The official IRNA news agency said a gunman attempted to enter the Shah Cheragh shrine and opened fire on visitors before he could be subdued.
Yadollah Bouali, the regional Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps commander, told State TV that “a terrorist entered the gate of the shrine and opened fire with a battle rifle”.
The semi-official Fars news agency meanwhile said that the gunman had tried to enter the shrine from the Bab al-Mahdi door but was met with “resistance” from “protection forces”.
Pictures from Tasnim showed bullet holes in what appeared to be the barred windows at the entrance to the shrine, one of Iran’s most important pilgrimage sites.
The main protagonist, identified as an Afghan national in his 30s named Hamed Badakhshan, was killed at the scene in the attack.
IS has claimed previous attacks in Iran, including the deadly twin bombings in 2017 that targeted the country’s parliament and the tomb of the Islamic Republic’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
You can find vapes inspired by video games, they come in bright colours and flavours like bubble gum and candy floss," she said.
For long-term adult smokers, it’s seen as a less harmful alternative but the flipside to that is the exponential rise and accessibility of vaping to teenagers and at times younger children.
Marni Wilton said many vape shops had popped up recently around her Auckland suburb close to her sons’ local schools.
Ms Wilton said the new government regulations fail to address the problem: “This absolutely doesn’t go far enough to help our children.”
Ben Youdan, who has worked in tobacco control and campaigning for nearly 20 years both in the UK and New Zealand, said banning vaping only drives it to the black market rather than get young kids off it.
Mr Youdan is now director of Ash NZ, a lobby group campaigning for a smoke free New Zealand.
Miss Universe Organisation (MUO) has cut ties with its Indonesian franchise after several contestants alleged sexual abuse days before the pageant’s crowning ceremony in Jakarta.
MUO also said it was also cancelling this year’s pageant in Malaysia which is run by the same company, PT Capella Swastika Karya.
It said it was evaluating its policies and procedures to avoid similar occurrences and said there were no measurement or body dimensions requirements to join its pageants worldwide.
“In light of what we have learned took place at Miss Universe Indonesia, it has become clear that this franchise has not lived up to our brand standards, ethics, or expectations,” MUO posted on Saturday night.
Miss Universe, which is now on its 73rd edition, is popular in South-east Asia, especially in Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand, where winners go on to become celebrities and social media influencers.
Indonesia’s Ms Fabienne Nicole Groeneveld who who won the contest to represent her country in the 2023 Miss Universe finals in November will compete with the organisation’s support, MUO said.
Joe Biden’s son Hunter will now be investigated by a special counsel with additional powers, the US attorney general has announced.
Hunter Biden’s lawyer, Chris Clark, responded in a statement: “We are confident when all of these manoeuvrings are at an end my client will have resolution and will be moving on with his life successfully.”
Hunter Biden had previously reached a deal with prosecutors to plead guilty to the tax charges and admit the gun offence to spare himself prison time.
However, US District Court Judge Maryellen Noreika squashed the deal due to “non standard terms” and the “unusual” nature of the proposed resolution for the gun charge.
House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy said that the Republican-controlled chamber will continue to investigate the president and his son regardless of the special counsel announcement.
The White House called the allegations “insane conspiracy theories” and rejected the assertion that Mr Biden has participated in his son’s business affairs.
This is Africa we’re talking about. That whole continent was the playground of ruthless European colonizers for centuries, and I’m under the impression it wasn’t exactly a paradise before that, either. So, probably not.
This was my snap initial thought too but it does not hold up well. Their previous system may not be sanitary by today’s standards, could be impractical to access in modern times, or socially humiliating now. Even if all of those were non concerns though I believe we should still be able to provide modern solutions to people requesting them instead of writing it off as “be happy with the solution you had yesterday”
Tangentially related but I can’t seem to find the answers and I have a couple questions that perhaps someone can answer:
Do stars actually generate muons directly? From what I understand the muons on Earth are a result of cosmic rays colliding wtih particles in the atmosphere.
If they do, how far do they travel before decaying? Even if they travel at relativistic speeds, they have a mean lifetime of 2.2 ns, so the math seems to say they don’t travel very far at all on average.
Either way, are there any other sources of muons in the universe? I’m curious what the muon density distribution in the universe would look like.
Do stars actually generate muons directly? From what I understand the muons on Earth are a result of cosmic rays colliding wtih particles in the atmosphere.
Muons are naturally generated by cosmic ray protons colliding with atmospheric molecules and creating pions, which then rapidly decay to muons and muon neutrinos. These themselves then decay into a bunch of other things.
If they do, how far do they travel before decaying? Even if they travel at relativistic speeds, they have a mean lifetime of 2.2 ns, so the math seems to say they don’t travel very far at all on average.
That muons can hit the Earth is one of the key pieces of evidence in favor of relativity, in fact. As you say, with a mean lifetime of 2.2 nanoseconds, they shouldn’t be able to hit the surface of the Earth, but because at relativistic speeds time dilation occurs from our frame of reference (or, equivalently, in the muon’s inertial frame, it sees the distance it has to travel be radically shortened via length contraction), they do end up hitting the earth.
Either way, are there any other sources of muons in the universe? I’m curious what the muon density distribution in the universe would look like.
I doubt it, because they decay so quickly. AFAIK you have to do it via the pion decay route, and all the muons we create are in particle accelerators. I guess it would be like how we create radioactive isotopes in hospitals on-demand for medical purposes that wouldn’t survive transportation to the hospital before decay, and couldn’t be stored long-term because, well, they would decay.
as an aside, Nature is rather more pessimistic about the discovery, which I think is reasonable.
Muons are naturally generated by cosmic ray protons colliding with atmospheric molecules and creating pions, which then rapidly decay to muons and muon neutrinos.
So in theory they could exist anywhere in the universe somewhat close to a star, if the relevant particles in our atmosphere are around that star? That’s what I meant about the density distribution: are they spherically distributed around (all) stars, or are they only present in very specific situations?
These themselves then decay into a bunch of other things.
I thought they had a small selection of possible decay products. Not particularly relevant to me at the moment, though.
As you say, with a mean lifetime of 2.2 nanoseconds, they shouldn’t be able to hit the surface of the Earth, but because at relativistic speeds time dilation occurs from our frame of reference (or, equivalently, in the muon’s inertial frame, it sees the distance it has to travel be radically shortened via length contraction), they do end up hitting the earth.
I mistyped the mean lifetime, it’s actually 2.2 microseconds. That’s three orders of magnitude different, but from a (non-relativistic) view it would still only travel about 66 centimeters. I’m missing too much information to try to solve the length contraction equation (I don’t know its length, or its velocity) for the observed length. I’m curious here because they’re able to travel on the order of roughly 50 meters into the Earth, and from what I can find they disappear there due to absorption from the many atoms they pass through on that path. So that leads me to a question: If there is not relatively dense earth to get in the way and attenuate the muon, such as if it were produced by a gas cloud beside a star, how far would it realistically be able to travel? Since the muons on Earth “die” from absorption rather than lasting long enough to decay via weak force, they would, in open space, surely be able to travel far enough without enough collisions such that they do end up “dying” by decay.
Thanks for the reply, I am curious here about something that I don’t have enough knowledge to answer for myself.
Real question… Why is this kind of thing posted to World News? It’s a horrifying story, but it’s also one incident in one location. Me knowing about it doesn’t help me or anyone else in any way. I guess you could hope that it inspires some gun owners to better secure their firearms, but that’s about it.
This kinda one-off incidents were all over Reddit. It just exists to stoke people’s anger most of the time, but it’s also super easy to push a specific agenda by posting these horrible, local stories.
Mostly it’s a result of me cross-posting from my own community which is less strict about what I consider news and the publisher in this case BBC labeling it as world news. I get all my news from RSS.
I am a volunteer organizing holidays for people with disabilities (3 timesaver year) and this is one of my biggest fears. Every start of a holiday we discuss what to do in case of emergency but I hope that I will never need it…
The Philippine Coast Guard has accused its Chinese counterpart of firing water cannon at its vessels and blocking them in the disputed South China Sea.
It said this happened when its ship was escorting boats carrying supplies for Filipino soldiers stationed on one of the contested Spratly Islands.
In a statement, the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) said the incident happened on Saturday as its vessels were heading to Second Thomas Shoal in the Spratly Islands.
The South China Sea is now one of the world’s biggest flashpoints, especially as US-China tensions have soared in recent years.
Access to these waters is key to defending Taiwan at a time when China’s claims over the self-governed island have intensified.
The waterways also host $5tn (£4tn) of global trade every year, raising concerns that Beijing’s increasing footprint could restrict commerce.
bbc.co.uk
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