Southeast
New Orleans terrorist chose Bourbon Street for maximum carnage: timeline
A 42-year-old Texas native swore allegiance to the ISIS terror group and plowed a pickup trip into a crowd of New Year’s revelers on New Orleans’ famous Bourbon Street early Wednesday, killing at least 14 and injuring more than 30 others.
The FBI identified the killer as Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a twice-divorced Army veteran who, despite a lucrative job at a large consulting firm, had a history of financial struggles and missed child support payments, records show.
Much of the information came from FBI Deputy Assistant Director Christopher Raia and ATF Special Agent Joshua Jackson, as part of a joint investigation into the attack.
“Let me be clear about this point,” Raia told reporters Thursday. “This was an act of terrorism. It was premeditated and an evil act.”
WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT VICTIMS OF NEW ORLEANS TERRORIST ATTACK
Shamsud-Din Jabbar pictured in an undated photograph released by the FBI after he attacked New Orleans’ Bourbon Street with a pickup truck and died in a shootout with responding officers. (FBI)
Anyone with information on the attack or Jabbar, or who was on Bourbon Street for New Year’s, is asked to contact the FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI. Tips, including photos and videos, can also be submitted online.
Here is a timeline of events:
Egypt trip – 2023
Jabbar traveled to Cairo, Egypt, from June 22 to July 3, 2023, then returned to the U.S. In a separate trip on July 10, 2023, he traveled to Ontario, Canada, and returned to the U.S. a few days later, the FBI said during a press conference.
It was unclear whether the visit was connected to the attack, but FBI Deputy Assistant Director Christopher Raia said the agency is investigating whether Jabbar had any associates in the U.S. or overseas.
“All investigative details and evidence that we have now still support that Jabbar acted alone here in New Orleans,” said Raia. “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.”
The FBI provided a timeline of the New Orleans attack on New Year’s Day.
Scouting the scene – 2024
In October and November, Jabbar visited New Orleans at least twice, using Meta eyeglasses to take video of sections of Bourbon Street.
Monday, Dec. 30, 2024
Jabbar picks up a Ford F-150 EV rental in Houston, according to authorities.
He used the Turo app to obtain the vehicle, the same app authorities say was used in a separate EV explosion in Las Vegas, Nevada, where a Tesla Cybertruck exploded at the front door of the Trump Hotel.
Raia said the FBI had found “no definitive link” between the two attacks but noted it was “very early” in the investigation. Both Jabbar and the man involved in that explosion, Matthew Livelsberger, served in the Army and were deployed to Afghanistan in 2009.
Both had also been stationed at Fort Liberty, however, investigators said there was no known overlap in their assignments at the North Carolina base, which currently has more than 50,000 servicemen and women stationed there. It was also not immediately clear they had been deployed in the same region of Afghanistan.
SUSPECT IDENTIFIED AS FBI INVESTIGATES ACT OF TERRORISM AFTER BOURBON STREET ATTACK
New Orleans police and federal agents investigate a suspected terrorist attack on Bourbon Street in New Orleans on New Year’s Day on Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2025. (Chris Granger/The New Orleans Advocate via AP)
Jabbar explains he originally planned to harm his family and friends, but was concerned the news headlines would not focus on the, quote, ‘war between the believers and the disbelievers.’
Tuesday, Dec. 31
Jabbar bought two coolers that he later used to conceal IEDs on Bourbon Street and drove from Houston to New Orleans – about 350 miles.
During the journey, he posted five videos about the attack and his motive to Facebook, Raia said.
In the first video, posted at 1:29 a.m., Jabbar revealed he changed his plans in order to try and attract as much attention as possible to the crime.
BOMBMAKING MATERIALS FOUND AT NEW ORLEANS AIRBNB POTENTIALLY TIED TO BOURBON STREET TERRORIST: REPORT
Investigators block off Bourbon Street in New Orleans, Louisiana on Thursday, Jan. 2, 2024. Multiple people are dead and dozens are injured after a man drove into a crowd of New Year’s revelers on Wednesday. (Audrey Conklin/Fox News Digital)
“Jabbar explains he originally planned to harm his family and friends, but was concerned the news headlines would not focus on the, quote, ‘war between the believers and the disbelievers,’” Raia said.
Jabbar’s final video was posted at 3:02 a.m.
“Additionally, he stated he had joined ISIS before this summer,” Raia said. “He also provided a will and testament.”
Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2025
At some point before the attack, within “roughly a couple hours,” Jabbar planted at least two IEDs in the area, according to Raia. They failed to detonate due to his makeshift detonators, according to ATF Special Agent Joshua Jackson, head of the New Orleans Field Division.
Then at 3:17 a.m., Jabbar sped around a police car at the end of Bourbon Street and accelerated toward throngs of pedestrians, New Orleans police said.
He was wearing Meta glasses once again, but does not appear to have livestreamed the attack, which killed at least 14 people, and Jabbar died in a shootout with police after crashing the truck.
INVESTIGATION CONTINUES, AS FBI SAYS NO OTHER SUSPECTS INVOLVED
More than 30 other people were injured.
Investigators search the rental home used by Shamsud-Din Jabbar in New Orleans, Louisiana on Thursday, Jan. 2, 2024. Multiple people are dead and dozens are injured after Jabbar rammed his car into crowds of New Year’s revelers on Bourbon Street on Wednesday. (Kat Ramirez for Fox News Digital)
Police recovered an Islamic State group flag in Jabbar’s truck, at least three cellphones and other devices. He had planted two IEDs concealed in coolers along Bourbon Street, and authorities were able to disarm them safely.
The FBI immediately took a lead role in the investigation, city police said.
Later in the day, the FBI identified Jabbar as the suspect and released a photo. Other photos from the scene appear to show the ISIS flag mounted to the truck’s trailer hitch.
Federal investigators were looking to speak with anyone who was in the area before, during and after the attack.
“We want to talk to anyone who was in the French Quarter on New Year’s Eve or early on New Year’s Day,” Raia said. “That includes people spotted near one of the two IEDs on Bourbon Street. The IED was inside a cooler and maybe people stopped and looked at the cooler and then continued on their way.”
Investigators continue to block off Bourbon Street in New Orleans, Louisiana on Thursday, Jan. 2, 2024. Multiple people are dead and dozens are injured after a man drove into a crowd of New Year’s revelers on Wednesday. (Audrey Conklin/Fox News Digital)
He said they are not considered suspects “in any way.”
An Airbnb that may be linked to the attacker burst out in flames around 5:30 a.m., according to New Orleans’ FOX 8. Investigators said they later found bombmaking materials inside. Raia acknowledged that the FBI was searching a house with a Mandeville address for evidence in connection with the case.
“Our working theory now is that the fire started after Jabar was already deceased,” ATF Special Agent Joshua Jackson later told reporters.
He said investigators were still looking into the cause.
Police recovered a “transmitter,” two guns and shell casings from the scene where he opened fire on officers and died when they returned fire. The transmitter was part of his failed plan to detonate the cooler bombs.
OFFICIALS POSTPONE SUGAR BOWL IN THE WAKE OF APPARENT TERROR ATTACK ON BOURBON STREET
Thursday, Jan. 2
Authorities continued to release additional details about the attacker and search homes in both Houston and New Orleans.
On a call with congressional lawmakers, the FBI revealed it had no intelligence on Jabbar prior to the attack.
“The FBI on the call said that they had no knowledge of Jabbar – he was not on their radar,” Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a member of the House Homeland Security Committee who was on the call, told Fox News. “They had no intel about him. He wasn’t someone they were watching. And I think that is incredibly scary because we’ve always heard about the sleeper cells that exist in our country.”
Aerial image of New Orleans attack suspect’s home in Houston, Texas. (KRIV)
Prior to the attack, Jabbar served in the U.S. Army. He was a human resource specialist and IT specialist from March 2007 until 2015. He then continued as an IT specialist in the Army Reserve until July 2020.
More recently, he worked for Deloitte, a major international accounting firm.
Fox News’ Sarah Rumpf-Whitten, Liz Friden, Brooke Curto, Jennifer Griffin, Stephen Sorace, Aishah Hasnie, Chad Pergram and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
Read the full article from Here
Southeast
Florida couple sues fertility clinic after allegedly giving birth to someone else’s baby
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
A Florida couple is suing a fertility clinic weeks after the woman gave birth to a baby that allegedly isn’t biologically their child.
Steven Mills and Tiffany Score gave birth to a “beautiful, healthy female child” in December, but when the couple, who are both White, realized their new daughter appeared to be “racially non-Caucasian,” they ordered genetic testing that proved she wasn’t theirs, according to court documents obtained by Fox News Digital.
The lawsuit claims the Fertility Center of Orlando somehow implanted the wrong embryo in Score’s uterus five years after the couple had their embryos frozen at the clinic.
“Of equal concern to the Plaintiffs is the obvious possibility that someone else was implanted with one or more of their embryos and is pregnant with or has been pregnant with and is presently parenting one or more of their children,” the lawsuit, filed in Orange County, Florida on Jan. 22, added.
SPERM DONOR WITH HIDDEN CANCER GENE FATHERS NEARLY 200 KIDS, FAMILIES BLINDSIDED
Steven Mills and Tiffany Score holding the baby girl Score gave birth to. (MILLS SCORE FAMILY ATTORNEY MARA HATFIELD)
The lawsuit also claims that the couple has asked the clinic to no avail to help reunite the daughter Score gave birth to with her biological parents and to find out what happened to their own frozen embryos.
They also want the clinic to pay for the genetic testing of every child born whose parents had embryos implanted at the clinic in the last five years after the couple used their services.
“An intensely strong emotional bond was created on the part of Tiffany and Steven with the unborn child Tiffany carried during the nine months of her pregnancy, and despite the certain knowledge that Shea is not their genetically matched child, the emotional bond grows stronger every minute of every day that Shea remains in their care,” the lawsuit says. “They would willingly keep her in their care; however, for the sake of both Shea and her genetic parents, they recognize that Shea should legally and morally be united with her genetic parents so long as they are fit, able and willing to take her.”
Doctor removing embryo samples from cryogenic storage. (Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
At an emergency hearing on Wednesday, lawyers on both sides said that clinic had preliminarily agreed to do genetic testing, the Orlando Sentinel reported.
ROBOTS POWER BREAKTHROUGH IN PREGNANCY RESEARCH, BOOSTING IVF SUCCESS RATES
However, Francis Pierce III, a lawyer for the clinic, told the Sentinel that there are privacy issues with genetically testing other babies born to patients at the clinic.
“Patients would have to agree to be tested,” he told the newspaper. Pierce added that attorneys on both sides are working for a quick settlement.
A Florida couple is suing a fertility clinic weeks after the woman gave birth to a baby that isn’t biologically their child. (ASTIER/BSIP/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
Dr. Milton McNichol, who heads the clinic, was fined $5,000 in May 2024 after a Florida State Board of Medicine routine inspection found equipment that didn’t meet “performance standards,” and non-compliance with a risk management program, according to the newspaper.
Fox News Digital has reached out to lawyers for the clinic and McNichol for comment.
Read the full article from Here
Southeast
Father claims daughter accused of sex crimes with Florida middle schoolers is the ‘real victim’
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
A Florida woman who posed as a teenager to sexually abuse five middle school boys is “mentally defective” and is the real victim of the alleged sex crimes, her father said.
Alyssa Ann Zinger, 25, dealt with various mental disorders, including ADHD, ADD, OCD, Tourette’s syndrome and anorexia while growing up in a “good Christian home” in suburban Tampa, her father, Josh Zinger, told the California Post.
“She had a lot of problems growing up. Our daughter has been to 10 to 12 psychologists and psychiatrists throughout her life,” Zinger said.
FLORIDA INFLUENCER, 41, ACCUSED OF INAPPROPRIATELY TOUCHING, EXPOSING HERSELF TO TEENAGE SON’S FRIEND
Alyssa Zinger, 23, was out on pretrial release from a November arrest when she was arrested again last week. (Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office)
He noted that Zinger once scored a 72 on an intelligence quotient test, well below the assessment’s 100-point average.
“She’s defective — mentally defective. And do you know what that means under the law? If somebody is mentally defective and has sex with somebody, no matter their age, it’s illegal to have sex with a mentally defective person,” Zinger said.
“In all actuality, she is the victim.”
Zinger was arrested in 2023 after allegedly posing as a 14-year-old teen on social media and having dozens of sexual encounters with a boy between the ages of 12 and 15.
The boy, who Josh Zinger called “the little bastard,” seduced his daughter and took her virginity, he told the newspaper.
“That boy found her [social media] account, found her dancing like a 13-year-old on it and said, ‘Hey, girl, I’ll Uber you to my $5,000-a-month apartment — come on and hang out’,” the dad said.
FORMER TEXAS COACH ALLEGEDLY USED AI DOCUMENT TO GROOM TEEN WITH MANIPULATION TACTICS: REPORT
Alyssa Zinger, pictured in court, is accused of communicating with teenage boys via TikTok and Snapchat while claiming to be a 14-year-old homeschooled student. (FOX 13 Tampa Bay)
“And then when she got there, she never said she wasn’t 14 to him, but he knew her real age, and he knew she was mentally unstable,” Josh claimed.
He claimed that, over several months, the boy had Zinger over at his apartment and introduced her to other school-age boys, four of whom would become Zinger’s other alleged victims.
“The boy who harbored her in his house for five months, he’s the one who introduced her to his friends, and they all were like, ‘Hey, this girl is 14,’ wink, wink, high-five, high-five, ‘Your turn, bud,’” Josh Zinger said.
“There will be no plea deal. There will be no sex offender registry. She’ll get time served and adios.”
Alyssa Zinger was arrested in April 2024 after investigators allegedly identified the four other middle school victims.
Alyssa Zinger allegedly communicated with teenage boys via social media. (Matt Cardy/Getty Images)
Zinger is slated to go to trial in May.
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
She remains in jail on charges of lewd or lascivious battery, lewd or lascivious molestation, possession of child pornography, in-state transmission of child pornography by an electronic device and sexual cyber harassment, all felonies.
In addition, other inmates have treated her poorly, her father said, adding “s— in her food all the time — fingernails, hair, objects, plastic — because whoever was making her food knew who she was, and they knew that that food was going to a pedophile,” he said.
Read the full article from Here
Southeast
ICE lodges detainer for illegal immigrant accused of sexually assaulting teen
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) lodged an arrest detainer Friday against a criminal illegal alien from Egypt accused of raping a 16-year-old girl on New Year’s Eve while she was asleep in her bed in Tennessee.
Mena Mohsen Farez Nmn Awad, 31, allegedly broke into an apartment in Nashville and began sexually assaulting the victim while she was asleep in her bed next to her nephew, WSMV-TV reported.
The girl allegedly found Awad in her bed with a handgun tucked into his waistband and was sexually assaulted, the outlet reported.
She later broke free, grabbed her nephew and told Awad she would not tell anyone about the incident if he left.
CONVICTED PEDOPHILES, SEX PREDATORS ARRESTED IN MINNESOTA IMMIGRATION SWEEP WITHIN THE LAST 24 HOURS
ICE filed an arrest detainer for Mena Mohsen Farez Nmn Awad, an illegal immigrant from Egypt accused of sexually assaulting a sleeping teenage girl, authorities said. (Metro Nashville Police Department )
According to DHS, Awad has a history of violence since entering the U.S. in 2017 through the Diversity Visa program.
He was previously charged with domestic violence, intimidation, possession of a weapon, violation of a court order and vehicle theft, the agency said.
“Horrendous immigration policies allowed this monster into our country and made victims of children and families,” Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. “This child rapist was allowed into our country by the Diversity Lottery program. Secretary Noem paused the diversity lottery to ensure no more Americans are harmed by this disastrous program.”
ICE REVEALS ‘WORST OF THE WORST’ ARRESTS IN JUST ONE DAY AFTER ROUNDING UP ‘THUGS’ CONVICTED OF VILE CRIMES
Mena Mohsen Farez Nmn Awad is accused of sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl, with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement lodging an arrest detainer, according to federal authorities. (Metro Nashville Police Department )
McLaughlin added that ICE’s arrest detainer would “ensure he is not released onto our streets to victimize more children.”
According to DHS, the victim called her sister, who then contacted authorities after Awad left the residence.
Awad was later apprehended by police in Louisville, Kentucky, on Jan. 16, and was extradited to Tennessee the following week.
ICE filed an arrest detainer for Mena Mohsen Farez Nmn Awad following allegations he sexually assaulted a sleeping teenage girl in Nashville, authorities said. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
He was charged with aggravated rape with a weapon, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and aggravated burglary, DHS said.
Read the full article from Here
-
Illinois1 week agoIllinois school closings tomorrow: How to check if your school is closed due to extreme cold
-
Pennsylvania6 days agoRare ‘avalanche’ blocks Pennsylvania road during major snowstorm
-
Technology1 week agoRing claims it’s not giving ICE access to its cameras
-
Tennessee1 day agoUPDATE: Ohio woman charged in shooting death of West TN deputy
-
Movie Reviews5 days agoVikram Prabhu’s Sirai Telugu Dubbed OTT Movie Review and Rating
-
News1 week agoVideo: Jack Smith Defends His Trump Indictments During House Hearing
-
Politics1 week agoWhite House explains bruise on Trump’s hand
-
Politics7 days agoTrump’s playbook falters in crisis response to Minneapolis shooting