Iran on Friday denied President Donald Trump's assertion that the U.S. Navy has destroyed one of its drones, saying all of its unmanned planes were accounted for, amid growing international concern that both sides could blunder into a war in the Gulf. In the latest episode to test nerves around the strategic waterway, Trump said on Thursday the drone had flown to within 1,000 yards (914 meters) of the U.S. warship Boxer in a "provocative and hostile action" and had ignored several calls to stand down. Iran dismissed the report.

An elderly South Korean man died on Friday after setting himself on fire outside the Japanese embassy in Seoul as a bitter diplomatic dispute over wartime forced labour compensation took a fatal turn. The row has seen Tokyo restrict exports of chemicals vital to Seoul's world-leading chip and smartphone industry in an escalation of a decades-long dispute over Japanese forced labour during World War II.

Twelve Israeli tourists were remanded in custody for eight days by a court in Cyprus for the alleged gang rape of a 19-year-old British woman at a popular holiday resort on the island. The Israelis were arrested on Wednesday after the British teenager told police that she had been raped at the hotel where she was staying in the beach resort of Ayia Napa. Doctors who treated the woman said they found bruises and scratches on her body. The suspects, aged 16 to 18, were staying in the same hotel. The young men covered their faces with their t-shirts as they arrived handcuffed at the court in the nearby town of Paralimni, in the southeast of Cyprus. One broke down in tears. Some were accompanied by their parents. The hearing was held behind closed doors because some of the suspects are minors. The suspects covered their faces as they arrived at court Credit: Petros Karadjis/AP A judge accepted a request by Cypriot police to remand the men in custody for eight days while an investigation is launched into the rape allegation. They have not yet been charged with any offence. Three of the men allegedly raped the British tourist while others filmed the attack on their mobile phones, local media reports said. Ioannis Habaris, a lawyer representing four of the suspects, told The Associated Press it was unclear exactly how many of the men were implicated in the alleged rape. He said there was "some evidence" the British woman was involved in a "relationship" with one of the suspects. Tourists on a beach on the outskirts of the resort of Ayia Napa in Cyprus Credit: Amir Makar/AFP Nir Yaslovitzh, an Israeli lawyer representing three other suspects, said the 12 teenagers had arrived in Ayia Napa in three separate groups. Some were having a holiday prior to being drafted into the Israeli army for compulsory military service. He said police were trying to flush out the perpetrators among the group by arresting all 12 and having them detained. "I think it's a trick," Mr Yaslovitzh told AP. "They want to know how my clients will (react)." The Foreign Office said British authorities were "supporting a British woman who was assaulted in Cyprus and are in contact with local police". Cyprus’s sandy beaches, bars and nightclubs attract around 1.3 million British tourists a year. Ayia Napa has a reputation for being a party town, with booze cruises and pub crawls.

The morning after the House of Representatives voted to condemn President Donald Trump’s racist comments against a group of Democratic congresswomen of color, Fox & Friends’ Brian Kilmeade complained that it is “personally offensive” to call the president a racist.Discussing Tuesday’s chaos on the House floor when Republicans logged parliamentary objections against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for reading the title of the resolution—which labels the president a racist—Kilmeade sided clearly with the GOP.Noting that Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO) at one point abandoned the chair as speaker pro tempore during Tuesday’s debate, over the lack of civility, Kilmeade then brought up Rep. Doug Collins (R-GA) filing a complaint against Pelosi.“Congressman Collins is going by the manual of parliamentary practice that Thomas Jefferson put into play, which is a person is not supposed to use language personally offensive to the president,” the Fox & Friends co-host declared.He then offered his own personal thoughts on the matter.“I believe calling the president a racist is personally offensive but that’s just my judgment and the manual also said that members cannot accuse the president of having made bigoted or racist statements,” Kilmeade exclaimed. “So therefore, precedent set, Collins is 100 percent right.”Interestingly, while the Fox News personality feels it is derogatory and insulting to call the president racist for telling women of color to “go back” to where “they came” from, Kilmeade didn’t seem to have any issues when Glenn Beck said then-President Obama was a racist during a Fox & Friends appearance in 2009—an appearance that featured Kilmeade on the curvy couch.Kilmeade, meanwhile, has had plenty of racially questionable moments in the past. In 2017, he asked black colleague Harris Faulkner whether she was also going to make Kool-Aid during a Fox & Friends cooking segment, resulting in Faulkner confronting him afterwards. He also groused back in 2009 that Americans don’t have “pure genes” like people in Sweden because “we keep marrying other species and other ethnics.”Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

Ukraine's president on Friday outlined the details of an impending prisoner swap with Russia, saying that Kiev is willing to release a jailed Russian journalist in exchange for a Ukrainian film director. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's statement comes at the end of the week of shuttle diplomacy, with the Russian and Ukrainian human rights ombudswomen holding talks both in Moscow and in Kiev. The flurry of activity around imprisoned Russians and Ukrainians follows last week's first telephone call between Zelenskiy and Russian President Vladimir Putin.