Officials say suspects in foiled plot at Taylor Swift shows hoped to kill as many people as possible
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VIENNA: Both suspects in a foiled plot to attack Taylor Swift shows in Vienna appeared to be inspired by the Daesh group and Al-Qaeda, Austrian authorities said Thursday, and investigators found bomb-making materials at one of their homes.
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VIENNA: Both suspects in a foiled plot to attack Taylor Swift shows in Vienna appeared to be inspired by the Daesh group and Al-Qaeda, Austrian authorities said Thursday, and investigators found bomb-making materials at one of their homes.

Officials said one of the two confessed to planning to “kill as many people as possible outside the concert venue.”

Three sold-out concerts were canceled a day earlier because of the plot, devastating Swifties from across the globe, many of whom had dropped thousands of euros (dollars) on travel and lodging in Austria’s expensive capital city to attend the Eras Tour shows at the Ernst Happel Stadium, which sat empty Thursday morning aside from media filming outside.

Concert organizers said they stood behind their decision to cancel all three events, saying they expected up to 65,000 fans inside the stadium at each concert and as many as 30,000 onlookers outside. The foiled attack was planned for Thursday or Friday, according to Austria’s interior minister, Gerhard Karner.

Officials told reporters that the 19-year-old Austrian suspect began working on his attack plans in July, and just a few weeks ago uploaded to the Internet an oath of allegiance to the current leader of the Daesh group militia. He planned to use knives or homemade explosives to carry out the attack outside the stadium.

He was “clearly radicalized in the direction of the Daesh and thinks it is right to kill infidels,” said Omar Haijawi-Pirchner, the head of the Directorate of State Security and Intelligence.

During a raid of his home in Ternitz, south of Vienna, investigators found chemical substances and technical devices that indicated “concrete preparatory acts,” said Franz Ruf, Director General for Public Security at the Ministry of the Interior.

Authorities also found Daesh group and Al-Qaeda material at the home of the second suspect, a 17-year-old Austrian. He was employed a few days ago by a company providing services at the venue for the concerts, and was arrested by special police forces near the stadium.

The suspects’ names were not released in line with Austrian privacy rules.

No other suspects are being sought, Karner, the interior minister, said. However, a 15-year-old, who had been in contact with both suspects, was also interrogated by police.

“The situation was serious, the situation is serious. But we can also say: A tragedy was prevented,” he said.

Concert organizers, Barracuda Music, said in an Instagram post late Wednesday that “we have no choice but to cancel the three scheduled shows for everyone’s safety.”

It cited government officials’ confirmation of a planned attack at the stadium. Security officials and the organizers of the concerts, Barracuda Music, were in close contact about whether to cancel the shows, but in the end it was the organizer who made the call.

Europe is enamored with the American superstar, with the German town of Gelsenkirchen renaming itself “Swiftkirchen” before its mid-July concerts.

Austria’s Vice-Chancellor Werner Kogler wrote on social platform X: “For many, a dream has been shattered today. On three evenings in Vienna, tens of thousands of #Swifties should have celebrated life together.”

“I am very sorry that you were denied this. Swifties stick together, hate and terror can’t destroy that,” Kogler added.

Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer posted on X that “the cancelation of the Taylor Swift concerts by the organizers is a bitter disappointment for all fans in Austria.”

“The situation surrounding the apparently planned terror attack in Vienna was very serious,” he wrote. But he added that, thanks to intensive cooperation between police and Austrian and foreign intelligence, “the threat could be recognized early on, tackled and a tragedy prevented.”

Barracuda Music said that “all tickets will be automatically refunded within the next 10 business days.” The same wording was posted under the Vienna dates on Swift’s official website.

The Vienna stadium had been sold out for the planned concerts, APA reported, with an estimated 170,000 fans expected for the concerts in Austria. Some who posted on X lamented months of now-wasted efforts to make friendship bracelets and pick out fashionable outfits for the performance.

Swift is expected to perform at London’s Wembley stadium in five concerts between Aug. 15 and 20 to close the European leg of her record-setting Eras Tour.

In 2017, an attack at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England, killed 22 people. Suicide bomber Salman Abedi set up a knapsack bomb in Manchester Arena at the end of Grande’s concert as thousands of young fans were leaving. More than 100 people were injured. Abedi died in the explosion.

An official inquiry reported in 2023 that Britain’s domestic intelligence agency, MI5, didn’t act swiftly enough on key information and missed a significant opportunity to prevent the bombing, the deadliest extremist attack in the United Kingdom in recent years.

URZICENI, Romania: Desiccated leaves crackled underfoot as Romanian farmer Iulia Blagu walked through her scorched cornfield, devastated by one of the country’s worst droughts in recent years.

She took over 300 hectares (750 acres) near Urziceni in southeastern Romania from her father half a decade ago — a baptism she describes as “five years of fire.”

“For Romanian agriculture, it’s not a question of if but when we will die,” the 39-year-old told AFP late last month.

Holding up an ear of corn no bigger than her hand, Blagu said the drought was eating away at her harvest “like an unstoppable steamroller,” forcing her for the first time to borrow money to pay her workers.

Romania is far from the only country hit by the blazing heat.

In neighboring Hungary, almost the entire country is on alert because of the high temperatures.

At the beginning of August, dozens of Hungarian farmers led two camels through downtown Budapest to draw attention to the impact of climate change on agriculture.

Both southern and eastern Europe are faced with “persistent and recurrent drought conditions,” according to the latest situation report by the European Union.

The EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service has warned that it is “increasingly likely” 2024 will be the Earth’s hottest year on record.

In Romania, farmers have been promised compensation for the two million hectares of farmland which the government estimates have been damaged.

But one farmer told AFP that agriculture has become “a lottery,” and he feels “at God’s mercy.”

In hundreds of villages, wells have run dry and water restrictions imposed, while lakes are disappearing.

Orthodox priests have even gone into fields of cracked soil to pray for rain, while in another community, work has begun to dig the ground to try to revive springs.

But with a nearby lake at risk of drying out, villager Marian Florea felt glum about the future.

“The climate has changed. And nothing good is coming,” the construction worker, 53, told AFP.

“By the autumn, if this drought continues, there’ll be nothing left here.”

Meanwhile, farmers like Blagu are trying to adjust to the conditions.

She won’t sow corn — once the most profitable crop in the region — any more next year.

Instead, she has begun testing sorghum, a more heat-resistant grain native to Africa, and is also looking into planting coriander and chickpeas besides her wheat, sunflowers and other crops.

Further south, close to the Danube, a 100,000-hectare area of sandy soil nicknamed the “Romanian Sahara” has become a testing ground for alternative crops.

The country is losing 1,000 hectares of arable land every year to climate change, according to Romania’s environment minister Mircea Fechet, who fears that in 50 years the south could end up “completely desertified.”

Since 1959, a research station set up to try to “make the sands bear fruit” has been providing expertise and seeds to farmers.

With scientists warning that climate change caused by human greenhouse gas emissions is driving an increase in extreme weather, its mission has become more crucial than ever.

“Climate change is forcing us to come up with new things, to try other species,” the station’s head, Aurelia Diaconu, told AFP.

Among those grown at the station are persimmons, dates, kiwi and pistachios, species that “some time ago we did not even think that we would taste from our fields,” she said.

But all of the crops tested there are irrigated — something few Romanian farmers currently have access to.

Of the country’s nine million hectares of arable land, less than two million hectares have irrigation — Blagu’s parched cornfields among them.

“Without water we can’t do anything,” she sighed.

PORT-AU-PRINCE: A prison break in the Haitian city of Saint-Marc left 12 inmates dead on Friday, Mayor Myriam Fievre said, the third such incident in Haiti in recent months amid a protracted humanitarian crisis fueled by gang violence.

State Prosecutor Venson Francois said the situation on Friday afternoon was under control at the prison, which housed around 540 inmates, but the local population should remain vigilant and watch for escapees.

“The situation is under control but the results are catastrophic. All the cops’ dormitories have burnt down. The archives have burnt down. They’ve set everything on fire except their cells,” Francois said.

Earlier in the day, unverified videos shared on social media showed people climbing over walls and smoke streaming out of walls ringed with barbed wire, a loud explosion and fire.

Walter Montas, a local government official, said the incident had developed out of a spontaneous protest as prisoners were going without food and facing appalling health conditions.

The national police did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for more information on the incident in Saint-Marc, some 55 miles (88 km) north of the capital.

More than 7,500 people were being held in Haitian prisons at the end of June, according to UN data, down from nearly 12,000 before gangs broke thousands out of the two largest prisons in early March.

The March prison break triggered a state of emergency that was soon followed by the resignation of former Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who had traveled abroad to secure Kenya’s support in a security mission to battle the armed gangs, and was unable to return due to the fighting.

Just 400 of 1,000 police pledged by Kenya have so far arrived, and of the other countries which pledged personnel to support Haiti’s under-resourced police, none have deployed.

With many cells filled to close to quadruple their capacity, the UN said poor conditions and a lack of necessities have resulted in the deaths of at least 109 inmates so far this year.

Local newspaper Le Nouvelliste reported that prison officials had been on strike demanding better government treatment. It cited Francois, the prosecutor, expressing “great fear of mutiny,” without giving more details.

Police have struggled to hold off gangs as the delivery of funds, personnel and equipment for the UN-backed security mission first requested in 2022 continues to lag.

The conflict has forced close to 600,000 to flee their homes for elsewhere in Haiti and some 5 million people — close to half the population — into severe hunger.

RALEIGH, N.C.: Vice President Kamala Harris announced a sweeping set of economic proposals on Friday meant to cut taxes and lower the cost of groceries, housing and other essentials for many Americans.

“Look, the bills add up,” she declared, trying to address the financial concerns that are at the top of voters’ minds and that Republican Donald Trump is attempting to blame on her.

During a speech in the battleground state of North Carolina, Harris said that “building up the middle class will be a defining goal of my presidency” as she promoted her plan for a federal ban on price gouging by food producers and grocers. She also proposed $25,000 in down payment assistance for certain first-time homebuyers and tax incentives for builders of starter homes.

“Every day across our nation, families talk about their plans for the future, their ambitions, their aspirations for themselves, for their children. And they talk about how they’re going to be able to actually achieve them financially, because, look, the bills add up,” Harris said. “Food, rent, gas, back to school clothes, prescription medications. After all that, for many families, there’s not much left at the end of the month.”

She stressed tax breaks for families, as well as middle- and lower-income people, promising to expand the child tax credit to up to $3,600 — and $6,000 for children in their first year of life. The vice president also wants to enlarge the earned income tax credit to cover people in lower-income jobs without children — which the campaign estimates would cut their effective tax rate by $1,500 — and lower health insurance premiums through the Affordable Care Act.

Overall, the plans represent a continuation of many Biden administration priorities.

Harris isn’t looking for any radical departures from President Joe Biden, who stepped down from the race last month and endorsed her. Still, the vice president has embraced a dash of economic populism, shifting away from Biden’s emphasis on job creation and infrastructure to matters more closely tied to easing the cost of living -– food prices, housing costs and tax breaks for families.

Much of what she’s proposing would require congressional approval, which is far from assured in the current political environment, though, and Harris’ campaign has offered scant details on how to pay for the ideas.

The vice president is seeking to blunt Trump’s attacks on her. He responded to her speech by posting on his social media account, “Kamala will implement SOVIET style price controls.” He gave his own speech Thursday, during which he displayed popular grocery store items meant to represent the high cost of food.

Some of Trump’s economic advisers offered further rebuttals to Harris’ plans before she spoke on Friday, with Brian Hughes, a spokesman for the former president’s campaign, calling them representative of a “socialist and authoritarian model.”

Kevin Hassett, a former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers during the Trump administration, called it “completely preposterous” for the government to play a role in setting food prices, a reference to Harris’ proposed federal ban on “corporate price-gouging” on food.

In her speech, Harris offered stark contrasts with Trump’s economic proposals, including his call for steep tariffs on foreign goods. She said that her opponent “wants to impose what is, in effect, a national sales tax on everyday products and basic necessities that we import from other countries.”

“It will mean higher prices on just about every one of your daily needs,” Harris said. “A Trump tax on gas, a Trump tax on food, a Trump tax on clothing, a Trump tax on over-the-counter medication.”

She added, “At this moment, when everyday prices are too high, he will make them even higher.”

Year-over-year inflation has reached its lowest level in more than three years, but food prices are still 21 percent above where they were three years ago. A Labor Department report this week showed that nearly all of July’s inflation reflected higher rental prices and other housing costs, a trend that, according to real-time data, is easing. As a result, housing costs should rise more slowly in the coming months, contributing to lower inflation.

Harris’ grocery pricing proposal would instruct the Federal Trade Commission to penalize “big corporations” that engage in price spikes and it singles out a lack of competition in the meat-packing industry for driving up meat prices.

Monica Wallace, a county clerk who attended Harris’ speech, called the vice president’s economic plans “what we need.”

“I have a mother who is receiving services, and just in food stamps alone, she’s still not able to afford food that will last her,” Wallace said.

Comparing Harris to Trump, Wallace said she sees the vice president as someone “definitely for the middle and lower class,” whereas the former president is “for the people who make the money to do any and everything that they want.”

Polls nonetheless show that Americans are more likely to trust Trump over Harris when it comes to handling the economy: Some 45 percent say Trump is better positioned to handle the economy, while 38 percent say that about Harris. About 1 in 10 trust neither Harris nor Trump to better handle the economy, according to the latest Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll.

Riding a resurgence of enthusiasm since the Democrats’ campaign reboot, Harris has embarked on a battleground state blitz in recent weeks that has broadened the number of races viewed as competitive by strategists. In North Carolina, Democrats are navigating renewed energy with caution in an economically dynamic state that hasn’t been won by a Democratic presidential candidate since Barack Obama in 2008.

Gov. Roy Cooper told Friday’s crowd, “I have that 2008 feeling.”

“That’s the last time we voted for a Democratic nominee for president, Barack Obama,” Cooper said.

North Carolina State University political science professor Steven Greene said that the state “went from a situation where Joe Biden was almost surely going down in defeat here, whereas Kamala Harris has a very real chance of winning,”

Deborah Holder, a 68-year-old Raleigh resident who runs six McDonalds restaurants, said of the vice president, “Her culture is something that is going to be a huge strength for her, because she’ll be able to look at the rest of us not just as her constituents, but as people that she has dealt with in all walks of life,”

Harris is trying to strike a balance in defining her own image and economic agenda while still giving credit for the Biden administration’s track record. Her speech in North Carolina came a day after the president was asked if Harris might distance herself from his economic record and responded, “She’s not going to.”

In their first joint speaking event since Biden dropped out, he and Harris were in Maryland on Thursday where they showcased successful negotiations to lower prices for Medicare recipients on 10 prescription drugs.

But Harris spent far more time talking about Trump than Biden in North Carolina, promising “to build an America where everyone’s work is rewarded and talents are valued, where we work with labor and business to strengthen the American economy.”

“And where everyone has the opportunity,” she said “not just to get by, but to get ahead.”

LONDON: A man in the UK was jailed on Friday for threatening to burn down five mosques and kill Muslim leaders and worshippers inside the buildings.

Blake Hindry, who was sentenced to two and a half years in prison after pleading guilty to all charges, called fives separate moques in London and threatened to set fire to them, it was revealed.

During the calls made on Aug. 5, he also said that he would kill everyone inside the buildings. He was arrested three days later, the BBC reported.

The Metropolitan Police said that it “worked around the clock” to trace the calls to Hindry and hoped that justice would be served for communities who felt threatened by an upsurge in right-wing violence, which has targeted migrants and members of the Muslim community.

“We understand that Muslim communities have felt particularly concerned for their safety following the violent disorder and criminality the country has seen in recent weeks,” Metropolitan Police commander Louise Puddefoot said in a statement.

“Our teams continue to investigate all offenses committed during this period of disorder as we work hard to build trust and confidence in communities,” she said.

The riots — the worst in the UK since 2011 — erupted after a knife attack that killed three girls during a dance class on July 29 in Southport.

False rumors spread on social media that the suspect was a Muslim asylum seeker sparked anger and unrest, with anti-immigration riots raging for more than a week, leading to more than 1,000 arrests.

Also on Friday, British police charged an 18-year-old man and a 19-year-old woman with terrorism offenses after an investigation into suspected extreme right-wing terrorism activity.