Branch merge

diff --cc Misc/NEWS
index 6ba892c45000fa794d5b5dc3934ad0421c775310,7c811909d8b27194a03a85ea1e2d79047f937fe7..d90faf9d7ac004bc6422bda75b3aae6e104d5d7d
--- 1/Misc/NEWS
--- 2/Misc/NEWS
+++ b/Misc/NEWS
@@@ -244,11 -237,16 +244,21 @@@ Core and Builtin
  Library
  -------
  
+ - Issue #10968: Remove indirection in threading.  The public names (Thread,
+   Condition, etc.) used to be factory functions returning instances of hidden
+   classes (_Thread, _Condition, etc.), because (if Guido recalls correctly) this
+   code pre-dates the ability to subclass extension types.  It is now possible to
+   inherit from Thread and other classes, without having to import the private
+   underscored names like multiprocessing did.
+ 
+ - Issue #9723: Add shlex.quote functions, to escape filenames and command
+   lines.
+ 
 +- Issue #12603: Fix pydoc.synopsis() on files with non-negative st_mtime.
 +
 +- Issue #12514: Use try/finally to assure the timeit module restores garbage
 +  collections when it is done.
 +
  - Issue #12607: In subprocess, fix issue where if stdin, stdout or stderr is
    given as a low fd, it gets overwritten.