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Vincenzo Nibali has officially won this year's Tour de France, becoming the first Italian cyclist to do so since 1998 with a ride past fans lining Paris' Champs-Elysees.

As we reported on Saturday, Nibali, riding for Astana Pro Team, had worn the yellow jersey through most of the three-week competition that had been marked by bad weather and the relatively quick elimination of some of the favorites.

On an overcast Sunday in the French capital, Nibali rode past the Arc de Triomphe on his way to the winner's podium.

The New York Times sums up his victory, acknowledging that "To some extent, Nibali benefited from the misfortune of others.

"Chris Froome, the defending champion from Britain, quit early in the three-week race after three crashes in the miserable rain and cold that made the Tour sometimes seem as if was being run in the early spring. Then Alberto Contador, who has won the Tour three times although his 2010 title was stripped for doping, hit a sinkhole and broke his leg, again on a damp and chilly day.

"But Nibali, 29, ... did not cruise to a win by default. He won four stages of the Tour. Three of them came in each of the mountain ranges the ranges the Tour traversed this year: the Vosges, the Alps and the Pyrenees. All of the wins were decisive.

"Adding to the list, Nibali, wore the yellow race leader's jersey 19 of the 21 stages."

Ukrainian forces were reportedly advancing on rebel positions near the key eastern town of Donetsk on Saturday, as they try to retake the separatist stronghold.

Donetsk is the region where Malaysia Airlines MH17 was shot down on July 17, killing nearly 300 people. Pro-Russian rebels have been blamed for downing the plane and they have hampered international efforts to access the site of the wreckage.

The Washington Post says: "Government troops are currently battling rebels in the nearby town of Horlivka and have blocked all roads leading out of Donetsk to prevent the insurgents from replenishing supplies and fighters or escaping, said Andriy Lysenko of the Ukrainian Security and Defense Council. Once Horlivka is under Ukrainian control again, he said, the army will move to retake Donetsk, a city where pro-Russian separatists have held sway for months while declaring it the Donetsk People's Republic. The Ukrainian military has ousted rebels from 10 surrounding villages and towns in the past week."

According to the AP, the move comes "as Ukrainian forces appear to have gained some momentum recently by retaking control of territory from the rebels. But Russia also appears to becoming more involved in the fighting, with the U.S. and Ukraine accusing Moscow of moving heavily artillery across the border to the rebels."

As we reported earlier this week, the U.S. has said it has "new evidence" that Russian forces were lobbing artillery across the border and that Moscow was planning to ship powerful multiple rocket launcher systems to the pro-Russian separatists fighting in eastern Ukraine.

NPR's Corey Flintoff, reporting from Donetsk, says Ukrainian officials have been accusing Russian troops for days of firing across the border

"The allegations come as separatists appear to be losing ground in the face of a Ukrainian offensive," Corey says.

Amazon is now twenty years old!

In 1994, Jeff Bezos walked out of the Wall Street hedge fund where he worked after they declined to invest in his idea, and began to sell books out of his garage.

Today, Amazon is a retail and entertainment empire, selling books and shoes, computers, overcoats, band saws, sofa beds, kimchi, canned beans, artwork, wine, grills, generators, drones, kitty litter, pool filter pumps and garden gnomes, etc., etc., and more.

Type in "kitchen sink"- you'll find dozens.

Bezos chose the name Amazon, incidentally, because it begins with an A, to pop up to the top of alphabetical listings, and because it has a Z, to convey that the company would sell everything from A to.

Amazon has become a controversial company as it expands, now producing as well as selling entertainment; even providing cloud storage for the Department of Defense. But we might use Amazon's anniversary as a way to mark how much buying and selling has changed in just twenty years; and how our personal sense of privacy may have changed, too.

Amazon has prospered by amassing enough information to create a commercial portrait of each customer. Algorithms calculate that if we buy, for example, a pair of blue suede shoes, gargle with Cool Mint mouthwash, and listen to Miranda Lambert, we might want to purchase a certain brand of refrigerator one day.

Sometimes, these instantaneous calculations may make you feel like the victim of a peeping Tom. This week, I mentioned my admiration for the movie Lawrence of Arabia on Twitter. When I later went to Amazon to look at a children's book, they had already lined up DVD's of Peter O' Toole movies- and suggested a pair of desert boots.

But there is nothing truly sneaky about this. We agree to let online enterprises absorb the information we can register with each keystroke — what we search for on the web, like or dislike on a social media platform, or simply browse through — and try to mine our curiosity for sales.

There may be a real generational difference in outrage. Older people may squirm to think that their curiosities and interests are being so monitored and measured. Some who have grown up with the web may wonder why older people are so fussy.

Even so, it's a young Australian writer, JR Hennessy, who wrote in The Guardian this week, "We trained ourselves to value Facebook's 'open society' without privacy."

The San Diego Comic-Con is in full swing — celebrating not just comics, but movies, TV, books, video games and really cool costumes. It's called cosplay: The art and science of dressing up like your favorite character.

I've got a confession to make. I'm a cosplayer myself, though without any sewing skills, my costumes are a little hacked together. Luckily for me, there are some truly fantastic sights out on the convention floor, like zombie Teletubbies or an army of Daenerys Targaryens (Daenerii?). And so many Frozen princesses I can't keep track. There are classic Star Trek uniforms, Doctors Who, lady Thors and Lokis in gorgeous armor, and a truly impressive Silver Surfer in head-to-toe body paint that must have taken him hours.

“ The happy faces and everyone complimenting me on the costume, it's just awesome.