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Law to take effect on January 1 has support of social media companies, but Apple and Google oppose it.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott has signed into law a bill requiring Apple and Alphabet’s Google to verify the age of users of their app stores, putting the second most populous state in the United States at the centre of a debate over whether and how to regulate smartphone use by children and teenagers.

The bill was signed into law on Tuesday.

The law, which goes into effect on January 1,…

The ruling comes as US Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy is set to pause federal funds to New York state.

New York City has won a temporary reprieve in its legal battle against the administration of US President Donald Trump, which had threatened to withhold federal funding from New York state unless the city ended its congestion pricing programme.

United States District Judge Lewis Liman held the hearing on the matter on Tuesday and granted a temporary restraining order that will allow…

Israel is applying many of the tactics used in its war on Gaza to seize and control territory across the occupied West Bank during its Operation Iron Wall campaign, a new report says.

Israel launched the operation in January. Defending what the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) termed “by far the longest and most destructive operation in the occupied West Bank since the second intifada in the 2000s”, the Israeli military claimed its intention was to preserve its…

On Tuesday afternoon, Israeli media published photos of a long queue lined up in barbed-wire-fenced passageways waiting to receive aid in Rafah. The harrowing scenes were part of the initial attempt by the U.S.-Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) to implement its project to distribute assistance to the residents of the Gaza Strip.

After hours of waiting under the scorching sun, people began to push into the long, narrow passageways, which were fenced on both sides and…

More aid distribution sites are being set up in Gaza with US support, according to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He described “some loss of control” after Palestinians desperately swarmed a new aid hub in Rafah following nearly three months of Israeli blockade.

Russia has launched its largest drone and missile attack on Ukraine since the war began more than three years ago.

After the missiles came a war of words as United States President Donald Trump lashed out at Russian President Vladimir Putin on social media.

And he criticised Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s remarks after the Ukrainian president condemned what he called “the silence of America”.

So was that…

Officials say more than one million Muslim pilgrims from around the world have already arrived in the country.

Saudi Arabia has announced that the annual Hajj pilgrimage will begin on June 4 after observatories confirmed the sighting of the crescent moon.

The announcement was made on Tuesday by the kingdom’s Supreme Court in a statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency.

At a news conference on Monday, Saudi Hajj Minister Tawfiq al-Rabiah said more than one million pilgrims from…

Thousands of Palestinians have overwhelmed a food distribution centre in southern Gaza, driven by hunger after nearly three months without access to fresh supplies.

It was a chaotic scene on Tuesday in the southern city of Rafah, as men, women and children thronged the aid centre, seeking food to stave off malnutrition and starvation.

Israeli soldiers used gunfire to disperse the desperate crowds, as they tugged at the fences separating them from food boxes.

Starting on March 2, Israel had…