WASHINGTON: Senators for the first time are poised to question military leaders over President Donald Trump’s use of the National Guard in American cities, an extraordinary move that has prompted legal challenges as well as questions about states’ rights and the use of the military on US soil.
The hearing Thursday before the Senate Armed Services Committee is expected to feature tough questioning for Pentagon leaders over the legality of the deployments, which in some places were done over the objections of mayors and governors.
The hearing will bring the highest level of scrutiny to Trump’s use of the National Guard outside of a courtroom since the deployments began and comes a day after the president faced another legal setback over his muscular use of troops in larger federal operations.
Trump has justified the use of the military in American cities by saying the National Guard is needed to support federal law enforcement, protect federal facilities and combat crime.
Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Illinois, said she had threatened to hold up the annual defense bill if Republican leadership continued to block the hearing, which she said is long overdue.
“Donald Trump is illegally deploying our nation’s service members under misleading if not false pretexts,” Duckworth told The Associated Press.
Duckworth, a combat veteran who served in the Illinois National Guard, said domestic deployments have traditionally involved responding to major floods and tornadoes, not assisting immigration agents who are detaining people in aggressive raids.
Duckworth said she has questions for the military about how Trump’s deployments are affecting readiness, training and costs. She also wants to know if Guard members will have legal protections if an immigration agent wrongfully harms a civilian.
“I’m deeply concerned that our nation’s military is being put in jeopardy by these policies,” Duckworth said.
The hearing comes two weeks after two West Virginia National Guard members deployed to Washington were shot just blocks from the White House in what the city’s mayor described as a targeted attack. Spc. Sarah Beckstrom died a day after the Nov. 26 shooting, and her funeral took place Tuesday. Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe is still hospitalized in Washington.
Meanwhile, a federal judge in California on Wednesday ruled that the Trump administration must stop deploying the California National Guard in Los Angeles and return control of the troops to the state.
US District Judge Charles Breyer in San Francisco granted a preliminary injunction sought by California officials, but also put the decision on hold until Monday. The White House said it plans to appeal.
Trump called up more than 4,000 California National Guard troops in June without Gov. Gavin Newsom’s approval to further the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement efforts.
The move was the first time in decades that a state’s National Guard was activated without a request from its governor and marked a significant escalation in the administration’s efforts to carry out its mass deportation policy. The troops were stationed outside a federal detention center in downtown Los Angeles where protesters gathered and later sent on the streets to protect immigration officers as they made arrests.
The number had dropped to several hundred by late October. The 100 or so California troops that remain in Los Angeles are guarding federal buildings or staying at a nearby base and are not on the streets with immigration enforcement officers, according to US Northern Command.
Trump also had announced National Guard members would be sent to Washington, D.C., Illinois, Oregon, Louisiana and Tennessee. Other judges have blocked or limited the deployment of troops to Portland, Oregon, and Chicago, while Guard members have not yet been sent to New Orleans.
Senate to question military leaders on Trump’s National Guard deployments
https://arab.news/n8hcb
Senate to question military leaders on Trump’s National Guard deployments
- Hearing expected to feature tough questioning for Pentagon leaders over the legality of the deployments
- National Guard deployments in some places were done over the objections of mayors and governors
India hosts AI summit as safety concerns grow
- Modi will on Monday afternoon inaugurate the five-day AI Impact Summit, which aims to declare a “shared roadmap for global AI governance and collaboration”
NEW DELHI: A global artificial intelligence summit kicks off in New Delhi on Monday with big issues on the agenda, from job disruption to child safety, but some attendees warn the broad focus could diminish the chance of concrete commitments from world leaders.
While frenzied demand for generative AI has turbocharged profits for many tech companies, anxiety is growing over the risks that it poses to society and the environment.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will on Monday afternoon inaugurate the five-day AI Impact Summit, which aims to declare a “shared roadmap for global AI governance and collaboration.”
“This occasion is further proof that our country is progressing rapidly in the field of science and technology,” and it “shows the capability of our country’s youth,” he said in an X post on Monday.
It is the fourth annual gathering addressing the problems and opportunities posed by AI, after previous international meetings in Paris, Seoul and Britain’s wartime code-breaking hub Bletchley.
Touted as the biggest edition yet, the Indian government is expecting 250,000 visitors from across the sector, including 20 national leaders and 45 ministerial-level delegations.
Also in attendance will be tech CEOs including Sam Altman of OpenAI and Google’s Sundar Pichai, although unforeseen circumstances have reportedly led Jensen Huang, head of US chip titan Nvidia, to cancel his planned appearance.
Modi will seek to “strengthen global partnerships and define India’s leadership in the AI decade ahead” in talks with the likes of France’s Emmanuel Macron and Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, organizers say.
But whether they will take meaningful steps to hold AI giants accountable is in doubt, Amba Kak, co-executive director of the AI Now Institute, told AFP.
Industry commitments made at previous events “have largely been narrow ‘self regulatory’ frameworks that position AI companies to continue to grade their own homework,” said Kak, a former AI adviser to the US Federal Trade Commission who is taking part in the summit.
AI safety
The Bletchley gathering, held in 2023 — a year after ChatGPT stunned the world — was called the AI Safety Summit.
The meetings’ names have changed as they have grown in size and scope, and at last year’s AI Action Summit in Paris, dozens of nations signed a statement calling for efforts to flank AI tech with regulation to make it “open” and “ethical.”
But the United States did not sign, with Vice President JD Vance warning that “excessive regulation... could kill a transformative sector just as it’s taking off.”
The Delhi summit has the loose themes of “people, progress, planet” — dubbed three “sutras.”
AI safety remains a priority, including the dangers of misinformation such as deepfakes.
Last month saw a global backlash over Elon Musk’s Grok AI tool because it allowed users to produce sexualized pictures of real people, including children, using simple text prompts.
“Child safety and digital harms are also moving up the agenda, particularly as generative AI lowers the barrier to harmful content,” AI Asia Pacific Institute director Kelly Forbes told AFP.
“There is real scope for change” although it might not happen fast enough, said Forbes, whose organization is researching how Australia and other countries are requiring platforms to confront the issue.
AI for ‘the many’
Organizers highlight this year’s AI summit as the first to be hosted by a developing country.
“The summit will shape a shared vision for AI that truly serves the many, not just the few,” India’s IT ministry has said.
Last year India leapt to third place — overtaking South Korea and Japan — in an annual global ranking of AI competitiveness calculated by Stanford University researchers.
But despite plans for large-scale infrastructure and grand ambitions for innovation, experts say the country still has a long way to go before it can rival the United States and China.
Seth Hays, author of the Asia AI Policy Monitor newsletter, said talk at the summit would likely center around “ensuring that governments put up some guardrails, but don’t throttle AI development.”
“There may be some announcements for more state investment in AI, but it may not move the needle much — as India needs partnerships to integrate on the international scene for AI,” Hays told AFP.
