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For Immediate Release
April, 14 2016, 11:45pm EDT
Contact:
Lindsay Meiman, 350 Action, (347) 460-9082
Democratic Debate Brings Heated Exchange on Climate
During tonight's Democratic debate at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, a site that was flooded by Hurricane Sandy, presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton displayed the fiercest exchange around climate change yet.
NEW YORK
During tonight's Democratic debate at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, a site that was flooded by Hurricane Sandy, presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton displayed the fiercest exchange around climate change yet.
"The movement has pushed climate change to the forefront of this presidential election," said Yong Jung Cho, spokesperson for 350 Action. "From the 400,000 people in the streets of New York City at the People's Climate March and a statewide ban on fracking in New York, to young people across the country asking candidates over 130 questions on climate over the course of the election, tonight's debate was proof that organizing works."
Next Tuesday's highly anticipated primary in New York, one of the only states with a ban on fracking, will be pivotal in defining each candidate's climate platforms.
Earlier this year, the Porter Ranch disaster just miles outside of Los Angeles shined a harsh spotlight on the dangers of existing natural gas infrastructure and intensified concerns around the impact fracking has on communities and the climate.
During her tenure as Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton traveled abroad selling fracking to the world, though she recently expressed her support for the statewide ban on fracking New York. Just yesterday, Clinton introduced a new platform that speaks to the widespread issue of environmental injustice. Across the country, fracking has disproportionate impacts on low-income communities and communities of color.
The latest research on fracking affirms that methane emissions from the fracking are significantly more potent than carbon dioxide. Activists are concerned that Clinton's referral to natural gas as a "bridge fuel" is inconsistent with how serious of a problem she considers climate change.
"The science tells us that the climate is changing faster than ever predicted -- there is no room for incrementalism here," said Cho. "Secretary Clinton has ramped up plans to tackle climate change, yet she's still referring to natural gas as a potential 'bridge fuel.' It's time that she recognize natural gas for what it is: a fossil fuel and a major contributor to climate change."
At every corner of the nation, climate activists are uniting under the banner to "keep it in the ground," calling for an end to all fossil fuel extraction on public lands and waters. During tonight's debate, Senator Sanders mentioned the Keep It In The Ground Act, an unprecedented piece of climate legislation that he supported in November.
Within the first moments of the debate, candidates fired at one another around the influence of corporate money in the campaign. Young people across the country have been asking all candidates to refuse donations from fossil fuel interests, and have been asking about Clinton about her ties to the fossil fuel industry since July. Days after the conclusion of the Paris climate talks, Clinton vowed to look into fossil fuel donations to her campaign.
Reports confirm that Clinton's biggest campaign bundlers have come from fossil fuel lobbyists. According to a recent report from Greenpeace, fossil fuel interests have pumped more than $4.5 million into Clinton's campaign and supportive super PACs during the 2016 election cycle. The Clinton campaign has received the maximum amount in donations from industry lobbyists, including ExxonMobil's Theresa Fariello.
Senator Sanders pledged to refuse all donations from fossil fuel lobbyists last summer.
Tonight's debate was testament to how far climate activists have helped move both candidates on climate change. Activists have pushed Democratic candidates to express stronger stances on climate than ever before, including Secretary Clinton expressing opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline, offshore drilling, fossil fuel extraction on public lands, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and calling for a Department of Justice investigation into Exxon's climate crimes, as well as Senator Sanders coming out against the NED and Enbridge pipelines.
"The climate movement has set the new standard for our politicians that all ties to fossil fuel interests are unacceptable," said Cho. "It's relieving and exciting to see climate change finally being addressed as the urgent crisis that it is. Tonight's debate was a stark reminder of the real villain: the fossil fuel industry."
350 Action is the independent political action arm of the non-profit, non-partisan climate justice group 350.org.
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Labor Leaders Cheer House Vote to Undo 'Single-Largest Act of Union Busting in American History'
"President Trump betrayed workers," said the head of the AFL-CIO. "Working people delivered a rare bipartisan majority to stop the administration's unprecedented attacks on our freedoms."
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US labor leaders on Thursday celebrated the House of Representatives' bipartisan vote in favor of a bill that would reverse President Donald Trump's attack on the collective bargaining rights of 1 million federal workers.
Trump's sweeping assault on federal workers has included March and August executive orders targeting their rights under the guise of protecting national security. In response, Congressmen Jared Golden (D-Maine) and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) spearheaded the fight for the Protect America’s Workforce Act. They recently collected enough signatures to force the 231-195 vote, in which 20 Republicans joined all Democrats present to send the bill to the Senate.
"The right to be heard in one's workplace may appear basic, but it carries great weight—it ensures that the people who serve our nation have a seat at the table when decisions shape their work and their mission," Fitzpatrick said after the vote.
"This bill moves us closer to restoring that fundamental protection for nearly 1 million federal employees, many of them veterans," he added. "I will always fight for our workers, and I call on the Senate to help ensure these protections are fully reinstated."
American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) president Liz Shuler joined union leaders in applauding the lower chamber on Thursday and calling on the Senate to follow suit. She said in a statement that "President Trump betrayed workers when he tried to rip away our collective bargaining rights. In these increasingly polarized times, working people delivered a rare bipartisan majority to stop the administration's unprecedented attacks on our freedoms."
"We commend the Republicans and Democrats who stood with workers and voted to reverse the single-largest act of union busting in American history," she continued. "Americans trust unions more than either political party. As we turn to the Senate—where the bill already has bipartisan support—working people are calling on the politicians we elected to stand with us, even if it means standing up to the union-busting boss in the White House."
Everett Kelley, national president of the American Federation of Government Employees, the largest federal workers union, similarly praised the members of Congress who "demonstrated their support for the nonpartisan civil service, for the dedicated employees who serve our country with honor and distinction, and for the critical role that collective bargaining has in fostering a safe, protective, and collaborative workplace."
"This vote marks an historic achievement for the House's bipartisan pro-labor majority, courageously led by Reps. Jared Golden of Maine and Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania," he said. "We need to build on this seismic victory in the House and get immediate action in the Senate—and also ensure that any future budget bills similarly protect collective bargaining rights for the largely unseen civil servants who keep our government running."
American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees president Lee Saunders also applauded the House's passage of "a bill that strengthens federal workers' freedoms on the job so they can continue to keep our nation safe, healthy, and strong."
"This bill not only provides workers' critical protections from an administration that has spent the past year relentlessly attacking them," he noted, "but it also ensures that our communities are served by the most qualified public service workers—not just those with the best political connections."
Randy Erwin, the head of the National Federation of Federal Employees, declared that "this is an incredible testament to the strength of federal employees and the longstanding support for their fundamental right to organize and join a union."
"The president cannot unilaterally strip working people of their constitutional freedom of association. In bipartisan fashion, Congress has asserted their authority to hold the president accountable for the biggest attack on workers that this country has ever seen," he added, thanking the House supporters and pledging to work with "senators from both parties to ensure this bill is signed into law."
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New Low for Fetterman: Senator Privately Urged Pardon for Netanyahu
"For someone who claims to care about hostages, going to bat for a leader who sacrificed them for his own political survival... is the height of cynicism," said one Israeli critic.
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US Sen. John Fetterman recently asked Israel's president to pardon Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—who is on trial in his country for alleged bribery, fraud, and breach of trust—Talking Points Memo revealed on Thursday.
In a previously unreported December 2 letter sent to Israeli President Isaac Herzog and obtained by TPM, Fetterman (D-Pa.) asserted, “In a world this dangerous, I question whether any democracy can afford to have its head of government spending valuable hours, day after day, in a courtroom rather than the situation room."
“I believe there is a strong case to be made for a pardon—not to erase the past, but to secure the future," Fetterman added.
Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump have also asked Herzog to pardon the beleaguered Israeli prime minister, who in addition to facing domestic criminal charges is also a fugitive from the International Criminal Court, which last year issued a warrant for his arrest for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza.
Scoop, w the incomparable @kateriga.bsky.social: John Fetterman asked Israel's President to pardon Netanyahu in a previously unreported letter talkingpointsmemo.com/news/fetterm...
[image or embed]
— Josh Kovensky (@joshkovensky.bsky.social) December 11, 2025 at 10:03 AM
Fetterman has taken more than $370,000 in campaign contributions from the pro-Israel lobby, including the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, according to AIPAC Tracker. He has been an ardent supporter of Israel's US-backed genocidal war on Gaza, which has left more than 250,000 Palestinians dead, wounded, or missing and 2 million others forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened.
In addition to repeatedly opposing calls by progressive members of his own party for an arms embargo on Israel, Fetterman has amplified Israeli claims regarding the war, and even giddily accepted a silver-plated beeper gifted by Netanyahu following the September 2024 pager bombings that killed at least 20 people in Lebanon, including children.
Asked Thursday about his letter to Herzog, Fetterman said, "I fully support it" and called the TPM's reporting "a pointless distraction."
“I know you guys use things like leaks, but I don’t know who did that," he told TPM reporters Kate Riga and Josh Kovensky, who broke news of the letter.
Responding to theTPM article, Israeli journalist Etan Nechin said on social media that "for someone who claims to care about hostages, going to bat for a leader who sacrificed them for his own political survival... is the height of cynicism"—a reference to allegations that Netanyahu prolonged the war, and thus the release of the more than 250 Israelis and others abducted by Hamas during the October 7, 2023 attack, in order to delay his corruption trial.
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Cold Weather Kills Baby in Flooded Gaza Tent as UN Warns of Crisis for Mothers and Children
"The pattern is clear—malnourished mothers, giving birth to underweight or premature babies, who die in Gaza's neonatal intensive care units or survive, only to face malnutrition themselves," said a UNICEF spokesperson.
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Over two years into Israel's genocidal assault on and blockade of the Gaza Strip, the death toll continued to rise on Thursday, with local health officials and relatives confirming that 8-month-old Rahaf Abu Jazar died of exposure after floodwaters hit her family's tent in Khan Younis.
Her death came as the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the UN Human Rights Office in the occupied Palestinian territory continued to sound the alarm about conditions for mothers and children, including infants like Abu Jazar.
As CNN reported Thursday:
Weeping and caressing the lifeless Rahaf in her arms, the baby's mother, Hejar Abu Jazar, kept ululating in despair. She said she had fed her daughter the previous night.
"She was completely fine. I breastfed her last night. Then all of a sudden, I found her freezing and shivering. She was healthy, my sweetheart," she cried.
"When we woke up, we found the rain over her and the wind on her, and the girl died of cold suddenly," the mother told Reuters. "There was nothing wrong with her. Oh, the fire in my heart, the fire in my heart, oh my life."
Citing municipal and civil defense officials, the news agency also noted that the storm flooded most tent encampments across Gaza, leading to thousands of calls for help that largely went unanswered due to fuel shortages and damage to equipment such as bulldozers tied to Israel's blockade and bombardment of the exclave since the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack.
After more than two years of war, Hamas and Israel struck a ceasefire deal this past October, though hundreds of alleged Israeli violations have resulted in at least 383 Palestinian deaths and 1,002 injuries. As of Thursday, the Gaza Ministry of Health put the totals at 70,373 dead and 171,079 injured, though with thousands missing, those are likely undercounts.
In addition to killing over 70,000 Palestinians, Israel "has also damaged or destroyed 94% of Gaza's hospitals, largely denying women access to essential healthcare, including reproductive healthcare," the UN Human Rights Office noted in a Thursday statement. "The Israeli blockade has also prevented the entry of objects indispensable to the survival of civilians, including medical supplies and nutrients required to sustain pregnancies and ensure safe childbirth."
"As a result, women were three times more likely to die from childbirth and three times more likely to miscarry in Gaza by October 2024 compared to before October 7, 2023," the office said. "Newborn deaths have increased, including at least 21 babies who died on their first day of life as of June 30, 2025. And births have dropped by a staggering 41% in the first half of 2025 compared to the same period in 2022."
Dr. Ambereen Sleemi, an American gynecologist, told the UN office about her experience volunteering in July at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, the largest medical facility in southern Gaza.
"As we did our rounds, bombs were going off in the background. One time, a nurse was shot in the head through the window in Nasser," she said. "Sometimes quadcopters would come in and try to shoot nurses or literally chase them through the hospital corridors."
"I cared for pregnant women who had been shot in various locations, including the abdomen," the doctor continued. "Many women were simply too injured to survive. If their injuries did not claim their lives, then sepsis often did, as there were not enough medical supplies or antibiotics to treat the preventable infections that followed."
"Almost every pregnant woman I treated who had other children said she had already lost a child in the war," Sleemi added. "The collective pain and sorrow were overwhelming and ever-present."
Some of them have died of hunger. While speaking with reporters at UN headquarters in Geneva earlier this week, Tess Ingram, UNICEF communication manager, highlighted how the hunger crisis in Gaza is impacting mothers and young kids.
"At least 165 children are reported to have died painful, preventable deaths related to malnutrition during the war," Ingram said. "But far less reported has been the scale of malnutrition among pregnant and breastfeeding women, and the devastating domino effect that has had on thousands of newborns."
"The pattern is clear—malnourished mothers, giving birth to underweight or premature babies, who die in Gaza's neonatal intensive care units or survive, only to face malnutrition themselves or potential lifelong medical complications," she continued, recalling some of the newborns she saw in the strip's hospitals, "their tiny chests heaving with the effort of staying alive."
Ingram stressed that "low birth weight infants are about 20 times more likely to die than infants of normal weight. They need special care, which many of the hospitals in Gaza have struggled to provide due to the destruction of the health system, the death and displacement of staff, and impediments by Israeli authorities that prevented some essential medical supplies from entering the strip."
She also shared the story of meeting a mother at a neonatal intensive care unit in Gaza City two weeks ago. The woman, Fatma, was there to see her baby, Mohammed, who was born premature and weighed only 3.3 pounds.
According to Ingram:
Fatma told me that unlike her first pregnancy, when she had access to antenatal checkups, vitamins, and nutritious food, "this pregnancy has been full of displacement, lack of food, malnutrition, war, and fear." She said she was malnourished for three months of the pregnancy, displaced three times, and her young daughter and husband were killed, two months apart, by airstrikes.
I have spent many months in Gaza over the past two years, and I see and hear the generational impacts of the conflict on mothers and their infants almost every day; in hospitals, nutrition clinics, and family tents. It is less visible than blood or injury, but it is ubiquitous. It is everywhere.
I have lost count of the number of parents like Fatma who have sobbed while telling me what happened to them, wrecked by how powerless they are to protect their children in the face of indiscriminate destruction and deprivation. Generations of families, including those born into the ceasefire, have been forever altered by what was inflicted upon them.
"And the fear must end," she declared. "This ceasefire should offer families safety, not more loss. More than 70 children have been killed in the eight weeks since the ceasefire began. The ongoing attacks and the killing of children must stop immediately."
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