Evening update: rapists, judges and children's faces

How is Gisèle Pelicot this evening? Is she celebrating? Is she crying? Is she relieved? We don't know. ZDF correspondent Anne Arendt reports from Avignon that Pelicot appeared “composed and determined” when the verdict was announced.

What will everyday life be like for him? Will the other prisoners also look at the rapist with contempt? Or will there be men among them who admire him for his horrors? After all, 50 other defendants were found guilty with him today – most of them also for aggravated rape.

“The most dangerous place for a woman is her own home,” says specialist lawyer Asha Hedayati:

Pelicot had repeatedly drugged his then-wife for almost ten years, remembered her past and offered her to strangers for rape, as he stood in court. The Gisèle Pelicot is expected to travel around 200 times. What does that do to a person? What does this do to the Pelicots' children? We can only imagine that.

The feeling of shame has switched to the men's side, says ZDF correspondent Anne Arendt. Thank you for this, Giséle Pelicot.

From rape victim to icon: How Pelicot influenced street art in Lille:

There is also good news from Berlin today. The Bundestag has shown that it still works. With votes from the SPD, Union, Greens, FDP and Left, the committee decided on an amendment to the Basic Law that is intended to better protect the Federal Constitutional Court from political capture.

The supporters are united by their concern about the influence of a growing AfD. They want to prevent a scenario like that seen in Hungary and Poland under the governments that have now been voted out.

The national-conservative PiS government had restructured the Polish justice system and, according to experts, thereby restricted the separation of powers. And Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban is also suspected of restricting the independence of the judiciary.

Specifically, the amendment to the Basic Law is intended to secure the number of constitutional judges, their term of office and their autonomy. The Federal Council still has to agree.

Today, the children's charity Unicef ​​has decided on a political and deeply human message: for the first time, two female photographers will share first place in the 2024 Unicef ​​photo competition.

It only takes one look at the faces of the children Stav, Dareen and Kinan to understand the horrors the children are facing in the Middle East war. The pictures were taken by the Israeli Avishag Shaar-Yushuv and the Palestinian Samar Abu Elouf.

Source: dpa

Corynebacterium glutamicum is the microbe of the year 2025. “This bacterium produces amino acids that would fill a freight train across Germany,” said the Association for General and Applied Microbiology, explaining its decision. It supplies 3.5 million tons of the flavoring substance sodium glutamate alone every year, as well as many other amino acids and proteins for food and feed production.

The number of international students at German universities has increased significantly again. In the current semester, more than 405,000 students from abroad were enrolled in this country, according to an projection published by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).

First she is the very best friend – then behind her back she is gossiped about, devalued and manipulated. Sometimes friendships become toxic. In “Too Toxic to Handle: Friendship Disaster“Two women tell very personal stories. Psychologist Leon Windscheid classifies their experiences and explains how it can be possible to break away from friendships that have turned sour. (ZDF, 37 Grad Leben, 27 minutes)

Does the train arrive more punctually since the traffic light is broken? Who peed in Habeck's cargo bike? And what do Nazis say about the national team's pink jersey? I am Satirical review of 2024 Werner Doyé and Andreas Wiemers only ask the questions. Mai Thi, MrWissen2go and others help you (ZDF, The Satirical Annual Review, 32 minutes).

Nicola Frowein and the entire ZDFheute team