Iran and Egypt have lodged formal protests with FIFA after Seattle designated their 2026 World Cup group-stage game as a “Pride Match,” triggering a diplomatic and cultural backlash from two countries where homosexuality is criminalized.

Iran's military spokesman said on Tuesday that the United States had been forced to acknowledge Tehran's military prowess by reverse-engineering its Shahed kamikaze drone and deploying the copies to the Middle East.

A former Iranian intelligence operative who collaborated with the US Central Intelligence Agency and transmitted secrets to journalists may have been killed by his own establishment stalwart father in 2016, The Atlantic reported.

The Russian Embassy in Tehran has denied any connection to flyers circulating in the Iranian capital that invited men to enlist in the Russian army for large cash rewards.

Iran, China and Saudi Arabia held a trilateral meeting in Tehran on Tuesday, the third since their 2023 normalization agreement brokered in Beijing, state media reported.

Iran’s existing nuclear safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) does not account for wartime conditions and must be revised to protect national security, Behrouz Kamalvandi, spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, said on Tuesday.

Iran’s Deputy Health Minister Alireza Raisi said more than 170,000 people have gone to emergency wards since the start of December because of heart and respiratory problems caused by air pollution, describing the situation as a “serious and widespread public health crisis.”

Iran’s currency sank to a new all-time low on Monday with the US dollar climbing to 1.26 million rials but the country's finance minister described the slide as a normal result of a brief war with Israel in June.

A prominent academic’s assertion that many of Iran’s problems stem from “the dominance of the economically weak class” in governance has stoked outrage in a country whose theocracy bills itself as a champion of the downtrodden.

Rap has moved from the margins to the spotlight in Iran, where it is being promoted on streaming platforms, entertainment shows and Instagram feeds tied to state interests and seen by millions.

Power politics in Tehran has reached a stage where even the most routine public affairs—a film festival, an environmental report or the World Cup draw—spiral into controversy, as if the system cannot tolerate anything resembling normalcy.

Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi’s clandestinely filmed It Was Just an Accident was shortlisted on Monday for four major Golden Globe awards, even as he faces a new prison sentence in Iran after being convicted in absentia by a Revolutionary Court.

Iran’s foreign ministry on Sunday confirmed that 55 Iranian nationals have been detained and are being deported from the United States, marking the second group expelled in recent months under President Donald Trump’s tightened immigration policies.

Iran’s foreign ministry denounced the Middle East section of Washington’s newly released national security strategy on Sunday, with spokesman Esmail Baghaei calling it Israel’s national security document while saying Tehran would nonetheless study the text.

President Masoud Pezeshkian acknowledged on Sunday that his government has been unable to lift longstanding internet restrictions, saying he has ordered the deactivation of so-called “white SIM cards” that granted unfiltered access to a circle of state-linked users.

Iran and Russia have signed a new cooperation agreement on artificial intelligence and cybersecurity, Iranian state media reported, expanding their technology partnership as both countries deepen strategic ties under Western sanctions.