Mayor Zohran Mamdani steps back from promised changes at the NYPD amid an uneasy truce with Tisch

NEW YORK — Mayor Zohran Mamdani promised on the campaign trail to drastically change the way New York City handles policing — but nearly six months in, his administration has made little progress and even backed away from some of those pledges, as friction between Mamdani and Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch trickles into public view and cracks emerge between the mayor and his base.

On Friday, the New York City Democratic Socialists of America — an organization that represents Mamdani’s core base — denounced his administration’s move to grow the city’s police headcount in a rare public rebuke.

Increasing the number of NYPD officers by 580 “runs counter to the values of the socialist and working-class movement that elected him,” the organization said in a statement.

When pressed by the Daily News last week, the mayor didn’t commit to keeping the department’s headcount flat for the remainder of his term.

—New York Daily News

Skydiver reported near LAX, conjuring memories of 'jetpack man'

LOS ANGELES — More than five years after a series of mysterious "jetpack man" sightings in the airspace near LAX, another possible airborne human rattled air traffic controllers Sunday.

Shortly before landing at LAX around 2:40 p.m. on Sunday, a military transport Gulfstream jet pilot told air traffic controllers that they "just had a potential skydiver around 4,000 feet," per audio from ATC.com.

Air traffic control responded with evident surprise and asked for clarification. "We just had somebody cross above us around 4,000 feet in a wingsuit," the pilot responded. "Are you serious?" the controller asked, before warning an American flight that was next in line to land. "We're looking for him," the American pilot answered.

The Federal Aviation Administration did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In December 2020, a video purporting to show a person flying with a jetpack was captured by people taking part in an instructional flight out of Torrance airport.

—Los Angeles Times

Hegseth says more US strikes in Latin America could follow Venezuela raid

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Sunday that the United States is prepared to carry out additional military operations across Latin America similar to the recent strike in Venezuela that killed Tren de Aragua leader Héctor Rusthenford Guerrero Flores, known as “Niño Guerrero,” signaling a potentially broader campaign against cartels and transnational criminal groups in the hemisphere.

Speaking on CBS’s Face the Nation, Hegseth said the Venezuelan interim government had invited U.S. military forces onto its territory to help eliminate the founder of the Venezuelan-born criminal organization, marking one of the clearest acknowledgments yet of direct U.S. military involvement inside Venezuela.

“They invited our military in because they have a foreign terrorist organization on their soil in Tren de Aragua,” Hegseth said. “The founder and leader — we were able to identify where he was and kill him, just like we would kill al-Qaeda or ISIS.”

When asked whether Americans should expect similar operations in countries such as Ecuador and Guatemala, where Washington has expanded security cooperation, Hegseth offered an unequivocal answer. “Yes, they should,” he said.

—Miami Herald

Russia hits historic Kyiv cathedral after Trump-Putin call

Ukraine said a historic UNESCO-protected Orthodox cathedral in Kyiv was hit in the latest Russian drone and missile strike early on Monday, hours after Russian leader Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump held a phone call.

The barrage killed five people and injured more than 30 in Kyiv as it set apartment buildings in several parts of the city ablaze, according to local authorities and the Emergencies Ministry.

The strike damaged a cathedral in Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, a historic former monastery and a UNESCO World Heritage site perched on a high bank of River Dnipro just 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) from the Presidential Palace.

“Now we are dealing with Russian terrorists who have already outmatched ISIS in their crimes against cultural heritage,” Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said on X Monday after the Russian strike. The strike can be described as “the equivalent of bombing Notre Dame,” French French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said.

—Bloomberg News