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President Trump has given the go-ahead for a plan dating from the Obama administration to elevate US Cyber Command to the level of Unified Combatant Command, giving it more operational independence from the National Security Agency. The statement also raised the possibility of splitting off CyberCom from the NSA entirely.

Both actions were recommended by former former Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter last year, as he told TechCrunch at the time.

At the moment, we have the NSA, which is part of the intelligence community, managed by the Department of Defense, and CyberCom, which is a combat group whose first job is to protect, Carter said during an interview at Disrupt SF. We had them both in the same location and able to work with one another. That has worked very well, but it is not necessarily the right approach.

Both organizations are currently led under a dual-hat system, where the director of the NSA currently Admiral Mike Rogers also leads Cyber Command. Last year the idea of splitting the two was met with resistance from the Committee on Armed Services, specifically Senator McCain, who resented the plans being made without their consultation. He wholeheartedly supports the plan now, though.

There are currently nine Unified Combatant Commands, organized both by region and responsibility. For instance, Pacific Command oversees that ocean, southeast Asia, and Australia, while Transportation Command is in charge of mobility assets worldwide. CyberCom, originally underneath Strategic Command, would join the ranks and get its own seat at the table.

If the split were to take place, an interesting consequence would be that the NSA could be led by a civilian. However, theres no indication now of how leadership will change, who will be in charge of what, or when. The green light is really just the start, and well know more soon.

Staffing the enhanced CyberCom might be a challenge, since the military would be vying with top recruiters from tech and security firms. It will help, though, that potential recruits will see that cybersecurity is no longer being treated as a lesser discipline and only tangentially related to warfare and defense at large.

Whatever happens, this concrete action to invest in the countrys cybersecurity infrastructure will likely be welcomed by many. There is a sense that we are being outplayed by cyber operatives in countries and organizations all over the world, from Russia to IS. And a rising tide, in this case increased attention and federal investment, would presumably raise all boats in the industry.

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Trump approves Obama-era plan for a more independent US Cyber Command - TechCrunch

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Barack Obama ran on a campaign promising change throughout the U.S. before he was elected to President of the United States nine years ago, but its a promise that Vic Mensa feels he wasnt able to keep. Speaking with TV and radio host Larry King during an episode of Larry King Now, Mensa offers his take on Obamas impact while he was in the White Houseor lack thereof.

I dont really believe so, says The Autobiography rapper after being asked if he felt represented by the beloved former president. I live five, six blocks away from Barack Obamas home. So I watched my neighborhood not improve and my city not improve and my community not improve, maybe get worse in the time that Obama was in office. And I recognize that hes the president of the United States, but I dont think that Obamas agenda was very often to represent the people and do well by the people. I feel like he was often times very careful with what he said regarding race.

Just before asking Mensa about Obama, King asks the rapperif the ever-controversial President Trump is a disappointment. Mensas answer? Pretty much.

I think hes as expected, says Mensa, who also calls Trump a bold-faced liar.I would say that hes clearly in office for his personal gain and for his financial gain, and we dont know the full game yet, but theres a lot of nepotism going on.Mensa goes on to say hes resigned to the idea that people from his community wont be getting the win they hoped for on the big political stage.

Check out more of Mensas conversation with King in the video below. Beneath that, you can listen to him discussing Justin Bieber, saying he supports the singers sudden decision to cancel the rest of his Purpose world tour.

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Vic Mensa Criticizes Barack Obama's White House Agenda - XXLMAG.COM

U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos announced a change to an Obama-era rule Thursday that borrower advocates say will put students at risk of being preyed on by schools that are supposed to prepare students for careers.

If the Department of Education decides career-training programs dont adequately prepare their students for employment, those programs can now dispute the agencys findings with their own data with no baseline requirements as to the size of the sample as long as DeVos deems them to be reliable metrics. The announcement is the latest step taken by the Trump administration that slows implementation of the gainful employment rule, which aims to measure whether job training programs are delivering on promises to prepare students adequately for a career.

We really needed this rule to be able to say, At least theres something ensuring our taxpayer dollars are being spent at programs that actually help students, said Jennifer Wang, the director of the D.C. office for the Institute of College Access and Success, a nonprofit that promotes college access. We cant be wasting taxpayer dollars on overpriced ineffective programs that dont prepare students for employment if thats the purpose of the program, Wang added.

Under the rule, developed by the Obama administration, career-training programs, many of which are at for-profit colleges, would be required to prove that their graduates loan payments dont exceed 20% of their discretionary income or 8% of their total earnings. Programs that failed to meet these metrics for multiple years could lose access to federal financial aid a lifeblood for many colleges. The Obama-era Department of Education found earlier this year that more than 800 programs were failing to meet the rules requirements.

The for-profit college industry has come under fire in recent years after two large for-profit college chains collapsed amid accusations that they were misleading students. The gainful employment rule was one of several efforts by officials to crack down on the industry. Borrower advocates have expressed concern for months that DeVoss Department would challenge those rules.

How the Departments new requirements will work

Under the original rule, if schools wanted to use their own surveys of graduates, the surveys had to include at least 50% of the programs graduates. They could also use state data as long as it accounted for at least 30% of graduates.

Earlier this year, DeVoss Department also announced it would give colleges a one-year reprieve in complying with the rules requirements and that it plans to re-litigate the rule itself. On Thursday, the Department also announced it would give colleges an extra 50 days to indicate they intend to appeal the agencys findings about their programs. One of the regulations requirements: Failing programs must provide warnings to students. But if the programs appeal the findings they dont have to provide a warning until the appeal is resolved.

By drawing out the appeal process, the Department is putting more students at risk of signing up for programs with questionable outcomes, Wang said. It will lead to schools reinstating their worst programs and practices because now if youre a failing program you can enroll students without warning them.

Colleges and the Obama administration fought over the rule

The rule has been a battleground for consumer advocates and for-profit college executives since its inception. The Obama administration first began developing it in 2009 and faced multiple court challenges from the industry over its requirements, though the administration ultimately prevailed.

The Department cited the latest legal challenge to the rule from the American Association of Cosmetology Schools as justification for the latest delay in implementation in its announcement. A Department spokeswoman pointed to the discussion of the court order in the announcement when asked about the reasoning behind the change. A judge in that case told the Department it needed to give those schools more time to appeal the debt-to-earnings ratios calculated by the agency.

Borrower advocates say the Department is using that narrow ruling as an excuse to undermine the rule. The DeVos Department of Education is listening to the industry much more than they are students and their families, said Maggie Thompson, the executive director of Generation Progress, the youth advocacy arm of the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank, said of the latest developments.

The details of the rule were developed through a process known as negotiated rulemaking, which gathers stakeholders to hammer out specifics. It was slated to be implemented on July 1 of this year. Instead, officials plan to convene a new negotiated rulemaking process. Advocates like Thompson have charged that these procedural hold ups are an extra-legal attack on a rule that was developed through the proper channels.

This is a simple rule that I think most people would agree with and thats why theyre trying to attack it in quiet and procedural way, Thompson said.

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DeVos throws lifeline to 800 college programs Obama found questionable - MarketWatch

Nearly all the members of the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities resigned Friday in protest of President Trumps reaction to last weekends white supremacist violence in Charlottesville.

Sixteen members of the commission signed a joint letter announcing their resignation. The only member not listed on the resignation letter is George C. Wolfe, a theater and film director.

A number are holdovers from the Obama administration, including actor Kal Penn, the Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle star who briefly worked in the Obama White House. Penn posted the resignation Friday on Twitter.

Effective immediately, please accept our resignation from the Presidents Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, the members wote.

Intentional or not, the first letter of each paragraph in the memo also happens to spell out "R-E-S-I-S-T," which has not gone unnoticed on Twitter.

The committee is the fourth such advisory board connected to the president to see resignations in the wake of Charlottesville. The arts board includes Democratic donors like Andrew Weinstein as well as Vicki Kennedy, widow of the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, and author Jhumpa Lahiri, whose novel "The Namesake" was adapted into a film starring Kal Penn.

The letter explicitly mentions Trumps Charlottesville response, which critics have panned because the president blamed both sides instead of just white nationalists. A 32-year-old counter-protestor was killed when authorities say a Nazi sympathizer drove his car into a crowd.

On Tuesday, Trump criticized the "alt-left" for their role in stoking the unrest. "You had a group on one side that was bad, and you had a group on the other side that was also very violent, and nobody wants to say that, he said.

In their resignation letter, the artists accuse Trump of supporting those who committed the violence, even though the president has referred to the driver of the car as a disgrace to himself, his family, and his country and has condemned neo-Nazis and like-minded hate groups.

Reproach and censure in the strongest possible terms are necessary following your support of the hate groups and terrorists who killed and injured fellow Americans in Charlottesville, the letter states.

FALLING APART: TRUMP AXES INFRASTRUCTURE ADVISORY COUNCIL

On Wednesday, Trump announced plans to shut down two jobs councils, including his Manufacturing Council and the Strategic and Policy Forum -- which were already coming apart because of resignations over his Charlottesville comments. The White House also said Thursday it would disband the President's Advisory Council on Infrastructure.

The arts and humanities committee was created in 1982 under then-President Ronald Reagan.

Fox News Kristin Brown contributed to this report.

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Obama holdovers on president's arts council quit over Charlottesville - Fox News

Hey, Barack, says the current president to the former. Dont hang up. And so begins the secret phone conversations between Donald Trump and Barack Obama the not-exactly-Smithsonian-worthy recordings under the exclusive domain of TBSs Conan.

The very funny faux-convos, which host Conan OBrien unveiled last night, begin and end with Obamas having twitter-trumped Trump by scoring the most retweets ever for his post-Charlottesville sharing of a Nelson Mandela quote.

Mandela, right, right, says the Trump-a-like. Anyway, you know any other juicy Mandela quotes you could throw my way? Hook a brother up!

Obamas Youre the worst precedes the first phone slam.

Next comes Trumps idea to take a picture with Obama as a sign of racial unity, on a Trump golf course, of course. Ill get you a caddy uniform.

Obama: Jesus. Hang up.

Obama himself initiates the next call, with an invitation. I now have the most liked tweet of all time, he says, by way of introduction. Most liked. All time. Thats ALL time, Donny!

Right I heard you the first time. Whats the invitation?

Says Obama, Oh, the invitation, thats right. I wanted to invite you

Trump: Yeeesss?

Obama: to

Well, just watch the video above for the rest.

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'Conan' Reveals Trump-Obama Tapes: Any Other Juicy Mandela Quotes You Could Throw My Way? - Deadline