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Middle East crisis live: ‘We have not even begun’, Iran warns US amid escalation in strait of Hormuz | US-Israel war on Iran

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Continuation of status quo ‘intolerable’ for US, says Iran’s top negotiator

The Iranian parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, said in a post on X this morning that a “new equation of the strait of Hormuz is in the process of being solidified” and warned that the continuation of the “status quo” was an “intolerable” position for the US to maintain.

Ghalibaf, Iran’s chief negotiator, added:

double quotation markThe security of shipping and energy transit has been jeopardised by the United States and its allies through the violation of the ceasefire and the imposition of a blockade; of course, their evil will diminish.

We know full well that the continuation of the status quo is intolerable for America; while we have not even begun yet.

Iranian parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, led the Iranian delegation for Pakistani mediated talks with the US in Islamabad in April.
Iranian parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, led the Iranian delegation for Pakistani mediated talks with the US in Islamabad in April. Photograph: Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Iran imposed a blockade on foreign shipping using the strait of Hormuz soon after the war began with a US-Israeli attack on 28 February which killed the country’s former supreme leader. The US president, Donald Trump, imposed a counter-blockade of ships using Iranian ports on 13 April.

Trump’s so-called “Project Freedom”, which began yesterday, says its aim is to use the US military to guide stranded cargo ships out of the strategic waterway. But in doing so it makes the resumption of war much more likely as Iran’s military central command warned that it would strike any US naval vessel approaching the strait.

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The Israeli military has issued more forced displacement orders for people in southern Lebanon – this time for those in the towns of Jabsheet and Sarafand.

In a statement on social media, the military’s Arabic-language spokesperson Avichay Adraee said these residents should evacuate their homes “immediately and move away from the villages and towns for a distance of at least 1000 metres to open areas”.

Signalling upcoming airstrikes, Adraee claimed the IDF are “compelled to act forcefully against” Hezbollah, which he said had violated the US-brokered ceasefire agreement between Israel and Lebanon that came into effect in mid April.

Hezbollah, which has been striking Israeli troops in Lebanon, says it will not cease its attacks on Israeli troops inside Lebanon and on towns in northern Israel as long as Israel continued its ceasefire violations.

Israel has been accused of violating the ceasefire agreement many times, with strikes killing civilians and homes continuing to be demolished despite the military saying it is only targeting Hezbollah sites.

Under the agreement’s terms, Israel was effectively given permission to continue its assault on Lebanon as it retained a “right to take all necessary measures in self-defence, at any time, against planned, imminent, or ongoing attacks”.

Smoke rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted the Lebanese village of Kfar Tibnit on 4 May 2026. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images
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David Guetta and Sia’s song Titanium got me through my fertility treatment | Dance music

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At the end of 2011, party season was under way but I was in no mood for festivities. Two years into fertility treatment, my body was pumped full of synthetic hormones and felt like a pin cushion, while my head was filled with both the fragile hope of having a baby, and the exhaustion of failed clinical attempts to do so.

I was in my late 20s. I met my husband when I was 22; we got married when I was 25. “I want to have kids young,” I’d told him. It was a feeling I’d harboured since my teenage years. But I’d also had the nagging sense that it might not come easily to me. As it turned out, my intuition was right. Approaching 28, I was a regular on the infertility merry-go-round.

I was recovering from my second miscarriage that year when I heard Sia’s raspy voice on the car radio belting out words that sounded emotionally weighty for an electronic dance number – her David Guetta collaboration, Titanium.

It’s not a song I would have necessarily rated or listened to again – I’m more likely to play 00s R&B and hip-hop – but it came at the perfect time in my life. I had forgotten how days felt before fertility drugs and the diarised cycles of administering them. I’d been constantly wearing a brave face and cramming in hospital appointments before and after work, going about my job through a fog of longing and hormones. It had left me in a “cry on the bedroom floor” kind of a heap. I needed something to drag the hope back into me.

I turned the radio up and listened to the lyrics: “I’m bulletproof, nothing to lose / Fire away, fire away.” It felt as if it was talking to and about me, issuing a riposte to all those shots of disappointment that had been fired our way. As Sia’s vocals ascended through the chorus with Guetta’s soaring synths – “Ricochet, you take your aim” – I cried, but I felt myself gaining power with her, too. “You shoot me down, but I won’t fall / I am titanium.” Those were the words I needed to hear.

I felt like a puppet pulled upright again. I streamed it on repeat in the days that followed. I might not have been able to face the work Christmas party but I wasn’t going to languish on the bedroom floor any more.

Over the next months, I spent a lot of time in my car, travelling to work and to fertility appointments to get my blood tested, hormones measured or insides scanned. Listening to Titanium became routine. Each time, its cinematic surge had the same empowering effect and I’d turn up the volume, wind down the windows and defiantly sing along in my terrible voice so it could wash over me.

The following May, when my husband and I headed to the clinic for another IVF embryo transfer, I let it motivate me; when we drove back from scans confirming we were six weeks, then 12 weeks pregnant, I celebrated with it. As I nervously made my way through my pregnancy, I turned to it when I needed the boost.

In January 2013, our first son was born. Today, he is the eldest of three: his brother arrived 15 months later, via IVF too (the last of our fertilised embryos) and four years later, another brother, without fertility treatment. We consider ourselves unspeakably lucky; for many, the outcome is not the same.

In our family, everyone knows Titanium is my fight song. It’s the only big commercial dance hit on my playlists, and a marker of something I overcame.

My kids call me in whenever it streams or plays on TV. When I made my husband a playlist for our 15th wedding anniversary, it’s the song that represented our 2011. And the other week, when he was out with friends, he sent me a voice note from the bar: he’d recorded it playing in the background.

There’s something all-consuming about fertility treatment: you view life only through the filter of your efforts to get pregnant. If you’re lucky, the filter lifts. It did for me, but the fight song remained. So, now, elsewhere in life, when I need a shot of strength and find myself alone in the car, down goes the window and on it goes.



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Parents 'facing uncertainty' as SEN children left without school places

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Amy Gibney says she is one of eight families at her child’s school to find out that they don’t have a place for next year.



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Edinburgh airport reopens after security alert but passengers warned of ‘knock on’ effect | Scotland

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Edinburgh airport reopened on Saturday morning after parts of the terminal building were evacuated on Friday night because of a security alert.

An explosive ordnance disposal team was sent to the airport to investigate what Police Scotland described as a “potentially suspicious package” discovered at about 6.50pm on Friday.

An evacuation was ordered and a police cordon was set up, with roads closed.

Passengers faced disruption as result of the operation and the airport warned that schedules would continue to be affected on Saturday.

In a statement at about 3am on Saturday, the airport confirmed it had reopened and would work to restore normal services as quickly as possible.

“Following investigations by specialist teams, the airport has now reopened.

“This incident will have knock-on impacts throughout today and staff are working hard to address these and support passengers.

“Operational teams are continuing to work to restore normal services as quickly as possible.

“Please check with your airline for the latest information on your flight.”

The statement did not provide an update about the examination of the suspicious package.



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