The National (UAE) Scraper

Extract full article text or the newest headlines from The National (thenationalnews.com), a leading UAE English-language newspaper — no account or subscription needed.

Why use this actor

• No account or login required — fully free, ad-supported site with no paywall
• Full article text included, not just a summary — headline, description, byline(s), section, keywords, publish/update dates, lead image
• Strong UAE and wider Gulf coverage alongside US/international news and sport
• Also fetches the newest headlines (with lead image) from the site's news sitemap without visiting each article individually
• Stable JSON output suitable for pipelines, spreadsheets, or databases
• Automatic retries on temporary network hiccups

How it works

1. Give the actor one or more article URLs, or switch to "latest" mode to get the newest stories automatically.
2. In article mode, the actor opens each URL and pulls out the full text and every publicly available detail about the story.
3. In latest mode, the actor reads the site's news sitemap and returns the newest stories.
4. Results stream into your dataset, ready to download as JSON, CSV, or Excel.

You don't need to manage retries, rate limits, or figure out the site's internal data format — the actor handles all of that.

Input

Article mode (default):

{
  "mode": "article",
  "urls": [
    "https://www.thenationalnews.com/news/uae/2026/08/23/bidders-swoop-in-to-make-bids-on-prized-falcons-at-abu-dhabis-adihex-auction/"
  ],
  "maxConcurrency": 4,
  "proxyConfiguration": { "useApifyProxy": true, "apifyProxyGroups": ["RESIDENTIAL"] }
}

Latest headlines mode:

{
  "mode": "latest",
  "limit": 10,
  "proxyConfiguration": { "useApifyProxy": true, "apifyProxyGroups": ["RESIDENTIAL"] }
}

Field	Type	Description
mode	string	"article" (default) — extract one or more article URLs. "latest" — fetch the newest headlines.
url	string	A single article URL. Used in article mode.
urls	array	Multiple article URLs to extract in one run. Used in article mode.
limit	integer	Max headlines returned in latest mode. Default 10, max 50.
maxConcurrency	integer	How many articles to fetch in parallel in article mode. Default 4.
proxyConfiguration	object	Apify Proxy settings. Residential is on by default.

Output

Article mode — one record per URL (truncated here for readability):

{
  "_input": "https://www.thenationalnews.com/news/uae/2026/08/23/bidders-swoop-in-to-make-bids-on-prized-falcons-at-abu-dhabis-adihex-auction/",
  "_source": "S1-jsonld",
  "_scrapedAt": "2026-08-24T01:31:33Z",
  "headline": "Bidders swoop in to make bids on prized falcons at Abu Dhabi's Adihex auction",
  "description": "Birds sell for big money at event held before Abu Dhabi International Hunting and Equestrian Exhibition",
  "articleBody": "Falcon merchants and breeders were bidding huge sums at an auction in Abu Dhabi on Sunday evening, with birds of prey being bought for hundreds of thousands of dirhams...",
  "articleSection": null,
  "datePublished": "2026-08-23T17:45:58.967Z",
  "dateModified": "2026-08-23T17:45:58.967Z",
  "author": "The National",
  "keywords": ["story", "standard", "UAE", "Abu Dhabi"],
  "image": "https://www.thenationalnews.com/resizer/v2/XJLDKG4235FE7LRTL7FYUICDKI.jpg?auth=..."
}

Latest headlines mode — one record per headline:

{
  "_input": "latest",
  "_source": "S2-sitemap",
  "_scrapedAt": "2026-08-24T01:31:14Z",
  "title": "Bidders swoop in to make bids on prized falcons at Abu Dhabi's Adihex auction",
  "link": "https://www.thenationalnews.com/news/uae/2026/08/23/bidders-swoop-in-to-make-bids-on-prized-falcons-at-abu-dhabis-adihex-auction/",
  "publicationDate": "2026-08-23T17:45:58.967Z",
  "imageUrl": "https://www.thenationalnews.com/resizer/v2/XJLDKG4235FE7LRTL7FYUICDKI.jpg?auth=..."
}

Field	Type	Description
_input	string	The URL you requested, or "latest", for traceability.
_source	string	Which strategy produced this record.
_scrapedAt	string	UTC timestamp of when the record was captured.
headline / title	string	Article headline.
description	string	Teaser/summary, when the site provides one (article mode only).
articleBody	string	Full plain-text article content (article mode only).
author	string	Byline(s), comma-joined when multiple contributors are credited (article mode only).
keywords	array	Tag keywords (article mode only).
datePublished / dateModified	string	Publication timestamps (article mode).
image / imageUrl	string	Lead image URL.
link	string	Article URL (latest mode).
publicationDate	string	Publication timestamp (latest mode).

A record with _error instead of article fields means that URL could not be processed (for example, "_error": "not_found" for a removed article).