WASHINGTON – The driver killed when his Tesla sedan crashed while in self-driving mode was traveling at 9 mph above the speed limit just before hitting the side of a tractor-trailer, federal accident investigators said Tuesday.
Data downloaded from the Tesla Model S shows the vehicle was traveling at 74 mph in a 65-mph zone on a divided highway in Williston, Florida, near Gainesville, the National Transportation Safety Board said in a preliminary report.
The driver, Joshua Brown, 40, a tech company owner from Canton, Ohio, was using the sedan’s cruise control and lane-keeping features at the time, the report said. Those features are part of the vehicle’s Autopilot self-driving system, but the NTSB report doesn’t mention the system.
HOUSTON – Texas prosecutors on Tuesday dropped the last remaining charges against two California anti-abortion activists who made undercover videos of themselves trying to buy fetal tissue from Planned Parenthood, agreeing with the defense that the grand jury exceeded its authority by investigating the activists after clearing Planned Parenthood of wrongdoing.
District Judge Brock Thomas dismissed the tampering with government records charges against David Daleiden, 27, and Sandra Merritt, 63, at the request of the Harris County prosecutor’s office.
SAINT-ETIENNE-DU-ROUVRAY, France – Two attackers slit the throat of an 85-year-old priest celebrating Mass in a French church, killing him and gravely injuring one of the few worshippers present before being shot to death by police. A nun who escaped said she saw the attackers take a video of themselves.
The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack, the first inside a church in the West.
Police rescued three people inside the church including a second nun in the small northwestern town of Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, said Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet.
A regional Muslim leader said one of the two attackers was known to police, and a police official said he had tried to go to Syria.
Associated Press
