For those who haven't seen it, my NYT colleagues did an outstanding project looking at FAA records, air traffic control staffing, and a series of close calls in commercial aviation.
When the budget was signed, the city was still negotiating a new contract with the firefighters’ union. After that was settled, more money was approved, so the total fire budget is now actually $53 million more than last year.
NEW: We have obtained more details about Shamsud-Din Jabbar, his descent into radicalization, and some of his final words as he drove toward his attack in New Orleans.
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In one of his final messages, Jabbar told his family: “I wanted you to know that I joined ISIS.”
Then, a chilling addendum: “I don’t want you to think I spared you willingly.” He described how he had considered a fake “celebration” for them.
Jabbar’s family members said his radicalization was a secret to them.
But they had noticed changes: He was stressed financially, upset about “genocide on both sides” in the Middle East, and expressing disgust of partying (something, we found, was once part of his life).
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We spent much of today interviewing a series of people who knew New Orleans attacker Shamsud-Din Jabbar, including his brother, who spoke to Jabbar recently.
“I would have never imagined him doing something like this,” he told us.
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There is much more detail here in this story, thanks to reporters on the ground in New Orleans and Houston, and others digging through his history on the internet and in the military.
But I’ll also thread some of the details we learned today.
NEW: We have reviewed search warrant records in the case of Idaho killings suspect Bryan Kohberger. Among items seized from his apartment:
• a black disposable glove
• possible hair strands
• computer
• items with red or brown spots/stains nytimes.com/article/univer…
Investigators said in one document they wanted to see if hair had transferred onto Kohberger and then back to his apartment. That included not only the hair of victims but the hair of Kaylee Goncalves’s dog.
One of the items collected was a “possible animal hair strand.”
Here is a list of the items seized by authorities during a search of Bryan Kohberger’s apartment.
We reviewed hundreds of messages (spanning 10+ years) from Idaho killings suspect Bryan Kohberger. In them, he describes prolonged and sometimes deep mental health struggles, along with an interest in high-profile criminals.
By 2009, at age 14, Kohberger reported struggling with a little-known neurological condition that impacts vision. He turned to a web forum for help, asking other people with the condition about feelings of hopelessness and depersonalization.
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Two years later, in 2011, Kohberger described an extensive list of struggles, including a slack of emotion, constant thoughts of suicide, and a detachment from reality that made life feel like a movie.