The suspect has apparently just been identified as Hadi Matar; the N.Y. Sun (Joe Marino & Evan Simko-Bednarski) reports,
A New Jersey man with sympathies toward the Iranian government was arrested and accused of stabbing famed novelist Salman Rushdie on Friday, according to law enforcement sources briefed on the investigation….
Sources told The Post that an initial investigation suggests Hadi is sympathetic to the Iranian regime and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard.
The talk, at the Chautauqua Institution, was to be on “the United States as asylum for writers and other artists in exile and as a home for freedom of creative expression.”
UPDATE [9:22 pm]: “Rushdie is on a ventilator”; “will likely lose one eye; the nerves in his arm were severed; and his liver was stabbed and damaged” (N.Y. Times [Jay Root, David Gelles, Elizabeth A. Harris & Julia Jacobs]).