The European Union's executive body raised its economic growth forecast, saying Europe had dodged a winter recession that was feared amid an energy crisis but warning that stubbornly high inflation is likely to keep hurting the economy by sapping people's ability to spend.

The outlook for the 20 countries using the euro currency improved to growth of 1.1% this year from 0.9% in February's predictions, the European Commission said in its spring forecast Monday.

Building factories to boost job creation and make France more independent — that's President Emmanuel Macron's ambition for the French economy.

It's a big challenge, as France reels from protracted protests, rising food and energy prices and other fallout from the Ukraine war.

Less than two months into his $44 billion purchase of Twitter, Elon Musk declared that whoever took over as the company's CEO " must like pain a lot." Then he promised he'd step down as soon as he found a replacement "foolish enough" to want the job.

That person, Musk announced Friday, is Linda Yaccarino, a highly-regarded advertising executive from NBCUniversal. She'll start in six weeks. How long she'll last might depend on her pain tolerance.

Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh has decided not to attend the May 16 interrogation session in Paris and is instead planning to retire in Sharjah, UAE, media reports have said.

Salameh fears that he might be detained or banned from traveling if he goes to France, the reports said. Instead, the governor and his legal team will argue that he has not been officially notified of the French interrogation request.

After months wrestling over the fate of millions of unsold Yeezy shoes, Adidas said Thursday it will sell a portion of its remaining inventory and donate the proceeds to charitable organizations.

The German sportsware company cut ties with Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, in late October, following his antisemitic comments on social media and in interviews. Since then, the fate of 1.2 billion euros ($1.3 billion) worth of the unsold Yeezys, a lucrative sneaker line launched with Ye, has been up in the air.

The U.K. economy grew sluggishly during the first three months of the year as double-digit inflation curbed consumer spending and labor unrest curtailed output in industries ranging from transportation to healthcare and education.

Gross domestic product, the broadest measure of economic activity, increased 0.1% in the first quarter compared with the previous three months, the Office for National Statistics said Friday. The figure matched the growth rate during the fourth quarter of last year and was in line with economic forecasts.

A labor union representing more than 200,000 railway workers said Friday that it was going ahead with a planned strike next week after its demands for better pay were rejected by employers.

The EVG union said its members will walk out for 50 hours from late Sunday until late Tuesday. Rail company Deutsche Bahn has canceled all long-distance travel during that period and warned that most regional trains also won't run.

Iraq's oil minister has said that crude exports from the autonomous Kurdistan region to Turkey would resume on Saturday, hours after a deal was finalized following years of dispute.

The Kurdish regional government had for years earned billions of dollars in revenues exporting oil to Turkey without the Iraqi federal government's approval.

Long-haul carrier Emirates saw its most-profit year ever in 2022, earning $2.9 billion after bouncing back from the coronavirus pandemic shutting down global aviation, the airline announced Thursday.

The carrier's revival comes as Dubai, which owns the airline, has seen property prices skyrocket and people flood into the city-state in the United Arab Emirates as it lifted pandemic restrictions quickly and welcomed Russians fleeing Moscow's war on Ukraine.

Japanese automaker Nissan reported Thursday a seven-fold surge in January-March profit and forecast strong sales for this fiscal year riding on the popularity of its new model offerings.

Nissan Motor Co.'s net profit for the fiscal fourth quarter totaled 106.9 billion yen ($798 million), up dramatically from 14.2 billion yen a year ago.