Iran’s foreign minister has said that the strait of Hormuz is now fully open to commercial vessels, reinforcing hopes for an eventual end to the war in the Middle East and sending oil prices tumbling.
In a barrage of social media posts, Donald Trump claimed on Friday that Iran had agreed never to close the strategic waterway again, hailing “A GREAT AND BRILLIANT DAY FOR THE WORLD!”
However, Abbas Araghchi’s pledge was given only qualified support by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which has reinforced its already powerful authority in Tehran during the war.
Iran’s parliamentary speaker later warned it would will shut the strait of Hormuz again if the US blockade continues. The country’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi announced earlier that commercial shipping though the strait was now “completely open for the remaining period of ceasefire”, prompting Trump to welcome to move but also emphasise that the US naval blockade of Iran would remain in place until the conflict was fully concluded.
Trump also said Iran had agreed to never close the strait again, but that has not been verified.
Iran says strait of Hormuz ‘completely open’ to commercial vessels as oil prices fall
Iranian state television quoted a senior military official saying commercial vessels would be allowed to travel through the strait of Hormuz but only along a determined route and with the permission of the IRGC navy.
The US blockade of Iranian ports and shipping will remain in place for the moment, Trump said, and few vessels are likely to risk passage through the strait in such uncertain circumstances, meaning any return to normality is still distant.
Slump in voters’ support for Israel shakes US consensus over military aid
Israel’s conflicts in the Middle East have driven a sea change in US public opinion, threatening a bipartisan consensus of support for military aid for Israel that has been the status quo for decades.
In public opinion polling of Americans, among likely candidates for president, and even in pro-Israel lobbying circles, the special relationship enjoyed by Israel with the US is now under fire as human rights concerns from the left and a new “America First” foreign policy groundswell on the right could impact coming elections – including the 2028 presidential elections.
US Congress passes 10-day extension of surveillance law amid Republican infighting
Both chambers of Congress voted in quick succession on Friday to pass a brief 10-day extension of a controversial warrantless surveillance law after Republican infighting tanked plans for a much longer renewal of the law with no changes.
Children ‘low-hanging fruit’ in fight to end trans care, says official at pro-Trump thinktank
Children are the “low-hanging fruit” in a longer effort to end gender-affirming care for all Americans, an official at a Trump administration-aligned thinktank recently said.
Bans on medical transition comprise just one part of the larger, unprecedented assault on transgender rights mounted by a coordinated campaign of mostly conservative activists and policymakers in the US in recent years.
‘Popesplaining’ Vance out of depth in argument over whether Iran is a just war
Analysis: The contrast in experience between the two men disagreeing over war and theology was striking.
On the one side was Pope Leo XIV, the first North American to head the Catholic church and the first cleric from the Augustinian order, who this week visited the modern Algerian city where Saint Augustine once lived. For Leo, who wrote his doctoral thesis on Augustine’s ideas, it was the culmination of a lifelong intellectual interest.
On the other is the US vice-president, JD Vance, a very recent adult convert to Catholicism with no academic background in the history of the church’s thinking.
What else happened today:
Since his return to office last year, Donald Trump has pardoned dozens of white-collar criminals. He’s also forgiven their fines, penalties and restitution, to the tune of billions. Some of that revenue was supposed to go to a fund to help victims of violent crime – and the organizations that serve them are feeling the pinch.
The US Senate narrowly voted on Thursday to overturn a ban on mining near Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, an enormous complex of interconnected lakes, rivers and forests that is among the most visited wild areas in the US.
Rümeysa Öztürk, the Tufts University student who was targeted by the Trump administration last year in response to co-writing a pro-Palestinian op-ed, completed her doctorate in the US and traveled back to her native Turkey this week.
Rapid recruitment and expansion by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement has led to an influx of employees with questionable qualifications, an investigation has found.
A federal prosecutor leading the investigation into former CIA director John Brennan is no longer working on the case after expressing reservations about it, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Catching up? Here’s what happened on 16 April 2026.
