MOHAMMAD KHATAMI

Iranians are reacting with praise and worry over the attack on novelist Salman Rushdie — the target of a decades-old fatwa by the late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini calling for his death.

An Iranian intelligence officer and three members of an Iranian intelligence network have been charged in Manhattan with plotting to kidnap a prominent Iranian opposition activist and writer in exile and take her back to Tehran.

Iran is grappling with fears of low voter turnout, two days ahead of the country's presidential election.

Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, center, is surrounded by a group of lawmakers after being elected as speaker of the parliament, in Tehran, Iran, Thursday, May 28, 2020. Iran's parliament voted Thursday to elect Qalibaf, a hard-line former mayor of Tehran as the legislative body's new speaker. As speaker, Qalibaf leads a body that can debate Iran's annual budget and push for the impeachment of government ministers. That takes on new importance as the U.S. withdrew waivers from Iran's nuclear program late Wednesday and as tensions between the two nations remain high. A trained pilot, Qalibaf served in the paramilitary Guard during the countrys bloody 1980s war with Iraq.