Axios

A device that was thrown outside New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani's official residence during a weekend protest was an "improvised explosive," N.Y. Police Department and FBI investigators said Sunday.

The big picture: The NYPD said two people were in custody following Saturday's incident, which happened amid an anti-Islam protest and counter-demonstration near Gracie Mansion — which Mamdani denounced in online posts as "disturbing."

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Sunday called on President Trump to release oil from the national stockpile to counter soaring gas prices — an idea that Republicans have been slow to embrace.

Why it matters: Tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) could deprive Republicans of a talking point: That then-President Biden's move to do so in 2022 was done for purely political reasons.

The Trump administration's top energy official argued Sunday that fear — not supply shortages — is driving a historic surge in oil prices.

The big picture: The world is well-supplied with oil, but markets are reacting to real-world disruptions — a strangled Strait of Hormuz, halted production and strikes on fuel storage.

The U.S. and Israel have discussed sending special forces into Iran to secure its stockpile of highly enriched uranium at a later stage of the war, according to four sources with knowledge of the discussions.

Why it matters: Preventing Iran from ever obtaining a nuclear weapon is one of President Trump's stated war objectives. The regime's 450 kilograms of 60%-enriched uranium — convertible to weapons grade within weeks — is one key to that goal.

The United States has an extensive history of interventionism, but President Trump has grown especially frank about his intentions abroad in recent months.

The big picture: Trump told Axios this week that he must be involved in picking Iran's next leader, which — alongside his recent moves in Cuba and Venezuela — demonstrate that aggressive military force has become part and parcel of his foreign policy.

• It wouldn't be the first time, however, that the U.S. has pushed for specific leaders to fill the vacancies it helped create.

President Trump said Saturday "we've knocked out 42 navy ships" in three days, adding that the US is doing "very well" in Iran.

Why it matters: Trump bragged about dominance in Iran and hinted at possible action in Cuba at the first Shield of the Americas Summit, which has outgoing Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem at the helm.

Just 54 Black-owned bookstores were identified across the U.S a decade ago. Today, a new report counts 306.

Why it matters: As public schools and libraries remove books by Black authors — from Beloved to The 1619 Project — Black-owned bookstores are increasingly serving as places where readers can access contested titles and authors' full bodies of work — and gather in community to discuss them.

President Trump threatened early Saturday morning to step up the bombing campaign in Iran, saying it may expand to people and regions that hadn't been targeted previously.

Why it matters: The war is entering its second week, with no let-up in sight.

President Trump is mired in risk:

• Risk his Iran war of choice goes bad.
• Risk the February job losses are a trend, not a blip.
• Risk the stock market keeps dropping.
• Risk his tariffs, and now soaring oil costs, are pushing prices higher.
• Risk that deregulated AI accelerates job losses.
• Risk that Democratic enthusiasm leads to a midterm wipeout.

Why it matters: Trump fancies himself a high-risk, high-reward president, a confidence cheered by the vast majority of Republican officials and voters. But risk is risk — and by most measures, it's rising everywhere.

Iraq's Kurds are caught in a three-way vise as the Iran war spills across their border:

• They're uncertain, based on President Trump's messaging, whether the U.S. actually wants regime change next door.
• They're under pressure to open the border from Iranian Kurds who want to fight the regime.
• And they're facing a public threat — backed by a private warning — that Iran will retaliate if those militants attack from Iraqi Kurdish soil.

Why it matters: The Kurds of northern Iraq have carved out a stable, semi-autonomous region in one of the world's most volatile neighborhoods. Now, the war next door is threatening to make their neutrality impossible to hold.