
Iranian lawmaker Fada-Hossein Maleki said on Friday that the United States has sent messages indicating interest in negotiations, but Tehran has no plans to engage.
Some Iranian youths disillusioned by poor amenities in the Islamic theocracy are increasingly taking to a homemade codeine drink known as lean, education and health professionals told Iran International.

A towering figure in Iranian pop music history, Googoosh told AP she will not produce new work until the Islamic Republic is gone, according to remarks published on Friday.

An Iranian singer who won a Grammy for a ballad which became the unofficial song for a scotched national uprising in 2022 has incurred fury for announcing the release of an album which received an official state license.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards began the second phase of a naval drill with volleys of ballistic and cruise missiles aimed at targets in the Oman Sea, state media reported on Friday.

A poll by the Ronald Reagan Institute released on Thursday indicated broad public support for air strikes launched by the administration of President Donald Trump on three major Iranian nuclear sites on June 22.
China’s independent refiners are stepping up purchases of Iranian crude held in bonded storage and on tankers idling offshore after Beijing issued a fresh round of import quotas late last month, Bloomberg reported.
Despite facing a growing domestic gas deficit and widespread use of highly polluting fuel oil, Iran’s gas deliveries to Turkey have continued to surge according to official Turkish energy statistics.
Senior Iranian official Ali Shamkhani cautioned Persian Gulf neighbors after the GCC renewed claims over three Iranian islands and backed Saudi and Kuwaiti ownership of the Arash/Durra gas field, framing the dispute as a test of regional red lines amid post-war tensions.
Dissident Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi said he will return to Iran after completing the Oscar campaign for his latest film, despite being sentenced in absentia this week to one year in prison on charges of propaganda against the state.

Iran’s government said inflation stems from unfunded promises financed by unbacked money printing and bank credit, adding it has capped budget growth at about 2% and halted most other outlays in a bid to curb price pressures.

Iranians report rising prices and sporadic shortages of everyday goods and groceries, making it harder to cover basic needs and put food on the table, according to messages sent to Iran International.

Blood reserves supplying 180 hospitals across Tehran have dropped after two weeks of heavy smog and widespread remote working reduced donor turnout, provincial officials said, warning the shortfall is beginning to affect daily supply plans.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio cast Venezuela as a regional platform for Iranian influence, describing Nicolás Maduro’s government as a narcotics transit hub that hosts Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah.
Iran will attend the draw for the 2026 World Cup in Washington DC on Friday after initially threating a boycott, while a travel ban looks set to bar Iranian fans.

The US State Department said Rewards for Justice is offering up to 10 million dollars for information that helps identify or locate two Iran linked cyber actors tied to operations against US critical infrastructure.
Iraq will remove Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthis from an asset-freeze list after the Iran-aligned groups were included in an official publication, officials said on Thursday.

Iran’s judiciary chief said the current approach to hijab will not continue, outlining coordinated steps with police, prosecutors and regulators to curb what authorities call social disorders.

More than 150 Iranian lawmakers have accused the judiciary of failing to act against growing public defiance of the hijab, saying inaction has fueled what they called lawlessness in society, state media reported on Tuesday.

Tehran may be poised to carry out a politically explosive crackdown on Islamic veiling after Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei issued a directive to step up enforcement according to a leaked directive.

The Iran projected on social media these days—brunch parties, rooftop concerts, fashion shows—is real, but only as a tiny fragment of the country’s reality, where most ordinary people struggle to make ends meet.

This week marked the anniversary of a vast Berlin rally in October 2022 gathering tens of thousands filled in solidarity with Iran’s Woman, Life, Freedom protest movement—a day that now feels almost impossibly distant.

The once-hushed conversation about who will succeed Iran’s 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has not only spilled into the open, but has curdled into public intimidation of contender and former president Hassan Rouhani.

Moderate insiders in Tehran are warning that the public’s alienation may have deprived the system of the very vehicle it once relied on to manage public anger.

A lopsided war with Israel and the United States in June rattled Iran’s political order, but it survives through smarter coercion and the disarray of forces that might otherwise bring it down.
Iranian officials said a large haul of ancient artifacts estimated to be about 2,800 years old has been seized in the northern town of Fereydunkenar in Mazandaran Province and four main suspects have been detained.
A post on X by Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's highlighting income inequality between women and men in the West stoked criticism by users who pointed to the Islamic theocracy's record on women's rights.