Protesters closed exchange houses during a demonstration in the northern city of Tripoli, as the country grapples with nationwide protests entering 38th day demanding an overhaul of the whole political class.

The protesters say exchange houses are trading US dollars to the Lebanese pound contrary to the local currency peg set by the central bank.

Offering his own take on five long days of public hearings, President Donald Trump brushed off the impeachment inquiry as "total nonsense" on Friday and bad-mouthed a number of the U.S. diplomats who testified to Congress about his Ukraine pressure campaign.

In one breath, Trump said House Democrats looked like "fools" during the hearings on Capitol Hill. In another, he offered a window into his political strategy ahead of an expected House vote to impeach him. If that happens, the Senate would hold a trial on whether to oust him from office.

The Trump administration is withholding more than $100 million in U.S. military assistance to Lebanon that has been approved by Congress and is favored by his national security team, an assertion of executive control of foreign aid that is similar to the delay in support for Ukraine at the center of the impeachment inquiry.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday congratulated Lebanon as the country marked its independence day but made no mention of the hold-up in aid that State Department and Pentagon officials have complained about for weeks.

Internet connectivity is trickling back in Iran after the government shut down access to the rest of the world for more than four days in response to unrest apparently triggered by a gasoline price hike.

The images are both haunting and inspiring, transforming a once dreary, grim underpass into a vivid, colorful wall of art.

"We want a nation, not a prison," says one painting that depicts a man bursting free from behind bars. "Plant a revolution, and you will harvest a nation," reads another showing a hand flashing the victory sign over protesters heads.

Lebanon's top politicians are attending a military parade on the country's 76th Independence Day.

They appeared together Friday for the first time since the government resigned amid nationwide protests.

As the internet was slowly being revived across Iran on Friday after a dayslong, government-imposed shutdown amid demonstrations, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called for Iranians to send the U.S. videos "documenting the regime's crackdown" on protesters.

"The U.S. will expose and sanction the abuses," Pompeo tweeted early Friday, as pockets of Iran saw internet over landlines restored.

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri has called for a session next Wednesday to study draft laws related to banking secrecy and retaking stolen state money.

Berri's call came two days after protesters prevented legislators from reaching the parliament building to draft and study new laws. The protesters say parliament has no right to draft laws in the presence of a government acting in caretaker capacity.

A court session in the case of Lebanese-American ex-Israeli collaborator Amer Fakhoury was postponed Thursday because of his illness, state-run National News Agency said.

NNA said the session in the southern city of Nabatiyeh was postponed until Dec. 5.

State-run National News Agency reported Thursday that the soldier who shot and killed the protester Alaa Abu Fakhr in Khalde last week has been charged by a military prosecutor with murder.

The agency said that a colonel who was on the scene with the soldier at the time of the shooting was also charged Thursday.