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Live: Updates from second morning of Big Ten media days

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Smooth going for most of the Tuesday morning commuters

<p>PARIS &#8212; Two attackers backing the Islamic State stormed a village church during Mass in northern France on Tuesday, taking hostages and slitting the throat of a 86-year-old priest before police commandos shot and killed the assailants, authorities said.</p><p>There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack near Rouen in France&#8217;s Normandy region. But French President Francois Hollande described the attackers as terrorists who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State.</p><p>The attack also will likely put further pressures on European security officials amid a series of attacks believed inspired by the Islamic State in France and neighboring Germany that have claimed nearly 100 lives this month.</p><p>Another person held by the hostage-takers at the church suffered life-threatening injuries, said Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet.</p><p>France remains under an extended state of emergency after a truck rampage through Bastille Day crowds in the Riviera city of Nice on July 14, killing at least 84 people.</p><p>Hollande said the country needed to use &#8220;all means&#8221; against the Islamic State, but gave no details on possible new crackdowns or expansion of French support to the U.S.-led coalition waging airstrikes against the militants&#8217; strongholds in Iraq and Syria.</p><p>Hollande was joined by Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve at the site of the church attack in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, about 35 miles southeast of the port of Le Havre.</p><p>An official at the Archdiocese of Rouen identified the slain priest as Jacques Hamel.</p><p>At the Vatican, spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi denounced the &#8220;barbarous killing&#8221; of the church attack.</p><p>Lombardi said Pope Francis was shaken by &#8220;the pain and horror of this absurd violence&#8221; and &#8220;condemned, in the most radical way, any form of hate.&#8221;</p><p>The Islamic State has destroyed pre-Islamic temples and other ancient sites in Syria and Iraq, including a more than 1,400-year-old Christian monastery near the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.</p><p>But attacks linked to the group in the West and elsewhere have so far concentrated on public places and tourist areas.</p><p>Brandet, the Interior Ministry spokesman, called the bloodshed &#8220;obviously a drama for the Catholic community, for the Christian community.&#8221;</p><p>French officials have linked at least one previous suspect with plotting a possible church attack.</p><p>In April 2015, an Algerian man, Sid Ahmed Ghlam, was arrested in connection with the slaying of woman. He was accused of putting together a cache of weapons and body armor. French authorities claim he planned to attack a church in the Paris suburb of Villejuif.</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">In this grab made from video, police officers speak to a driver as they close off a road during a hostage situation in Normandy, France, Tuesday, July 26, 2016. Two attackers seized hostages in a church near the Normandy city of Rouen on Tuesday, killing one hostage by slitting their throat before being killed by police, a security official said. The identities of the attackers and motive for the attack are unclear, according to the official, who was not authorized to be publicly named. (BFM via AP)</div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/web1_111565325-fe0a4da2f20449e8a5e62f41de570904.jpg</photo0><caption0>In this grab made from video, police officers speak to a driver as they close off a road during a hostage situation in Normandy, France, Tuesday, July 26, 2016. Two attackers seized hostages in a church near the Normandy city of Rouen on Tuesday, killing one hostage by slitting their throat before being killed by police, a security official said. The identities of the attackers and motive for the attack are unclear, according to the official, who was not authorized to be publicly named. (BFM via AP)</caption0><photoCredit0></photoCredit0></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>James McAuley and Brian Murphy</p><p>The Washington Post</p></bylineMeta></div>

Normandy church attackers inspired by Islamic State, says French president