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.

The United States announced Wednesday that it will give $80.5 million in aid for food assistance and solar-powered water pumping stations in the crisis-battered country of Lebanon.

The announcement was made by USAID chief Samantha Power during a visit to Lebanon ahead of a trip to Egypt for the COP27 U.N. climate conference.

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.

Lebanon wants direct talks to demarcate its maritime border with Syria so it can begin offshore gas exploration, weeks after reaching a similar agreement with Israel, Deputy Speaker Elias Bou Saab told AFP.

The U.S.-brokered sea border deal with Israel guarantees "stability" in a volatile region, where the two enemy states seek to exploit potentially gas-rich Mediterranean waters, Bou Saab said.

A strike on a pro-Iran militia convoy in eastern Syria near the Iraqi border killed at least 14 people overnight, a war monitor said Wednesday, without specifying who carried it out.

An official of the Iraqi border guard said the trucks were transporting fuel from Iran to Lebanon overland through Iraq and Syria.