❗️ Suspected New Orleans attacker entered US from Mexico days before rampage – report

The man responsible for the car-ramming attack in downtown New Orleans allegedly entered the United States across the Mexican border near Eagle Pass just two days earlier, Fox News reports, as an unverified photo of the suspect appeared online.

After driving into the crowd, the suspect reportedly got out and opened fire on police. The brief shootout ended with the suspect being killed at the scene. Authorities confirmed that 35 injured victims were taken to five hospitals across the city.

The attack at the intersection of Bourbon Street and Canal Street left 10 people dead at the scene. The FBI has classified the crime as a terrorist attack. Police are investigating, working to identify the suspect, his motives and how he entered the country.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

❗️The New Orleans truck-ramming attack suspect has been identified as 42-year-old Shamsud Din Jabbar, according to local media. The rented truck he used reportedly contained explosives. The perpetrator allegedly had an ISIS* flag with him and was wearing full body armor.

UPD: A high-level source familiar with the investigation told Fox News that at least four to five other suspects are involved in the attack.

* Terrorist group banned in Russia

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

⚔️ Israel’s Defense Minister threatens unprecedented strikes on Gaza if hostages not released

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has warned of "blows with a force not seen in Gaza for a long time" if Hamas continues its attacks on Israel and refuses to release hostages held in Gaza.

Speaking during a visit to the southern city of Netivot, Katz stressed that Israel is willing to make significant compromises proposed by US President Biden, but will take stronger action if Hamas does not comply.

He also stated that the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) will intensify operations against Hamas positions in Gaza until the hostages are released.

Netivot was hit by rocket fire from Gaza on the night of January 1, although there were no reports of damage or casualties. Katz also called on the people of Gaza to overthrow Hamas.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

📈 Billionaires’ net worth hits $10 trillion in 2024, Musk tops the list

The world’s 500 richest people saw their wealth soar in 2024, with tech giants like Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Jensen Huang leading the charge, Bloomberg reports. Their combined net worth reached a record $10 trillion, fueled by a surge in US tech stocks.

Musk, benefiting from his close ties with President-elect Donald Trump, saw his fortune rise by $213 billion to an unprecedented $442 billion. Overall, the top billionaires saw a $1.5 trillion increase, with the “Magnificent Seven” tech stocks driving much of the market’s gains.

Trump's election also sparked a rally in digital assets, boosting crypto fortunes, including Binance's CZ which saw a 60% wealth increase.

As of January 1, the top 10 richest people were:

1. Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, SpaceX, xAI — $432 billion
2. Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon — $239 billion
3. Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta Platforms — $270 billion
4. Larry Ellison, co-founder of Oracle — $192 billion
5. Bernard Arnault, chairman and CEO of LVMH — $176 billion
6. Larry Page, co-founder of Google — $168 billion
7. Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft — $159 billion
8. Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google — $158 billion
9. Steve Ballmer, former CEO of Microsoft — $147 billion
10. Warren Buffett, chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway — $142 billion

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🔹 New Orleans attacker identified as Shamsud-Din Jabbar, FBI confirms

🔹 Fears of a new energy crisis rekindled in Europe as Ukraine halts Russian gas transit

🔹 Waterway war: Never-ending struggle for world’s strategic straits and canals

🔹 Putin and Xi lead 'new international financial architecture' through BRICS

🔹 ‘Multipolarity’ and BRICS ‘trade ethics’ are key to a WTO reboot

🔹 Fatah's journey: One movement’s struggle for the liberation of Palestine through decades

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

⚔️ Top 5 locally-made weapons shaping the Middle East conflict

The Hamas-Israel war that began in 2023 has become the deadliest chapter in the history of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and has triggered the most severe security crisis in the Middle East since the 1973 Arab-Israeli War. What locally-produced weapons stand out amid the conflict?

🔸 Yasin: This Soviet RPG-2/RPG-7-derived, domestically-made Hamas anti-tank rocket propelled grenade was introduced in 2005, and has an effective range up to 300 meters, proving a potent threat to everything from Israeli ground troops to armor up to 21 cm thick in fighting in the ruins of Gaza.

🔸 Popeye: Designed by Rafael in the mid-1980s, the Popeye is a 3,000-pound missile with a 78 km range and 340 kg blast frag or 360 kg penetration warhead. It features inertial, infrared or TV guidance. Used by Israel during last month’s strikes on Yemen, the Popeye complements the US-made heavy munitions delivered to Israel in vast quantities over the past 15 months for use in Gaza.

🔸 Palestine-2: Without a doubt the most important weapon in the Houthi arsenal for attacks on Israel, the Palestine-2 is a two-stage solid fuel missile with a 2,150 km range, 500 kg warhead, Mach 16 top speed, and reportedly, maneuverability capability. Multiple Palestine-2s have penetrated Israel’s air defenses.

🔸 Kheibar Shekan (lit. ‘Fortress Buster’): A 4.5 ton solid fuel Iranian ballistic missile with a 1,450 km range and 500 kg warhead. Used during Iran’s retaliatory attacks on Israel in April and October 2024, the Kheibar Shekan and other Iranian missiles showed beyond a shadow of a doubt that Israel’s much touted air defenses are not invincible.

🔸 ‘Hudhud’ (lit. Hoopoe’): This Hezbollah recon drone was deployed regularly over Israel over the past year to collect high-res footage on Israeli military bases for targeting by rocket fire. Information on the characteristics of the airplane-style turboprop-powered drone varies wildly, but its ability to penetrate Israeli defenses is unquestioned.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

❗️ 'We do not believe that Shamsud-Din Jabbar was solely responsible' – FBI

New Orleans FBI Assistant Special Agent Alethea Duncan called for public help to pinpoint Jabbar’s possible accomplices in her media address following a terrorist attack on Bourbon Street that left 10 people dead.

💬 "We are aggressively running down every lead, including those of his known associates," Duncan said.

Video from social media

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

📹 The moment a Cybertruck explodes near Trump Hotel goes viral on social media

New footage captures a Tesla Cybertruck exploding outside the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas on January 1.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

‘The whole Tesla senior team is investigating this matter right now’ – Musk

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has announced that the company’s senior team is investigating the Tesla Cybertruck explosion that occurred outside the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas on January 1.

💬 "Will post more information as soon as we learn anything. We’ve never seen anything like this," Musk wrote on X.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

📊 Only 16% of Germans believe Scholz to win elections – poll

🔸 Some 16% of Germans believe that incumbent Chancellor Olaf Scholz will be re-elected in the country's snap elections, while 7% believe his Social Democratic Party (SPD) will win, according to a poll conducted by INSA for the Bild newspaper.

🔸 Nearly half of respondents (49%) said they believe the opposition bloc of the Christian Democratic Union and the Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU) will take the lead in the election, with 53% believing the bloc's leader, Friedrich Merz, will become Germany's new chancellor, according to Wednesday's poll.

🔸 Some 15% of Germans believe the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) will win.

🔸 About a third (32%) of respondents refused to predict who will become the country's new chancellor, and 21% decided not to guess the winning party.

The survey was conducted from December 27 to 30 among 1,002 German citizens.

On December 27, President Frank-Walter Steinmeier formally dissolved the federal parliament less than two weeks after Chancellor Olaf Scholz lost a vote of confidence in his left-green coalition government. New elections are scheduled for February 23.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🥴 New Orleans Police failed to prevent the attack because… the terrorist just drove AROUND the barriers – statement

💬 "This particular terrorist drove onto the sidewalk and got around the hard target. We did have a car there, we had barriers there, we had officers there, and they still got around," New Orleans Police Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick excused at a briefing on Wednesday.

The bollards, installed on Bourbon Street 10 years ago, were malfunctioning and were being replaced at the time of the attack to avoid the risk of blocking passage during emergencies, New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell said.

💬 "We knew these were malfunctioning. So we did indeed have a plan, but the terrorist defeated it," Kirkpatrick lamented.

The replacement work was due to be completed in February, just in time for the Super Bowl, Cantrell claimed.

Meanwhile, the death toll in the terrorist attack has risen to 15, the FBI told Sputnik. Earlier, authorities reported that 10 people had been killed and 35 others injured in the attack.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt