Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that the government would assess the effect of Silicon Valley Bank's collapse on Israeli companies and determine whether or not to assist them.

Israel is home to a vibrant high-tech industry, and local media said Sunday that hundreds of local firms could be exposed to the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank.

President Joe Biden and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen are set to unveil on Friday a plan that the White House hopes will help turn the page on the ongoing spat between the U.S. and European Union over electric vehicle tax credits.

Biden and von der Leyen are expected to agree to open negotiations between the U.S. and the EU on a deal that could boost the use of European minerals critical in the production of electric vehicle batteries that are eligible for U.S. tax credits through Biden's roughly $375 billion clean energy law that passed last year, according to administration officials. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity ahead of the leaders' meeting.

U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak met Friday in Paris with French President Emmanuel Macron in efforts to mend relations following post-Brexit tensions, as well as improving military and business ties and toughening efforts against Channel migrant crossings.

Both leaders shook hands and briefly posed for photographers, smiling, as Sunak arrived at the presidential palace.

The humble egg has become a star performer for all the wrong reasons as inflation has hit households across the European Union extremely hard over the year.

The EU's statistical agency Eurostat announced Friday that the average price of an egg — that important staple for poor families and gourmet cooks alike — had risen by 30% over the year to January 2023, becoming a symbol of how the cost of living has hit everyone in the 27-nation bloc.

French President Emmanuel Macron insisted on the need for raising the retirement age from 62 to 64 in order to make the French pension system financially sustainable in the coming years, in a letter to workers' unions released Friday.

The move comes after more than a million demonstrators marched in cities and towns across France this week as train and metro drivers, refinery workers and others started open-ended strikes against the centrist government's plan.

Only a few months into its term, Iraq's government is suddenly enforcing a long-dormant law banning alcohol imports and arresting people over social media content deemed morally offensive. The crackdown has raised alarm among religious minorities and rights activists.

Some see the measures as an attempt by Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani to head off potential political challenges from religious conservatives and to distract from economic woes, such as rising prices and wild currency fluctuations.

Independent MP Charbel Masaad on Friday stormed a bank in the southern city of Sidon to demand that a depositor be paid his money in cash, the state-run National News Agency reported.

The lawmaker, who is still inside the bank, held “banks, the banking system and the central bank governor responsible for people’s suicide,” NNA added.

The pro-business track record of the man poised to become China's top economic official will make his term a test of whether he might moderate President Xi Jinping 's tendency to intervene.

Li Qiang, 63, who is expected to be chosen China's premier on Saturday, will have to grapple with a slowdown in the world's second-largest economy, which is dealing with emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic, weak global demand for exports, lingering U.S. tariff hikes, a shrinking workforce and an aging population.

Inflation in Egypt again hit a new high for this year in February, the government said Thursday, with prices rising most steeply for food. The country is in the midst of an economic crisis and a currency depreciation.

Annual inflation rose to 32.9% in February, the government statistics agency said, up from 26.5% in January. Grains, meat, poultry, fish and fruit were among the products with the biggest price spikes.

Wall Street drifted modestly lower early Thursday amid increasing anxiety following Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell's warning to Congress this week that rate hikes might accelerate because upward pressure on prices has been stronger than expected.

Futures for the Dow Jones Industrials slipped 0.1% and the S&P 500 fell 0.3% before the bell.