At least 15 people have been killed and more than 30 injured after a vehicle flying an Islamic State (IS) flag drove into a crowd in New Orleans’ tourist district in the early hours of New Year’s Day.

The FBI said Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a 42-year-old US citizen from Texas, drove a Ford pickup truck into a crowd of revelers on New Orleans’ famous Bourbon Street at about 3.15am. He then got out and fired bullets at police – injuring two – before they shot him to death.

Jabbar’s truck appeared to have been rented, and agents were working to verify how he came to possess it, the FBI said. In addition to an Islamic State flag in the back, agents found weapons as well as a “potential” improvised explosive device.

At least two improvised explosive devices were planted relatively nearby but did not detonate, according to information in a bulletin distributed to senior law enforcement sources briefed on the investigation.

In brief remarks on Wednesday evening, Joe Biden said the FBI had found that “mere hours before the attack” the suspect “posted videos on social media indicating that he was inspired by Isis, expressing a desire to kill”.

Biden said the investigation was still in a preliminary stage and that the situation was “fluid”.

Biden said law enforcement was continuing to look for any connections, associations or co-conspirators. He said investigators were also probing the explosion of a Tesla Cybertruck outside Donald Trump’s hotel in Las Vegas and whether there was any possible connection with the attack in New Orleans.

Earlier on Wednesday, the FBI said it was “working with our partners to investigate this as an act of terrorism”.

The New Orleans police superintendent, Anne Kirkpatrick, said in a news conference on Wednesday morning: “It was very intentional behavior. This man was trying to run over as many people as he possibly could. He was hellbent on creating the carnage and the damage that he did.”

The attacker managed to drive his white pickup truck between the 100 and 400 blocks of Bourbon Street in the lower part of the French Quarter, which was packed with people celebrating New Year’s Eve. The area is a popular nightlife destination that attracts tourists and locals.

After driving the truck into the crowd, the attacker fired a rifle from the vehicle while wearing body armor as well as a helmet. He later jumped out of the truck and fired on police, according to the bulletin.

The bulletin said that about 30 minutes after the suspect was shot dead, investigators found a pipe bomb with nails and suspected C4 explosives inside an ice chest left near police patrol cars at the corner of Bourbon and Orleans streets, roughly three blocks from where the attack ended.

A second device was found about a block away from the first. Investigators spotted a third possible device in a purple suitcase near the corner of North Rampart Street and Esplanade Avenue, toward the upper edge of the French Quarter.

Two of the devices have been confirmed as pipe bombs concealed within coolers that were wired for remote detonation, the bulletin said. Investigators discovered a corresponding remote in Jabbar’s truck, which also had mason jars containing a clear liquid consistent with explosives.

Officers determined a fourth possible device was not explosive.

A short-term rental home linked to Jabbar – in New Orleans’s St Roch neighborhood, less than two miles from the scene of the attack – was on fire on Wednesday morning.

Officers arrived to find the home had been intentionally set on fire, the bulletin said, and – after firefighters brought the blaze under control – discovered bomb-making materials there.

Louisiana’s attorney general, Liz Murrill, told NBC Nightly News With Lester Holt that “these individuals [who] had rented the house were using it for that purpose”.

The FBI said on Wednesday it did not believe Jabbar was “solely responsible” for the deadly attack and asked the public for help in tracking down associates.

The bulletin said surveillance camera footage showed three men and a woman planting one of the explosive devices. But CNN later reported that investigators had since ruled out those people as having anything to do with planting the devices.

Meanwhile, a second car near the attack is drawing focus. Security cameras owned by New Orleans’ city government identified one car in particular that was following the truck with which Jabbar carried out the attack, according to the intelligence bulletin. The bulletin said both the truck and that second car shared a link: each was owned by a Texas resident who previously lived in the New Orleans suburb of Harvey, and both were rented out. Police descended on the owner’s address in Harvey but did not find him there, the bulletin said. ABC News reported speaking to the owner, who described having spoken with the FBI.

The Houston news station KPRC2 reported drone video showing a man at a home connected to Jabbar surrendering to authorities. Earlier, the FBI said agents in Houston were “conducting law enforcement activity” at an area in the north part of the city in connection with the attack in New Orleans.

Jabbar served in the US army for 13 years, according to army officials. He was a human resource specialist and information technology specialist from 2007 until 2015. He then joined the army reserve as an IT specialist where he served until 2020, including as a staff sergeant, an army official said. He also deployed to Afghanistan from February 2009 to January 2010.

In August 2004, before his army service, Jabbar enlisted in the navy, but he was discharged a month later, a navy official told Reuters. NBC reported that he did not attend recruit training in the navy and thus did not serve.

In a a social media video touting a real estate business for which he worked after the military, Jabbar recounted how he had grown up in Beaumont, Texas – about an hour east of Houston – and had remained there most of his life until he joined the military.

In the footage, he said his military experience enabled him to be “a fierce negotiator” for his real estate clients, among other things.

Jabbar graduated with a computer information systems degree from Georgia State University after studying there from 2015 to 2017, school officials told Atlanta News First. Corporate records show that Jabbar got involved in a series of real estate businesses in recent years.

The consulting firm Deloitte issued a statement saying Jabbar had “served in a staff-level role” there since being hired in 2021.

“We are shocked to learn of reports today that the individual identified as a suspect had any association with our firm,” Deloitte’s statement said. “Like everyone, we are outraged by this shameful and senseless act of violence and are doing all we can to assist authorities in their investigation.”

Online Texas criminal court records show Jabbar had relatively minor offenses in his past, including a misdemeanor theft and driving with an invalid license before his military service.

The New York Times reported he was twice divorced. And in 2022, during the second divorce, he reportedly wrote an email complaining that he needed to settle the divorce because he could not afford to make his house payment otherwise.

The Times reported speaking to the new husband of Jabbar’s second ex-wife, Nakedra Charrlle. Charrlle’s husband, Dwayne Marsh, said Jabbar – who had two daughters with Charrlle – had converted to Islam at some point and more recently started acting “all crazy, cutting his hair”. Marsh said he and Charrlle eventually stopped allowing her daughters – ages 15 and 20 – to spend time with Jabbar and that each of them were “a mess” after the attack.

In an evening update, the New Orleans coroner said the death toll from Wednesday’s attack stood at at least 15.

Local media identified the first known fatalities as Nikyra Cheyenne Dedeaux, 18, who had traveled to New Orleans from nearby Gulfport, Mississippi, with a cousin and a friend; Reggie Hunter, a 37-year-old father of two from Baton Rouge, Louisiana; and Tiger Bech, a 27-year-old Lafayette, Louisiana, native and former football player. A fourth victim was named as Nicole Perez, a 28-year-old mother and delicatessen manager from Metairie, Louisiana, who was celebrating the new year with friends.

The New Orleans police chief said the two police officers who had been shot were in stable condition at New Orleans’ University medical center. The police chief said most of the injured were believed to be local residents, and not visitors.

As the sun began to rise over the city on New Year’s Day, law enforcement from a number of agencies had swarmed across the city’s French Quarter. Much of Bourbon Street was blocked off as police checked the area for secondary devices.

New Orleans’ government for years has been using bollards meant to prevent motorists from driving up Bourbon Street at particularly crowded times, including for major celebrations like New Year’s. But those bollards were down for repairs at the time of Wednesday morning’s attack.

At the intersection of Bourbon Street and Canal Street, usually a bustling tourist hub, dozens of city police cars lined the streets. Yellow police tape was wrapped around the main drag and three white vans from the parish coroner’s office were parked parallel, near where the attack took place.

One resident, who did not want to give his name, had been asleep at his home nearby when the attacks began and said he awoke to “screams of terror” and shouts of “no!”

Jay McGuffey, 28, told the Guardian she had been visiting the city from Mississippi and had been in a nightclub on Bourbon Street when the incident took place.

“We were just having fun, celebrating New Year’s, and then they told us to get out ’cause somebody had got shot. Then we heard that a truck had been through here, and 15 people had been shot,” McGuffey said.

The witness added that she had not been allowed into her hotel because there were still bodies on the ground. “How did this happen? There are like 100 cops out here,” she said.

A security camera video directed at Canal Street captured the truck at the center of Wednesday’s attack approaching Bourbon Street, which was blocked off by a police patrol cruiser. The truck turned right, went around the front of the cruiser, climbed the sidewalk and then sped up on Bourbon Street – seeming to hit people before vanishing from view of the camera, according to video of the footage circulating later on Wednesday.

CNN quoted a witness, Kevin Garcia, 22, as saying: “All I seen was a truck slamming into everyone on the left side of Bourbon sidewalk.

“A body came flying at me,” he said, adding that he had also heard gunshots.

New Orleans has postponed the Sugar Bowl, a major college football game between the University of Georgia and the University of Notre Dame originally scheduled for Wednesday evening, to Thursday. The city is also preparing to host the NFL’s Super Bowl on 9 February.

The city hosted a parade on Tuesday ahead of the Sugar Bowl, and according to CNN, the New Orleans police department had said it would be staffed “at 100%” during the festivities.

The victims of the New Year’s Day attack in New Orleans include an 18-year-old aspiring nurse, a 37-year-old father of two and a 27-year-old former football player.

Authorities have not yet released the names of those killed in the suspected terrorist attack, which claimed at least 15 people, but details began to emerge in local media on Wednesday as family members spoke out.

A fast-moving vehicle ploughed into the crowds of revelers celebrating the first hours of 2025 early on Wednesday morning. The gunman driving the vehicle also exchanged fire with police, before officers shot him dead.

The attacker has been named as Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a 42-year-old veteran from Texas. In addition to the 15 fatalities, dozens more people were injured, officials said.

Local media in New Orleans identified the first known victims, including a Nikyra Cheyenne Dedeaux, 18, who had traveled to New Orleans from nearby Gulfport, Mississippi, with a cousin and a friend; Reggie Hunter, a 37-year-old father of two from Baton Rouge, Louisiana; and Tiger Bech, a 27-year-old Lafayette, Louisiana, native and former football player. A fourth victim was named as Nicole Perez, a 28-year-old mother and delicatessen manager from Metairie, Louisiana, who was celebrating the new year with friends.

Nikyra Cheyenne Dedeaux graduated from Harrison Central high school in Gulfport in 2024 and was due to start a nursing program at Blue Cliff College later this month.

Melissa Dedeaux, her mother, told Nola.com: “She was the sweetest person. She would give you anything, anything.” She said her daughter had apparently been hit by the speeding truck after running at the sound of gunfire.

“Cheyenne was a very smart and outgoing girl,” she added. “She’s never gotten into any trouble.”

After finishing work on New Year’s Eve, Hunter decided to head to Bourbon Street “on a whim” to celebrate the new year with a cousin, Shirell Jackson, his family told Nola.com.

According to the outlet, Bech was hit by the suspect’s truck, said Kim Broussard, the athletic director at St Thomas More Catholic high school, where he played football before going on to play for Princeton University.

He graduated from Princeton in 2021 and worked as a trader at a New York brokerage firm, according to Broussard.

The silence on Bourbon Street told much of the story.

At the intersection that marks the centre of New Orleans’s noisy tourist hub, lined with tall palm trees and towering hotels, the quiet on the morning of New Year’s Day was broken only by yellow police tape fluttering in the light breeze and the occasional blare of sirens echoing on the road.

Just a few hours earlier the road had been lined with hundreds of revellers from across the country, young and old, celebrating the new year when around 3am the crowd was targeted in a suspected act of terrorism. A vehicle had plowed into the throngs and a gunman exchanged fire with police, leaving at least 10 people dead and dozens injured. Bleary-eyed witnesses said they had heard the loud popping of gunshots, screams of terror and bodies on the ground.

As the sun rose on New Year’s Day, 28-year-old Casey Kirsch stood at the crime scene perimeter hoping to retrieve his father-in-law’s wheelchair, which had been left behind in the chaotic aftermath. Kirsch had come to New Orleans from Pittsburgh to celebrate the new year with his family, but instead spent the early hours of 2025 frantically trying to ascertain his father-in-law, Jeremi’s, whereabouts.

“We couldn’t get a hold of him and started calling the hospitals,” Kirsch recalled.

They eventually found out he had been injured in the attack and was probably in need of surgery. The magnitude of it all had hardly settled.

“It’s just always disheartening to see something senseless like this,” Kirsch said. “Why? I don’t really understand it.”

His friend, Michael Kroger, 27, had been on the intersection, populated with strip clubs and famed cocktail bars, two hours before the attack.

“There were families out in the street,” he said. “There were fathers with their kids on their shoulders; there were teenagers walking through the street. It was lively.”

Authorities have described the attack as calculated carnage, with police sources telling the Guardian that the gunman, who has been named as Shamsud Din Jabbar according to a senior law enforcement official, arrived with body armor and a helmet. A long gun was recovered from the scene, according to reports, and two police officers were shot but remained in a stable condition. New Orleans’s police commissioner, Anne Kirkpatrick, described the attack as “intentional behaviour”.

“This man was trying to run over as many people as he possibly could.”

Jessica Tracy, a 39-year-old unhoused woman, had been a block away from the attack as it unfolded.

“I just ran,” she said. “I heard the pops and I just ran from it.”

Jay McGuffey, 28, had been partying inside a club on Bourbon Street when the attack unfolded. She was visiting the city with friends from Mississippi and told the Guardian she had been evacuated from the club and had seen bodies on the ground as she left the area.

“We were just having fun, celebrating New Year’s, and then they told us to get out cause somebody had got shot. Then we heard that a truck had been through here, and 15 people had been shot,” McGuffey said. She had not been able to return to her hotel since the attack and was still wandering the French Quarter early on Wednesday morning as police officers scoured the neighborhood.

Others had just awoken to scenes unimaginable a few hours before. Karen Arnold, 58, was visiting from Detroit and had been staying at the Crowne Plaza hotel, a few dozen meters from the intersection of the attack. She had been out partying with her friends on Bourbon Street but returned to bed at 2am. She heard sirens as she slept and woke to find three white vans from the city’s coroner’s office parked outside her hotel.

She was already packed to leave the city and stood with her friends, contemplating the bloodshed she had missed by minutes.

“I don’t understand it,” she said. “I know we don’t know the details yet, but it seems like it’s so easy for people to get guns that have mental problems and do things like this. That is what I don’t understand.”

By 9am the roads around Bourbon Street had started to creep back into life as passersby looked on in disbelief.

The silence was eventually broken by a controlled explosion that rang out from the crime scene.

Police in South Korea have raided Muan international airport, the scene of Sunday’s plane crash, in which 179 people died, as well as the office of the airline that operated the flight, media reports said.

Jeju Air flight 2216 was carrying 181 people from Thailand to South Korea when it issued a mayday call and belly-landed on the runaway, before crashing into a barrier and bursting into flames. Two flight attendant survived the crash, the worst aviation disaster on the country’s soil.

The aftermath of the crash now appears to include police involvement, with media reporting they had also raided a third location, the office of a regional aviation office, on suspicion of professional negligence resulting in death.

“In relation to the plane accident that occurred on December 29, a search and seizure operation is being conducted from 9 am on January 2 at three locations,” including Muan airport, the Jeju Air office in Seoul, plus a regional aviation office, police said in a statement.

“The police plan to swiftly and rigorously determine the cause and responsibility for this accident in accordance with the law and principles.”

The raid came as pressure built on authorities to establish the cause of the crash, which occurred after the Boeing 737-800’s landing gear apparently failed to deploy as it came in to land at Muan, in the country’s south-west, on Sunday morning.

Inspectors have retrieved both “black boxes” from the charred remains of the aircraft and are working to decode data from the cockpit voice recorder.

The plane’s flight data recorder, however, is to be transferred to the US for analysis after local officials said they were unable to extract data from the device, which had been damaged in the crash.

The government ordered an emergency safety inspection of South Korea’s entire aviation operations, while separate checks, focusing on the landing gear, are being carried out on all 101 Boeing 737-800s used by six of the country’s airlines.

The interim president, Choi Sang-mok, said “immediate action” must be taken if the inspections uncover any irregularities with the aircraft.

“As there is great public concern about the same aircraft model involved in the accident, the transport ministry and relevant agencies must conduct a thorough inspection of operation maintenance, education, and training,” Choi said on Thursday.

“If any issues are found during the inspection, please take immediate corrective action.”

The investigation has yet to determine why the landing gear appeared to fail, with a bird strike and mechanical failure among the possible causes.

It is also focusing on a concrete barrier whose location near the end of the runway has drawn criticism from aviation experts. The passengers are thought to have died when the plane smashed into the barrier at high speed, burst into flames and broke apart.

Relatives of the victims, who include five children aged under 10 and nine members of the same family, were allowed to visit the site on Wednesday for the first time since the crash.

They placed tteokguk – rice-cake soup traditionally eaten on New Year’s Day – and cried as they said goodbye to their loved ones.

Hundreds of people waited patiently pay their respects at a nearby memorial altar set up to honour the victims, forming a queue that stretched for several hundred metres. Other altars have been set up across the country.

One person died and seven others were injured after a Tesla Cybertruck packed with fireworks exploded outside president-elect Donald Trump’s Las Vegas hotel on Wednesday, with officials saying they were investigating potential motives for the incident.

Las Vegas police said that one person died inside the futuristic-looking pickup truck, which also contained camp fuel canisters, while seven people nearby suffered minor injuries.

“This is a Tesla truck, and we know that Elon Musk is working with president-elect Trump, and it’s the Trump Tower,” police department sheriff Kevin McMahill said when reporters asked about possible political connections.

“So there’s obviously things to be concerned about and it’s something we continue to look at.”

McMahill said that authorities knew the identity of the person who rented the truck using the Turo app in Colorado, but were not releasing the name until investigators determine if it was the same person who died.

Video presented at an afternoon news conference showed a tumble of charred fireworks mortars, cannisters and other explosive devices crowded into the back of the pickup. The truck bed walls were still intact because the blast shot straight up rather than to the sides.

McMahill said video captured at Tesla charging stations provided by Musk helped authorities track the vehicle’s journey. The vehicle arrived in Las Vegas at about 7.30am then drove about an hour later into the valet area of the Trump International Hotel, where it sat for 15 to 20 seconds before the explosion occurred.

Authorities on Wednesday were still working to get the body out of the vehicle and start processing the evidence inside.

“Our number one goal is to ensure that we have the proper identification of the subject involved in this incident,” said Jeremy Schwartz, acting special agent in charge of the FBI’s Las Vegas office. “Following that, our second objective is to determine whether this was an act of terrorism or not.”

The truck explosion came hours after a driver rammed a truck into a crowd in New Orleans’ famed French Quarter early on New Year’s Day, killing at least 15 people before being shot to death by police. That crash was being investigated as a terrorist attack and police believe the driver was not acting alone.

US president Joe Biden said on Wednesday that law enforcement was investigating whether there were any links between the New Orleans truck and the Tesla explosion.

Shortly after the incident, Musk said on X, which he also owns, that “the whole Tesla senior team” was investigating what happened and “we’ve never seen anything like this.” His remarks included another post referring to a “detonation” when the car exploded.

Musk later posted again, saying: “We have now confirmed that the explosion was caused by very large fireworks and/or a bomb carried in the bed of the rented Cybertruck and is unrelated to the vehicle itself.”

He subsequently speculated that the incident was “likely to be a terrorist attack” and posed a question about whether there was a link with the New Orleans mass killing, which the authorities have said they are treating as a terrorist incident.

There had been no official, public confirmation of any links to terrorism early on Wednesday evening.

Musk became a prominent supporter and donor to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign this year. He shook things up when he began appearing at the Republican’s election rallies in the fall and was treated like a superstar by Trump, then became a close adviser to the president-elect after Trump beat the Democratic nominee, Kamala Harris, in November. Harris had taken over from Biden when the latter dropped out of his re-election race in the summer.

Trump named Musk as joint head of a newly-created entity called the “department of government efficiency” that will seek to cut costs from the federal government machinery once the new administration is sworn in on 20 January.

The controversial decision has brought questions about potential conflicts of interest and national security concerns regarding Musk’s US and global business interests and federal government business. There is very little detail about the planned structure or constitutional foundation of creating such a “department”.

A county spokesperson said in a statement that the fire in the valet parking area of the Trump International Hotel Las Vegas was reported at 8.40am local time.

No cause was given and details were minimal.

In Las Vegas, witness Ana Bruce, visiting from Brazil, said she heard three explosions.

“The first one where we saw the fire, the second one, I guess, was the battery or something like that, and the third was the big one that smoked the entire area and was the moment when everyone was told to evacuate and stay away,” Bruce said.

Her travel companion, Alcides Antunes, showed video he took of flames lapping the sides of the silver-colored vehicle.

Eric Trump, a son of the president-elect and executive vice-president of the Trump Organization, posted about the fire on the social media platform X. He praised the fire department and local law enforcement “for their swift response and professionalism”.

The 64-story hotel is just off the famed Las Vegas Strip and across the street from the Fashion Show Las Vegas shopping mall.

The Associated Press contributed reporting

The Swiss socialite and cosmetic surgery aficionado Jocelyne Wildenstein, sometimes known as “Catwoman” due to her extensive plastic surgery, has died, her partner said on Wednesday.

“It is with heavy heart and with great sadness that Mr Lloyd Klein announces the unexpected death of his beloved fiancée and longtime companion, Jocelyne Wildenstein,” the fashion designer said in an English-language statement sent to the Agence France-Presse news agency.

Klein said that “Mrs Wildenstein died peacefully in her sleep in the late afternoon of December 31st, 2024 in her … suite in Paris where the couple had taken temporary residence.”

Wildenstein, nee Jocelynnys Dayannys da Silva Bezerra Périsset, became a New York socialite after marrying the art dealer Alec Wildenstein, of the French art dealing and thoroughbred racing dynasty, with whom she had two children.

She was referred to variously as Jocelyne and Jocelyn in the English-language media. She was born in 1940 in Lausanne, Switzerland, and died on 31 December at the age of 84.

It was Wildenstein’s extensive self-remodeling to make herself look more “feline”, inspired by wild big cats – along with a reported $2.5bn divorce settlement and $100m each year for 13 years afterward – that caught the public’s attention.

She had spent time in Africa with the European film-maker Sergio Gobbi , telling New York magazine: “Africa is a paradise. You meet people who look at life differently. They love the adventure.”

She had met her husband, Alec Wildenstein, while on safari in Kenya and married him a year later in Las Vegas. Then Wildenstein embarked on a cosmetic adventure to look more like a big cat.

According to the Daily Mail, she spent £2m on surgeries, apparently to please her husband, who loved the big cats. She kept a lynx as a pet, telling Vanity Fair “the lynx has perfect eyes”.

But her husband told Vanity Fair: “She was crazy. I would always find out last. She was thinking that she could fix her face like a piece of furniture. Skin does not work that way. But she wouldn’t listen.”

But a messy divorce came with rumours spread by her ex-husband that she had been a courtesan with Madame Claude, the Parisian bordello owner. During the divorce, he was reported to have cut her monthly allowance from $150,000 to $50,000.

A judge overseeing her divorce settlement reportedly stipulated that she could not use any of the settlement for further surgery.

“I never wanted to change my face,” she told the French television news channel C8 this autumn, though admitting she might have wanted her lips to be a little thicker.

She denied rumours she embarked on cosmetic surgery to keep her ex-husband.

Interview magazine last remarked that Wildenstein had “been one of the jet set’s most outrageous characters for nearly five decades”. In a conversation with the outlet, Wildenstein estimated that she spent more than $700,000 a year on food, wine, flowers, pills and more, adding “and that was just the beginning”.

Where some saw extremism, others saw beauty.

“I remember seeing you once at Beige [a legendary Tuesday-night party at the Bowery Bar and Grill in New York City]. It was burned into my brain forever because the glamour was turned up so high,” wrote the editor and interviewer Mel Ottenberg.

Ottenberg asked Wildenstein about her love of big cats. She explained there were 2,000 animals at Ol Jogi [the Wildenstein family ranch in Kenya] under protection.

“We have everything except lions, because they would kill what we are trying to protect,” she said. Asked for her favourite animal, she said she liked all animals, but settled on the leopard, saying it was because they become attached to only one person.

“Leopards are jealous,” she said.

Wildenstein said that huge press attention based on her appearance had usefully kept her in the public eye during her divorce.

“Journalists can say whatever they like … it’s really not my problem.”

AFP contributed reporting

The Swiss socialite and cosmetic surgery aficionado Jocelyne Wildenstein, sometimes known as “Catwoman” due to her extensive plastic surgery, has died, her partner said on Wednesday.

“It is with heavy heart and with great sadness that Mr Lloyd Klein announces the unexpected death of his beloved fiancée and longtime companion, Jocelyne Wildenstein,” the fashion designer said in an English-language statement sent to the Agence France-Presse news agency.

Klein said that “Mrs Wildenstein died peacefully in her sleep in the late afternoon of December 31st, 2024 in her … suite in Paris where the couple had taken temporary residence.”

Wildenstein, nee Jocelynnys Dayannys da Silva Bezerra Périsset, became a New York socialite after marrying the art dealer Alec Wildenstein, of the French art dealing and thoroughbred racing dynasty, with whom she had two children.

She was referred to variously as Jocelyne and Jocelyn in the English-language media. She was born in 1940 in Lausanne, Switzerland, and died on 31 December at the age of 84.

It was Wildenstein’s extensive self-remodeling to make herself look more “feline”, inspired by wild big cats – along with a reported $2.5bn divorce settlement and $100m each year for 13 years afterward – that caught the public’s attention.

She had spent time in Africa with the European film-maker Sergio Gobbi , telling New York magazine: “Africa is a paradise. You meet people who look at life differently. They love the adventure.”

She had met her husband, Alec Wildenstein, while on safari in Kenya and married him a year later in Las Vegas. Then Wildenstein embarked on a cosmetic adventure to look more like a big cat.

According to the Daily Mail, she spent £2m on surgeries, apparently to please her husband, who loved the big cats. She kept a lynx as a pet, telling Vanity Fair “the lynx has perfect eyes”.

But her husband told Vanity Fair: “She was crazy. I would always find out last. She was thinking that she could fix her face like a piece of furniture. Skin does not work that way. But she wouldn’t listen.”

But a messy divorce came with rumours spread by her ex-husband that she had been a courtesan with Madame Claude, the Parisian bordello owner. During the divorce, he was reported to have cut her monthly allowance from $150,000 to $50,000.

A judge overseeing her divorce settlement reportedly stipulated that she could not use any of the settlement for further surgery.

“I never wanted to change my face,” she told the French television news channel C8 this autumn, though admitting she might have wanted her lips to be a little thicker.

She denied rumours she embarked on cosmetic surgery to keep her ex-husband.

Interview magazine last remarked that Wildenstein had “been one of the jet set’s most outrageous characters for nearly five decades”. In a conversation with the outlet, Wildenstein estimated that she spent more than $700,000 a year on food, wine, flowers, pills and more, adding “and that was just the beginning”.

Where some saw extremism, others saw beauty.

“I remember seeing you once at Beige [a legendary Tuesday-night party at the Bowery Bar and Grill in New York City]. It was burned into my brain forever because the glamour was turned up so high,” wrote the editor and interviewer Mel Ottenberg.

Ottenberg asked Wildenstein about her love of big cats. She explained there were 2,000 animals at Ol Jogi [the Wildenstein family ranch in Kenya] under protection.

“We have everything except lions, because they would kill what we are trying to protect,” she said. Asked for her favourite animal, she said she liked all animals, but settled on the leopard, saying it was because they become attached to only one person.

“Leopards are jealous,” she said.

Wildenstein said that huge press attention based on her appearance had usefully kept her in the public eye during her divorce.

“Journalists can say whatever they like … it’s really not my problem.”

AFP contributed reporting

At least 10 people, including two children, were killed and four others were wounded in a shooting on Wednesday that followed a bar brawl in a western Montenegrin city, officials said.

Police identified the attacker as 45-year-old Aco Martinović. The country’s interior minister, Danilo Saranovic, later told state broadcaster RTCG, that the gunman died from injuries en route to hospital after shooting himself.

The gunman killed the owner of the bar in the city of Cetinje, the bar owner’s children and his own family members, Šaranović, said at a news conference.

“The level of rage and brutality shows that sometimes such people … are even more dangerous than members of organised criminal gangs,” he said.

Martinović was at the bar throughout the day with other guests when the brawl erupted, said police commissioner Lazar Scepanovic. He said that Martinović then went home, brought back a weapon and opened fire at about 5.30pm.

“He killed four people at the bar, and then continued shooting at three more locations, said Scepanovic. “He tried to take the lives of four more people, and then fled with the vehicle he was using, which we have found.”

He said that the suspect received a suspended sentence in 2005 for violent behaviour and has appealed his latest conviction for illegal possession of weapons. Montenegrin media have reported that he was known for erratic and violent behaviour.

The president, Jakov Milatović, said he was “shocked and stunned” by the tragedy. “Instead of holiday joy … we have been gripped by sadness over the loss of innocent lives”, he said on X.

The prime minister, Milojko Spajić, went to the hospital where the wounded were being treated and announced three days of mourning.

“This is a terrible tragedy that has affected us all,” he said. “All police teams are out.”

Montenegro, which has a population of about 620,000, is known for its gun culture and many people traditionally have weapons.

Wednesday’s shooting was the second firearms rampage over the past three years in Cetinje. An attacker also killed 10 people, including two children, in August 2022 before he was shot and killed by a passerby.

RTCG, which published Martinović’s photo on its website, reported that he was known for erratic behaviour and had been detained in the past for illegal possession of weapons.

The report said he went home to get his gun and came back to the bar where he opened fire and killed and wounded several people. He then went to another site where he killed the bar owner’s children and a woman, the report added.

Police appealed to residents to remain calm and stay indoors, ruling out a clash between criminal gangs.

Chinese government hackers breached the US Treasury office that administers economic sanctions, the Washington Post reported on Wednesday, identifying targets of a cyber-attack Treasury disclosed earlier this week.

The Treasury letter earlier this week said hackers compromised third-party cybersecurity service provider BeyondTrust and accessed several employee workstations and unclassified documents.

Citing unnamed US officials, the Washington Post said hackers compromised the Office of Foreign Assets Control and the Office of Financial Research and also targeted the office of US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.

The department earlier this week disclosed in a letter to lawmakers that hackers stole unclassified documents in a “major incident.” It did not specify which users or departments were affected.

The Washington Post quoted its sources as saying that a top area of interest for the Chinese government would be Chinese entities that the US government may be considering designating for financial sanctions.

Asked about the paper’s report, Liu Pengyu, spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington, said the “irrational” US claim was “without any factual basis” and represented “smear attacks” against Beijing.

The statement said China “combats all forms of cyber-attacks” and did not directly address the Washington Post’s reporting on specific targets. The Treasury Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the newspaper report.

Chinese firms, individuals and entities have been a frequent target for US sanctions, which Washington has used as a key tool in its foreign policy towards Beijing.

The hack comes amid reports that Chinese state-sponsored actors also breached three of the largest US telecommunications companies earlier this month. During that breach, called Salt Typhoon, cybercriminals were able to gain access to lawmakers’ phone calls and text messages. Lawmakers across the political spectrum condemned the hack.

The United States considers China’s its biggest foreign policy challenge, and last month Yellen told Reuters that Washington would not rule out sanctions on Chinese banks as it seeks to reduce Russia’s oil revenue and access to foreign supplies to fuel its war in Ukraine.

With Reuters

Fijian authorities are investigating allegations Virgin Australia crew were assaulted and robbed while celebrating New Year’s Eve, as a union expressed concern for their welfare.

The airline has sent support staff to Fiji amid reports three crew members were allegedly attacked while out clubbing in Nadi in the early hours of 1 January.

The crew members have since been confined to their hotel rooms near Nadi international airport, the Fiji Sun reported.

Fiji’s acting police commissioner, Juki Fong Chew, told the local newspaper officers were investigating allegations of theft and assault.

The Flight Attendants’ Association of Australia’s federal secretary, Teri O’Toole, said it appeared the airline had acted very quickly and her union was ready to assist in any way.

• Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email

However she said the union was yet to receive any official approaches for assistance.

“I believe these crew were on what we would call an overnight, so they would get to Fiji, wait and [their] flight would leave the next day,” she told AAP.

O’Toole said there had been a lot of guesswork about what had happened and urged people not to speculate on the incident and respect the crew’s privacy during the police investigation.

“This is not a very common thing but it’s not something that’s never happened before, either,” she said.

“It’s very disturbing for their friends and colleagues, everyone is very concerned for their welfare.”

The airline has confirmed an incident took place, but no further details have been provided on what happened.

Virgin staff have travelled to Nadi to provide support and family members of the affected crew are reportedly also flying to Fiji.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade was aware of the reports but unable to provide further comment, a spokesperson said.

The Australian government advises to exercise normal safety precautions when travelling to Fiji – the lowest of four official risk ratings.

“Crime in Fiji includes robbery, theft, violent assault, sexual assault and home invasions,” the Smart Traveller website states.

“Most crime is opportunistic. The highest risk is in urban areas and at night.”

Fijian authorities are investigating allegations Virgin Australia crew were assaulted and robbed while celebrating New Year’s Eve, as a union expressed concern for their welfare.

The airline has sent support staff to Fiji amid reports three crew members were allegedly attacked while out clubbing in Nadi in the early hours of 1 January.

The crew members have since been confined to their hotel rooms near Nadi international airport, the Fiji Sun reported.

Fiji’s acting police commissioner, Juki Fong Chew, told the local newspaper officers were investigating allegations of theft and assault.

The Flight Attendants’ Association of Australia’s federal secretary, Teri O’Toole, said it appeared the airline had acted very quickly and her union was ready to assist in any way.

• Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email

However she said the union was yet to receive any official approaches for assistance.

“I believe these crew were on what we would call an overnight, so they would get to Fiji, wait and [their] flight would leave the next day,” she told AAP.

O’Toole said there had been a lot of guesswork about what had happened and urged people not to speculate on the incident and respect the crew’s privacy during the police investigation.

“This is not a very common thing but it’s not something that’s never happened before, either,” she said.

“It’s very disturbing for their friends and colleagues, everyone is very concerned for their welfare.”

The airline has confirmed an incident took place, but no further details have been provided on what happened.

Virgin staff have travelled to Nadi to provide support and family members of the affected crew are reportedly also flying to Fiji.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade was aware of the reports but unable to provide further comment, a spokesperson said.

The Australian government advises to exercise normal safety precautions when travelling to Fiji – the lowest of four official risk ratings.

“Crime in Fiji includes robbery, theft, violent assault, sexual assault and home invasions,” the Smart Traveller website states.

“Most crime is opportunistic. The highest risk is in urban areas and at night.”

A woman who went missing 52 years ago has been found alive and well after police released a grainy photograph as part of an appeal, solving one of Britain’s longest-running missing person cases.

Sheila Fox, now 68, disappeared from Coventry in 1972 when she was 16. At the time, West Midlands police said she had been living with her parents and could have been in a relationship with a man. Officers said they were keeping an open mind, believing she may have moved out of the area.

On Sunday, West Midlands police launched a fresh appeal to help find Fox, releasing a photograph of her from around the time of her disappearance on their website and social media.

Within hours of it going out, members of the public had got in touch with information, and on Wednesday police officers confirmed that Fox was alive and well. They said she was living in another part of the country.

A police spokesperson said: “We are delighted to announce the conclusion of one of West Midlands police’s longest-running missing person investigations.

“A single photo of Sheila from around the time of her disappearance was found by officers investigating and published on our website and social media. Within hours of the appeal, members of the public got in touch with information which led the team to her.”

DS Jenna Shaw, from the cold case investigation team, said: “We searched through every piece of evidence we could find and managed to locate a photo of Sheila.

“We are a small team of officers and I’d like to recognise the work of DC Shaun Reeve, who managed to resolve this case with help from the public. Every missing person has a story, and their families and friends deserve to know what happened to them and, hopefully, be reunited with them.”

Russian gas has stopped flowing to Europe via Ukraine, ending a major energy route that goes back to Soviet times and had even survived three years of full-scale war between the two states.

Ukraine cut off the transit route after an agreement signed in 2019 expired in the early hours of New Year’s Day, marking a new milestone in Europe weaning itself off Russian gas supplies over the past few years, and prompting immediate power cuts for hundreds of thousand of people in a breakaway region of Moldova.

Russia’s Gazprom said in a statement that it had stopped sending gas via Ukraine as of 8am Moscow time (5am GMT) on Wednesday. Ukraine’s energy minister, German Galushchenko, called the move “historic”, while the president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, described it in a post on social media as “one of Moscow’s biggest defeats”.

Zelenskyy wrote: “When [Vladimir] Putin was given power in Russia more than 25 years ago, the annual gas pumping through Ukraine to Europe was 130+ billion cubic metres. Today, the transit of Russian gas is 0.”

The move prompted angry words from Slovakia’s prime minister, Robert Fico, who had lobbied against the decision in recent months. “Halting gas transit via Ukraine will have a drastic impact on us all in the EU but not on the Russian Federation,” he wrote on Facebook.

Elsewhere, however, there was celebration over a further step away from Russian energy dependency. Poland’s foreign minister, Radosław Sikorski, called the development “a new victory” for Europe.

The most immediate effect of the move came in the breakaway Moldovan region of Transnistria, which lost heating and hot water on Wednesday morning.

A statement on the website of Tirasteploenergo, the local energy company, said the heating cuts took effect at 7am local time (5am GMT) on Wednesday. It urged residents to dress warmly, gather family members together in a single room, hang blankets or thick curtains over windows and balcony doors, and use electric heaters.

“It is forbidden to use gas or electric stoves to heat the apartment. This can lead to tragedy,” the company said. One of its employees told Reuters by phone she did not know how long the situation would last.

Russian gas has flowed through Ukraine for decades, mainly via a Soviet-built pipeline that begins in Sudzha, a town in Russia’s Kursk region currently under the control of Ukrainian forces, and ends near Uzhhorod, on Ukraine’s western border with Slovakia.

The route was often fraught, with Russia accused of using gas flow for political blackmail over the years as its relations with Ukraine went through various crises.

A report published last month by the Center for European Policy Analysis (Cepa) claimed: “Russia has abused Ukraine and Europe’s dependence on gas supplies and transit revenues to extort political concessions, spread corruption and exert malign influence.”

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the share of Russian gas on the European market has dropped from about 35% to about 8%, as European countries sought to diversify supplies.

The Nord Stream undersea pipeline, which linked Russia and Germany without the need for transit countries, was destroyed in September 2022, with reports suggesting a Ukrainian team was behind the attack.

But Slovakia, Hungary and Austria still rely on Russian gas, and even as war has raged in Ukraine over the past three years, the transit continued.

The gas provided revenue for both Russia and Ukraine, including hundreds of millions of euros a year in transit fees for Kyiv.

Negotiations took place last year to extend the deal, with various options suggested including a scheme for Russia and Azerbaijan to sell each other gas and brand the transit gas as Azerbaijani gas. These options were rejected by Ukraine, however, as the government decided the benefits of ending transit would outweigh the costs.

“We won’t allow them to earn additional billions off our blood,” said Zelenskyy last month. He said the only option Ukraine would consider would be if consumers deferred payment to Russia until after the end of the war, but this was never likely to be an acceptable solution for Gazprom or the Kremlin.

The only Russian gas route to Europe still in operation is TurkStream, a Black Sea pipeline that sends gas to Hungary and Serbia. According to analysts, as the Ukraine transit gas only accounted for about 5% of Europe’s gas needs, it is likely that alternative sources can be found for EU countries to make up the deficit without a significant impact on prices.

Nonetheless, the Russia-friendly leaders of Slovakia and Hungary, Fico and Viktor Orbán, have criticised the move. Slovakia has estimated that the loss of supplies through Ukraine could cost about €150m (£125m) in increased fees.

Fico travelled to Moscow last month for discussions with Putin, a rare visit for an EU leader since the start of the war. On his return, he threatened that if Ukraine did cut off Russian gas flows, Slovakia would consider cutting electricity supplies to Ukraine, which has had to resort to imports as Russia continues a targeted bombing campaign against the country’s energy infrastructure.

“We are fighting for lives; Fico is fighting for money,” said a furious Zelenskyy in response to the threat. “To be honest, during war it’s a bit shameful to talk about money, because we’re losing people,” he added.

Moldova faces perhaps the most difficult consequences of any European country from the end of Ukraine’s gas transit. In December, it declared a state of emergency, fearing the cut-off would affect its main electricity source, a gas-powered generating plant in Transnistria.

A referendum on EU accession in Moldova passed last year with a razor-thin majority and Russia has been accused of meddling in the electoral system. Gazprom had threatened to stop deliveries to Moldova even if a deal was done to keep the Ukraine transit going, citing a dispute over unpaid bills. On Wednesday the Moldovan government accused Moscow of “blackmail”.

However, most of Moldova’s population of 2.5 million are able to make up for the loss of Russian gas by using reserves and importing from Romania, while Transnistria, the pro-Russia breakaway region that is home to about 450,000 people, is likely to be hit hardest.

The Moldovan government spokesperson Daniel Vodă said on Wednesday that the central authorities were “looking for alternative solutions to provide [Transnistria residents] with heat and energy”.

US rapper Ice Spice, who appeared 25 minutes late to a 30-minute New Year’s Eve set in Brisbane, has been criticised for “disrespecting” Australian music fans.

Ice Spice is one of three headline acts and more than 35 artists for the travelling Wildlands festival who performed at the RNA showgrounds in the heart of the Queensland capital on 31 December, with punters paying up to $242 for the occasion.

She was slated to begin her half-an-hour show from 10.30pm with British drum’n’bass duo and fellow headliners Chase & Status to ring in the new year from the same stage with a one-hour show starting at 11.30pm.

• Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email

Gold Coast-based music podcaster and journalist Brenton Larney was in the crowd for the six-minute show.

“At 11.01pm – they gave her an extra minute … – they cut the mic and you heard the collective sigh from the crowd,” he says. “They’d been waiting for a while and they get two songs?

“So that was a bit ridiculous and it was just really disrespectful how she walked off, she was laughing they tried to give her flowers for her birthday and she just shrugged them off”.

Larney said Ice Spice appeared quiet and as if “she didn’t want to be there”.

“It was just really disrespectful to see, especially with all the cancellations and stuff we’ve had in the Australian music scene,” he said.

“It didn’t help.”

Ice Spice, whose real name is Isis Naija Gaston, was contacted through her agency.

Wildlands festival did not respond to questions but has commented on social media about the incident.

“We understand that Ice Spice’s delayed arrival caused some frustration,” the festival wrote.

“Managing a stacked festival means that we have to be extremely firm with scheduled set times. We had a strict curfew of 12:30 and needed to ensure that Chase & Status went on stage on time so you could all enjoy the NYE Countdown!”

Promoters had billed Ice Spice as “one of the world’s biggest acts of the last few years, American drill queen with a pop twist”.

She was reported to have been an hour late for another festival days earlier with Chase & Status forced to push back their set on that occasion.

She is slated to perform in Adelaide and Perth with Wildlands.

Though Larney said that may be the last she will be seen on the festival circuit in this country for some time – provided she turns up.

“I just think the one positive that is going to come out of Ice Spice pulling this type of behaviour is that I don’t think she’ll be invited back to Australia for a long time.”

Neil Young has announced that he will not perform at Glastonbury this year, saying he believes the BBC’s involvement in the festival means it is “now under corporate control”.

The 79-year-old Canadian musican wrote a letter on Tuesday on his website, Neil Young Archives, detailing why he and his band the Chrome Hearts were backing out of the music festival, held each year at Worthy Farm in Somerset.

“The Chrome Hearts and I were looking forward to playing Glastonbury, one of my all time favorite outdoor gigs,” Young wrote. “We were told that BBC was now a partner in Glastonbury and wanted us to do a lot of things in a way we were not interested in. It seems Glastonbury is now under corporate control and is not the way I remember it being.”

The BBC has partnered with the festival since 1997.

The Guardian has contacted the Glastonbury festival for comment.

Young had yet to be announced as an act at this year’s Glastonbury, though a performance with the Chrome Hearts had been rumoured. Other acts rumoured to be performing at the 2025 festival, which will take place on 27–29 June, are Olivia Rodrigo, Rihanna, Eminem, Sam Fender and Ed Sheeran.

Rocker Rod Stewart is so far the only officially confirmed act appearing at the festival, returning 23 years after his last Glastonbury performance. Nile Rodgers also accidentally confirmed that he will be performing with Chic during an acceptance speech at the Rolling Stone awards in November.

Young last performed at Glastonbury in 2009 as a headline act on the Pyramid stage, but only portions of his two-hour set were broadcast on the BBC. In response to criticism from Young’s fans, the BBC said it had “spent the last couple of months” negotiating with Young’s management about how much of his set they could broadcast.

“Neil Young’s career has been conducted on his own terms,” the broadcaster said in a statement at the time. “Neil’s management agreed to let TV and radio broadcast five songs as they watched and listened to his performance. They believe in the live event and retaining its mystery and that of their artist.”

Young was also booked to play Glastonbury in 1997, but pulled out after cutting his finger while making a ham sandwich just before the start of his European tour, saying at the time: “I’d have eaten the thing in one piece if I’d known that cutting it in half would jeopardise the tour. It’s macaroni and cheese from now on.”

Glastonbury’s headline acts tend to be announced in March, while the full lineup is usually revealed in June. Tickets for the 2025 festival sold out in just 32 minutes.

Last year, Glastonbury was headlined by Dua Lipa, Coldplay and SZA. The festival will then likely take a fallow year in 2026 to allow the land to recover.

Last year, Glastonbury organiser Emily Eavis told the BBC that fallow years are “important because it gives the land a rest, and it gives the cows a chance to be out for longer and reclaim their land. And it gives everyone time to switch off. And I think it’s quite good not to be seen to be cashing in.”