British Prime Minister Theresa May is facing a second defeat in the House of Lords on whether to give parliament the final say on leaving the EU but her timetable for triggering Brexit by the end of the month remains on track.

The bill empowering May to start the exit process has already been held up by a week after peers voted on March 1 for an amendment guaranteeing the rights of European citizens living in Britain.

Brazil's recession hit the two year mark, becoming the worst in the country's history, after Latin America's biggest economy registered an eighth consecutive quarter of shrinkage, GDP figures showed Tuesday.

The government statistics office said the economy shrank 0.9 percent in the last three months of 2016. That meant an overall dip of 3.6 percent in 2016, following a 3.8 percent fall in 2015.

The U.S. trade gap shot up at the start of the year to hit its highest monthly level in almost five years, the Commerce Department reported Tuesday.

The data showed trade was robust, with exports and imports  of goods and services hitting their highest levels for a single month since December 2014.

US energy giant ExxonMobil, Qatar Petroleum, Italy's ENI and France's Total have successfully bid for rights to explore for oil and gas off the coast of Cyprus, officials said Tuesday.

The contracts, part of the Mediterranean island's third licensing round, will be approved by the cabinet on March 17, Cyprus trade minister George Lakkotrypis told reporters.

Europe's auto sector has witnessed two decades of takeovers, alliances and break-ups, the latest being PSA's purchase of Opel for 1.3 billion euros ($1.4 billion).

German carmaker Volkswagen will recall nearly 680,000 premium Audi cars in China, according to the country's quality regulator, over defects in coolant pumps that could lead to engine fires.

Austria's OMV said that it is buying a 24.99-percent stake in one of Russia's biggest gas fields for $1.85 billion.

Shares in Germany's biggest lender Deutsche Bank fell as much as 6.0 percent as the Frankfurt market opened Monday, hours after the bank announced it would raise cash by issuing new shares.

One-time U.S. presidential contender Bernie Sanders spoke Saturday in favor of unionization at a largely African-American Mississippi Nissan plant, in an appearance that doubled as Democratic outreach in the wake of Donald Trump's election.

Sanders, who was bested by Hillary Clinton during the Democratic Party's primary, was accompanied by actor Danny Glover and other officials from the NAACP, which is the largest African-American advocacy group in the United States.

The U.S. stock market's surge since the election has reignited a debate on valuation and whether the market can go higher still after hitting some significant milestones.

The Dow on Wednesday soared above 21,000 points for the first time following President Donald Trump's first major address to Congress. After pulling back on Thursday, stocks tentatively resumed the upward climb on Friday, finishing slightly higher.