OpenAI has discussed giving the US government a 5 percent stake, the Financial Times reported on Thursday, as AI firms face growing scrutiny in Washington over the potential misuse of advanced models and whether Americans will share in the sector's profits.

The United States posted weaker-than-expected job growth in June as new data showed the labor market is facing headwinds ahead of testing midterm elections for President Donald Trump's Republicans.

Thousands of workers demonstrated outside Mercedes-Benz factories in Germany Friday over the premium carmaker's cost-saving plans, kicking off an expected wave of protests in the country's crisis-wracked auto industry.

The maker of Lucky Strike and Dunhill cigarettes aims to save £600 million ($792 million) a year by 2028 in a restructuring that will affect around 20 percent of BAT's 47,000-member workforce, it said in a statement.

Soon after disembarking at Hong Kong's train station, Chinese private investor Feng was opening a stock trading account at a nearby brokerage, hoping to evade tighter restrictions on capital leaving the country.

Asian stocks rose Friday as tech firms enjoyed a much-needed reprieve from the heavy selling of recent weeks, with a big miss on US jobs creation soothing worries over a Federal Reserve interest rate hike.

Asian shares skidded on Thursday as investors rotated out of chipmakers following a stellar quarter, while currency and bond markets braced for US jobs data that could gives hints about the risk of interest rate hikes.