the suspect was an us veteran. and, the local sugar bowl college football game has been postponed following the attack. and, the owner of tesla, elon musk says an explosion of one of its cybertrucks outside the trump hotel in las vegas was caused by either a bomb orfireworks — police say one person has died. we've just had an update from the new orleans coroner, who has confirmed that the number of people killed in the attack has risen from ten to 15. the man suspected of carrying out an attack on new years revellers has been identified as 42—year—old shamsud dinjabbar — a us army veteran from texas. a flag of the group calling

itself the islamic state group was found in the pick—up truck which the suspect drove into a crowd of people — the fbi has confirmed the suspect was shot dead at the scene after exchanging fire with law enforcement. the associated press also reports that authorities found guns and pipe bombs in the vehicle, according to a louisiana state police bulletin the outlet obtained. the bulletin describes devices that were concealed inside coolers and wired for remote detonation. a remote control was also discovered. the 15 people were killed after the truck hit crowds in the city. at least 35 others were injured. two officers were wounded and are being treated in hospital. the coroner says in an official statement, our heartfelt condolences are with the victims, theirfamilies condolences are with the victims, their families and everyone affected. so that death toll going from ten to

15. at least 35 other people were injured. two officers were wounded and are being treated in hospital. in these images shared by earthcam, you can see a group of police officers running toward the scene. and this picture from social media, checked by bbc verify, shows law enforcement, many heavily armed, surrounding a white pick—up truck in the aftermath of the incident. the fbi has taken over the investigation and confirmed that they're looking into this as an act of terrorism. the incident took place in the central �*french they are looking into video of people dragging explosives into position. the incident took place in the central �*french quarter�* of new orleans — a notable and busy nightlife spot — in the early hours of new year's day, local time. and, in another development, the sugarbowl american football college game between notre dame and georgia has been postponed for 2h hours. the mayor of new orleans latoya

cantrell gave this update about what's happening in the city. first and foremost, i want to express my deepest condolences to the families of the ones that were impacted by this tragedy on bourbon street, nearthe heart of the city of new orleans, and i know the entire city council grieves right along with me. no doubt about that. and our people and our families. my priority will continue to be to ensure that victims that remain on bourbon street now will be serviced and moved as soon as possible. i also want to acknowledge hearing from president biden, all of our federal partners, but most importantly, governor collin landry this morning, responding with haste. we do say thank you and

demonstration of unified support is right here. the mission now is to facilitate, support and co—ordinate safety procedures to keep our residents and our visitors safe. i've gone to the hospital along with chief kirkpatrick to visit our officers and considering their injuries, they are doing well. as i mentioned, this investigation is ongoing and the fbi remains the lead in the investigation. it is an active crime scene as well. we are committed, no doubt, to uncovering all details surrounding this tragedy. we are taking every necessary step to put even more safety

procedures in place, especially given the nature of the investigation. i'm going to ask people, do not go around our secured area if there is no essential need to do so. it matters, and again, it is an active crime scene. i also want you all to know that the greater new orleans foundation has set up a fund to assist victims and that information will be provided to you. again, i want to thank this unified team. we're leaning in, we will be relentless and we will do everything that it takes to render realjustice. this team will. i want to also thank our citizens for heartfelt prayers.

new orleans is a world—class city and i can say i've heard from world leaders all this morning and up until now in addition to my brother and sister mayors across the country. they're calling, responding and standing with the city of new orleans and what they always say and want me to reiterate — they understand the resilience of this community. we're strong in that regard and i will say second to none. with that, i'm going to turn over to our governor and as i mentioned, who has not wavered in leading and providing the necessary support and standing right here with me, and i say thank you, governor. i know the first lady is standing with us as well. thank you, madam mayor. again, i want to thank the mayor. since about 3:45, when she called me, we have all been working around the clock

to both secure the city and... again, i want to reiterate our prayers, with all who have been affected by this tragedy. i want to thank our law enforcement officers, i want to thank our medical personnel, ourfirst responders, and the new orleans police officers, who not only laid their life on the line, but were able to eliminate the threat this morning. let me say we have made public safety a state priority from day one, and i think if you look around at the people standing around, that is their commitment as well. we intend to be transparent in assisting any defects that

we intend to be transparent in assessing any defects that may exist so that we can address it. it's the only way to ensure any mistakes were made that were corrected. specifically, we have been trying and working very diligently to address concerns in preparation for the super bowl since october. it's interesting because ironically, in preparation, i intended to issue an emergency declaration tomorrow so that we could break all of our federal, state tomorrow so that we could bring all of our federal, state and local agencies to bear. but because of the events today, i have amended that emergency declaration and issued it today. again, that declaration will allow our federal state and local partners to bring all of the resources necessary to get this city safe. again, that declaration

will allow our federal state and local partners to bring all the resources necessary to get the city safe. in light of that executive order, i've also ordered the mobilization of a military police company. i've asked the general to mobilize police to assist both new orleans police and lsb and the fbi. it is important for our citizens to know that we are doing everything we can to secure their safety in this city. we want to make it clear — the superdome and the surrounding area is safe. but i've always said the safety is something always paramount to me.

should we reschedule this evening at 7:45pm? we have been in consultation with espn, with the college football playoffs, with the southeastern conference, with the university of georgia, the notre dame — all parties agree it's in the best interest of everybody and public safety that we postpone the game for 2h hours. work is fast about to set up a safe and efficient funding a safe and efficient fun environment for tomorrow night. there'll be more details of the coming hours, but for now, that's the plan. we're going to move forward and play the game and we reiterate our thanks to everyone up here for the important work they are doing. we live in a fun and games world. but we certainly recognise the importance of this and we're going to support it 100%.

thank you. can i bring up senator kennedy? i wish i understood . better why bad things happen to good people. if i make it to heaven, i'm going to ask. - for those people who don't believe in objective evil, i all you have to do is look. at what happened in our city early this morning. lam... if this doesn't trigger the gag reflex of every american, - every fair—minded american, i would be very surprised. i i'm here because these are my people. -

are my people's friends. i'm here because there. are a lot of louisianeans who are scared tonight. i don't want them to be. there's a lot of _ information going around. some of it is actually true. some of it isn't. the federal government is now in charge of- this investigation. by that, i mean the white - house, the fbi, the department of homeland security- and the department ofjustice. i have not talked to the fbi. maybe they've spoken to my staff. _ i don't know. i did talk to the secretary of homeland security- a little while ago. i told him with all the respect i can muster that we expect i to put the full force - and resources of the federal government behind

this investigation. our state troopers, - our local police departments, our sheriffs — we have many — have been terrific. _ federal government isi cooperating with them. i hope that will continue. here's what i want to ask - for the federal government — catch these people. catch these people. tell the american people the truth. | i don't want you to tell us . anything is going to interfere with the investigation. before we go into the next clip, we have a photograph of this abstract. i think we can bring that to you. it's a passport photograph i believe, and there is. this the suspect.

the fbi says a us citizen, lived in houston, in texas, an army veteran. so an american citizen and this image of him just coming into us. and a reminder that the death toll in the attack has risen from ten to 15. the new orleans coroner has released that information in the last few minutes. that picture just coming into us of the suspect. james hamilton, security expert and former fbi supervisory special agent, talked to me about the key points of the police presser. well, it's informative. and we've seen this, you know, with nidal hasan before. so the bureau is going to do their due diligence and they're

going to find anybody that he was connected to or speaking with or working with. they have a long road ahead of them, but i wasn't surprised by that information. saddened to hear it, but wasn't terribly surprised by it. when they say that they don't believe the suspect is solely responsible, is that out of an abundance of caution, or do you think they will have some solid leads to suggest that? well, certainly they're not going to rule anything out. but indication would be that they you know, he probably did have some type of help or assistance when you're talking about ieds or a rifle, 308. uh, you know, that type of planning would indicate there's probably someone who knew of what was going on. and so they're going to, you know, leave no stone unturned looking. it's going to be a long, long time for them. uh, you know, news may move on to something else tomorrow, but these fbi agents, evidence response teams, they're going to be working diligently for a very, very long period of time to make sure there isn't anyone else working with this individual. and potentially as an army veteran, he would have had the skills, the knowledge to be

able to potentially build these ieds, the improvised explosive devices and so forth. and depending on how sophisticated they are, you know, there's something called an ied signature when you're talking about, you know, making a bomb. so they're going to be looking at that, you know, was it sophisticated? would that, you know, be in line with this individual�*s training in the army, or would it be, a sophisticated type of device where, ok, he probably needed some help and then they're going to look even further. so again, a lot of questions still remain unanswered. and all of that explains why that big that major why that big ,that major college football game, which is a huge deal in the us, has been postponed for 2h hours. what else will the fbi be doing then in that period to try to establish some more facts around this? yeah, all of it — who is this guy? who is he talking to? when was he radicalised? who is he working with? who is he communicating with? scrubbing of every,

every device you can possibly think of. social media, phone, you name it, they're going to be digging through it, trying to figure out, you know, everything they can about this individual. was he working with others? what led to this? you know, what made him do this? this particularly, you know, at this time. and it's going to be very, very in—depth. how much of a blow, how much will it shake people to learn that this is a us born, uh, army veteran? born, uh, army veteran who is the suspect in this? well, again, we've seen it before. um, again, people will be concerned and troubled by it. of course, we never want to see a, you know, a military individual be involved in something like this. um, but not terribly surprising because it has happened, i think, completely prudent. back to your point about the game. very prudent to to go ahead and postpone that. they want to make sure that there's not others. i mean, we're talking i think the fbi, what we call an asac, what she said was there are two other ieds, so there might be more.

so obviously, they're going to be very, very prudent here and make sure that everything is safe. and that facility, um, will be to use their terms in the press conference, it will be locked down for tomorrow. but again, you know, when you're out and about on the street, you got to be vigilant. you got to pay attention. and it's going to be, you know, highly vigilant time for the conceivable future. the authorities there at that news conference looking a little bit under pressure at times, especially when it came to questions about the bollards or wedges. they've been discussed at length today. and one of the reporters was asking, was someone getting on the sidewalk, which this suspect did, and getting around any security measures considered impossible. i don't think the police officer at that point was able to answer that question. i think the governor sort of stepped in and said, "look, we will, you know, bring you more details when we have them." what are your thoughts on that? i mean, is it does it look as far as you can tell that the authorities had taken reasonable security measures? and what sort of state of alert

would new orleans have been under before this happened? it sounds like they did. and obviously they're, you know, you heard them saying that they were concerned that some of the ballers, that they were concerned that some of the bollards, i think the word they used was deficient, was the word they use, and they apparently got some money to, you know, for infrastructure for the super bowl. and they had acknowledged there was a concern by parking the vehicle there. but as far as them going up on the sidewalk, you know, could that have been done? sure. um, obviously it looks like in this case maybe that's what this individual did. but even if they had blocked that off and they're still pedestrian access, he could have got out with that rifle and done a considerable amount of damage also. this is just part of living in a free society. we are going to have and we have had issues like this in the past. and, you know, we will see them again in the future. it is very difficult to stop these types of attacks.

you know, ithink, you know, kudos to the police officers once the individual, you know, did what he did and then he engaged them, they engaged him back and the subject's dead. and so, you know, that shows a lot of courage, but again, very, very difficult to stop these types of attacks. it looks like they had a plan for it. but again, i'm sorry to hear the bollards weren't working, but they did have a truck across the road. again, just a tragic situation. let's turn now to las vegas for more on the news that a tesla cybertruck has exploded outside trump tower hotel in the us gambling resort of las vegas. one person has been killed, seven others were injured in the blast. the incident is being investigated by the fbi, while the tesla boss, elon musk, said his senior team was investigating the incident. a short time ago we had this

update on ex from elon musk in which he said... of course, this is coming only from elon musk, it's not coming from elon musk, it's not coming from the authorities, but elon musk is saying that this was caused by large, very large fireworks and/or a bomb. the police have been talking about this incident, it happened around 8:40am local time las vegas, and we heard from the las vegas metropolitan police department sheriff. he said it had pulled up to the main entrance, front entrance of the trump building at 8:40am, local time. he said police were mindful of the new orleans attack that it occurred in the early hours of wednesday. i

think we can bring you a clip now of las vegas police and talking about this incident. we received a report of an explosion and fire at the trump towers, the iconic hotel you see behind me. we were told that a 2024 cyber truck pulled up that a 2024 cyber truck pulled up to the front of the hotel and it can pulled right up to the glass entrance doors of the hotel. we saw that smoke start showing from the vehicle and then a large explosion from the truck occurs. there is one deceased individual in the cyber truck, and i don't know whether it's a male or female at this time. we are investigating leads and i'm not prepared to release that information to you as of yet. we can tell you, there are seven victims, right now, that

sustained injuries from the explosion. all of those have been reported to me at this point as minor injuries. the trump organisation said the safety of its guests was its top priority. this worker caught fire outside the trump hotel in las vegas early in the morning local time, killing the person inside, injuring we think seven others, although those injuries reported to be minor. this is on the iconic las vegas boulevard, so the police there in the city said they were taking all the precautions they needed to keep the community safe. they also added that they were looking for secondary devices as well, but did say there didn't appear to be any

further threat to the community. eric trump, one of president—elect donald trump's sons, also posted on x, at that point he was saying earlier today, a reported electric vehicle fire occurred at the entrance of trump las vegas. but according to what elon musk, the boss of tesla is saying, if we look again at his tweet, he is saying that this was caused by large fireworks, very large fireworks and/or a bomb inside the car. he said it was nothing to do the car itself. we haven't had any confirmation of that from the authorities, though. but he is saying that it was caused by a very large fireworks and/or explosives. this is the scene live now in las vegas. another investigation happening in a us

city as the, of course, police in new orleans investigate the attack there which has now killed 15 people. our colleagues in washington will bring you all the latest through the coming hours here on bbc news. sumi somaskanda is there to keep you right up to date, but from me and the team in london, thanks for watching. do stay with us here on bbc news. hello. the new year didn't get off to the best of starts weather—wise. some parts of the uk had strong winds, heavy rain and flooding and with that rain clearing away, we've been ushering in some colder air. so frost and ice to start thursday morning, and then a day of sunny spells and some wintry showers. the satellite picture clearly shows the band of cloud that brought the heavy rain on new year's day, but then a clearance. those clear skies pushing down from the north. also a speckling of shower

clouds and this cold air digging southwards. so a widespread frost and some ice to start thursday morning. could be some slippery surfaces for the journey back to work, many places through the day, though, will see lots of blue sky and sunshine, but some wintry showers running down this east coast. some for wales, northern ireland, the odd shower for south west england and frequent snow showers in the north of scotland. further accumulations of snow are possible here. windy up towards the north and the east. a cold day i think there will be parts of scotland and the north of england that may not get up of freezing all day long. and then through thursday night, another very cold one. but this band of rain, sleet and snow pushes southwards that could give rise to some slippery surfaces again on friday morning. widely, those temperatures well below freezing. so another cold start on friday, again we'll see some spells of sunshine, perhaps a bit more cloud in the mix this time. some showers for northern ireland, wales, north—west england, the midlands. some of these actually i think falling as rain,

particularly at low levels. still a fair bit of snow in the showers across the north east of scotland where it will stay fairly windy. another cold day, and it stays cold into saturday. in fact, there could be some areas of low cloud mist and freezing fog, and if that fog lingers for a good part of the day, those temperatures really will struggle. some wintry showers up to the north. you can see confirmation of those low temperatures through the afternoon, but some wet weather pushing in from the south—west and this could cause some problems. low pressure swirling in from the south—west, some wet weather, some windy weather, but bumping into the cold air, some of us could see significant snow. uncertainty about the detail at this range, but some travel disruption is possible. it is worth staying in touch with the forecast. bye for now.

live from washington. this is bbc news. 15 people are killed after a van rammed into crowds in new orleans. the man who carried out the attack — a us army veteran from texas. an islamic state flag was found in the vehicle. police say he wasn't working alone. we do not believe shamsud dinjabbar was fully responsible. irate we do not believe shamsud din jabbar was fully responsible.— was fully responsible. we are aggressively _ was fully responsible. we are aggressively running - was fully responsible. we are aggressively running down i was fully responsible. we are i aggressively running down every was fully responsible. we are - aggressively running down every lead including those of his known associates. in the next half hour,

we'll bring you eyewitness accounts, the latest information from the city, and analysis from security experts. the man who drove into a large crowd in new orleans in the early hours of new year's day has been identified as 42—year—old shamsud dinjabbar — a us citizen and army veteran from texas. at least 15 people have died. dozens more have been injured. the attacker was killed in a shoot—out with police officers. two of those officers were injured. authorities say the attack was an act of terrorism, and jabbar wasn't the only one responsible. these images shared by earthcam, show a group of police officers running toward the scene. and this picture from social media, checked by our team at bbc verify, shows law enforcement, many heavily armed, surrounding a white pick—up truck in the aftermath of the incident. an islamic state group flag was found in the vehicle — along with potential explosive devices. local officials say that ensuring safety for all residents and tourists in the area is now a top priority.