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(WASHINGTON) — U.S. Southern Command said it targeted three vessels traveling in a convoy in undisclosed international waters — leaving “narco-terrorists” as survivors after they jumped overboard, according to a social media statement.

The strikes occurred on Dec. 30, according to the post on X.

“Three narco-terrorists aboard the first vessel were killed in the first engagement,” the statement said. “The remaining narco-terrorists abandoned the other two vessels, jumping overboard and distancing themselves before follow-on engagements sank their respective vessels.”

At least six people survived the Dec. 30 strikes, which took place in the Eastern Pacific, according to a U.S. official.

The U.S. Coast Guard was notified to begin searching for the survivors in a search and rescue operation, the statement said.

The U.S. Coast Guard confirmed that a search-and-rescue operation was underway, and that Coast Guard C-130 aircraft had been deployed for the operation. The Coast Guard has put out a signal to other mariners for the survivors in distress.

In a statement shared with ABC News, the Coast Guard said, “on December 30th, the U.S. Coast Guard was notified by the Department of War of mariners in distress in the Pacific Ocean.”

“The U.S. Coast Guard is coordinating search and rescue operations with vessels in the area, and a Coast Guard C-130 aircraft is en route to provide further search coverage,” it said.

Several hours after announcing the Dec. 30 strikes, Southern Command posted on social media that another series of strikes — carried out on New Year’s Eve — had targeted two more vessels alleged to be engaged in drug trafficking. The post did not specify where the strike took place.

A total of five people were killed — three in the first vessel and two in the second, according to the post.

There have now been at least 34 strikes — and at least 115 people killed — in the U.S. military campaign in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific targeting alleged drug traffickers since September.

In the posts about the strikes, the military said the vessels targeted were operated by designated terrorist organizations and that intelligence confirmed the vessel were “were transiting along known narco-trafficking routes and engaged in narco-trafficking.”

The U.S. campaign targeting alleged drug boats came under scrutiny last month after the Trump administration acknowledged survivors of an initial series of strikes on an alleged drug vessel on Sept. 2 were killed in a follow-up series of strikes.

In another attack in the Caribbean in October, two survivors of a strike on a submarine suspected of carrying drugs were later returned to the countries of origin — Ecuador and Colombia — to be detained and prosecuted, President Donald Trump said.

On Oct. 27, a mariner, now presumed dead, also survived U.S. strikes.

 

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(WASHINGTON) — The Department of Justice is asking for help reviewing 5.2 million pages of unreviewed documents related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, seeking to enlist 400 lawyers total from its criminal and national security divisions along with the U.S. attorneys’ offices in Florida and New York, according to people familiar with the matter.

As Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche told ABC News Chief Justice Correspondent Pierre Thomas in an interview earlier this month, the DOJ already had nearly 200 lawyers working to review the files.

But in recent days, department leadership has made clear to the workforce that more help is needed.

The New York Times was first to report the development.

The review of the documents is expected to take much of January, the sources said.

The reorienting of resources from both the criminal and national security divisions has already raised concerns among current and former DOJ officials given the department has already diverted many of those resources towards immigration enforcement, according to sources familiar with the matter.

At this point, the next release of documents is not expected until the end of next month, according to the sources.

Congress passed the Epstein Files Transparency Act in November mandating the release of the DOJ’s files on Epstein. The measure required the DOJ to release all of the documents, with certain exceptions like protecting victim privacy and ongoing investigations, by Friday, Dec. 19. Missing the deadline, the DOJ said it has been delayed by the vetting process to protect victims.

It’s not immediately clear why the Department of Justice is only now claiming that it has just discovered upward of 5 million pages of documents from its investigations into Epstein, who died by suicide in 2019 in his jail cell awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

In February, Attorney General Pam Bondi admonished the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York after she said they had only just alerted her to the existence of hundreds of thousands of documents that they had not previously provided to her office. It’s not clear why they are only now claiming to be alerted to this vast volume of alleged unreviewed material. 

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(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump issued vetoes for the first bills of his second term, including a bipartisan bill intended to provide funding for a water infrastructure project in Colorado, a measure that passed the House and Senate unanimously.

The Finish the Arkansas Valley Conduit Act was set to provide clean water to rural parts of Colorado.

“Enough is enough. My administration is committed to preventing American taxpayers from funding expensive and unreliable policies,” Trump wrote in a veto letter sent to Congress. “Ending the massive cost of taxpayer handouts and restoring fiscal sanity is vital to economic growth and the fiscal health of the nation.”

Trump also vetoed the Miccosukee Reserved Area Amendment Act, a bipartisan bill that aimed in part to optimize water flow into part of Everglades National Park designated for the Miccosukee Native American tribe and to incorporate the Osceola Camp into the Miccosukee Reserved Area to improve the governing structure of the tribe.

“[D]espite seeking funding and special treatment from the Federal Government, the Miccosukee Tribe has actively sought to obstruct reasonable immigration policies that the American people decisively voted for when I was elected,” Trump wrote in his veto. “My Administration is committed to preventing American taxpayers from funding projects for special interests, especially those that are unaligned with my Administration’s policy of removing violent criminal illegal aliens from the country.”

The Miccosukee tribe was part of the opposition to the construction of the so-called “Alligator Alcatraz” migrant detention facility in the Everglades.

Trump’s veto of the bipartisan bill supporting the Colorado project comes at a time when he has fractious relations with some of the state’s political leaders.

The bill was co-sponsored by House Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, who defied the Trump administration by signing onto the Epstein discharge petition that forced a vote on a measure to compel the DOJ to release the files. The pipeline would provide water to residents of Boebert’s district.

“This isn’t over,” Boebert said on social media on Tuesday, responding to the White House’s veto announcement.

Democrats also are responding to the bill’s veto, with Colorado’s Democratic Sens. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper lambasting Trump on social media, with both accusing him of playing partisan politics.

“Trump just vetoed my Arkansas Valley Conduit bill — passed unanimously to deliver clean, affordable water to Southeast Colorado,” Bennet said. “This isn’t governing. It’s a revenge tour.”

“Donald Trump is playing partisan games and punishing Colorado by making rural communities suffer without clean drinking water,” Hickenlooper said, adding that Congress should overturn Trump’s veto.

Since the bill cleared both chambers unanimously, Congress could overturn Trump’s veto. Doing so would require passing the measure by a two-thirds vote in both chambers. Trump vetoed ten bills total during his first administration, only one of which — the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021 — was overridden by Congress.

Trump’s veto also comes two weeks after he attacked Colorado Gov. Jared Polis for refusing to release former Mesa County, Colorado, clerk Tina Peters from prison following her receiving a presidential pardon.

Peters was convicted on state charges for a scheme to tamper with voting systems driven by false claims about the 2020 election. Trump’s pardon power does not extend to state crimes.

“The poorly run state of Colorado with a governor whose incompetent and frankly, with a governor that won’t allow our wonderful Tina to come out of a jail, in a high intensity jail because she caught people cheating on an election and they said she was cheating,” Trump said on Dec. 15.

He added, “She wasn’t cheating. She went over, she looked at one of the election scams going on. And because she did that, they put her in jail for nine years.”

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(NEW YORK) — Zohran Mamdani, the state assemblyman and democratic socialist who catapulted to national attention during the 2025 race for New York City mayor, is set to be inaugurated on New Year’s Day 2026 in a ceremony that will usher in historic leadership for America’s largest city, as Mamdani becomes the city’s first Muslim mayor and first mayor of South Asian descent.

“I think this is an important day for New Yorkers and even for the United States. The Mamdani inaugural on Jan. 1 is going to attract a global audience,” Mitchell Moss, a professor of urban policy at New York University, told ABC News. 

Mamdani will be formally sworn in during a private ceremony by New York Attorney General Letitia James at midnight Thursday. That will take place in the now-decommissioned original City Hall subway station, which is known for its ornate arches and tiled ceiling.

Mamdani will be sworn in during the midnight ceremony on a centuries-old Qur’an from the New York Public Library’s collections, the library said Wednesday.

Laura Tamman, a political science professor at Pace University, said she sees both historical and practical significance in that location.

It is “acknowledging the history of the city,” she said. “It also, honestly, is a secure location … It was such a divisive campaign.”

Mamdani faced death and car bomb threats during his campaign, which included threats that targeted his Muslim faith.

“Whenever you have someone who’s making history like this — I’m sure that there are more security concerns than there were for, say, [former Mayor] Bill de Blasio’s swearing-in,” Tamman said.

At his public inauguration ceremony, set for 1 p.m. ET on the steps of New York City Hall on Thursday, Mamdani will be sworn in by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Brooklyn-born independent and fellow democratic socialist who has been an ideological ally.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a fellow democratic socialist who represents a swath of the Bronx, will also deliver remarks.

Moss said that having Sanders be a part of the inauguration makes a statement “that this is a national event … so I think that [Mamdani is] identifying his ideological roots and his connection to national politics.”

Tamman, meanwhile, said that “Ocasio-Cortez was, similarly to [Mamdani], really underestimated by the Democratic establishment, and has gone on to become a really important leader in the party.”

Mamdani’s transition team has also said that Cornelius Eady, a prolific poet and a National Book Award finalist, will read a new poem at Mamdani’s inauguration, and that the inauguration will include a block party open to the public. 

Mamdani triumphed over independent candidate former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa after campaigning largely on making the city more affordable, although he often faced questions over his relative lack of political experience and feasibility of his proposals. His campaign promises included a rent freeze for rent-stabilized apartments, free bus fares and free childcare for children aged 6 weeks to 5 years.

During the campaign, he took stances on policing and public safety more moderate than how he had spoken about policing previously, and committed during his campaign to keeping on New York City’s current police commissioner, Jessica Tisch. 

Mamdani will also face the challenge of translating his campaign promises into reality, which will include working with the state government, which controls taxes, and the city council on various city proposals.

At an event on Tuesday with reporters, Mamdani focused largely on administration appointments and the road ahead.

“I will demand excellence from my team, from myself, and also, I will ensure that we create the conditions where that excellence is possible to deliver on,” he said while responding to questions about the city’s Law Department.

Moss said that “no one expects a new mayor to do everything they promise, but they have to be making progress on their promises.”

“So Mamdani has to have some wins this year, which lay the ground for bigger wins in the future. And I think the key part is that he has identified what he wants,” Moss said.

The new mayor will also have to navigate the liberal-leaning city’s relationship with the Republican-controlled federal government. In November, Mamdani met with President Donald Trump in what was widely expected to be a contentious meeting, but ended up being very cordial. 

During the meeting, Trump and Mamdani said they agreed on many things, after they had criticized each other for months during the campaign. 

“I think you’re going to have, hopefully, a really great mayor; and the better he does, the happier I am,” Trump said at the time.

Neera Tanden, president of the liberal-leaning Center for American Progress, said on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday that Mamdani “has to get the rents down. He has to make sure the city runs well.”

“But I think a lot of people look at the fact that he was able to get Donald Trump to basically compliment him,” she added.

ABC News’ Ivan Pereira contributed to this report.

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