WASHINGTON — Imagine a pay-per-view steel-cage fight featuring Donald Trump versus Joe Biden.

The Republican president and the former Democratic vice president are trading fighting words over who’d come out on top in a hypothetical physical matchup.

Trump, reacting to taunts Biden made earlier in the week, tweeted Thursday: “Crazy Joe Biden is trying to act like a tough guy. Actually, he is weak, both mentally and physically, and yet he threatens me, for the second time, with physical assault. He doesn’t know me, but he would go down fast and hard, crying all the way. Don’t threaten people Joe!”

At a University of Miami rally Tuesday against sexual assault, Biden cited lewd comments that candidate Trump made in a 2005 “Access Hollywood” tape about grabbing women without their permission.

“If we were in high school, I’d take him behind the gym and beat the hell out of him,” Biden said. He also said any man who disrespected women was “usually the fattest, ugliest SOB in the room.”

Biden, 75, made similar comments in the closing days of the 2016 campaign.

He has kept open the possibility of a 2020 bid for president and is gearing up to play a big role campaigning for Democrats running in this year’s midterm elections.

Biden refrained from re-upping his taunts in an appearance Thursday in Washington, just blocks from the White House.

He stuck to the promised subject of protecting U.S. workers in the age of globalization during a speech at the Newseum.

Trump administration set to sell $1B in arms to Saudi Arabia

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is signing off on selling more than $1 billion in arms to Saudi Arabia as Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman visits the United States.

The State Department said the administration told Congress on Thursday that it plans to approve the sale.

Lawmakers will have 30 days to act if they want to try to stop it.

The package includes up to about 6,700 U.S.-built anti-tank missiles.

Other items include support, maintenance and spare parts for American tanks, helicopters and other equipment already in Saudi Arabia’s arsenal.

Prince Mohammed met Tuesday with President Donald Trump.

The U.S. previously raised concerns about heavy civilian casualties and indiscriminate bombing by the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen.

Atlanta computer network victim of ransomware attack

ATLANTA — The City of Atlanta’s computer network has been the victim of a ransomware cyberattack, officials said Thursday.

City officials learned early in the morning of an outage affecting various internal and customer-facing applications, said Chief Operating Officer Richard Cox. The outage, which included the encryption of some city data, did not affect the public safety department, water department or the international airport, he said.

But some applications that people use to pay bills or access court information were affected. Cox said the investigation will determine whether any personal information has been compromised.

Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms urged city employees to take steps to protect their personal data.

Former South Korean leader jailed over corruption scandal

SEOUL, South Korea — South Korean ex-President Lee Myung-bak was arrested and jailed Friday over a range of corruption allegations, becoming the latest in a series of disgraced leaders embroiled in scandals after leaving office.

A convoy of vehicles, including a black sedan carrying Lee, entered a detention center in Seoul after the Seoul Central District Court approved his arrest warrant, citing what it called serious alleged crimes and a possibility that he might try to destroy evidence. Prosecutors can detain him for up to 20 days before formally charging him.

“Right now, I feel it’s all my fault and I have a guilty conscience rather than blaming others,” Lee said in a statement issued shortly before his arrest, according to Yonhap news agency.

U.S. drops charges vs. Erdogan guards over brawl

WASHINGTON — U.S. prosecutors said Thursday they have dismissed all criminal charges against seven of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s bodyguards stemming from a brawl in Washington last year in which protesters were beaten.

The charges were dropped last month just a day ahead of a meeting between Erdogan and now-outgoing Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, but the State Department said the timing was coincidental.

Prosecutors said they dropped the charges against the seven on Feb. 14 after dropping charges against four others in November. Assault charges are still pending against four other members of Erdogan’s security detail as well as two Canadian citizens accused in the May 2017 altercation outside the Turkish ambassador’s Washington home during a visit by Erdogan.

Rebels begin to evacuate enclave near Syrian capital

BEIRUT — Carrying their light arms, hundreds of rebels began evacuating with their families Thursday from a devastated town in eastern Ghouta, an effective surrender under a deal with the government after a long siege and bombing campaign of the enclave on the outskirts of Damascus.

The departure of the powerful Ahrar al-Sham group — the first such arrangement for eastern Ghouta — could serve as a blueprint for fighters in other towns, bringing President Bashar Assad’s government closer to ending years of rebellion in the territory just east of the capital.

Also on Thursday, the media arm of Lebanon’s Hezbollah group and an opposition activist group said the second-largest rebel group in eastern Ghouta has declared a cease-fire in order to negotiate leaving the area.

A man being beaten by several people outside of a Houston club Thursday fled to his car and then drove into the crowd, striking at least four people and killing one, police said. The driver and several people were taken to a hospital, said police, who hadn’t released the name of the driver or the man who died.

At least 14 people were killed and 10 others wounded in a car bomb blast near a hotel in Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, officials said Thursday. The explosion happened on a busy road that has been a target of attacks by the Somalia-based extremist group al-Shabab, the deadliest Islamic extremist group in Africa.