with GOP establishment alarm belatedly rising at the prospect of a Trump nomination, major party donors finally began investing in a campaign to stop him. A tally by FiveThiryEight shows that among three of the most targeted states — Florida, Ohio, and North Carolina — the Sunshine State received a disproportionate share, 88% of the total ad spend. That number is particularly stark considering Ohio only received 3%. The Buckeye State represented the other must-win front for those hoping to hobble Trump’s march to the nomination. And there, Gov. John Kasich winning Ohio, according to CNN projections, with no thanks to much outside help.

Rubio now returns to the Senate to finish a term that expires at the end of the year. He decided to forego a reelection campaign, which he could have waged concurrently, to focus on his presidential bid. There remains the possibility he could end up on a presidential ticket, though it’d be tough to imagine Donald Trump, whom he’s trashed, or Ted Cruz, whom he too nearly resembles in too many categories, choosing him as a No. 2. Florida Gov. Rick Scott faces a term limit in 2018, which would open another statewide office to Rubio. But Tuesday evening’s results show he’s got fences to mend at home if he hopes to resurrect a career in public life there.

Summary: The onetime rising star's loss at home sunk his presidential hopes and imperiled his career.


PHOENIX -- The Arizona Diamondbacks have exercised the 2016 club options with right-handed pitchers Brad Ziegler and Josh Collmenter.

Ziegler, 36, will earn $5.5 million, up from $5 million in 2015, when he moved into the role of closer after Addison Reed struggled. He finished with 30 saves, an 0-3 record and 1.85 ERA while pitching 68 innings. He came to Arizona midway through the 2011 season and has compiled a 2.45 ERA with the Diamondbacks over 297 1/3 innings. He has seven consecutive seasons with at least 60 appearances.

Collmenter, 29, will earn $1.825 million, after earning $1.4 million last season. He was the team's Opening Day starter but moved to a long relief role after 12 starts. He finished with a 4-6 record, one save and a 3.79 ERA, but as a reliever, he had a 1.89 ERA in 52 1/3 innings pitched.

Two members of the D-backs season-ending roster have filed for free agency: reserve catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia and reliever David Hernandez.

Saltalamacchia, 30, who backed up Welington Castillo after signing with the team as a minor-league free agent, will test the waters to try to find a starting job. He hit .251 with eight home runs in 70 games for the D-backs.

Hernandez, 30, pitched in 40 games last season after missing all of 2014 while recovering from Tommy John surgery. He was 1-5 with a 4.28 earned run average in 33 2/3 innings.

Summary: Jarrod Saltalamacchia, David Hernandez file for free agency.


05/08/2016 AT 10:25 AM EDT

struggled to hold back her emotions during a powerful performance of

and Diane Warren's song "

" at the Humane Society's Los Angeles Gala on Saturday night.

Taking the stage alongside honoree Warren at Hollywood's Paramount Studios, Kesha wiped away tears and told attendees, "I want to dedicate this song to every man, woman, child, animal, that has ever been abusedâ¦"

After singing the Oscar-nominated song – which was featured in

, a documentary about sexual assault – Kesha struggled to catch her breath, crying while sharing a hug with Warren.

in mid-April amid her ongoing legal battle with producer

The "Die Young" singer, 29, filed suit against Luke in

, alleging that he had repeatedly

the allegations, and most of Kesha's claims were

Kesha's request for a preliminary injunction to put her contracts with Sony and Dr. Luke on hold was

in support of Kesha – as well as Lady Gaga, who has also been candid about her experience with

"You never know who you might be saving or inspiring by talking,"

previously told PEOPLE. "To have these stars share their stories, it is so powerful to a survivor who might feel like nobody knows what they are feeling, who feels alone."

Summary: "Til It Happens To You" was featured in The Hunting Ground, a documentary about sexual assault


Something wasn’t right. An uneasy feeling swept over the security specialists watching activity at the bank. A sensor in the branch, located in a port city on the East Coast, had detected unusual heartbeats and body heat patterns from new customers who had come to open an account.

Something was wrong. These “customers” had entered the country days before as human cargo on a ship from Europe. Now a criminal gang was using them to orchestrate financial fraud. But the biometric sensors installed at the bank branch detected patterns that pointed to telltale signs of stress, tipping off the bank to the ruse.

This episode, which took place last year, is one of the more dramatic examples of how the financial services industry is deploying various types of biometric technology to rebuff sophisticated criminals. A new generation of tools beyond fingerprints and iris scans can measure qualities like body temperature and blood circulation at a short distance and without alerting the subject.

“Each heart rate is unique,” says Barnabas Szilagyi, a principal at Capco, a company that helps large banks identify security threats and comply with “know your customer” laws. “The new tech can sense what’s in your veins, your blood pressure and body heat, and identify with great accuracy who you are.”

For more on tech, watch this Fortune video:

Much of this technology is still in a pilot phase, but Capco says applications could easily extend beyond retail banking. Trading-desk managers could use sensors to track heart rates and body heat among traders so that they are alerted when unusual patterns reveal, for example, that a deal is about to be made.

Sensors are critical to these biometric tools, but it’s the analytics software that makes them shine. In the East Coast fraud case, Capco’s tech first determined that a spike in suspicious bank account applications occurred around the same time every month. It then cross-matched those dates with local shipping records to conclude that the “customers” were linked to the monthly arrival of a ship from a small European country. Such records are just one of hundreds of external data sets that banks can use to spot patterns. Others include illegal ATM transactions and credit card payments to massage parlors—both of which soared when the phony bank customers came to town.

Improvements to existing technologies like speech recognition are also helping the fight against fraud. A person’s voice can act as a unique identity marker to help banks recognize repeat calls from known fraudsters. The industry has placed 60,000 voices on a blacklist to date—a clear example that biometrics are money in the bank for financial firms.

A version of this article appears in the March 15, 2016 issue of Fortune with the headline “To Catch a Thief.”

Summary: Tech to catch a thief.


Spotify founder Daniel Ek. (AAP)

Music streaming service Spotify netted $3 billion revenue last year but is still in the red, according to its earnings report.

The report revealed the Swedish company's losses deepened last year, even as its revenue increased amid the global boom in online music.

Spotify was founded in 2008 and has been at the forefront of the music industry's turn to streaming, which offers unlimited music on demand, yet it has never turned a profit itself.

The Luxembourg-based holding company Spotify Technologies submitted its annual earnings report yesterday, and said its revenue jumped 80 per cent to 1.95 billion euros (AU$3.03 billion) last year.

The growth rate is significantly stronger than the 45 per cent it charted in 2014 and slightly higher than the 74 percent seen in 2013.

"In many ways, it was our best year ever," the company said in a message to shareholders, describing Spotify as the top driver of growth for the entire music industry.

The company said its revenue from advertisements nearly doubled and that its user base also grew significantly.

Spotify said it had 89 million active monthly users by the end of last year, up from 60 million in 2014. It had 28 million subscribers, who were paying for the service.

The company's founder, Daniel Ek, had said in March that Spotify reached 30 million paying subscribers.

But the growth did not erase losses, with Spotify putting a priority on investments at a stage when streaming is increasingly becoming mainstream.

The company's net losses totaled 173 million euros (AU$268 million), nearly seven per cent more than a year before.

"We believe our model supports profitability at scale," the company said.

"We believe that we will generate substantial revenues as our reach expands and that, at scale, our margins will improve.

"We will therefore continue to invest relentlessly in our product and marketing initiatives to accelerate reach."

Spotify's growth is all the more remarkable as last year marked a pause in its international expansion. It resumed its global push this year, adding Indonesia as its 59th country.

But Spotify also faces growing competition - tech giant Apple launched its own streaming service last year and rap mogul Jay-Z has spearheaded rival Tidal, adding to a market that also includes French-based Deezer and US-based Rhapsody.

Deezer's revenue stood at 142 million euros (AU$220 million)in 2014, well below Spotify. The company, which put off a market listing in October, has not released figures for last year.

Apple does not break down its revenue from streaming. Rhapsody, which also operates as Napster, posted US$202 million (AU$279 million) in revenue last year.

Spotify has sought to expand its offerings, starting video content and recently launching a tie-up in the US with Starbucks aimed at bringing in new subscribers.

But it has also faced prominent holdouts including Taylor Swift, Adele and Radiohead, who have kept some or all of their music off the service, in part due to objections to its free tier.

The soaring growth of subscriptions to Spotify and its rivals led the global music industry to post significant growth for the first time in nearly two decades last year, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry.

But with an accompanying fall in sales of CDs and digital downloads, some players in the music industry wonder whether streaming will offer healthy margins in the long term.

Spotify remains a private company under the control of its founders, Ek and fellow Swede Martin Lorentzon, and has financed its commercial push on its own through investors.

A listed shareholder, Swedish telecom firm Telia, last year made it known that Spotify was valued at US$8.2 billion (AU$11.3 billion).

Summary: Music streaming service Spotify netted $2 billion revenue last year but is still in the red, according to its earnings report.