Farmers blocked highways and held demonstrations in many rural areas in northern India on Friday to protest over a range of grievances that have also led tens of thousands to march toward the capital in tractors and wagons.

Farmers in the northern states of Haryana and Punjab held sit-ins near toll plazas on major highways in the strike, supported by some trade unions. Authorities advised commuters to plan routes carefully to avoid blocked roads.

In a square near the center of Algiers, currency traders carry wads of euros, pounds and dollars, hoping to exchange them to those worried about the plummeting value of the Algerian dinar.

This black market for foreign currencies is among the signs of the economic woes plaguing Algeria. The state, reluctant to allow the exchange rate to adjust fully, has proven incapable of limiting demand among the population as confidence in the dinar remains low.

Annual inflation in the United States cooled last month yet remained elevated in the latest sign that the pandemic-fueled price surge is only gradually and fitfully coming under control.

Tuesday's report from the Labor Department showed that the consumer price index rose 0.3% from December to January, up from a 0.2% increase the previous month. Compared with a year ago, prices are up 3.1%.

Jeff Bezos filed a statement with federal regulators indicating his sale of nearly 12 million shares of Amazon stock worth more than $2 billion.

The Amazon executive chairman notified the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission of the sale of 11,997,698 shares of common stock on Feb. 7 and Feb. 8.

Israel's finance minister has slammed the decision by financial ratings agency Moody's to downgrade Israel's credit rating, saying the announcement is a "political manifesto" that "did not include serious economic claims."

Moody's dropped the rating on Israel's debt on Friday, warning that the ongoing war in Gaza and a possible war in the north with Hezbollah could adversely affect Israel's economy.

Thousands of minority Serbs in Kosovo on Monday protested a ban of the use of the Serbian currency in areas where they live, an issue that has been the cause of the latest crisis in relations between Serbia and Kosovo.

Tensions escalated after the government of Kosovo, a former Serbian province, banned banks and other financial institutions in the Serb-populated areas from using the dinar in local transactions, starting Feb. 1, and imposed the euro.

Just a quarter of business economists and analysts expect the United States to fall into recession this year. And any downturn would likely result from an external shock — such as a conflict involving China — rather than from domestic economic factors such as higher interest rates.

But respondents to a National Association of Business Economics survey released Monday still expect year-over-year inflation to exceed 2.5% — above the Federal Reserve's 2% target — through 2024.

Spanish farmers blocked roads across Spain on Thursday for the third day running to protest against heavy regulation and cheaper imports, with the country's main farmers' unions joining the demonstrations for the first time.

Several columns of slow-moving tractors took over roads to snarl traffic, particularly in the eastern region of Valencia, the northern region of Astoria and the central region of Castilla la Mancha.

Japanese automaker Honda's profit rose 3.5% in the October-December quarter from a year earlier on the back of solid demand in the U.S. and Europe and a recovery in its home market, the company said Thursday.

Tokyo-based Honda Motor Co.'s profit in the last quarter was 253.3 billion yen, or $1.7 billion. Quarterly sales jumped 21% to 5.39 trillion yen ($36 billion).

Nissan's profit sank in October-December to about half of what it earned the year before, the automaker said Thursday, though it stuck to its earlier earnings forecasts.

Nissan Motor Co., based in the port city of Yokohama, reported its profit was 29 billion yen ($195 million) in the last quarter, down from 50.6 billion yen a year earlier.