Nation: Two New York City police officers were shot and killed yesterday as they sat in their patrol car in the Bedford Stuyvesant section of the city. The suspected shooter identified as Ismaaiyl Brinsley, 28, was later found dead of a self-inflicted wound down in a nearby subway station.

Investigators said Brinsley had made comments online that he was angry about police killings of unarmed black men and that he planned to kill some police officers. He started in Baltimore shooting and wounding his ex girlfriend before going to New York to randomly select two cops.

Hundreds of New York police officers lined up in the street saluting as two ambulances passed carrying the bodies of the dead officers.

This is the first police death for New York mayor Bill de Blasio whose relationship with his police force was strained by the case of Eric Garner, who was killed at the hands of police officers in Brooklyn last summer. The cops say de Blasio was not sufficiently supportive of police during demonstrations claiming unjustified police violence. Yesterday the head of the police union said de Blasio “has blood on his hands” and only a week ago the police union warned de Blasio not to attend police funerals. Now there will be two of them.

World: Cuban President Raul Castro declared “We won the war” in a speech to his nation about re-opening relations with the US after 54 years of isolation and embargo. He said, “The Cuban people are grateful to remove the obstacles to our relations.” Castro said Cuba needed to speed up economic reforms but that his country would remain communist.

>Australian mother Mersane Warria, 37, has been formally charged with the murder of eight children, seven of them her own. Warria is recovering from stab wounds to the chest. Police have not said how the children were killed.

Gitmo: The US has sent four prisoners from the Guantanamo Bay prison home to Afghanistan after years of detention. The four are described as “low risk,” which begs the question of why they were being held. The Obama administration is paring the Gitmo population in hopes of closing it. With the latest exits it’s down to 132.

The Sports Page: Former heavyweight champion Muhammed Ali is in the hospital with what is described as a mild case of pneumonia. Doctors say he should make a quick recovery. The 72-year-old Ali has severe Parkinson’s disease.

The Obit Page: Lowell Steward, one of the famed Tuskegee Airmen of World War II who flew 143 missions in a fighter plane and after the war was denied a home mortgage because he was black, has died at age 95. Near the end of the war Steward’s all-black unit flying prop-powered P51 Mustangs shot down three of the new German ME 262 jet fighters. Later when Steward was denied a mortgage he got his real estate license so he could help other black homebuyers and he spent 40 years in the business.

Attack Humor: North Korean hackers may have blocked the movie The Interview but forgot that NBC’s Saturday Night Live is a weekly threat. SNL’s Bobby Moynihan appeared last night on Weekend Update as Kim Jong-un commenting on Christmas shopping until his chest was painted with laser targeting dots. He quickly departed identifying himself as “Seth Rogen, everyone!”

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