Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi will travel to Saudi Arabia and Qatar on Saturday, his ministry said, ahead of a regional visit by U.S. President Donald Trump next week.

Araghchi is due to hold talks with senior Saudi officials in Riyadh before heading to Doha for a conference on Arab-Iranian dialogue, ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said in a statement.

Palestinian militant group Hamas has blamed "individual" actors for firing rockets towards Israel from Lebanon after it handed over several people, saying it was committed to a Hezbollah-Israel ceasefire.

Hamas claimed attacks on Israel from Lebanon during more than a year of hostilities between Israel and the Palestinian group's Lebanese ally Hezbollah that erupted over the Gaza war and largely ended with a November truce.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, the Arab world’s only Christian head of state, has congratulated newly elected Pope Leo XIV, expressing the hope that he will strengthen interfaith dialogue.

Aoun, elected in January under multi-confessional Lebanon’s power-sharing system, said in a statement from his office that he hoped the new pontiff would "strengthen dialogue between religions and cultures".

Robert Francis Prevost became the first pope from the United States on Thursday, picking the papal name Leo XIV after cardinals from around the world elected him leader of the world's 1.4 billion Catholics.

U.S. President Donald Trump's threat to slap tariffs on foreign-made movies has left Latin America's burgeoning film industry baffled and fearful.

Paris Saint-Germain coach Luis Enrique insisted his team deserved their place in the Champions League final and were determined to go on and lift the trophy after winning their last-four tie against Arsenal on Wednesday.

U.S. President Donald Trump announced Thursday an agreement with Britain on trade, which would be the first such deal since he launched his global tariffs blitz.

Trump provided no details about the scope of the agreement, which comes a month after he imposed sweeping tariffs on US trading partners on his April 2 "Liberation Day".

Russia and China on Thursday slammed US President Donald Trump' plans for an "Iron Dome" missile defense system as "deeply destabilizing" in a joint statement issued after talks between presidents Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping in Moscow.

"The recently announced large-scale 'Golden (Iron) Dome for America' program is also deeply destabilizing," said the statement published by the Kremlin. The plan "explicitly provides for a significant strengthening of the arsenal for conducting combat operations in space", it added.

Syria's finance minister has said Qatar will help the Islamist-led government to pay public sector salaries for the coming months through a mechanism he said had been exempted from U.S. sanctions.

There was no immediate announcement from either the Qatari government or the U.S. Treasury.

First responders in Gaza said Thursday that their operations were at a near standstill, more than two months into a full Israeli blockade that has left food and fuel in severe shortage.