Iran Update Special Report, July 18, 2026

• The US-Iran ceasefire is reportedly crumbling, leading to the reimposition of a US naval blockade on Iran. • This escalation marks a significant shift in international affairs, signaling a breakdown in diplomatic efforts to maintain regional stability.

• The global economic and political systems, which functioned effectively for nearly 80 years following World War II, are currently facing significant stress. • This era of stability was established after the United States assisted Britain and its allies in winning the Second World War.

Jules Von Hep and Mark Beverlo, who have been trying to become parents since 2020, are now seeking help abroadRise in overseas surrogates ‘increases risk of stateless babies’Why Mexico is at the heart of ethical debate over global surrogacyJules Von Hep has wanted a baby ever since he can remember. For many people that dream is straightforward to realise – but, as a gay man, he has always known it would take years of saving and searching.The only way he can have a biological child is to use a surrogate, which costs tens of thousands of pounds, and it often takes years of searching to find the right match. For Von Hep, it has been an “incredibly painful, incredibly expensive” process. Continue reading...

Corporation pays tribute to ‘outstanding’ journalist who presented shows including Today and One O’Clock NewsThe broadcaster and journalist Edward Stourton has died aged 68, the BBC has said.He died on Saturday surrounded by his family after being diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2014, the BBC announced in a statement. Continue reading...

Catholic order with a record of child abuse could be subject to hundreds of redress claims worth up to $65mFollow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastAustralian taxpayers could be forced to cover up to $65m in payouts to hundreds of abuse victims when a failing arm of the Catholic church disappears, new court documents reveal.Last month, the Christian Brothers, a Catholic order with a shocking record of child abuse, informed a court it was going broke and would not be able to afford to pay out survivors. Continue reading...

Keir Starmer will give his final speech from Downing Street before Burnham arrives and is appointed as new PMGood morning. Today we are getting a new PM. It is the sixth time this has happened in just over a decade (Theresa May replaced David Cameron on 13 July 2016), and so in some respects there is nothing very new or surprising about this. Yet the process has been unusual. In the past, when parties in power have replaced a PM, generally they have opted for someone popular with their own MPs, but less popular than their predecessor with the public at large (Liz Truss, Theresa May, Gordon Brown), or for someone more popular with the public, but less liked by their own activists (John Major, Rishi Sunak). At the start of the year, anyone looking at polling would have concluded that the logical choice for Labour would have been to replace Keir Starmer with Andy Burnham. Labour is not always noted for taking decisions that will be electorally beneficial, but in this case that is what it has achieved. It has replaced a PM who had become an electoral millstone with one of the most admired politicians in the country, and with someone – for the moment at least – with his whole party behind him.That may not be the case by the end of the day, after Burnham has named his cabinet. We’ll have to see. Here is Rowena Mason’s overnight story about what to expect today.This week [Burnham] will tell us of his “ten-year plan for the country”. Perhaps his premiership won’t last that long, he conceded. “I’m not saying that means I’m setting out to say I’m going to be here for ten years … it’s more that we’re not in the right place structurally, we’re not in the right place as a country. I think people can feel that.”One thing I heard most on the doorsteps in Makerfield was frustration about the personal allowance, frozen at £12,570 … [That complaint] lodged in my mind.They’re just characterising me as a tax raiser. Well, again, it’s never that simplistic, is it? Continue reading...

Rapper pleads not guilty to six counts of sexually penetrating a 20-year-old woman without consent after a gig in PerthA British YouTuber and musician bit and slapped a young female fan while he was raping her after a gig in Western Australia, a court has been told.Yung Filly, 30, has pleaded not guilty to six counts of sexually penetrating a 20-year-old woman without consent in a Perth hotel room in September 2024. Continue reading...

Is the machinery of state jammed, or is the reason for the slow pace of change more personal than institutional?Eighteen months into the 24 it turned out he would last in No 10, Keir Starmer was a man in a hurry. The biggest frustration with the job, he told MPs, concerned “speed and the ability to get things done”. The underlying problem, he thought, was that every time something had gone wrong in the past, “successive governments have put in place another procedure or another body or another consultation to try to stop ourselves ever making a mistake again”.In airing his impatience, if little else, Starmer is in tune with the country he has become too unpopular to lead. Julian Gallie, a pollster at Merlin Strategy, says voters have been “crying out for change for a decade”, even if they have sent inconsistent signs about what sort of change it should be. The Brexit vote, the Corbyn surge of 2017, the Johnson majority of 2019 and the Tory rout of 2024 can all be seen as “a desperate roll of the dice against a status quo” that somehow feels impossible to shift. Continue reading...

Chaos of Capita-run scheme has left some people waiting up to a year for payments and in financial hardshipRetired civil servants have been failed by the decision to outsource their pension scheme, the government has admitted, and the maladministration meant some were left waiting up to a year for payments.Multiple members of the civil service pension scheme, run by the private company Capita since December, have come forward to say they are unable to afford rent and have been forced to use food banks after being left without an income. Continue reading...

The Guardian goes on the ground with Brazilian forces fighting to eradicate mining that has destroyed protected areas of Indigenous landThe jerry-built bordello at the foot of Vila Cururu, an illegal gold-mining settlement at the heart of Brazil’s most desecrated Indigenous territory, was a hive of depravity until just a few weeks ago.Inebriated prospectors huddled around wooden tables, swigging beer and Scotch whisky, and ogling pole-dancing sex workers before going with them to shacks behind the brothel. Continue reading...

Former attorney general also describes receiving antisemitic abuse, saying he was labelled a ‘genocidal Zionist’Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastFormer attorney general Mark Dreyfus has called on governments to consider banning protests outside synagogues and Jewish schools, invoking a high court decision allowing restrictions outside abortion clinics.The federal Labor backbencher has told the royal commission on antisemitism and social cohesion the laws should be considered in the light of a 2019 high court decision which upheld safe access zone laws in Victoria and Tasmania which prohibit protests within 150 metres of clinics. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Maternity staffing shortages worsen as more and more under-35s quit because of burnoutMore and more midwives are leaving the NHS before they reach 35 because of burnout, worsening the staffing problems that are affecting maternity units.The growing trend of early career quitting has sparked fears it poses a threat to the quality and safety of care that mothers and babies receive from already-understaffed childbirth services. Continue reading...