Last night, far from the thunder of this escalation, its parliament quietly introduced a new bill to manage the strait called the Strategic Action for the Security and Sustainable Progress of the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf.

That news was posted on X by Ebrahim Azizi, head of the assembly’s national security commission, who told us in April that controlling the waterway was Iran’s “inalienable right”.

When asked when Iran would cede control, his reply was short and sharp – “never.”

He described it as an “asset to face the enemy”.

Iran’s zero trust in the US’ promises, fuelled by the repeated eruptions of war or threats during negotiations, have cemented its resolve.

Control over the strait is seen not just as a bargaining chip in this impasse, it also sees it as its new leverage, a new form of deterrence, as well as an economic lifeline – in case sanctions never get lifted, and its assets worldwide remain frozen.

But Tehran’s determination to rewrite the rules in the region is also causing tension with its neighbours including Qatar, one of the main mediators in this crisis, as well as Iran’s longstanding traditional ally Oman, which has played a role for decades behind the scenes.

Countries like the United Arab Emirates have made it crystal clear that Iran’s plans to play a controlling role, including charging some form of “service fees” is unacceptable and sets a dangerous precedent.

A source informed on the back and forth said Oman had objected to Iran’s inclusion of a specific mention in the agreement in that same contested fifth point – that Iran “will conduct dialogue with the Sultanate of Oman to define the future administration and maritime services”.

Muscat now finds itself caught between the wishes of Washington, and Tehran wants to maintain, above all else, its longstanding reputation as the region’s discreet diplomatic middleman.

“Oman has been very patient with the Iranians trying to keep good neighbourly relations,” Omani analyst, Professor Abdullah Baabood, told the BBC’s Newshour programme.

“This particular episode has driven Oman to take quite a substantial stand…but we want this conflict to be resolved through dialogue.”

Some observers still see a small possibility of an eventual compromise.

By HARRY BAMFORTH, LIVE SPORTS COVERAGE REPORTER

Updated: 20:17 BST, 14 July 2026

A man from Wales was part of a dark web network who encouraged others to commit incidents of “swatting” at home and in the USA and Canada. This involved false reports being made which resulted in hotels being evacuated and armed police turning up at the home of innocent people.

Callum Dare, 26, served as an administrator on an online network which came to the attention of the FBI following a number of “swatting incidents”, an act of harassing a victim by triggering an armed police response to that person’s location, based on a false report of an emergency, in order to gain a “thrill or notoriety”.

A sentencing hearing at Cardiff Crown Court on Monday heard a hotel in Cardiff was evacuated after nail bomb threats were made to a WalesOnline journalist and a university in LA was evacuated due to threats of bombs being placed under chairs. Full story here

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A British pensioner has become one of the oldest ever victims of the world-famous San Fermin festival which sees bulls stampede through the Spanish streets.

The pensioner, among ten taken to hospital, is from Halesowen in the West Midlands and was hurt in the bullring at the end of the half-mile course in n the picturesque city of Pamplona.

The Brit, by far the oldest of those injured, suffered wounds to his right hand, left eyebrow and left elbow.

Health chiefs said this morning they couldn’t say how his health situation would evolve after he was taken to hospital.

The unnamed OAP became the second Brit injured during the morning bull runs at this year’s festival.

It came after another British tourist was one of 11 people hurt in Saturday’s run.

William Mitchinson, 24, suffered an ankle injury after being knocked to the ground by one of the bulls he tried to outpace.

Speaking after his first-ever participation in this year’s fifth bull run, William told local press as he hobbled out of Navarra University Hospital after treatment: ‘I ran until the bull trampled me.

‘I’d seen the festival on social media and it looked like good fun.
‘It’s my first visit to Pamplona. I might come back another year but only for the party.’

Two people suffered gore injuries on today’s run.

One of the runners was horned in the chest near the end of the course.
Earlier by the town hall one of the six fighting bulls led by six steers broke away from the pack and charged a group of four men.

One appeared to smash his head on the ground as he was swept off his feet.

It was not immediately clear this morning if he was among the ten people taken to hospital, although health chiefs confirmed a man had suffered a gore injury to his thigh in the area where the violent knockdown occurred.

Today’s run, which lasted 2 minutes and 25 seconds, was the eighth consecutive morning revellers had taken to the streets for the traditional ‘encierros’ which are the highlight of the famous festival.

The San Fermin festival kicked off at midday last Monday with the traditional opening ceremony called the Chupinazo, with thousands of revellers dressed in the must-wear white outfits with a red bandana around their necks ending up soaked in wine and sangria.

It will be formally brought to an end at midnight with a traditional event known as ‘Pobre de mi’, Spanish for ‘Poor Me’ which involves thousand of participants gathering in the town hall square with lit candles to mark the end of the nine-day celebration.

Sixteen people have been killed during the bull runs at the annual festival, which always finishes on July 14 and was made famous by 1926 Ernest Hemingway novel ‘The Sun Also Rises’, since records began in 1910.

The most recent death was in 2009 when 27-year-old Daniel Jimeno, from Madrid, was gored in the neck by a bull called Capuchino.

Several foreigners, from Australians to Americans through to Brits and Irish, are normally among the injured.

The first of the eight bull runs in 2024, known locally as encierros, took place four hours after a San Fermin reveller collapsed and died.

Police rushed to the scene and tried to save the 40-year-old man but were unable to resuscitate him.

In 2023 a 60-year-old man from Cardiff in Wales was among those injured.

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Dad Wayne Taylor bravely entered the water alongside Ian Pascoe, 62, who was out walking, in a bid to save Mr Taylor’s son and daughter at Seaton Carew beach when they sadly lost their lives

A father who drowned trying to rescue his children and a brave passerby who also lost his life in the seaside tragedy have been hailed as heroes.

Dad-of-three Wayne Taylor bravely entered the sea alongside Ian Pascoe, 62, who had been out walking on Seaton Carew beach with his wife and family. The two men went into the water in a bid to save Mr Taylor’s children. Tragically, both Mr Taylor and Mr Pascoe died before they could reach the nine-year-old boy and his younger sister.

The children both survived the ordeal. The RNLI rushed to the scene at Seaton Carew, near Hartlepool, County Durham, on Sunday at around 3.45pm and brought the men’s bodies back to shore.

Following the tragedy, the heartbroken families of Mr Taylor and Mr Pascoe have both backed the Mirror ‘Save Lives For Sam’ water safety campaign, which aims to tackle the UK’s growing drowning crisis. The campaign calls for the introduction of water safety lessons in schools alongside a nationwide public awareness initiative, reports The Mirror.

Paying an emotional tribute to his dad, Ian’s son Dan, 30, said: “He was the kind of person who has always done the right thing. He stood up for what he thought was right and took action when other people might have stood by and watched. He always lived his life like that, and I am so proud of him and so proud to call him my dad.”

Dad-of-two Mr Pascoe had recently returned from a job in Saudi Arabia to spend more time with his family. He was walking along the beach when he saw the children, handed over his phone and jumped into the water.

“It was a Sunday afternoon walk at the beach for some fish and chips and ice cream,” added Dan. “He was with my mam and my daughter, his granddaughter. We are so happy that the children who were in difficulty survived, and so sad that they lost their dad. My dad did not hesitate when he saw the children in difficulty.”

Dan added: “He passed his phone to my mum and said, ‘Here, hold this for me, I will be back in a bit.’ He was never one to hold back; he would never witness, he would always act. And he went in to try and save them. I know that he would do it 10 times over if he thought that he was going to save a child’s life. And that’s why we are so proud of him.”

Mr Pascoe worked as a trainer in the UK. He had returned from Saudi Arabia two years ago, after working there for 17 years. Dan added: “He did not do anything for recognition or glory. He was just a really good man.

“He was a big advocate for action and so am I. So we back your campaign for action and to raise awareness of water dangers. We don’t want to talk about things, we need to do things. Something has to be done to improve water safety. Then his death will not be in vain.”

A member of Wayne’s family told how his partner and the mother of his children had been criticised on social media. She added: “We back your campaign, there is a real need to get the message out there.

“The mum did nothing wrong, and she does not deserve this criticism. She needs to be able to grieve with her children without this in their lives. It is like a hate campaign, has she not suffered enough? We are so sorry for the family of the man who tried to save the children and lost his life.”

Hartlepool MP Jonathan Brash said the town had suffered “a heartbreaking tragedy”. He added: “Two men went into the sea to help children in difficulty at Seaton Carew. Those children were saved. The two men who went to help did not come home.

“No words can lessen the pain their families, friends and loved ones are now experiencing. My thoughts are with them all, and I know the whole town will be holding them close in our hearts at this tragic time.”

Jess Cole, the cousin of 14-year-old Matthew Sherrington, who drowned in July 2021 after getting into trouble near Steetley Pier, said: “My heart goes out to the two men who sadly lost their lives at Seaton Carew.

“It’s two days until the anniversary of our Matthew Sherrington’s death and the news I read made my heart sink. It made me feel physically sick and brought back so many horrendous memories. Thinking of the families at this time and how heartbroken they must be.”

Another resident said: “RIP to the two heroes that saved these kids’ lives, but sadly lost their own, their poor families are in my thoughts.” Eyewitness Keith Smith, 74, told of the huge rescue operation, with hundreds watching from the sea front.

Davey Short, who also went into the water to bring the children out, said: “The children’s mother was on the beach, she was hysterical and asking if I could help because she couldn’t swim. Her eldest son had gone into the water as well to try to rescue his brother and sister but they were still out there. I managed to get hold of the boy.”

Backed by MPs, Olympic champions, national water safety organisations and bereaved families, the Mirror campaign is calling for urgent action to make our waters safer. That includes compulsory water safety lessons in schools, better life saving equipment at high-risk waterways, the introduction of Sam’s Law, and a dedicated Minister for Water Safety.

A fundraiser has been set up to support Mr Taylor’s family, click here to find out more.

The graffiti appeared following The Twelfth celebrations in the area

Racist, misogynistic, and paramilitary graffiti that has appeared in South Belfast following The Twelfth parades in the area has been condemned.

The graffiti has appeared in the Sandy Row and Donegall Road areas following the parades and bonfires over the weekend and features a message of support for convicted French rapist and husband of Gisele Pelicot, Dominique.

Gisele Pelicot was drugged by her husband and raped by dozens of men over a 10 year period. Other displays include paramilitary graffiti, as well as ‘Stop the Boats’ slogans on businesses that had been ran by immigrants.

Belfast Live has been contacted by concerned local business owners who have said the attacks on the immigrant community are “disgusting” and that they “feel so sorry for the ethnic communities there trying to set up a life in that area.”

South Belfast Alliance MLA Paula Bradshaw has said it is “extremely disappointing and alarming” and the graffiti was simply “racial hatred”.

She said: “It is extremely disappointing and alarming to see such hate displayed in such a form against people running businesses in the area.

“This has nothing to do with ‘legitimate concerns’ and everything to do with a racial hatred which the leading parties are not tackling with sufficient urgency.

“This is the latest example of why the First and deputy First Minister must do more than a tame ‘framework’ to address racist attitudes in our society at source.”

South Belfast SDLP MP Claire Hanna said: “This isn’t ‘just graffiti’. It reflects attitudes that are still far too common and far too often shrugged off.

“When misogyny is normalised in public spaces it tells women and girls something about what is tolerated. When it’s mixed with racist abuse it becomes an attempt to intimidate whole sections of our community. We should never minimise that or look the other way.

“Gisèle Pelicot has become an international symbol of dignity and courage in the face of unimaginable abuse. Millions of people have drawn strength from her example. To respond by celebrating her abuser is as disturbing as it is cowardly.

“Too many women still experience harassment, abuse and violence, and too many people from minority communities continue to face racism. That doesn’t happen in isolation. It starts with attitudes that are normalised, excused or dismissed.

“Misogyny, racism and hate have no place in Belfast or anywhere else across Northern Ireland. We all have a responsibility to challenge those attitudes wherever we see them.”

A PSNI spokesperson said: “Police received a report of graffiti having been sprayed in the Wellwood Street and surrounding areas of south Belfast at shortly before 11am today, Tuesday 14th July.

“Officers attended and the graffiti has since been removed.

“Enquiries are ongoing, and anyone with any information that can assist with this investigation is asked to contact police using our witness appeal form at https://reporting.psni.police.uk/appeals quoting 649 of 14/07/26 or call us on 101.

“Alternatively, you can report online at https://reporting.psni.police.uk/appeals or in confidence through Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111 or online at http://crimestoppers-uk.org.”

For all the latest news, visit the Belfast Live homepage here and sign up to our daily newsletter here.

The father of a girl seriously hurt in the Southport attack has accused North West Ambulance Service (NWAS) of a “complete breach of trust” as it emerged it was investigating whether staff inappropriately accessed victims’ medical records.

He described the possible breaches as “appalling” and alleged some ambulance staff “just wanted to satisfy their own morbid curiosity”.

It comes after it emerged in May that dozens of workers at Aintree Hospital, where some of the injured were treated, had looked at the records with no good reason.

NWAS chief executive Salman Desai said it was investigating after it had “identified concerns about potential inappropriate access to patient records”.

Three young girls – Alice da Silva Aguiar, Bebe King, and Elsie Dot Stancombe – were murdered in the attack, while 10 others were physically injured.

The father of a girl who was 13 when she was injured but survived the attack said: “It is a complete breach of trust in our darkest hours as a family and dampens how you feel about the amazing work they do to save lives.

“It was already incredibly difficult to think that staff at Aintree hospital had needlessly pried into our daughter’s condition.”

The man, who cannot be identified due to an anonymity order protecting his daughter, had been helping to supervise the dance class before she was stabbed in the back and arm.

Solicitors acting for the girl and for another 21 of the 23 girls who survived the attack are calling for a full-scale review by NHS England into the guidance and disciplinary procedures for staff who inappropriately access patient data.

The calls come after another trust, NHS University Hospitals of Liverpool Group (UHLG), admitted in May that nearly 50 staff members at Aintree Hospital had looked inappropriately at the medical records of some of the injured victims in the days after the attack.

Fletchers Solicitors, which is already investigating this breach, said the family were reviewing documents given to them by UHLG about the breaches at Aintree, when they saw information that said staff from North West Ambulance Service might have also accessed their daughter’s records without cause.

US forces have struck hundreds of Iranian targets – including in the southern port city of Bandar Abbas – over three consecutive nights in a bid by the US president, Donald Trump, to regain some modicum of control over the Strait of Hormuz.

Trump has also inscribed the US as the “guardian” of the vital waterway. He has revived a naval blockade of Iranian ports and briefly demanded a 20% charge on all cargo passing through. His own secretary of state, Marco Rubio, had ruled out such a toll just two weeks ago.

Iran, meanwhile, has escalated by striking two tankers in the strait, killing a crew member. It has also hit US bases across the Gulf. Tehran’s brazen attempt to frustrate the US, and by extension the world economy, by targeting commercial vessels in the strait is indicative of the leverage it holds in this war.

But amid this cycle of tit-for-tat strikes, a key question is why Iran has decided to menace the strait in the current conflict when it has possessed the capacity to do so for decades.

For four decades, the threat to close the Strait of Hormuz represented a match that was never lit. Even at the height of the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, where more than 400 vessels were attacked in the Gulf, Tehran demonstrated conspicuous restraint.

It never attempted to seal the strait itself, not even after a US warship – the USS Vincennes – mistakenly shot down an Iranian passenger plane in 1988, killing 290 people.

Back then, Tehran’s logic dictated that closure of the strait would undermine its own oil revenue and invite retaliation. As political scientist Caitlin Talmadge put it in 2008: it would amount to “the military equivalent of cutting off its nose to spite its [enemies] face”.

The Strait of Hormuz served as a key instrument of Iranian coercive diplomacy. Tehran leveraged the prospect of closure as a deterrent and bargaining tool, without resorting to its implementation.

In 2011, Iran’s vice-president at the time, Mohammad Reza Rahimi, threatened that “not a drop of oil will pass through the Strait of Hormuz” if western sanctions on its petroleum exports went ahead. Yet Tehran ultimately acquiesced and allowed the embargo to take effect without closing the strait.

Through every round of escalation prior to 2026, this pattern of bluffing endured. That Tehran has chosen to act upon its threats in the current conflict makes the decision especially telling.

Accepting more risk

This about-turn speaks to a shift in Iran’s psychological risk perception, rather than material capability alone. Here, prospect theory offers a compelling answer. The theory holds that decision makers do not weigh risks consistently or rationally.

People are less likely to accept risk when operating within a frame of gains – preferring the certainty of what they hold over any gamble. But when leaders read a situation as one of loss, the logic reverses and they take greater risks to recover those losses.

The clearest window into this shift is the first statement attributed to the new Iranian supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei. In a March 12 statement, two weeks after the assassination of his predecessor Ali Khamenei, he declared:

The revenge we have in mind is not just because of the martyrdom of the illustrious leader of the revolution. Every member of the nation martyred by the enemy is a separate case that demands we seek revenge … the leverage of closing the Strait of Hormuz must definitely continue to be utilised.

The statement presented each death not as a tragic cost of war, but a sacred debt that the US and Israel owe through retributive action. And the Strait of Hormuz was presented as the answer. Khamenei’s insistence that its leverage “must definitely continue to be utilised” transformed the strait into the mechanism through which accumulated losses are regained.

This narrative has been echoed well beyond Tehran. In an address delivered facing the strait itself in mid-April, Iranian cleric Hojjat al-Islam Jafar Rastakhiz stated that “for 47 years the criminal America has sanctioned us” and now “the Strait of Hormuz, because of the atrocities of America, has been closed”.

Ali Khamenei’s funeral, which recently took place across Iran during a week of mass processions, turned the regime’s losses into a public ritual. Mourners were heard chanting: “Our word is one! Revenge! Revenge!”

This rhetoric reveals how the regime now narrates its own position. It has portrayed Iran as a state burdened by an accumulation of military, political and symbolic losses that demand recovery. In doing so, it has created the very conditions under which greater risk acceptance becomes conceivable.

In all of this, there is an uncomfortable implication for the US. Trump’s decision to commit to further strikes on Iran, while defending commercial vessels in the strait, may be subsidising the psychological conditions that sustain Tehran’s risky behaviour.

Effective deterrence presumes an adversary weighing what it stands to lose. But against a regime that believes it has already lost, each strike simply deepens the deficit it is gambling to recover. The fight is now being waged on ground that Tehran has defined.

West Yorkshire Police are appealing for witnesses after a teenager was killed in a fatal road traffic incident in Pontefract yesterday evening (July 13).

Officers were called to an alley at rear of Eastbourne Terrace in Pontefract after a 16-year-old male had come off a motorbike.

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A spokesperson for the force said: “The 16-year-old boy was provided with medical treatment by police and paramedics but sadly died at the scene.

“Following enquiries officers later located a second teenage boy, aged 13, suspected to have been on the bike at the time of the collision. He was arrested on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving.”

Due to prior police contact with the bike before the crash, the force says a mandatory referral has been made to the IOPC.

Anyone who saw or has footage which could assist enquiries is asked to contact the Major Collision Enquiry Team on 101 or online at https://www.westyorkshire.police.uk/livechat

Please reference police log 1352 of 13 July.