While Jen Psaki was appealing for calm on Fox earlier and insisting the administration is doing all it can, the latest night shots of families attempting illegal crossings of the Rio Grande captured by AFP photographer Ed Jones bring home the reality of the ordeal being experienced by parents and their young children as they risk everything in search of a better life in the US.

Over on CNN’s State of the Union, the new Georgia senator elected in January’s runoff elections alongside fellow Democrat Jon Ossoff, told Dana Bash that the battle against Peach State Republicans’ restrictive new laws were only just getting started.

“We cannot allow politicians to silence the people,” he said.

Psaki is followed on Wallace’s show by the aforementioned Senator Graham, who says that white conservatives are the real victims here, that certain aspects of Georgia’s voting laws don’t make sense and that, should an apocalyptic natural disaster strike South Carolina, he’ll shoot any looters who comes near his house with his trusty AR-15.

Jen Psaki has been talking to Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday and had this to say on the border (also denying conservative claims the administration was trying to keep the media at bay) before making an appeal for Republican co-operation on voting rights following the outcry over new restrictions in Georgia.

On the latter subject, Chuck Todd’s scorching introduction to this morning’s Meet the Press on NBC is well worth checking out.

The online retail giant has increasingly been picking fights on Twitter with Democrats including Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Mark Pocan as its staff vote on forming their first union at a packing facility in Alabama.

But it’s New York progressive Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who has been hitting back, with characteristic vim.

Nathan Place has the story.

The New York state attorney general’s office has reportedly subpoenaed dozens of Cuomo administration staff in connection with the probe into allegations of sexual harassment against the governor.

Staffers have been asked to produce documents as well as submit themselves for interviews, according to reporting by The Wall Street Journal, which says that Cuomo’s top aide, Melissa DeRosa, is among those subpoenaed by AG Letitia James.

Oliver O’Connell has the latest.

The Independent’s redoubtable Andrew Buncombe is in the wars again, this time managing to annoy the South Carolina senator by having the temerity to ask what the GOP would do differently to address the border crisis it is so busy denouncing after four years of its own man in the White House making matters worse.

“Instead of asking a Republican or a Democrat, why don’t you ask the people in charge of policing the border, what the problem is, rather than making a political statement and a question. Why don’t you walk right over there, ask the guy ‘What the hell happened’,” Lindsey Graham snapped during a Republican publicity tour of the Texas border.

Here’s Andrew’s report from Mission.

Also on foreign policy in Asia, Biden’s defence secretary Lloyd Austin and nearly a dozen of his counterparts have condemned the deadly use of force by Myanmar‘s security forces and say the country’s army has lost credibility with its people since the coup that saw it take power on 1 February.

News reports and witnesses said local forces killed 114 people on Saturday, including some children, on Armed Forces Day – the bloodiest day of its crackdown on pro-democracy protesters so far.

Biden’s secretary of state Anthony Blinken has hit out at China for its latest round of sanctions against American and Canadian officials including Gayle Manchin, chair of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom and wife of Democratic senator Joe Manchin, over the body’s criticism of the country regardining its treatment of the Uighur Muslim minority in Xinjiang.

“The United States condemns the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) baseless sanctions on two US Commission on International Religious Freedom commissioners apparently in retaliation for US sanctions on PRC officials connected with serious human rights abuse in Xinjiang,” Blinken said.

“Beijing’s attempts to intimidate and silence those speaking out for human rights and fundamental freedoms only contribute to the growing international scrutiny of the ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang.”

He was joined in expressing his outrage by Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau:

Nathan Place has this on China’s actions.

Joe Biden found himself accused of inaction on the immigration crisis on Saturday Night Live (SNL) in a sketch in which he was portrayed as more interested in handing out stimulus cheques and allowing his German shepherd Major to savagely maul Kamala Harris’s husband Doug Emhoff.

Alex Moffat did a much less weird job on the president than Jim Carrey managed during the campaign (but not as fine as Dana Carvey) while Maya Rudolph and Martin Short starred as Harris and Emhoff.

While Chloe Fineman won praise for her turn as a Bushwick hipster Ella Emhoff, it was Aidy Bryant who surely stole the show as Ted Cruz: “My only crime is loving too much – and sedition.”

Here’s Rachel Brodsky’s report.