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The National Security Agency will no longer be able to collect phone records in bulk starting Nov. 29, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said in a statement Friday.The program's closure was required by the USA Freedom Act, signed by President Barack Obama in early June. The program was allowed to continue since then as part of a six-month wind-down period, in which intelligence officials could create and test a new phone records program where the government can only obtain records connected to a specific entity like a person or device that is associated with a foreign power or terrorist group.Some Senate Republicans, led by Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and 2016 presidential candidate Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, tried to delay the program’s official end this month in the wake of the Paris terrorist attacks. But despite support from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), the effort got no traction in Congress.

The NSA has requested that some officials continue to have access to data already collected by the agency for “technical” purposes — but not intelligence analysis— for another three months, according to ODNI. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court is currently reviewing that request, ODNI said.A federal court issued an order earlier this month holding the program unconstitutional and barring the collection of phone metadata pertaining to one California attorney and his law practice. However, after authorities argued that implementing the order would require the early shutdown of the whole program, a federal appeals court stayed the ruling.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia executed Shiite Muslim cleric Nimr al-Nimr on Saturday. Hours later, Iranian protestors set fire to the Saudi embassy in Tehran. On Sunday, the Saudi government, which considers itself the guardian of Sunni Islam, cut diplomatic ties with Iran, which is a Shiite Muslim theocracy. To explain what’s going on, the New York Times provided a primer on the difference between Sunni and Shiite Islam, informing us that “a schism emerged after the death of the Prophet Muhammad in 632” — i.e., 1,383 years ago. But to the degree that the current crisis has anything to do with religion, it’s much less about whether Abu Bakr or Ali was Muhammad’s rightful successor and much more about who’s going to control something more concrete right now: oil.

In fact, much of the conflict can be explained by a fascinating map created by M.R. Izady, a cartographer and adjunct master professor at the U.S. Air Force Special Operations School/Joint Special Operations University in Florida. What the map shows is that, due to a peculiar correlation of religious history and anaerobic decomposition of plankton, almost all the Persian Gulf’s fossil fuels are located underneath Shiites. This is true even in Sunni Saudi Arabia, where the major oil fields are in the Eastern Province, which has a majority Shiite population. As a result, one of the Saudi royal family’s deepest fears is that one day Saudi Shiites will secede, with their oil, and ally with Shiite Iran.

This fear has only grown since the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq overturned Saddam Hussein’s minority Sunni regime, and empowered the pro-Iranian Shiite majority. Nimr himself said in 2009 that Saudi Shiites would call for secession if the Saudi government didn’t improve its treatment of them.

With a few days before major Republican primaries in states such as Florida and Ohio, the Republican establishment has turned their attention to creative ways to defeat conservative businessman Donald J. Trump, who appears to be unstoppable. Now, it’s been confirmed that a major group of Republican donors and insiders are working hard to convince former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (a Republican) to run for President! Apparently, the plan is to have her run as an independent. But that could change if the Republican convention in Cleveland ends up being a hotly contested, brokered convention.

The group believes Rice is the only candidate that polls well enough to be a serious candidate in a three-way race between Trump and Hillary Clinton. Her favorability is high… at least 15% higher than her negatives in every battleground state. Plus, Rice is a minority who could win over voters that traditionally don’t vote for Republicans. Rice would have until early May to make a decision and turn in the thousands of signatures required in individual states to appear on the ballot.

A Detroit judge has ruled against releasing Volkswagen AG manager Oliver Schmidt, who is awaiting trial over the VW emissions scandal in the US. The German national represented a "serious" flight risk, the judge said.

The 48-year-old Schmidt is set to stay in detention until the start of his trial in January 2018, according to the Thursday court ruling. He faces eleven felony counts over accusations that Volkswagen (VW) cheated on emission tests for diesel cars. The fraud and conspiracy charges carry a maximum of 169 years in prison. "The allegations of fraud and conspiracy in this case are very, very serious," said Judge Sean Cox of the US District Court for Eastern Michigan. There was "a serious risk" that Schmidt would not appear before the court if released, he added. Among other things, Schmidt is accused of lying to US officials. He allegedly claimed that technical problems were to blame for discrepancy between diesel emissions in road and laboratory tests. The company later admitted to using a software tool to manipulate the results. Schmidt is one of several VW executives who face charges in the US. He worked as the carmaker's emissions compliance manager. He ran a VW office in Detroit between 2012 and 2015 and later returned to Germany. He was arrested at Miami airport in January 2017 after vacationing in Florida and Cuba. He pleaded not guilty before the Detroit court. Sentence milder in Germany

Elite U.S. forces are operating on the ground in Yemen against the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) and Al-Qaeda, the Pentagon confirmed on Wednesday.“U.S. forces have conducted multiple ground operations and more than 120 strikes in 2017,” U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Florida, said in a statement.