“The Trump administration is seeking to spend up to $151 billion on technology to underpin its ‘Golden Dome’ project, as it begins the procurement process for one of the most expensive and ambitious defense plans in U.S. history,” the Financial Times reports.

“Under a scheme to be known as the Scalable Homeland Innovative Enterprise Layered Defense, or Shield, the government aims to spend the $151bn over a 10-year period on a wide range of contracts.”

“Only a few weeks ago, President Donald Trump seemed confident a deal was days away that would end the fighting in Gaza, secure the release of hostages and allow aid to flow into an enclave where people are starving to death,” CNN reports.

“Now, Trump’s optimism seems to have vanished. The president pulled back his negotiators from ceasefire talks this week after the US deemed Hamas neither ‘coordinated’ nor ‘acting in good faith.’ And Trump, rather than urging an immediate return to the negotiating table, signaled Friday it was time for Israel to escalate its military campaign, even as images of starving children in Gaza lead to mounting global outrage.”

Said Trump: “I think they want to die, and it’s very, very bad. It got to be to a point where you’re gonna have to finish the job.”

“The U.S. will secure only 90 percent of profits from joint investments with Japan if it takes on a proportional amount of risk and financing, Tokyo said on Friday, as cracks widened in the two allies’ interpretation of their hastily agreed trade deal,” the Financial Times reports.

“Japanese officials said there was no written agreement with Washington — and no legally binding one would be drawn up — after Trump administration officials claimed Tokyo would back investments in the US from which American taxpayers would reap nine-tenths of the profits.”

“At least 16 people have been killed in armed clashes between Thailand and Cambodia, as tensions over a century-old border dispute spiral into the worst fighting between the two Southeast Asian nations in more than a decade,” NBC News reports.

“Since fighting began Thursday, the two sides have been progressively involving heavier weapons, including artillery and rocket systems, with clashes expanding to 12 locations from six.”

“The Kremlin on Friday ruled out any meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky before the last stage in signing a peace deal, definitively rebuffing the Ukrainian leader’s calls for a meeting and describing the two sides’ positions as ‘diametrically opposed,'” the Washington Post reports.

“The statement appears to effectively preclude any kind of top-level meeting in the near future and casts doubt on further progress in the peace talks within the 50-day deadline given by President Donald Trump for a peace deal to be reached before the United States imposes new sanctions on Russia.”