The US Senate on Tuesday evening rejected along mostly party lines a Democratic resolution that would have forced the state department to report to Congress on violence in the occupied West Bank, including the killings of nine American citizens by Israeli settlers or security forces over the last few years.
The resolution, led by the Maryland Democrat Chris Van Hollen, would have given the state department 30 days to report to Congress on those deaths and on wider human rights conditions in the territory, including Israel’s detention of Palestinian children.
The resolution failed to advance by a vote of 47 to 51. Pennsylvania senator John Fetterman, a Democrat, joined Republicans in voting against the resolution, while Kentucky Republican Rand Paul voted in favor.
Van Hollen was able to force the vote under section 502B of the Foreign Assistance Act, a law that lets senators demand human rights reports on countries receiving US military aid. The measure drew 24 Democratic sponsors, including Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Tim Kaine of Virginia and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, the top Democrat on the foreign relations committee.
“While I was pleased that so many of my Democratic colleagues joined this effort, it’s clear the United States must do more,” Van Hollen said in a statement after the vote. “It is our responsibility to ensure recipients of US taxpayer dollars act in line with our laws and our values – this resolution was an opportunity to shed light on a reality that flies in the face of that principle.”
Experts have expressed skeptism of putting “so much faith in self-policing” in response to Donald Trump’s AI accord.
Robin Jia, an assistant professor of computer science at the University of Southern California, said it’s crucial to ensure the leading labs’ intentions are “well-aligned with the broader interest of the American public.”
He pointed to the recent disclosures of hacking incidents and said:
As the models get better, the consequences of such things are only going to get greater.
Some also took issue with the accord’s vague, broad language.
Alex Pascal, executive director of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society, said:
The only way to reduce the risks and harms of AI to Americans is through robust legal liability, regulation and fundamentally changing the race dynamics that are driving unsafe decision-making by frontier AI developers whose costs are borne by the American people.
Donald Trump announced on Tuesday that the heads of the largest US tech and AI companies had signed on to a “morally binding” agreement to put controls on artificial intelligence. He announced the deal, called the Joint Commitment On Frontier Responsibilities, following a White House luncheon with top tech executives.
“It’s almost like a constitution in a way, and the biggest people in the world signed that, and I signed it as president, and it really is a form of protection,” Trump said.
Trump also signed an executive order renaming artificial intelligence to “superintelligence”, similar to a declaration he made at the United Nations last week.
“The Order directs all departments and agencies to use the terms ‘Super Intelligence’ and ‘SI’ in official correspondence, public communications, policy documents, and non-statutory documents within the executive branch and to no longer acknowledge the terms ‘Artificial Intelligence’ or ‘AI’,” the order declared.
The agreement, which Trump suggested would allow the companies to perform “tremendous self-policing” of their products and technologies, outlines a vague framework for how AI firms would establish safety standards as they test out new products.
The tech industry has faced increased public scrutiny following a series of incidents where major AI companies inadvertently hacked into outside organizations during safety tests.
While lawmakers, AI researchers and even some AI companies have called for more government oversight of artificial intelligence, Trump has broadly rejected calls for more regulation of the technology – citing competition with China and threats to economic growth.
The joint commitment that Trump posted to his Truth Social account on Tuesday appears to carry no enforcement mechanisms or legal implications and is instead a voluntary commitment.
Democratic lawmakers calls for protections over third country deportations after 'indefensible' supreme court ruling
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.
Democratic lawmakers have called for more formalized steps to prevent the US government from deporting people to countries where their lives would be in danger or they could be subject to torture.
It comes as the US supreme court on Tuesday lifted restrictions on the deportations of immigrants to countries that are not their own, while agreeing to hear the issue on its merits in December.
Rob Menendez, a congressional Democrat, called the supreme court’s decision “indefensible”, adding:
Taxpayers shouldn’t fund tearing people from the only home they’ve ever known, nor should our legal system fast-track these unilateral deportations.
The conservative-dominated high court granted an emergency request by the Trump administration to suspend a lower court ruling that restricted, but did not outright ban, so-called “third-country removals.”
After the ruling, Democratic lawmakers pushed for the tightening of protections to prevent such deportations where lives could be at risk and to uphold due process.
“Congress must step in. No one should be shipped off to a country that is not their own without basic due process and a meaningful opportunity to raise legitimate fears for their safety,” House Democrat Lois Frankel said on X.
The Trump administration has defended third-country deportations as necessary since the home nations of some of those who are targeted for removal sometimes refuse to accept them.
In other developments:
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Trump announced that the heads of the largest US tech and AI companies had signed on to a “morally binding” agreement to put controls on artificial intelligence. Trump did not give further details on the controls, but he suggested that the deal would allow the companies to largely “self-police” their products and technology. Later, Trump signed an executive order calling for “artificial intelligence” to be renamed “super intelligence”.
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Jack Smith faced Senate lawmakers on the judiciary committee for a contentious hearing that saw a number of Republicans accuse the former special prosecutor of perjury, and conducting a political witch-hunt against Trump when he secured two indictments against the president that were later dismissed when he took office.
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A Republican senator blocked a bipartisan bill that would have prevented Donald Trump from demolishing the Kennedy Center without the approval of Congress. Mike Lee, of Utah, objected when the Oregon Democrat Jeff Merkley asked the Senate to pass the Protecting Presidential Memorials Act by unanimous consent.
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The US Senate rejected along mostly party lines a Democratic resolution that would have forced the state department to report to Congress on violence in the occupied West Bank, including the killings of nine American citizens by Israeli settlers or security forces over the last few years.
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JD Vance and health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr spoke at the conclusion of the Make America Healthy Again summit in Washington. Several reporters were denied entry to the event.
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Federal prosecutors have charged a Venezuelan delivery driver shot by ICE agents in Texas this month with one count of assaulting, resisting and impeding a federal officer. Wilber Rafael Garcés Pérez, 28, was shot by federal immigration officers after a traffic stop in Texas on 20 September. The charge echoes similar claims federal immigration officers have made about immigrants and anti-ICE protesters, including Minnesota mother Renee Good, “weaponizing their vehicles”
