“The Trump administration is snapping up ownership shares of private companies it deems essential to national security. It is an unusual new strategy that has already committed more than $10 billion in taxpayer funds and shows little sign of slowing,” the New York Times reports.

“The government’s growing portfolio of corporate ownership involves minority stakes, or the option to take them in the future, in at least nine companies involved in steel, minerals, nuclear energy and semiconductors, a New York Times analysis found. The deals were all struck in the past six months, with the bulk made in October and November.”

“President Donald Trump and his top White House aides pushed for lethal strikes on Western Hemisphere drug traffickers almost as soon as they took office in January, and in the past 10 months have repeatedly steamrolled or sidestepped government lawyers who questioned whether the provocative policy was legal,” the Washington Post reports.

President Trump’s Golden Dome missile defense initiative is facing significant delays, hampered by the 43-day government shutdown and lack of a clear plan to spend the first $25 billion appropriated for the program this summer, Reuters reports.

The U.S. Coast Guard on Thursday issued a memo that reclassifies swastikas and nooses as “hate symbols,” in a rapid about-face after facing intense scrutiny for a previous policy change which downplayed their display as merely “potentially divisive,” CNN reports.

“The U.S. Coast Guard will no longer classify the swastika, an emblem of fascism and white supremacy inextricably linked to the murder of millions of Jews and that more than 400,000 U.S. troops died fighting against in World War II, as a hate symbol,” the Washington Post reports.

“Instead, the Coast Guard will classify the Nazi-era insignia as ‘potentially divisive’ under its new guidelines.”

“The senior military lawyer for the combatant command overseeing lethal strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats near Venezuela disagreed with the Trump administration’s position that the operations are lawful — and his views were sidelined,” NBC News reports.

“The Trump administration is pursuing an unprecedented expansion of the U.S. government’s list of foreign terrorist organizations, adding left-wing groups in Europe along with Latin American drug-trafficking organizations — entities not associated with the ideological violence central to Washington’s counterterrorism stance dating back decades,” the Washington Post reports.

“A secret Justice Department memo blessing President Trump’s boat strikes as lawful hangs on the idea that the United States and its allies are legally in a state of armed conflict with drug cartels, a premise that derives heavily from assertions that the White House itself has put forward,” the New York Times reports.

“The memo from the department’s Office of Legal Counsel, which is said to be more than 40 pages long, signed off on a military campaign that has now killed 80 people in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean. It said such extrajudicial killings of people suspected of running drugs were lawful as a matter of Mr. Trump’s wartime powers.”

“The U.S. military killed six people on Sunday in two more strikes on boats suspected of smuggling drugs in the eastern Pacific Ocean,” the New York Times reports.

“The latest strikes raised the death toll in the campaign to 76 people in 19 attacks in the Pacific and the Caribbean Sea since early September.”

“Nearly every new defense secretary since the end of the Cold War has at some point declared war on the Pentagon’s sclerotic bureaucracy,” the New York Times reports.

“Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth took a page from that proud tradition on Friday, promising in a speech to blow up the Pentagon’s ingrained processes and speed the delivery of new weapons to the American war fighter.”

Financial Times: Pete Hegseth issues warning to major US defence contractors.

“Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has fired or sidelined at least two dozen generals and admirals over the past nine months in a series of ousters that could reshape the U.S. military for years to come,” the New York Times reports.

“His actions, which are without precedent in recent decades, have come with little explanation. In many cases, they have run counter to the advice of top military leaders who fought alongside the officers in combat, senior military officials said.”

“Energy Secretary Chris Wright said Sunday that the Trump administration is not planning on conducting nuclear explosions at this time, after the president ordered nuclear weapons testing last week,” the Washington Post reports.

“Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has disseminated a broad list of topics that Defense Department personnel are now required to seek prior approval on before engaging with Congress, which includes any and all ‘sensitive military operations’ and US military strikes on suspected drug boats around Latin America,” CNN reports.

“A top Justice Department lawyer has told lawmakers that the Trump administration can continue its lethal strikes against alleged drug traffickers in Latin America — and is not bound by a decades-old law requiring Congress to give approval for ongoing hostilities,” the Washington Post reports.

“The president needs lawmakers’ approval for sustained military conflict under the 1973 War Powers Resolution, which was passed in the wake of the Vietnam War to prevent another drawn-out, undeclared conflict.”

“A 60-day clock started ticking after the administration informed Congress on Sept. 4 that it had conducted a strike on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean two days earlier… The 60-day window closes Monday, and up to now it’s been unclear what the administration would do.”

“The top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee said on Friday that the Pentagon had refused for weeks to share with Congress key information about its strikes on marine vessels that the Trump administration says are carrying drugs, despite repeated requests that it divulge the directives initiating the operation as well as its legal justification,” the New York Times reports.

“The Pentagon has deliberately shifted its strategy in recent weeks to striking suspected narcotraffickers in the eastern Pacific Ocean, rather than the Caribbean Sea, because administration officials believe they have stronger evidence linking cocaine transport to the US from those western routes,” CNN reports.

‘The intelligence suggests that cocaine is far more likely to be trafficked from Colombia or Mexico, rather than Venezuela, the sources said, raising more questions about the true purpose of the US military buildup in the Caribbean Sea.”