European Union member states gave final approval Tuesday to the bloc's master plan to expand semiconductor production, clearing the path for its massive effort to slash reliance on Asia for computer chips vital for everything from washing machines to cars.

The European Council's ministers signed off on the EU's Chips Act, which will channel 43 billion euros ($47 billion) in public and private funds and allow state aid for the continent's semiconductor industry. EU leaders want to use the cash to kick-start massive investments for new chipmaking facilities, doubling the 27-nation bloc's share of global semiconductor production to 20% by 2030.

Goodbye, Twitter. Hello, X.

Elon Musk has unveiled a new "X" logo to replace Twitter's famous blue bird as he follows through with a major rebranding of the social media platform he bought for $44 billion last year.

Iranian authorities have shut down one of the offices of the country's biggest e-commerce company and launched judicial procedures after it published pictures online showing female employees not wearing the mandatory Islamic headscarf, semi-official media reported.

The move appears to be part of a new campaign launched last week to impose the Islamic dress code nearly a year after the morality police largely melted away in the face of widespread protests.

China's government appealed to Japan on Monday not to disrupt the semiconductor industry after curbs on exports of Japanese chip-making technology took effect, adding to technology restrictions Washington and its allies have imposed on China on security grounds.

The Japanese restrictions that took effect Sunday limit Chinese access to tools for etching microscopically small circuits on advanced chips for smartphones, artificial intelligence and other applications. The Netherlands also joined the United States in limiting access to chipmaking tools that Washington says could be used to develop weapons.

French lawmakers plan to vote Tuesday on a sweeping justice reform bill that includes a provision for allowing law enforcement agents to remotely tap into the cameras, microphones and location services of phones and other internet-connected devices used by some criminal suspects.

The proposed law plainly stipulates that the procedure can be executed "without the knowledge or consent of its owner or possessor" but is limited to suspects involved in terrorism, organized crime and other illegal activities punishable by five or more years in prison.

U.S. tech titan Mark Zuckerberg has plunged into a high-stakes game of brinkmanship with the European Union by withholding his new Threads app from users in Europe, but analysts say he will struggle to win the fight.

Threads, billed as the killer of Twitter, a platform that has tumbled into chaos under the leadership of mercurial tycoon Elon Musk, has added more than 100 million users in its first week in app stores.

Samsung Electronics said Friday it expects second-quarter operating profits to fall more than 95 percent on-year to their lowest level in 14 years, as a global glut of semiconductors continues to hurt its core memory sector.

The firm is the flagship subsidiary of South Korean giant Samsung Group, by far the largest of the family-controlled conglomerates that dominate business in Asia's fourth-largest economy.

Threads, a text-based app built by Meta to rival Twitter, is live.

The app, billed as the text version of Meta's photo-sharing platform Instagram, became available Wednesday night to users in more than 100 countries — including the U.S., Britain, Australia, Canada and Japan. Despite some early glitches, 30 million people had signed up before noon on Thursday, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on Threads.

More than 10 million people have signed up to Threads, Meta's rival to Twitter, within the first few hours of its launch, the Facebook parent's CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Thursday.

Threads is the biggest challenger yet to Elon Musk-owned Twitter, which has seen a series of potential competitors emerge but not yet replace one of social media's most iconic companies, despite its epic struggles.

Meta is poised to unveil a new app that appears to mimic Twitter — a direct challenge to the social media platform owned by Elon Musk.

A listing for the app, called Threads, appeared on Apple's App Store, indicating it would debut as early as Thursday. It is billed as a "text-based conversation app" that is linked to Instagram, with the listing teasing a Twitter-like microblogging experience.