Dueling border visits of 2024 contenders 300 miles apart shows that immigration has become a central issue in the White House campaign

It might be seen as the first US presidential debate of 2024. Two candidates and two lecterns but 300 miles – and a political universe – apart.

Joe Biden and Donald Trump spent Thursday at the US-Mexico border , a vivid display of how central the immigration issue has become to the election campaign. Since it is far from certain whether official presidential debates will happen this year, the duelling visits might be as close as it gets.

Actions of Kyle Parker might have crossed legal grounds that could make him an unregistered foreign agent, New York Times reports

A senior staffer who advises the US Senate on Russia policy is under investigation for making trips to Ukraine in military uniform and supplying the country’s armed forces with privately donated sniper equipment, it was reported Monday.

The actions of Kyle Parker, chief of staff to the Helsinki commission that informs senators on issues of European security, might have crossed legal and ethical grounds that could make him an unregistered foreign agent, according to the New York Times , which reviewed a confidential report by the commission’s director and general counsel.

The congressman, known for his critiques of Trump, has out-raised and out-spent his opponents in a closely-matched race

Adam Schiff looked like a front-runner when he first announced he was running for the US Senate more than a year ago, and he hasn’t stopped looking like one since.

The California congressman from Los Angeles, best known for his withering critiques of Donald Trump and the threat the former president poses to US democracy, hasn’t always been able to match the charisma of his two leading Democratic rivals, Katie Porter and Barbara Lee. His continuing support for Israel’s military offensive in Gaza, broadly in line with the Biden administration’s, has created divisions among his constituents and opened up one of the few significant policy differences in the race.

Republicans struggle to find a unified response to the state’s ruling that threw into question the legal status of human embryos

Donald Trump has voiced “strong support” for IVF treatments, days after a ruling by the Alabama supreme court threw into question the legal status of human embryos and several providers in the state cut off access to the procedure.

The former US president said that under his leadership, the Republican party “will always support the creation of strong, thriving, healthy American families”.

Enlarge / Danielle Coffey, president and CEO of News Media Alliance; Professor Jeff Jarvis, CUNY Graduate School of Journalism; Curtis LeGeyt, president and CEO of National Association of Broadcasters; and Roger Lynch, CEO of Condé Nast, are sworn in during a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law hearing on “Artificial Intelligence and The Future Of Journalism.” (credit: Getty Images)

On Wednesday, news industry executives urged Congress for legal clarification that using journalism to train AI assistants like ChatGPT is not fair use, as claimed by companies such as OpenAI . Instead, they would prefer a licensing regime for AI training content that would force Big Tech companies to pay for content in a method similar to rights clearinghouses for music .

The plea for action came during a US Senate Judiciary Committee hearing titled " Oversight of A.I.: The Future of Journalism ," chaired by Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, with Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri also playing a large role in the proceedings. Last year, the pair of senators introduced a bipartisan framework for AI legislation and held a series of hearings on the impact of AI.

Blumenthal described the situation as an "existential crisis" for the news industry and cited social media as a cautionary tale for legislative inaction about AI. "We need to move more quickly than we did on social media and learn from our mistakes in the delay there," he said.

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Video surfaced in which Aidan Maese-Czeropski was allegedly having sex in the judiciary hearing room

A Senate staffer accused of filming himself having sex in a congressional hearing room is threatening legal action after getting fired.

The explicit footage, published by the Daily Caller on Friday, shows two men having sex in what appears to be Hart 216, the judiciary room. Aidan Maese-Czeropski, a legislative aide for Senator Ben Cardin of Maryland, was widely named on social media as one of the men in the footage.

Congress unlikely to approve more funding for Ukraine before end of year after GOP demanded stricter border regulations

The Senate has blocked a supplemental funding bill that included financial aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan as well as provisions aimed at bolstering border security. The vote, which fell mostly along party lines, increases the likelihood that Congress will fail to approve more funding for Ukraine before the end of the year, as the White House has warned that Kyiv is desperately in need of more aid.

The vote was 49 to 51, as every Senate Republican opposed advancing the legislation. Sixty votes were needed to take up the bill. Republicans in both chambers of Congress had demanded stricter border regulations in exchange for their support, and they said the bill failed to meet their requirements.

Senate to hold procedural vote after Ukraine briefing descended into row over border crisis. If vote fails, negotiators will be back to square one

Good morning, US politics blog readers. The increasingly intense debate in Congress over approving more aid to Ukraine will come to something of a head today when the Senate holds a procedural vote the approve aid to both Kyiv and Israel. Republicans have vowed to block it, and have the numbers to do so, saying legislation that would implement stricter border policies must be passed as well. If the vote fails, negotiators will be back to square one, and there’s no telling how they will find their way out of this quagmire.

Approving military assistance to Israel is also a priority for both parties, but opposition to assisting Ukraine’s defense has grown among Republicans over the past months. Party chiefs like Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell continue to support its cause, as does House speaker Mike Johnson , who previously voted against helping Kyiv but appears to have reversed his position since getting the chamber’s top job. However the immigration proposals Republicans want passed are unpalatable to Democrats, such as restarting construction of Donald Trump ’s border wall, or curbing who can apply for asylum. Emotions over these issues are apparently running high among senators – yesterday, several Republicans walked out of a briefing on Ukraine aid, upset that the Biden administration officials in attendance would not discuss border security. Perhaps there will be some progress in resolving this standoff today.

Joe Biden told donors, “If Trump wasn’t running, I’m not sure I’d be running” – a remark that raised eyebrows, considering the concerns about his age and persistently low approval ratings. But he wasn’t the only presidential candidate to make a questionable remark yesterday …

Donald Trump joked about how, if elected, he would not be a dictator “other than on day one”. The former president has proposed a range of anti-democratic policies if returned to office, including directing federal law enforcement agencies to retaliate against former officials who have turned against him.

The fourth debate of the Republican presidential primary will take place at 8pm eastern time in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Trump is not attending, but Florida governor Ron DeSantis , former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley , entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and former New Jersey governor Chris Christie are.

White House urges Congress to approve extra funding for war against Russia – but hard-right Republicans are holding out

• White House warns it is ‘out of money’ to aid Ukraine

The White House issued an urgent warning to Congress on Monday, predicting that Ukraine will soon lose ground in its war against Russia without another infusion of financial aid from the US.

“I want to be clear: without congressional action, by the end of the year we will run out of resources to procure more weapons and equipment for Ukraine and to provide equipment from US military stocks,” Shalanda Young, director of the Office of Management and Budget, wrote in her letter to congressional leaders.