New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on Friday made her first visit to the U.K. since both countries signed a free trade agreement, meeting with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to boost bilateral ties and discuss Russia's war in Ukraine.

The trip came after both leaders attended the NATO summit in Madrid. They will also discuss security challenges facing the Indo-Pacific region.

Inflation in countries using the euro set another eye-watering record, pushed higher by a huge increase in energy costs fueled partly by Russia's war in Ukraine.

Annual inflation in the eurozone's 19 countries hit 8.6% in June, surging past the 8.1% recorded in May, according to the latest numbers published Friday by the European Union statistics agency, Eurostat. Inflation is at its highest level since recordkeeping for the euro began in 1997.

Flights from Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris and other French airports faced disruptions Friday as airport workers held a strike to demand salary hikes to keep up with inflation and an urgent hiring push to deal with resurgent travel demand.

The labor action is the latest trouble to hit global airports this summer, as travel resurges after two years of virus restrictions.

At a tourism conference in Phuket last month, Thailand's prime minister looked out at attendees and posed a question with a predictable answer.

"Are you ready?" Prayuth Chan-ocha asked, dramatically removing his mask and launching what's hoped to be the country's economic reset after more than two years of coronavirus-driven restrictions. When the crowd yelled its answer — yes, according to local media — it might have been speaking for the entire pandemic-battered world.

Oil prices are high, and drivers are paying more at the pump. But the OPEC oil cartel and allied producing nations may not be much help as they decide Thursday how much more crude to send to world markets.

That's because the 23-member OPEC+ alliance, which includes Russia, is struggling to produce enough oil to keep up with the rebounding demand for fuel since the COVID-19 pandemic. Plus, Western buyers are shunning barrels from Russia over its war in Ukraine, meaning there's less oil on the market to go around.

Europe prepared to lead the world in regulating the freewheeling cryptocurrency industry at a time when prices have plunged, wiping out fortunes, fueling skepticism and sparking calls for tighter scrutiny.

The European Union took a first step late Wednesday by agreeing on new rules subjecting cryptocurrency transfers to the same money-laundering rules as traditional banking transfers.

Sri Lanka's strategic location has attracted outsized interest in the small island nation from regional giants China and India for more than a decade, with Beijing and its free-flowing loans and infrastructure investments widely seen as having gained the upper hand in the quest for influence.

But Sri Lanka's economic collapse has proved an opportunity for India to swing the pendulum back, with New Delhi stepping in with massive financial and material assistance to its neighbor.

Amos Hochstein, President Joe Biden's point man for global energy problems, says he knows that transitioning away from the climate-wrecking pollution of fossil fuels is the only way to go. He advocates urgently for renewable energy, for energy-smart thermostats and heat pumps.

But when it comes to tackling the pressing energy challenges presented by Russia's war on Ukraine, Hochstein also can sound like nothing as much as the West's oilfield roustabout, taking a giant pipe wrench to the world's near-crisis-level energy shortfalls.

Chamila Nilanthi is tired of all the waiting. The 47-year-old mother of two spent three days lining up to get kerosene in the Sri Lankan town of Gampaha, northeast of the capital Colombo. Two weeks earlier, she spent three days in a queue for cooking gas -- but came home with none.

"I am totally fed up, exhausted,'' she said. "I don't know how long we have to do this.''

New York's recreational marijuana market is beginning to sprout, literally, with thin-leafed plants stretching toward the sun in farms around the state.

In a novel move, New York gave 203 hemp growers first shot at cultivating marijuana destined for legal sales, which could start by the end of the year. Big indoor growers are expected to join later.