Water levels at Iraq's vast Dukan Dam reservoir have plummeted as a result of dwindling rains and further damming upstream, hitting millions of inhabitants already impacted by drought with stricter water rationing.
Amid these conditions, visible cracks have emerged in the retreating shoreline of the artificial lake, which lies in northern Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region and was created in the 1950s.
AI deepfakes, video game footage passed off as real combat, and chatbot-generated falsehoods -- such tech-enabled misinformation is distorting the Israel-Iran conflict, fueling a war of narratives across social media.
The information warfare unfolding alongside ground combat -- sparked by Israel's strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities and military leadership -- underscores a digital crisis in the age of rapidly advancing AI tools that have blurred the lines between truth and fabrication.
Mahmoud Khalil, a former Columbia University student who was one of the most visible leaders of nationwide pro-Palestinian campus protests, was released Friday from a federal detention center.
Khalil, a legal permanent resident in the United States who is married to a US citizen and has a US-born son, has been in custody since March facing potential deportation.
"This shouldn't have taken three months," Khalil, wearing a Palestinian keffiyeh scarf, told US media outside an immigration detention center in Jena, Louisiana hours after a federal judge ordered his release.
President Donald Trump said Friday that Iran had a "maximum" of two weeks to avoid possible US air strikes, indicating he could take a decision before the fortnight deadline he set a day earlier.
Trump added that he was not inclined to stop Israel attacking Iran because it was "winning," and was dismissive of European efforts to mediate an end to the conflict.
"I'm giving them a period of time, and I would say two weeks would be the maximum," Trump told reporters when asked if he could decide to strike Iran before that.
A federal judge ordered the Trump administration on Friday to release Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University student who became a leader of pro-Palestinian campus protests.
Khalil, a legal permanent US resident who is married to a US citizen and has a US-born son, has been in custody since March facing potential deportation.
District Judge Michael Farbiarz ordered Khalil's release on bail during a hearing on Friday and he will be allowed to return to New York while his deportation case proceeds.
European powers on Friday urged Iran to revive diplomatic efforts with the United States to find a solution in the standoff over its nuclear programme, but Tehran warned it could only consider diplomacy once Israel halted its bombardment of the Islamic republic.
British, French, German and EU top diplomats held talks in Geneva with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, giving diplomacy a chance one week after Israel started its bombardment.
The US Supreme Court cleared the way on Friday for American victims of attacks in Israel and the occupied West Bank to sue Palestinian authorities for damages in US courts.
The court issued a unanimous 9-0 decision in a long-running case involving the jurisdiction of US federal courts to hear lawsuits against the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).
Americans killed or injured in attacks in Israel or the West Bank or their relatives have filed a number of suits seeking damages.
Iran's foreign minister on Friday condemned the Israeli attacks against the Islamic republic as a "betrayal" of diplomatic efforts with the US, saying Tehran and Washington had been due to craft a "promising agreement" on the Iranian nuclear programme.
"We were attacked in the midst of an ongoing diplomatic process," Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva ahead of a crunch meeting with European foreign ministers.
Araghchi, making his first trip abroad since the strikes began, denounced Israel's attack as an "outrageous act of aggression".
At least 19 people were injured in the northern Israeli port city of Haifa as Iran fired a fresh barrage of missiles on Friday afternoon, authorities said.
Iran has been launching daily missile salvos at Israel for the past week since a wide-ranging Israeli attack on its nuclear and military facilities triggered war.
One projectile slammed into an area by the docks in Haifa on Friday afternoon where it damaged a building and blew out windows, littering the ground with rubble, AFP images showed.
Israel's foreign ministry said it struck "next to" the Al-Jarina mosque.
Since launching air strikes on Iran last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been working to pull President Donald Trump into the war, and sway a sceptical American public.
In his daily calls and public statements, Israel's longest-serving prime minister has mixed praise and deference for the US leader, while also arguing that the strikes on Iran benefit Americans.
"Do you want these people to have nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them to you?" he asked during an interview on Fox News last Sunday.
