By DÁNICA COTO and ANDREA RODRÍGUEZ

HAVANA (AP) — Cuban officials on Monday lowered flags before dawn to mourn 32 security officers they say were killed in the U.S. weekend strike in Venezuela, the island nation’s closest ally, as residents here wonder what the capture of President Nicolás Maduro means for their future.

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The two governments are so close that Cuban soldiers and security agents were often the Venezuelan president’s bodyguards, and Venezuela’s petroleum has kept the economically ailing island limping along for years. Cuban authorities over the weekend said the 32 had been killed in the surprise attack but have given no further details.

The Trump administration has warned outright that toppling Maduro will help advance another decades-long goal: Dealing a blow to the Cuban government. Severing Cuba from Venezuela could have disastrous consequences for its leaders, who on Saturday called for the international community to stand up to “state terrorism.”

On Saturday, Trump said the ailing Cuban economy will be further battered by Maduro’s ouster.

“It’s going down,” Trump said of Cuba. “It’s going down for the count.”

Many observers say Cuba, an island of about 10 million people, exerted a remarkable degree of influence over Venezuela, an oil-rich nation with three times as many people. At the same time, Cubans have long been tormented by constant blackouts and shortages of basic foods. And after the attack, they woke to the once-unimaginable possibility of an even grimmer future.

“I can’t talk. I have no words,” 75-year-old Berta Luz Sierra Molina said as she sobbed and placed a hand over her face.

Even though 63-year-old Regina Méndez is too old to join the Cuban military, she said that “we have to stand strong.”

“Give me a rifle, and I’ll go fight,” Méndez said.

Maduro’s government was shipping an average of 35,000 barrels of oil daily over the last three months, about a quarter of total demand, said Jorge Piñón, a Cuban energy expert at the University of Texas at Austin Energy Institute.

“The question to which we don’t have an answer, which is critical: Is the U.S. going to allow Venezuela to continue supplying Cuba with oil?” he said.

Piñón noted that Mexico once supplied Cuba with 22,000 barrels of oil a day before it dropped to 7,000 barrels after U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio visited Mexico City in early September.

“I don’t see Mexico jumping in right now,” Piñón said. “The U.S. government would go bonkers.”

Ricardo Torres, a Cuban economist at American University in Washington, said that “blackouts have been significant, and that is with Venezuela still sending some oil.”

“Imagine a future now in the short term losing that,” he said. “It’s a catastrophe.”

Piñón noted that Cuba doesn’t have the money to buy oil on the international market.

“The only ally that they have left out there with oil is Russia,” he said, noting that it sends Cuba about 2 million barrels a year.

“Russia has the capability to fill the gap. Do they have the political commitment, or the political desire to do so? I don’t know,” he said.

Torres also questioned whether Russia would extend a hand.

“Meddling with Cuba could jeopardize your negotiation with the U.S. around Ukraine. Why would you do it? Ukraine is far more important,” he said.

Torres said Cuba should open its doors to the private sector and market and reduce its public sector, moves that could help prompt China to step in and help Cuba.

“Do they have an alternative? I don’t think they do,” he said.

Coto reported from San Juan, Puerto Rico. Associated Press reporters Milexsy Durán in Havana and Isabel DeBre in Buenos Aires contributed.

Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america

This story has been corrected to note that Rubio visited Mexico in early September, not August.

Defensive tackle represents the biggest need on the Gophers’ roster for the 2026 season, and they began to fill it with run-stuffing Marshall transfer Naquan Crowder’s commitment on Monday.

The Gophers are losing its top four defensive tackles for next season, and the 6-foot-3, 319-pounder from Aliquippa, Pa., will have two years of eligibility left for Minnesota.

For the Herd last season, Crowder totaled 26 tackles, three tackles for lost yards and one sack and one forced fumble. Pro Football Focus gave him an outstanding 83.4 run defense grade and an above-average 73.3 overall grade in 318 total snaps.

Crowder spent two seasons at Division II California (Pa.), where he played in one game and redshirted as a true freshman in 2023 and had 51 tackles, 5 1/2 for lost yards and 1 1/2 sacks as a redshirt freshman in 2024.

Crowder is the fifth overall commitment to the U during this transfer portal window.

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McDonald’s is facing a class action lawsuit from plaintiffs who allege the fast food chain has long deceived customers about what type of meat is in the popular, limited McRib sandwich.

The lawsuit was filed late last month in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois by eaters from California, New York, Illinois and Washington, D.C. who claim the sandwich is marketed as containing pork rib meat but actually has none.

The complaint alleges that despite the patty’s rib shape, the item’s name and price, the sandwich is actually made of lower-quality grounded up pork — from cuts like shoulder and tripe — not rib meat.

The company’s website claims the meat is a “pork patty” made of “seasoned boneless pork.”

“The name ‘McRib’ is a deliberate sleight of hand,” the lawsuit reads. “McDonald’s willfully, falsely, and knowingly omitted various material facts regarding the quality and character of the McRib — namely, that despite its name and distinctive rib-like shape, it does not actually contain any actual pork rib meat. McDonald’s knew these facts would be material to reasonable consumers but still chose not to disclose them.”

McDonald’s denied the lawsuit’s claims.

“This lawsuit distorts the facts and many of the claims are inaccurate,” the chain told NBC 5 Chicago. “Food quality and safety are at the heart of everything we do – that’s why we’re committed to using real, quality ingredients across our entire menu. Our fan-favorite McRib sandwich is made with 100% pork sourced from farmers and suppliers across the U.S. We’ve always been transparent about our ingredients so guests can make the right choice for them.”

McDonald’s debuted the McRib in 1981. After becoming a limited-time-offer, it’s sporadically appeared on menus since.

“One might think that socialism and deregulation do not go together, but Mamdani’s campaign gave hints that he might be willing to take on some heretofore untouchable interest groups.”

Zohran Mamdani at an event in December. (Adi Talwar/City Limits)

As an economist and city planner inclined to let markets have free rein, I didn’t view democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani as my ideal mayoral candidate. However, now that he has won, I would prefer that his upcoming mayoralty improve the city, rather than accelerate its decline. In a new report for the Manhattan Institute, I have outlined some good actions his administration could take to mitigate the city’s housing supply crisis and jump-start its stagnating economy, without repudiating his principles.  

The potential actions Mamdani might support fall into three categories: deregulatory interventions, zoning changes to take advantage of the City Charter changes approved by voters last November concurrently with Mamdani’s election, and pragmatic policy changes to mitigate the adverse consequences of past left-leaning policies. One might think that socialism and deregulation do not go together, but Mamdani’s campaign gave hints that he might be willing to take on some heretofore untouchable interest groups.

One such group is car owners, a minority of New Yorkers but an important constituency to many City Council members. Under prior Mayor Eric Adams, the Council agreed to some reforms to the city’s outdated requirements for off-street parking in new housing developments, but didn’t go far enough. The city also retains decades-old requirements for off-street parking in new nonresidential buildings, such as offices and shopping centers. Requiring parking the developer thinks unnecessary raises costs and encourages new residents, commuters and shoppers to own and use cars, rather than public transit. Recent reform in Illinois—dubbed the “People Over Parking Act,” which prohibits requiring parking in areas well-served by transit—suggests a model for changes Mamdani could push through in New York City.

The City Charter changes create a shortened process for certain types of pro-housing zoning changes, cutting out review by the City Council, which in the past gave local members a de facto veto over new housing in their districts. Mamdani will need to use these new tools carefully, since he still needs a good working relationship with a Council majority. However, he should be comfortable with utilizing new Charter provisions allowing him to push through affordable housing projects in 12 designated community districts where the least amount of such housing was permitted in the past five years.  Moreover, he can also take steps to allow two-family homes and small apartment buildings in low-density neighborhoods where the demand for housing is strong and the potential for adverse effects is limited.

Lastly, and a bigger reach for Mamdani, are changes that require ideological flexibility and in some cases a willingness to allow investors to profit while providing housing the city desperately needs. It’s recognized at this point that the state legislature’s draconian 2019 rent stabilization amendments have created a financial crisis for at least two large groups of owners: private investors whose buildings are 100 percent rent-stabilized and never benefitted from onetime rules allowing deregulation of high-rent units; and non-profits who run low-income housing on behalf of the city and are just as squeezed between rising costs and tightly regulated rents as the for-profit owners.

That problem is too big to solve with public money alone. Mamdani should ask the state legislature to allow bigger rent increases upon vacancy, provided that for-profit landlords agree to maintain affordability standards like those that already bind the non-profit landlords.

Another potential target for pragmatic flexibility is Mandatory Inclusionary Housing (MIH), a flagship achievement of former Mayor Bill de Blasio, and continued under Adams. MIH requires new apartment buildings in rezoned areas to include 25 to 30 percent permanently affordable units. Sold as seizing the windfall profits of greedy developers, MIH in fact depends on compensating developers with generous tax exemptions on the whole building, including the market-rate units. Unfortunately, that mechanism doesn’t always make construction financially feasible. This is particularly an issue with the latest version of the tax-exemption law, known as Section 485-x, to which the state legislature attached “prevailing (union) wage” requirements to buildings with more than 99 units. 

That’s asking for more than many developers can give and still make a profit. Like the rent regulation issue, that problem can’t be papered over with more public subsidies; the city needs far more housing than it can pay for. Private developers need to be permitted a decent return on investment. There is an existing MIH waiver provision, but it has never been used. Mamdani’s administration should clarify the circumstances where waivers might be granted because new housing investment is not otherwise possible.

In summary, Mamdani and his appointees should consider pragmatic actions that would help the city and do not contradict his core beliefs. If he does, the city can be better off at the end of his term than it is today.

Eric Kober is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. He previously served as director of housing, economic and infrastructure planning at the NYC Department of City Planning.

The post Opinion: How Mamdani Can Keep His Principles And Still Do Good For NYC’s Housing Market appeared first on City Limits.