On Wednesday 5 August 2026, oil traders got two pieces of news within hours of each other. The first was good: the US, Iran and Oman were reportedly close to a 60-day deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. The second undid most of the relief: Yemen’s Houthis said they had just attacked a Saudi … Read more
The name keeps appearing in headlines with no explanation attached. Trump’s Board of Peace announced a deal. The Board of Peace says Hamas will disarm. A Board of Peace official confirmed the terms. Almost nobody stops to say what it is — and the answer is genuinely unusual. It is a transitional government for Gaza, … Read more
On 30 July 2026, Donald Trump announced on Truth Social that his Board of Peace had reached a historic agreement for the complete disarmament of Hamas and all other armed groups in Gaza. A senior Hamas official confirmed to the BBC that the group had agreed. It is the first time in the conflict that … Read more
For 13 nights in a row, US warplanes and warships hit targets inside Iran. Then, on the night that would have been strike number 14, nothing happened. No Pentagon statement. No new bomb damage assessment. Just silence over the Gulf. That silence is the Iran airstrikes pause, and it is the real story behind this … Read more
Who owns the Strait of Hormuz? It is the question the entire 2026 war now turns on, and the honest answer is uncomfortable: three separate parties claim authority over that water, and not one of them has the law cleanly on its side. Iran says it administers the strait. Oman shares the water but rejects … Read more
On July 9, 2026, ten Iranian ballistic missiles flew toward a Jordanian air base called Al-Azraq. Jordan’s military shot down eight of them. Nobody died. Nothing important was destroyed. So why does this small, mostly-failed attack matter more than its body count suggests? The Iran Jordan attack is not really about Al-Azraq. It is about … Read more
Standing beside NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in Ankara on July 8, 2026, President Trump was asked a simple question about the US-Iran ceasefire. His answer was not simple at all: “I think it’s over.” Why did Trump say the Iran ceasefire is over, and does that actually change anything? Why Did Trump Say the … Read more
Why is the stock market down today? The honest answer keeps changing shape. On Monday, July 13, it was Iran and a chip-stock meltdown. By Thursday, July 16, Iran had faded into the background and a single word from an earnings call — “capex” — was doing most of the damage. This page tracks the … Read more
Update, July 20, 2026: What began as a single retaliatory strike on July 8 has become nine consecutive nights of US-Iran strikes, with dozens killed on both sides and the ceasefire now effectively abandoned by both governments. The sections below have been rewritten to cover the full two-week escalation; the original reporting on the July … Read more
Ali Khamenei died on February 28, 2026, killed alongside his top military command in a joint US-Israeli strike on his Tehran compound — an opening blow covered in detail in our 100-day retrospective on the Iran war. His funeral did not begin until July 4 — more than 125 days later. In a Shia tradition … Read more