A Popular Cure for the Retirement Crisis Isn’t Making Much Headway - TIME Business

A Popular Cure for the Retirement Crisis Isn’t Making Much Headway

Posted: 09 Mar 2017 03:00 AM PST

Automatic enrollment in company-sponsored savings plans has been hailed as a key part of the solution to our retirement savings crisis. But new evidence suggests this feature may be far less pervasive than previously believed.
U.S. Census Bureau researchers recently studied participation in workplace savings plans by gathering data from the annual W-2 wage and tax forms that employers send to employees. That encompassed a huge pool of small businesses likely missed in most surveys on employee benefits, which tend to focus on large employers. Incorporating data on this cache of small businesses changes the statistics on plan participation dramatically.

The researchers found that smaller employers are far less likely to offer plans than big companies. For instance, while 93% of companies with more than 10,000 employees offered 401(k)-type plans, the percentages were only 33% for companies with 25 to 49 workers and 20% for businesses with 10 to 24 employees.
Most alarming: The gap between those who are offered a 401(k) plan and those who participate is far wider than commonly believed. Some 79% of Americans are eligible to contribute to a 401(k) but only 41% of eligible workers do so, the Census Bureau research shows. By contrast, the American Benefits Council has estimated that 80% of eligible workers participate in their defined-contribution plan, the vast majority of which are 401(k) plans.
In a nutshell, the Census data suggests participation rates are half what was previously believed. And it runs counter to the thesis that automatic enrollment is on the rise and making a big difference in the retirement security of most Americans.
How do we account for this sobering news? Start with the sheer volume of small businesses. In the U.S., employers with fewer than 500 workers number 28 million while larger employers number just 18,500. Small businesses employ nearly half of all workers. Some 20 million small businesses are sole proprietors, meaning their lone employee is the owner.
Benefits surveys try to account for small businesses. But because large companies set the pace for benefits and employ so many people, these companies’ benefits plans may get overweighted in surveys. Meanwhile, small businesses are less likely to offer a 401(k) plan in the first place and even less likely to offer one with automatic enrollment.
Only 12.1% of businesses that employ fewer than 500 workers have a 401(k) plan with auto enrollment, according to the Urban Institute. That compares to 21% of companies that employ more than 1,000.
It stands to reason that if small businesses generally do not offer 401(k) plans with auto enrollment—and survey data miss millions of small businesses—the spread of this feature probably has been overstated.
That doesn’t change the fact that auto enrollment has been a success where it is offered. Bank of America Merrill Lynch found that plans with auto enrollment had 32% more participants than those that did not include the feature.
At the same time, sole proprietors have many savings options, like the tax-advantaged SEP IRA where they can sock away as much as $54,000 this year—even if they must opt in on their own. And workers at small businesses increasingly have access to state-sponsored tax-advantaged savings plans like those being rolled out in California, Oregon, Illinois, Maryland, and Connecticut.
But from a policy perspective, if we’re counting on auto enrollment to solve the retirement savings crisis, we should probably find a way to hook in more small businesses.

One in Six May Lose Health Insurance Under the GOP’s Obamacare Replacement - TIME

One in Six May Lose Health Insurance Under the GOP’s Obamacare Replacement

Posted: 08 Mar 2017 12:26 PM PST

A new study has some good news and some bad news about the GOP’s new health care proposal:
Average health care insurance premiums would go down for marketplace customers, but at least one out of six consumers covered under the Affordable Care Act’s individual marketplace would no longer have their insurance under the GOP’s replacement, according to a new report from S&P Global Market Intelligence.
Republican lawmakers debuted their proposal on Monday, potentially ending the ACA’s current mandate to buy insurance, while reorganizing Medicaid funding.
S&P, which expects a decline in enrollment in the individual marketplace and in those covered under Medicaid, estimates that the GOP’s changes would result in 2 million to 4 million fewer open marketplace enrollees, as compared to an estimated 12.2 million who opted into the ACA’s individual marketplace in 2017.
S&P is also expecting a 4 million to 6 million decrease in those covered by Medicaid between 2020 and 2024 if the new proposal passes. Roughly 51.6 million in 32 states and Washington, D.C. that participated in the Medicaid expansion were covered by Medicaid at the end of 2016, S&P reported.
Those lower enrollment figures would decrease premiums for consumers, but only for some groups.
The declines will result in “increased affordability for the eligible younger population, and reduced affordability for the older population,” the report stated.

Trump: Psychiatry professors say 'dangerous' US President must be removed from post for public - Independent

Donald Trump: Psychiatry professors say 'dangerous' US President must be removed from post for public safety
Trump is " dangerous " and drastic steps must be taken to protect the public from him, two leading psychiatrists have warned.

The President’s erratic behaviour, including “repeated failure to distinguish between reality and fantasy” and “paranoid claims of conspiracy”, cast doubt over his ability to react rationally in a crisis, they said.

In a letter to the New York Times, Judith Herman, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, and Robert Lifton, a lecturer in psychiatry at Columbia University, said they were not attempting to diagnose Mr Trump.

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“We are in no way offering a psychiatric diagnosis, which would be unwise to attempt from a distance," they wrote.

"Nevertheless, as psychiatrists we feel obliged to express our alarm. We fear that when faced with a crisis, President Trump will lack the judgment to respond rationally.

“The military powers entrusted to him endanger us all. We urge our elected representatives to take the necessary steps to protect us from this dangerous president.”

Last month, 35 mental health professionals wrote to the newspaper warning the “grave emotional instability” indicated by Mr Trump’s behaviour made him incapable of serving safely as President.

This drew some criticism as it is usually frowned upon among psychiatrists to give a professional opinion of the mental state of someone they have not examined in person, as dictated by a passage in the American Psychiatric Association’s code of ethics known as the Goldwater rule.

Lifton gave the President’s unsubstantiated claim that Barack Obama ordered a wiretap of his phones during the presidential campaign as an example of his irrational behaviour.

“Even within the space of a few weeks, the demands of the presidency have magnified his erratic patterns of behaviour,” they wrote.

“We are struck by his repeated failure to distinguish between reality and fantasy, and his outbursts of rage when his fantasies are contradicted. Without any demonstrable evidence, he repeatedly resorts to paranoid claims of conspiracy.



“Most recently, in response to suggestions of contact between his campaign and agents of the Russian government, he has issued tirades against the press as an “enemy of the people” and accusations without proof that his predecessor, former President Barack Obama, engaged in partisan surveillance against him.”

Harvard Law School professor Noah Feldman said if Mr Trump’s allegations regarding Mr Obama were proved false, a major scandal would arise that could lead to his impeachment.

The President recently posted a series of early-morning tweets in which he accused his predecessor of ordered the wiretap.

“Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my 'wires tapped' in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!” he wrote.
“Is it legal for a sitting President to be “wire tapping” a race for president prior to an election? Turned down by court earlier. A NEW LOW!”

“How low has President Obama gone to tapp [sic] my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!”

Mr Trump did not provide any evidence for his claims and his spokespeople have consistently refused to do so.

Professor Feldman said that, if the allegations are true, the scandal would be of “Watergate-level proportions” – but that a similar sized controversy would also result if they are proved to be unsubstantiated.

AARP comes out against House GOP health care bill - CNN

* The AARP comes out against the bill
* It's the latest heavyweight to join opposition to the House GOP plan

Washington (CNN)The AARP issued a statement on Tuesday declaring its opposition to the health care bill touted by GOP leadership this week.
The letter -- from one of the most influential groups in domestic policy -- is the latest blow for a bill that has already seen opposition from many conservative leaders, media organizations and interest groups.
"This bill would weaken Medicare's fiscal sustainability, dramatically increase health care costs for Americans aged 50-64 and put at risk the health care of millions of children and adults with disabilities, and poor seniors who depend on the Medicaid program for long-term services and supports and other benefits," said the letter, signed by Joyce A. Rogers, a senior vice president at AARP.
The GOP's Obamacare replacement bill: Dead on arrival?
The group represents millions of seniors across the country and has long opposed any policy it perceives as weakening Medicare, a government health care program exclusively available to the nation's elderly.
AARP was a crucial backer of the Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare, and has repeatedly defended the law over the years.
The AARP letter said Obamacare helped strengthen Medicare, and that a tax cut for higher income workers in the American Health Care Act "could hasten" the program's insolvency.
When he was on the campaign trail, President Donald Trump pledged to protect Medicare and other major entitlement programs. However, the AARP has said the bill would do the opposite. Still, Trump has backed the proposal from House leadership and called on the country to unite around it, including the conservative factions of his party fighting to bring the bill down.
Trump warns House GOP members of electoral 'bloodbath' if repeal and replace fails
Under Obamacare's individual mandate, people must purchase health insurance, including young, relatively healthy people, or pay a fine. The forced inclusion of more people in the market was an attempt to balance out insurance markets for older people and those with pre-existing conditions. However, insurance providers are allowed to offer insurance at different rates depending on age.
AARP said the changes in age rating as well as reductions to subsidies would "dramatically increase health care costs for 50-64 year olds" who purchase insurance through government exchanges.
The group also railed against a slew of proposed changes to Medicaid, a government program aimed at helping people with low incomes and disabilities get health care.
Finally, the letter praised Republicans for what the bill did not aim to repeal from Obamacare, for example, protections for persons with pre-existing conditions and allowing young people to stay on their parents' insurance plans until age 26.

Kelly: DHS is considering separating undocumented children from their parents at the border - CNN

Kelly: DHS is considering separating undocumented children from their parents at the border

Washington (CNN)Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly confirmed that the department is considering separating children from their parents at the border.
"We have tremendous experience of dealing with unaccompanied minors," he told CNN's Wolf Blitzer on "The Situation Room." "We turn them over to (Health and Human Services) and they do a very, very good job of putting them in foster care or linking them up with parents or family members in the United States."
He continued: "Yes I'm considering (that), in order to deter more movement along this terribly dangerous network. I am considering exactly that. They will be well cared for as we deal with their parents. ... It's more important to me, Wolf, to try to keep people off of this awful network."
A senior DHS official had previously told CNN that the department was considering a proposal to separate children from adults when they are trying to enter the country illegally at the southern border.
The official told CNN the proposal is meant to deter the exploitation of children.
Currently, when adults enter the country accompanied by children, they are generally released into the US and able to stay in the country, pending disposition of their cases, the official said.
The proposal would allow US immigration officials to separate children from the adults they came here with. The adults could be kept in detention, and the children could be moved elsewhere under protected status, possibly with family members already in the country or to state protective custody such as child protective services.
In a statement to CNN last week, DHS spokesman David Lapan said the agency "continually explores options that may discourage those from even beginning the journey."
"The journey north is a dangerous one, with too many situations where children -- brought by parents, relatives or smugglers -- are often exploited, abused or may even lose their lives," Lapan said at the time.
Leon Fresco, a former DOJ official in President Barack Obama's administration, said the previous administration considered, but ultimately rejected, the move.
"It was never implemented because the idea was that it was too detrimental to the safety of the children to separate them from their parents, and the thinking was it was always preferable to detain the family as a unit or release the family as the unit," Fresco said.

A Guide to the Federal Government’s Wiretap Powers - Wall Street Journal

A Guide to the Federal Government’s Wiretap Powers
Donald Trump claims Barack Obama tapped his phones. How would that have been possible?

President Donald Trump made shocking allegations on Saturday morning that President Barack Obama tapped his phones in the Trump Tower skyscraper. His comments, offered without any proof, fanned interest in a continuing FBI investigation of ties between Mr. Trump’s allies and Russian officials.
The allegations appeared to be taken from media reports alleging the Obama administration received authorization to conduct surveillance on the Trump campaign. How would that have been possible?
Below is guide to the federal government’s power to snoop in criminal investigations and intelligence collection.
Which laws authorize the use of wiretaps in the U.S.?
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act guides the use of wiretaps in service of intelligence collection, while Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, also known as the Wiretap Act, dictates the use of wiretaps in criminal investigations.
What’s the difference?
The purpose of intelligence is to gain information about the activities of foreign powers. The purpose of a criminal investigation is to collect evidence to support prosecution in court. Under Title III, federal prosecutors can seek a warrant to tap the phones of suspects of a range of crimes, from bribery to espionage, but only with authorization by the attorney general or other high-level Justice Department officials. They then must satisfy a federal judge that they have probable cause that a crime occurred or will occur, through the filing of applications that detail the “facts and circumstances” of alleged offenses and targets. Prosecutors must also justify the necessity of a wiretap instead of less intrusive investigative techniques.
What is FISA used for?

The Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation can obtain warrants and orders from a secret court that allows them to conduct surveillance of and collect information about suspected spies and terrorists.
Prosecutors and agents seeking a wiretap under FISA need a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to tap a phone in the U.S., with limited exceptions. To tap the phone of a foreigner living in the U.S., they have to demonstrate probable cause to believe the target is an agent of a foreign power. Any employee of a foreign government—like, say, the Russian ambassador—would qualify. But to get a warrant for a U.S. person, they must show probable cause to believe something close to espionage or other national security crimes, like terrorism, occurred, said Julian Sanchez, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute.
How could we know if Mr. Trump’s wiretaps allegations are true?
FISA orders are classified as a general rule, said Todd Hinnen, a partner at Perkins Coie LLP and former acting head of the Justice Department’s National Security Division. But nothing would stop Mr. Trump from declassifying FISA orders, he said.
“If there were such an order regarding Trump obtained by the Obama administration, for instance, President Trump could have it declassified and release it to the press,” he said.
Can FISA be used for more than just wiretaps?
Yes. Under FISA, federal agents can also seek warrants to search premises and orders for certain business records, such as which websites a target visits. Emails generally require a warrant, but the law is unsettled about whether investigators can obtain stored email without one.
Can evidence collected under FISA be used in a regular court?
Yes. The Justice Department can use FISA to gather evidence for criminal prosecution as long as foreign intelligence is a significant component of the investigation, Mr. Sanchez said. But it doesn’t have to be the primary purpose. The government has to tell the defense that it intends to use evidence collected under FISA in a criminal case, offering the defendant a chance to challenge it as unlawful or unconstitutional and try to have it suppressed by a judge.
What is FISA’s back story?
Congress established FISA to guard against surveillance abuses in the name of national security. It passed in 1978 following revelations of an FBI surveillance program that targeted anti-Vietnam War protesters and civil-rights organizers, including Martin Luther King Jr., as well as the Watergate scandal that ultimately forced President Richard Nixon’s resignation.
More recently, a George W. Bush-era program authorized the National Security Agency to wiretap communications between foreigners suspected of having links to terrorist groups and people in the U.S. without a warrant. The government halted the practices for a time, but resumed them in the Bush and Obama administrations after the law governing wiretaps was changed.
—Bob Davis contributed to this article

Does Obama Have Grounds to Sue Trump for Libel? - NBC News

Analysis: Does Obama Have Grounds to Sue Trump for Libel?

President Donald Trump's newest pivot might be his way to divert attention from his own Russia troubles by leveling a Watergate-level conspiracy allegation at former President Barack Obama.
But this latest assertion that Obama ordered illegal surveillance of Trump Tower during the 2016 election — tweeted without evidence — could build and get the president into some legal hot water.
Although the law provides a great deal of leeway for political speech, that protection is not all encompassing. And because of the way Trump has leveled unsubstantiated accusations at Obama, he may have libeled his predecessor.
"He's basically stating that Mr. Obama committed crimes, and to state that somebody has committed a crime when it's false is clearly defamatory," said Benjamin Zipursky, who teaches defamation law at Fordham University Law School in New York.
"The question is: Is there enough evidence of serious reckless disregard to send that case to a jury?" Zipursky added. "I don't know what a court would decide on that, but there is some evidence of recklessness."
It's difficult for public figures to win libel cases. Most courts rule against them because the assumption is that they have chosen to make their lives an open book, which means people will talk about them. But past Supreme Court cases have created a basic standard that seeks to answer two legal questions:
* Was the statement false?
* Did the person know it was false or was he or she reckless about whether it was false?
The answer to both questions must be yes, and that could be a difficult conclusion to draw.
"What the plaintiff has to show is that the defendant has said, written or tweeted something that is a false statement of fact that harms the reputation of the defendant, and because Obama is a public official, you have to show that it was done with some sort of intent to harm," said Jay Wexler, a professor of constitutional law at Boston University Law School.
Despite that high threshold, a fair amount of evidence is beginning to build that Trump might have crossed the legal line.
A senior U.S. official told NBC News that FBI Director James Comey asked the Justice Department over the weekend to publicly reject Trump's claims because they were untrue.
FBI Director James Comey asked Justice Department officials to publicly reject President Donald Trump's claims that former President Barack Obama ordered the wiretapping of Trump Tower, The New York Times reported Sunday. A senior U.S. official confirmed the newspaper's reporting to NBC News.
The Times reported that Comey requested that the Justice Department publicly rebut the president's allegations — which he posted on Twitter without evidence — because the claims are untrue and suggest that the FBI broke the law. Comey's appeal pits him against the president.
Related: White House Calls for Probe, Offers No Proof of Wiretapping
But, The Times added, Comey is having difficulty knocking the story down because there are only a few politically appointed Justice Department officials who could approve a statement, as Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from anything pertaining to the government's investigation into alleged connections between Russia and the Trump campaign.
President Donald Trump leaves the Oval Office to board Marine One at the White House on Friday. Erik S. Lesser / EPA
Despite Comey's request, Trump's White House did not back off on Sunday and called for Congress to investigate.
"President Donald J. Trump is requesting that as part of their investigation into Russian activity, the congressional intelligence committees exercise their oversight authority to determine whether executive branch investigative powers were abused in 2016," White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said in a statement. He offered no evidence to back up the allegations, which Trump compared to a scandal of "Nixon/Watergate" proportions.
NBC News has found no evidence that would support his claims, which have been flatly dismissed by the previous administration.
An Obama spokesman called Trump's tweets "unequivocally false," and James Clapper, the former director of national intelligence, said on NBC's "Meet the Press" that he had no knowledge of any surveillance of Trump Tower.
Later Sunday, Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee demanded that White House counsel Donald McGahn respond to The Times' report that his office had sought to gain access to what he "believed to be an order issued by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court authorizing some form of surveillance related to Mr. Trump and his associates."
Such an effort would be "inappropriate" and "improper," the lawmakers said in a letter to McGahn obtained by NBC News.
"The independence of the Department of Justice and the FBI is a particular concern when individuals associated with both the Administration and the President's campaign may be the targets of the investigation," the lawmakers said.
Meanwhile, politicians on both sides of the aisle said the White House needed to provide evidence to back up the president's allegations.
"Suffice it to say I don't have any basis — I've never heard that allegation made before by anybody," Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, a Republican member of the Select Committee on Intelligence, said Sunday.
"I've never seen anything about that anywhere before," Rubio said. "But again, the president put that out there, and now the White House will have to answer as to exactly what he was referring to."
NBC

Trump's baseless wiretap claim - CNN

Trump's baseless wiretap claim

Story highlights
* A former senior US official with direct knowledge of Justice Department investigations under Obama said Trump's phones were never tapped
* Sen. Lindsey Graham vowed "to get to the bottom of this" at a town hall event on Saturday

West Palm Beach, Fla. (CNN)President Donald Trump made a stunning claim Saturday, alleging without offering evidence that his predecessor, Barack Obama, wiretapped his phones at Trump Tower ahead of the 2016 election.
"Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my 'wires tapped' in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!" Trump tweeted early Saturday morning in one part of a six-tweet tirade that began just after 6:30 a.m.
Trump :- " Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my "wires tapped" in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism! "
" Is it legal for a sitting President to be "wire tapping" a race for president prior to an election? Turned down by court earlier. A NEW LOW! "
The President went on to compare the alleged tapping of his phones to Watergate and called Obama "bad (or "sick)."
"How low has President Obama gone to tap my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy," Trump tweeted.
Trump :- " How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy! "
11:02 PM - 4 Mar 2017
*   46,427
But two former senior US officials quickly dismissed Trump's accusations out of hand.
"Just nonsense," said one former senior US intelligence official.
Another former senior US official with direct knowledge of investigations by the Justice Department under the Obama administration said Trump's phones were never tapped.
"This did not happen. It is false. Wrong," the former official told CNN.
A spokesman for Obama, Kevin Lewis, called "any suggestion" that Obama or any White House official ordered surveillance against Trump "simply false."
"A cardinal rule of the Obama administration was that no White House official ever interfered with any independent investigation led by the Department of Justice," Lewis said in a statement early Saturday afternoon. "As part of that practice, neither President Obama nor any White House official ever ordered surveillance on any US citizen. Any suggestion otherwise is simply false."
The former senior US official with direct knowledge of the Justice Department's investigations said Obama could not have ordered such a warrant. It would have been taken to a judge by investigators, but investigators never sought a warrant to monitor Trump's phones, the former official said.
A federal judge would only have approved a warrant to wiretap Trump's phones if he or she had found probable cause that Trump had committed a federal crime or was a foreign agent.
Former Obama deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes echoed the point in a tweet responding to Trump on Saturday morning.
"No President can order a wiretap. Those restrictions were put in place to protect citizens from people like you," he said in his Twitter post.

Ben Rhodes wrote :- " No President can order a wiretap. Those restrictions were put in place to protect citizens from people like you. "

Warrants to tap into someone's phones in the course of a federal investigation would be sought by the Department of Justice, which conducts investigations independent of the White House and the President.
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, an independent and secretive federal court, is responsible for issuing surveillance warrants in cases concerning foreign intelligence. The FBI has been investigating contacts between Trump campaign advisers and Russians known to US intelligence, and that court would likely be the forum to petition for such a warrant.
When asked if the White House is seeking any possible FISA court documentation to back up the President's claims, several senior administration officials confirmed to CNN that White House Counsel Donald McGahn "is reviewing what options, if any, are available to us." But White House officials could not say whether any such documentation exists.
There is no evidence such a document on surveillance of Trump himself exists, according to sources with knowledge of the situation whom CNN spoke to Saturday.
The FISA court's records are some of the most secretive intelligence documents. The White House could seek possible records from the Justice Department. If it did that, it would be unheard of and a breach of protocol, University of Texas law professor Steve Vladeck, an expert on national security law, told CNN. Protocol has dictated that the Justice Department would be insulated from such White House requests for these types of documents.
The New York Times first reported on McGahn's review.
A senior administration official in Washington said colleagues learned of the tweet storm about Obama only after Trump sent them. They were not expecting the President to make any news this morning before golfing in Palm Beach, Florida.
The official said they don't believe Trump is trying to get ahead of any particular story that's about to come out, but rather he is furious about how the Russia storyline is playing out.
The official pointed to a story on the conservative website Breitbart News that was circulating in the West Wing, which followed up on comments from radio talk show Mark Levin claiming Obama worked to undermine Trump's presidential campaign and his administration, including various investigations on Russia and possible ties between Russians and Trump associates.
That story infuriated him, the official said.
Trump's tweets came two days after his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, recused himself from any investigation related to the Trump campaign. Some Democrats have continued to call for Sessions' resignation after he acknowledged meeting multiple times with the Russian ambassador to the US during the campaign despite denying any contacts during his Senate confirmation hearing.
A pattern
Trump's tweets Saturday morning are just the latest in a string of wild accusations he has made since taking office that either directly contradicted the facts or lacked evidence to substantiate his claims, and they come just days after Trump was widely praised for the unifying tone of his joint address to Congress.
While past presidents have spoken prudently about sensitive matters to ensure that any claims they make are backed up by carefully vetted facts, Trump has instead maintained his pre-presidency style: one defined by unsubstantiated claims bellowed off the cuff or tweeted at odd hours of the day.
Trump has made dozens of verifiably false or misleading claims since taking office, often with an eye on gaining a political advantage or blunting criticism.
The President has repeatedly trumpeted the debunked claim that millions of illegal votes were cast in the 2016 election and accused journalists of inventing a rift between him and the US intelligence community, despite his own statements to that effect.
And last month, he accused a Democratic senator of misrepresenting his Supreme Court nominee's criticism of him, even after the nominee's White House-appointed spokesman corroborated the senator's account of the conversation.
Meanwhile, Trump and his advisers have falsely accused the media of leading a "fake news" campaign to smear his presidency, all the while arguing in favor of "alternative facts."
Congressional reaction
Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican who has been critical of Trump, said during a town hall forum Saturday that he didn't know if Trump's claim was true, but said he was "very worried" about the allegation.
"I'm very worried. I'm very worried that our President is suggesting that the former President's done something illegally," Graham said. "I would be very worried if in fact the Obama administration was able to obtain a warrant lawfully about Trump campaign activity with foreign governments. So it's my job as a United States senator to get to the bottom of this. I promise you I will."
California Rep. Adam Schiff, the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, which is also probing the scope of Russia's influence on the US election, said in a statement Saturday afternoon in reference to one of Trump's tweets: "If there is something bad or sick going on, it is the willingness of the nation's chief executive to make the most outlandish and destructive claims without providing a scintilla of evidence to support them.
"No matter how much we hope and pray that this President will grow into one who respects and understands the Constitution, separation of powers, role of a free press, responsibilities as the leader of the free world, or demonstrates even the most basic regard for the truth, we must now accept that President Trump will never become that man," Schiff said.
"Just nonsense," said one former senior US intelligence official.
Another former senior US official with direct knowledge of investigations by the Justice Department under the Obama administration said Trump's phones were never tapped.
"This did not happen. It is false. Wrong," the former official told CNN.
A spokesman for Obama, Kevin Lewis, called "any suggestion" that Obama or any White House official ordered surveillance against Trump "simply false."
"A cardinal rule of the Obama administration was that no White House official ever interfered with any independent investigation led by the Department of Justice," Lewis said in a statement early Saturday afternoon. "As part of that practice, neither President Obama nor any White House official ever ordered surveillance on any US citizen. Any suggestion otherwise is simply false."






* JUST WATCHEDSen. Sasse: Trump should provide wiretap proof
ReplayMore Videos ...

Sen. Sasse: Trump should provide wiretap proof 01:01
The former senior US official with direct knowledge of the Justice Department's investigations said Obama could not have ordered such a warrant. It would have been taken to a judge by investigators, but investigators never sought a warrant to monitor Trump's phones, the former official said.
A federal judge would only have approved a warrant to wiretap Trump's phones if he or she had found probable cause that Trump had committed a federal crime or was a foreign agent.
Former Obama deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes echoed the point in a tweet responding to Trump on Saturday morning.
"No President can order a wiretap. Those restrictions were put in place to protect citizens from people like you," he said in his Twitter post.


Ben Rhodes
✔
‪@brhodes‬
No President can order a wiretap. Those restrictions were put in place to protect citizens from people like you.
https://
twitter.com/realdonaldtrum
p/status/837989835818287106
…
1:25 AM - 5 Mar 2017
* 51,528 51,528 Retweets
92,991 92,991 likes
Warrants to tap into someone's phones in the course of a federal investigation would be sought by the Department of Justice, which conducts investigations independent of the White House and the President.
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, an independent and secretive federal court, is responsible for issuing surveillance warrants in cases concerning foreign intelligence. The FBI has been investigating contacts between Trump campaign advisers and Russians known to US intelligence, and that court would likely be the forum to petition for such a warrant.
When asked if the White House is seeking any possible FISA court documentation to back up the President's claims, several senior administration officials confirmed to CNN that White House Counsel Donald McGahn "is reviewing what options, if any, are available to us." But White House officials could not say whether any such documentation exists.
There is no evidence such a document on surveillance of Trump himself exists, according to sources with knowledge of the situation whom CNN spoke to Saturday.



Trump angry and frustrated at staff over Sessions fallout
The FISA court's records are some of the most secretive intelligence documents. The White House could seek possible records from the Justice Department. If it did that, it would be unheard of and a breach of protocol, University of Texas law professor Steve Vladeck, an expert on national security law, told CNN. Protocol has dictated that the Justice Department would be insulated from such White House requests for these types of documents.
The New York Times first reported on McGahn's review.
A senior administration official in Washington said colleagues learned of the tweet storm about Obama only after Trump sent them. They were not expecting the President to make any news this morning before golfing in Palm Beach, Florida.
The official said they don't believe Trump is trying to get ahead of any particular story that's about to come out, but rather he is furious about how the Russia storyline is playing out.
The official pointed to a story on the conservative website Breitbart News that was circulating in the West Wing, which followed up on comments from radio talk show Mark Levin claiming Obama worked to undermine Trump's presidential campaign and his administration, including various investigations on Russia and possible ties between Russians and Trump associates.
That story infuriated him, the official said.


Dan Scavino Jr.
✔
‪@DanScavino‬
Mark Levin to Congress: Investigate Obama’s ‘Silent Coup’ vs. Trump:
http://www.
breitbart.com/big-government
/2017/03/03/mark-levin-obama-used-police-state-tactics-undermine-trump/
…
5:53 AM - 5 Mar 2017

Mark Levin to GOP: Investigate Obama's 'Silent Coup' vs. Trump
Mark Levin outlined the known steps taken by the Obama administration to undermine Donald Trump's presidential campaign and administration.
breitbart.com
* 2,438 2,438 Retweets
3,626 3,626 likes
Trump's tweets came two days after his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, recused himself from any investigation related to the Trump campaign. Some Democrats have continued to call for Sessions' resignation after he acknowledged meeting multiple times with the Russian ambassador to the US during the campaign despite denying any contacts during his Senate confirmation hearing.
A pattern






* JUST WATCHEDStelter: Far-right media may fuel Trump claims
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Stelter: Far-right media may fuel Trump claims 02:09
Trump's tweets Saturday morning are just the latest in a string of wild accusations he has made since taking office that either directly contradicted the facts or lacked evidence to substantiate his claims, and they come just days after Trump was widely praised for the unifying tone of his joint address to Congress.
While past presidents have spoken prudently about sensitive matters to ensure that any claims they make are backed up by carefully vetted facts, Trump has instead maintained his pre-presidency style: one defined by unsubstantiated claims bellowed off the cuff or tweeted at odd hours of the day.
Trump has made dozens of verifiably false or misleading claims since taking office, often with an eye on gaining a political advantage or blunting criticism.
The President has repeatedly trumpeted the debunked claim that millions of illegal votes were cast in the 2016 election and accused journalists of inventing a rift between him and the US intelligence community, despite his own statements to that effect.
And last month, he accused a Democratic senator of misrepresenting his Supreme Court nominee's criticism of him, even after the nominee's White House-appointed spokesman corroborated the senator's account of the conversation.
Meanwhile, Trump and his advisers have falsely accused the media of leading a "fake news" campaign to smear his presidency, all the while arguing in favor of "alternative facts."
Congressional reaction






* JUST WATCHEDSen. Graham talks Trump wiretap tweets
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Sen. Graham talks Trump wiretap tweets 01:45
Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican who has been critical of Trump, said during a town hall forum Saturday that he didn't know if Trump's claim was true, but said he was "very worried" about the allegation.
"I'm very worried. I'm very worried that our President is suggesting that the former President's done something illegally," Graham said. "I would be very worried if in fact the Obama administration was able to obtain a warrant lawfully about Trump campaign activity with foreign governments. So it's my job as a United States senator to get to the bottom of this. I promise you I will."
California Rep. Adam Schiff, the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, which is also probing the scope of Russia's influence on the US election, said in a statement Saturday afternoon in reference to one of Trump's tweets: "If there is something bad or sick going on, it is the willingness of the nation's chief executive to make the most outlandish and destructive claims without providing a scintilla of evidence to support them.
"No matter how much we hope and pray that this President will grow into one who respects and understands the Constitution, separation of powers, role of a free press, responsibilities as the leader of the free world, or demonstrates even the most basic regard for the truth, we must now accept that President Trump will never become that man," Schiff said.



The President of the United States traffics in conspiracy theories (Opinion)
Amid criticism that Trump's allegations were meritless, one GOP senator called on Trump to release proof about his accusation, saying the President's allegations were "very serious."
Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse, a frequent Trump critic, said the President should publicly release the FISA Court order that would have been needed if his phones were legally tapped by the government.
And, if Trump believes his phones were illegally monitored, he "should explain what sort of wiretap it was and how he knows this," Sasse said in a statement.
"We are in the midst of a civilization-warping crisis of public trust, and the President's allegations today demand the thorough and dispassionate attention of serious patriots," Sasse said. "A quest for the full truth, rather than knee-jerk partisanship, must be our guide if we are going to rebuild civic trust and health."

Trump’s Many Shades of Contempt - New York Times

Trump’s Many Shades of Contempt


MARCH 3, 2017

Roger Cohen
This is a column about contempt. Let’s start with the utter contempt that President Trump has shown for the State Department since taking office six weeks ago. Some 70,000 American patriots across the globe, dedicated to the American idea as a force for good in the world, have been cast adrift.
Rex Tillerson, the secretary of state, is a near phantom. He has no deputy, having seen his first choice nixed by Trump. No State Department press briefing, once a daily occurrence, has been held since Trump took office. The president has proposed a 37 percent cut in the State Department budget. An exodus of senior staff members continues. The State Department has taken on a ghostly air.
The message is clear. America has no foreign policy so nobody is needed to articulate it. All we have are the feverish zigzags of the president, a man who thinks NATO is obsolete one day and glorious the next. There is no governing idea, only transactional hollowness. One midlevel officer told Julia Ioffe of The Atlantic: “It’s reminiscent of the developing countries where I’ve served. The family rules everything, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs knows nothing.”
Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, has become the foreign service of the United States of America.
Trump does not buy into the American idea. He buys, if anything, into Vladimir Putin’s macho authoritarianism and spheres of influence for the great powers. This amounts to a dramatic break with American policy as superbly articulated last month by one of the departing diplomats, Daniel Fried, who joined the Foreign Service in 1977 and served with great distinction, particularly in Central and Eastern Europe.
Fried had this to say in his parting remarks: “Few believed that Poland’s Solidarity movement could win, that the Iron Curtain would come down, that the Baltic States could be free, that the second of the 20th century’s great evils — Communism — could be vanquished without war. But it happened, and the West’s great institutions — NATO and the E.U. — grew to embrace 100 million liberated Europeans. It was my honor to have done what I could to help. I learned never to underestimate the possibility of change, that values have power, and that time and patience can pay off, especially if you’re serious about your objectives. Nothing can be taken for granted, and this great achievement is now under assault by Russia, but what we did in my time is no less honorable. It is for the present generation to defend and, when the time comes again, extend freedom in Europe.”
Donald Trump, our ahistorical Russophile president, should frame these words and hang them in the Oval Office as his first history lesson.
Fried noted America’s long-held opposition to spheres of influence, a recipe for war, and made this critical point: “We are not an ethno-state, with identity rooted in shared blood. The option of a White Man’s Republic ended at Appomattox. On the contrary, we are ‘a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.’ ” And so, “that rough sense of equality and opportunity, embedded in us, informed the way that we brought our American power to the world, America’s Grand Strategy. We have, imperfectly, and despite detours and retreat along the way, sought to realize a better world for ourselves and for others, for we understood that our prosperity and our values at home depend on that prosperity and those values being secure as far as possible in a sometimes dark world.”
NYT

Can Sessions survive the Russian meddling in 2016 US election scandal ? - BBC News

The era of good feelings following Donald Trump's well-received speech to Congress Tuesday night lasted, oh, about 23 hours. Now Russia, and the Trump campaign's connections to it, are back in the headlines.

At this point there are a few things that are known with certainty.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions met with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergei Kislyak twice last year at a time when the then-senator was actively supporting and advising Donald Trump's presidential campaign.

After Mr Sessions was nominated to be Mr Trump's attorney general - the top US government law official - he was asked, during Senate testimony and in writing, whether he had met with anyone connected to the Russian government with regard to the 2016 elections.

"I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign, and I did not have communications with the Russians," he said during his confirmation hearings.

Now Mr Sessions has announced that he will recuse himself from all existing and future department investigations involving the Trump presidential campaign.

Behind these facts are a host of questions, and the answers are somewhat uncertain. Here are some of the most pressing.

Sergei Kislyak - why is that name familiar?

Mr Kislyak, who has served as Russia's US ambassador since 2008, made headlines earlier this year for his contacts with another prominent member of Mr Trump's inner circle, Michael Flynn. The former general, who the president named as his national security adviser, came under federal investigation for his contacts with Russian officials after the presidential campaign.

While Mr Flynn acknowledged that he spoke to Mr Kislyak in late December, he originally asserted that he did not discuss sanctions the US government had imposed on Russia in response to concerns about possible Russian meddling in the 2016 US presidential election.

Leaked reports from the intelligence community revealed that this was not the case, and the president subsequently asked for Mr Flynn's resignation.

Is it unusual for a senator to talk to an ambassador?

When asked about Mr Sessions' contacts with Mr Kislyak, a Justice Department spokesperson told the Washington Post that the senator had "more than 25 conversations" with ambassadors in his capacity as a high-ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. The Post followed up by contacting the other 26 members of that committee, and the 20 who responded said they had not spoken with the Russian ambassador.

"I've been on the Armed Services Committee for 10 years," tweeted Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill. "No call or meeting with Russian ambassador. Ever. Ambassadors call members of the Foreign Relations Committee."

A closer look at Mrs McCaskill's Twitter feed revealed several instances - in 2013 and 2015 - where she wrote about meeting the Russian ambassador, however. She says those meetings were not in her capacity as a committee member and were never one-on-one.

Former Republican congressman Mike Rogers, who chaired the House Intelligence Committee, said such meetings for a senator on the committee would be "routine." Democratic Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia expressed a similar view.

"I've met with the Russian ambassador with a group, in my capacity, with a group of other senators," he said during a television interview Thursday morning. "That's in my official capacity. That's nothing. That's my job."

If these sorts of meetings are routine, then why the evasion?

This, then, is the million-dollar question - and what Democrats in Congress and Trump opponents everywhere seem to be focusing on.

"If there was nothing wrong, why not come clean and tell the entire truth?" Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer asked during a press conference on Thursday morning.

Schumer and PelosiImage copyrightGETTY IMAGES

Image caption

Democrats are demanding Sessions resign

Since the Washington Post story came out, the attorney general and his representatives have offered an array of responses to this, ranging from forgetfulness to not thinking it was important/relevant.

"I never had meetings with Russian operatives or Russian intermediaries about the Trump campaign," Sessions told a news conference on Thursday afternoon.

Democrats weren't buying it.

"When Senator Sessions testified under oath that 'I did not have communications with the Russians,' his statement was demonstrably false, yet he let it stand for weeks," said Congressman Elijah Cummings of Maryland. "And he continued to let it stand even as he watched the president tell the entire nation he didn't know anything about anyone advising his campaign talking to the Russians."

During the Flynn controversy, Mr Trump defended his embattled national security adviser by saying that contacts with foreign leaders, including Russians, weren't just permissible but advisable. That defence fell apart because clear evidence came out that Mr Flynn had been evasive not only to the press and public but to the administration itself.

Mr Sessions has since said that he did indeed meet with the ambassador twice and probably should have mentioned it during his confirmation hearings, but he was responding to questions about ongoing contact with Russian operatives. Critics are saying he is parsing words. Like Flynn, the original evasion has become a bigger story than the original contacts.

Who is Attorney General Jeff Sessions?

Russia: The scandal Trump can't shake

A 'Trump slump' for tourism?

Who is currently investigating this?

There at present is an ongoing inquiry by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, along with other intelligence agencies, into possible Russian meddling with the 2016 presidential elections, including any connections to members of the Trump campaign team.

In late January FBI officials interviewed Mr Flynn, for instance, on his contacts with Mr Kislyak.

In addition, two congressional panels - the House and Senate intelligence committees - are already planning on looking into the matter, although no concrete steps have yet to be taken. They may subpoena Trump officials, including Mr Flynn, to testify on the extent of their interaction with the Russian government.

Some Democrats have called for the creation of a special "select" committee to focus solely on the investigation, rather than relying on existing committees that have other obligations. So far, these calls have not gained traction.

Others, including Mr Schumer, have demanded a special independent counsel to be named to lead the inquiry - similar to the duties performed by Kenneth Starr during the Bill Clinton administration. The danger for the White House is that these types of investigations are difficult to control and can expand greatly in scope as they progress.

The Starr investigation, for instance, started as an inquiry into an old Clinton real-estate deal and eventually ended in a recommendation that the president be impeached for lying about sexual relations with a White House intern.

Can Sessions survive?

After bipartisan calls for Mr Sessions to recuse himself from oversight, as attorney general, of the FBI's Russia investigation reached a fevered pitch, the attorney general relented. He notably said, however, that the decision was made in consultation with career Justice Department officials and was due to his involvement with the Trump campaign and not because of the recent revelations.

Jump media playerMedia player helpOut of media player. Press enter to return or tab to continue.

Media captionJeff Sessions: The "remarks are unbelievable to me and are false"

Democrats have upped the ante, however, calling for Mr Sessions' outright resignation.

"Jeff Sessions simply does not have the confidence of the American people," tweeted Congresswoman Yvette Clarke of New York. "He should resign now."

Given the attorney general's close relationship with the president, a resignation seems unlikely. Then again, the same could be said for Mr Flynn, and he was ultimately shown the door.

What should be of particular concern to Republicans is that the Sessions revelations fit a growing pattern of obfuscation and evasion on the part of the president's inner circle when it comes to contact with the Russian government.It's the kind of thing that will prompt more questions, more investigations and more speculation about what else is out there.

Amid Protests, Trump’s Sons Open a New Luxury Tower in Vancouver - Associated Press

Amid Protests, Trump’s Sons Open a New Luxury Tower in Vancouver Posted: 28 Feb 2017 05:54 PM PST (VANCOUVER, British Columbia) — Ignoring protests, claims their newest real estate venture clashes with Canadian values and a no-show mayor who tried to change the tower’s name, U.S. President Donald Trump’s sons said Tuesday that it was “so fitting” to see the Trump brand in Vancouver, a city known for its diversity and progressive politics. Protesters, some carrying posters proclaiming, “Love Trumps Hate,” surrounded the entrance to the Trump hotel and condominium tower while police and security officers in black suits gathered on sidewalks at the soaring edifice, which has drawn praise for its sleek design but has also raised ethical concerns about the business interests of the new U.S. president. Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson, who had lobbied for the Trump name to be removed from the tower, refused to attend the ceremony in protest of Trump’s policies on immigration and other matters. “The name Trump has now become synonymous not with luxury and lifestyle, but with racism, sexism and intolerance,” said city Councilman Kerry Jang, who was among other city officials boycotting the event. Despite the protests and controversy, however, the Trump brothers said Vancouver was the perfect location for a new Trump enterprise. “Vancouver is truly one of the great cities of the world. It’s truly one of the most beautiful places in the world and it’s so fitting for the Trump brand,” Eric Trump said in a speech before the ribbon-cutting ceremony. Calling the building an “an architectural masterpiece,” he added: “That’s what our brand is all about. That’s what our father’s vision was all about, creating one of the most iconic buildings in the world.” In true Trump fashion, Donald Jr. opened his remarks with a light-hearted swipe at the media. “I’d like to thank the press,” he said before quickly adding: “Just kidding. Good to see you here. I’m shocked. I’m absolutely shocked.” Donald Jr. also thanked the tower’s Malaysian developer, Joo Kim Tiah, whose father is one of Malaysia’s wealthiest businessmen and who, like the U.S. president, made a fortune in real estate. “It’s great to be able to do this within a family business. I understand how that dynamic works,” Donald Jr. said. “It either works great or it is a total disaster.” The Trump Organization is licensing the name to the building and managing the hotel, but does not own it. Joo Kim, the developer, said he found it “extremely stressful” when Trump entered politics well after he signed the partnership agreement with the Trump organization. “I was terrified,” Joo Kim of the Canada-based Holborn Development company told The Associated Press last week. “The people who ran the city were not happy with me. I was scared, but I think they understand. They understand that I’m trapped into — not trapped, locked into — an agreement.” As the opening ceremony took place Tuesday inside the gleaming 69-story tower, people carrying anti-Trump signs took part in a raucous demonstration to the sound of reggae music outside. Protesters crowded the building’s entrance, including Henry Ho, who brought signs with messages that included “Dump Trump,” and “Is it 2020 yet?” “I believe a president should be at his core a good person,” the Vancouver resident said. “I don’t feel like that comes from Donald Trump.” Sue Robertson, a retiree who lives in Vancouver, said the Trump brand is associated with “evil” and said a Trump tower “does not belong in a multicultural, fabulous beautiful city.” While the Trump-branded tower is a source of anger for many, the new hotel and its namesake do have some support in the region. “President and hotel owner are two different things. If he can separate the two, all the power to him,” said Joe Taylor, a resident of British Columbia. “At least he’s got the nerve to say what’s on his mind. If people don’t like it, well, they’re not used to that.” The Trump brothers did not take questions after the ceremony, though Donald Jr. later said in a tweet that the Trump Organization had received a record number of applications to work at the tower: 10,000 applications for 300 full time jobs. A Trump Organization tweet late Monday asserted the tower was “the first property to open in the city” in over six years. But the city’s former planning director, Brent Toderian, said that wasn’t true. “I’m the former chief planner for #Vancouver. That’s so far from being true, it’s laughable,” Brent Toderian tweeted. The Trump Organization tweet was later deleted. The media was taken on a tour of the hotel, which included stops at Ivanka Trump’s spa, a view of the rooms where reporters could take a look at the protest below, and the night club. Located along an upscale six-lane downtown thoroughfare, the tower is the second-tallest in Vancouver and offers majestic mountain and ocean views. A one-bedroom apartment, at 699 square feet, starts around $1 million and the average 1,153-square-foot two-bedroom condo went for $1.7 million but has since gone up. Hotel rooms in the slow season start at around $228 ($300 Canadian). The chief White House ethics lawyers under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama have criticized Trump’s turning over control of his business to his sons, saying it does not eliminate potential conflicts of interest. Legal experts also say Trump’s overseas businesses could violate the “emoluments clause” of the U.S. constitution, which bars public officials from accepting payments or gifts from foreign governments or companies they control without the consent of Congress. A liberal-funded watchdog group has filed a lawsuit against Trump citing the clause. ___ Associated Press videographer Manuel Valdes reported this story in Vancouver and AP writer Rob Gillies reported from Toronto. AP writer Cara McKenna in Vancouver contributed to this report.

How Artificial Intelligence Is Quietly Changing How You Shop Online - TIME Business

How Artificial Intelligence Is Quietly Changing How You Shop Online

Posted: 01 Mar 2017 05:00 AM PST

The writer William Gibson once said that the future is here, just not evenly distributed. That was the case with the World Wide Web 20 years ago, when some business models – notably e-commerce and new media – took off faster than others. Now a similar trend is happening with artificial intelligence, or AI.

The promise of AI has seemingly been just on the horizon for years, with little evidence of change in the lives of most consumers. A few years ago, buzzwords like “big data” hinted at the potential, but ending up generating little actual impact. That’s now changing, thanks to advancements in AI like deep learning, in which software programs learn to perform sometimes complex tasks without active oversight from humans.

Deep learning algorithms have been powering self-driving cars and making quick progress in tasks like facial recognition. Now these innovations are beginning to find their way into the daily lives of consumers as well.

“For retail companies that want to compete and differentiate their sales from competitors, retail is a hotbed of analytics and machine learning,” says John Bates, a product manager with Adobe Marketing Cloud, which offers machine learning services in e-commerce and other industries. As with the early Web, travel and entertainment are also making early use of machine learning, according to Bates.

A spate of recent experiments and announcements underscore the trend in e-commerce. One notable example is Pinterest Lens, a Shazam-like service that conducts visual searches based on items in the everyday world. Just point your camera at, say, a piece of furniture or item of clothing and Lens can help you find it online.

Lens builds on earlier Pinterest innovations like Related Pins and Guided Search — both based on the idea that you sometimes don’t know what you’re looking for until you see it — as well as a visual search tool that can find similar images inside the billions of pins that Pinterest has collected. Related pins are served up according to a similarity score that Pinterest’s algorithms assign between images.

Lens expands on that earlier search tool beyond images to include things in the real world. Image-detection programs identify an object and visual search digs up similar images, making it easier to buy a coveted item online. The potential for this kind of product-search innovation is interesting: You can search for things that won’t fit in a standard search box, and more tightly connect things found offline with those found online.

“For shopping specifically, improvements to online discovery means new ways to find products you’re interested in but may not have the words for,” says Andrew Zhai, an engineer working on Pinterest’s visual search. “Visual discovery gives people a way to discover new brands and ways of styling that they never knew existed.”

Other e-commerce sites are also adopting deep learning to help shoppers more easily find what they seek. Gilt deploys it to search for similar items of clothing with different features like a longer sleeve or a different cut. Etsy bought Blackbird Technologies last fall to apply the firm’s image-recognition and natural-language processing to its search function.

And notably, Amazon is planning to use the AI technology it offers on its Web Services in its new Amazon Go grocery stores. The company is operating only one store in Seattle, but Chief Financial Officer Brian Olsavsky said during a February earnings call that “it’s using some of the same technologies you would see in self-driving cars: computer vision, sensor, fusion, deep learning.”

Adobe, meanwhile, is taking things a step further by letting people create images of their desired products. Working with researchers at UC Berkeley, Adobe developed an image-editing tool that can turn a crude sketch of a handbag or shoe into a photorealistic and easily tweakable image. The tool also draws on a deep database of related images to turn sketches into pictures.

Adobe’s marketing tools are also incorporating deep learning into offerings for retailers, using AI to predict customer behavior. Shoppers can choose to receive suggestions based on their shopping lists – a belt that matches a pair of pants, painting supplies to help with a can of paint, a wine paired to a dinner recipe. Programs can subtly nudge people along when they are making a big-ticket purchase online but are not ready to hit the buy button.

Subtlety is a key part of these AI-powered marketing tools. People can grow alienated if they feel retailers are snooping on their behaviors or if it comes across as a hard sell. Adobe’s AI learns from past behavior as well as trial and error to learn how to make a gentle nudge without being too pushy.

“That’s a bit of the art and science behind deep learning,” says Bates. “But that’s where a lot of these signals can be built into the algorithms. If it creates an unnatural signal or puts someone off, it can be built into the training itself.”

While deep learning is becoming a part of the retail experience, it’s happening in fits and starts, as Facebook found with chatbots. Touted as a tool that could automate customer-service functions and deepen human engagement, chatbots were added to Facebook Messenger, with more than 11,000 of them available last year. But last week, Facebook scaled back its chatbot ambitions after they clocked a 70% failure rate.

As with the early days of the Web, there remains much work to do before deep learning can be seamlessly integrated into the daily lives of consumers. Compared to expectations of even a few years ago, though, things are a lot farther along than many expected. And that suggests Silicon Valley may again be ready to change how we shop.

Yemen raid that killed 30 civilians and US Navy SEAL uncovered 'no actionable intelligence', officials say - Independent

The US raid in Yemen that resulted in the death of a Navy SEAL and up to 30 civilians reportedly uncovered "no actionable intelligence".

Although the Pentagon said the Navy SEAL raid secured laptops, hard drives and mobile phones, multiple US officials told NBC News none of the intelligence gained has been actionable or vital.

Vice President Mike Pence has denied reports the raid yielded no significant intelligence.

In an interview with CBS This Morning, Mr Pence noted that Defence Secretary James Mattis confirmed again that "significant intelligence was gathered" in the January military operation.

Mr Pence said the data Mr Owens died helping to collect will "lead to the safety and security of the American people."

Almost every big claim Trump made at address to Congress was false

William "Ryan" Owens, 36, a married father of three, was the first known US combat casualty since President Donald Trump took office.

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His widow, Carryn Owens, was a guest at Mr Trump's address to Congress earlier this week, prompting an extended standing ovation from the joint chamber.

Ryan was a part of a highly successful raid that generated large amounts of vital intelligence that will lead to many more victories in the future against our enemies," Mr Trump said, quoting Mr Mattis.

Ryan died as he lived: a warrior, and a hero, battling against terrorism and securing our nation," Mr Trump added.

The situation in Yemen

The Associated Press quoted a US official describing a three-page list of information gathered from the raid, including information on al-Qaida training techniques and targeting priorities.

But Mr Owens' death, as well as the killing of several civilians, has raised questions about the effectiveness of the raid.Mr Owens' father, Bill, has called for an investigation into the planning of the raid and criticised the Trump administration for its timing.