Iranian police have arrested more than 260 people, including three European citizens, on suspicion of spreading satanism, the state-run IRNA news agency reported Friday.

The report said the suspects were arrested on Thursday night in Shahryar County, west of the capital of Tehran, for “spreading the culture of satanism and nudity.” It did not elaborate.

It was not clear how such a large number of arrests were made in one night — if the suspects were in one location, at some gathering or party, or not.

Gatherings where unrelated men and women are seen together are illegal in Iran and considered a sin under Islamic law.

• Ukrainian drones hit Novorossiysk port, causing a fire and power outages, reports say.
• The attack follows heightened defenses at the port after previous Ukrainian strikes on Crimea.
• Novorossiysk is vital for Russia's oil exports and naval operations in the Black Sea.

The Russian port of Novorossiysk, which has become an important base for the Black Sea Fleet after repeated attacks on its traditional base in Crimea, has been targeted by Ukrainian drones.

This attacks follows previous reports by the UK Ministry of Defence indicating that Russia has been bolstering defenses at the Novorossiysk port to protect its Black Sea Fleet from potential Ukrainian attacks.

DUBAI, May 19 (Reuters) - A helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and his foreign minister crashed on Sunday as it was crossing mountain terrain in heavy fog, an Iranian official told Reuters, and rescuers were struggling to reach the site of the incident.

The official said the lives of Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian were "at risk following the helicopter crash", which happened on the way back from a visit to the border with Azerbaijan in Iran's northwest.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi — often seen as a potential successor to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei— is missing after his helicopter went down in the northwest of the country on Sunday, officials said.

Iran’s Vice President Mohsen Mansouri said contact has been made with one of the helicopter passengers and one of the flight crew, although the connection had frequently been interrupted.

A report by official Iranian news agency IRNA says that it seems the incident was not serious, but does not provide an update on Raisi’s wellbeing or that of any other passengers. Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian was also reportedly on board the aircraft.

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Update (NYT):

~~The head of Iran’s Red Crescent Society, Pirhossein Kolivand, told state TV that search and rescue teams have not located the site of the helicopter crash after more than 10 hours of looking, and have made no contact with anyone on board. Any rumors to the contrary were false, he said. Kolivand said rescuers were using their best guesses to set the search area and had no confirmation of the exact location of the missing helicopter.~~

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Update 2 (BBC)

President Ebrahim Raisi, Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and several others are confirmed to have been killed in Sunday's helicopter crash in north-western Iran, state TV says.

"Love is as varied as people are."

~Magnus Hirschfeld (date unknown)

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/15581511

Aarrr

4 panel comic by War and Peas. 1. Panel shows two pirates, the first pirate speaks "Captain, our rivals have been calling us names again." 2. Panel: The pirate continues, "They said we were a bunch of handicaps." 3. Panel: The captain himself says, "That's ableism! And we don't tolerate that kind of talk here". 4.Panel: The ship in full from afar waving a bunch of flags, such as the pride flag, the pirate skull-and-crossbones, the human rights flag, the trans flag and more.

A helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi suffered a “hard landing” on Sunday, Iranian state television reported, without immediately elaborating.

Raisi was traveling in Iran’s East Azerbaijan province. State TV said the incident happened near Jolfa, a city on the border with the nation of Azerbaijan, some 600 kilometers (375 miles) northwest of the Iranian capital, Tehran.

Rescuers were attempting to reach the site, state TV said, but had been hampered by poor weather condition in the area. There had been heavy rain reported with some wind.

"We can see the wreckage and the situation does not look good," the head of lran's Red Crescent, Pirhossein Kolivand, told state TV.

Russian troops attacked a recreation center in a northern suburb of Kharkiv at around 11 a.m. local time, killing six civilians including a pregnant woman and wounding 27, the Kharkiv Regional Prosecutor's Office said on May 19.

. . .

“(Russian troops) attacked the area where local residents were resting,” Kharkiv Oblast Governor Oleh Syniehubov said in an earlier post on Telegram, condemning the attack. A paramedic was among the wounded, and an ambulance was damaged, he added.

In a later post on Telegram, Syniehubov said Russian forces had fired two Iskander ballistic missiles in a "double-tap" strike – a common Russian tactic in which a target is struck once and then again shortly after, the second strike deliberately targeting rescue workers.

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A helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi was involved in a hard landing while visiting a northern region and his condition is currently unknown, Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency reported on X on Sunday.

The aircraft came down in East Azerbaijan Province and emergency crews have so far been unable to reach it due to foggy conditions, Tasnim said. It is unclear what the exact status is of Raisi’s helicopter.

Israel's Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on Sunday that the Israeli army should create a security zone in southern Lebanon should Hezbollah not heed an Israeli ultimatum to withdraw from the border area. He also called on the security cabinet to order a permanent military presence "in all of the Gaza Strip."

While on a visit to Israel's north, the far-right leader of the Religious Zionism party said that "the war must end with Hezbollah's total military defeat. It must be presented with an ultimatum to stop firing and withdraw its forces… and if [Hezbollah] doesn't fully comply – the Israeli army must launch a defensive attack … deep in Lebanese territory, including a ground incursion and an Israeli military takeover of the southern Lebanon area."

Regarding Gaza, Smotrich said that the IDF must have a permanent military presence in the Strip. Military outposts, he added, should be erected "in the north, center and south of the Gaza Strip, to prevent a situation in which Hamas rebuilds its military infrastructure and [reasserts] civilian control."