(Reuters) - Highlights of the day for U.S. President Donald Trump's administration on Friday:
U.S. STRIKES SYRIA
American cruise missile strikes on a Syrian air base are one step away from clashing with the Russian military, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev says, underscoring the risks in Trump's first major foray into the Syrian civil war.
U.S. lawmakers from both parties back Trump's cruise missile strikes on Syria, while urging him to spell out a broader strategy for dealing with the conflict.
Allies around the world express support for the missile strikes, calling them a proportionate response to Syria's suspect use of chemical weapons, while Syria and its allies, Russia and Iran, denounce the attack.
China urges all parties in Syria to try to find a political settlement in the six-year-old war after the U.S. strike, which came as China's president met with Trump.
Israeli leaders welcome the U.S. air strikes in Syria, saying they send a strong message that the Trump administration would not accept the use of chemical weapons and was a warning to other hostile states, including Iran and North Korea.
Polarized by years of civil war, Syrians are split over the U.S. strike, with those in rebel-held areas cautiously welcoming it but Damascus residents decrying it as Western aggression.
GORSUCH CONFIRMATION
The Republican-led Senate gives Trump the biggest triumph of his young presidency, confirming his Supreme Court nominee over stout Democratic opposition and restoring a conservative majority on the highest U.S. judicial body.
TRUMP MEETS XI
Trump says he believes he and Chinese President Xi Jinping have made progress in the bilateral U.S.-China relationship during their first face-to-face talks.
UNEMPLOYMENT DROPS
U.S. job growth slowed sharply in March amid continued layoffs in the retail sector, but a drop in the unemployment rate to a near 10-year low of 4.5 percent suggest labor market strength remains intact.
SOUTHERN U.S. CHALLENGE
As Trump faces pressure to deliver on his promise to revive manufacturing in the northern "Rust Belt" states that put him in the White House, his biggest challenge may not be Mexico or China, but the South, which forms the other pillar of his political base.