Top Lebanese politicians and the Hizbulah group rallied on Friday against charges of negligence leveled against the caretaker prime minister and three former ministers over the massive explosion in Beirut's port, underscoring the enormous difficulties facing the investigation.

Hizbullah called on investigating judge Fadi Sawwan to reconsider the charges, calling them "political targeting" and saying they lacked legal and constitutional basis.

Time magazine has named President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris its "Person of the Year."

Time's editor-in-chief Edward Felsenthal says Biden and Harris won the honor for "changing the American story, for showing that the forces of empathy are greater than the furies of division, for sharing a vision of healing in a grieving world."

Hizbullah on Friday blasted as “politicized” the lead investigator’s decision to indict caretaker PM Hassan Diab and three allied ex-ministers over Beirut’s colossal port explosion on August 4.

The group called on the investigating judge Fadi Sawwan to reconsider his decision, saying it lacked a legal and constitutional basis and that the four were being selectively charged.

European Union leaders early Friday gave the green light for the expansion of sanctions against Turkey over its exploration of gas reserves in Mediterranean waters claimed by EU members Greece and Cyprus.

"Regrettably, Turkey has engaged in unilateral actions and provocations and escalated its rhetoric against the EU, EU member states and European leaders," they said in a statement from their summit in Brussels.

A U.N.-backed tribunal sentenced a member of the Hizbullah group to life imprisonment Friday for his involvement in the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

The defendant, Salim Ayyash, has never been arrested and was not in court at the Special Tribunal for Lebanon for Friday's sentencing hearing.

Israel and Morocco have agreed to normalize relations, U.S. President Donald Trump announced on Thursday, marking the fourth Arab-Israel agreement in four months. As part of the deal, the U.S. will recognize Morocco's claim over the disputed Western Sahara region.

As his time in office winds down, Trump said Israel and Morocco would restore diplomatic and other relations, including the immediate reopening of liaison offices in Rabat and Tel Aviv and the eventual opening of embassies. U.S. officials said it would also include joint overflight rights for airlines.

Caretaker Prime Minister Hassan Diab's office said Thursday that the outgoing premier's conscience was clear after he was charged in the Beirut port blast probe.

"He is confident that his hands are clean and that he has handled the Beirut Port blast file in a responsible and transparent manner," it said in a statement.

There's plenty of noise but no cause for confusion as President Donald Trump vents about how the election turned out and vows to subvert it even still.

This truth is self-evident: Joe Biden is on track to become president Jan. 20. The machinery of government and democracy is moving inexorably toward that end despite Trump's attempts to undermine the voters' will.

Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine faces one final hurdle as it races to become the first shot greenlighted in the U.S.: a panel of experts who will scrutinize the company's data for any red flags.

Thursday's meeting of the Food and Drug Administration's vaccine advisory panel is likely the last step before a U.S. decision to begin shipping millions of doses of the shot, which has shown strong protection against the coronavirus.

Ghassan Hasrouty spent most of his life working at the silos in Beirut's port, unloading grain shipments to feed the country even as fighting raged around him during the 1975-90 civil war.

Decades later, he perished under the same silos, their towering cement structure gutted by the force of the Aug. 4 explosion at the port, when 2,750 tons of improperly stored ammonium nitrates ignited in what became one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in history.