Security tightened as France mourns 3 killed in Nice attack
NICE, France — Mourners lit candles and prayed silently Friday to honor three people killed in a knife attack at a church, as France heightened security at potential targets at home and abroad amid outrage over its defense of the right to publish cartoons mocking the prophet of Islam.
The attacker, who recently arrived in Europe from Tunisia, was hospitalized with life-threatening wounds, and investigators in France and his homeland are looking into his motives and connections, though authorities had previously said he acted alone. Tunisian anti-terrorism authorities opened an investigation Friday into an online claim of responsibility by a person who said the attack on the Notre Dame Basilica in the Mediterranean city of Nice was staged by a previously unknown Tunisian extremist group.
From Pakistan to Russia and Lebanon, Muslims held more protests Friday to show their anger at caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad that were recently republished in a French newspaper as well as at French President Emmanuel Macron’s staunch defense of that decision and strong stance against political Islam.
Macron’s government stood firm and called up thousands of reserve soldiers to protect France and reinforce security at French sites abroad. Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said the country is “at war” with Islamist extremists, and a conservative lawmaker for the Nice region called for a “French-style Guantanamo” to lock up terrorist suspects.
Many French Muslims denounced the killings, while warning against stigmatizing the country’s peaceful Muslim majority.
While i nvestigators sought to develop a picture of the attacker, identified as Ibrahim Issaoui, they detained a second suspect, a 47-year-old man believed to have been in contact with Issaoui the night before, according to a judicial official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to be named.
Issaoui’s mother told Tunisian investigators that her son led a “normal life” for his age, drinking alcohol and dressing casually, and started praying two years ago but showed no suspicious activity, said Mohsen Dali, a spokesman at the Tunisian anti-terrorism prosecutor’s office.
He told The Associated Press that Issaoui was not flagged for radicalism and decided on Sept. 14 to emigrate illegally to Italy — after a failed first attempt — and reached Nice the day before the attack. Before Nice, Issaoui, who was born in 1999, arrived on the Italian island of Lampedusa on Sept. 20, France’s antiterrorism prosecutor said.
Dali said an online post asserted the attack was staged by a group called Al Mehdi of Southern Tunisia, previously unknown to Tunisian authorities. French authorities are not commenting on the claim.
Harassment scheme at eBay:
Two more former eBay employees have admitted to their roles in a campaign to terrorize a Massachusetts couple with threatening social media messages and disturbing deliveries of things like live spiders sent to their home.
Brian Gilbert, 52, who was senior manager of special operations for eBay’s Global Security Team, and Stephanie Stockwell, 26, a former manager of eBay’s Global Intelligence Center, pleaded guilty Thursday to charges of conspiracy to commit cyberstalking and conspiracy to tamper with witnesses.
They are among seven former eBay employees charged in the scheme to harass the couple, who authorities say published an online newsletter with articles that were critical of the company.
Euthanasia OK’d: New Zealanders voted to legalize euthanasia in a binding referendum, but preliminary results released Friday showed they likely would not legalize recreational marijuana use.
With about 83% of votes counted, New Zealanders emphatically endorsed the euthanasia measure with 65% voting in favor and 34% voting against.
The “no” vote on marijuana was much closer, with 53% voting against legalizing the drug for recreational use and 46% voting in favor. That left open a slight chance the measure could still pass once all special votes were counted next week, although it would require a huge swing.
Big vote in Texas: Texans have already cast more ballots in the presidential election than they did during all of 2016’s race — an unprecedented surge of early voting that comes as Democrat Joe Biden’s campaign is making a late push to flip what has long been the country’s largest Republican state.
More than 9 million ballots had been cast as of early Friday in the nation’s second most-populous state, exceeding its 8.9-plus million votes four years ago, according to an Associated Press tally of Texas early vote data. This year’s numbers were aided by Democratic activists challenging in court for, and winning, the right to extend early voting by one week amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Winner in Tanzania: Populist President John Magufuli has been declared the overwhelming winner of a second term amid allegations of widespread election fraud, while the ruling party won enough seats in parliament to change the constitution.
The national electoral commission late Friday said Magufuli received 12.5 million votes, or 84%, while top opposition candidate Tundu Lissu received 1.9 million, or 13%. Turnout was roughly 50%, with 14.8 million people voting after 29 million registered.
The ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi party won parliament seats in 253 of the 261 constituencies announced so far, achieving upsets in opposition strongholds by wide margins.
Some in the ruling party had called for the presidency’s two-term limit to be extended if enough parliament seats could be secured.
Extradition in Nissan case: U.S. Department of
Justice lawyers urged a judge Friday to deny a bid to block the extradition of two American men wanted in Japan for helping former Nissan Motor Co. boss Carlos Ghosn sneak out of the country in a box.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Hassink described Michael Taylor and Peter Taylor’s “eleventh-hour bid to thwart their extradition” as “meritless,” and asked the judge to allow the father and son to be handed over to Japan. The U.S. Department of State has agreed to extradite them, but a judge put a hold on it Thursday after their lawyers filed an emergency petition.
The men’s lawyers, which include former Trump White House attorney Ty Cobb, said Thursday that they are also appealing to officials within the State Department and White House to block the extradition. The lawyers were told in a letter they received this week while Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was in Asia that Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun had authorized the extradition.