They literally run the country.

In parking lots, on flatbed trucks, hospital courtyards and rooftops, private generators are ubiquitous in parts of the Middle East, spewing hazardous fumes into homes and businesses 24 hours a day.

Lebanon's central bank lifted its remaining subsidies on fuel on Monday, gas station owners said, ending a year-long process of scaling back on the expensive program.

The Central Bank over a year ago announced it would gradually lift fuel subsidies, to slow down the draining of its foreign exchange reserves. Fuel subsidies once cost the cash-strapped country some $3 billion annually. Last week, it subsidized just 20% of the cost of fuel imports.

Maronite Patriarch Beshra al-Rahi appeared Sunday to back a controversial move to name an alternate judge in the Beirut port blast case.

“It is unfortunate that the Lebanese have reached a state of mistrust and politicization, which is what’s happening today between the families of victims of the Beirut port bombing and caretaker Justice Minister Henri Khoury,” al-Rahi said in his Sunday Mass sermon.

Thanks to solar energy, residents of the northern Lebanese village of Toula are finally able to enjoy ice cream again -- a treat in a sun-baked country plagued by power cuts.

U.S. mediator Amos Hochstein told Lebanese officials in his meetings with them on Friday that a point of contention needs to be resolved in order for the negotiations to move towards a quick agreement, media reports said.

“The issue is related to fixing the ‘maritime Blue Line,’ which is marked by the line of buoys on the surface of the sea off the coasts of Lebanon and occupied Palestine,” al-Akhbar newspaper reported.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea has said that the LF does not want a presidential vacuum, noting that it is Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil who "does not want to endorse any president but himself."

The U.S. Embassy in Beirut on Friday voiced optimism over the visit that U.S. mediator Amos Hochstein made to the country earlier in the day.

A Hezbollah official on Friday sounded the alarm over the latest U.N. Security Council resolution that extended the mandate of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).

Lebanon on Friday declared national mourning over the death of Queen Elizabeth II of Britain.

Two handmade bombs were found Friday morning near a building in Milan where the Lebanese consulate is based, Italy’s official news agency ANSA said.

The alarm was triggered after a passerby noticed a package from which two electric cables were popping out.