One of the new features in iOS 9 is the ability to train Siri to only recognize your voice so your phone doesn’t respond to commands from just anybody. According to a report from Wired, though, a pair of researchers at ANSSI—a French government agency—have figured out a way to use radio waves to silently activate Siri or Android’s Google Now from across the room.

 The hack only works if the target device has Siri or Google Now enabled, and has headphones or earbuds plugged in that also have a microphone. Wired explains, “Their clever hack uses those headphones’ cord as an antenna, exploiting its wire to convert surreptitious electromagnetic waves into electrical signals that appear to the phone’s operating system to be audio coming from the user’s microphone.”

 In theory, the attack could be used to anything you can do using the Siri or Google Now voice interaction. The attacker could make calls, send text messages, open malicious websites, send spam or phishing emails, or post to social networks like Facebook and Twitter. By placing an outbound call to the attacker’s own phone the hack could be used to surreptitiously eavesdrop on the victim.

 That’s the doomsday scenario version. Now, let’s scale it back and look at how plausible it is for an attack like this to actually work. Most of the time that you have headphones plugged in to your smartphone you’re also listening to them. When Siri or Google Now are activated—even if initiated silently over the airwaves—they typically make some sort of noise indicating that they’re ready to listen to your voice command, and they respond verbally by default so if you’re wearing the headphones you should immediately realize something suspicious is going on.

 Even if you’re not actively wearing the headphones—maybe your headphones are plugged in but the smartphone and headphones are just sitting on a table in front of you—it would be challenging to activate the virtual assistant without alerting you. The display generally comes to life and displays your request along with the response from Siri or Google now. If you’re sitting there, minding your own business, and your smartphone suddenly springs to life you’d probably notice.

 Assuming your smartphone has the headphones plugged in, but you’re not wearing the headphones to hear the voice interaction, and the smartphone is lying face down so you can’t see the interaction on the display it is theoretically possible, but still highly unlikely. The attack requires unique hardware and only has a range of between six and sixteen feet according to the researchers—depending on the size and power of the radio and antenna.

 "Additional functionality, especially concerning user convenience, has often come at the cost of some security,” stressed Gavin Reid, VP of threat intelligence for Lancope. “In this case the hack needs proximity to work and is a proof of concept needing specialized hardware. High security government equipment and installations have often come with additional shielding specifically to limit emanations and any covert channels.”

 It’s conceivable that an attacker could position the radio in a Starbucks or similar public location and generate commands to all of the devices within range and direct them to call a specific phone number that generates cash for the attacker. The odds of that happening are relatively low, though. As Reid explains, “This attack is less likely to be leveraged by the criminal underground especially with other methods much easier to implement". ||||| Siri may be your personal assistant. But your voice is not the only one she listens to. As a group of French researchers have discovered, Siri also helpfully obeys the orders of any hacker who talks to her—even, in some cases, one who’s silently transmitting those commands via radio from as far as 16 feet away.

 A pair of researchers at ANSSI, a French government agency devoted to information security, have shown that they can use radio waves to silently trigger voice commands on any Android phone or iPhone that has Google Now or Siri enabled, if it also has a pair of headphones with a microphone plugged into its jack. Their clever hack uses those headphones’ cord as an antenna, exploiting its wire to convert surreptitious electromagnetic waves into electrical signals that appear to the phone’s operating system to be audio coming from the user’s microphone. Without speaking a word, a hacker could use that radio attack to tell Siri or Google Now to make calls and send texts, dial the hacker’s number to turn the phone into an eavesdropping device, send the phone’s browser to a malware site, or send spam and phishing messages via email, Facebook, or Twitter.

 ‘The sky is the limit here. Everything you can do through the voice interface you can do remotely and discreetly through electromagnetic waves.’

 “The possibility of inducing parasitic signals on the audio front-end of voice-command-capable devices could raise critical security impacts,” the two French researchers, José Lopes Esteves and Chaouki Kasmi, write in a paper published by the IEEE. Or as Vincent Strubel, the director of their research group at ANSSI puts it more simply, “The sky is the limit here. Everything you can do through the voice interface you can do remotely and discreetly through electromagnetic waves.”

 The researchers’ work, which was first presented at the Hack in Paris conference over the summer but received little notice outside of a few French websites, uses a relatively simple collection of equipment: It generates its electromagnetic waves with a laptop running the open-source software GNU Radio, a USRP software-defined radio, an amplifier, and an antenna. In its smallest form, which the researchers say could fit inside a backpack, their setup has a range of around six and a half feet. In a more powerful form that requires larger batteries and could only practically fit inside a car or van, the researchers say they could extend the attack’s range to more than 16 feet.

 Here’s a video showing the attack in action: In the demo, the researchers commandeer Google Now via radio on an Android smartphone and force the phone’s browser to visit the ANSSI website. (That experiment was performed inside a radio-wave-blocking Faraday cage, the researchers say, to abide by French regulations that forbid broadcasting certain electromagnetic frequencies. But Kasmi and Esteves say that the Faraday cage wasn’t necessary for the attack to work.)

 Your browser does not support HTML5 video.

 The researchers’ silent voice command hack has some serious limitations: It only works on phones that have microphone-enabled headphones or earbuds plugged into them. Many Android phones don’t have Google Now enabled from their lockscreen, or have it set to only respond to commands when it recognizes the user’s voice. iPhones have Siri enabled from the lockscreen by default, but the the new version of Siri for the iPhone 6s verifies the owner’s voice just as Google Now does.1 Another limitation is that attentive victims would likely be able to see that the phone was receiving mysterious voice commands and cancel them before their mischief was complete.

 Then again, the researchers contend that a hacker could hide the radio device inside a backpack in a crowded area and use it to transmit voice commands to all the surrounding phones, many of which might be vulnerable and hidden in victims’ pockets or purses. “You could imagine a bar or an airport where there are lots of people,” says Strubel. “Sending out some electromagnetic waves could cause a lot of smartphones to call a paid number and generate cash.”

 Although the latest version of iOS now has a hands-free feature that allows iPhone owners to send voice commands merely by saying “Hey Siri,” Kasmi and Esteves say that their attack works on older versions of the operating system, too. iPhone headphones have long had a button on their cord that allows the user to enable Siri with a long press. By reverse engineering and spoofing the electrical signal of that button press, their radio attack can trigger Siri from the lockscreen without any interaction from the user. “It’s not mandatory to have an always-on voice interface,” says Kasmi. “It doesn’t make the phone more vulnerable, it just makes the attack less complex.”

 Of course, security conscious smartphone users probably already know that leaving Siri or Google Now enabled on their phone’s login screen represents a security risk. At least in Apple’s case, anyone who gets hands-on access to the device has long been able to use those voice command features to squeeze sensitive information out of the phone—from contacts to recent calls—or even hijack social media accounts. But the radio attack extends the range and stealth of that intrusion, making it all the more important for users to disable the voice command functions from their lock screen.

 The ANSSI researchers say they’ve contacted Apple and Google about their work and recommended other fixes, too: They advise that better shielding on headphone cords would force attackers to use a higher-power radio signal, for instance, or an electromagnetic sensor in the phone could block the attack. But they note that their attack could also be prevented in software, too, by letting users create their own custom “wake” words that launch Siri or Google Now, or by using voice recognition to block out strangers’ commands. Neither Google nor Apple has yet responded to WIRED’s inquiry about the ANSSI research.

 Without the security features Kasmi and Esteves recommend, any smartphone’s voice features could represent a security liability—whether from an attacker with the phone in hand or one that’s hidden in the next room. “To use a phone’s keyboard you need to enter a PIN code. But the voice interface is listening all the time with no authentication,” says Strubel. “That’s the main issue here and the goal of this paper: to point out these failings in the security model.”

 1Correction 10/15/2015 12:00pm EST: An earlier version of the story stated that Siri doesn’t have verification of the owner’s voice. In fact, that feature was introduced with the iPhone 6s. Apologies for the error. ||||| Page Not Found We're sorry. We cannot find a page that matches your request. Below are some suggestions that may assist: Return to the IEEE Xplore Home Page.

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Summary: – Using radio waves, hackers at the French government agency ANSSI say they've been able to silently trigger voice commands on any smartphone thanks to access via Google Now and Siri. Reporting in the journal IEEE, they say it's possible to operate the voice-activated command tools to do things like open malware sites, send texts or phishing emails, and even call specific phone numbers that generate cash for the hacker. But as "clever" as Wired reports this trick to be—the headphone cord is used as an antenna—it has several limitations, including that headphones with a microphone must be plugged into the jack; the hacker must be within 16 feet of the phone; and Google Now or Siri must be enabled. "Additional functionality, especially concerning user convenience, has often come at the cost of some security," Gavin Reid, VP of threat intelligence for Lancope, tells Forbes. "In this case the hack needs proximity to work and is a proof of concept needing specialized hardware." And while it's possible for people with this hardware to position themselves in crowded places such as airports and trigger some kind of attack on any qualifying phones within range, he adds that the odds are low. "This attack is less likely to be leveraged by the criminal underground, especially with other methods much easier to implement." Even so, Vincent Strubel at ANSSI says, "The sky is the limit here. Everything you can do through the voice interface you can do remotely and discreetly through electromagnetic waves." (Some 95% of Androids are open to a major hack.)


Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is the most common, complex, treatment resistant, and deadliest type of brain cancer, accounting for 45% of all brain cancers, with nearly 11,000 men, women, and children diagnosed each year. The time is now to make progress against this disease!

 The Defeat GBM Research Collaborative is a groundbreaking, research-based initiative that takes advantage of the convergence of exciting scientific advancements, an innovative business model, and support from biopharmaceutical companies to drive research forward with the aim of doubling the five-year survival rate of GBM patients. Building from the pioneering data discovered through The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and the growing commitment to true collaboration across disciplines and institutions, we have entered a new era of possibilities. All members of the Defeat GBM Research Collaborative share real-time information of one another’s cutting-edge research to quicken the pace of translating discoveries into clinical stage research—cutting years out of the traditional clinical trial research and analysis procedure. Together with your support, we can bring change today! ||||| A woman in Spain who suddenly became very religious and believed she was speaking with the Virgin Mary turned out to have a brain tumor that appears to have caused her symptoms, according to a new report of the case.

 The 60-year-old women was said to be a happy, positive person who was not particularly religious. But over a two-month period, her friends and family noticed changes in her personality and behavior. She appeared sad and withdrawn, and also showed increasing interest in the Bible and other sacred writings, the report said.

 The woman started spending hours during the day reciting religious writings. She also had mystical experiences, in which she reported seeing, feeling and talking with the Virgin Mary, the report said. [8 Ways Religion Impacts Your Life]

 Those close to her thought the woman might be experiencing depression, because she was caring for a relative with cancer at the time.

 However, when her doctors performed an MRI, they saw several lesions in her brain. After taking a biopsy from one of the lesions, doctors diagnosed the woman with glioblastoma multiforme, a particularly aggressive form of brain cancer.

 The tumors were too large to treat with surgery, so the woman received chemotherapy and radiation for the cancer. Her doctors also prescribed antipsychotic drugs for her, because some studies have suggested this class of drugs may have an anti-cancer effect on glioblastoma.

 During the woman's five-week treatment, her religious visions gradually disappeared, the report said.

 In this patient's case, "it is clear that the religious experience represented a fracture" from her prior behavior that was "not preceded by a gradual change in her thinking and acting," the researchers, from the Hospital General Universitario Morales Meseguer in Murcia, Spain, wrote in their paper, published online Dec. 12, 2016, in the journal Neurocase. "Nor was there any kind of trigger or reason [for the behavior change] except for the disease, and hence, it can be considered a clearly pathological experience," they said.

 It's not clear how often people experience "hyper-religiosity" or other behavior changes as their first symptom of a brain tumor, the researchers said. One review found that up to 22 percent of all brain tumors may first appear along with psychotic symptoms.

 From this one case, it's not possible to pinpoint the part of the brain responsible for the women's religious experience, the researchers said. But, they note that the right temporal lobe, a brain region that has previously been linked to the development of mystical experiences, also appeared to be involved in the woman's case.

 The researchers also said that, before the woman's extreme religious behavior, she did believe in God, so this "was not a case of religious conversion."

 The woman's condition quickly declined — she experienced a stroke two months after she started treatment, the report said. Eight months after her cancer diagnosis, she died due to the progression of her tumor.

 The researchers also suspect that, before her cancer diagnosis, the patient may have experienced non-convulsive seizures, possibly as a result of her brain tumor. They suspected this because of particular changes they saw in her brain scan. Some cases of hyper-religious behavior have also been reported in people with epilepsy, according to the report. However, the researchers were unable to perform tests to confirm the epilepsy diagnosis.

 Original article on Live Science.

Summary: – Her friends and family felt something was wrong: The Spanish woman went from simply believing in God to believing she was seeing and talking with the Virgin Mary. And that's not all. The 60-year-old abruptly shifted from being happy and positive to sad and withdrawn, reports Live Science. Suspecting depression, they had her see doctors, and an MRI revealed glioblastoma multiforme, the aggressive type of brain cancer that Brittany Maynard suffered from. The National Brain Tumor Society doesn't mince words, calling it "the most common, complex, treatment resistant, and deadliest type of brain cancer, accounting for 45% of all brain cancers." With tumors so big they couldn't be surgically removed, the woman was treated with anti-psychotic drugs sometimes given to glioblastoma patients and chemo and radiation over five weeks; her religious visions ultimately ceased. The doctors write in the journal Neurocase that because she previously believed in God, hers "was not a case of religious conversion." And as there was no "trigger or reason [for the hyper-religiosity] except for the disease ... it can be considered a clearly pathological experience." The researchers suggest that this is not the first such case, writing that "in some cases, religiosity can appear as a pathological correlate in patients with brain lesions"; but they present no data as to how often this might occur. The patient died eight months after being diagnosed with cancer. (This man credits Facebook for helping spot his brain tumor.)


Hedonometer

 Hedonometer.org is an instrument that measures the happiness of large populations in real time. The hedonometer is based on people’s online expressions, capitalizing on data-rich social media, and measures how people present themselves to the outside world. ||||| The most commonly used words of 24 corpora across 10 diverse human languages exhibit a clear positive bias, a big data confirmation of the Pollyanna hypothesis. The study’s findings are based on 5 million individual human scores and pave the way for the development of powerful language-based tools for measuring emotion.

 Abstract

 Using human evaluation of 100,000 words spread across 24 corpora in 10 languages diverse in origin and culture, we present evidence of a deep imprint of human sociality in language, observing that (i) the words of natural human language possess a universal positivity bias, (ii) the estimated emotional content of words is consistent between languages under translation, and (iii) this positivity bias is strongly independent of frequency of word use. Alongside these general regularities, we describe interlanguage variations in the emotional spectrum of languages that allow us to rank corpora. We also show how our word evaluations can be used to construct physical-like instruments for both real-time and offline measurement of the emotional content of large-scale texts. ||||| Jakub Halun, Wikimedia Commons

 Human language is biased toward being happy, finds a new study that identifies 10 of the world’s most upbeat languages.

 The study, published in the latest issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, supports the Pollyanna Hypothesis, which holds that there is a universal human tendency to use positive words more frequently than negative ones. Nevertheless, the findings determined that some languages tend to skew happier than others.

 Lead author Peter Sheridan Dodds of the University of Vermont’s Computational Story Lab and his team found the top 100,000 of the most frequently used words across 10 languages. The researchers then asked native speakers of the various languages to rate whether the words were “happy” or “sad” on a 1–9 scale. For example, check out these English words and their rating: laughter: 8.5, food: 7.44, truck: 5.48, greed: 3.06 and terrorist 1.3.

 “The study’s findings are based on 5 million individual human scores and pave the way for the development of powerful language-based tools for measuring emotion,” Dodds and his team wrote.

 No. 10 on the list was Chinese. Websites and books among other sources were analyzed in the study. Chinese books scored the lowest for happiness among all included sources.

Summary: – If you're in a foul mood, it might be time to learn Spanish. Languages, and the people who use them, tend to favor using positive words over negatives, researchers find, and they've learned that that's particularly true in Spanish. Experts at the University of Vermont and the MITRE Corporation went through volumes of text from all kinds of sources: books, the news, music lyrics, movie subtitles, and more, including some 100 billion words used on Twitter, UVM reports. Investigating 10 languages, they picked out the 10,000 most common words, then had native speakers rank these words on a nine-point happiness scale; "laughter," for instance, was rated 8.5, while "greed" came in at 3.06. All 24 types of sources reviewed resulted in scores above the neutral 5, meaning they leaned "happy." In other words, "people use more positive words than negative ones," a researcher says. As far as individual languages go, here are the top five happiest ones, via Discovery: Spanish Portuguese English German French Chinese came in last of the 10 languages in the study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Positive-language data has also resulted in an actual happiness meter, known as the hedonometer, UVM notes. It follows Twitter posts in English to determine when the happiest words are being used. Christmas, it shows, is a very happy day, while celebrity deaths correlate with low points. Meanwhile, Boulder, Colorado, is apparently the happiest city (at least among Twitter users), while Racine, Wisconsin, appears to be the most miserable. (If you need a lift, try changing the way you walk.)


Photo

 DES MOINES — Donald J. Trump may have some company from other candidates at his counterprogramming event here on Thursday night during the Fox News-hosted Republican presidential campaign debate.

 In an interview with MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Wednesday morning, Mr. Trump’s campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, said that he had heard from other candidates “proactively” about attending the event that Mr. Trump will hold at Drake University at the same time as the debate.

 Mr. Trump announced on Tuesday afternoon that he would skip the final debate before the Iowa caucuses, after Fox News officials issued a mocking statement about him following a day of escalating attacks. Mr. Trump had earlier said he would participate only if the moderator Megyn Kelly, with whom he clashed at the first G.O.P. debate last August, was removed.

 Mr. Lewandowski did not specify who he meant. But since there will be seven higher-polling candidates onstage at the prime-time debate in Iowa, the likeliest possibilities are among the four candidates in the undercard debate.

 Of those candidates, two — Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum — have been savaging Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, Mr. Trump’s main competition in the caucuses. Each man has previously won the Iowa caucuses — Mr. Huckabee in 2008; Mr. Santorum in 2012 — by appealing to a swath of evangelical Christians and working-class voters. Mr. Trump has most aggressively seized the populist message in this campaign.

 The other candidates in the undercard debate are Carly Fiorina and Jim Gilmore.

 Mr. Santorum and Mr. Huckabee are both in the low single digits in polls, but their voters would most likely go to Mr. Cruz if they weren’t in the race, meaning their presence is helping to keep his polling totals down.

 Aides to the candidates did not respond to requests for comment. But Nick Ryan, a Republican operative who advises the “super PAC” supporting Mr. Huckabee, tweeted shortly after the Trump event was announced that candidates in the undercard debate, which airs before the prime-time one, should consider wandering over to Mr. Trump’s event afterward.

 Find out what you need to know about the 2016 presidential race today, and get politics news updates via Facebook, Twitter and the First Draft newsletter. ||||| He also refused to reconsider his decision to sit out the network’s Thursday night debate — the last before the Iowa caucuses in five days — and said he’d move forward with his own competing event to raise money for wounded veterans.

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 Speaking on “The O’Reilly Factor,” Trump continued his long-running feud with Kelly, who he has been criticizing ever since she challenged him on his derision of women at the first GOP debate, in August.

 “I have zero respect for Megyn Kelly,” Trump said. “I don’t think she’s good at what she does and I think she’s highly overrated. And, frankly, she’s a moderator; I thought her question last time was ridiculous.”

 Kelly is also set to moderate Thursday night’s debate on Fox News.

 Trump is instead holding his own event in Des Moines at the same time as the debate that he says will raise money for wounded veterans.

 In the contentious interview with O’Reilly, Trump rebuffed the anchor’s attempts to convince him that he’s making a grave error by skipping the debate.

 “I believe personally that you want to improve the country,” O’Reilly said. “By doing this, you miss the opportunity to convince others ... that is true.

 “You have in this debate format the upper hand — you have 60 seconds off the top to tell the moderator, ‘You’re a pinhead, you’re off the mark and here’s what I want to say’. By walking away from it, you lose the opportunity to persuade people you are a strong leader.”

 But O’Reilly’s pitch fell flat with Trump. The GOP front-runner dug in his heels, insisting he intended to retaliate against the network by depriving them of ratings.

 “Fox was going to make a fortune off this debate,” Trump said. “Now they’re going to make much less.”

 O’Reilly said he was merely trying to convince Trump that his approach “is wrong because it’s better for people to see you in the debate format.”

 He gave the example from 2012, when a CNN debate moderator in South Carolina asked former Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) an embarrassing question about allegations he had an open marriage.

 Gingrich shut the moderator down and went on to win the South Carolina primary, O’Reilly noted.

 “That’s the kind of guy you are,” O’Reilly said. “You stick it to them and let them have it.”

 Responded Trump: “Newt is a friend of mine, and I thought it was an unfair question. But equally unfair was the question Megyn Kelly asked me.”

 O’Reilly then sought to appeal to Trump’s capacity to forgive, reminding the billionaire businessman that he’s a Christian, even if he doesn’t attend church all that often, and that the Bible says to “turn the other cheek.”

 Trump shot back, saying he’s a regular churchgoer and that the Bible also says “an eye for an eye.”

 “You could look at it that way, too,” Trump said.

 O’Reilly accused Trump of being “petty” and said he was allowing things that are out of his control to have outsize influence over his decisionmaking.

 “I don’t like being taken advantage of,” Trump said. “In this case I was being taken advantage of by Fox. I don’t like that. Now when I’m representing the country, if I win, I’m not going to let our country be taken advantage of. ... It’s a personality trait, but I don’t think it’s a bad personality trait.”

 O’Reilly ended the interview asking Trump to reconsider showing up Thursday night. Trump said the two had agreed beforehand that O’Reilly not ask that question.

 “I told you up front don’t ask me that question because it’s an embarrassing question for you and I don’t want to embarrass you,” he said.

 Updated at 9:17 p.m. ||||| Photo

 It was a blustery and dramatic move, 48 hours before the final Republican debate until the Iowa caucuses: Donald J. Trump stormed out in a rage at Fox News, jeopardizing the network’s ratings and overtaking political headlines.

 But the reasons for his withdrawal from the kind of high-profile forum that he has so often dominated may involve more than just hurt feelings.

 What may be the most intriguing possible explanation is that a debate, at this point in his neck-and-neck contest with Senator Ted Cruz, would almost certainly subject Mr. Trump to tough questions about vulnerabilities – like his previous support for abortion rights, or his much more recent suggestion that Iowans, the people whose votes he is courting, are stupid.

 People who have spoken with Mr. Trump insist he believes he is headed to victory here and wants to play out the clock, a view that was bolstered by a few public opinion polls this week.

 But whether he does or not, a debate – particularly one moderated by a network, and an anchor, whom Mr. Trump believes is motivated to challenge him aggressively – amounts to an uncontrollable, high-risk confrontation whose outcome could greatly affect his chances.

 The truth could be as simple as advertised: Mr. Trump was enraged when Fox News executives issued a statement mocking him as unserious over his threats to bolt the debate unless the cable channel’s anchor, Megyn Kelly – whom Mr. Trump has attacked for months – was removed as a moderator.

 It could also be seen as strategic genius. “Donald Trump knows that by not showing up, he’s owning the entire event,” Rush Limbaugh said on his radio show. “Some guy not even present will end up owning the entire event, and the proof of that is Fox News last night.”

 But for Mr. Trump, participating in a debate four nights before the Iowa caucuses would also most likely mean being pelted with many of his past remarks, in a setting in which he could not expect to dominate the microphone or the questioners.

 It would be the exact opposite, for example, of the exchange between Mr. Trump and an NBC reporter who, at the same news conference Tuesday at which Mr. Trump pulled out of the debate, tried to confront him about his previous support for abortion rights, including the late-term procedure that opponents call partial-birth abortion.

 Mr. Cruz and a well-funded group supporting him have been bombarding Mr. Trump with attack ads using footage of a 1999 interview in which he called himself “very pro-choice” and “pro-choice in all respects.” But when the NBC reporter, Peter Alexander, tried to ask Mr. Trump about that quotation, Mr. Trump repeatedly cut him off, talked over him and turned the tables on him, demanding an apology.

 Abortion is not the only subject on which Mr. Trump could be forced to defend or explain his remarks in a tough-minded presidential debate: The ads being run by Mr. Cruz, for example, also show a clip of Mr. Trump, in November, asking “how stupid” the people of Iowa must be for believing Ben Carson’s story of personal redemption.

 Mr. Trump’s debate performances debates have not always been unmitigated triumphs: While he acquitted himself well in rebutting Mr. Cruz’s denigration of what he called “New York values” in a Jan. 14 debate in South Carolina, for example, Mr. Cruz savaged Mr. Trump for much of the first half-hour.

 David Carney, a Republican strategist who ran Rick Perry’s 2012 presidential campaign, said Mr. Trump made a wise move in pulling out of the debate when he could not count on turning in a strong performance. “The debates aren’t his thing,” he said, predicting it would not hurt Mr. Trump with his supporters.

 What is undeniable is that Mr. Trump does not like feeling as if he is being backed into a corner – and that the sarcastic statement by Fox News on Tuesday bothered him greatly.

 Escalating a back-and-forth with Mr. Trump leading up to the debate, the network openly mocked him for complaining when challenged by aggressive journalists. “We learned from a secret back channel that the ayatollah and Putin both intend to treat Donald Trump unfairly when they meet with him if he becomes president,” the network said.

 Referring to Mr. Trump’s survey of his Twitter followers as to whether he should go ahead with the debate, Fox News added: “A nefarious source tells us that Trump has his own secret plan to replace the cabinet with his Twitter followers to see if he should even go to those meetings.”

 At his news conference, held in a high school in Marshalltown, Iowa, Mr. Trump called the network’s parody a “wiseguy press release,” and dared Fox News to hold the debate without him.

 “Now let’s see how they do with the ratings,” he said.

 Fox News has steadfastly stood by Ms. Kelly. Mr. Trump’s aides said they were planning a competing event in Des Moines during the debate, a fund-raiser to help wounded veterans. But his campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, seemed to leave open at least the possibility of a reversal, telling MSNBC on Wednesday morning that he “didn’t think” there was any way Mr. Trump would change his mind.

 But in the interview, Mr. Lewandowski dismissed the notion that Mr. Trump might be concerned about answering questions, and pointed out that he had already taken part in six debates.

 This is not the first time Mr. Trump has threatened to walk off a debate stage. But Mr. Trump’s earlier brinkmanship over debates came months ago, not on the eve of a vote, when it could shape the opinions of Iowa’s late-deciding caucusgoers.

 “This debate is in Iowa,” noted Kellyanne Conway, a Republican strategist and the president of the main “super PAC” supporting Mr. Cruz. If it were anywhere else, she said, the flap with Fox News might not add up to much. But voters here are paying attention.

 Still, exactly what they are taking away from the standoff is unclear.

 Matt Strawn, a former chairman of the Iowa Republican Party, said he saw no sign yet that it would cut into Mr. Trump’s support.

 “Those voters have been drawn to him because he’s willing to flout” establishment rules, Mr. Strawn said.

 Would the timing of the dispute make a difference? “Like most of the Donald Trump experience over the last 12 months,” he said, “we’re all going to learn together.” ||||| @TomLlamasABC @ABCPolitics Replying to @NoLimitCracka @NoLimitCracka @TomLlamasABC @ABCPolitics If you would read his books you would know. You like most people...just get spoon fed by media. ||||| 20:44

 Bernie Sanders wasted no time pointing out that while he may have just come to this evening’s rally from the Oval Office, Hillary Clinton is at a fundraiser with wealthier financiers and Jon Bon Jovi back east.

 “My opponent is not in Iowa tonight, she is raising money from a Philadelphia investment firm,” he told the packed crowd in Mason City. “I would rather be in Iowa.”

 “Here we are again facing the machine,” says actress and activist Susan Sarandon as she introduces Sanders by recalling campaigning against Clinton for Obama eight years ago. “This is not about gender; this is about issues.”

 There was no mention of Bill Clinton, however, who is just two miles away at a rival rally on his wife’s behalf at exactly the same time.

 Instead, Sanders is devoting an unusually large portion of his speech to attacking Donald Trump, who he clearly sees now as just as much of an opponent as Clinton.

 As the overseas media begins turning up in large numbers to the event, Sanders also reminds the audience of the recent debate in the British parliament about whether Trump should even be allowed into the country.

 “Think about how this man is going to deal with the world when he can’t even deal with our strongest ally,” says Sanders. ||||| Megyn Kelly posing in GQ Magazine. | POLITICO Screen grab Trump attacks 'bimbo' Kelly for GQ photo shoot

 Donald Trump continued his onslaught on Fox News host Megyn Kelly on Thursday, retweeting a follower who criticized a photo shoot she did for GQ Magazine.

 “And this is the bimbo that’s asking presidential questions?”, the tweet said. It included two photos of Kelly posing provocatively and the following text: “Criticizes Trump for objectifying women ... Poses like this in GQ Magazine.”

 Story Continued Below

 Trump’s ongoing feud with Kelly was one of the reasons behind Trump’s decision to hold a competing event in Des Moines on Thursday night, though he now maintains that a mocking Fox statement was what ultimately drove him out of the debate:

 It was the childishly written & taunting PR statement by Fox that made me not do the debate, more so than lightweight reporter, @megynkelly. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 27, 2016

 On Wednesday, Trump went after Kelly during an interview with Fox News host Bill O'Reilly, reiterating his view that she was biased against him and vowing not to be "taken advantage of" by the network. ||||| poster="http://v.politico.com/images/1155968404/201601/1202/1155968404_4724402687001_video-still-for-video-4724350894001.jpg?pubId=1155968404" true Fox's O'Reilly pleads with Trump to reconsider debate boycott 'I submit to you that you need to change and get away from the personal,' O'Reilly tells the real estate mogul in a testy interview.

 Donald Trump on Wednesday night testily tangled with Bill O’Reilly as the Fox News host asked Trump to reconsider his decision to boycott the Thursday night GOP debate. The real estate mogul and Republican poll leader refused to budge.

 “I want you to consider,” O’Reilly pleaded with Trump, asking him to say, “I might come back, forgive, go forward, answer the question, look out for the folks, just consider it.”

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 Trump shot back that the question was out of bounds. “We had an agreement that you wouldn’t ask me that,” he said.

 O’Reilly conceded that Trump was telling the truth, and gave him credit for coming on his show, but said the American people need to hear from the man who has a good chance of becoming the Republican nominee.

 “You could absolutely secure this Republican nomination,” the Fox News host said. “I submit to you that you need to change and get away from the personal.”

 But O’Reilly peppered his words of encouragement with insults, accusing Trump of “walking away” and getting sidetracked by petty disputes.

 “I don’t like being taken advantage of,” Trump said, referencing his grievance with Fox’s refusal to remove Megyn Kelly as a moderator from the debate, after Trump accused her of being biased against him. “I’m not going to let our country be taken advantage of,” Trump added, citing the Iran deal as a prime example.

 Trump is so far defying skeptics who are dismissing his declaration that he will boycott Thursday night’s debate as a mere bluff, as he forges ahead with an alternate plan to raise funds for veterans that threatens to soak up media attention in the days before the Iowa caucuses.

 The real estate mogul, still steaming from his feud with Fox News and Kelly, refused to heed O’Reilly’s advice to “turn the other cheek,” saying “it’s called an eye for an eye.”

 Speaking at a South Carolina rally that occurred before the O’Reilly appearance aired, but after it was taped, Trump called it a “tough interview” but promised that his rival event in Des Moines raising funds for veterans would be a great one.

 “We’re going to raise a lot of money for the vets,” said a boisterous Trump, donning his signature red “Make America Great Again” cap.

 Trump’s staying of the course comes after speculation grew on Wednesday about whether he was really going to sit out the primetime showdown, or if it was all a bunch of bluster.

 Doubters, including some of his rivals, saw either a shrewd maneuver that directed an inordinate amount of media attention on him as the GOP field tried to make their closing arguments to caucus-goers, or a clever gimmick that allowed Trump to avoid harsh questioning as he’s come under increased fire for his shifting position on issues such as abortion.

 "I've got a $20 bet he shows up," Jeb Bush said during a town hall in Des Moines Wednesday afternoon.

 "I expect to see Trump on stage tomorrow," tweeted John Kasich's campaign manager, John Weaver.

 “Donald Trump will be at the debate,” Ted Cruz spokesman Rick Tyler Tyler predicted. “Mark my words.”

 Even Kelly, the Fox debate moderator who is the focus of Trump’s ire, called him out. “I will be surprised if he doesn’t show up, Donald Trump is a showman, he’s very good at generating interest, perhaps this is an effort to generate interest in our debate, if it is that is great, maybe we will have more eyeballs, if he doesn’t show up maybe we will have fewer eyeballs, but either way it is going to be ok,” Kelly told “Extra.”

 Trump’s decision to once again wage war on Fox and Kelly so close to the Iowa caucuses is either a shrewd one or a boneheaded one, depending on who you ask. While some are contending that Trump risks coming off as a coward walking away from a fight, it’s undeniable that he’s robbing the media oxygen from his rivals.

 Trump earlier on Wednesday showed no outward signs of relenting, citing a bitter relationship with Fox News and Kelly. The real estate mogul also sent out to the media a few scant details about his rival event for Thursday evening – a "Donald J. Trump Special Event to Benefit Veterans Organizations" at Drake University in Des Moines.

 But there were a few indications that he might soften his stance: A Twitter poll he posted asking whether he should participate in the debate urged him to appear, with 56 percent of the 157,864 votes saying he should do the debate.

 Then, on Wednesday afternoon, he revealed that he still planned to appear Wednesday night on Bill O'Reilly's Fox News program.

 Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski told CNN Wednesday evening that his boss was still appearing on the show because “when we make a promise, we keep it,” except for when Trump is treated unfairly. He also said he has had no conversations with Fox News CEO, and that, to the best of his knowledge, neither has Trump.

 The tiff apparently started after Trump tried to pressure Fox News to boot Kelly as one of the moderators, claiming there was no way she could be unbiased. Kelly gained heightened notoriety after pointedly asking Trump at the first debate about his supposed “war on women.” (O’Reilly on Wednesday night defended the question as “within journalistic bounds.”)

 But Fox refused to give in, issuing a biting press statement on Tuesday saying, “We learned from a secret back channel that the Ayatollah and Putin both intend to treat Donald Trump unfairly when they meet with him if he becomes president — a nefarious source tells us that Trump has his own secret plan to replace the Cabinet with his Twitter followers to see if he should even go to those meetings.”

 Fox doubled down after Trump’s declaration of a boycott, issuing a statement Tuesday night that accused Lewandowski of threatening the network with "terrorizations" of Kelly.

 “In a call on Saturday with a Fox News executive, Lewandowski stated that Megyn had a ‘rough couple of days after that last debate’ and he ‘would hate to have her go through that again,’” the network alleged.

 The Republican National Committee took an above-the-fray position on the developing drama on Wednesday afternoon, noting that Rand Paul, too, opted to skip a debate -- the undercard debate earlier this month.

 “We’d love all candidates in," said Sean Spicer, the RNC's communications director, in an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer on Wednesday afternoon. "I think it’s a great opportunity for the American people, and particularly the people in Iowa, to have an understanding of each of these candidates’ vision. But, Wolf, at the end of the day, each campaign has to make up their own mind as to what’s in their best interest so we respect that decision."

 Spicer added that he anticipates Fox will not show Trump's empty lecturn on screen.

 Conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh, meanwhile, sided with Trump on the dispute. "Fox News was acting like they had been jilted at the altar," Limbaugh said on Wednesday.

 Nobody since the Kennedy family has had such an outsize influence on the media, Limbaugh mused to listeners. And the Kennedys "are pikers compared to the way Trump is doing this," he added.

 "Screw the rules, he's saying," Limbaugh remarked, according to a transcript, talking through Trump's reasoning. "Why should I willingly give them another shot at me in a circumstance they control, why should I do it? What's the sense in it for me? I'm leading; I'm running the pack here; why in the world should I put myself in that circumstance? I've already seen what's gonna happen."

 Trump on Wednesday morning slammed Fox for its allegations against him, saying on Twitter, “The statement put out yesterday by @FoxNews was a disgrace to good broadcasting and journalism. Who would ever say something so nasty & dumb.”

 He also lobbed an attack on Kelly, tweeting, “I refuse to call Megyn Kelly a bimbo, because that would not be politically correct. Instead I will only call her a lightweight reporter!”

 Lewandowski himself dismissed Fox as being an unfair broker and tried to dispel the notion that Trump is worried that a final debate before the caucuses could expose weaknesses in his candidacy.

 Trump is "the best debater on the debate stage, we know this, he’s the clear winner, he has been by every debate poll that’s taken place,” he said on “Morning Joe.”

 "He’s not afraid to debate. I want to be very clear about this," he said. "He’s done more television, more radio, than all of the other candidates combined. And so, he’s not afraid to answer questions. He’s on your show all the time, he was on yesterday. But the bottom line is, you have people that aren’t going to be fair and ask questions the American people want to talk about, and instead they want to make this about themselves. And that’s what this is about, and it’s a shame.”

 Asked about Cruz's call for a one-on-one debate before Monday's caucuses in Iowa, Lewandowski said the Texas senator's campaign was not the only one to reach out asking whether it could participate in the alternate event Trump’s campaign was setting up.

 “Well, look, he’s not the only one. We’ve had calls from many debates, from many of the candidates now, to say look, why would we participate in the Fox debate as well? I think what you’re finding out, once again, you have the candidates reacting to the only true leader in this race, which is Donald Trump," Lewandowski claimed.

 One veterans group signaled it has no interest in partnering with Trump for his counterprogramming event. Paul Rieckhoff, CEO of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, tweeted that Trump shouldn't be rewarded for his antics.

 "If offered, @iava will decline donations from Trump's event," he wrote. "We need strong policies from candidates, not to be used for political stunts."

 The Wounded Warrior Project said in an email to POLITICO on Wednesday afternoon, "We are not aware of any fundraising efforts on our behalf with Mr. Donald Trump."

 It’s not clear how a resolution would be brokered between Trump and Fox, and Lewandowski kept up the war of words on Wednesday evening, telling CNN it was a pretty simple decision for Trump to boycott the debate.

 “It's very simple: he's able and willing to debate but he's not going to do it if the network is not going to be fair,” he said.

 Nick Gass contributed to this report.

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 This feature is not available right now. Please try again later. ||||| DES MOINES, Iowa — Hollow or not, Donald Trump’s threat to boycott the final GOP forum before Iowa votes has complicated Ted Cruz’s game plan, forcing the Texan to prepare for two different debates — one in which he tangles directly with the front-runner and another that sets up the senator as the largest target on stage.

 With hours until debate time, Cruz’s campaign still says it thinks Trump’s pledge to skip the forum is a stunt. “Donald Trump will be at the debate,” Cruz spokesman Rick Tyler Tyler predicted. “Mark my words.”

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 In advance of the last pre-Iowa showdown, Cruz spent the day Wednesday holed up in debate preparations with his top brass. Campaign manager Jeff Roe, chief strategist Jason Johnson, Cruz's pollster and others all descended on Iowa ahead of the final five-day push to the caucuses.

 If Trump sees through his promise to hold a rival event Thursday, the Cruz camp will use it as fresh ammunition for an assault on the New Yorker’s character, casting their fiercest rival for the GOP nomination as too emotional and self-centered to be trusted with the White House.

 “What people will understand is Donald Trump, if he’s not there, made an emotional decision,” Tyler said. “That fits his erratic behavior, based on grievances that are petty and small. That’s what people will see.”

 “He’s put himself first and the country second. Or third or fourth or somewhere,” Tyler added.

 Cruz and Trump have been locked in what’s become a two-man race for first place in the first state, but polls suggest Trump has the momentum. The Manhattan businessman has led all but one of the 11 public polls in Iowa that have been released since the Des Moines Register/Bloomberg poll in early January showed Cruz with a narrow 3-point lead.

 Cruz, a collegiate championship debater, clearly wants another shot at Trump. He immediately challenged him to a “mano-a-mano” debate after Trump announced his withdrawal. “Can we do it in Canada?” Trump mocked him on Twitter.

 For Cruz, Trump’s threatened absence means that the other candidates who trail him in Iowa, such as Marco Rubio and Rand Paul, have only one leader to fire upon: him.

 Paul, whose sagging showing in the polls caused him to miss the last debate, has been itching to take on Cruz. On Wednesday, Paul ripped Cruz for his more hawkish stands on foreign affairs in an email to his supporters. Trump’s nonappearance, Paul said on Fox News, should give him more time to make all his arguments.

 “It’s sort of a double win for me; not only am I on the main stage, but we don’t have to put up with a lot of empty blather and boastfulness and calling people names,” Paul said.

 Rubio has telegraphed his interest in going after Cruz’s past work as a lawyer for a Chinese company accused of stealing intellectual property from an American firm. The issue has yet to come up at a debate, but Rubio hammered Cruz for it earlier this week in Des Moines.

 “When Ted Cruz had to choose as a lawyer, he was choosing to represent the Chinese,” Rubio told reporters. “You can’t go around saying you’re tough on China but then have a legal record in which you were paid a lot of money to defend the Chinese who had taken a product away from an American — unjustly, unfairly and illegally.”

 The attack is a familiar one for Team Cruz. His 2012 Senate race opponent, David Dewhurst, used it aggressively. In a twist, the Dewhurst strategist who crafted those broadsides is now Cruz’s campaign manager, Roe.

 There are other echoes of Cruz’s 2012 contest. In that race, Cruz mercilessly mocked Dewhurst for not doing enough debates and events with him, even sending someone in a duck outfit to trail him. Cruz touted the DuckingDewhurst.com domain then; after Trump’s treat, Cruz began promoting DuckingDonald.com.

 Cruz wasn’t the only one hunkered down in a prep for an uncertain debate. The campaign trail in Iowa was far quieter than normal just days from the caucuses. Two of Cruz’s top surrogates, Rep. Steve King and former Gov. Rick Perry, campaigned without him during the day, holding events in Burlington and Iowa City.

 Cruz was scheduled to headline an evening rally in West Des Moines. Rubio’s lone public event was also an evening rally, scheduled only five miles away.

 But all eyes remain on Trump, who holds a rally and then is scheduled to appear on Fox’s Bill O’Reilly program late Wednesday, despite his boycott of the network’s debate the next night. Rival campaigns plan to tune in to see whether Trump, who mused about walking out on past debates but never followed through, reverses course.

Summary: – It's GOP debate night, and the million-dollar question is whether Donald Trump will show. It turns out there's also a 1.5 million-dollar question on the table. The latest: In a Wednesday night interview with Bill O'Reilly, Trump didn't come close to budging. The Hill recounts the many ways O'Reilly tried to convince him: He said "turn the other cheek," and Trump replied, "Eye for an eye." O'Reilly ended the interview by asking Trump a question that the two had apparently agreed wasn't to be asked, per Politico. If he does indeed skip, the New York Times reports he might not be the only one. Still not using the word "bimbo" himself, Politico notes that Trump retweeted a follower's shot at Megyn Kelly over a provocative GQ photo shoot she did: "And this is the bimbo that’s asking presidential questions?" Ted Cruz apparently didn't spend Wednesday fighting zombies. Politico reports he hunkered down for debate prep, aware that if Trump is out, the target is on his back. Cruz also turned up the heat on his "mano a mano" debate invite to Trump, reports the Guardian. Cruz has named a place, time, and potential facilitators and "sweetened the deal" by noting two super PAC donors will hand $1.5 million to veterans charities if Trump shows. What the Trump camp had to say about the money, to Tom Llamas of ABC: "desperate," "dirty." At the New York Times, Maggie Haberman has the "most intriguing possible explanation" for Trump's planned no-show: He knows he's ahead in Iowa and "wants to play out the clock" rather than face tough questions. The Times references the "furious discussions" going on about all this, including a conversation between Trump's daughter Ivanka and Fox News CEO Roger Ailes.


Is Justin Bieber still holding a candle for Selena Gomez?

 The Biebs apparently issued a very subtle message to his famous ex in his new music video for "What Do You Mean?" And leave it to those Beliebers to spot the blink-and-you'll-miss-it-moment.

 In the skate park scene at the end of the video, the name Selena can almost be seen spray painted among graffiti on the wall (while the words "Hope" and "Love" are featured prominently). See for yourself around 04:00, on the far right side of the frame. Can you spot "Selena"?

 ETonline has reached out to Bieber's camp for comment.

 This isn't the first time he's publicly called out his ex. At one point in the music video for "Where Are U Now," the phrase "Where R Now Selena" flashed across the screen.

 Odds are high that "What Do You Mean?" was inspired by JB's relationship with Gomez. In an interview with On Air With Ryan Seacrest earlier this year, Bieber confessed, "I think a lot of my inspiration comes from [Selena]... It was a long relationship that created heartbreak and created happiness and a lot of different emotions that I wanted to write about. There's a lot of that on this album." ||||| These crawls are part of an effort to archive pages as they are created and archive the pages that they refer to. That way, as the pages that are referenced are changed or taken from the web, a link to the version that was live when the page was written will be preserved.Then the Internet Archive hopes that references to these archived pages will be put in place of a link that would be otherwise be broken, or a companion link to allow people to see what was originally intended by a page's authors.The goal is to fix all broken links on the web . Crawls of supported "No More 404" sites. ||||| Published on Sep 2, 2015

 Justin Bieber talks to Jimmy about the emotions that led to his tearful 2015 MTV Video Music Awards performance.

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 Justin Bieber Explains Why He Got Emotional During the VMAs

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Summary: – Justin Bieber appeared on the Tonight Show last night to talk about his first album in three years and ended up explaining the tearful end to his VMAs performance on Sunday. "It was just so overwhelming for me, everything, just the performance—I missed some cues so I was a little disappointed at that—and just everyone, just the support," the 21-year-old said, per People. "Honestly, I just wasn't expecting them to support me in the way they did," he added. "Last time I was at an award show I was booed." Bieber also touched on his past troubles. "I had a bunch of knuckleheads around me, that was pretty much it," he said. "You have to test the waters. I just happened to be in the spotlight, in front of cameras all the time, and they caught all those moments." Bieber then pointed at the crowd, asking, "You didn't have those moments?" Jimmy Fallon's response: "Not as much as you did." The Biebs' new album drops Nov. 13. His first single, "What Do You Mean," has already hit the top of the charts in 89 countries, Fallon said. (And there might be a secret message for Selena Gomez in the video.)


President Trump Donald John TrumpDACA recipient claims Trump is holding ‘immigrant youth hostage’ amid quest for wall Lady Gaga blasts Pence as ‘worst representation of what it means to be Christian’ We have a long history of disrespecting Native Americans and denying their humanity MORE said Tuesday he would "love" to see a government shutdown if Democrats do not agree to his demands on immigration.

 "We’ll do a shutdown and it’s worth it for our country. I’d love to see a shutdown if we don’t get this stuff taken care of," Trump told law enforcement officials and members of Congress at the White House.

 During impromptu remarks at an event on immigration, Trump said Democrats must accept new border-security measures to keep out people trying to enter the country illegally.

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 “If we have to shut it down because the Democrats don’t want safety and, unrelated but still related, they don’t want to take care of our military, then shut it down," the president added. "We’ll go with another shutdown.”

 Trump's saber rattling came as lawmakers are rushing to meet a Thursday deadline to fund the government.

 His tough talk stands in stark contrast to optimism on Capitol Hill about the chances of averting a shutdown.

 Republican and Democratic leaders in the Senate announced earlier Tuesday they were close to a two-year budget deal, which does not include immigration language.

 "Speaks for itself," Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer Charles (Chuck) Ellis SchumerProtecting our judiciary must be a priority in the 116th Congress Baldwin's Trump plays 'Deal or No Deal' with shutdown on 'Saturday Night Live' Sunday shows preview: Shutdown negotiations continue after White House immigration proposal MORE (D-N.Y.) said when asked to respond to Trump's comments.

 "We had one Trump shutdown. Nobody wants another, maybe except him."

 Rep. Barbara Comstock Barbara Jean ComstockDems win Virginia state Senate special election Dem rep asks for asks for pay to be withheld during shutdown New Dem lawmaker hangs trans flag outside office on Capitol Hill MORE (Va.), a vulnerable Republican who represents a district outside of Washington, D.C., with many federal workers, rebuked Trump after he welcomed a shutdown.

 “We don't need a government shutdown on this,” she told Trump during the meeting. “I think both sides have learned that a government shutdown is bad.”

 Comstock said there is bipartisan support for cracking down on violent gangs such as MS-13, which was the focus of Tuesday’s meeting.

 Trump cut off the Virginia lawmaker and doubled down on his willingness to stage a shutdown.

 “We have to get that, they are not supporting us,” the president said. “You can say what you want. We are not getting support of the Democrats.”

 Trump has vented his frustration that Democrats have refused to accept his sweeping immigration plan. The proposal would offer a path to citizenship for as many as 1.8 million immigrants who came to the U.S. illegally as children in exchange for billions of dollars for a wall along the southern border and steep cuts to legal immigration.

 Democrats and some Republicans have objected to making significant to changes to the U.S. visa system, while conservative GOP lawmakers have balked at a citizenship path.

 Trump has framed the offer as Congress's best chance to save the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which he scrapped last year.

 While the president in the past has floated the possibility of extending the March 5 deadline to end the program for young immigrants, White House chief of staff John Kelly John Francis KellyMORE on Tuesday poured cold water on that idea.

 If lawmakers do not agree to an immigration deal before Thursday's government funding deadline, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell Addison (Mitch) Mitchell McConnellDACA recipient claims Trump is holding ‘immigrant youth hostage’ amid quest for wall Former House Republican: Trump will lose the presidency if he backs away from border security Pence quotes MLK in pitch for Trump's immigration proposal MORE (R-Ky.) has said he would hold an open debate on the issue.

 — This report was updated at 3:45 p.m. ||||| Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (left) and Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy arrive to meet with reporters following a closed-door GOP strategy session at the Capitol on Tuesday. | J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo House GOP passes stopgap bill to avoid shutdown But the Senate is expected to rewrite the measure — and potentially lift stiff budget caps.

 The House passed a stopgap bill Tuesday to prevent another government shutdown, as a broader budget deal appeared increasingly within reach on Capitol Hill.

 Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer met privately on Tuesday to discuss lifting stiff spending caps as part of the short-term funding package, according to sources in both parties briefed on the talks. The top four congressional leaders believe they are close to clinching a budget deal that significantly boosts defense and domestic spending and ends the cycle of temporary funding measures.

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 The bill passed by the House, 245-182, would boost Pentagon spending over the next eight months while funding nondefense programs at current levels — and then only until March 23.

 The “defense-only” approach was an easy win in the House, where droves of GOP conservatives and defense hawks have been begging Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and his leadership team for months to vote on just such a plan.

 But many of those same House Republicans acknowledged the bill is doomed in the Senate, since Democrats want any increases in defense and nondefense spending levels to be equal.

 “From the very beginning of the budget debate, Democrats have made our position in these negotiations very clear,” Schumer said on the Senate floor Tuesday. “We support an increase in funding for our military and our middle class. The two are not mutually exclusive. We don’t want to do just one and leave the other behind.”

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 The Senate is likely to rewrite the House bill to eliminate the extra defense funding, but a repeat of last month’s federal government shutdown is not expected.

 White House chief of staff John Kelly told reporters on Tuesday he didn’t think there would be another government shutdown.

 “I don’t know. I don’t think it’s going to happen, no. Yeah, I guess I’m optimistic,” Kelly said.

 President Donald Trump, meanwhile, called for a government shutdown Tuesday if Congress is unable to pass what he considers adequate border-security measures.

 “If we don’t get rid of these loopholes where killers are allowed to come into our country and continue to kill … if we don’t change it, let’s have a shutdown,” Trump said at a White House roundtable focused on the gang MS-13. “We’ll do a shutdown, and it’s worth it for our country. I’d love to see a shutdown if we don’t get this stuff taken care of.”

 Immigration, however, is not a major issue in the current spending debate on Capitol Hill.

 And a budget caps deal could ease all the drama surrounding the Senate vote, as all four congressional leaders and the White House would have to be in agreement for such a spending deal to occur. It would outline budget levels for the next two years, although there will still be fights over specific policy concerns within the annual appropriations bills.

 The deal is expected to bust budget caps by $300 billion for domestic and defense programs over the next two years. It would also achieve near parity between defense and domestic funding increases — a key priority of Democrats — and approach $150 billion in new defense spending to satisfy hawks, according to a person briefed on the talks.

 Leaving a House GOP strategy meeting Tuesday morning, Rep. Mark Amodei (R-Nev.) said lawmakers are prepared for the bill to “ping-pong” back to the House with changes from the Senate. And if the Senate strips out the extra defense money, House Republicans will be forced to embrace that rewrite or risk another shutdown come midnight Thursday.

 “The history’s pretty clear. If they need to send something back, we usually hug it pretty quick,” said Amodei, a member of the House spending panel. “Let’s not bulls—- each other. The Republicans in the House may be in the majority, but it’s like — when we talk about what the heck hits the president’s desk — it doesn’t feel like we’re in control.”

 The House Freedom Caucus voted Monday night to band together in support of House GOP leadership’s spending plan. But the conservative group’s chief, Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), said “the majority” of his caucus plans to oppose the measure if it returns without defense funding at a level of $659.2 billion.

 Meadows said the group doesn’t plan to take an official position against a stripped-down version, though, potentially enabling House leaders to pick off a few of those conservative lawmakers as “yea” votes if the measure does indeed return with changes from the Senate.

 “I think there’s a fair amount of skepticism in terms of: ‘Ultimately, will this produce a different result?’” Meadows said. “But it’s the best play call we have today.”

 The Senate likely won’t hold its passage vote until Wednesday or Thursday; another House vote would come shortly after.

 House Democrats plan to head to their annual strategy retreat Wednesday and will likely be called back to Washington for a final vote to prevent a shutdown.

 Making the plan harder for Democrats to oppose, the GOP bill includes two years of funding for the Community Health Centers program, a permanent repeal of the Medicare cap on therapy services and other provisions that generally have bipartisan support.

 Yet Senate Democrats continue to make clear they have no interest in the House GOP plan.

 “We’ve made very clear that to get past sequester, you’ve got to raise the caps on both,” said Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee. “We’re for an increase in defense. But we’re not going to ignore everything from opioids to veterans hospitals to education to cancer research and all those things.”

 Burgess Everett and Seung Min Kim contributed to this report.

 ||||| Top Senate leaders were working Tuesday to finalize a sweeping long-term budget deal that would include a defense spending boost President Trump has long demanded alongside an increase in domestic programs championed by Democrats.

 As negotiations for the long-term deal continued, the House passed a short-term measure that would fund the government past a midnight Thursday deadline and avert a second partial shutdown in less than a month.

 The House bill, which passed 245 to 182, would fund most agencies through March 23 but is a nonstarter in the Senate because of Democratic opposition.

 But the top Senate leaders of both parties told reporters earlier in the day that a breakthrough was at hand on a longer-term budget deal. Spending has vexed the Republican-controlled Congress for months, forcing lawmakers to rely on multiple short-term patches.

 “We’re on the way to getting an agreement and on the way to getting an agreement very soon,” said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

 Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) echoed him, “I am very hopeful that we can come to an agreement, an agreement very soon.”

 From left, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) at an event honoring Bob Dole last month. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)

 Despite the optimism, no agreement was finalized with less than three days until Thursday’s deadline. And even as congressional leaders were sounding an upbeat note, Trump was raising tensions by openly pondering a shutdown if Democrats did not agree to his immigration policies.

 “I’d love to see a shutdown if we don’t get this stuff taken care of,” Trump said at a White House event focused on crime threats posed by some immigrants. “If we have to shut it down because the Democrats don’t want safety . . . let’s shut it down.”

 Trump’s remarks appeared unlikely to snuff out the negotiations, which mainly involved top congressional leaders and their aides — not the president or his White House deputies — and have largely steered clear of the explosive immigration issue.

 White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Tuesday afternoon that Trump was not pushing for the inclusion of immigration policies in the budget accord, something that would upend the sensitive talks.

 “I don’t think that we expect the budget deal to include specifics on the immigration reform,” she said. “But we want to get a deal on that.”

 The agreement McConnell and Schumer are contemplating, with input from House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), would clear the way for a bipartisan accord that would break through the sharp divides that helped prompt a three-day government shutdown last month.

 Under tentative numbers discussed by congressional aides who were not authorized to speak publicly about the negotiations, defense spending would get an $80 billion boost above the existing $549 billion in spending for 2018. Nondefense spending would rise by $63 billion from its current $516 billion. The 2019 budget would include similar increases.

 “Democrats have made our position in these negotiations very clear,” Schumer said on the Senate floor Tuesday. “We support an increase in funding for our military and our middle class. The two are not mutually exclusive. We don’t want to do just one and leave the other behind.”

 Among the other issues that could be addressed in the deal is an increase in the federal debt limit, which could be reached as soon as early March, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The aides said that an increase was being discussed in the negotiations but that no final decisions have been made.

 “It’s a question of what the traffic will bear,” said Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), the No. 3 Senate GOP leader, describing the likelihood of a debt-ceiling increase.

 [House Republicans eye defense spending boost, complicating plan to avoid second shutdown]

 A disaster aid package aimed at the victims of recent hurricanes and wildfires is also part of the talks, potentially adding $80 billion or more to the deal’s overall price tag. That provision could help win support from lawmakers representing affected areas in California, Florida and Texas but further repel conservatives concerned about mounting federal spending.

 Even the rumors of a coming deal were enough to send some hard-liners reeling.

 “This is a bad, bad, bad, bad — you could say ‘bad’ a hundred times — deal,” said Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), a co-founder of the House Freedom Caucus. “When you put it all together, a quarter-of-a-trillion-dollar increase in discretionary spending — not what we’re supposed to be doing.”

 If the parties cannot reach an agreement in the next two days, it is unclear how a shutdown might be averted.

 Multiple House Republicans said Tuesday that if the Senate takes their spending bill and substitutes its version with a significant boost for domestic programs, they could not vote for it. House Democrats, meanwhile, have showed only limited willingness to help pass temporary spending measures absent a broader agreement.

 Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), the Freedom Caucus chairman, said a broad deal encompassing a debt-limit increase and a huge disaster package would be “considered a lead balloon” among hard-line conservatives. “It’d get zero support” from the caucus, he said, aside from a member or two representing states affected by the disasters.

 Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told members of the House Armed Services Committee on Tuesday that Congress should “not let disagreements on domestic policy continue to hold our nation’s defense hostage.” He warned that a failure to pass long-term funding would imperil troop paychecks, inhibit the maintenance of planes and ships, stunt recruiting and otherwise harm military readiness.

 “To carry out the strategy you rightly directed we develop, we need you to pass a budget now,” he said.

 The House bill would increase Pentagon funding to $584 billion and guarantee it through Sept. 30, while the rest of the government would continue to be funded at 2017 levels through March 23.

 The bill would also provide two years of funding for the federal community health-center program, which lapsed last year and is at risk of running out of spending authority, and it would extend several other programs.

 [Shutdown ends after Democrats agree to trust that McConnell will allow ‘dreamer’ vote]

 The bill also would affect many other moving parts in the health-care system. It would postpone planned cuts in funding to hospitals that treat an especially large share of poor patients, eliminating reductions in “disproportionate share” payments for this year and 2019 and shifting the $6 billion in reductions to 2021 through 2023.

 Amy Goldstein and Paul Sonne contributed to this report.

 Read more at PowerPost

Summary: – With the prospect of another government shutdown looming this week, President Trump entered the fray with some headline-making comments: “I’d love to see a shutdown if we can’t get this stuff taken care of,” Trump said, referring to his demands for tougher border protection. “If we have to shut it down because the Democrats don't want safety ... let's shut it down.” The president made the impromptu comments at a gathering of law enforcement officials at the White House, reports the Hill, which notes that they're in contrast to reports of progress between Democrats and Republicans on a deal to avert a shutdown at midnight Thursday. As the Washington Post notes, both Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer earlier said they were optimistic about reaching a deal that would include big increases for the Pentagon and domestic programs. The House is expected to vote later Tuesday on legislation that Politico describes as the "opening salvo" in the bid to avert a shutdown. In his comments, Trump also seemed to reference the death over the weekend of an NFL player being blamed on an undocumented immigrant accused of drunken driving. “If we don’t get rid of these loopholes where killers are allowed to come into our country and continue to kill ... if we don’t change it, let’s have a shutdown."


Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings.

 / Updated By Herb Weisbaum

 Ever wonder what’s going to come in that mail today? Will you get your sister’s wedding invitation? Is this the day your IRS refund check finally arrives?

 Informed Delivery, a free service from the U.S. Postal Service, lets you see what will be in your mailbox that day. Sign up and you’ll receive an email each morning with actual size black and white images of the front side of the letters and cards to be delivered.

 Informed Delivery, a new and free service from the Post Office, lets you see what will be in your mailbox that day. usps.com

 Knowing when that check really is “in the mail” could change how you plan your day. You might want to get home in time to deposit it.

 The service has been available in Northern Virginia since 2014. The pilot program was later expanded to parts of California, Connecticut, Maryland, New York, Virginia, and Washington, D.C.

 Bob Dixon, the executive program director for Informed Delivery, told NBC News the feedback was “tremendously positive,” so it’s being rolled out nationally in mid-April. A USPS survey found that nine out of 10 people who signed up for the service checked their Informed Delivery notifications every day.

 What's in the Mail?

 Feedback from the pilot program showed that Informed Delivery was popular with people who had roommates. This way, everyone in the household knows what they should expect that day, no matter who goes to the mailbox.

 It’s also been a hit with people who travel and want to know what’s in their mail, even if they can’t physically retrieve those letters.

 Christopher Ebert is CEO of Ophelia Myth Media, which is based in New York and London, so he is always on the go. He’s used Informed Delivery for about two years and likes the way it helps him stay more aware and more in control.

 “My life is largely digital,” he wrote NBC News in an email. “Having the ability to see my mail deliveries right on my phone keeps me connected.”

 Integrating the physical and digital is a smart move, according to Miro Copic, a marketing professor at San Diego State University.

 “This makes postal mail more interesting to millennials, who are on their devices all day long,” Copic said. “And it just might change the equation of how millennials think about the post office longer term.”

 A Few Specifics

 Informed Delivery is for residential mail customers and you must sign up for it at InformedDelivery.USPS.com. It is not currently available for mail delivered to P.O. boxes.

 Only 10 images will be sent via the daily email notification. If you receive more than 10 pieces of first-class mail, you’ll get 10 images and a link to see the rest. These images are available for seven days.

 Notifications are sent Monday through Saturday on days that mail is processed. If for some reason a piece of mail is not handled via automation, an image cannot be sent.

 The Postal Service does not open any mail. This is simply a digital scan of the address side of the envelope. And those images will only be emailed to the person to whom the letter was sent.

 If all the mail in one household is delivered to one mailbox, those who share the residence and the mailbox will receive the same images for all the mail delivered to that household.

 If you get an image of a letter, but not the physical piece itself, Informed Delivery makes it easy to report that missing mail to the Postal Service. The image can help speed up the process of finding what’s missing.

 Why Give Snail Mail a Digital Twist?

 In a world of instant communication, the U.S. Postal Service is searching for ways to remain relevant and increase revenue. Mail volume has dropped dramatically during the last 10 years. USPS reports that it handled 61.2 billion pieces of first class mail in 2016, down from 98 billion in 2006.

 Informed Delivery gives it a way to reach the growing number of Americans who’ve shifted to digital communications.

 “Our emerging consumers, younger folks, are digital natives. That’s how their communications are coming to them,” Dixon said. “We also know that if we can get those folks to the mailbox, they’ll spend longer with each piece of mail than someone who has a long history of mail usage. So the benefit to us is that we continue the relevance of mail in a very digital world and we provide access to the consumers for those mail pieces.”

 This scanning technology has been in place since the 1990s. It’s part of the automation process that sorts the mail. This is a way for USPS to leverage something it’s already doing. This digital presence also gives the Postal Service a way to deliver digital advertising. For now, it will be a free bonus for companies that use the mail.

 Prof. Copic thinks the Postal Service has found a way to add value for both mail customers and potential advertisers by offering something that no other service provides.

 “It’s an opportunity for the Post Office to work with marketers to make their offers more appealing and interesting and to reduce the decline of mail being delivered,” he said. “It opens an opportunity that allows them to play with the big boys in direct marketing, rather than being on the sidelines.”

 USPS policy will strictly limit that advertising. It must be related to a piece of mail sent to you that day. For example: If you’re getting a frequent flier statement, the airline could have a link for a special offer sent to you along with the image of their envelope. But you’ll never see an ad for something that’s not already a physical piece of mail in your mailbox, USPS assures customers.

 “We don’t want to create spam,” Dixon told NBC News. “We don’t want to create a channel that’s got a lot of noise in it for consumers. Physical mail cuts through the digital clutter and we don’t want to add digital clutter to this channel.”

 Security Implications

 Mail theft is a serious problem. It’s one of the common ways identity thieves get personally identifying information to commit their crimes. Informed Delivery can help you spot a problem in real time.

 If an important piece of mail that was supposed to be delivered isn’t in the mailbox — a credit card bill, tax document or financial statement — you can assume it was stolen or delivered to the wrong address and start working to find out what happened. With identity theft, the quicker you discover a problem, the faster you can move to manage the damage.

 These email notifications can be a double-edged sword, cautioned Adam Levin, co-founder of the digital security firm CyberScout.

 “If your account is compromised, criminals will know when something of value that they can cash, charge or use for the purpose of exploiting your identity is coming to your mailbox and be there to grab it before you do,” Levin told NBC News. “That’s why it’s imperative that you use a long and strong password for a service like this. It also needs to be a unique password that you don’t share or use for any other websites.”

 Herb Weisbaum is The ConsumerMan. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter or visit The ConsumerMan website. ||||| Starting in 1996, Alexa Internet has been donating their crawl data to the Internet Archive. Flowing in every day, these data are added to the Wayback Machine after an embargo period. ||||| New USPS Service Gives You A Peek Into Your Mailbox Before You Get Home

 Enlarge this image toggle caption Courtesy of U.S. Postal Service Courtesy of U.S. Postal Service

 In the spring of my senior year of high school, I took daily trips to the mailbox. It might have been the only time in my life when I knew for a fact that any day, letters with my name on them would appear in the mailbox from colleges that had read through my hopeful applications.

 It's this excitement that Bill McAllister, the Washington correspondent for a stamp publication called Linn's Stamp News, calls the "mail moment." It's the feeling you have when mail arrives, knowing that you could be receiving a handwritten letter, or, in my case, a college acceptance.

 But this moment is no longer a common experience for McAllister.

 "The amount of mail — single-piece first-class mail — has dropped so dramatically that there isn't much magic in the daily mail anymore for most people," he says. "And that's a rather sad thing."

 Now a new service by the U.S. Postal Service called Informed Delivery might be an attempt, he says, to get back the magic of that moment.

 On April 14, the Postal Service is set to launch a nationwide service that allows users, in a sense, to peek at their mail before it arrives in their mailbox.

 Users will have the option of getting an email with photos of the front of card- and letter-size mail pieces that are due to arrive that day, or a day or two later. The email is sent on days when mail is being processed and delivered. It shows up to 10 grayscale images in each email with a link at the bottom to see the rest.

 Users can also view the images for seven days on their dashboard, which they can find on informeddelivery.usps.com.

 Right now, the program is available to select addresses only, as shown on the map.

 Enlarge this image toggle caption Courtesy of U.S. Postal Service Courtesy of U.S. Postal Service

 Bob Dixon, the executive program director of Informed Delivery, says the program was first piloted in Northern Virginia in 2014 and sprang from a program to help post office box customers know when they had something in their P.O. box.

 He says participants in specific scenarios — like roommates who misplaced each other's mail or people who traveled frequently — found the daily messages helpful.

 "I and many people manage their life through a cellphone or tablet or some other digital medium," Dixon says. "As we become busier and busier, it's important to have things in one place."

 Scanning mail is not a new thing. Since the 1990s, the Postal Service has been taking photos of the exterior of most mail pieces to sort and route the mail. In 2013, The New York Times reported that the USPS "occasionally provides the photos to law enforcement agencies that request them as part of criminal cases."

 McAllister, who wrote a piece on this new feature in Linn's Stamp News, says it's hard to find usefulness in a new aspect of a product that's not significant in one's daily life to begin with.

 "Most urgent mail or messages that you get this day tend to come by telephone or email," he says. "That has become the way most people communicate, and letters, sadly, aren't just as important as they used to be."

 McAllister previously wrote a stamp and coin column for The Washington Post for 19 years, where he says he covered the Postal Service as the Internet was growing.

 "There were people down there who just basically thought the Internet was nothing, that it was a fad and would go away, and it wouldn't impact mail," he says. "But it has. It has impacted mail dramatically."

 Dixon says he knows the Postal Services' consumers are very digitally engaged.

 "We also know that mail is still one of the highest response rate channels there is for marketing messages," he says. "It's important for us because we want to be able to continue to demonstrate the relevance of mail but provide that convenience of a digital response channel."

 And maybe it will. Dixon, as one of Informed Delivery's first users, says when he was traveling and was informed of a jury notice, he was able to ask his son to pull the letter out of his stack of mail that was piling up on the kitchen table in his absence.

 It's situations like these, he says, where people can use the service to plan ahead for the day.

 So the reality of the service is that it might not always be magical. It's not often that I see something in the mail that I'm genuinely excited to tear open.

 But Dixon is hoping that by marrying mail with the convenience of digitized notifications, mail will at least stay relevant.

 Cecilia Mazanec is an NPR digital news intern.

Summary: – Anyone who’s waited by the mailbox for an important letter or much-needed paycheck will want to be first in line for a new free service USPS is rolling out widely in mid-April. Residential customers who sign up for Informed Delivery will receive a daily email with high-quality photo scans of their incoming envelope fronts, reports NBC News. The emails display up to 10 images—if there are more than 10 on a given day, the rest can be viewed via a link that stays active for seven days. After receiving “tremendously positive” feedback in pilot test runs, executive program director Bob Dixon says the program has been particularly appealing to people living with roommates, since they’re not always first to retrieve their daily mail. Frequent travelers are another group utilizing the service, which Dixon personally attests to as one of Informed Delivery’s first users. He tells NPR that he was able to flag a jury duty summons while on the road and asked his son to set it aside so it didn’t get lost in a towering mail pile. With the rate of mail delivery declining (61.2 billion pieces of first-class mail were handled by USPS in 2016 compared to 98 billion in 2006), the service is one way the post office is innovating and trying to remain relevant. "Our emerging consumers, younger folks, are digital natives," Dixon says. "That's how their communications are coming to them." USPS has opened sign-up for Informed Delivery at: informeddelivery.USPS.com. (Finland's postal service tried to innovate in a different way.)