US Central Command said its forces have redirected 59 commercial vessels, disabled three and boarded two as part of enforcement of its “steel wall blockade” against Iran.

The latest update comes as shipping traffic remains low through the Strait of Hormuz, with both sides continuing to make contradictory claims over control of the waterway.

Centcom said the figures were as of Wednesday as an F/A-18 fighter jet launched from the USS George HW Bush in regional waters.

Economic growth in the UK slowed between April and June, as the fallout from Donald Trump’s war on Iran put strain on global finances.

The UK economy grew by 0.4 per cent in the second quarter of the year, according to the Office for National Statistics, down from 0.6 per cent in the first quarter.

Its data showed growth of 0.3 per cent month-on-month in June, against expectations for a flat performance, as the ONS said firms across the service sector reported buoyant trade thanks to extreme hot weather and the start of the World Cup football tournament.

Desperate sailors aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln have tried to jump overboard during an extended deployment in the Middle East, their families say.

The aircraft carrier, crewed by around 5,000 sailors and Marines, has been deployed since November 21 but more lately has been supporting U.S. military operations in the war with Iran. The deployment had been expected to end in May but has been extended with no current return date, families told The Military Times.

Annabelle Loma, the wife of a sailor serving on the Abraham Lincoln, told the publication her husband is now on medical hold after trying to jump from the carrier.

The International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP) has written to Middle East minister Stephen Doughty calling on the UK government to impose targeted sanctions on trade with Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.

The group said Doughty’s recent condemnation of settlement expansion must be accompanied by “concrete measures”, arguing that sanctions are needed to bring the UK in line with its obligations under international law.

ICJP pointed to Israel’s approval of plans for 13 new settlements in the West Bank and more than £300m in funding announced for settlement construction as evidence of an accelerating expansion of the settlement enterprise.

The group also cited growing calls within the UK for action, including a June letter signed by 140 Labour MPs urging a ban on trade with Israeli settlements.

Órlaith Roe, ICJP’s public affairs and communications officer, said sanctions were “the bare minimum” required to uphold international law and urged Doughty to act without delay.

Patrick De Haan, the head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, reported in a post on X that gas prices have never gone above $4 per gallon after August 12 in any year.

On Wednesday morning, the average fuel price was just over $4 per gallon. The last time fuel cost nearly that much around mid-August was in 2022, when the national average gas price was $3.98 per gallon.

X has suspended the account of Yahya Saree, the military spokesman for Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels.

The account, which had more than 121,000 followers, now displays a notice saying it was suspended for violating the platform’s rules.

Saree regularly used it to announce Houthi attacks on ships in the Red Sea, as well as operations targeting Saudi Arabia and Yemen’s internationally recognised government.

Iran and the United States remain at loggerheads over efforts to agree a permanent end to the war in the Gulf, according to a senior Iranian source who said there had been no progress in talks to revive the interim deal agreed in June and define a timeframe to implement it.

The comments were a further ⁠blow to hopes of a swift resolution to the crisis, following attacks on shipping in the region on Tuesday that pushed oil prices higher.

“One of the ​issues ⁠that is being discussed via mediators is the US returning to the interim agreement and defining a timeframe for implementing the commitments. There has been absolutely no progress on this issue,” the Iranian source said.

The Iranian source dismissed a report on Wednesday from Turkey’s Anadolu news agency that quoted Pakistani ‌government sources as saying they had agreed to extend that 60-day period.

“There is no talk ‌of an extension because, from Iran’s perspective, there is no period that began and therefore nothing to extend. The United States violated the interim agreement 48 hours after it was reached and withdrew from it a few days later,” the source told Reuters.

Both Iran and the United States have stepped up rhetoric in the past two days.

Iran’s top security official, Mohsen Rezaei, said on Tuesday that the Strait of ⁠Hormuz would remain closed unless the US accepted Iran’s conditions to end the war.

That followed a new demand from Trump on Monday that Iran should pay compensation for people killed in 50 years of wars, attacks and protests.

Trump was sent into the sky out of Turkey in the second plane after a recent summit in Turkey because the Secret Service and military wanted him on a “different plane” due to a threat from Iran.

”I think actually the ​plane ⁠that I flew on was at ‌greater risk,” Trump told reporters on Tuesday. “I think it was at greater risk because that would be the plane I think that they would be more likely to go for.”

A cable TV polling expert claims that numbers from two surveys conducted two years apart show just how deeply President Donald Trump has disappointed America’s voters when it comes to Iran.

CNN chief data analyst Harry Enten said Tuesday that a July 2024 poll of people who were extremely motivated to vote in that year’s presidential election found that 53 percent were confident Trump would be able to handle the situation in Iran, according to a video clip posted online.

But a July poll of people extremely motivated to vote in November’s midterm elections shows that just 29 percent now approve of how Trump is actually handling Iran, Enten said.

More than 150 civilians were killed in US airstrikes targeting Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen last year, according to a Pentagon review of the attacks, which comes as concerns rise over civilian casualties during military campaigns under the Trump administration.

The unclassified assessment was sent to Congress as part of an annual report on civilian casualties, according to NBC and AP reports.

A Pentagon official, who was not authorised to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity, said the department will submit the report in the coming months but had nothing more to announce.

Most casualties occurred in three major strikes in April 2025, including one that targeted hostile forces in or near Yemen’s rebel-held capital city of Sanaa as well as the Ras Isa port, the report said.

As many as 80 people and 171 others were injured. It sent massive fireballs billowing skyward and turned tanker trucks into burning wrecks.