Global shares traded mixed Thursday as market attention turned to upcoming data on the U.S. economy after Nvidia reported its financial results.

France's CAC 40 edged up 0.4% in early trading to 7,607.05. Germany's DAX was little changed, inching up less than 0.1% to 18,798.50. Britain's FTSE 100 rose 0.2% to 8,361.47. U.S. shares were set to drift mostly higher with Dow futures up 0.4% at 41,345.00. S&P 500 futures stood virtually unchanged at 5,608.50.

Transport ministers from Turkey, Iraq, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates are meeting in Istanbul on Thursday to discuss a multibillion-dollar regional transportation project designed to ease the movement of goods from Asia to Europe through Iraq.

The proposed $20 billion Development Road Project is designed to facilitate the transport of goods from the Gulf to Europe via the Grand Faw Port in Basra in southern Iraq. The port would be linked to Turkey and subsequently to Europe through an extensive network of railways and highways.

Chinese President Xi Jinping met with U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan on Thursday in Beijing, on a visit with the stated aim of keeping communications open between the two powers, as the relationship between China and the United States has become increasingly tense in recent years.

Sullivan, on his first trip to China in his capacity as the main adviser to President Joe Biden on U.S. national security issues, has met with senior Chinese officials including Foreign Minister Wang Yi and a senior general of the Central Military Commission.

South Africa has active investigations into alleged corruption totaling more than $7 billion at some of its top state-owned companies, according to a report published Tuesday by the national anti-graft unit.

The investigations are not new, and some have been running since 2018, and all of them were cited by the Special Investigative Unit (SIU) in a report to a parliamentary committee to give an update on the status of the probes.

The high cost of caring for children and the elderly has forced American women out of the workforce, devastated family finances and left professional caretakers in low-wage jobs — all while slowing economic growth.

That families are suffering is not up for debate. As the economy emerges as a theme in this presidential election, the Democratic and Republican candidates have sketched out ideas for easing costs that reveal their divergent views about family.

Markets on Wall Street were largely unchanged in light trading early Wednesday as investors eagerly anticipated an earnings report from chipmaker Nvidia later in the day.

French prosecutors are expected to charge or release the CEO of the popular messaging app Telegram, Pavel Durov, after his police custody order expires on Wednesday.

Durov was detained Saturday at Le Bourget airport outside Paris as part of a judicial inquiry opened last month involving 12 alleged criminal violations. They include allegations that his platform is being used for selling child sexual abuse material and drug trafficking, fraud, abetting organized crime transactions and Telegram's refusal to share information or documents with investigators when required by law.

When electrical engineer Preetam Gaikwad first moved to Jena in 2013, she was smitten by what the eastern German city had to offer: a prestigious university, top research institutions, and cutting-edge technology companies, global leaders in their field.

Eleven years later, the Indian native takes a more sober view.

The leaders of Germany and the United Kingdom announced plans on Wednesday to draw up a treaty meant to deepen the two nations' trade, defense and other ties.

The move comes as new U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer moves ahead with plans for a "reset" of relations with the European Union.

European markets opened higher while Asian stocks ended mixed on Tuesday after the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed to an all-time high and Big Tech companies pulled the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq composite lower.

Germany's DAX picked up 0.3% to 18,665.08 after data from the statistics office on Tuesday showed the country's second-quarter gross domestic product fell by 0.1% from the previous quarter.