Apple defends new photo scanning system

Apple Daily's chief editor Ryan Law and CEO Cheung Kim-hung have appeared in a Hong Kong court, charged with collusion with a foreign country to endanger national security.

The pro-democracy newspaper has been a frequent critic of the Chinese government. Now, Apple Daily's future is hanging by a thread after a series of clampdowns.

A key target of the investigation will be Apple's App Store, which allows the company to have influence over the business activities of third parties.

Hong Kong pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily is to cease its print and online operations on Saturday. Its publishing company cited "the current circumstances prevailing in Hong Kong."

In its final edition, the newspaper said it was a "victim of tyranny." The publication's 1 million copies were sold out before noon.

Fung Wai-kong is the seventh executive at the shuttered pro-democracy newspaper to be arrested under the auspices of a national security law in recent weeks. He was reportedly trying to board a plane to the UK.

The arrests of top executives, editors and journalists, as well as the freezing of assets, led the pro-democracy tabloid to cease its operations last month.

"NeuralHash" technology makes it possible to detect child sex abuse images uploaded to the cloud. Privacy advocates fear technology invites political mission creep, especially in authoritarian states.

The iPhone and iPad manufacturer said its plan to check the photos of US users for evidence of child abuse had been widely "misunderstood". CEO Tim Cook is yet to publicly comment on the privacy row.

Apple has defended a new system that scans users' phones for child sexual abuse material (CSAM).

The American press breaks down the "sinister brilliance" of an anti-abortion law that's gone into effect in Texas. We also look at coverage of record flooding in New York and how the intensity of storms is increasingly hard to predict because of climate change. Finally, we discover the papers' take on the latest in brain science: how our thoughts could soon be read by machines and how dogs may be smarter than we thought.

The feature had been intended to scan for images of child sexual abuse. But it quickly drew concern over potential misuse as a "backdoor" for hacking and surveillance.