1/ Speaker Mike Johnson and House Republicans unveiled a $14.3 billion aid package for Israel that cuts the IRS budget by about the same amount, while also leaving out Ukraine assistance and other bipartisan priorities. Senate Democrats and the White House called the bill a nonstarter, saying it’s “politicizing our national security interests.” Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin warned lawmakers at the Senate Appropriations Committee that failing to pass aid for both Israel and Ukraine would “embolden both Moscow and Tehran.” Mitch McConnell, meanwhile, has been stressing the need for linking aid for Ukraine and Israel together in a larger emergency funding package that also funds Taiwan and U.S. border security. “And if we don’t stand up to these challenges now,” McConnell said, “they will cost us a lot more in the future.” The Biden administration has asked for $105 billion in national security funding. (NPR / Washington Post / CNN / Politico / Associated Press)

2/ The Israeli Defense Forces took responsibility for an airstrike that dropped six bombs on a refugee camp in Gaza that killed and injured hundreds of people. The IDF claimed the blast killed a Hamas official behind the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, but didn’t acknowledge the civilian deaths and casualties. The IDF reiterated its warning to residents to evacuate south, but also said it would continue “striking in all parts of the Gaza Strip.” More than half of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been displaced since Israel’s total siege of the enclave. The commissioner general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency said the enclave’s entire population is “being dehumanized” and that thousands of children killed in Israeli airstrikes “cannot be collateral damage.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, however, ruled out a cease-fire, saying “this is a time for war.” (Washington Post / New York Times / NBC News / ABC News / CNN / Bloomberg / Wall street Journal / Associated Press / CNBC)

3/ Biden invoked emergency federal powers to assert oversight of artificial intelligence systems, part of an executive order aimed at safeguarding against threats posed by what he called the “most consequential t...