BEIRUT

Lebanese authorities are investigating a late-night shooting outside the heavily fortified U.S. Embassy just outside Beirut.

The International Monetary Fund has warned that Lebanon is still facing enormous economic challenges, four years after the country's historic meltdown began.

Lebanese judicial officials say authorities in Beirut have questioned two people at Turkey's request on suspicion of being involved in the 2019 escape of an auto tycoon from Japan to Lebanon.

Lebanon's caretaker prime minister is warning that Syrian refugees could become a threat to the small Mediterranean nation’s delicate demographic and sectarian balance.

The United States military called for an end to days of fighting between rival U.S.-backed groups in east Syria, warning it may help the resurgence of the Islamic State group.

Lebanese Cabinet ministers say an offshore drilling rig has arrived at its destination in the Mediterranean Sea off Lebanon’s coast and will start its search for gas in the coming weeks.

Nearly two months after a dilapidated fishing trawler crammed with people heading from north Africa to Italy sank in the central Mediterranean, killing hundreds, relatives are still frantically searching for loved ones among the missing and dead.

Now that July’s sizzling numbers are all in, the European climate monitoring organization made it official: July 2023 was Earth’s hottest month on record by a wide margin.

Three years after Beirut’s massive port explosion, attempts to prosecute those responsible are mired in political intrigue and the death toll remains disputed.

Banks from four Arab countries are interested in investing in Lebanon’s struggling banking sector, which has been hard-hit by the small nation’s three-year economic meltdown.

A halted landmark grain deal that allowed Ukrainian grain to flow to countries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia is rattling the operations of the United Nations food agency, its deputy executive director said.

The head of a leading aid group says an impasse at the United Nations over a border crossing with Syria’s last rebel-held enclave is endangering 4.1 million Syrians living there.

The Lebanese army and state news agency say a shooting at a mosque during prayers left one person dead and several others wounded.

Lebanese officials say auto tycoon Carlos Ghosn has filed a $1 billion lawsuit against Nissan and about a dozen individuals in Beirut over his imprisonment in Japan and what he says is misinformation spread against him.

The United States military says a helicopter mishap in northeast Syria over the weekend has left 22 U.S. service members injured to various degrees.

Lebanon’s Sursock Museum has reopened to the public, three years after a deadly explosion in the nearby Beirut port reduced many of its treasured paintings and collections to ashes.

The World Bank has approved a $300 million additional financing to Lebanon's poor, giving cash to families struggling in the country’s historic economic meltdown.

Iran’s foreign minister says Tehran wants Lebanon's rivals to reach an agreement to elect a new president in the crisis-hit country that has been without a head of state October.

Reports say Islamic State militants have killed 26 people who were foraging for wild truffles in Syria’s Hama region.

After meeting in Saudi Arabia to discuss Syria’s political fate, a group of regional leaders promised to continue talks to reach a political solution to the Syrian conflict.

A European Union official visiting Lebanon says the international body will boost its humanitarian assistance to the crisis-stricken country, but that more significant long-term aid depends on reforms and a deal with the International Monetary Fund.

Lebanon’s caretaker transportation minister says the contract for a new terminal at the country's main airport is cancelled, following an uproar over the lack of public bidding for the $122 million project.

The Lebanese government’s last-minute decision to delay the start of daylight saving time by a month until the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan resulted in mass confusion.

Saudi Arabia is in talks with Syria to reopen its embassy in the war-torn nation for the first time in a decade.

Lebanese security forces are firing tear gas to disperse hundreds of protesters who tried to break through a fence leading to the government headquarters in downtown Beirut.

Lebanon will construct a $122 million terminal at Beirut’s Rafik Hariri International Airport to be operated by a leading Irish airport company when it’s completed in four years,.

Lebanese judicial officials say that a European legal team has finished two days of questioning of the country's central bank governor in a money-laundering probe linked to the governor.

Lebanon’s embattled Central Bank chief has been questioned for the first time before a European legal team visiting Beirut in a money-laundering probe linked to the governor.

Syria's state news agency says Israeli missiles have targeted a western city wounding three soldiers.

The Lebanese pound has lost as much as 98% in value since late 2019, and now most restaurants and many stores are demanding to be paid in dollars to bypass what’s seen as a nearly useless currency.

A British court has ruled a London-based company that delivered the explosive ammonium nitrate to Beirut's port is liable towards the victims of a devastating 2020 blast, according to Lebanon’s Beirut Bar Association.

U.S. forces had shot down an Iranian-made drone flying over a base housing American troops in northeastern Syria.

Angry protesters in several Middle Eastern countries have gathered to denounce the recent desecration of Islam’s holy book by far-right activists in Sweden and the Netherlands.

Lebanon’s top prosecutor has ordered all suspects detained in the investigation into the deadly 2020 Beirut port blast released and filed charges against the judge leading the probe.

The value of the Lebanese pound has hit an all-time low, now trading at 50,000 to the U.S. dollar, as the country’s deeply-divided Parliament failed to elect a president for an 11th time.

The Syrian army says missile strikes by Israel’s military have put the capital's airport out of service.

Morocco’s fans in the Arab world are taking the North African team’s 2-1 loss to Croatia in the World Cup third-place playoff philosophically.

The Biden administration is slapping terrorism sanctions on two accountants and two companies in Lebanon for providing the militant group Hezbollah with financial services.

The U.S. team’s victory over Iran at the World Cup was closely watched across the Middle East.

A lawyer for an American father and son convicted in Japan on charges of helping Nissan's former chairman, Carlos Ghosn, escape to Lebanon says they have been returned to the U.S. Michael Taylor was sentenced last year to two years in prison, while his son Peter Taylor was sentenced to 20 months.

President Michel Aoun has left Lebanon’s presidential palace, marking the end of his six-year term without a replacement.

Lebanon and Israel signed and delivered copies of a U.S.-mediated sea border deal following months of indirect talks.

Lebanon's parliament has approved amendments to a banking secrecy law, a key demand of the International Monetary Fund before agreeing to a bailout program.

France's foreign minister has urged Lebanon's political leadership to swiftly elect a new president and warned that a political vacuum could plunge the Mediterranean country into a deeper crisis.

A Lebanese judge has fined and issued a six-month travel ban to a woman who stormed her bank with a fake pistol and forcefully withdrew her trapped savings.

A Lebanese member of Parliament has entered a bank branch near Beirut demanding some of her trapped savings to cover medical expenses.

Lebanon's parliament has failed to elect a president, just weeks before incumbent President Michel Aoun's six-year term comes to an end.

A woman carrying what she says was a toy pistol broke into a Beirut bank branch and took $13,000 from her trapped savings.

The Lebanese Central Bank has lifted its remaining subsidies on fuel.

They literally run the country.

Syria's transport ministry says the international airport in Aleppo will resume work days after the facility was put out of commission by an Israeli missile attack.

Dozens of relatives of the victims of Beirut’s 2020 massive port blast have protested plans by the judiciary to name a second investigative judge, calling the move an attempt by the country’s political class to prevent justice.

Forty years since it was founded, Lebanon's Hezbollah has transformed from a ragtag organization to the largest and most heavily armed militant group in the Middle East.

Internet shutdowns are plaguing Lebanon, as the country's telecom workers go on strike.

The U.S. military says it carried out airstrikes in eastern Syria that targeted areas used by militias backed by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.

Another large section of the Beirut Port silos that withstood a devastating port explosion two years ago has collapsed.

A judge has ordered a gunman who took up to 10 hostages at a Beirut bank to force the release of his trapped savings to stay behind bars.

A hostage standoff in which a gunman demanded a Beirut bank let him withdraw his trapped savings has ended with the man's surrender, and the bank handing over a reported $35,000 to his brother.

A section of Beirut’s massive port grain silos, shredded in the 2020 explosion, has collapsed after a weekslong fire.

Cash-strapped Lebanon plans to build two new grain silos to fight its food security crisis for millions living in poverty.

As inflation surges around the world, politicians are scrambling for ways to keep food affordable as people increasingly protest the soaring cost of living.

Lebanon's government says one of the massive silos that withstood a deadly blast at Beirut's port two years ago risks collapsing.

Italian rescuers say they have located bodies of seven people who died when their helicopter crashed in north-central Italy during a storm.

An aging Japanese militant who spent more than a decade in an Israeli prison for his part in a deadly attack on the airport outside Tel Aviv showed up in Beirut at an event commemorating the 50th anniversary of the attack.

Final results in Lebanon's weekend parliamentary elections show that the militant Hezbollah group and its allies have lost the majority of parliament seats they had held since 2018.

Lebanese voted for a new parliament against the backdrop of an economic meltdown that is transforming the country and low expectations that the voting would significantly alter the political landscape.

In every household in Lebanon it's likely that one or more family members plan to emigrate — if they can get a passport.

Thousands of Lebanese living in nearly 50 countries began early voting in the country’s closely watched parliamentary elections, days after a similar vote was held in 10 predominantly Muslim nations.

Iran’s top diplomat says that the country’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard has accepted the idea of continuing to be sanctioned by the U.S. if it meant the restoration of Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers.

A husband and wife from Dearborn Heights were arrested in separate criminal cases Tuesday -- one for running a $10.6 million fraud scheme through two pharmacies in Inkster and the other for using $1 million in COVID relief money to buy a seaside condo in Beirut, officials said.

Lebanon's economy minister says the country has wheat reserves sufficient for one month at the most, with Ukraine accounting for up to 60 percent of its wheat market.

The Israeli military says it has shot down an unmanned aircraft launched by Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group into Israeli airspace.

A U.S.-backed Kurdish-led force says that a prison overrun by the Islamic State group in northeastern Syria is now fully under its control.

The World Bank says Lebanon’s economy has contracted by more than 58%, warning in a report that the small country’s financial meltdown poses a threat to long-term stability and social peace.

Lebanon’s government is holding its first meeting in three months to discuss the budget as talks with the International Monetary Fund over the country’s economic meltdown resumed.

Kuwait’s foreign minister says he has handed Lebanese officials a list of suggestions for confidence-building measures with oil-rich Gulf states after relations between the two sides deteriorated dramatically over the past months.

Lebanon's state internet provider says internet services have been disrupted because of diesel shortages.

A general strike by public transportation and labor unions has paralyzed Lebanon as the nation suffers through one of the world's worst economic crises.

Austria’s foreign minister says the European Union wants to help Lebanon escape its economic meltdown - but only if the country's leaders clean up Beirut's affairs.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says the international community has not done enough to support Lebanon, grappling with a dire economic crisis and home to over 1 million Syrian refugees.

Norway’s data privacy watchdog fined gay dating app Grindr $7.16 million for sending sensitive personal data to hundreds of potential advertising partners without users’ consent.

The lawyer of a freelance American journalist who was detained in Beirut last month says she has been released.

Lebanon’s information minister has resigned in a bid to ease an unprecedented, weekslong diplomatic crisis with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab countries.

Lebanon’s president has discussed his country’s economic meltdown and an unprecedented diplomatic crisis between Beirut and Persian Gulf nations with the Emir of Qatar.

A group of protesters have stormed a ministry building in Beirut as the Lebanese pound hit new lows amid a worsening economic and political stalemate.

Lebanon’s central bank governor says he asked an auditing firm to look into transactions and investments and that contrary to media reports, the results showed no public money has been misused.

Lebanon’s Daily Star newspaper has folded following a years-long financial struggle.

The U.S. Treasury Department has imposed sanctions on two Lebanon businessmen and a lawmaker, saying they have profited from corruption in the struggling country.

For eight months, a relatively obscure Lebanese judge has been quietly investigating one of the world’s worst non-nuclear explosions with only four assistants — and a lot of powerful detractors trying to block him.

Lebanon's state news agency says a judge has charged 68 people in this month's deadly clashes in Beirut that left seven people dead and dozens wounded.

A boast by the leader of Hezbollah that he commands 100,000 fighters has come as a surprise to many Lebanese.

Funerals have taken place across Lebanon for seven people killed in gunbattles on the streets of Beirut the day before.

At least six people have been killed and dozens wounded in armed clashes in Beirut.

Iran’s foreign minister says he discussed with officials in Beirut the “positive” effects of ongoing talks between Iran and Saudi Arabia.

A trove of leaked documents shows that for years, Lebanon’s politicians and bankers have stowed wealth in offshore tax havens and used it to buy expensive properties.

Lebanon’s National News Agency says the country’s appeals court has rejected lawsuits filed against the lead investigator of the Beirut port explosion.

Jordan’s prime minister says that he discussed in Beirut ways to expedite the delivery of Egyptian natural gas to Lebanon through Jordan and Syria to help the small country with a grueling energy-crisis.

The World Health Organization’s director general is deeply concerned about the impact of Lebanon’s economic meltdown and multiple crises on the people’s wellbeing.

Lebanon’s incoming finance minister has signed a contract with a New-York-based company to conduct a forensic audit of the country’s central bank, a key demand of the international community to restore confidence in the crisis-struck country.

Lebanon’s new prime minister has pledged to try and gain control of one of the world’s worst economic meltdowns, after forming a government following a year of political stalemate.