The $3 Billion financial grants will fund 25 projects in 14 states, including election battleground states such as Michigan and North Carolina.

The U.S. Energy Department said Friday it plans to award $3 billion to 25 battery manufacturing sector projects in 14 states as the Biden administration works to shift the supply chain away from China.

American Battery Technology Co. and lithium-producer Albemarle Corp., are among 25 companies getting more than $3 billion in funding from the Biden administration to boost domestic production of advanced batteries and components.

A 10-year-old boy attending a Japanese school in southern China has died after being stabbed on his way to class on Wednesday, according to Tokyo’s foreign minister, in the second knife attack near a Japanese school in the country in recent months.

In a call with China’s vice-foreign minister Sun Weidong on Thursday, Japan’s ambassador Kenji Kanasugi “strongly urged” Beijing to share detailed information about the incident, which was the second targeted attack on Japanese schoolchildren in China in recent months.

Top-end German carmakers have joined expensive French handbags among the products hit by weak consumer sentiment in the country.

Mercedes-Benz’s all-important China motor is sputtering. The $64 billion luxury carmaker warned of collapsing earnings and free cash flow this year, as a real estate bust in the People’s Republic means less demand for upmarket rides.

Mercedes-Benz Group AG shares fell the most in four years after a deepening slowdown in China prompted the world’s biggest luxury-car maker to cut its outlook.

Japan and China are making final preparations towards the resumption of imports by China of Japanese seafood and other marine products after regulatory monitoring of radioactive water was expanded, public broadcaster NHK reported on Friday.

China had banned purchases of seafood originating in Japan citing risk of radioactive contamination after Tokyo Electric Power started releasing treated water from the wrecked Fukushima nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean last year.

China imposed a ban last year after Japan began releasing treated water from the Fukushima nuclear plant into the sea. They have agreed to expand monitoring of the water.