Terrorist Attack Kills At Least 14 People in New Orleans

Your weekly News Memo - a more human way to engage with the news...and life.

Last week we told you how we are expanding our mission at The News Memo. Thank you for the enthusiasm and kind words. Now is the perfect time to become a Premium member - the 40% off Christmas Sale ends today! Happy New Year, y’all.

---

+ GetSmart: 🐘 Baby Elephants Have a Trunk Control Problem

---

Newsbites

A Tesla Cybertruck exploded at Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas on New Year's Day that injured several people. The vehicle was filled with explosives, fireworks, and fuel tanks connected to a detonation system controlled by the driver (video). The explosion was likely intended to cause more damage but the blast went directly up in the air as the Cybertruck’s walls were able to contain the explosion. The attack came just hours after the terrorist attack in New Orleans that killed 14 people after a truck rammed into a large crowd (main story below). Officials say the man inside the vehicle was Matthew Livelsberger, 37, of Colorado. Livelsberger, who died from a self-inflicted gunshot before the explosion. He was a highly decorated Green Beret in the U.S. Army, serving since 2006.

More: Both Livelsberger and the attacker in New Orleans served at the same military base named Fort Bragg in North Carolina, but officials say at this point, there is no connection between the two attacks.

A polar vortex is expected to hit large swaths of the eastern and southeastern U.S. in the coming weeks, with freezing weather expected along the Gulf of Mexico and Florida. The National Weather Service stated "the coldest air of the season to date and dangerous wind chills are likely across many areas of the south-east". NWS predicts 17F in parts of Texas, 24F in Georgia, and -13F Minnesota.

More: A polar vortex is a large area of cold, swirling air that typically forms over the poles and can sometimes move southward.

---

Plane crash in South Korea: On Sunday, a Jeju Air flight in South Korea crashed, killing 179 passengers. Just two people survived. The Boeing 737-800 plane crashed at the Muan International Airport after returning from Thailand. Just minutes after the tower control issued a bird strike warning, the pilot responded, “Mayday, mayday, mayday, bird strike, bird strike, going around.” The plane then re-routed to land from a different direction, but upon touching down on the run-way, the landing deployment was not engaged. The plane then skidded into a concrete barrier. (video - warning, graphic)

More: Investigators from South Korea and the U.S. are looking into why the plane crashed. The potential reasons are a bird strike, plane malfunction, or a combination of multiple factors.

---

The FBI has yet to solve the case of the suspect that left two pipe bombs outside the Democratic and Republican National Committee headquarters on January 5, 2021, the day before the J6 incident at the capitol. This week the agency released new information about the suspect, including video footage and descriptions of the shoes he wore. The FBI is requesting tips from citizens and offering up to $500,000 in rewards.

---

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol resisted arrested late Thursday after authorities arrived at his residence with a warrant. Yoon refused to comply with the warrant and his security team of nearly 200 armed body guards had a roughly 6-hour standoff with authorities, who eventually left. Yoon is under investigation for multiple things, including insurrection accusations. Last month, lawmakers impeached the president for his decision to abruptly declare martial law.

More: The events over the last month have shocked many people because in contrast to its neighbor North Korea, South Korea is an economic powerhouse and has a stable political situation since it became a democracy in 1997.

---

A Complete Unknown, the new biopic about Bob Dylan, is now in theaters. It currently has 78% on Rotten Tomatoes and 7.8 stars on IMDB. (Trailer)

---

Chart of the week: Number of objects launched into space soars.

---

---

Terrorist Attack Kills At Least 14 People in New Orleans

What happened?
At 3:15 a.m. on New Year’s morning, a 42-year-old man drove a pickup truck bearing an ISIS flag into a large crowd in the French Quarter of New Orleans. 14 people were killed and dozens injured in the terrorist attack.

The attacker, named Shamsud-Din Jabbar, maneuvered around steel safety barricades and police cars, before rampaging through the crowd. The barricades, meant to protect the busy Bourbon Street filled with clubs and restaurants, were under repair before the upcoming Super Bowl next month and were not properly set up.

Following the massacre, Jabbar exited the rental truck and opened fire before being shot and killed by law enforcement. Two of the law enforcement officers were injured in the gunfire.

Officials found weapons and a bomb inside the vehicle, as well as two other potential explosives placed in the area in blue coolers designed to be detonated remotely. After assessing the other explosives, bomb technicians found them to be safe.

According to White House officials, just minutes before the attack, Jabbar posted 5 separate videos on his Facebook account pledging allegiance to ISIS and planning to make headlines to focus on the “war between the believers and the disbelievers.”

• The Sugar Bowl college playoff football game, which was supposed to be held on Jan. 1, was postponed until Jan. 2 as the city did its best to re-open and secure the terror ridden streets. New Orleans will also be the host city for the Super Bowl in just a month.

More on the attacker
Jabbar was a U.S. citizen from Texas. He served in the U.S. Army for 10 years, including a deployment to Afghanistan in 2009. Besides active duty, he then served in the Army reserves from 2015 to 2020. He also worked in business development and data engineering for the consulting firms Deloitte and Accenture.

Most recently, he was a real-estate agent based in Houston before his license expired in 2023. Jabbar posted an introduction video on YouTube in 2020 explaining why he would be a great real-estate agent and praising his military experience as a reason to pick him as a realtor.

Jabbar was twice divorced. His first wife sued him in 2012 over child support and his second wife was granted a restraining order in their divorce case in 2020 after physical threats to her and the children. Most recently, Jabbar was in financial struggle according to emails from the divorce settlements and feared foreclosure on his house.

Initial FBI response says not “terrorist attack”
In the initial press conference following the tragedy, Alethea Duncan, the FBI's assistant special agent in charge for the New Orleans district, said the following:

“This is not a terrorist event. What it is right now is improvised explosive devices that was found.” (video)

The FBI has since changed its messaging, describing the killing as “an act of terrorism.” The Bureau has also said that the attack was conducted by a lone actor and not in collaboration with other people. At this point, there is no clear evidence that the Tesla explosion at Trump hotel in Las Vegas just hours later was connected to the attack in New Orleans.

Trump responds
President-elect Trump, who is set to be inaugurated on Jan. 20, responded to the tragic news on his Truth Social account, saying:

“Our Country is a disaster, a laughing stock all over the World! This is what happens when you have OPEN BORDERS, with weak, ineffective, and virtually nonexistent leadership. The DOJ, FBI, and Democrat state and local prosecutors have not done their job. They are incompetent and corrupt, having spent all of their waking hours unlawfully attacking their political opponent, ME, rather than focusing on protecting Americans from the outside and inside violent SCUM that has infiltrated all aspects of our government, and our Nation itself.”

---

Immigration Influx Leads Census Bureau to Significantly Revise its Population Estimates

“There was a lot of migration activity at the United States-Mexico border. At that time, there was uncertainty about how many of these migrants were being allowed into the United States.” - Census Bureau blog post

When the Census Bureau released its latest U.S. population estimate in December, there was one central theme: immigration. Without immigration, the U.S. population would barely be growing. The surge in immigration over the past few years was so large that the department significantly revised its prior estimates to account for the influx.