With Iranian military threats in mind, the United States is sending American forces, including fighter aircraft, air defense missiles and likely more than 500 troops, to a Saudi air base that became a hub of American air power in the Middle East in the 1990s but was abandoned by Washington after it toppled Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein in 2003.

The Saudi Foreign Ministry announced the basing agreement Friday without mentioning details.

An unmanned drone bombed a base used by pro-Tehran paramilitary units in central Iraq, the country's military announced Friday, with sources saying one fighter was killed and two Iranians wounded.

Parliament on Friday approved the 2019 state budget after three days of heated parliamentary debate.

The budget was passed with 83 votes in favor, 17 against and one abstention.

Iran on Friday denied President Donald Trump's statement that a U.S. warship destroyed an Iranian drone near the Persian Gulf after it threatened the ship — an incident that marked a new escalation of tensions between the countries less than a month after Iran downed an American drone in the same waterway and Trump came close to retaliating with a military strike.

The Iranian military said all its drones had returned safely to their bases and denied there was any confrontation with a U.S. vessel the previous day.

For days, Lebanese TV stations have been blanketed with live coverage as lawmakers held heated debate over a controversial austerity budget meant to salvage the flailing economy, with protests outside parliament and critics denouncing its focus on tax hikes and wage cuts. Mohammed Badran, sitting in his barber shop empty of customers, couldn't be bothered to watch.

Those officials don't even know how much bread costs, he scoffed. "They basically don't know anything about us." The 33-year-old hair stylist — his hair spiked stylishly in front — sat idle in his salon in central Beirut with the TV tuned to Quranic recitals.

Argentina's government on Thursday branded Hizbullah a terrorist organization and froze its assets, 25 years to the day after a bombing blamed on the Lebanese-based group destroyed a Jewish community center in Argentina's capital, killing 85 people.

The nation's Financial Information Unit took the action a day after President Mauricio Macri's government created a list of terrorist organizations to help coordinate actions with other nations and as the nation held memorial services for victims of the attack, for which no one has been convicted.

Former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak says he has "cut all ties" with Jeffrey Epstein, the American financier jailed on sex-trafficking charges.

Barak held a press conference on Wednesday and called Epstein's deeds "horrible" and said he thought they were a one-time incident.

Iranians feeling the squeeze from U.S. sanctions targeting the Islamic Republic's ailing economy are increasingly turning to such digital currencies as Bitcoin to make money, prompting alarm in and out of the country.

In Iran, some government officials worry that the energy-hungry process of "mining" Bitcoin is abusing Iran's system of subsidized electricity; in the United States, some observers have warned that cryptocurrencies could be used to bypass the Trump administration's sanctions targeting Iran over its unraveling nuclear deal with world powers.

A man screaming "You die!" burst into an animation production studio in Kyoto, Japan, and set it on fire early Thursday, authorities said, killing 13 people and leaving more than 10 others presumed dead.

The blaze injured another 36 people, some of them critically, Japanese authorities said. Most were workers at Kyoto Animation, known for mega-hit stories featuring high school girls.

Asylum-seekers gathered in Nuevo Laredo, across the border from Texas, grappled to understand what a new U.S. policy that all but eliminates refuge claims by Central Americans and many others meant for their bids to find a better life in America amid a chaos of rumors, confusion and fear.

The policy went into effect Tuesday and represents the most forceful attempt to date by President Donald Trump to slash the number of people seeking asylum in the United States. It denies asylum to anyone who shows up on the Mexican border after traveling through another country, something Central American migrants have to do.