While Tehran celebrates Donald Trump's midterm defeat and the economic pain the Iran war has inflicted on Americans, soaring prices and stagnant wages are pushing ordinary Iranians deeper into a cost-of-living crisis at home.
Unpaid insurance reimbursements and rising medicine and equipment prices are draining private hospitals' finances, threatening their ability to maintain services and increasing costs for patients, hospital executives said in accounts published on Thursday.
The Democrats' victory in the US midterm elections has drawn mixed reactions from Iran International's audience, with some criticizing Donald Trump's prolonged indecision over Iran and others maintaining that Democratic control of Congress will not prevent military action.
Iranian authorities have banned the display and sale of jewelry and coins bearing the Lion and Sun emblem or imagery associated with the country's former monarchy in the northeastern city of Mashhad, according to a notice issued by the city's gold traders' union.
Students across Iran have described tighter surveillance, restrictions on gatherings and pressure to participate in military and ideological activities, with some facing threats of expulsion or police referral, according to accounts received by Iran International.
Public schools across Iran are demanding payments from parents for basic supplies, utility bills and repairs, with some withholding report cards or pressuring students to secure the money, according to accounts sent to Iran International.
Self-immolation accounts for about 16% of burn hospitalizations in Iran, with women and young people making up a significant share of victims and mortality rates reaching 62%, the head of the country's burn association said on Sunday.
Iranian security forces and plainclothes officers broke up a Halloween gathering in central Tehran on Friday evening, beating and detaining people and forcing nearby cafes to close, witnesses told Iran International.
Prison air is “fetid” and “suffocating,” Mahvash Sabet writes in her new memoir, Open Wide the Doors, offering a rare account by a Baha’i prisoner of life inside Iran’s prisons and the persecution of the country’s religious minority.
Some Iranian families are paying thousands of dollars to put their children in foreign online schools, buying an international education from home and stepping outside the Islamic Republic’s school system, despite the education ministry’s warnings.
Young Iranians are turning from opium, their parents’ drug, to cannabis, methamphetamine and a widening range of synthetic substances, treatment specialists and officials say, as unemployment, hardship and uncertainty about the future reshape the country’s drug use.
As more Iranians build new lives abroad, many parents back home face a less visible consequence of migration: years without seeing their children, family relationships maintained through phone screens, and growing uncertainty about who will be there for them in old age.
As growing numbers of Iranian women appear in public without headscarves, authorities are pursuing organizers of cultural and sporting events over alleged violations of mandatory hijab rules.
Iran's two biggest soccer rivals met in their first women's derby on Wednesday, a historic occasion overshadowed by restrictions on male spectators and journalists and uncertainty over live television coverage.
Iran could lose up to 1.4 million jobs this year if its economy contracts by seven to eight percent, a senior Labor Ministry official said on Tuesday, estimating that around 2.5 million people are already unemployed.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent's advice to stop paying taxes and stockpile fuel drew mixed reactions on Iran International's Instagram page, with commenters debating its practicality and the role of public resistance against the Islamic Republic.
Flour shortages have forced bakeries to close in several Iranian cities and pushed up bread prices, with residents and bakers reporting disrupted supplies, falling purchasing power and growing uncertainty over their businesses.
Iranians are looking to Israel's election as a potential turning point in their country's future, with supporters of Benjamin Netanyahu hoping his victory will bring renewed pressure on the Islamic Republic.
Iranians say they are paying more for slow, unreliable and heavily restricted internet after mobile operators raised data prices by up to 40%, with some reporting that their allowances run out unusually quickly.
Armed security forces and checkpoints have become more visible across Iran, according to witness reports sent to Iran International, while internet access has deteriorated amid fears of fresh unrest and another round of war.
Iran International’s New York correspondent Maryam Rahmati has won bronze in the broadcast journalism category of the 2026 United Nations Correspondents Association awards, the association announced.
Repeated economic and political crises are eroding Iranians' belief that their lives can improve, with official figures showing declining social capital, widespread perceptions of injustice and deepening distrust of the government.