Marco Rubio’s invocation of ancient Persia in a speech championing Western power has given Tehran an opportunity to present itself as a defender of Iranian identity, even as critics recall the Islamic Republic’s own record of disparaging pride in the country’s pre-Islamic rulers.

Two commercial vessels were attacked near Oman on Sunday, two Indian sailors were left missing, and a drone struck an Iranian Kurdish opposition camp in Iraq on Monday, as Iranian officials warned that a renewed war could put regional infrastructure at risk.

Footage and images showing men wielding machetes and swords at an IRGC-backed rally in the central Iranian city of Isfahan have renewed scrutiny of the Islamic Republic's history of using unofficial armed groups to suppress anti-government protests.

Moscow would rather live with an Iranian nuclear weapon than with a change of regime in Tehran, senior Russia scholar Mark Katz told Iran International, arguing that a pro-Western Iran is the outcome Russia actually fears.

Iranian judicial authorities have detained a football coach in the western city of Divandarreh after five people filed complaints alleging sexual abuse connected to a youth football club.

Iran-based and Iranian-linked actors have used two leading US artificial intelligence platforms to place articles under fake journalist identities and help develop targeting recommendations against US naval forces, according to separate investigations by OpenAI and Anthropic.

Tehran has seized on protests by French high school students to accuse Paris of repression, seeking to obscure its own treatment of young Iranians by turning the language of human rights against one of its Western critics.

Men accused of spying for Iran exchanged information about Iran International’s offices and presenter Kambiz Hosseini, while one defendant discussed money transfers and his legal troubles with contacts in Iran, a London court heard.

At least five Iranian military and police personnel were killed and several others wounded in four armed attacks across southeastern Iran within 24 hours, local rights group Haalvsh reported, as violence targeting security forces continued across the area.