Hello from the FT newsroom. Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin will convene in Alaska tomorrow for their first face-to-face meeting since 2019. The US president has sought to ease European fears of the summit by pledging to be tough on Putin and not negotiating an end to the Ukraine war without Ukraine in the room. We will only know how far he is willing to go or what he might promise Russia’s leader once the meeting concludes.

As our US national editor Edward Luce writes, “Putin has good reasons to be hopeful on Friday.” Unlike Moscow, Trump is desperate for a peace deal. And there are no Russia experts in Trump’s corner to stop him from falling for Putin’s notoriously sly talk. Negotiations with Moscow have been led by real estate developer and foreign policy newbie Steve Witkoff.

If nothing else, the meeting will be unconventional. The two leaders have a history of bizarre encounters. And this time, Trump won’t have to contend with an assertive Congress or officials who place guardrails on his actions.

1. Our reporters revealed that the chipmaking giants Nvidia and AMD have agreed to give the US government 15 per cent of the revenues from chip sales in China, as part of an unusual arrangement with the Trump administration to obtain export licences for the semiconductors. Here are more details on the unprecedented quid pro quo arrangement.

2. The Bayeux Tapestry recalls a defining moment in England’s history. After more than 900 years, it is set to return to Britain in an agreement hailed as evidence of warming Anglo-French ties. Yet the story behind the landmark cultural deal is itself a saga, involving secret backroom deals and last-minute skirmishes. This is how the Bayeux Tapestry became a tool of soft power. (Free to read)

3. Dubai spent decades trying to build a financial centre to challenge the world’s best — and it worked. Over the past four and a half years, the number of active registered companies in its offshore financial centre has more than doubled to 7,700. But Abu Dhabi and Riyadh have the city in their sights. Can Dubai keep its crown as the Middle East’s finance capital?

4. The race to build a workable quantum computer — a dream at the intersection of advanced physics and computer science since the 1980s — may soon be over. Recent breakthroughs have revived tech companies’ confidence about creating full-scale quantum systems by the end of the decade. But first, they must jump some surprising hurdles.

5. Curtis Yarvin, a 52-year-old blogger and computer engineer, was little known until last November. But Trump’s re-election sent his profile soaring. What does Yarvin — and the new, new right movement to which he belongs — stand for? The FT’s Jemima Kelly, and her Bumble match, joined Yarvin at a “dissident right” garden party to find out.

6. It can be difficult to admit what you don’t know. Many media training courses teach people how to avoid answering questions to which they do not know the answer. Even LLMs are starting to show the same tendency. But there are costs to not owning up to gaps in your knowledge, writes our employment columnist Sarah O’Connor. (Free to read)

Thanks for reading,

Roula