Iran has a new president in Masoud Pezeshkian, The Washington Post reports, after the reformist candidate beat conservative hard-liner Saeed Jalili in a runoff election held Friday, July 5. Pezeshkian’s win marks the first time in two decades that a reformist candidate will lead the Islamic Republic, yet the 69-year-old was the only reformist approved to run in snap elections following the death of conservative Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash on May 19, 2024.

A relatively moderate member of the Iranian parliament, Masoud Pezeshkian, has been declared the next president of Iran after beating his hardline conservative rival by a decisive margin in Friday’s run-off presidential elections.

The 69-year-old will replace Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter crash last month.

Dr Pezeshkian’s mostly young supporters took to the streets of the capital, Tehran, and other cities to celebrate - even before the final results were declared, singing, dancing and waving his campaign's signature green flags.

A major expansion underway inside Iran’s most heavily protected nuclear facility could soon triple the site’s production of enriched uranium and give Tehran new options for quickly assembling a nuclear arsenal if it chooses to, according to confidential documents and analysis by weapons experts.

Iran tripled its output of near-weapons grade nuclear fuel over the past three months, the UN’s nuclear watchdog said on Tuesday, signaling the reopening of a dangerous front in Tehran’s conflict with the West as the Gaza war intensifies.

In the spring of 2014, senior Iranian Foreign Ministry officials initiated a quiet effort to bolster Tehran’s image and positions on global security issues — particularly its nuclear program — by building ties with a network of influential overseas academics and researchers. They called it the Iran Experts Initiative.

The U.S. and the U.K. imposed sanctions on Iran near the first anniversary of the death of Kurdish Iranian Mahsa Amini, who died while in custody of Iran's "morality police" for allegedly flouting the Islamic Republic's mandatory dress code.

The U.S. on Friday enacted a new set of sanctions against Iran in anticipation of the anniversary of Amini's death on Sept. 16, 2022. Subsequent protests throughout Iran denounced police brutality and the overbearing governance of the Iranian regime.

The U.S. on Friday imposed a fresh round of sanctions on Iran ahead of the anniversary of Mahsa Amini’s death, which prompted a mass wave of protests across the Middle Eastern country against police brutality and oppressive government control last year.

The State Department slapped sanctions on 25 Iranian individuals, three Iranian state-backed media outlets and one Iranian internet research firm.

The United States has imposed sanctions on dozens of Iranian officials and entities accused of being involved in the “violent suppression” of anti-government protests that followed the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody in Tehran last year.

The sanctions, which targeted top security officials and state-affiliated media outlets on Friday, came as the US and Iran are expected to exchange prisoners as early as next week as part of a newly announced deal.

Recent actions from the Iranian government have been very telling about the state of the country's leadership and may have ended the possibility of a new nuclear deal, according to former and likely future Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan on Sunday defended the administration’s continuing quest to revive the Iran nuclear deal, arguing that it was committed to doing so and at the same time stand up for the Iranian people protesting against the regime.

In an appearance on CBS News’ “Face the Nation,” Sullivan was asked if the protests roiling Iran were making the administration “reassess the offer you put on the table to lift sanctions on Iran in regard to its nuclear program.”