April, 22 2025, 02:47pm EDT

Pending Trump Trade Agreement with India Likely Another Corporate Deal at Expense of Working People
Vice President JD Vance and US Trade Representative Jameieson Greer announced reaching agreed-upon terms of reference for a roadmap toward a Bilateral Trade Agreement between the United States and India. These terms have not been made public. The Trump administration continues to claim that other deals with Japan, South Korea, and other countries are advancing rapidly.
In response, Melinda St. Louis, Global Trade Watch director at Public Citizen, issued the following statement:
“Trump continues to con American workers, claiming that he’s upending our unfair trading system, while actually doubling down on secretive and rushed ‘negotiations’ that will only lead to more of the same corporate-dominated trade deals at the expense of working people.
“He’s not using trade and tariff policy to protect workers – he’s wielding reckless and unstrategic tariff threats as a cudgel to push more antidemocratic deals that benefit his corporate cronies. Look no further than Big Tech’s hit list of other countries’ privacy, anti-monopoly and online safety laws that he waved around when he announced so-called ‘reciprocal tariffs’.
“Without transparency and public and Congressional participation in the content of these trade negotiations, it is virtually certain that these ‘deals’ will be nothing more than another authoritarian power grab, as other countries and corporations bend the knee to Trump, benefiting billionaires at the expense of the rest of us.”
Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization that champions the public interest in the halls of power. We defend democracy, resist corporate power and work to ensure that government works for the people - not for big corporations. Founded in 1971, we now have 500,000 members and supporters throughout the country.
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Mamdani Taps 'Unafraid and Unbought' Julie Su as First NYC Deputy Mayor for Economic Justice
"What a thrilling day for the working class of New York City," said one local labor leader.
Dec 19, 2025
In a move cheered by advocates for the working class, New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani said Friday that former acting US Labor Secretary Julie Su will serve as the city's first-ever deputy mayor for economic justice.
"Welcome to a new era, Julie Su," Mamdani, a Democrat, said in a social media post announcing the appointment. "As former US secretary of labor, Julie played a central role in fighting for workers, ensuring a just day's pay for a hard day's work, and saving the pensions of more than a million union workers and retirees."
Speaking at a Friday press conference in Staten Island with Mamdani and Deputy Mayor for Housing nominee Leila Bozorg, Su said: "In the richest city in the richest country in the world, no one should be treated as disposable. Dignity on the job is not a privilege but a right, justice is not abstract but it is felt in a paycheck you can live on, a schedule that you can build a life around, a workplace where your voice matters, and a city that has your back.”
Su, who had previously served as California labor secretary and deputy US labor secretary, was nominated by former President Joe Biden to permanently lead the Department of Labor. However, Republicans and some right-wing Democrats in the US Senate blocked her appointment, so Biden installed her in an acting capacity, in which she served from March 2023 until the end of the Democrat's administration in January.
During her tenure, Su championed gig workers; fought to preserve pensions for retirees; pushed for workplace protections from Covid-19 and environmental harms; and helped negotiate labor agreements for healthcare professionals, flight attendants, and others.
Su will now work with Mamdani, a democratic socialist, as he seeks to deliver on his campaign promises of free public childcare and municipal buses, a freeze on rent-stabilized housing, and city-owned grocery stores to residents of the nation's largest city.
"What a thrilling day for the working class of New York City to have the first-ever deputy mayor for economic justice to ensure that our issues are front [and] center at every level of city government," New York Taxi Workers Alliance executive director Bhairavi Desai said in a statement.
"With the appointment of the esteemed Julie Su—who is unafraid and unbought by corporate interests—Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani is cementing the highest, uncompromised, and effective standards for a better life for New Yorkers abandoned and betrayed in decades past," Desai added.
The NYC Central Labor Council of the AFL-CIO said on Bluesky: "Big news! Julie Su as deputy mayor for economic justice brings deep experience enforcing labor law, fighting wage theft, and standing up for working families."
"She’s known and respected across the labor movement, including here in NYC," the council added. "Looking forward to working with a proven champion for workers at City Hall!"
Service Employees International Union international president April Verrett said on X that Su "has spent her career standing with workers and holding powerful interests to account."
"Bringing her into City Hall says New York is done talking and ready to throw down for the people who keep this city moving," she added.
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Gaza No Longer Officially Facing Famine—But 1.6 Million Palestinians Still in 'Man-Made Hunger Crisis'
"To end this catastrophe, supplies must be let in at scale and humanitarians allowed to do their job," said the head of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees.
Dec 19, 2025
While the global initiative that tracks hunger crises concluded Friday that the Gaza Strip is no longer facing "famine," the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification report echoed warnings from United Nations leaders and humanitarian groups that "the situation remains critical" for Palestinians who have endured over two years of an Israeli assault and blockade.
Famine was declared in August, sparking a worldwide outrage over what one research group called "genocidal starvation." The new IPC report—released after an October ceasefire deal between Hamas and Israel—says that "following a significant reduction in conflict, a proposed peace plan, and improved access for both humanitarian and commercial food deliveries, food security conditions have improved in the Gaza Strip."
However, the report also notes that between mid-October and the end of November, "around 1.6 million people (77% of the population analyzed) faced high levels of acute food insecurity (IPC Phase 3 or above)," including "more than half a million people in emergency (IPC Phase 4) and over 100,000 people in catastrophe (IPC Phase 5)."
Those conditions—over three-quarters of Gaza's population at risk of famine—are expected to continue through April. In other words, as Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), put it, "Gaza remains in a man-made hunger crisis."
The latest IPC report "underscores how fragile the gains have been since the ceasefire began in October," he said on social media. "To end this catastrophe, supplies must be let in at scale and humanitarians allowed to do their job. UNRWA has food parcels for 1.1 million people and flour for the entire population waiting to enter the Gaza Strip."
As the Associated Press reported Friday, while Israeli government agencies rejected the IPC findings, humanitarian leaders and Palestinians have highlighted all that the people of Gaza continue to endure because of Israel's war on the strip:
"This is not a debate about truck numbers or calories on paper. It's about whether people can actually access food, clean water, shelter, and healthcare safely and consistently. Right now, they cannot," said Bushra Khalidi, Oxfam's policy lead for Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory.
People must be able to rebuild their homes, grow food, and recover, and the conditions for that are still being denied, she said.
Even with more products in the markets, Palestinians say they can't afford it. "There is food and meat, but no one has money," said Hany al-Shamali, who was displaced from Gaza City. "How can we live?"
Earlier this week, the Humanitarian Country Team of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, which brings together heads of UN entities and over 200 nongovernmental organizations, urged the international community to "take immediate and concrete actions to press the Israeli authorities to lift all impediments," including a new registration process for NGOs, that continue to undermine lifesaving operations, "or risk the collapse of the humanitarian response, particularly in the Gaza Strip."
The team emphasized that "humanitarian access is not optional, conditional, or political. It is a legal obligation under international humanitarian law, particularly in Gaza, where Israel has failed to ensure that the population is adequately supplied. Israeli authorities must allow and facilitate rapid, unimpeded passage of humanitarian relief. They must immediately reverse policies that obstruct humanitarian operations and ensure that humanitarian organizations are able to operate without compromising humanitarian principles. Lifesaving assistance must be allowed to reach Palestinians without further delay."
Israel has killed at least 70,669 Palestinians in the strip and wounded 171,165 others since launching its retaliation for the Hamas-led attack on October 7, 2023, the Gaza Health Ministry said Thursday. Experts have warned that the true death toll is likely far higher.
Winter storms are exacerbating already dire conditions in Gaza, including by damaging and destroying shelters of displaced people. Oxfam's humanitarian director, Marta Valdes García, said Friday that "with 1.6 million people found to be facing acute food insecurity... we are incredibly concerned that winter is already bringing flooding and more misery to thousands of hungry people with little or no money, who are now exposed in terrible living conditions."
Multiple infants have died of hypothermia in recent days, including a 14-day-old named Mohammed, whose family is living in a tent after being displaced from their home in the east of Khan Younis. His mother, Eman Abu al-Khair, told Al Jazeera that "I can still hear his tiny cries in my ears... I sleep and drift off, unable to believe that his crying and waking me at night will never happen again."
"His body was cold as ice. His hands and feet were frozen, his face stiff and yellowish, and he was barely breathing... I woke my husband immediately so we could take him to the hospital, but he couldn't find any means of transportation to get us there," the 34-year-old recalled. "As soon as daylight broke, we rushed with an animal-drawn cart towards the hospital... But unfortunately, we arrived too late. His condition was already critical."
Another 29-day-old baby, Saeed Eseid Abdeen, was declared dead at Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza on Thursday, according to Drop Site News and Doctors Without Borders, also known by its French name, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).
A fourth child has frozen to death in Gaza in just 10 days—two of them babies—as Israel continues blocking tents and winter shelter aid, despite UN supplies pre-positioned at the border that could immediately shelter more than 1.3 million displaced Palestinians.
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— Drop Site (@dropsitenews.com) December 18, 2025 at 7:41 PM
"Children are losing their lives because they lack the most basic items for survival," Bilal Abu Saada, nursing team supervisor at Nasser Hospital, said in a statement from MSF. "Babies are arriving to the hospital cold, with near-death vital signs: Even our best efforts are not enough. They say the war has ended, but people are still having to fight for their lives."
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As DOJ Blows Deadline to Release Epstein Files, Khanna Vows to Prosecute Any Obstruction
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said the missed deadline "just shows the Department of Justice, Donald Trump, and Pam Bondi are hell-bent on hiding the truth."
Dec 19, 2025
As the US Department of Justice announced it would miss Friday's legal deadline to hand Congress all files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna vowed to prosecute any officials who obstruct the documents' disclosure.
Khanna (D-Calif.)—who along with Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) introduced the Epstein Files Transparency Act—told CBS News Friday that the DOJ "had months to prepare for this" and "must today offer a clear timeline for the full release."
"The key is they release the names of all the powerful men in question who abused underage girls or covered it up," he stressed. "They must provide a clear framework to the survivors and the nation by when we will have everything public."
In a video published Thursday, Khanna warned that "anyone who tampers with these documents or conceals documents or engages in excessive redactions will be prosecuted because of obstruction of justice."
"We will prosecute individuals regardless of whether they're the attorney general or a career or a political appointee," he said.
Khanna's remarks Friday followed Deputy US Attorney General Todd Blanche's admission during a Fox News interview that the DOJ would not hand over all the Epstein files by the December 19 deadline.
“I expect that we’re going to release more documents over the next couple of weeks, so today several hundred thousand and then over the next couple weeks, I expect several hundred thousand more,” Blanche said. “There’s a lot of eyes looking at these and we want to make sure that when we do produce the materials we are producing, that we are protecting every single victim.”
Last month, Congress passed and President Donald Trump signed the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which required the release of all relevant documents within 30 days. The legislation also empowered Attorney General Pam Bondi to redact large amounts of information that critics fear could include material that incriminates the president, who was once a close friend of the disgraced financier.
“So today is the 30 days," Blanche acknowledged, adding that the documents released Friday "will come in in all different forms, photographs and other materials associated with... all of the investigations" into Epstein—who faced a federal sex trafficking case at the time of his death.
This, after House Oversight Committee Democrats on Thursday released a cache of about 70 photos from the Epstein estate.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) was among the lawmakers pressing Friday for the administration to meet the deadline for fully disclosing the Epstein files.
"The law Congress passed and President Trump signed was clear as can be—the Trump administration had 30 days to release ALL the Epstein files, not just some," Schumer said after Blanche's remarks. "Failing to do so is breaking the law. This just shows the Department of Justice, Donald Trump, and Pam Bondi are hell-bent on hiding the truth."
"We will not stop until the whole truth comes out," he added. "People want the truth and continue to demand the immediate release of all the Epstein files. This is nothing more than a cover up to protect Donald Trump from his ugly past."
Today, the Trump administration must release the FULL Epstein Files.No missing pages. No documents blurred out. No redactions to protect rich and powerful men.Survivors and the American people deserve answers and transparency. By law, Trump must provide them TODAY.
— Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal (@jayapal.house.gov) December 19, 2025 at 7:29 AM
In a joint statement Friday, House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) and House Oversight Committee Ranking Member Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) said that "Donald Trump and the Department of Justice are now violating federal law as they continue covering up the facts and the evidence about Jeffrey Epstein's decadeslong, billion-dollar, international sex trafficking ring."
"For months, Pam Bondi has denied survivors the transparency and accountability they have demanded and deserve and has defied the Oversight Committee’s subpoena," the lawmakers continued. "The Department of Justice is now making clear it intends to defy Congress itself, even as it gives star treatment to Epstein's convicted co-conspirator, Ghislaine Maxwell.
"We are now examining all legal options in the face of this violation of federal law," they added. "The survivors of this nightmare deserve justice, the co-conspirators must be held accountable, and the American people deserve complete transparency from DOJ.”
Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) said Friday on X: "Congress mandated that Trump's DOJ release all the Epstein files by TODAY. They must comply. Survivors have waited far too long for the accountability they deserve."
Massie said Thursday that "victims' lawyers have been in contact with me, and collectively, they know there are at least 20 names of men who are accused of sex crimes in the possession of the FBI."
“If we get a large production on December 19, and it does not contain a single name of any male who is accused of a sex crime or sex trafficking or rape or any of these things, then we know they haven’t produced all the documents,” Massie added. “It’s that simple.”
"Time's up," Massie said Friday on X. "Release the files."
Echoing the lawmakers' calls, Cavan Kharrazian, senior policy adviser at the advocacy group Demand Progress, said Friday: “Failing to release all of the Epstein files today is a violation of the law. We’re talking about a legal mandate for the Department of Justice, not a student submitting a late assignment."
"They have had 30 days to prepare for today, and many months more if you include all the time the DOJ claimed it was working towards the same goal," he continued. "Promises to release more files ‘over the next couple of weeks’ are unacceptable, and alarmingly suggest the public will only see a fraction of them today."
"Jeffrey Epstein ran a sex trafficking network that harmed women, including minors, and included some of the wealthiest and most powerful people in the world," Kharrazian added. "The stakes are too high to play political games. The survivors of Epstein’s crimes, the families of his victims, and the American people are legally owed answers. The cover-up must end.”
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