Iran-US war latest: Trump says claims peace talks have collapsed are ‘fake news’ but tells Tehran ‘this can’t go on’ – UK Times

A British couple jailed in Iran on spying allegations have lost an appeal against their convictions, their family and the UK government said Tuesday.

Craig and Lindsay Foreman were detained in January 2025 while on an around-the-world motorcycle trip. In February they were handed 10-year prison sentences for espionage, which they both deny.

Britain’s Foreign Office called the couple’s incarceration “unjustified and appalling.”

“We are disappointed by the appeal decision and will continue working to ensure that Craig and Lindsay are returned safely to the U.K.,” it said in a statement.

“Since their arrest last year, Britain’s ambassador to Tehran, diplomats and officials in London have been working to provide consular assistance. This includes the ambassador visiting them in prison and facilitating calls with their family back in the U.K.”

The International Atomic Energy Agency is offering the United Arab ⁠Emirates technical as well as moral support, IAEA chief Rafael Grossi ⁠said after ⁠a visit to the site ⁠of a nuclear power ​plant ⁠that came under ‌a drone attack last month.

Grossi said Emirati ‌authorities had reacted ‌very quickly to the attack at the Barakah ⁠Nuclear Power Plant by shutting down a reactor because of the loss of external power.

He said a number of ‌activities would take ​place to ‌complete repairs at ⁠the plant but ⁠provided no further details.

US President Donald trump has called suggestions the US and Iran are no longer holding peace talks “Fake News”.

Trump claims Iran and the US have been speaking “continuously”.

In a post on Truth Social he said the claims were “false and erroneous” adding the countries spoke “four days ago, three days ago, two days ago, one day ago, and today”.

Donald Trump has now said that Iran’s military was largely untouched by U.S. strikes over the past three months, contradicting countless statements he has made and continues to make about the scale of America’s successes in the ongoing war.

The president spoke in an interview that aired Saturday with his daughter-in-law Lara Trump on Fox News. As the war in Iran now runs past the three-month mark, the U.S. remains mired in a stalemate with Iran under the shadow of a shaky ceasefire that Trump is now considering an offer to extend for another 60 days.

A war that the president and his team have long insisted would be over in “days” or even just a few weeks is now at a flashpoint with the U.S. having proven largely unable to forcibly open the Strait of Hormuz, a key waterway for global energy shipping traffic.

Marco Rubio said he is confident Iran’s supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, is still alive.

He testified that US negotiators have seen signs that Iran’s new supreme leader has been engaged with negotiations despite not being seen publicly.

“I would imagine, given what’s happened to multiple leaders in that system, being very public is probably not something that’s recommended for them internally,” he said.

“But that said, I think there are indications out there that he is increasingly engaging at some level, although all of his communications have been in writing and through intermediaries.”

The US secretary of state is again talking about Iran, now discussing its nuclear programme.

“Iran can never have a nuclear weapon,” Rubio says, reiterating the long-held stance by the US – although Iran denies it is attempting to produce one.

He proposes that Tehran should comply on the nuclear programme – zero enrichment and getting rid of the enriched uranium – if it wants Washington to lift sanctions.

But he suggests this is not yet an official offer by the White House.

We’re hearing more from Marco Rubio, who is now speaking critically of Nato and

Rubio says he has previously supported, and still does to an extent support, the membership of Nato. The benefit of Nato for the US, he says, is that it allows the US military to use the military bases of its allies.

But he questions whether Nato’s response to the Iran war has called into question its utility for the US.

“Some of these countries – I point to Spain as an example – openly brag about how they denied us the use of these bases,” he said.

“If what we get out of Nato is the ability to use bases, and then we have members of that alliance that are basically denying the use of those bases, it calls into question the entire thing,” he added.

Rubio is asked whether the challenges in relations with Nato have come after Trump threatened to seize the territory of Greenland and to use tariffs to coerce Denmark into giving it up.

He denies there is a link between the two, saying that debates about Nato have been “ongoing for a long time”.

As the United States grapples with a deadlock in negotiations with Iran, NBC News has revealed that over 2,000 US diplomats left the foreign service over the last year, according to figures by the American Foreign Services Association.

The officials were either laid off or forced to retire, according to the report.

Current and former state department officials say that the reduction in numbers is a critical disadvantage for the US at this time. The US diplomatic service was made up of 13,000 employees in 2024.