What happened
Donald Trump has declared the return of a US naval blockade on Iran and announced a 20% charge on cargo passing through the Strait of Hormuz. The moves follow a fresh exchange of attacks between the two countries and a third consecutive night of US air strikes.

The decision marks a sharp reversal from the US administration’s earlier position that no nation should levy fees on vessels using international waterways. Financial markets have reacted negatively to the news, with oil prices climbing and share prices falling amid concerns over global energy supplies.

Who said what
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi mocked Trump’s announcement, saying: “Iran has always been the GUARDIAN of the Strait,” using the US president’s own descriptor and penchant for unusual capitalisation in his statements.

“Trump is flailing while Iran calls the shots,” said William Hague in The Times. “US negotiations displayed hopeless naivety and for all the tough talk now, the president keeps showing he’ll back down.”

What next?
The US military says it will enforce the renewed blockade from tonight. The US Congress continues to press Trump to seek approval for ongoing military action against Iran.

What happened
More than 2,700 people in England and Wales have died from heat-related causes during this summer’s scorching spells of weather, according to official estimates.

About 42% of those deaths – in the period when temperatures hit 37.7C – were due to the additional heat caused by human-induced climate change, analysis by the Met Office and its research partners has found.

Who said what
“It’s time we woke up to the fact that we now live in a country with dangerously hot summers,” said Dr Clair Barnes, research associate at Imperial College London. We must “urgently” begin to “double down on global efforts to reach net zero emissions to stop this from getting worse”.

“These extreme heat events are costing lives today and we really need to take climate change seriously,” said Professor Emily Shuckburgh, chief scientific adviser for the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero.

Helen Morgan, the Lib Dem health and social care spokeswoman, said it was a “disgrace that the most vulnerable are dying in care homes and hospitals simply because Britain isn’t built for regular extreme heat events”.

What next?
The UK Health Security Agency is expected to publish an official assessment of the associated impacts of the recent heatwaves, based on observed mortality data, in the coming weeks.

All over the world a growing number of late-in-life mothers are facing overlapping symptoms as they deal with postpartum challenges while also entering the perimenopause period. With so little research available on either condition, women are turning to each other to parse their experiences.

Last year in the United States the number of births among women aged 35 to 39 was up by 90% compared to 1990, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2023, births among women aged 40 and older exceeded teen births for the first time in the country’s history.

As these figures increase, more women are confronting the “bewildering convergence of two mind- and body-altering hormonal events”, said The Washington Post: the postpartum period and the transitional years of perimenopause marked by “hormonal instability” that can “wreak havoc for up to a decade before menopause occurs”.

The symptoms can overlap because, post-childbirth, estrogen and progesterone drop to their pre-pregnancy levels. In perimenopause, those same two hormones “tumble downward, often on a zigzagging path”, which can trigger “similar mental symptoms, like anxiety or a short fuse”, said Self magazine.

In the medical community there is a “dearth of knowledge” about the intersection of the postpartum and perimenopausal stages, Dr Suzanne Fenske, an obstetrician-gynecologist who specialises in perimenopause and menopause, told The Washington Post.

With so many grey areas in our knowledge of the overlap, it is of paramount importance to listen to and believe patients, fellow obstetrician-gynecologist Dr Talat Uppal told the Australian Financial Review. With more women birthing after 40, “we need to really give them the respect of more research”.