US president threatened Iran over strait of Hormuz in sweary outburst. Plus, Starmer to step down as UK’s PM two years after historic landslide
Good morning. Iran’s foreign minister has declared “progress” after the first day of talks between high-ranking officials from Washington and Tehran ended in Switzerland, despite a tense opening marked by Donald Trump’s threats to restart attacks.
Abbas Araghchi said Pakistani and Qatari mediation “has delivered major progress to end [the] Lebanon war”. Iran has been adamant that Israeli attacks on Hezbollah in Lebanon must end as part of any deal. The Israelis are not directly participating in the talks.
What has been agreed? A joint statement from mediators Qatar and Pakistan said the US and Iran agreed a roadmap towards a final deal within 60 days. Technical talks between lower-ranked officials will continue for the rest of the week. In a development that is critical to unlocking progress, the US Treasury was also preparing to issue a 60-day waiver lifting sanctions on oil, petrochemicals and derivatives.
What threat did Trump issue to the Iranians? Over the weekend, Iran said it had reinstated its blockade in the strait of Hormuz in protest at the continued Israeli strikes on Lebanon. The US president responded on social media, saying: “You close it and you won’t have a country. You won’t even make it back to your fucking country.”
What impact has the war had on support within Iran for the government? Saeed Shah reports that the war has triggered a rare moment of solidarity in a country that was reeling from the killing of thousands of protesters by the authorities at the start of the year.
Keir Starmer has announced he will stand down as UK prime minister after days of intense pressure from Labour party MPs, including cabinet ministers, following the return of Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham to Westminster. Starmer will stay in post in Downing Street until any leadership contest – or handover of power – is complete.
Starmer’s exit caps a calamitous fall from grace since becoming only the fourth Labour leader to win an election, taking more seats in 2024 than anyone since Tony Blair’s 1997 landslide. His successor will become the UK’s seventh prime minister in 10 years.
Why has Starmer stood down? After months of internal party pressure and plunging poll numbers, his downfall has been triggered by key political misjudgments including appointing the Jeffery Epstein-linked Peter Mandelson as US ambassador despite a failed security vetting. Policy reversals have led to his MPs viewing him as weak, a sentiment reinforced by devastating losses in the May elections that underscored his deep unpopularity with voters.
The Trump-admiring far-right millionaire lawyer and self-styled “outsider” Abelardo de la Espriella has won Colombia’s presidential runoff, defeating the leftwing senator Iván Cepeda. De la Espriella’s victory marks a sharp swing back to the right after four years under Colombia’s first and only leftwing president, Gustavo Petro, who was barred by the constitution from seeking re-election.
The result is also being seen as further evidence of a wave of far-right candidates sweeping presidential elections across Latin America, after recent victories by Nasry Asfura in Honduras and José Antonio Kast in Chile, while Keiko Fujimori currently leads the vote count in Peru.
What is De la Espriella’s attitude to the US? In a video posted by the US Republican congresswoman María Elvira Salazar after the result, De la Espriella said: “To solve Colombia’s problems, we need to build a very close alliance with the US, which is not only our main trading partner but also our most important strategic ally in the fight against organised crime.”
Wyndham Clark won the US Open amid a fierce challenge from Sam Burns and jeers from a hostile crowd.
At least seven people have been killed in Chicago shootings since Friday as Trump renewed his call for military deployment in the city – though a recent nonpartisan study found that the national guard’s presence in DC has had minimal effect on violent crime there.
The US investment firm Castlelake has gone public with a £4.7bn proposal to buy the European airline easyJet after earlier bids were rejected.
Almost three tonnes of cocaine was found buried under Sydney property in Australia’s biggest ever seizure.
Repair work will begin “immediately” at the troubled Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool, Trump has said, blaming – without evidence – “vandals” for the site’s issues.
A Delta jet was roughly 300ft (90 meters) from an American Airlines plane during a close call at Boston’s airport that forced the Delta aircraft to abort a weekend landing attempt.
Bronze hands rise from the pavement, holding a placard against the sky. It reads 7053, the booking number displayed in Rosa Parks’s 1955 mugshot. Montgomery Square not only preserves the memory of Black resistance to racism, it also asks what that memory demands of us, especially as the current administration works to erase victories born from that era.
In an informative essay, the Boston University professor Saida Grundy argues that access to power over other racial groups is the preferred political currency of the white working class. “Even when siding with conservatives has cost the white working class the most economically, they continue to measure their gains racially,” she writes.
Aids-related deaths have fallen by 59% since 2010 and new infections by 68% on the African continent, but, Jean Kaseya and Amma Adomaa Twum-Amoah write, external health aid to Africa was estimated to have fallen by 70% in the last four years. They say the era in which Africa delivered progressively better health outcomes while others financed and directed is gone for good. What comes next?
Extreme heat and dry, windy conditions are fuelling multiple wildfires across the US west, including a massive blaze in Utah that forced the evacuation of a small town. Hot weather in the forecast raises the risk of more blazes in the week ahead.
Thirty years after he perished in a small limestone cave near the top of Mount Everest, the body of the climber known only as “Green Boots” may finally be heading home – and his identity at last confirmed.
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Source: Guardian - World News
