Elon Musk on Monday pledged to give one share of his company SpaceX to "every kid in America" next year.

The offer arrived a day after artificial intelligence company Anthropic announced in a social media post that it will commit 5% of its shares to a new "public benefit" fund.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio was in Uzbekistan on Monday to promote trade and ties with Central Asia, during a trip that came amid rumblings that America's top diplomat is ignoring pressing matters in favor of politically safer visits and meetings.

The trip, which involves a stop in India later this week, seeks to promote U.S. economic and security ties with Central and South Asia. But it has only tangential links to the Trump administration's current main foreign policy dilemmas in the Middle East and with the Russia-Ukraine war.

China said Monday its economy grew 4.5% in the July-September quarter from a year ago fueled by robust exports, moving closer to meeting its official annual growth target for the year as trading partners seek to balance their trade deficits with the country.

Economic growth accelerated from the 4.3% year-on-year rate recorded in the April-June quarter, the slowest expansion in more than three years. Its economy expanded 4.6% in the first three quarters.

Qatar will help revive Lebanon's ailing energy sector and solve its chronic problems in providing reliable electricity, the Lebanese and Qatari prime ministers said Friday.

Iraq has lost around $60 billion during the Middle East war, Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein said on Thursday, with Iran blockading a waterway that is crucial to global energy flows.

OPEC member Iraq was producing about four million barrels of oil per day before the conflict, exporting about 3.5 million bpd -- mostly shipped from the country's south via the Strait of Hormuz.

Lebanon’s central bank has this week canceled the local license of Bank Saderat Iran, one of Iran's largest banks, as the United States steps up pressure on countries to sever commercial ties with Tehran.

In an interview with Bloomberg, Central Bank Governor Karim Souaid stated that the move aims to "send a clear signal to the outside world that we are determined to protect our banking sector from any entity that might expose it to the risk of contamination."

U.S. wholesale inflation surged past analysts' expectations in September, marking its biggest jump since 2022 as the war in Iran sent fuel prices rocketing, government data showed Thursday.

China's exports surged 36.3% in September from a year earlier, its customs agency said Wednesday, bringing it on track to exceed last year's record trade surplus as pressure ramped up from its trading partners, including the European Union, to rebalance trade.

The exports data, which was better than what economists had expected, accelerated from the 25% growth in August. High-tech goods such as semiconductors and autos have helped fuel its rising shipments overseas.

The U.S. and other wealthy nations need to urgently tackle mounting global debt levels that are weighing most heavily on low-income countries and straining the global financial system, the head of the International Monetary Fund said Wednesday.

IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and other U.S. leaders recognize that the federal deficit and national debt are too high. But economic growth alone would not be enough to address the country's more than $40 trillion in national debt, she said.

The House speaker stood before Donald Trump during his first term at the White House and pointed a finger declaring that with this president, "All roads lead to Putin."

The stark assessment years ago from Nancy Pelosi echoed anew after Trump's surprise announcement last week that he struck a deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin to import tons of Russian diesel to the U.S. as a way to ease sky-high prices at the pumps for Americans ahead of the midterm elections.