China announced a slate of fresh measures Friday to reinvigorate its ailing property industry after the latest data showed housing prices have slumped nearly 10% since the start of the year.

Among other things, the central bank said it would reduce the minimum down payment for mortgages and remove the floor on interest rates for first and second homes.

Whether it's tapioca balls or computer chips, Taiwan is stretching toward the United States and away from China — the world's No. 2 economy that threatens to take the democratically ruled island by force if necessary.

That has translated to the world's biggest maker of computer chips — which power everything from medical equipment to cellphones — announcing bigger investments in the U.S. last month after a boost from the Biden administration. Soon afterward, a Taiwanese semiconductor company said it was ending its two-decade-long run in mainland China amid a global race to gain the edge in the high-tech industry.

Russian President Vladimir Putin focused on trade and cultural exchanges Friday during his state visit to China that started with bonhomie in Beijing and a meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping that deepened their " no limits " partnership as both countries face rising tensions with the West.

Putin praised China at a China-Russia Expo in the northeastern city of Harbin, hailing the growth in bilateral trade. He will also meet with students at Harbin Institute of Technology later Friday. Harbin, capital of China's Heilongjiang province, was once home to many Russian expatriates and retains some of those historical ties in its architecture, such as the central Saint Sophia Cathedral, a former Russian Orthodox church.

The Japanese economy shrank at an annual rate of 2% in the first quarter of this year, as consumption and exports declined, the government said Thursday.

Although unemployment has stayed relatively low in the world's fourth largest economy at about 2.6%, wage growth has been slow and prices have risen partly due to weakness of the yen against the U.S. dollar.

Fewer Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week as layoffs remain at historically low levels even as other signs that the labor market is cooling have surfaced.

Jobless claims for the week ending May 11 fell by 10,000 to 222,000, down from 232,000 the week before, the Labor Department reported Thursday. Last week's applications were the most since the final week of August 2023, though it's still a relatively low number of layoffs.

Profit at Sony surged 34% in the last quarter on strong sales of its video games, music and movies, the Japanese electronics and entertainment company said Tuesday.

Tokyo-based Sony Corp.'s quarterly profit totaled 189 billion yen ($1.2 billion), up from 141 billion yen the year before. Quarterly sales for the maker of the PlayStation game machines rose 14% to 3.48 trillion yen ($22 billion).

Protesters in the Pakistan-held part of Kashmir called off rallies over price hikes that have left four people dead after authorities agreed to lower prices of electricity and wheat.

The local civil rights alliance, the Awami Action Committee, said it had called off a planned march in the city of Muzaffarabad, the capital of the Pakistan-held part of the disputed Himalayan region, after the government accepted all of its demands.

When Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Hungary last week, he arrived to one of the few places in the European Union where his country is considered an indispensable ally rather than a rival. By the time he left on Friday, he'd secured deals that provide fertile ground for China's plans of economic expansion in Europe.

After meeting with nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orbán on Thursday, the leaders addressed a small group of select media in Hungary's capital, Budapest, announcing the formation of an "all-weather partnership" that would usher in a new era of economic cooperation.

The Biden administration announced plans to slap new tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, advanced batteries, solar cells, steel, aluminum and medical equipment — an election-year move that's likely to increase friction between the world's two largest economies.

The tariffs come in the middle of a heated campaign between President Joe Biden and his Republican predecessor, Donald Trump, in which both candidates are vying to show who's tougher on China.

A tiny, low-priced electric car called the Seagull has American automakers and politicians trembling.

The car, launched last year by Chinese automaker BYD, sells for around $12,000 in China, but drives well and is put together with craftsmanship that rivals U.S. electric vehicles that cost three times as much. A shorter-range version costs under $10,000.