Former President Donald Trump is embarking this week on a high-stakes tour of the Persian Gulf region, targeting business deals and strategic partnerships with three oil-rich nations: Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar. The trip marks Trump's first major foreign visit of his new term and comes as nuclear negotiations with Iran drag on and as war continues between Israel and the Palestinian terror organization, Hamas, in the Gaza Strip. While business is the official focus, the backdrop is anything but calm. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt described the mission as part of Trump's broader vision that "extremism is defeated [through] commerce and cultural exchanges." Under President Joe Biden, U.S. relations with Gulf states cooled, particularly after Biden vowed to make Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman a "pariah" over the 2018 killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

The Trump administration is considering a deal that could send hundreds of thousands of U.S.-designed artificial intelligence chips to G42, an Emirati A.I. firm that the U.S. government has scrutinized in the past for its ties to China, three people familiar with the discussions said. The negotiations, which are ongoing, highlight a major shift in U.S. tech policy ahead of President Trump's visit to the Persian Gulf states this week. The talks have also created tension inside the Trump administration between tech- and business-minded leaders who want to close a deal before Mr. Trump's trip and national security officials who worry that the technology could be misused by the Emiratis. The Trump administration has embraced cutting direct deals for A.I. chips with officials from the Middle East, as it looks to strengthen U.S. ties in the region, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the negotiations are ongoing. The approach marks a break from the Biden administration, which had rejected similar A.I. chip sales over fears that they could give autocratic governments with strong ties to China an edge over the United States in developing the most cutting-edge A.I. models in coming years.

The report's findings are advisory, but they could be influential in upcoming court cases on the subject. In firing Dr. Hayden, The White House cited the Library's DEI initiatives. Cornell H. Winston, the President of the American Association of Law Libraries, issued a statement to AALL members on Monday saying he was "deeply concerned" by the firings of Perlmutter and Dr. Hayden, though this letter did not mention the AI report specifically. President Trump has pledged to take a business-friendly approach to artificial intelligence, and he issued two executive orders in April to promote the United States' leadership in the AI industry. Rather than waiting to release a final version of the report and promoting its release, the office instead quietly released a "pre-publication version" of the report on Friday.

United States President Donald Trump will undertake a three-day tour of the Gulf for his first state visit since retaking office in January. The trip begins in Saudi Arabia, followed by Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. It marks Trump's second foreign visit as president after he attended Pope Francis's funeral in Rome in April. Trump will fly out of the US on Monday and start his trip in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, on Tuesday. He is expected to attend a Gulf summit in the city on Wednesday, visit Qatar later that day and conclude his visit in the UAE on Thursday.

As President Trump tours the Middle East this week, governments that are flush with oil wealth will be focused on a different treasure, found in America's Silicon Valley. Artificial intelligence chips, which are made by U.S. companies like Nvidia and AMD, are highly coveted by governments across the Middle East. Leaders of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates want to pour billions of dollars into the construction of data centers to put their countries at the forefront of a new technology heralded for its power to disrupt businesses and create trillions of dollars in economic value. The Gulf States have plenty of energy and cash to build data centers, which house the supercomputers that run A.I. systems. But they need U.S. government approval to buy the American-designed chips to power them.

An AI art lecturer said he believes the U.S. government would encounter difficulty if it attempted to establish a watermark system for AI-generated content. Trump fired Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden, who was the first woman and first African American to be Librarian of Congress, on Thursday. The termination was part of the administration's ongoing purge of government officials who are perceived to be opposed to Trump and his agenda. The White House did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's requests for comment on the matter. Like Perlmutter, Hayden was notified of her firing in an email, according to The Associated Press.

Since returning to the White House, US President Donald Trump has touted corporate and foreign US investment announcements as proof he is ushering in "the golden age of America". On January 21, Trump said that before he'd finished the "first full business day" of his second term, the United States had "already secured nearly 3 trillion of new investments". On April 2, he said, "It looks like we're going to have about 6 trillion of investments". Six days later, Trump told National Republican Congressional Committee Dinner attendees that the investment total was "now revised up to about 7 (trillion)". During an April 30 NewsNation town hall, Trump speculated that "it could be more than 8 trillion".

Fox News contributor Brett Velicovich joins'Fox & Friends First' to discuss Secretary's Hegseth's sweeping Army transformation, how Russia has responded to the U.S. minerals deal with Ukraine and the military bolstering drone technology. This is how the Army will island hop in the Pacific to fend off China. And by the way, Chinese President Xi Jinping has nothing like it. With a stunning announcement, the Army did more than ax 40 generals and open the door to AI. The Army bet its future on this radical aircraft, whose engines swivel to take off and land like a helicopter, or fly high and fast like an airplane.

Fox News contributor and Army veteran Brett Velicovich shares insight into the United States' drone capabilities and how it compares to adversaries like Russia and China. The U.S. Marine Corps established an attack drone team earlier this year to respond to the rapid development of armed first-person view (FPV) drone technology and tactics, offering a glimpse into the evolving landscape of modern warfare and how future battles could be fought. The Marine Corps Attack Drone Team (MCADT) will be based at the Weapons Training Battalion, Marine Corps Base in Quantico, Virginia. The FPV drones used will offer squad-level lethality at a range of up to 20 kilometers, nearly 12.5 miles, for under 5,000, compared to more expensive weapons systems with less capability, according to a press release from the service. "MCADT is committed to rapidly integrating armed first-person view drones into the FMF [Fleet Marine Force], enhancing small-unit lethality and providing organic capabilities that warfighters currently lack," said Maj. Alejandro Tavizon, the headquarters company commander at Weapons Training Battalion and officer in charge of MCADT.

Should AI chatbots have the same rights as humans? Common sense says no -- while such a far-fetched idea might make for good sci-fi, it has no place in American law. But right now, a major tech company is trying to bring that idea to life, pressing a federal court to extend legal protections historically primarily afforded to humans to the outputs of an AI bot. Character.AI, one of the leading AI companion bot apps on the market, is fighting for the dismissal of a wrongful death and product liability lawsuit concerning the death of 14-year-old Sewell Setzer III. As co-counsel to Sewell's mother, Megan Garcia, and technical advisor on the case, respectively, we've been following these motions closely and with concern.