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“If you get along and if Russia is really helping us, why would anybody have sanctions if somebody’s doing some really great things?” he said.

But Mr. Trump’s diplomatic efforts will have to compete with those in Congress, including many Republicans, who want to see the administration take a tough line with Russia after U.S. intelligence concluded that the government of Mr. Putin sought to influence the November presidential election with a campaign of cyberhacking.

Asked if he supported the One China policy on Taiwan, Mr. Trump said: “Everything is under negotiation including One China.”

n an hourlong interview, Mr. Trump said that, “at least for a period of time,”

It added, “we urge relevant parties in the U.S. to fully recognize the high sensitivity of the Taiwan question, approach Taiwan-related issues with prudence and honor the commitment made by all previous U.S. administrations.”

“We sold them $2 billion of military equipment last year. We can sell them $2 billion of the latest and greatest military equipment but we’re not allowed to accept a phone call. First of all it would have been very rude not to accept the phone call.”

“Our companies can’t compete with them now because our currency is strong and it’s killing us.”

Later that night, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) said during a CNN town hall that he was working closely with the president-elect to repeal the health-care law but shot down the idea that there would be a “deportation force” to remove illegal immigrants from the U.S. Mr. Trump had said during the campaign that there would be such a force.

Mr. Trump weighed in on the latest development of the issue that dominated the end of the campaign.

In another matter, Mr. Trump during Friday’s interview described a special council, made up of 15 to 20 builders and engineers, t

“I have had discussions with him on this issue,” General Mattis said. “He has shown himself open, even to the point of asking more questions, going deeper into the issue.”

The diplomats said they had heard him sound off during the campaign. But with the inauguration less than a week away, there is a growing realization in European capitals that Mr. Trump’s acerbic criticism of NATO and the European Union was not just an attempt to win votes.

Although the office didn't respond to a question about why the tweet was sent out when it was, it came a day after Trump tweeted praise of a business and encouraged people to shop there. Thank you to Linda Bean of L.L.Bean for your great support and courage. People will support you even more now. Buy L.L.Bean. @LBPerfectMaine— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 12, 2017

Shaub — a political appointee of President Obama in his fourth of a five-year term and a career civil servant — described Trump's announced plans to turn over management of his businesses to his sons as "meaningless" as it relates to conflicts of interest.

Over the weekend, Senate Democrats released a letter Shaub sent raising alarms about nominees who hadn't completed their ethics reviews being scheduled for confirmation hearings.

The ethics agency director ended the letter, "For as long as I remain Director, OGE's staff and agency ethics officials will not succumb to pressure to cut corners and ignore conflicts of interest."

Conflict-of-interest laws that apply to executive branch employees don't apply to the president. Trump has made it clear he believes he is going above and beyond what is required by law, but Shaub and others have been quite critical of those steps, saying they are insufficient.

"The Oversight Committee has not held one hearing, conducted one interview, or obtained one document about President-elect Donald Trump's massive global entanglements," Cummings said in a statement,

This also comes after House Republicans pushed to reduce the influence of the independent Office of Congressional Ethics

If he actually has principles to guide him through those famous swamps he plans to drain, that’s alarming, not reassuring. Bad principles are not a good substitute for no principles. Four or eight years of bad principles may make no principles look pretty good.

Dean’s own forecast for the next four years is arguably much grimmer. He is not only convinced that Trump will be worse than Nixon in virtually every way—he thinks he’ll probably get away with it.

In Trump, Dean says he has observed many of his former boss’s most dangerous traits—obsessive vengefulness, reflexive dishonesty, all-consuming ambition—but none of Nixon’s redeeming qualities.

Unchecked, Dean worries, these neo-Nixonian instincts will only grow stronger once Trump enters the Oval Office—a place where every occupant since Nixon has found new ways to expand his authority and further his reach.

Hang on when Trump and his crew fully appreciate the extraordinary powers they will have—it is not only going to be thrilling, but dangerous.”

“I don’t think Richard Nixon even comes close to the level of corruption we already know about Trump.”

Yet, he’s profoundly pessimistic about the prospect of Trump facing any true accountability while in office. In the four decades since Nixon resigned, Dean says, the institutions that are meant to keep a president’s power in check—the press, Congress, even the courts—have been rendered increasingly weak and ineffectual by a sort of creeping partisan paralysis.

Dean believes the American electorate has become desensitized to political scandal. In the years immediately following Watergate, he said,  politicians were on high alert, and so was the public. But since then, that culture of vigilance has so eroded that it’s nearly impossible now to envision a sin so grave, or a revelation so explosive, that it would lead to the ouster of a sitting president.

“The Trump campaign is an interesting measure of how high the tolerance has gotten for a public figure’s misbehavior,” he said, citing the candidate’s now-infamous comments on the leaked Access Hollywood tape as just one example.

Dean says Trump will almost certainly weather whatever storms he faces during his presidency. “Unless Trump is a such a disaster that the public rises up and changes control of Congress in the mid-term elections, he is very safe.”

“By nature, I am an optimist,” he told me. “But Trump as president is going to be about surviving disaster.”

n both the 2014 and 2015 reports, just over half of all attacks took place in five countries

The Taliban replaced the self-proclaimed Islamic State as the number-one global perpetrator for terrorism attacks, with 1,093, which represents an alarming increase of 69 percent since 2013.

The biggest surprise was the removal of the Somali group al-Shabaab from the top-five list of perpetrators, that outfit having been responsible for the third-most attacks in 2014

The most consequential and troubling revelation is the reach and estimated size of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). According to the State Department, “AQAP has since consolidated its control over Al Mukalla and has expanded its reach through large portions of Yemen’s south,

owever, this is still fewer than the average number that have tragically been killed each year since 9/11, 27. The location of international attacks on U.S. citizens increased from six countries to 11, with the new countries being Bangladesh, France, Jordan, Jerusalem, Libya, and Mali.

“Because China’s SSBNs [nuclear missile submarines] are in the South China Sea, the US navy will try to send spy ships in there and get close to the SSBNs. China’s navy hates that and will try to push them away,” Wu said.

Warheads and missiles would be put together and handed over to the navy, allowing a nuclear weapon to be launched much faster if such a decision was taken. The start of Chinese missile patrols could further destabilise the already tense strategic standoff with the US in the South China Sea.

China has been working on ballistic missile submarine technology for more than three decades, but actual deployment has been put off by technical failures, institutional rivalry and policy d

Behind the ominous warnings is growing concern in the People’s Liberation army that China’s relatively small nuclear arsenal (estimated at 260 warheads compared with 7,000 each for the US and Russia), made up mostly of land-based missiles, is increasingly vulnerable to a devastating first strike, by either nuclear or conventional weapon

The decision to deploy Thaad anti-ballistic interceptors in South Korea was taken after North Korea’s fourth nuclear test, and the stated mission of the truck-launched interceptors is to shield the south from missile attack.

China is developing a similar missile but officials in Beijing fear that the Chinese nuclear arsenal is so small it could be almost completely wiped out without notice, with the few missiles launched in reprisal being destroyed in mid-air by US missile defences.

There seems to have been some discussion of moving to a “launch on warning” policy, to fire Chinese weapons before incoming missiles land and destroy them. That appears to be a minority view, however

The core aim is to have a second strike capacity that is “survivable” and “penetrative”. Submarines, on patrol in the ocean depths, fulfil the first requirement, they say.

Partly to help penetrate US missile defences, China has in recent months also started putting multiple warheads on its largest missile, the DF-5, another development that has set alarm bells ringing in the Pentagon, where some analysts view it as the first step towards a massive nuclear armament drive aimed at obliterating the US arsenal.

Evidence for China’s more “relaxed” approach is the length of time it took to deploy multiple warheads, two decades after developing the necessary technology. China has similarly taken decades to deploy nuclear missile submarines.

The slow pace has not just been for practical reasons. China’s guiding principle has been to have a capacity for “minimum means of reprisal” while minimising the chance of accidental or unauthorised launch.

However, to follow the British Royal Navy model – in which each Trident submarine commander has a signed letter from the prime minister in his safe, to open in the event of a strike on London – would entail a huge leap in the alert status of the Chinese nuclear arsenal, and a similarly huge delegation of responsibility to one of the armed forces.

Our foundation of Earth knowledge, largely derived from historically observed patterns, has been central to society’s progress. Early cultures kept track of nature’s ebb and flow, passing improved knowledge about hunting and agriculture to each new generation. Science has accelerated this learning process through advanced observation methods and pattern discovery techniques. These allow us to anticipate the future with a consistency unimaginable to our ancestors.

But as Earth warms, our historical understanding will turn obsolete faster than we can replace it with new knowledge. Some patterns will change significantly; others will be largely unaffected

The list of possible disruptions is long and alarming.

Historians of the next century will grasp the importance of this decline in our ability to predict the future. They may mark the coming decades of this century as the period during which humanity, despite rapid technological and scientific advances, achieved “peak knowledge” about the planet it occupies

One exception to this pattern-based knowledge is the weather, whose underlying physics governs how the atmosphere moves and adjusts. Because we understand the physics, we can replicate the atmosphere with computer models.

But farmers need to think a season or more ahead. So do infrastructure planners as they design new energy and water systems

The intermediate time period is our big challenge. Without substantial scientific breakthroughs, we will remain reliant on pattern-based methods for time periods between a month and a decade. The problem is, as the planet warms, these patterns will become increasingly difficult to discern.

The oceans, which play a major role in global weather patterns, will also see substantial changes as global temperatures rise. Ocean currents and circulation patterns evolve on time scales of decades and longer, and fisheries change in response. We lack reliable, physics-based models to tell us how this occurs.

Our grandchildren could grow up knowing less about the planet than we do today. This is not a legacy we want to leave them. Yet we are on the verge of ensuring this happens.

But Trump is apparently attempting to delegitimize our federal judiciary by calling Judge James Robart, a George W. Bush-appointed judge, a "so-called" judge while arguing that his decision is "ridiculous."

The President truly appears to be leading a master class in transforming the United States into a dictatorship. Trump -- and it's fair to assume it is by design -- has sought to undermine anyone or anything that tries to counter him.

The practical result is that when the media calls out Trump's lies and presents objective facts to counter him, his followers will likely dismiss the media reports and instead side with Trump.

hen Trump went after our intelligence agencies because he didn't agree with their views on Russia's involvement in our recent election. Trump lashed out, calling these agencies, charged with gathering information for our national security, "disgraceful" and accusing them of leaking information, comparing it to "something that Nazi Germany would have done."

But this time it's far more disturbing given Trump is not a candidate, but president of the United States. The rationale must be assumed to be the same, namely that Trump wants to delegitimize the judiciary so that court decisions Trump disagrees with will be viewed by his followers as at the least horribly partisan, or at worst invalid.

Would

Trump do the same if he had passionately disagreed with the Court's decision or would he simply ignore it while attacking the legitimacy of our judiciary, sparking a constitutional crisis? And would certain Trump-supporting federal agency heads, or even federal officers, refuse to follow court orders (or at least do it very slowly) because Trump has convinced them the federal judiciary's decisions cannot be trusted?

And according to a CNN/ORC poll, while Trump has only a 44% approval rating overall, 90% of Republicans think he's doing a good job.

Trump's concerted attacks to delegitimize our media, our intelligence community and now our federal judiciary would have no doubt alarmed them. And it should be terrifying to every American who truly believes in our Constitution and in the promise of America.

Where is the Republican red line when it comes to Trump? It is too early to determine, but not too early to consider. Trump’s theory of governing, as it develops, could be a direct and serious challenge to American institutions.

On the issues that seem to matter most to Trump — immigration and trade — America’s chief executive has extraordinary powers. He can end trade agreements and impose tariffs unilaterally. He can impose immigration changes up to limits that he is not even approaching.

We are discovering how many presidential limits are rooted in respect for norms rather than obedience to laws.

After two weeks, we can be certain of two things: To Trump, norms mean nothing. To America, they matter greatly.

Known for their strict focus on Islamic law, the Salafis often talk of reviving medieval Islamic corporal punishments, restricting women’s dress and the sale of alcohol, and cracking down on heretical culture.

Salafi leaders described their decision in part as a reaction against the presidential candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood, the powerful and established Islamist group that now dominates Parliament. Though more moderate than the Salafis, the Brotherhood also favors the fashioning of an explicitly Islamic democracy in Egypt, and on social and cultural issues the group is closer to the Salafis than Mr. Aboul Fotouh is.

a spokesman for the Salafi group, acknowledged a big difference with Mr. Aboul Fotouh over his understanding of a verse of the Koran declaring, “There is no compulsion in religion,” which he interprets to mean that the state should not compel people to follow religious rules. But such compulsion “in reality is not possible now” in any case, Mr. Shahat said.

Leading Salafis hinted in recent days that they did not expect quick fulfillment of their goals for a state governed by Islamic law. Instead , they wanted a president who could deal with Egypt’s pressing needs while allowing them freedom to preach and advocate.

the Salafi endorsement also appeared to provide an unexpected validation for Mr. Aboul Fotouh’s argument that mixing preaching and politics would be “disastrous” for both Islam and Egypt,

Although the Salafis are more conservative on many cultural issues, they also typically disapprove of the Muslim Brotherhood’s emphasis on internal obedience and orthodoxy.

Mr. Aboul Fotouh has explained that his candidacy and his expulsion from the Brotherhood are part of a larger dispute over whether in a democratic Egypt the Brotherhood should control its own political party, or instead go back to its roots in preaching and charity while its members apply their own values to political life.

he has alluded to threats to the credibility of religious leaders in the unseemly day-to-day of political life, ranging from the appearance of compromises in the interest of power to more vivid embarrassments

The overlap between what’s partisan politics and what’s missionary is disastrous for the religious mission and a disaster for the party as well,” Mr. Aboul Fotouh said of the Brotherhood in the El Rahma interview. “They will see in the future the result of this threat, which is a threat to the homeland and to religion.

Mr. Aboul Fotouh also speaks fluently in the language of Salafis. He has talked at greater length and in greater detail about what Islamic law demands than the other Islamist candidates, including those of the Muslim Brotherhood, who fear alarming moderates. Among other things, he often argues that the first priorities in advancing Islamic law should be individual freedom and social justice.

he argued that Egyptian Muslims were not waiting for a president to teach them to follow their faith. They wanted a president to develop their agriculture and industry, as he said Islamic law also required.

Mr. Aboul Fotouh, who spent more than six years in jail for his Brotherhood leadership, brought to the competition for the Salafi vote a special authenticity. Many Salafi leaders came out of the Islamist student movement that Mr. Aboul Fotouh led in the 1970s, before he and some others from the student group joined and revitalized the Brotherhood.

In Seattle, New York, and the United Kingdom, the firm has set up automated “lockers” in drug stores and convenience stores. If you order something from Amazon and you work near one of these lockers, the company will offer to drop off your item there. On your way home from work, you can just stop by Rite Aid, punch in a security code, and get your stuff.

I’m a frequent Amazon shopper, and over the last few months I’ve noticed a significant improvement in its shipping times. As a subscriber to Amazon’s Prime subscription service, I’m used to getting two-day shipping on most items for free. But on about a third of my purchases, my package arrives after just one day for no extra charge. Sometimes the service is so speedy it seems almost magical. One Friday afternoon last month, I ordered three smoke alarms, and I debated paying extra for shipping so that I could install them over the weekend. The $9 per item that Amazon charges for Saturday delivery seemed too steep, though, so I went with standard two-day service. The next morning, the delivery guy arrived with my smoke detectors. I’d gotten next-day Saturday service for free

I suspect that, over the next few years, next-day service will become its default shipping method on most of its items. Meanwhile it will offer same-day service as a cheap upgrade. For $5 extra, you can have that laptop waiting for you when you get home from work. Wouldn’t you take that deal?

Order something in the morning and get it later in the day, without doing anything else. Why would you ever shop anywhere else?

Worldwide, solar and wind capacity now tops 300 gigawatts, three times as much as the total capacity in Britain, or roughly as much electricity as 50 nuclear reactors, nearly half the number now operating in the United States. Most of this renewable capacity has been installed in just the last five years. In fact, over that period, solar capacity has been growing by over 50 percent a year, wind by 25 percent.

The cost of photovoltaic cells has fallen by two-thirds in three years. Today, solar energy costs around 15 cents a kilowatt-hour in the United States. In some regions, like Southern California, the cost of solar power is nearly on par with what consumers pay for electricity now.

U.S. officials draw a distinction between cyber espionage and cyberattacks, which have a destructive or manipulative purpose and could be considered an act of war.

It has recruited talent from Microsoft, Google, Amazon.com and Myspace and is using a powerful, multiplatform approach to predicting consumer behavior that could raise its standing among investors and clients.

Acxiom has its own classification system, PersonicX, which assigns consumers to one of 70 detailed socioeconomic clusters and markets to them accordingly. In this situation, it pegs Mr. Hughes as a “savvy single” — meaning he’s in a cluster of mobile, upper-middle-class people who do their banking online, attend pro sports events, are sensitive to prices — and respond to free-shipping offers.

Analysts say companies design these sophisticated ecosystems to prompt consumers to volunteer enough personal data — like their names, e-mail addresses and mobile numbers — so that marketers can offer them customized appeals any time, anywhere.

Acxiom maintains its own database on about 190 million individuals and 126 million households in the United States. Separately, it manages customer databases for or works with 47 of the Fortune 100 companies. It also worked with the government after the September 2001 terrorist attacks

This year, Advertising Age ranked Epsilon, another database marketing firm, as the biggest advertising agency in the United States, with Acxiom second.

it’s as if the ore of our data-driven lives were being mined, refined and sold to the highest bidder, usually without our knowledge — by companies that most people rarely even know exist.

if marketing algorithms judge certain people as not worthy of receiving promotions for higher education or health services, they could have a serious impact.

“Over time, that can really turn into a mountain of pathways not offered, not seen and not known about,”

Unlike consumer reporting agencies that sell sensitive financial information about people for credit or employment purposes, database marketers aren’t required by law to show consumers their own reports and allow them to correct errors.

ACXIOM’S Consumer Data Products Catalog offers hundreds of details — called “elements” — that corporate clients can buy about individuals or households, to augment their own marketing databases.

the catalog also offers delicate information that has set off alarm bells among some privacy advocates, who worry about the potential for misuse by third parties that could take aim at vulnerable groups. Such information includes consumers’ interests — derived, the catalog says, “from actual purchases and self-reported surveys” — like “Christian families,” “Dieting/Weight Loss,” “Gaming-Casino,” “Money Seekers” and “Smoking/Tobacco.” Acxiom also sells data about an individual’s race, ethnicity and country of origin. “Our Race model,” the catalog says, “provides information on the major racial category: Caucasians, Hispanics, African-Americans, or Asians.” Competing companies sell similar data.

“At the same time, this is ethnic profiling,” he says. “The people on this list, they are being sold based on their ethnic stereotypes. There is a very strong citizen’s right to have a veto over the commodification of their profile.”

race coding may be incorrect. And even if a data broker has correct information, a person may not want to be marketed to based on race.

In its system, a store clerk need only “capture the shopper’s name from a check or third-party credit card at the point of sale and then ask for the shopper’s ZIP code or telephone number.” With that data Acxiom can identify shoppers within a 10 percent margin of error, it says, enabling stores to reward their best customers with special offers. Other companies offer similar services. “This is a direct way of circumventing people’s concerns about privacy,” says Mr. Chester of the Center for Digital Democracy.