The DC beltway is still reeling from the sudden death of 71-year-old Trump booster South Carolina Senator Lindsay Graham from a heart attack.
President Trump's war of choice with Iran is apparently back on again with the Guardian reporting overnight that the US and Iran are back at exchanging heavy missile and drone attacks over control of the strait of Hormuz. According to the newspaper, Iran is also retaliating by striking out at nations like Jordan and Kuwait that are hosting US bases in their countries.
Aljazeera is reporting that a UN fact finding mission found that Sudan's paramilitary Rapid Support Forces is committing genocide in the western city of el-Fasher including the carrying out of mass. killings, gang rapes and deliberate starvation as part of a coordinated campaign targeting civilians.
Meanwhile, in Gaza, Israeli drone attacks and gunfire killed at least five people including a nine-year old girl. Since the so-called Trump fashioned ceasefire back in October, close to 1,100 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, and that's on top of the tens of thousands of civilians including women and children killed in retaliation for the Oct. 7th 2024 Hamas terrorist attack that killed 1,200 mostly civilians.
We dug in on the latest news with our current events panel that included New Jersey social justice activist Larry Hamm and labor historian Dr. Joe Wilson. We will got a public finance refresher course from former New York City Council Member Charles Barron. We ask how can it be that the city and state spend hundreds of billions of tax dollars but the number of poor people in the city grows and grows? Why does Albany keep rebating back billions to Wall Street? Is the fix in?
Here in New York City, the Department of Investigation has launched a probe of the near collapse of the 37 story Pfizer office tower that was in the midst of being converted into a massive luxury residential complex.
City officials stabilized the 37-story midtown highrise after the building had to be evacuated because the FDNY and the Department of Buildings determined it was at risk of collapsing after union workmen discovered steel structural supports on the 21st floor had been bent in half under the weight of the upper floors.
Union advocates say the proliferation of non-union construction, particularly in the residential sector, puts both workers and the public at risk because non-union, often undocumented workers are afraid of speaking up about conditions that can exist, like at the former Pfizer building. According to the New York Committee on Occupational Safety and Health (NYCOSH), of the 31 OSHA construction fatality investigations in New York State that took place in 2024, an overwhelming 81 percent of the fatalities were non-union.
In part two, we spoke with Justice Favor, Local 79 Mason Tenders field representative, about why non-union construction sites like the Pfizer building put workers and the public at risk. Favor details how unscrupulous contractors often use the immigration status of their non-union workers to low ball their wages.
In our D Block, we caught up with retired FDNY Fire Captain Brenda Berkman about an important upcoming deadline to head off a Trump regime plan to remove scientific subject matter expertise from deliberations on which federal research grants get funded.
Berkman is active with Defend Public Health, a volunteer driven network of public health researchers, healthcare workers and advocates, fighting the Trump regime's attempt to dismantle public health research and standards. Specifically, Defend Public Health is zeroing in on a proposed rule change by the Office of Management and Budget to substitute objective scientific criteria for grant review with political and ideological scrutiny that serves President Trump's MAGA agenda.