New Orleans attacker recorded video of city with smart glasses, travelled to Canada in 2023: FBI

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New Orleans attacker recorded video of city with smart glasses, travelled to Canada in 2023: FBI

FBI officials on Sunday said their investigation into the deadly truck attack in New Orleans is now “crossing state and international borders” and that the attacker had travelled to both Egypt and Canada.

Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a U.S. citizen from Houston, travelled to Egypt and Canada before the New Year’s Day attack, although it was not yet clear whether those trips were connected to the attack, Christopher Raia, the agency’s deputy assistant director, said at a news conference.

Jabbar travelled to Cairo from June 22 to July 3, 2023. A few days later, he flew to Ontario on July 10 and returned to the U.S. on July 13.

“Our agents are getting answers to where he went, who he went with and how those trips may or may not tie into his actions here,” said Lyonel Myrthil, FBI special agent in charge of the New Orleans field office.

Canadian Minister of Public Safety David McGuinty confirmed in a statement on Sunday that Jabbar travelled to Canada in July 2023, noting he arrived from Houston, not Cairo.

WATCH | Louisiana governor pays tribute to victims: 

Governor pays tribute to New Orleans truck attack victims

8 hours ago

Duration 5:38

At a news conference Sunday in New Orleans, Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry paid tribute to each of the 14 people killed in the New Year’s Day truck attack and declared a period of mourning that will begin Monday. The victims ranged in age from 18 to 63 and came from Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, New York, New Jersey and Britain.

“Canadian authorities will continue to work with their American counterparts, including the FBI, as they pursue their investigation,” McGuinty said.

In a statement to CBC News, the RCMP said it is “engaged with security partners, including U.S. authorities, as part of the investigation in this case.”

Smart glasses used

Jabbar had also travelled to New Orleans twice in the months preceding the attack, first in October and again in November. On Oct. 31, Myrthil said, Jabbar used glasses from Meta, the parent company of Facebook, to record video as he rode through the French Quarter on a bicycle as “he plotted this hideous attack.” He said Jabbar was also in New Orleans on Nov. 10, and authorities are seeking more details about that trip.

He also wore the glasses capable of livestreaming during the attack, but Myrthil said Jabbar did not activate them.

The FBI released Jabbar’s recorded video from the planning trip to New Orleans, as well as video showing him placing two containers with explosive devices in the French Quarter at about 2 a.m., shortly before the attack. One of the containers, a cooler, was moved a block away by someone uninvolved with the attack, officials said.

Investigators previously said Jabbar, a 42-year-old former U.S. army soldier, had proclaimed his support for the Islamist militant group ISIS in online videos posted hours before he struck on Bourbon Street early last Wednesday, killing 14 people and injuring dozens. Police fatally shot Jabbar during a firefight at the scene.

A pickup truck after a crash.
A pickup truck is seen after an attacker drove it into a crowd of people in New Orleans on Jan. 1. (Gerald Herbert/The Associated Press)

Thirteen people remain hospitalized after the attack.

Raia reiterated on Sunday that the FBI believes Jabbar acted alone.

“All investigative details and evidence that we have now still support that Jabbar acted alone here in New Orleans,” Raia said. “We have not seen any indications of an accomplice in the United States, but we are still looking into potential associates in the U.S. and outside of our borders.”

‘Louisiana and her people will never cower in fear’

U.S. President Joe Biden planned to travel to New Orleans with his wife, Jill Biden, on Monday to “grieve with the families and community members impacted by the tragic attack.”

The youngest victim was 18 and the oldest 63. Most victims were in their 20s. They came from Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, New York, New Jersey and Britain.

Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry said the innocent lives lost will never be forgotten as he declared a period of mourning for the victims that is scheduled to begin on Monday. A different victim is to be remembered each day.

“However, Louisiana and her people will never cower in fear,” he said. “Instead, we will unite and come back stronger in honour of every person who lost their lives that day.”

Published at Sun, 05 Jan 2025 16:43:13 +0000

Jimmy Carter’s days-long funeral starts with hometown procession

Jimmy Carter ‘s extended public farewell began Saturday in Georgia, with the 39th U.S. president’s flag-draped casket tracing his long arc from the Depression-era South and family farming business to the pinnacle of American political power and decades as a global humanitarian.

Those chapters shone throughout the opening stanza of a six-day state funeral intended to blend personalized memorials with the ceremonial pomp afforded to former presidents. The longest-lived U.S. president, Carter died on Dec. 29 at the age of 100.

“He was an amazing man. He was held up and propped up and soothed by an amazing woman,” son James Earl “Chip” Carter III, told mourners at The Carter Center late Saturday afternoon, referring to his father and former first lady Rosalynn Carter, who died in 2023. “The two of them together changed the world. And it was an amazing thing to watch so close.”

Grandson Jason Carter, who now chairs the centre’s governing board, said: “It’s amazing what you can cram into a hundred years.”

Carter’s children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren accompanied their patriarch as his hearse rode first Saturday through his hometown of Plains, Ga., which at about 700 residents is not much bigger than when Carter was born there Oct. 1, 1924. The procession stopped at the farm where the future president toiled alongside the Black sharecroppers who worked for his father. The motorcade continued to Atlanta, stopping in front of the Georgia Capitol where Carter served as a state senator and reformist governor.

Pallbearers carry a casket draped in a U.S. flag.
Former and current U.S. Secret Service agents assigned to protect Jimmy Carter carry his flag-draped casket at the Phoebe Sumter Medical Center in Americus, Ga., on Saturday. (Alex Brandon/The Associated Press)

Finally, he arrived for his last visit to the Carter Presidential Center, which houses his presidential library and The Carter Center where he based his post-White House advocacy for public health, democracy and human rights, setting a new standard for what former presidents can accomplish after they yield power.

“His spirit fills this place,” Jason Carter told the assembly that included some of the centre’s 3,000 employees worldwide. “You continue the vibrant living legacy of what is my grandfather’s life work,” he added.

Pallbearers on Saturday came from the Secret Service that protected the Carters for almost a half-century and a military honour guard that included Navy servicemembers for the only U.S. Naval Academy graduate to reach the Oval Office. A military band played Hail to the Chief and the hymn Be Thou My Vision for the commander in chief who also was a devout Baptist.

His longtime personal pastor, the Rev. Tony Lowden, remembered not a president but the frail man who spent the last 22 months in hospice care, “wrapped in a blanket” that included the words of Psalm 23.

A young child salutes as a funeral procession drives by.
A child salutes as the hearse carrying Carter’s casket drives through downtown Plains, Ga., on Saturday. (Mike Stewart/The Associated Press)

Chip Carter recalled “the boss” he had to make an appointment to see in the Oval Office, but also the father who spent an entire Christmas break learning Latin and teaching his 8th-grade son who had failed a test. When he took that test again, the younger Carter said, he aced it: “I owed it to my father, who spent that kind of time with me.”

Jimmy Carter will lie in repose at the Carter Presidential Center from 7 p.m. Saturday through 6 a.m. Tuesday, with the public able to pay respects around the clock.

‘He walked the walk’

Scott Lyle, an engineer who grew up in Georgia but now lives in New York, was among the first mourners to pay his respects. Lyle said he joined Carter to build homes with Habitat for Humanity for the first time in LaGrange, Ga., in 2003. Since then, he has traveled around the world to build houses with the group.

“I got to see, what some people don’t get to see, close. He was an amazing man, and he cared about others. He walked the walk,” said Lyle, who was wearing Carter-themed Habitat gear. “And I can’t think of anyone else that I would want to stand in line to pay my respects for.”

National rites will continue in Washington and conclude Thursday with a funeral at Washington National Cathedral, followed by a return to Plains,Ga.. There, the former president will be buried next to his wife of 77 years near the home they built before his first state Senate campaign in 1962.

People watch as the hearse containing Jimmy Carter passes.
People watch as the hearse containing the flag-draped casket of the 39th U.S. president departs the Jimmy Carter Boyhood Farm in Archery, Ga., on Saturday. (Alex Brandon/The Associated Press)

The Carters lived nearly all their lives in Plains, with the exception of his Naval service, four years in the Governor’s Mansion and four years in the White House. As his hearse rolled through the town, mourners lined the main street, some holding bouquets of flowers and wearing pins bearing images of the former president and his signature smile.

Willie Browner, 75, described Carter as hailing from a bygone era of American politics.

“This man, he thought of more than just himself,” said Browner, who grew up in the town of Parrott, Ga., about 24 kilometres from Plains. Browner said it meant “a great deal” to have a president come from a small Southern town like his — something he worries isn’t likely to happen again.

WATCH | Jimmy Carter’s hometown life, legacy and love story: 

Jimmy Carter’s hometown life, legacy and love story

7 days ago

Duration 9:09

Jimmy Carter has passed away at the age of 100. He will be buried at his home in Plains, Georgia, where he lived most of his life. The National’s Adrienne Arsenault travelled there to speak to the people who knew the former U.S. president best and learn more about his life, legacy and love story.

Indeed, Carter helped plan his own funeral to emphasize that his remarkable rise to the world stage was because of — not despite — his deep rural roots.

Over the course of a few blocks in Plains, the motorcade passed near where the Carters ran the family peanut warehouse, and the small home where his mother, a nurse, had delivered the future first lady in 1927. The hearse passed the old train depot that served as Carter’s 1976 presidential campaign headquarters — a barebones effort that depended on public financing, dwarfed by the billion-dollar U.S. presidential campaigns of the 21st century.

At the Carter farm, a few dozen National Park Service rangers stood in formation in front of the home, which did not have running water or electricity when Carter was a boy. The old farm bell rang 39 times to honour Carter’s place as the 39th president.

A person lights a candle.
A National Park Ranger lights a candle to pay their respects at a vigil for Carter at Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains on Saturday. (Elijah Nouvelage/Reuters)

Beside the house, there remains the tennis court that Carter’s father, James Earl Carter Sr., built for the family — a nod to the blend of privilege and hard rural life that defined the future president’s upbringing. Carter worked the land throughout the Great Depression, but it was owned by the elder Carter, who employed the surrounding Black tenant farmers during the era of Jim Crow segregation.

Carter wrote and spoke extensively on those formative years and how the abject poverty and institutional racism he saw influenced his policies in government and human rights work.

Calvin Smyre, a former Georgia legislator, remembered that legacy Saturday at the state Capitol. Smyre, who is Black, said Carter’s repudiation of racial segregation allowed Black people to wield power in Georgia.

“We stand on the shoulder of courageous people like Jimmy Carter,” Smyre said. “What he did shocked and shook the political ground here in the state of Georgia. And we live better because of that.”

Published at Sat, 04 Jan 2025 13:33:53 +0000

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