U.S. District Attorney Jason Schmidt has told a court judge that Hadi Matar took steps to purposely put himself in position to harm "The Satanic Verses" author Salman Rushdie, getting an advance pass to the event where the author was speaking and arriving a day early bearing a fake ID.

The man accused of stabbing Salman Rushdie at a literary event has pleaded not guilty to attempted murder charges, as the severely injured author appeared to show signs of improvement in hospital.

The team following up on the sea border negotiations in Lebanon has heard from U.S. mediator Amon Hochstein “a categorical refutation of everything that has been circulated in the Lebanese, Arab and even Israeli media outlets” in recent days, al-Jadeed TV said on Saturday.

A Lebanese news website had recently published a report claiming that a negative atmosphere is engulfing the negotiations and that Hochstein had heard an Israeli rejection of the latest Lebanese proposal.

The man who stabbed the author Salman Rushdie in New York state, Hadi Matar, was born in the U.S. to Lebanese parents who emigrated from the southern border town of Yaroun, the town’s mayor, Ali Tehfe, told The Associated Press and Lebanese media outlets.

“He has never visited Lebanon,” Tehfe added.

Israeli Energy Minister Karen Elharrar hss said that the Israeli proposal submitted to Lebanon to solve the sea border dispute is “good, constructive and moves towards a solution.”

EDUCITY & Beirut Expo have announced that Middle East Clean Energy, the premiere renewable and sustainable energy trade fair and conference in Lebanon and the wider Levant, will be held in Beirut on September 7-9, 2022.

Middle East Clean Energy 2022 is organized in response to an unprecedented rise in demand for modern equipment and technologies that leverage renewable energy in Lebanon and the region. In 2021 alone in Lebanon, despite its crisis, customers spent $800 million on clean energy solutions. 

Bassam al-Sheikh Hussein, the armed depositor who took hostages Thursday at Federal Bank’s Hamra branch before turning himself in, has started a hunger strike, al-Jadeed TV reported on Friday.

A judge 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 Friday, apparently a bid to prevent copycats as desperation deepens over Lebanon's economic meltdown.

A few dozen relatives of Bassam al-Sheikh Hussein briefly closed a major road in Ouzai, saying that keeping him in jail breaches an agreement reached Thursday. The 42-year-old food-delivery driver surrendered after a seven-hour standoff in return for getting $35,000 of his money and promises that he would only be questioned then set free. No one was injured.

Democratic Gathering Bloc MP Taymour Jumblat met Friday with Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi, a day after a meeting between his father Walid Jumblat and a delegation from Hezbollah.

"Our national and historic partnership is steady," the lawmaker said.

The Army Command announced Friday that it has received the Qatari financial donation that had been granted by Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad in support of servicemen’s salaries.

In a statement, the Command said all servicemen will get equal amounts of money as of today.