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%.

Asian stocks advanced Monday ahead of policy decisions this week by Japan's central bank and the Federal Reserve.

Oil prices and U.S. futures rose.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Monday that his country is ready to work with New Zealand to deepen trade and economic ties and address climate change.

Wang met his New Zealand counterpart, Winston Peters, at the start of a tour that will also include Australia.

Stocks are opening higher on Wall Street ahead of a busy week for central banks around the world that could dictate where interest rates go next. The S&P 500 was 1% higher in early trading Monday, coming off its first back-to-back weekly losses since October. It's still close to its all-time high set early last week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 133 points, or 0.3%, and the Nasdaq composite was up 1.5%. Treasury yields held relatively steady. The Federal Reserve will announce its latest decision on interest rates Wednesday. The central banks of Japan and England also meet this week.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP's earlier story follows below.

The European Union has announced a 7.4 billion-euro ($8 billion) aid package for cash-strapped Egypt as concerns mount that economic pressure and conflicts in neighboring countries could drive more migrants to European shores.

The deal, which drew criticism from rights groups over Egypt's human rights record, was signed Sunday afternoon in Cairo by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. The ceremony was attended by leaders of Belgium, Italy, Austria, Cyprus and Greece.

System failures at McDonald's were reported worldwide Friday, shuttering some restaurants for hours and leading to social media complaints from customers, in what the fast food chain called a "technology outage" that was being fixed.

Chicago-based McDonald's Corp. said the problems were not related to a cybersecurity attack, without giving more details on what caused them.

President Joe Biden has came out in opposition to the planned sale of U.S. Steel to Nippon Steel of Japan, saying that the U.S. needs to "maintain strong American steel companies powered by American steel workers."

In a statement, Biden added: "U.S. Steel has been an iconic American steel company for more than a century, and it is vital for it to remain an American steel company that is domestically owned and operated."