Iran's clerical rulers may rail against Western culture, but visitors marvel at Andy Warhol's iconic paintings at this Tehran museum. Eighteen Warhol pieces are on display, acquired in the 1970s, before the Islamic revolution swept Iran's pro-Western regime from power. His works are among a permanent art collection worth billions of dollars kept in the Tehran museum vault. The exhibit, simply named A Review of Andy Warhol's Works, first opened in June and closes on Sunday. Iran's theocracy first banned modern art, but in recent decades cultural restrictions have eased, making Western works available again. Although hostilities between Iran and America have simmered since 1979, Western culture remains popular in the country, particularly among young urbanites.

Mehdi Dolatyari watched with dread in recent months as once-affordable goods at his central Tehran supermarket soared out of reach for his customers. Iranians who previously bought sacks of staple foods at the store now struggle to scrape together enough for meals, as the country’s currency sinks to new lows against the dollar. “Rice is awfully expensive,” Dolatyari said, describing how its price has nearly doubled. With U.S. sanctions still strangling the economy, record-breaking inflation has hit ordinary Iranians where it hurts most. Stunned shoppers are cutting meat and dairy from their diets, buying less and less each month. The Iranian rial is now about 270,000 to the dollar — compared with 32,000 rials for $1 at the time of Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. That has decimated people’s salaries and savings.

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iranians this week are preparing to vote in — or perhaps to boycott — a presidential election that many fear will only underscore their powerlessness to shape the country’s fate. Hopefuls are running to replace the term-limited President Hassan Rouhani, whose promises of a bright economic future withered as Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers collapsed. The backlash of disappointment in Rouhani’s relatively moderate administration has given hard-liners an edge this time, analysts say, even as the U.S. and Iran now negotiate a return to the landmark accord. Iran’s clerical vetting committee has allowed just seven candidates on Friday’s ballot, nixing prominent reformists and key Rouhani allies. The presumed front-runner has become Ebrahim Raisi, the country’s hard-line judiciary chief who’s closely aligned with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

It’s a men’s-only club in the tangle of auto repair shops on the traffic-clogged streets of Iran’s capital, Tehran. Among them, workers toil in dim garages, welding and wrenching, fabricating and painting. That’s until Maryam Roohani, 34, pops up from under a car’s hood at a maintenance shop in northeastern Tehran, her dirt- and grease-stained uniform pulled over black jeans and long hair tucked into a baseball cap — which in her work, replaces Iran’s compulsory Islamic headscarf for women, or hijab.

The word spring signifies more than just nature's rebirth and rejuvenation in the minds of Iranians. It marks the merriest event on the Persian calendar known as Nowruz or start of a fresh year. Every year in the final days of winter as trees begin to blossom, an air of festivity can be felt all over the country.

An art gallery in Iran is breaking taboos by hiring acid attack victims to model for the first time in the country. The objective is to challenge the common perception that only fine-looking persons can be successful in the modelling career. Masoumeh Ataei, 37, became target of a blinding acid assault in a family feud. When she sought a divorce from her husband in a failing marriage, her father-in-law flung acid in her face making both her eyes sightless. "Perhaps facial beauty of a woman is all she has got. When that is destroyed, it is very difficult for a person to come to terms with it and return to the society once again, Ataei says. But she decided to defy people's expectations, taking on the modelling job. "I was very hesitant and was afraid of hearing inappropriate things from the people and was concerned about the consequences. But people gave me a very positive feedback," she adds. Amen Khademi, is a fashion designer and owner of Mahuraa fashion gallery. She is a former journalist who shifted her career to making Iranian folklore-themed dresses. "In my opinion a woman is innately beautiful and her beauty is not just skin-deep," she says. When she went through the life stories and suffering of several women who had their faces completely disfigured and their lives ruined by acid attacks, Amen came up with the idea of using them as models for showcasing her work. Raising awareness was one of her aims besides selling her clothes and soon followers lauded her initiative. Having undergone several surgeries, Masoumeh has been unable to see. Two other models are Fatemeh Ghasemi, 27, who lost her left eye in 2016 in Tehran and Zeinab Ghanbari, 38 from Zanjan targeted by a begrudging sister-in-law and an ex-husband addicted to meth. They are now confident enough to model for Mahuraa along with Masoumeh. "I decided to do modelling because I wanted the society to see people like us more, so that they would not think we should stay at home and do nothing. In fact the only goal of acid throwers is to force us stay home and not continue our normal life," says Ghasemi. In 2019, Masoumeh along with four other male and female acid attack survivors went to the Iranian parliament and spoke to lawmakers calling for harsher legislation against acid attackers. Execution or life imprisonment were their suggestions as a means of causing deterrence for the crime. Victims also demand a crackdown on easy sale of acid. A string of acid attacks in the central city of Isfahan in 2014 prompted public outcry across the country. Assailants are still at large.

The COVID-19 pandemic has made many aspects of life different for a lot of people the world over from before the outbreak, when physical distancing was not the norm. In the holy month of Ramadan, observing social distancing at a time when gatherings are expected has become challenging for Iranians. One of the solutions that the faithful have come up with in Iran is a counterpart of Western-style drive-in theaters: a drive-in mosque.

Iranians started the month of Ramadan on Saturday as the coronavirus outbreak looms over the holy month of fasting and praying. This year's Ramadan is significantly different from previous years due to lockdowns and physical distancing practices that are in place to slow down the spread of the pandemic. Officials in Iran, the country that is hit worst in the Middle East by the novel virus, have eased the lockdown a little in hopes of saving the economy that was already strained harshly under sanctions.

When Tehran residents returned to work as the country started partial easing of weeks of lockdown, they noticed a big difference in the capital's yellow and green taxis from the pre-coronavirus era. Drivers are now shielded by a plastic bubble separating their seats from their passengers to minimize their possible exposure to the novel virus.

The Persian new year is just around the corner, but there are very few shoppers at Tajrish bazaar, one of the capital's main business hubs. Empty sidewalks and idle shopkeepers are unheard of in Iran at this time of the year. But the new coronavirus outbreak has forced millions of Iranians to stay at home, and that is wreaking havoc on many businesses at a time of the year when sales would normally boom.

CORONAVIRUS: Firefighters in Iran's capital, Tehran, disinfected the city's longest highway, Friday, March 6, in a new effort to combat the coronavirus outbreak.

In spite of ample warning by the health officials urging civilians to take precautionary measures against the new coronavirus, some Iranians have not taken the health hazard seriously. The bustling enclosed Grand Bazaar and its surrounding area in downtown Tehran was teeming with shoppers on Monday, while many were not using protective equipment such as masks and gloves.

A cafe owner in Tehran reported a tenfold drop in profits on Saturday, as the new virus continued to loom large over many parts of Iran. His was one of many eateries that was either closed or had no customers on the first day of the Iranian week, as people increasingly stayed at home and away from public places.

Ahead of Iran's parliamentary election on Friday, many Tehran residents are questioning whether their vote will matter in bringing an end to political corruption and the country's economic crisis. With hard-line conservative candidates expected to win a majority of seats, and as public trust in authorities has soared over economic hardship and recent tension with the United States, the ballot box turnout on Feb 21. could be affected.

Near the hometown of the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, workers at a small Iranian factory diligently add all 50 stars and 13 red-and-white bars to what are supposed to be U.S. flags, and carefully imprint the blue Star of David on Israeli ones. That’s even as all their work is destined to go up in flames.

Iran’s president Wednesday slammed the disqualification of thousands of people, including 90 current lawmakers, from running in upcoming parliamentary elections. Although hard-liners were among those disqualified by the powerful Guardian Council, most of those rejected were reformist and moderate candidates, according to Tehran’s reformist newspaper Etemad. President Hassan Rouhani appeared to confirm this in his stinging critique of the council, which barred more than 9,000 from the over 14,000 people who had registered to run. Among them are 90 sitting lawmakers out of some 247 who registered to run for re-election.

A Ukrainian passenger jet carrying 176 people crashed on Wednesday, just minutes after taking off from the Iranian capital’s main airport, turning farmland on the outskirts of Tehran into fields of flaming debris and killing all on board. The crash of Ukraine International Airlines came hours after Iran launched a ballistic missile attack on Iraqi bases housing US soldiers, but both Ukrainian and Iranian officials said they suspected a mechanical issue brought down the Boeing 737-800 aircraft.

Iranians on Saturday started celebrating Yalda, a traditional event held on the longest night of the year. In Tehran's Sadabad Palace, performers broke out in a traditional Kurdish dance as women, dressed in customary clothing, played the 'daf,' a hand-held Persian drum in a festival marking the winter solstice. This was followed by a procession of performers who carried baskets of pomegranates, a highly sought-after fruit on Yalda night which is thought to keep revellers immune from the cold and other diseases during winter.

For those who were there, the memories are still fresh 40 years after one of the defining events of Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution, when protesters seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and set off a 444-day hostage crisis whose consequences continue to reverberate to this day. Veteran Iranian photographer Kaveh Kazemi recalled the events that sparked the revolution, snapping away with his camera as he stood behind the gate where the Iranian militant students would usher blindfolded American hostages to those gathered outside waving anti-American banners and calling for the extradition of the deposed Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. "Sometimes they would bring a US flag and burn it, put it in flames and then throw it among the crowd", said Kazemi, now 67, pointing to the spot.