Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati on Thursday called on all parties to quickly elect a new president and form a new government in order to "protect the country and preserve the state."

“This would end the caretaker state, which in its nature is temporary and limited to the matters that fall under this principle,” Mikati said.

Lebanon's divided parliament failed Thursday to elect a new president for the fifth time, with the post vacant since the mandate of Michel Aoun expired last month.

Michel Mouawad, whose father Rene Mouawad served as president, was the frontrunner with 44 votes on Thursday, still far short of the two-thirds majority -- or 86 ballots -- needed to win.

Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Samantha Power announced Thursday that USAID will provide $50 million for Lebanese and refugee students to attend the American University of Beirut (AUB), Lebanese American University (LAU), and Notre Dame University-Louaize (NDU).

Of the $50 million, $15 million will support 140 full undergraduate scholarships to AUB and LAU for financially disadvantaged yet academically meritorious students, the U.S. Embassy said in a statement. "The remainder of the funds will provide partial need-based financial aid for about 3,500 students over the next three years to help students who can no longer afford tuition amidst Lebanon’s economic crisis," the statement went on to say.

A preventative campaign for prostate cancer early detection kicked off Tuesday at the Saint George Hospital University Medical Center.

The campaign includes free medical checkups and PSA tests for men aged 55 to 70 years throughout the month of October, from Monday to Friday and from 10am to 2:30pm at the hospital's primacy care center.

In response to the cholera outbreak in Lebanon, the EU is allocating €800,000 towards community-based water, sanitation and hygiene interventions in areas with a concentration of cholera cases, the EU Delegation to Lebanon said.

"Ongoing EU humanitarian programs are also redirecting efforts to address this new emergency," the Delegation added in a statement.

Samantha Power, the Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), on Wednesday announced $8.5 million in funding for Lebanon that will support 22 new solar-powered water pumping projects in Lebanon. These projects, which will be completed over the next two years, will serve more than 150 towns and villages and benefit over half a million Lebanese citizens and refugees by providing reliable access to water and decreasing operating costs and dependence on fuel to those who desperately need it.

"USAID has supported 41 solar energy projects to date benefiting 460,000 residents in 70 Lebanese towns and villages. In addition to providing a much-needed source of electricity, solar-powered water pumping projects also refurbish the stations’ chlorination equipment. Pumping chlorinated water to towns is particularly critical as the country addresses an unprecedented cholera outbreak," the U.S. Embassy said in a statement.

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri filed on Wednesday a complaint to Public Prosecutor Ghassan Oueidat, following a tweet by Mount Lebanon Prosecutor Judge Ghada Aoun.

Aoun had earlier today published a list of names of Lebanese officials who have frozen accounts in Switzerland, citing WikiLeaks as a source.

The Internal Security Forces on Wednesday announced that its Intelligence Branch had dismantled in summer eight Islamic State-linked cells that had been plotting terrorist attacks in Lebanon.

In a statement, the ISF said the arrests were made between July and October in the Bekaa, Beirut, the North, the South and Mount Lebanon.

The United States, through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), is providing more than $72 million in emergency food assistance to more than 650,000 vulnerable people in Lebanon, including refugees from Syria and other countries, the U.S. Embassy said on Wednesday.

Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati on Tuesday denied “any communication with any Israeli official,” after the website of Israeli newspaper Haaretz published a photo showing him and Israel's environmental protection minister along with several world leaders and officials at the U.N.’s COP27 climate summit in Egypt.

“A report is circulating in the media about the participation of an Israeli minister in a specialized workshop at the climate conference in Sharm el-Sheikh in the presence of (caretaker) PM Najib Mikati and the delegations of Iraq and Palestine,” Mikati’s office said in a statement.