Super-Fun-Pak Comix by Ruben Bolling for May 20, 2024.

Iran’s supreme leader has announced a five-day mourning period, but there have been fireworks and cheering in the country since the death was confirmed

Activists in Iran have said there is little mood to mourn the death of the country’s president, Ebrahim Raisi, who was killed in a helicopter crash near the border with Azerbaijan on Sunday. 

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, announced a five-day public mourning period after the deaths of Raisi, the foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and other passengers on the helicopter. However, Iranians who spoke to the Guardian have refused to lament the death of a man who they say was responsible for hundreds of deaths in his four-decade political career.

It was during Raisi’s tenure that protests swept the country after the death of the 22-year-old Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini, who died in police custody after being arrested by police under Iran’s harsh hijab laws. More than 19,000 protesters were jailed, and at least 500 were killed – including 60 children – during the Woman, Life, Freedom protests. The police continue to violently arrest women for refusing hijab rules.

Reactions ranged from welcoming the International Criminal Court’s decision to slamming it as “appalling” and “non comprehensible.”

While Israeli politicians of all stripes have sharply rebuked the International Criminal Court’s request for arrest warrants for its top officials, European leaders’ reactions are split.

ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan filed applications Monday for arrests of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, as well as the commander of Hamas’s military wing and Israel’s defense minister, citing allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Israel and the State of Palestine.

“Crimes committed in Gaza must be prosecuted at the highest level, regardless of the perpetrators,” Belgium’s Foreign Affairs Minister, Hadja Lahbib, wrote in a statement on X, emphasizing Belgium’s support for the work of the ICC. 

Slovenia’s foreign ministry issued a statement in a similar vein, stating that war crimes and crimes against humanity committed on Israeli and Palestinian territory “must be prosecuted independently and impartially regardless of the perpetrators.”

…

Other EU leaders saw the decision less favorably. 

“The ICC Chief Prosecutor’s proposal to issue an arrest warrant for the representatives of a democratically elected government together with the leaders of an Islamist terrorist organisation is appalling and completely unacceptable,” Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala wrote.

Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer expressed similar reservations.

…

In London, the United Kingdom’s government distanced itself from the ICC’s move.

Useless red circle, I know, but in my defense I didn’t put it there, it was already like this when I found it.

Article if you'd rather read about it.

A common joke is "just launch X into the sun and be done with it". Turns out, that's actually a really difficult thing to do.

From Earth, we would have to accelerate a spacecraft to 33 m/s in the opposite direction of our orbit in order to get it to fall into the sun (without entering an elliptical orbit) For reference, we only need to launch a spacecraft at 11 km/s in the same direction of our orbit to cause the spacecraft to escape our solar system.

This means that it would take less energy to launch a spacecraft to another star than our own sun.

Everyone has been stopping to admire this. I figured I’d share it with you guys.

As the climate has warmed, there’s been an increase in the ingredients that make up hail storms: more instability in the atmosphere and stronger updrafts. The altitude in the atmosphere where water freezes has also been rising because of the warmer weather. This means that small hailstones often melt before they hit the ground. The upshot, said Gensini, is the hail that hits will be bigger and storms that produce small stones will be less frequent, thanks to climate change.

Yet even if warming’s effect on hail globally is still emerging, there are clear climate signals in specific places, namely Europe, according to Ian Giammanco, lead research meteorologist and managing director of standards and analytics at the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS), an industry-funded research group. “The hail across northern Italy, France and that sort of belt is increasing at an anomalously high rate,” he said.

An Arizona man has been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the 2017 death of his wife, who was buried alive in a hand-dug grave near their home while their children slept, authorities said.

Seven years after the murder, David Pagniano decided to plead guilty before his trial was scheduled to start and allowed a judge to determine his sentence without a plea agreement.

Pagniano, 62, also was sentenced on May 9 to a 16 ½-year prison term for kidnapping, forgery and fraud, according to the Yavapai County Attorney's Office.

…

"Sandra was kidnapped from her home while her children slept nearby, bound in packing tape, driven to a remote location and buried alive," McGrane said. "The evidence revealed she vigorously struggled while she was in the grave, and was likely conscious for up to five minutes after being buried."

In a message from Evin prison where she is being held, Ms Mohammadi said the trial relates to an audio post, in which she condemned a "full-scale war against women" by the Iranian regime.

Ms Mohammadi has already served over 12 years in prison due to multiple convictions.

Her lawyer, Mostafa Nili, said the court would convene on Sunday to address the new charges of "spreading propaganda against the Islamic Republic".

There has been no comment on the case from Iranian officials.

In her message, posted on the Narges Foundation website, Ms Mohammadi said it was the fourth time in as many years she had been "dragged to the unjust and farcical courts’ table" due to her "protest and disclosure of the religious regime’s men’s sexual assault against women".

The 52-year old Nobel laureate continued that this time she was being tried for speaking against "the bruising of the body and narrating the assault on [journalist and student] Dina Ghalaibaf", in an audio message.

Ms Ghalibaf was reportedly detained after she accused the security forces of handcuffing and sexually assaulting her during a previous arrest at a metro station.

She was later released.

Ms Mohammadi is calling for a public trial with the presence of independent journalists, human rights activists, women’s rights activists, and her lawyers.

She continued: "Witnesses, along with their lawyers, should be able to attend with guarantees of physical, mental, and legal security, and openly recount their assaults.”

Ms Mohammadi has tirelessly campaigned for women's rights in Iran. She has been in and out of jail for two decades because of her activism.

Her family has said that, as well as 12 years and three months of imprisonment, her sentences also include 154 lashes, two years of exile and various social and political restrictions.

She has not seen her Paris-based husband and children for several years.

Despite the numerous threats and arrests she has kept up her work to campaign against the mandatory headscarf.

She won the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize for her work fighting against the oppression of women in Iran.

Her teenage children accepted the prize, at Oslo's city hall in December, and read her speech which had been smuggled out of prison.

"I write this message from behind the high, cold walls of a prison. The Iranian people, with perseverance, will overcome repression and authoritarianism," Ms Mohammadi said.

She added that young Iranians had "transformed the streets and public spaces into a place of widespread civil resistance", alluding to the protests that began in 2022 following the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody for allegedly wearing her hijab "improperly".

The authorities in the Islamic Republic in recent weeks intensified a crackdown to enforce a strict Islamic dress code on women and arrest those who disobeyed, making use of video surveillance.

Decades ago, Kris Hansen showed 3M that its PFAS chemicals were in people’s bodies. Her bosses halted her work. As the EPA now forces the removal of the chemicals from drinking water, she wrestles with the secrets that 3M kept from her and the world.

Johnson explained to Hansen that one of the company’s fluorochemicals, PFOS — short for perfluorooctanesulfonic acid — often found its way into the bodies of 3M factory workers. Although he said that they were unharmed, he had recently hired an outside lab to measure the levels in their blood. The lab had just reported something odd, however. For the sake of comparison, it had tested blood samples from the American Red Cross, which came from the general population and should have been free of fluorochemicals. Instead, it kept finding a contaminant in the blood.

Johnson asked Hansen to figure out whether the lab had made a mistake.

Red Lobster, which brought affordable shrimp and lobster to middle-class America and grew to become the largest seafood restaurant chain in the world, has filed for bankruptcy.

The company said it had more than $1 billion in debt and less than $30 million in cash on hand. It plans to sell its business to its lenders, and in turn, it will receive financing to stay afloat. It expects to continue to close restaurants in the meantime.

Red Lobster, known for its cheddar bay biscuits, crab legs and shrimp dishes, spread around the country during the 1980s and 1990s. In 2016, Beyoncé mentioned Red Lobster in her song “Formation,” describing bringing a romantic partner to Red Lobster, causing sales to surge.

With 578 restaurants across 44 states and Canada, Red Lobster serves 64 million customers a year, and it brings in $2 billion in annual sales, the company said in its bankruptcy filing. One in five lobster tails purchased in North America is bought by Red Lobster.

But recent mismanagement, competition, inflation and other factors brought down Red Lobster, analysts and former Red Lobster employees say.

Years of underinvestment in Red Lobster’s marketing, food quality, service and restaurant upgrades hurt the chain’s ability to compete with growing fast-casual and quick-service chains.

The ringleaders of a far-right network of "Reichsbürger" around Heinrich XIII Prince Reuss begins in Frankfurt on Tuesday. The group has been accused of planning to topple the government.

The most high-profile of three trials linked to a far-right coup plot begins on Tuesday in a newly erected courtroom on the outskirts of Frankfurt. The defendants are alleged to be the 10 ringleaders of a group led by German aristocrat Heinrich XIII Prince Reuss, and stand accused of preparing to commit high treason and of membership in a terrorist organization.

All the suspects, part of the so-called "Reichsbürger" movement, were allegedly plotting to overthrow the German government. They were allegedly planning to storm the German parliament and detain prominent politicians, including Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock and conservative opposition leader Friedrich Merz.

The Reichsbürger, or "citizens of the Reich," reject Germany's postwar state, claiming it was installed and controlled by the Allied powers who won World War II.

Police uncovered the suspected plot in a series of nationwide raids on December 7, 2022. Some 25 people were arrested and are now in detention awaiting the upcoming trials. More than 380 firearms were confiscated, along with almost 150,000 pieces of ammunition.

The alleged military arm of this group has been facing court in Stuttgart since April 29. A further eight suspected members of the alleged association will have to stand trial in Munich from June 18.

Julian Assange has been granted leave to mount a fresh appeal against his extradition to the US on charges of leaking military secrets and will be able to challenge assurances from American officials on how a trial there would be conducted.

Two judges had deferred a decision in March on whether Assange, who is trying to avoid being prosecuted in the US on espionage charges relating to the publication of thousands of classified and diplomatic documents, could take his case to another appeal hearing.

On that occasion, Dame Victoria Sharp and Mr Justice Johnson ruled he would be able to bring an appeal against extradition on three grounds, unless “satisfactory” assurances were given by the US.

The assurances requested were that he would be permitted to rely on the first amendment of the US constitution, which protects freedom of speech; that he would not be “prejudiced at trial” due to his nationality; and that the death penalty would not be imposed.

Thermoplastics coming from the US, the EU, Taiwan and Japan are sold at prices below fair market value, says Beijing.

China has launched an "anti-dumping" investigation into chemical imports, in what appears to be a response to trade barriers introduced by the EU, the US and other countries. 

Polyoxymethylene copolymer, a plastic widely used in electronics and cars, is being sold at an unfairly low cost in China, therefore causing damage to domestic companies, said China's Ministry of Commerce.

The investigation will focus on imports from the US, the EU, Taiwan and Japan, and could take up to 18 months to complete.

r*ddit