The emir of Qatar is looking to invest in energy and high-tech in Cyprus — projects seen as having a strong economic potential, a Cypriot official said.

Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, who visited the east Mediterranean island nation on Tuesday for the first time, is also interested in investing in Cypriot ports and banking institutions, the official said.

The UK's Labor opposition vowed Tuesday to be both "pro-worker and pro-business" after winning the backing of 120 industry leaders as the party tries to oust the Conservatives in the upcoming general election.

Asian and European stock markets rose Monday in holiday-thinned trading, with investors awaiting fresh U.S. and European inflation data for more clarity on the outlook for interest rates.

In a Beirut car park, migrant workers cheer as their teams face off in a cricket tournament, a moment of respite in crisis-hit Lebanon, where working conditions are often tough.

New York is offering up to $90 million in tax credits for news outlets to hire and retain journalists in an effort to help keep the shrinking local news industry afloat.

The U.S. newspaper industry has been in a long decline, driven by factors including a loss in advertising revenue as outlets have moved from primarily print to mostly digital. That prompted state lawmakers to help in a measure passed in the state budget.

The federal government will spend $75 million to help build a factory making glass parts for computer chips in Covington, Georgia.

The U.S. Department of Commerce announced the investment Thursday in Absolics, part of South Korea's SK Group.

Flooding in Brazil's Rio Grande do Sul state ravaged nearly everything needed for economic activity, from local shops to factories, farms and ranches.

The environmental catastrophe — unprecedented in state history — upended transportation, including the airport in the capital Porto Alegre, which is expected to remain shuttered for months. Segments of major highways are closed due to landslides, washed-out roads and collapsed bridges. Blackouts continue to plague the state. Gov. Eduardo Leite has said Rio Grande do Sul will need a "kind of 'Marshall Plan' to be rebuilt," although an exact strategy to do so in a way that reduces future climate disasters has yet to be determined.

The U.S. sought to build support for squeezing more money for Ukraine out of frozen Russian assets and for uniting against China's trade practices as finance ministers from the Group of Seven rich democracies opened a two-day meeting on Friday on the shores of northern Italy's scenic Lago Maggiore.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is pushing at the meeting in Stresa for "more ambitious options" to unlock money from some $260 billion in Russian central bank reserves frozen in Europe and the U.S. after the Feb. 24, 2022, invasion.

U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Lisa Johnson hosted a reception on May 23 to celebrate the "strong ties" between the U.S. Embassy and the hundreds of Lebanese who have participated in U.S. Government-sponsored international exchange programs in the United States, the embassy said.

Johnson expressed her admiration for the "remarkable achievements" of U.S. exchange alumni, emphasizing the importance the United States places on the "bridges of friendship and understanding" that alumni continue to build between the United States and Lebanon.

Mastercard said Wednesday that it expects to be able to discover that your credit or debit card number has been compromised well before it ends up in the hands of a cybercriminal.

In its latest software update rolling out this week, Mastercard is integrating artificial intelligence into its fraud-prediction technology that it expects will be able to see patterns in stolen cards faster and allow banks to replace them before they are used by criminals.