From

Trump to meet with China's Xi as Congress mulls bill banning artificial superintelligence

Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.

Donald Trump will meet with the Chinese president Xi Jinping later today, ahead of a three-day visit that will undoubtedly see artificial intelligence (AI) high on the agenda.

António Guterres, the UN secretary general, has called on the two countries to establish a dialogue on AI similar to the communication between the US and the Soviet Union during the cold war.

“Governments with the greatest AI capabilities have the greatest responsibilities to humanity, to establish channels for dialogue, transparency, trust and cooperation,” Guterres said.

Tech executives including Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Sundar Pichai of Alphabet, Sam Altman of ⁠OpenAI, Tim Cook of Apple, Elon Musk ​of ​Tesla, Mark Zuckerberg of Meta and Jensen Huang ​of Nvidia will reportedly ​attend a ⁠state dinner at the White House on Thursday evening.

It comes as two leading progressive US lawmakers, senator Bernie Sanders and representative Greg Casar, were due to unveil legislation later today that would ban artificial superintelligence and create a federal agency to oversee advanced AI.

The bill, provided first to the Associated Press, would also pause advanced AI development until guidelines are implemented while creating the Department of Artificial Intelligence. Multiple employees at leading AI companies are endorsing the bill.

“It doesn’t take a genius to say, ‘slow it down,’” Sanders said in an interview with AP. “Do we really want to develop a super intelligence that when it becomes smarter than human beings could act independently of human control? I don’t think we do.”

Congress has so far done little to rein in the AI industry even as some of its most prominent leaders warn about potentially catastrophic risks.

Xi departed Beijing on Wednesday, state media said, heading to Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, where he will be met by Trump on the tarmac.

“President Xi Jinping left Beijing by special plane for a state visit to the United States” accompanied by his wife Peng Liyuan, his right-hand man Cai Qi, and foreign minister Wang Yi, among others, state broadcaster CCTV said.

In other developments:

• Speaking at the UN general assembly, Donald Trump re-issued his threat to “annihilate” Iran and “drive them into Hell” if the regime didn’t capitulate and make a deal.” He also said he was “working closely with the leaders of Russia and Ukraine” to end the disastrous war, defended his administration’s actions in Latin America – including the midnight raid to arrest former Venezuelan president Nicólas Maduro, defended his drone strikes on boats in the Caribbean and the Pacific, accused Mexico of being effectively controlled by the cartels, and said it was “unacceptable” for the US to share a border with a nation under such conditions, pointed to regime change in Cuba and said he would reject any calls for a “globalist scheme” to control artificial intelligence.

• Shortly after his UN address, Trump signed a Greenland deal, which Greenland’s prime minister Jens-Frederick Nielsen said “underlines the importance of the Nato alliance.” In tricky, carefully worded paragraphs, she said the agreement “recognises the US defining historical and ongoing contributions to the security and defence of Greenland,” but it also “respects the sovereignty and the territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Denmark, as well as Greenland’s right to self-determination.”

• Trump told a CNN reporter at the UN general assembly on Tuesday that he was “surprised” the outlet was covering him, saying it ‘shouldn’t be here’ after he banned the network alongside Politico and MS Now from the White House on Friday.

• At a joint press conference on Tuesday, vice-president JD Vance and Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, announced that the federal government was removing 760,000 enrollees from Affordable Care Act insurance marketplaces.

Key events

• 3m ago

  Trump administration calls banned journalists' White House access "a privilege, not a right," brands coverage a security risk

• 1h ago

  Trump to meet with China's Xi as Congress mulls bill banning artificial superintelligence

Trump administration calls banned journalists' White House access "a privilege, not a right," brands coverage a security risk

In a new legal filing in the case over a trio of new outlets barred entry to the White House, the Trump administration’s Department of Justice repeatedly defended the president’s ban by saying journalists were not entitled to access to the building.

“Access to the White House is a privilege, not a right,” the filing stated.

The filing went on to assert that the three outlets – by publishing sensitive or classified information obtained through its reporting – constituted a national security threat, giving the president the right to ax their credentials.

Trump banned the three outlets – CNN, MS Now, and Politico – last Friday in a snap decision announced via social media. He branded the three outlets “fake news” and threatened future bans against other outlets could follow.

The Trump administration is refusing to work with the newly appointed deputy head of the United Nations ⁠refugee agency, Reuters reported.

Tressa Rae Finerty, an American who took up the role of deputy high commissioner at UNHCR earlier ⁠this month, has taken leave as she seeks a waiver from the US government that would allow her to carry out aspects of her duties, ​according to seven diplomatic sources.

Her treatment by Washington, which previously considered cutting ‌ties with the agency, is seen ‌by several of the diplomats as a retaliatory response after UNHCR opted against Washington’s preferred candidate, Simon Hankinson.

A State Department spokesperson said it ‌could not comment on pending legal issues. “We work with and through UNHCR when doing so advances US foreign policy interests,” the spokesperson said.

Trump to meet with China's Xi as Congress mulls bill banning artificial superintelligence

Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.

Donald Trump will meet with the Chinese president Xi Jinping later today, ahead of a three-day visit that will undoubtedly see artificial intelligence (AI) high on the agenda.

António Guterres, the UN secretary general, has called on the two countries to establish a dialogue on AI similar to the communication between the US and the Soviet Union during the cold war.

“Governments with the greatest AI capabilities have the greatest responsibilities to humanity, to establish channels for dialogue, transparency, trust and cooperation,” Guterres said.

Tech executives including Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Sundar Pichai of Alphabet, Sam Altman of ⁠OpenAI, Tim Cook of Apple, Elon Musk ​of ​Tesla, Mark Zuckerberg of Meta and Jensen Huang ​of Nvidia will reportedly ​attend a ⁠state dinner at the White House on Thursday evening.

It comes as two leading progressive US lawmakers, senator Bernie Sanders and representative Greg Casar, were due to unveil legislation later today that would ban artificial superintelligence and create a federal agency to oversee advanced AI.

The bill, provided first to the Associated Press, would also pause advanced AI development until guidelines are implemented while creating the Department of Artificial Intelligence. Multiple employees at leading AI companies are endorsing the bill.

“It doesn’t take a genius to say, ‘slow it down,’” Sanders said in an interview with AP. “Do we really want to develop a super intelligence that when it becomes smarter than human beings could act independently of human control? I don’t think we do.”

Congress has so far done little to rein in the AI industry even as some of its most prominent leaders warn about potentially catastrophic risks.

Xi departed Beijing on Wednesday, state media said, heading to Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, where he will be met by Trump on the tarmac.

“President Xi Jinping left Beijing by special plane for a state visit to the United States” accompanied by his wife Peng Liyuan, his right-hand man Cai Qi, and foreign minister Wang Yi, among others, state broadcaster CCTV said.

In other developments:

• Speaking at the UN general assembly, Donald Trump re-issued his threat to “annihilate” Iran and “drive them into Hell” if the regime didn’t capitulate and make a deal.” He also said he was “working closely with the leaders of Russia and Ukraine” to end the disastrous war, defended his administration’s actions in Latin America – including the midnight raid to arrest former Venezuelan president Nicólas Maduro, defended his drone strikes on boats in the Caribbean and the Pacific, accused Mexico of being effectively controlled by the cartels, and said it was “unacceptable” for the US to share a border with a nation under such conditions, pointed to regime change in Cuba and said he would reject any calls for a “globalist scheme” to control artificial intelligence.

• Shortly after his UN address, Trump signed a Greenland deal, which Greenland’s prime minister Jens-Frederick Nielsen said “underlines the importance of the Nato alliance.” In tricky, carefully worded paragraphs, she said the agreement “recognises the US defining historical and ongoing contributions to the security and defence of Greenland,” but it also “respects the sovereignty and the territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Denmark, as well as Greenland’s right to self-determination.”

• Trump told a CNN reporter at the UN general assembly on Tuesday that he was “surprised” the outlet was covering him, saying it ‘shouldn’t be here’ after he banned the network alongside Politico and MS Now from the White House on Friday.

• At a joint press conference on Tuesday, vice-president JD Vance and Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, announced that the federal government was removing 760,000 enrollees from Affordable Care Act insurance marketplaces.