介绍:
Three Americans — two of them members of the U.S. military — helped foil a shooting attack on a Paris-bound train Friday, subduing a gunman who was armed with a handgun and an automatic rifle, officials said.
The Americans were identified as Alek Skarlatos, Anthony Sadler, and Spencer Stone.
More than 550 passengers were reportedly on board the high-speed train, which was headed from Amsterdam to Paris.
Sadler told reporters at a press conference that the ordeal began after they “heard a gunshot, and we heard glass breaking behind us, and saw a train employee sprint past us down the aisle.” The three Americans then saw a gunman with an automatic rifle.
“As he was cocking it to shoot it, Alek just yells, ‘Spencer, go!’ And Spencer runs down the aisle,” Sadler told reporters. “Spencer makes first contact, he tackles the guy, Alek wrestles the gun away from him, and the gunman pulls out a box cutter and slices Spencer a few times. And the three of us beat him until he was unconscious.”
The men eventually tied up the gunman with help from another passenger.
“The gunman never said a word,” he added.
Skarlatos, a 22-year-old U.S. National Guard soldier, said that Stone, who is in the U.S. Air Force and stationed in the Azores , was injured while struggling with the gunman.
Stone was released from a French hospital on Saturday afternoon, after being treated for knife wounds[waʊnd] to his hand and neck.
He was visited in hospital by Col. Brendan McAloon, the defense attaché for the U.S. Embassy in Paris.
“I just got back from Afghanistan last month, and this was my vacation from Afghanistan,” Skarlatos added.
A spokesperson for the Oregon Military Department confirmed Skarlatos is an active member of the Oregon Army National Guard, KVAL-TV reported.
One French police official told the Associated Press that the suspect in the attack did not fire the automatic rifle, but injured one man with his handgun and a second person with a blade.
French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve Cazeneuve commended their efforts as “particularly courageous ” and said they prevented what could have been a much worse outcome.
“Without them we could have faced a terrible tragedy,” he said.
A White House official said President Obama was briefed on the train attack and expressed his “profound gratitude for the courage and quick thinking of several passengers, including U.S. service members who selflessly subdued the attacker.”
The President phoned the three Americans Friday night to commend them on their actions, White House officials said.
Secretary of Defense Ash Carter released a statement Saturday, offering his thoughts and prayers for those injured in the attack, and thanking the three Americans. Carter said Stone and Skarlatos were “two reasons why — on duty and off — ours is the finest fighting force the world has ever known.”
Cazeneuve told reporters Saturday that the man has claimed to be a 26-year-old from Morocco.
Multiple news outlets identified the man as Ayoub El Khazani.
Cazeneuve said Spanish authorities alerted French intelligence of the man in February 2014 “due to his involvement in radical Islamist movements,” prompting the man to be put on a terrorism watch list.
A Spanish anti-terror official told the AP Khazani had once lived in Spain before moving to France and then traveling at one point to war-torn Syria.
Belgium Prime Minister Charles Michel referred to the violent incident as a terror attack, although it was not immediately clear why or what the motivation of the suspect was.
Officials from France’s anti-terror police unit were leading the investigation into the shooting.
French President François Hollande spoke by phone with the Americans and French citizens involved in the incident. He also announced he would formally receive them at the Élysée palace to convey the gratitude of France.
Alek Skarlatos’ stepmother, Karen, told the AP she spoke to her stepson after the incident, saying “he sounded like he had just thwarted a terrorist attack.”
“Alek and Spencer, they’re big, brave, strong guys and they decided they were going to tackle him. And they did. Spencer tackled him, and Alek took the gun and clobbered him a good one,” she said from Oregon. “Spencer got a couple good slices on him. But they were able to subdue him while the train was still moving.
Panda Twins Born At The National Zoo In Washington, D.C.
Mei Xiang, a 17-year-old giant panda, gave birth to a cub Saturday afternoon. An unexpected second cub was born Saturday night.
Mei Xiang, a 17-year-old giant panda at the Smithsonian National Zoological Park in Washington, D.C., gave birth to two cubs Saturday.
The first panda cub was born at 5:35 p.m. The cub remained with its mother after birth, and appeared to be healthy.
Less then five hours later, at 10:07 p.m., Mei Xiang gave birth to a second cub.
After the second birth, one of the cubs was placed in an incubator , per official protocol, Zoo spokesperson Devin Murphy told BuzzFeed News. The cubs will trade off, spending some time with Mei Xiang and some time in the incubator, which should give them both a chance to nurse and increase their odds of survival.
Zoo officials had not been expecting the second cub.
“The mood is one of surprise,” Murphy said.
The cub that was placed in the incubator weighed about 4.8 ounces and was “vocalizing very well,” according to a statement the zoo provided to BuzzFeed News.
Both cubs were doing well as of early Sunday morning, Murphy added.
According to the zoo, giant pandas have twins about 50% of the time. Saturday’s double births were only the third set of giant panda twins ever born in the U.S.
An image from a zoo camera showed Mei Xiang just one minute after she gave birth to her first cub Saturday.
According to the zoo, Mei Xiang reacted to the birth of the first cub “by picking it up.”
The cubs are Mei Xiang’s third and fourth living offspring. In Aug. 2013, she gave birth to Bao Bao, who also lives in the Washington Zoo.
And in 2005, she gave birth to Tai Shan.
The giant pandas are part of a population of less than 2,000 in the entire world.
Mei Xiang, who weighs about 233 pounds, is one of three pandas in the Washington zoo.
Her name means, “beautiful fragrance.”
The birth of Mei Xiang’s first cub Saturday was captured on video that the zoo later posted online.
Mei Xiang was inseminated four months ago with the semen of two pandas: Tian Tian who also lives at the Washington Zoo, and Wei Wei who is housed at Wuhan Zoo in China.
But veterinarians weren’t able to confirm for weeks whether she was pregnant. She was just not cooperating with ultrasounds.
Panda baby-making is extremely difficult. Females have a fertility window of only 24 to 72 hours a year to conceive, which means vets are consistently monitoring their urine for hormone changes to find the perfect time.
Efforts to try to get pandas to breed in captivity started in 1955, but it wasn’t until 1963 that the first panda was born in captivity in Beijing, according to Pandas International.
Natural breeding between captive pandas is also difficult because male and female pandas sometimes appear to lose interest, or simply don’t know how.
Scientists have therefore turned to artificial insemination.
The Smithsonian National Zoological Park in 2011 also signed an agreement with China to study breeding and cub behavior.
Veterinarians at the zoo first found signs Mei Xiang was pregnant Wednesday, when an ultrasound showed a 4-centimeter fetus.
However, the zoo’s panda team had suspected for some time Mei Xiang might be pregnant, noticing she was sleeping and spending more time in her den, licking and cradling objects.
Still, veterinarians at the Smithsonian Zoo said there was a possibility Mei Xiang could resorb the fetus, or the panda could be stillborn.
By Saturday, however, Mei Xiang looked to be restless and having contractions, signs she was in labor. A short time later, zoo officials confirmed her water broke.
Panda cubs’ health is precarious after birth, so zoo officials are consequently monitoring the condition of Mei Xiang and her cubs closely.
According to Pandas International, a non-profit organization that works on the preservation of endangered animals, the cubs are hairless and are about the size of a stick of butter when they are born.
Mei Xiang gave birth to a stillborn cub in 2013, a day after she gave birth to Bao Bao. A year earlier, one of her cubs died six days after being born because its lungs didn’t fully develop.
The sex of the cubs born Saturday is still not known. Officials said they would wait to name them until they can determine the sex. They will also wait until after conducting tests to determine if Tian Tian or Wei Wei is the father.
Music:
Sous le ciel de Paris - Zaz
Close the world - Violet Indiana
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