Households and businesses across Europe have struggled with high electricity prices for months, though they have fallen since late August peaks.

Electricity costs are intrinsically linked to natural gas prices, which spiked after Russia invaded Ukraine and drastically reduced flows of the fuel used to heat homes, generate power and run factories as the European Union sanctioned Moscow.

Lawmakers from two of Germany's governing parties on Thursday slammed plans for Chinese shipping company Cosco to take a major stake in the operator of the country's biggest container terminal, warning that they pose a national security risk.

Public broadcaster NDR reported that Chancellor Olaf Scholz has asked officials to find a compromise that would allow the investment to happen, after several ministries initially rejected it on the grounds that Cosco, already the port's biggest customer, could get too much leverage.

British Prime Minister Liz Truss on Thursday dramatically announced her resignation just six weeks after taking office.

The head of the United Nations' World Food Program is renewing pressure on oil-rich Gulf countries to give his agency more help to deal with mounting humanitarian crises.

WFP Executive Director David Beasley's comments on Thursday followed a meeting with Development Minister Svenja Schulze of Germany, the agency's second-biggest donor. Schulze also stressed that "we simply need more countries to give money" as the global food crisis exacerbated by Russia's war in Ukraine and rising prices grows.

European Union leaders were heading into a two-day summit Thursday with opposing views on whether, and how, the bloc could impose a gas price cap to contain the energy crisis fueled by Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine and his strategy to choke off gas supplies to the bloc at will.

At the opening of the summit, the need for rock-solid EU unity in confronting Russia will be highlighted by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who is expected to address the 27 national leaders by video conference from Kyiv, asking for continued help to get his nation through the winter.

British food prices rose at the fastest pace since 1980 last month, driving inflation back to a 40-year high and heaping pressure on the embattled government to balance the books without gutting help for the nation's poorest residents.

Food prices jumped 14.6% in the year through September, led by the soaring cost of staples such as meat, bread, milk and eggs, the Office for National Statistics said Wednesday. That pushed consumer price inflation back to 10.1%, the highest since early 1982 and equal to the level last reached in July.

President Joe Biden will announce the release of 15 million barrels of oil from the U.S. strategic reserve Wednesday as part of a response to recent production cuts announced by OPEC+ nations, and he will say more drawdowns are possible this winter, as his administration rushes to be seen as pulling out all the stops ahead of next month's midterm elections.

Biden will deliver remarks Wednesday to announce the drawdown from the strategic reserve, senior administration officials said Tuesday on the condition of anonymity to outline Biden's plans. It completes the release of 180 million barrels authorized by Biden in March that was initially supposed to occur over six months. That has sent the strategic reserve to its lowest level since 1984 in what the administration called a "bridge" until domestic production could be increased. The reserve now contains roughly 400 million barrels of oil.

Lebanon's parliament has approved some amendments to a banking secrecy law that has been a key demand of the International Monetary Fund before it agrees to a bailout program amid the country's economic meltdown.

Despite the changes, legal advocacy groups say the alterations to the law will likely not be enough to please the IMF because it restricts moves to lift banking secrecy provisions to judicial authorities. The decades-old law is seen by many as a way to hide the widespread corruption that brought the small nation to bankruptcy over the past three years.

The Trade and Investment Facilitation (TIF) Project, funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), on Tuesday launched an energy audit program in partnership with the Michel Daher Social Foundation (MDSF) for industrial facilities in Lebanon’s Bekaa region.

The 16-month long program will support 17 Bekaa manufacturers to optimize efficiency of energy consumption through conservation measures and renewable energy solutions. The partnership will include training on renewable energy technologies, along with an extensive on-site and off-site energy audit program that will identify three types of Energy Conservation Measures (ECMs). USAID, through TIF, will then support industrialists in implementing appropriate solutions to identify energy inefficiencies including the installation of renewable energy solutions.

President Michel Aoun on Tuesday told a delegation from French oil giant TotalEnergies that exploration for gas in Lebanon’s offshort Block 9 “should start quickly to make up for the time that was lost during the indirect negotiations for the demarcation of the southern maritime border.”

According to the state-run National News Agency, the delegation briefed Aoun on the procedural and administrative preparations that TotalEnergies is carrying out in Lebanon ahead of the start of exploration in Block 9.