On a recent December day, Mark Latino and a handful of his workers spun sheets of vinyl into tinsel for Christmas tree branches. They worked on a custom-made machine that's nearly a century old, churning out strands of bright silver tinsel along its 35-foot (10-meter) length.

Crypto.com was under siege.

For more than a year, the firm had been investigated by President Joe Biden's Democratic administration, part of an aggressive push to regulate the largely unregulated cryptocurrency industry. Financial regulators had told the company that enforcement action was likely.

Iraq's transport ministry said Tuesday that a flight operated by Greece's Aegean Airlines had been the first European aircraft in 35 years to land at Baghdad's international airport.

Wall Street inched slightly lower early Tuesday ahead of the release of U.S. employment and inflation reports that could drive the direction of interest rates.

Futures for the S&P 500 fell 0.2% before the bell Tuesday, while futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average were unchanged. Nasdaq futures lost 0.2%.

France is throwing up a last-minute obstacle to a massive trans-Atlantic trade deal between the 27-country European Union and the five South American nations of the Mercosur bloc that's taken a quarter-century to negotiate.

Angry European farmers fearing new competition from the EU-Mercosur pact are marching on Brussels, and European negotiators who thought they would finally wrap up the deal this year are facing a tough week.

Since he started growing cannabis at 14, Mohamed Makhlouf has lived in the shadows, losing sleep while bracing for a knock on his door from authorities that could mean prison or his entire harvest confiscated.

But after decades of operating in secret, Makhlouf finally has gained peace of mind as Morocco expands legal cultivation and works to integrate veteran growers like him into the formal economy.

A quarterly survey of major Japanese manufacturers released Monday shows business sentiment improving to its best level in four years, even after President Trump raised tariffs on goods from the U.S. ally to a baseline level of 15%.

The Bank of Japan is bound to take the results of its quarterly "tankan" survey into account during a policy meeting this week, when it is expected to raise its benchmark interest rate. Analysts said the stronger results may sway the BOJ toward pressing ahead with a 0.25 percentage point rate hike that will take the key rate to 0.75%.

Shares opened higher in Europe after a retreat Monday in Asia following Wall Street's worst day in three weeks. The price of bitcoin sank as traders braced for an interest rate hike by the Bank of Japan, expected later in the week.

Germany's DAX gained 0.3% to 24,254.58 and the CAC 40 in Paris was up 0.8% to 8,131.56. Britain's FTSE 100 advanced 0.6% to 9,711,10.

Iran's rial slid further Monday to a new record low of more than 1.3 million to the U.S. dollar, deepening the currency's collapse less than two weeks after it first breached the 1.2-million mark amid sanctions pressure and regional tensions.

Currency traders in Tehran quoted the dollar above 1.3 million rials, underscoring the speed of the decline since Dec. 3, when the rial hit what was then a historic low. The rapid depreciation is compounding inflationary pressures, pushing up prices for food and other daily necessities and further straining household budgets, a trend that could be intensified by a gasoline price change introduced in recent days.

A national strike called on Friday by Italy's largest trade union in protest against the government's budget plans widely disrupted transportation, health and school services across the country.

The protest, which targets the 2026 budget bill proposed by the conservative government of Premier Giorgia Meloni, comes just two weeks after another general strike organized by smaller trade unions, with the same motivations.