Iran's deputy foreign minister said on Thursday that a decision by the Saudi-led bloc of Gulf states to label Hizbullah a terrorist organization is a "mistake."

Iranian state TV quoted Hossein Amir Abdollahian as saying the Gulf Cooperation Council's move was a "new mistake" that would undermine peace in the region and the unity of Lebanon.

Iraqi officials hailed on Wednesday the progress achieved by government troops on the second day of a military operation aimed at dislodging Islamic State militants from a key area north of the capital, Baghdad.

On Tuesday, Iraqi troops, backed by aerial support and paramilitary forces, launched a new push to retake a sprawling desert area outside the central city of Samarra, 95 kilometers (60 miles) north of Baghdad, with the aim to cut IS supply lines and to tighten the grip around the IS-held northern city of Mosul.

Leicester's unlikely Premier League title challenge faltered with a 2-2 home draw with West Bromwich Albion on Tuesday, offering Tottenham the chance to go top in another twist to the most unpredictable race for the championship in years.

Moving three points clear of the world's richest league was nothing to celebrate for Leicester's despondent players, who wasted a slew of late chances to put a provisional five-point gap over Spurs.

Draymond Green hit an off-balance 3-pointer as the shot clock expired with 40.2 seconds remaining in overtime, and the Golden State Warriors escaped with a 109-105 win against the Atlanta Hawks on Tuesday while Stephen Curry watched in street clothes with an injured ankle.

Andrew Bogut saved the ball from going out of bounds, and then Green got the shot off just in time while avoiding Kent Bazemore's diving steal attempt.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport says Michel Platini has appealed against his six-year ban by FIFA.

CAS says Platini is seeking to annul the sanction confirmed by the FIFA appeal committee last week.

French prosecutors have confirmed that they have widened their investigation into corruption in track and field to include the bidding for the 2016 and 2020 Olympics.

Franck Charon, the spokesman for the national financial prosecutions office in Paris, tells The Associated Press that a preliminary investigation has been opened "but at this stage we are just making verifications, we cannot prejudge the outcome of the investigation."

Israel has begun delivering its new mid-range missile defense system to air bases to defend itself against possible attacks from Hizbullah.

The Defense Ministry said Tuesday the David's Sling system "will allow Israel to more effectively defend against the wide range of current and future threats to its civilians." The delivery process will take a few weeks.

Inflation across the 19-country eurozone turned negative in February, official figures showed Monday, in a development that will boost expectations that the European Central Bank will unveil another stimulus package at its next policy meeting on March 10.

Statistics agency Eurostat said consumer prices across the region were down 0.2 percent in February from the year before, against a 0.3 percent rise the previous month. The decline was way more than anticipated — the consensus in the markets was for a drop to zero.

Iran and Saudi Arabia's rivalry has played out in proxy wars across the region, and escalated further after the two severed diplomatic and trade ties last month. Yet in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, popular Iranian restaurants are outselling feverish calls for a boycott and stand as a reminder of when ties between the two countries held promise.

In the 1990s, inside steaming kitchens in Riyadh, Iranian chefs taught their counterparts how to season and cook Persian dishes for a Saudi-owned Iranian restaurant called Shayah. The food proved so popular that nearly 20 years later, Shayah is a chain with 13 outlets in the kingdom, 11 of them in Riyadh.

At a time of simmering Mideast tensions and rising malaise, a group of French chefs recently visited the West Bank to bring a little joie de vivre to Palestinian kitchens.

The eight chefs visited restaurants in Ramallah, Hebron, Nablus and east Jerusalem in a weeklong event earlier this month sponsored by the French government, which prides itself on culinary diplomacy and has held similar events in Japan, Brazil, India, Morocco and elsewhere.