Shifting from the drone policy of the Obama administration, President Donald Trump has given the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) new authority to conduct drone attacks against suspected militants, anonymous U.S. officials said. The new policy is in contrast to that of former President Barack Obama that limited the CIA's paramilitary role, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday. Under the Obama administration, the CIA used drones and other intelligence resources to locate suspected terrorists and then the military conducted the actual strike. Although Obama pushed for the use of drones, he kept the military in place to conduct the actual strike. During Obama's two terms, a total of 563 strikes, largely by drones, targeted Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen compared to 57 strikes under George W. Bush, according to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism.

WASHINGTON – U.S. President Donald Trump has given the Central Intelligence Agency new authority to conduct drone attacks against suspected militants, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday, citing U.S. officials. The move would be a change from the policy of former President Barack Obama's administration of limiting the CIA's paramilitary role, the newspaper reported. The White House, the U.S. Department of Defense and the CIA did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Obama had sought to influence global guidelines for the use of drone strikes as other nations began pursuing their own drone programs. The United States was the first to use unmanned aircraft fitted with missiles to kill militant suspects in the years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington.

Critics of the targeted killing program question whether the strikes create more militants than they kill. They cite the spread of jihadist organizations and militant attacks throughout the world as evidence that targeted killings may be exacerbating the problem.

Traffic jams that clog up roads and slow down travel are the biggest problems many cities face. Rising incomes and growing aspirations convince many middle-income households to yearn for cars, which adds to the problem. Hangzhou, one of the most connected cities in China, intends to solve traffic woes with the help of artificial intelligence. The city is teaming up with Alibaba Cloud, the cloud computing arm of Alibaba Group, to install a new smart-traffic management system. Using its AI and big data analytics capabilities, Alibaba Cloud is able to provide real-time traffic recommendations and travel routes based on video and image recognition technologies.

National Grid is reportedly in talks with Google's machine-learning company DeepMind to see how the British firm's artificial intelligence (AI) technology can be used to help manage supply and demand and across the energy system. Speaking to the Financial Times (£), DeepMind chief executive Demis Hassabis said the company was in the "early stages" of discussions with the system operator to determine the role AI could have in managed the grid. "It would be amazing if you could save 10% of the country's energy usage without any new infrastructure, just from optimisation. That's pretty exciting," he told the FT. DeepMind added that there is particular interest in helping to better integrate renewable energy onto the grid by using machine learning to predict peaks in demand and supply, adding that it was in the process of exploring a "possible partnership".

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Army is permanently stationing an attack drone system and its support personnel in South Korea amid ongoing tensions with the North, a Pentagon spokesman said Monday. Officials said the deployment, due by next year, was not unique to South Korea and was being conducted across the Army to provide infantry divisions with better intelligence. But the announcement comes just one week after Pyongyang launched four ballistic missiles in its latest provocative test. "The U.S. Army, after coordination with the Republic of Korea Armed Forces and the U.S. Air Force, has begun the process to permanently station a Gray Eagle Unmanned Aerial Systems company at Kunsan Air Base, Republic of Korea," Pentagon spokesman Navy Capt. The sensor-rich MQ-1C Gray Eagle is capable of carrying Stinger and Hellfire missiles, as well as other armaments.

This isn't the first initiative intended to beef up jobs for qualified drone pilots, either. Last year, the Air Force started paying bonuses to keep pilots in the job, offering $10,000 more per year if they renewed their active duty status for five years. The military has also been increasing its use of drones like the MQ-9 Reaper for reconnaissance and missile strikes. More jobs means more reliance on these unmanned aircraft, with the Air Force moving to an all-Reaper drone fleet in the next year or two. The military branch intends to retire the older MQ-1 Predator next year, along with plans for eight potential bases to host new drone units in the near future.

A superhuman skill once the preserve of comic book heroes could soon become a reality. Scientists have used a combination of brain scanning and artificial intelligence to read the minds of'criminals' to determine whether they are guilty of knowingly committing a crime. This is the first time that neurobiological readings alone have been used to determine guilt, according to the study, and the findings could impact how we judge criminal responsibility in the future. A 2013 study found that researchers could predict how likely prisoners were to re-offend through brain scans. A team of neuroscientists at the Mind Research Network in Albuquerque studied a group of 96 male prisoners shortly before they were due to be released.

Over 30 different Android smartphones and tablets have been found to have had malware preinstalled on them before users even switched them on, according to a cyber security firm. Check Point detected a "severe infection" on 38 handsets being used by two of its corporate clients, a telecommunications firm and a multinational technology company that have not been named. The issue affects smartphones from a number of big-name brands, including Samsung, LG and Google. It must be made clear, however, that not all models of the devices named above are affected. "According to the findings, the malware were already present on the devices even before the users received them," reads the Check Point blog post announcing the discovery.

Once fully deployed in South Korea, a THAAD battery could theoretically use its radar to see and monitor activity beyond North Korea, deep into Chinese territory. Russia also worries the deployment could compromise its security, and said it would lead to a stalemate on the Korean peninsula.