BUSINESS

Three Chinese megacities on Monday eased restrictions on buying homes and Beijing's central bank said it would ask financial institutions to lower mortgage rates, as the country seeks to pull itself out of a housing slump.

Stocks plunged more than four percent in Tokyo on Monday after the yen surged in reaction to Shigeru Ishiba's election last week as the head of Japan's ruling party, which boosted expectations the Bank of Japan will continue hiking interest rates.

The UK's last coal-fired power station will officially close its doors on Monday, making Britain the first G7 country to end its reliance on the fossil fuel to produce electricity.

As jubilant Austrian far-right supporters celebrated their party's historic win in Sunday's national elections with beers, they knew forming a government would not be easy.

US singer-songwriter Kris Kristofferson, a country music legend who notably hit the silver screen opposite Barbra Streisand in "A Star is Born," has died at the age of 88, his family announced Sunday.

The Tuesday strike by the International Longshoremen's Association could cost the American economy as much as $7.5 billion a week.

DownDetector, which monitors global outages, has reported a significant increase in complaints about Spotify's functionality.

Israel said on Sunday it was carrying out new air raids against "dozens" of Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, after killing the Iran-backed group's leader, Hassan Nasrallah.

Bollywood icon Shah Rukh Khan declared "it's good to be back" as he won best actor at the International Indian Film Academy Awards on Saturday after a long absence from the limelight.

Small groups of opposition protesters rallied Saturday in Venezuela, joined by supporters outside the country, marking two months since the country's disputed election that President Nicolas Maduro claimed to have won.

A SpaceX rocket soared into the sky Saturday with two passengers on board, leaving two seats empty to return American astronauts who have been stranded for months on the International Space Station, NASA said.

Hashem Safieddine, a potential successor to his slain cousin Hassan Nasrallah, is one of Hezbollah's most prominent figures and has deep religious and family ties to the Shiite Muslim movement's patron Iran.

A SpaceX mission is set for launch Saturday with two passengers on board, leaving two seats empty to return the American astronauts who have been stranded for months on the International Space Station, NASA said.

Israel has killed Hezbollah's leader Hassan Nasrallah and several of its top commanders in a series of targeted air strikes on the Iran-backed movement's stronghold in Beirut.

Lebanon's Hezbollah movement has been a powerful domestic and regional force, politically and militarily, but the group's confirmation on Saturday of its leader's killing marks an unprecedented blow.

Russian strikes on a hospital in the Ukrainian border city of Sumy killed nine people Saturday, as President Volodymyr Zelensky condemned Moscow for "waging war on hospitals".

Israeli fighter jets bombarded the southern suburbs of Lebanon's capital Beirut overnight into Saturday, sending panicked families fleeing massive strikes reportedly targeting Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah.

Iran is ramping up efforts to interfere with the US election with fake "news" websites and hackers targeting Donald Trump, American officials and researchers say, as the Republican nominee reported threats on his life from the Islamic republic.

Tens of thousands of US dockworkers plan to strike next week if there is no breakthrough on contract talks, just a month before November's closely contested presidential election.

Kamala Harris was due to deliver a tough-on-illegal-migration message after visiting the US-Mexico border Friday, directly tackling the politically explosive issue in a bid to blunt one of Donald Trump's main attack lines in their fight for the White House.

The United States unveiled charges Friday against three individuals as it accused Iran of election interference, saying malicious actors had hacked the campaign of former president Donald Trump.

With incendiary, misleading posts to his 200 million followers, Elon Musk has courted criticism for cranking up the political temperature ahead of an already polarized US election through his influential platform that is plagued with misinformation.

Nearly 3,000 people on Friday attended the funeral of a Paris student who was raped and murdered in a case that has inflamed a French debate on immigration after a Moroccan was named as the suspected attacker.

Stock markets mostly rose Friday as slowing US and European inflation raised hopes of more aggressive interest rate cuts and China took measures to boost its struggling economy.

The big box retailer says its membership is growing.

Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky will sit down for a potentially fractious meeting Friday, following a series of scathing attacks by the White House hopeful on the Ukrainian president's handling of the conflict with Russia.

Former supermodel Naomi Campbell has been barred from running a charity after an inquiry found funds raised by an organisation she founded was spent on spa treatment and room service charges.

The safety agency was investigating an incident where the rudder pedals got "stuck" on a plane while in their neutral position.

The companies say they 'expect strong client demand and maintain the flexibility to significantly expand the size of the program.'