Sweet Easter baskets will likely come at a bitter cost this year for consumers as the price of cocoa climbs to record highs.

Cocoa futures have surged this year, roughly doubling since the start of 2024. Rising temperatures and weather conditions have stressed and damaged crops in West Africa, which produces more than 70% of the global cocoa supply.

The number of Americans signing up for unemployment benefits fell slightly last week, another sign that the labor market remains strong and most workers enjoy extraordinary job security.

The Labor Department reported Thursday that jobless claims dipped by 2,000 to 210,000. The four-week average of claims, which smooths out week-to-week ups and downs, rose by 2,500 to 211,250.

Turkey's central bank raised its key interest rate by 5 percentage points on Thursday, resuming a policy of rate hikes aimed at combating soaring inflation that is causing households severe economic pain.

In a surprise decision, the central bank said it was raising the benchmark one-week repo rate to 50%. The bank had been widely expected to keep the benchmark rate steady for a second month, ahead of mayoral elections on March 31.

A Dubai sovereign wealth fund that's the single-largest shareholder in the Nasdaq stock index plans to sell a third of its shares in the exchange, a deal potentially worth some $1.6 billion that saw the value of the firm fall in aftermarket trading Wednesday.

The announcement from Borse Dubai, owned by the Investment Corp. of Dubai, would make it the second-largest holder in the Nasdaq, a technology-heavy exchange that's one of the three main indexes in the United States.

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID), through the Agriculture and Rural Empowerment (ARE) activity, is providing over 11,000 Lebanese farmers with seeds, seedlings, and compost to bolster food security in Lebanon, USAID said.

“This ongoing initiative aims to mitigate the impact of rising food costs and reduced purchasing power, particularly impacting rural Lebanese communities. On March 20, 2024, USAID Lebanon Mission Director Julie Southfield visited a distribution site in Jbeil to engage with farmers, addressing their challenges and underscoring the vital role of the agriculture sector in Lebanon’s economy,” the U.S agency said in a statement.

The United States plans to refill its strategic oil reserve by the end of 2024 after the stockpiles reached historic lows last year, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said.

Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, U.S. President Joe Biden announced an unprecedented tapping of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) in a move criticized by Republicans.

Federal prosecutors on Monday painted one-time British tech star Mike Lynch as the ruthless mastermind of an $11 billion deal that defrauded Silicon Valley pioneer Hewlett Packard.

But his lawyer depicted him as a visionary who was made a scapegoat for a desperate buyer's bad decision.

Unilever, the company that makes Dove soaps and Vaseline, said Tuesday that it is cutting 7,500 jobs and spinning off its ice cream business to reduce costs and boost profits.

London-based Unilever said its ice cream business, which also includes Magnum bars, has "distinct characteristics" from its other brands and would benefit from separate ownership to increase growth. It said the split is expected to be completed by the end of next year.

Japan's central bank raised its benchmark interest rate Tuesday for the first time in 17 years, ending a longstanding policy of negative rates meant to boost the economy.

The Bank of Japan's lending rate for overnight borrowing by banks was raised to a range of 0 to 0.1% from minus 0.1% at a policy meeting that confirmed expectations of a shift away from ultra-lax monetary policy.

China's manufacturing and investment improved in the first two months of the year, while weakness in the property sector weighed on the economy, the National Bureau of Statistics said Monday.

The report said industrial output rose 7% from a year earlier in January-February, better than analysts had forecast. Spending on factories and equipment, known as fixed-asset investments, rose 4.2%.