Nearly a million low-income Moroccan families are due to receive government aid, authorities announced, launching the kingdom's first and much-awaited social benefits program.

A U.S. import ban on certain Apple smartwatch models came into effect Tuesday, after the Biden administration opted not to veto a ruling on patent infringements.

The United States International Trade Commission (ITC) decided in October to ban Apple Watch models over a patented technology for detecting blood-oxygen levels.

Shares advanced in Asia on Tuesday in holiday-thinned trading, while European markets remained closed for holidays.

The future for the S&P 500 was 0.2% higher and that for the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.1%. Oil prices edged higher.

President Joe Biden is set to sign an executive order giving the U.S. Treasury Department the authority to target financial institutions that facilitate Russia's efforts to bolster its defense industry.

The new sanctions authority is meant to gum up the Kremlin's push to restock the Russian military's depleted arsenal after nearly 22 months of fighting in Ukraine. Russia has already lost over 13,000 pieces of equipment, including tanks, drones and missile systems, according to a U.S. assessment.

In a falafel joint in south Lebanon, Hussein Murtada prepared flat-bread snacks for his few remaining customers as an Israeli surveillance drone buzzed above the border village of Kfar Kila.

"We work under the bombs. A few days ago, a shell fell 200 meters from here. Shrapnel hit the shopfront and the wall," said Murtada, 60, pointing to the damage.

Turkey's central bank hiked its key interest rate by 2.5 percentage points on Thursday as part of its efforts to combat high inflation that has left many households struggling to afford rent and essential items.

The bank's Monetary Policy Committee raised its benchmark rate to 42.5%, delivering its seventh interest rate hike in a row to tame inflation, which rose to 61.98% last month.

The impacts of the Israel-Hamas war are set to push crisis-hit Lebanon's economy back into recession, the World Bank said Thursday, blaming mainly a "shock to tourism spending".

Lebanon's southern border has seen regular exchanges of fire, mainly between the Israeli army and Hezbollah, since the Gaza conflict erupted on October 7.

Tesla has found itself locked in an increasingly bitter dispute with union workers in Sweden and neighboring countries. The showdown pits the electric car maker's CEO Elon Musk, who's staunchly anti-union, against the strongly held labor ideals of Scandinavian countries.

None of Tesla's workers anywhere in the world are unionized, raising questions about whether strikes could spread to other parts of Europe where employees commonly have collective bargaining rights — notably in Germany, Tesla's most important market.

The tide turned against inflation.

Artificial intelligence went mainstream — for good or ill.

Inflation in the U.K. as measured by the consumer prices index eased back to its lowest level in more than two years, official figures showed Wednesday, in a development that stoked speculation that the Bank of England may start cutting interest rates sooner than expected.

The Office for National Statistics said inflation dropped to 3.9% in the year to November, its lowest level since September 2021, from 4.6% the previous month. That decline was bigger than anticipated in financial markets.