US President Donald Trump continued his "war on science" on Friday with his budget request for the 2027 fiscal year, which critics have denounced as "grossly irresponsible" for its proposed $1.5 trillion in military spending and "a moral obscenity" because of its cuts to social and scientific programs.

In the lead-up to Trump's request to the Republican-controlled Congress, as he and Israel waged war on Iran, Sean Manning, a Herbert Scoville Jr. Peace Fellow in the Union of Concerned Scientists' Global Security Program, wrote that "if this Bloody New Deal actually passes, it could give unparalleled increases in financial power to defense contractors and support for the political work they already do to influence Congress."

"Sane voices need to act now, building opposition to this unprecedented plan," Manning argued. "Progressives should be unflinching in defining this proposal as a blank check for the same contractors who cannot deliver ships on time, munitions at scale, or clean audits. Pouring funds into a defense sector that has repeatedly failed basic tests of accountability will not miraculously produce innovation."

In addition to railing against the budget for the Pentagon—the world's largest institutional climate polluter—after it was officially released on Friday, progressive voices directed attention to some particular proposed cuts and their consequences.

To fund the Pentagon's massive war-making budget, "the Trump administration is requesting the cancellation of billions of dollars in funds for renewable energy, environmental justice, carbon removal, space science, and climate change education," Emily Gardner reported Friday for Eos, the American Geophysical Union's news magazine.

As Katherine Tsantiris, Ocean Conservancy's director of government relations, pointed out, among the targeted federal agencies is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The proposed cuts, she said, "fly directly in the face of the clear bipartisan support Congress showed earlier this year by protecting funding for this critical agency."

"Slashing NOAA's budget would weaken weather forecasting, disrupt fisheries management, and stall ocean research—putting American lives, livelihoods, and global scientific leadership at risk," Tsantiris continued. "Congress should once again reject these cuts to ensure NOAA has the resources it needs to support our economy, protect our ocean, and keep Americans safe."

Quentin Scott, federal policy director at the Chesapeake Climate Action Network Action Fund, argued that "this proposed budget is exactly what America does NOT need when facing rising energy bills, more frequent extreme weather, and rising insurance rates."

"By gutting funds for climate science and innovation, the budget jeopardizes our ability to understand and respond to the accelerating climate crisis," Scott said. "Defunding climate research at NOAA doesn't make the problem go away—it makes those hazards more dangerous and more expensive. Families across the country are already paying the price through higher utility bills, flooding, and storm damage. This budget would only make those burdens worse."

Big Oil-backed Trump's budget proposal came on the heels of devastating flooding in Hawaii and as high temperatures hit the Western United States. It also followed an annual World Meteorological Organization report on the fossil fuel-driven climate emergency, which last month led UN Secretary-General António Guterres to declare that "every key climate indicator is flashing red."

Trump also proposed slashing the Environmental Protection Agency's budget—amid calls to oust Administrator Lee Zeldin for "so brazenly" betraying the EPA's core mission to "protect human health and the environment." Trump also proposed cutting the agency's budget. Noting that attack, Climate Action Campaign director Margie Alt described the president's plan as "anything but a serious" one and "a declaration of who this administration is willing to let suffer."

In a nod to some of the rich executives whose campaign cash helped Trump return to power after promising to scrap his predecessor's climate policies and to enact a "drill, baby, drill" agenda, Alt also called it "a reiteration of this president's devotion to fossil fuel interests."

"This budget would slash the EPA budget by 52%, gutting the agency's ability to protect the air our children breathe, the water our families drink, and the communities that already bear the worst of extreme weather and climate change," she said. "It is a deliberately callous choice to remove the protections that keep families safe, healthy, and shielded from the impacts of pollution and climate change."

According to Alt:

This is not just a continuation of last year's rollbacks. It is an escalation of the Trump administration's Polluters First Agenda and their assault on public health safeguards. Since January 2025, among other abuses, this administration has fired 600 National Weather Service staff, proposed eliminating critical climate research institutions, waived mercury pollution standards for 60 dirty power plants, and gutted the Clean Air Act. This budget is the Trump administration's payback for their big oil, coal, and gas friends and contributors. It slashes resources for clean energy, it zeroes out environmental justice, and pushes oil, gas, and coal, at a time when prices for these energy sources are skyrocketing.

Never before have we had an administration that so blatantly treats American lives as expendable, as proven by this budget. Congress must reject this inhumane budget in full. The American people deserve a federal government that protects them, not one that trades their health, their safety, and their futures for big oil, coal, and gas profits.

As Gardner reported, Trump's budget also "proposes consolidating the Endangered Species Act and Marine Mammal Protection Act, but did not provide details outside noting the program would be housed at the Department of the Interior," among other changes and cuts.

Chris Westfall, senior government relations legislative counsel at Defenders of Wildlife, said that "the administration is yet again demanding that an overworked and grossly understaffed federal workforce do more with less. The proposed budget recklessly consolidates US Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries without the needed resources to preserve scientific expertise, opens our lands and waters to extractive industries, and hollows out the already strained workforce that provides crucial conservation work."

"This proposed budget pushes us further in the wrong direction—potentially triggering even more staff layoffs and providing less resources for wildlife conservation, which are pivotal to recovering America's imperiled species," Westfall warned. "Our nation's lands and the wildlife that depend on them for habitat deserve better than to be ignored by agencies that are shells of their former selves."

The president's proposed attack on endangered species came just days after the administration's so-called "God Squad" voted unanimously for an exemption allowing fossil fuel operations in the Gulf of Mexico to ignore policies intended to protect them. In response, Andrew Bowman, president and CEO of Defenders of Wildlife, said that "I cannot stress enough how unprecedented and unlawful this action is."

The University of Washington has removed a professor from his role as director of its Middle East Center after he criticized the illegal US-Israeli war of choice on Iran and condemned Zionism, the settler-colonial movement for Jewish hegemony in Palestine.

Aria Fani, who will remain an associate professor at UW’s Jackson School of International Studies, told The Seattle Times on Friday that new interim widirector Daniel Hoffman told him last week he was fired from his leadership role at the Middle East Center.

Fani, who was born and raised in Iran and came to the US when he was 18 years old, said he was hired for his research on Iran. However, he told the Times that he now feels "profoundly hurt and betrayed" by his removal.

"There’s a chilling effect on not just my academic freedom, but that of my colleagues; anyone who dares to speak out against the war and against aggression," he said.

In a separate interview Friday with My Northwest, Fani said he was removed "for improper use" of the center's listserv, an email application.

"I sent out two memos about this atrocious war on Iran in which I offered historical analysis that’s lacking in the media,” Fani said. “I was told that my email made ‘certain constituents feel attacked.’ By certain constituents, I assume the university means Zionists who would like to keep bombing every Middle Eastern country and continue dehumanizing their people.”

Last July Fani told the The Daily UW, a student newspaper, that President Donald Trump's militaristic foreign policy—he's bombed 10 countries, more than any other US leader—is not making the world safer.

“If you tell the dozens of children that were killed in Israeli bombardment... in Iran, or the families of the nuclear scientists who were just wiped out, I hardly imagine they would say that the world is a more peaceful place," he said amid the first round of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran.

Since then, many more Iranian children have been killed by US and Israeli bombing, including more than 100 students who were among around 175 people massacred in the February 28 US cruise missile strike on a girls' school in Minab.

“The [only] peace this secures is for weapons manufacturers, for oil companies, for drone companies," Fani said in an implicit rebuke of Trump's claim to be the "president of peace."

"It secures peace for them, fills their pockets with money, and makes them fully invincible," he added. "It’s creating a class of people that are living [on] an alternate planet."

Fani was a close friend and defender of Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi, the 26-year-old Turkish-American UW grad and International Solidarity Movement volunteer who was fatally shot in 2024 while peacefully protesting the expansion of Israel’s illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank. Witnesses said Israeli occupation forces deliberately shot Eygi in the head.

The professor also called Zionism—some of whose founders acknowledged the colonial nature of their endeavor—a "cancerous" ideology.

Fani noted that his removal from his position at the Middle East Center coincided with a recent town hall-style meeting attended by UW President Robert Jones and right-wing media personality Ari Hoffman. According to Fani, Hoffman "specifically asked Jones" about the professor's leadership at the center.

“All we can do is try to remind people of their responsibilities as members of the university community,” Jones said at meeting. “Not trying to tell them that they can’t have a discussion about Palestine or about Israel, but let’s be clear that those discussions need to be had in a way that doesn’t perpetuate an environment where people feel unsafe.”

According to its website, UW's Middle East Center seeks "to strengthen an understanding of the Middle East in all sectors of American society through training and research at the University of Washington, as well as through delivery of outreach programming across the nation."

Fani is one of dozens of US academics who have been fired, had their contracts terminated, lost job offers, or faced other punitive repercussions for advocating Palestinian rights or opposing Israeli policies and practices.

Earlier this week, Shirin Saeidi, who headed the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, was terminated for social media posts deemed supportive of Iran's government, despite the fact that the school's Faculty Committee on Appointment, Promotion, and Tenure ruled unanimously in February that she should return to her position.

Late last month, Texas State University philosophy professor Idris Robinson sued school officials after he was fired for what he says was his 2024 off-campus lecture in North Carolina titled “Strategic Lessons from the Palestinian Resistance."

Israel's conduct in Gaza is the subject of an ongoing International Court of Justice (ICJ) genocide case filed by South Africa and formally supported by nearly 20 nations. The International Criminal Court has also issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza.

The ICJ found in 2024 that Israel's occupation of Palestine is an illegal form of apartheid.

With Pam Bondi fired from her position as US attorney general, progressive campaigners on Friday said that Democrats in the Senate, although they are in the minority, must use the leverage they have to force a release of all the remaining files concerning convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

"Even in the minority, Senate Democrats have tools to exert pressure—by withholding votes, slowing proceedings, and setting clear conditions," said the grassroots group Our Revolution as it launched a nationwide petition demanding that Senate Democrats block the confirmation of Bondi's replacement unless they commit to the document release. "That leverage must be used."

Our Revolution elevated a call from US Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who along with Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) has led the push for the US Department of Justice (DOJ) to release all of the Epstein files.

The latest release of files, which Bondi oversaw and which didn't occur until more than a month after a December 2025 deadline, failed to protect the identities of some survivors of the abuse perpetrated by Epstein and his vast network of powerful associates, while redacting the identities of many of the alleged abusers. Last month at a congressional hearing, Bondi refused to apologize to the survivors in attendance.

Khanna and Massie as well as Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) have led Democrats in demanding the release of 3 million more files that remain, which Garcia said in February include official FBI interviews regarding allegations that President Donald Trump sexually assaulted a 13-year-old child.

The release of files in late January included thousands of references to Trump, but Khanna said the release amounted to a "cover-up" due to the absence of many official FBI survivor statements.

Khanna said in an interview with NPR on Friday that "the Senate should make it absolutely clear they will not confirm a new attorney general unless that attorney general commits to the release of all these files and commits to starting investigations. And if that new attorney general doesn't live up to that word, they will have the same fate as Pam Bondi."

He added that acting Attorney General Todd Blanche—who stepped into the role vacated by Bondi without needing to go through the confirmation process due to his previous confirmation as Bondi's deputy—has falsely stated that "all the files" the DOJ can release have already been disclosed to the public.

"That's just not factual," said Khanna. "In the past, he said that there are 3 million files that have not been released. Now, he claims that they're not releasing those because they're protecting the identity of survivors. But if you talk to the survivors, if you talk to the survivors' lawyers, they will tell you, in fact, that the DOJ was reckless and did not protect their identity. And the 3 million files that haven't been released have the survivors' statements to the FBI agents, where the survivors name the rich and powerful people who raped them, abused them, showed up to Epstein's island, and that they are protecting a group of people who aren't playing by the same rules. This is about two tiers of justice in America."

Massie offered his congratulations to Blanche on Thursday before telling him, "Now you have 30 days to release the rest of the files before becoming criminally liable for failure to comply with the Epstein Files Transparency Act."

Our Revolution said Senate Democrats must condition any confirmation vote for Bondi's successor on "a clear commitment" to:

• Release all Epstein-related files with only the most limited and necessary redactions;
• Provide full disclosure of what the federal government knows about the Epstein files;
• Initiate credible investigations and prosecutions of the Epstein network and any co-conspirators; and
• Uphold the rule of law without targeting political opponents or shielding elites.

With the price of oil surging and showing no signs of coming down anytime soon thanks to President Donald Trump's illegal war in Iran, renewable energy advocacy organization 350.org renewed its previous call to slap fossil fuel companies with a windfall profits tax.

In a Friday statement, 350.org noted that the oil supply shortage caused by the Iran war is growing so acute that it's leading to a "global surge" in coal production to meet energy demands.

Specifically, 350.org pointed to both Japan and South Korea lifting their coal consumption limits, as well as Thailand firing up old coal plants that had previously been shut down.

Additionally, the group found that "Indonesia, the world’s largest coal exporter, has reversed planned cuts to production," while "Australia, South Africa, Turkey, and the Philippines are also increasing exports to meet soaring demand."

The group said it expects the increased demand in coal to be a temporary byproduct of the Iran crisis, but warned "it will still impose heavy costs: increased deaths from air pollution, more climate chaos, and a transfer of wealth from consumers to coal producers in the form of windfall profits."

Given this, 350.org executive director Anne Jellema said it was time to impose a windfall profits tax on fossil fuel companies to help fund the continued development of renewable energy sources and provide real long-term relief to global consumers.

"The Iran war is exposing the deadly consequences of global fossil fuel dependence," said Jellema. "Coal producers are making massive profits while governments delay the clean energy transition. It’s a stark reminder why windfall taxes on fossil fuel companies are more relevant than ever."

Jellema added that Trump's Iran war "shows what we have long warned: fossil fuel dependence creates crises, profits for polluters, and suffering for ordinary people," and promoted windfall taxes and accelerated deployment of renewables as "urgent tools to turn this around."

Nations including Germany and Australia are weighing windfall oil taxes during the Iran crisis, and US Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) last month reintroduced their the Big Oil Windfall Profits Tax Act, a bill whose stated aim is "to curb profiteering by oil companies and provide Americans relief at the gas pump."

US consumers have been getting hit hard at the gas pump in recent weeks, and Democratic members of the Joint Economic Committee on Thursday released a report showing that Americans have collectively spent $8.4 billion more on gas than they otherwise would have since the beginning of the war.

Two days after President Donald Trump declared that Iran was "no longer a threat" and that its air defense had been "annihilated," Iranian forces reportedly struck down two US jets on Friday.

Citing an Israeli official and a second source with knowledge of the situation, Axios reported on Friday afternoon that the two crew members piloting the F-15E Strike Eagle jet were struck by Iranian fire and ejected from the plane.

It is the first known time a manned US aircraft has been shot down over Iranian territory since the US and Israel launched the war on February 28.

One of the crew members has been rescued by US special forces, though according to The Washington Post, his condition is not known. The second has not been found, and an intensive operation is reportedly underway to locate him in Iran.

The Intercept then reported later on Friday afternoon that a second US plane, an A-10 Warthog, had crashed near the Strait of Hormuz at around the same time. Similarly, one of the crew members was recovered while another remains missing.

Al Jazeera has reported that a US Black Hawk helicopter was also hit with a projectile while taking part in the search mission and that it managed to leave Iranian airspace before landing safely.

If captured by Iranian forces, analysts have raised the possibility that the missing crew members could be used as bargaining chips in negotiations with Washington.

Iran has claimed responsibility for taking down the F-15 with anti-aircraft fire, with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' (IRGC) semiofficial news agency Tasnim stating that it was destroyed.

US Central Command (CENTCOM) has denied Iran's previous boasts of having downed US jets—including one it claimed was shot down near the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday. But the US has not yet made similar denials about Friday's incidents and has confirmed that the F-15 was lost.

Trump claimed during a televised address to the nation on Wednesday that Iran "has been eviscerated and essentially is really no longer a threat," thanks to a merciless five-week-long US bombing campaign.

He specifically said that Iran's air defenses had been totally eliminated: "They have no anti-aircraft equipment," Trump said. "Their radar is 100% annihilated. We are unstoppable."

The previous week, he claimed Iranian leadership was ready to make a deal with the US because they "can't do a thing" to protect themselves from US aerial attacks. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has taken a similar line, lauding America's "air superiority."

These claims were already brought into doubt by a report on Thursday by CNN that roughly half of Iran's missile launchers are still intact, and the country still has about 50% of its drones, according to internal US intelligence assessments. One source told the network that Iran was still "very much poised to wreak absolute havoc throughout the entire region."

If it is confirmed that Iran was responsible for downing the American jets, it takes a sledgehammer to the idea that the country's capabilities have been destroyed, adding to the seemingly endless stream of lies coming out of the administration about everything from the price of gas to whether Iran is negotiating, to who is even in charge of the country.

At least 15 American troops have been killed in the region since Trump launched the war in Iran, according to an analysis by The Intercept earlier this week. More than 520 US troops have also been injured, but CENTCOM has sent outdated casualty numbers to media outlets and refused to say how many total troops have been killed, leading to accusations of a "cover-up."

Mohammad Ghalibaf, the speaker of Iran’s Parliament, took a victory lap on social media after news broke of a US plane being downed on Friday and mocked Trump’s claims that the US and Israel have destroyed Iran’s regime.

“After defeating Iran 37 times in a row," Ghalibaf said, "this brilliant no-strategy war they started has now been downgraded from 'regime change' to 'Hey! Can anyone find our pilots? Please?'"

As US Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer on Friday declared that "America's economic comeback is on full display" and the country's "workers are winning again" due to what the business press and top newspapers called a "strong" March jobs report, some economists stressed the importance of looking beyond the topline figure and one month of data.

The US Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that employers added 178,000 jobs last month, with gains in construction, healthcare, and transportation and warehousing, and declines in the federal government. The unemployment rate fell slightly to 4.3%, with 7.2 million people officially jobless.

"Folks, today's jobs report is not good," declared Heidi Shierholz, president of the think tank Economic Policy Institute (EPI). She pointed to average job growth over the past two months, the reason for the drop in unemployment ("people leaving the labor force"), slowing wage growth, and the fact that "the effects of our war in Iran aren't even in these numbers yet."

EPI senior economist Elise Gould further explained those points on social media. Although the report "came in stronger than expected... much of the gain was a bounce back to February declines (now a loss of 133,000 jobs)," she said. "As a result, average monthly growth the last two months was only 22,500 jobs."

As far as the unemployment rate ticking down, "it's important to note that this happened for the 'wrong' reasons as both the labor force participation and the share of the population with a job also ticked down," Gould continued. "Job gains were strongest in healthcare as striking workers returned to work."

"Attacks on the federal workforce continue," she highlighted, with the sector down 18,000 jobs in March and 352,000 positions since January 2025, when President Donald returned to power. "The vital services federal employees provide cannot be done without these essential workers. The cost of these losses are only just beginning."

"Manufacturing rose 15,000 jobs in March, but still has a huge deficit since Trump took office. Since January 2025, the manufacturing sector has lost 82,000 jobs," the economist noted. "Wage growth has been slowing for the last few months, particularly driven by slower growth for production and nonsupervisory workers, roughly the lower 82% of the workforce."

Gould added that "we don't have the inflation data yet to show real wage changes in March, but slowing nominal wage growth coupled with rising prices from the Iran war almost surely means real wages will suffer, contributing to worsening affordability."

Trump and Israel launched their war on Iran at the end of February, and the new data is from the middle of March, so "the impact of the war and higher fuel prices will be limited" in this report, as Center for Economic and Policy Research co-founder Dean Baker acknowledged. "April could look considerably worse."

Breyon Williams, chief economist at another think tank, Groundwork Collaborative, said that "beyond today's headline bounce, the labor market continues to deteriorate under Trump's economic mismanagement: Hiring has ground to a halt, paychecks are shrinking, and workers are giving up on finding a job altogether. A single month of modest gains can't reverse the damage that the president has inflicted on working families."

A former senior Labor Department official who's now chief of policy programs at The Century Foundation, Angela Hanks, similarly asserted that "the latest jobs data show how President Trump's mismanagement of the economy—both domestically and internationally—is harming workers at home."

"While the topline rate does not yet reflect the war's impact on the job market, wage growth has stalled, and oil prices are skyrocketing, resulting in higher prices for consumers and threatening to weaken the job market," she noted. Specifically, according to a Thursday report from Democratic members of the congressional Joint Economic Committee, Americans spent an extra $8.4 billion at the gas pump in the first month of Trump's war.

"Families are already under tremendous pressure from rising prices, slowing job growth, and mounting debt as they struggle to make ends meet, and not seeing help on the way," said Hanks. "Families and workers across the country deserve leadership that puts them first and works to make living a fulfilling life affordable for everyone. Instead, they're stuck with leaders in Washington more focused on needless and damaging wars and slashing the safety net to pay for them."

After passing a 2025 budget package that gave the rich more tax breaks by slashing over $1 trillion from the safety net, including food assistance and Medicaid—which is expected to leave millions of Americans without health insurance—congressional Republicans are considering more healthcare cuts to fund Trump's war. The Pentagon has asked for at least $200 billion for Iran, and more broadly, the president wants an unprecedented $1.5 trillion in military spending for the next fiscal year.

Although Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez took criticism from some mainstream media pundits after she helped rally public opinion against the construction of Amazon's HQ2 in Long Island City, new data revealed this week has seemingly vindicated her skepticism of the project.

Virginia Business reported on Thursday that a filing submitted to the Virginia Economic Development Partnership this week showed that Amazon created no jobs at its HQ2 in Arlington County last year, and thus "will not seek a state payment" under the state's workforce grant incentives.

Last year, reported Virginia Business, Amazon requested more than $6.4 million through the grant program for adding just under 293 jobs in 2024.

"The hiring slowdown follows earlier signs that Amazon’s HQ2 buildout has fallen short of initial expectations," Virginia Business explained. "The company originally projected it would create 10,000 jobs by 2024, but hiring totals fell well short of that mark. The company currently has nearly 8,500 employees who work out of HQ2."

In 2018, Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) joined with local activists to oppose the construction of HQ2 in Long Island City, and they pointed to the billions of dollars in tax incentives offered by New York City and New York state as an example of wasteful corporate welfare being given to one of the world's richest companies.

Amazon canceled its plans to build HQ2 in New York in February 2019, prompting Ocasio-Cortez to take a victory lap.

"Anything is possible," the then-freshman congresswoman wrote in a social media post. "Today was the day a group of dedicated, everyday New Yorkers and their neighbors defeated Amazon’s corporate greed, its worker exploitation, and the power of the richest man in the world."

Amazon would subsequently move construction of HQ2 to Virginia after being offered hundreds of millions in potential tax incentives, but it delayed construction of the facility in 2023, which again led Ocasio-Cortez to declare vindication.

"When I opposed this Amazon project coming to New York because it was a scam of public funds, the whole power establishment came after us," she wrote. "Billboards went up in Times Square denouncing me. Powerful pols promised revenge. Op-eds and CEOs insulted my intelligence. In the end, we were right."

Soaring energy prices caused by the US-Israeli war of choice on Iran is driving up global food prices while shrinking the economies of Gulf Arab states targeted in Iranian counterstrikes, according to a pair of reports published this week by United Nations agencies.

On Friday, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) published its latest Food Price Index (FFPI), which measures the monthly change in international costs of a basket of basic grocery items. The FFPI rose 2.4% over February levels.

"Price indices across all commodity groups—cereals, meat, dairy, vegetable oils, and sugar—rose to varying degrees, reflecting not only underlying market fundamentals but also responses to higher energy prices linked to the conflict escalation in the Near East," FAO said in a statement.

"If the conflict stretches beyond 40 days with high input costs with current low margins, farmers will have to choose: Farm the same with fewer inputs, plant less, or switch to less intensive fertilizer crops," said FAO Chief Economist Máximo Torero.

"Those choices will hit future yields and shape our food supply and commodity prices for the rest of this year and all of the next," Torero added.

As CNBC's Garrett Downs reported Thursday:

Food faces a number of new inflationary pressures due to the Iran war and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. The increase in oil costs is raising the price of diesel, necessary for farmers and the trucks and railroads that carry food across the country. Fertilizer is also being choked by the closure of the strait. And even plastic, a petrochemical product that’s commonly used in food packaging, could also contribute to higher checkout costs.

“The price of food is going to move quite a lot,” Kjetil Storesletten, an economist and professor at the University of Minnesota, told Downs. “If you put those things together, that it’s a big chunk of the price of producing food and that the price increased a lot, it suggests that all of the increased price in fertilizer is going to be passed through to food.”

Meanwhile, the UN Development Program (UNDP) earlier this week unveiled an assessment suggesting that the war may cost affected Mideast economies between 3.7% and 6% of their collective gross domestic product (GDP) and push as many as 4 million people into poverty.

"The escalation has exposed structural vulnerabilities of the Arab states region and underscored a stark reality that even a short-lived shock can generate profound, widespread, and persistent socioeconomic impacts across the Arab states region," UNDP said.

"While the current military escalation remains geographically concentrated, its impacts are propagating through interconnected systems—trade corridors, energy markets, financial flows, and logistics networks—transforming a localized escalation into a systemic regional shock," the agency added.

Last month, the UN World Food Program warned that the US-Israeli war on Iran and its associated impacts on the global economy could push 45 million more people around the world into acute hunger this year.

In the United States, experts warn that as the war drags on, grocery prices will continue to rise, posing a political risk to Republicans who, along with President Donald Trump, campaigned on promises to immediately lower the cost of key consumer items including food and gasoline—which now averages over $4 per gallon, up from $3.10 on the day the president returned to the White House.

Democratic members of the Joint Economic Committee released a report Thursday showing that higher pump prices have cost Americans $8.4 billion over the first month of the Iran War.

Democrats are looking to capitalize on consumer angst and Republicans' broken promises—not only on prices but also on "no new wars"—in the upcoming midterm elections.

“Our messaging is affordability and accountability,” Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) told CNBC on Thursday. “It’s a pretty tailored message, pretty narrowly focused, and on both of those pillars, Trump is making our arguments even more compelling.”

As Trump seeks an unprecedented $1.5 trillion in military spending for the next fiscal year, Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (D-Texas) argued that voters have had enough.

“It just pisses them off more,” he said of Trump's broken promises. "When people hear that, they’re like, ‘Hey, I can’t pay for groceries and you want to go pay for a war in the Middle East?’ I think that’s going to be a tough sell.”

As President Donald Trump's Pentagon pushed Congress to approve $1.5 trillion in new military funding, including $200 billion for the US-Israeli war on Iran, congressional Democrats found that the working Americans whose taxes would fund those appropriations have spent $8.4 billion that otherwise could have gone to groceries, childcare, and other essentials—all at the gas pump.

Democratic members of the Joint Economic Committee released a report Thursday—two days after average gas prices in the US reached $4 per gallon, the highest in nearly four years—showing that those higher prices have forced Americans to pay 35% more on gas than they did a month ago, before Trump joined Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in attacking Iran.

A month after Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz in retaliation for the war that's killed more than 2,000 Iranians and well over 1,000 people across the Middle East as the conflict has widened, it now costs $145 to fill up just one gas tank for a Ford F-150 pickup truck—$37 more than it did in February.

An SUV costs an average of $58 to fill up, an increase of $15, while a sedan costs $52 on average—$13 more than it did before the war.

The analysis was released a day after Trump unequivocally stated that, despite his campaign pledge to make life more affordable for Americans, his administration's priority is "fighting wars," not ensuring the government provides childcare and healthcare that families can afford.

"We can’t take care of daycare," said Trump. “It’s not possible for us to take care of daycare, Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things.”

“Families are paying more at the pump because Republicans in Congress would rather spend billions of dollars on a war that raises costs than find ways to actually make life more affordable."

The advocacy group Unrig Our Economy noted Friday that the war in Iran, which is supported by nearly every Republican in Congress—is just the latest way in which the GOP under the Trump administration has "raised costs and squeezed families." The Joint Economic Committee found in February that Americans had gotten stuck with the bill due to Trump's aggressive tariffs on imports, which he had claimed would generate massive revenue—but which actually cost the average family more than $1,700 in one year as companies passed off the higher cost of goods and materials to consumers.

“From the grocery store to the doctor’s office to the gas pump, congressional Republicans are financially crushing working Americans at every turn," said Unrig Our Economy campaign director Leor Tal.

The committee Democrats also found last month that the average US electric bill rose by $110, or 6.4%, in 2025, driven by Trump's cancellations of renewable energy projects, his push for liquefied natural gas exports, and his demand for an expansion of artificial intelligence data centers.

"Meanwhile, [Republican] attacks on Americans’ healthcare have sent premiums skyrocketing and put over 15 million Americans at risk of losing health insurance. Now, they want to cut healthcare even more to bankroll their costly and unnecessary war," said Unrig Our Economy, referring to Republicans' call to further cut federal health spending to pay for the Iran war.

As Americans have spent more at the gas pump and the White House has offered shifting explanations for why the US continues to wage war on Iran, public approval for the conflict has remained low. Nearly 60% of Americans said late last month that the war has already gone "too far" as the president threatened to escalate further, and 56% of respondents to a poll by Data for Progress said they believe the conflict will benefit Israel, not the US.

This week, two-thirds of people who responded to a CNN poll said they disapproved of the war and did not believe Trump has a clear plan. More than three-quarters said they would not support the Pentagon's request for $200 billion to fund further military action.

But Trump, who White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles admitted this week has been getting a "rose-colored view" of the war in Iran during official briefings, told reporters Thursday that Americans are so relieved that the US and Israel are attacking Iran and killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on the first day of the war that they are not concerned about the financial toll the war is taking on their families.

"We have a country that's not going to be throwing a nuclear weapon at us in six months," said Trump. "They're feeling a lot safer."

US intelligence has determined Iran did not pose an imminent threat to the United States.

“Families are paying more at the pump," said Tal, "because Republicans in Congress would rather spend billions of dollars on a war that raises costs than find ways to actually make life more affordable."

Sen. Bernie Sanders has declared artificial intelligence "a threat to everything the American people hold dear" in a Thursday editorial published by the Wall Street Journal.

Sanders (I-Vt.) began his piece by citing recent polls showing Americans are deeply apprehensive about the impact that AI will have on the economy and their lives, and he said that this feeling was entirely justified given what the people who currently control the technology aim to do with it.

"At a time of massive income and wealth inequality, people recognize the AI revolution is being led by some of the wealthiest people in this country," Sanders argued. "Billionaires like [Tesla CEO] Elon Musk, [Amazon founder] Jeff Bezos, [Meta CEO] Mark Zuckerberg, and [Oracle co-founder] Larry Ellison are investing enormous sums in AI and robotics not to improve life for working families but to expand their own wealth and power."

He then cited quotes from Musk and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates explaining how AI will eliminate the need for human labor and asked, "If machines can perform most economically valuable work better than humans can, how do people earn a living and support their families?"

Sanders said that the consequences of the widespread adoption of AI aren't just economic, but social as well.

"How can we rush forward when AI is already reshaping how we as human beings relate to one another?" he asked. "According to a recent poll by Common Sense Media, 72% of US teenagers say they have used AI companions, and more than half do so regularly. What does it mean for young people to form 'friendships' with AI while becoming lonelier and more isolated from other human beings?"

Sanders said the US Congress needs to step to the plate to regulate AI—and that Big Tech's massive campaign spending is intimidating too many lawmakers from speaking out.

"The AI industry has already spent more than $185 million to make sure government does nothing to protect the American people," Sanders said. "We can’t allow a handful of billionaires, eager to increase their wealth and power, to rush forward with a technology that will fundamentally transform humanity without democratic input or accountability."

Sanders has been one of the leading voices in Congress demanding the government due more to rein in AI, and last month he and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) introduced a bill that would impose a nationwide moratorium on AI data center construction "until strong national safeguards are in place to protect workers, consumers, and communities, defend privacy and civil rights, and ensure these technologies do not harm our environment."

Sanders last month also demanded that Amazon's Bezos testify publicly before the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee about his plans to replace human workers with AI-powered robots, arguing that "we need to understand what will happen to these workers... Will they simply be thrown out on the street in order to make Mr. Bezos even richer?"

In the conclusion to his WSJ op-ed, Sanders called for "the future of AI" to be "decided by the American people."

As President Donald Trump’s war in Iran goes further off the rails, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth carried out a “purge” of US Army leadership on Thursday, ousting its most senior general and two other top officers and reportedly leaving many senior officials stunned.

The Pentagon has not provided an official explanation for the sudden firing of Army Chief of Staff General Randy George, who was jettisoned along with another four-star general, David Hodne, and Major General William Green Jr., the top Army chaplain. But speculation was rampant Thursday as the White House continued to insist its war on Iran is going as planned.

Tom Nichols wrote for The Atlantic on Thursday that those dismissed were likely casualties of “Hegseth’s vindictive struggles with the Army... as he struggles in a job for which he remains singularly unqualified.”

Nichols suggested the latest firings were part of an effort to eliminate allies of Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, who has reportedly pushed back against Hegseth's attempt to enforce rigid ideological conformity and excise what he views as "wokeness" from the military.

Most recently, Driscoll reportedly objected to Hegseth's demands that he remove four Army officers—two Black men and two women—from a list of those to be promoted to brigadier general, while allowing the other mostly white male officers to be promoted.

NBC reported on Thursday that they were among more than a dozen Black and female officers that Hegseth has attempted to block from advancement across the four branches of the military.

Just before his firing, George—once an aide to former President Joe Biden's Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin—had reportedly asked to meet with Hegseth about his demotions of the four Army officers, but Hegseth refused.

The Atlantic reported that Driscoll, who has been rumored as a possible replacement for Hegseth amid embarrassing bungles like last year's "Signalgate" scandal, could be shown the door next.

Rep. Pat Ryan (D-NY), a US Army combat veteran who serves on the House Armed Services Committee, described George as "a Patriot who has served our nation honorably and bravely for decades" and said his firing was "a huge loss for our Army and our country."

He added that "Hegseth and Trump firing the highest ranking Army officer, in the middle of a war they started, shows you exactly where their priorities are."

While these sorts of petty grudge matches and power struggles have been a hallmark of Hegseth's term at Defense, Nichols remarked that "dumping the Army chief of staff in the middle of a war, without explanation, is a reckless move even by Hegseth’s standards."

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, theorizes that Hegseth's purge—which is one of the biggest wartime leadership shakeups in recent memory—did not happen in spite of the Iran war, but because of it.

According to White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, who was quoted by TIME on Thursday, Trump's inner circle—including Hegseth and other military and foreign policy officials—has formed a sort of information bubble around the president, giving him a “rose-colored view” of the war, even as it grows more unpopular by the day with the American public.

The high-level firings come as Trump and Hegseth are beginning what they said would be a multi-week campaign of bombing Iran “back to the Stone Ages.”

Hegseth has also continued to float the possible deployment of ground troops, potentially to invade and occupy critical strategic areas, like Iran's oil export hub Kharg Island, which analysts have warned would be unworkable and put thousands of US troops in harm's way.

"It's likely that experienced generals are telling Hegseth his Iran war plans are unworkable, disastrous, and deadly," Murphy said.
"Also, Hegseth is firing a ton of experienced generals right now."

According to Jennifer Griffin, the Chief National Security Correspondent for Fox News, Hegseth’s most recent firings “[add] to a long list of Secretary Hegseth asking senior military officers to step down with no reason given,” including Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., and Adm. Alvin Holsey, the commander of US Southern Command, both of whom were also Black men.

Dan Lamothe, a military affairs correspondent for The Washington Post, added that Hegseth has now almost totally remade the Joint Chiefs of Staff since taking over as defense secretary and that only two original members, Gen. Eric Smith of the Marine Corps and Gen. Chance Saltzman of the Space Force, remain from the original team.

"The American people deserve to know why so many of their top officers are being tossed out of their jobs," Nichols said.

Noting the defense secretary’s penchant for secrecy, he suggested that now that George and other senior officers pushed out by Hegseth are considered civilians, "maybe they can step forward and tell their fellow citizens what on Earth is going on in Hegseth’s Pentagon.“

President Donald Trump's White House released a budget proposal on Friday that pairs an unprecedented, debt-exploding $1.5 trillion in military spending with tens of billions of dollars in cuts to domestic agencies and education, healthcare, climate, and housing programs.

Trump's budget request for fiscal year 2027, which must be approved by Congress, includes $73 billion in total cuts to nondefense spending while boosting military outlays by 42%—or nearly $500 billion—compared to current levels.

Programs cut or eliminated in the proposed budget—under the guise of slashing "woke programs" and "ending the Green New Scam"—include the Environmental Protection Agency's Environmental Justice program, Community Services Block Grants, electric vehicle charging subsidies, renewable energy initiatives at the Interior Department, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and Pathways to Removing Obstacles to Housing.

The budget proposal also calls for cuts to the already-depleted Internal Revenue Service, without offering specific figures.

One budget expert noted that, if enacted, the White House's requested cuts would bring nondefense discretionary spending to "its lowest level in the modern era."

Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas), chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, wrote in response to Trump's request that "to pay for his endless wars, he wants the biggest increase to military spending in 70 years."

"How does he pay for it? Cuts to 'education, health, housing, and more,'" Casar added. "Hell no."

Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen, said in a statement that "the Trump-Vought budget proposal is a moral obscenity," referring to Russell Vought, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget.

"The $500 billion annual increase in proposed Pentagon spending—if it were instead deployed humanely—would be enough to solve or meaningfully address the nation's great problems, from healthcare to daycare, from the climate crisis to affordable housing, from improving schools to making college education affordable," said Weissman. "Instead, Trump and Vought propose to spend an unfathomable amount on a Pentagon that can't even pass an audit to further empower an out-of-control and incompetent leader in Pete Hegseth."

"As usual, the priorities of the people are simply unimportant to this administration as they think about spending our taxpayer dollars," Weissman continued. "Republicans and Democrats in Congress should treat this proposal with all the care it deserves and immediately hit delete."

"Trump said that our country cannot afford to help families with childcare or healthcare—but his own budget proves what a ridiculous farce that is."

The White House unveiled its budget request days after Trump said it is "not possible" for the federal government "to take care of daycare, Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things" because "we’re fighting wars," comments that observers viewed as a stark summary of the administration's priorities.

"Trump is telling the American people our country somehow can’t afford childcare, Medicaid, and Medicare, but is never too stretched to fund wars of choice," Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.), the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, said in a statement Friday. "He is wrong. We are the wealthiest country in the world and can absolutely afford to both defend and invest in the American people."

"The president is now demanding a massive increase in defense spending, including a $350 billion slush fund for his reckless war with Iran, while cutting billions from healthcare, education, housing, and more. This budget represents ‘America Last,'" said Boyle. "I will be demanding answers from White House OMB Director Russell Vought when he testifies at the House Budget Committee on April 15."

The Trump White House is calling on Congress to approve a significant chunk—roughly $350 billion—of its proposed military budget increase via the filibuster-proof reconciliation process, which would allow Republicans to push the funding through without any Democratic support. The new budget request also calls for a "historic investment" in the Department of Homeland Security, which has been partially shut down for more than a month as Democrats push for reforms to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

"This funding would come in addition to the $170 billion passed just last year that has enabled the deaths of migrants in detention centers, the detention of children, and the deaths of US citizens at the hands of mass deportation agents," Lindsay Koshgarian, program director of the National Priorities Project, said in response to the budget request.

“The president looked at the country, with our rising gas prices and nearly half of us struggling to afford basic necessities, and decided what we really need is a bigger war budget," said Koshgarian. "Not healthcare or childcare or relief from high prices or expensive housing, but a nearly bottomless budget for whatever wars his cronies and the contractors dream up next."

Pam Bondi may no longer be US attorney general, but that doesn't get her out of previously scheduled testimony before the House Oversight Committee about her handling of criminal case files related to late billionaire sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), in a Thursday social media message posted shortly after Bondi's termination, warned the one-time AG that being fired by President Donald Trump "still doesn’t get her out of testifying to Congress about Epstein."

"We must also investigate the continued breaking of the law around the DOJ STILL hiding Epstein files from the public," Ocasio-Cortez added. "This isn’t over."

Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, said in a statement that Bondi "will not escape accountability and remains legally obligated to appear before our Committee under oath" on the scheduled date of April 14.

"Oversight Democrats have been leading serious investigations into Bondi and Secretary Kristi Noem," Garcia added. "If they think we are moving on because they were fired, they are gravely mistaken."

The calls for Bondi to follow through with her planned testimony aren't only coming from Democrats, as Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) told CNN on Friday that she has no plans to back off her demands that the former AG speak under oath later this month.

"When I issued this subpoena that was voted on by the Oversight Committee a number of weeks ago, we did it by name and not by the title of the attorney general," said Mace. "So she's still compelled and required by law to come before the Oversight Committee, and at this juncture I'm not backing away from that or backing down from that. I do believe that handling of the Epstein files was done in a very poor manner."

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, also cited Bondi's handling of the Epstein files as a permanent and emblematic stain on her legacy as the nation's top law enforcement officer.

"[Bondi] ran an historic and egregious cover-up right out of the Justice Department," Raskin said. "Investigations into co-conspirators were shut down. She withheld three million pages of documents in defiance of the law. The names of abusers, enablers, accomplices and co-conspirators were redacted from public view while the identities of victims were exposed to the world. Under Bondi, perpetrators were coddled and survivors given the back of the hand."

In addition to her handling of the Epstein files, which earned bipartisan criticism, Bondi also ceded to President Donald Trump's demands to file criminal charges against political enemies including former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Leticia James.

Both of those cases were tossed last year by a federal judge who found that Trump's handpicked US attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia was illegally installed in the position.

The budget document that President Donald Trump's White House is set to release Friday calls for $1.5 trillion in military spending for the coming fiscal year, an unprecedented sum that—if approved by Congress—would add nearly $7 trillion to the US national debt over the next decade.

The Wall Street Journal's editorial board, which got an early look at the president's fiscal year 2027 budget, reported that the plan includes roughly $1.15 trillion in baseline US military spending as well as $350 billion in supplemental funding "that Republicans could pass in a party-line budget reconciliation bill." The Journal doesn't specify the purpose of the proposed supplemental funding, but the Pentagon has asked Congress for at least $200 billion for the Iran war.

The budget, which would boost total US military spending by more than 40% compared to the current fiscal year, also reportedly calls for investments in Trump's so-called Golden Dome missile defense system, a project that critics have derided as an absurd boondoggle.

Earlier this week, Trump suggested the US federal government can't afford to fund childcare and other domestic social programs because it is "fighting wars."

William Hartung, a senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, wrote in an analysis of the budget proposal ahead of its official release that "whatever vehicles the administration chooses to promote this huge increase, it will be doubling down on a failed budgetary and national security strategy."

"If passed as requested, $1.5 trillion in Pentagon spending—in a single year–will make America weaker by underwriting a misguided strategy, funding outmoded weapons programs, and crowding out other essential public investments," Hartung argued. "The Pentagon doesn’t need more spending, it needs more spending discipline. Spending billions of dollars on a Golden Dome system that can never achieve the President’s dream of a leak-proof missile defense system is sheer waste, as is continuing to lavish funds on overpriced, underperforming combat aircraft like the F-35, or multi-billion dollar aircraft carriers that are vulnerable to modern high-speed missiles."

"The truth is, there are not enough factories, or skilled workers, or materials to effectively spend such a huge increase," he added. "It will be a recipe for waste, fraud, and abuse."

In anticipation of the White House proposal, a broad coalition of nearly 300 advocacy organizations sent a letter to members of Congress on Thursday demanding that they reject Trump's request and any other proposed budget increases for the Pentagon, which recently failed its eighth consecutive audit.

"We must invest in critical human needs programs in our communities. Instead, we have cut those programs massively," the groups wrote, pointing to the record Medicaid and nutrition assistance cuts that Trump and congressional Republicans approved last year.

"The Pentagon is unaccountable to American taxpayers, having never passed an audit, while more than half of its budget (54 percent) is paid to corporate military contractors, whose profits are rising. Further gigantic increases would be grossly irresponsible," the groups continued. "Funding an unaccountable Pentagon by more than $1 trillion while underfunding human needs programs undermines our security by preventing us from investing in the shared prosperity that comes from more housing, health care, climate and public health protections, ending hunger, and providing quality public education."

US President Donald Trump late Thursday threatened more illegal attacks on Iranian civilian infrastructure, including bridges and power plants, as Iran's military said it shot down an American fighter jet over Tehran, with state-affiliated media publishing apparent photos from the scene.

An Iranian official told Drop Site's Jeremy Scahill that Iran's forces hit an F-15 warplane, causing the jet to crash and sparking "an intense fire." The unnamed Iranian official said the pilot could not have evacuated due to the "nature of the strike," but "no remains have yet been found."

The US Central Command had not commented on the purported downing of an American fighter jet as of this writing. Last month, a US F-35 was forced to make an emergency landing at an air base in the Middle East after reportedly being struck by Iranian fire.

Iran's claim on Friday came as Trump issued more belligerent threats on his social media platform, declaring that the US military "hasn’t even started destroying what’s left in Iran."

"Bridges next, then Electric Power Plants!" the president wrote, shortly after bragging about the US military's destruction of an Iranian highway bridge. "New Regime leadership knows what has to be done, and has to be done, FAST!"

Brian Finucane, senior adviser to the US Program at the International Crisis Group, characterized Trump's message as "more threats of war crimes as POTUS flails and seeks to coerce an exit to his own self-inflicted, unnecessary, and ill-conceived war."

Trump's renewed threats came amid reports of US-Israeli attacks on a century-old Iranian medical research center, pharmaceutical facilities, residential buildings, and other civilian infrastructure—and on emergency responders aiding those wounded by the attacks.

"War crime after war crime after war crime," US Rep. Yassamin Ansari (D-Ariz.), the lone Iranian American member of Congress, wrote early Friday. "Now’s the time to speak up if you’re against this reckless war of choice. The consequences will be vast and catastrophic."

Ben Rhodes, a political analyst who worked in the Obama administration, wrote that the US military's recent actions have "nothing to do with nuclear or helping Iranians."

"Just pointless forever war, death and destruction—a flailing, furious, rapidly declining superpower," Rhodes added.

On Thursday, the one-year anniversary of President Donald Trump's so-called Liberation Day, US advocacy groups sounded the alarm about his new tariffs targeting "patented pharmaceuticals and their ingredients under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 to bolster American national security and public health."

The administration announced a year ago that the US Department of Commerce would conduct a related investigation under that law. The resulting report was recently sent to the president, and although the findings have not been made public, Trump's executive order summarizes key takeaways and Secretary Howard Lutnick's recommended actions.

According to the order, the secretary's recommendations included "continuing to negotiate onshoring agreements related to most favored nation (MFN) pharmaceutical pricing agreements; imposing significant tariffs on pharmaceuticals and pharmaceutical ingredients, so that such imports will not threaten to impair the national security of the United States; and granting preferential treatment to those companies that commit to onshore production of pharmaceuticals and pharmaceutical ingredients."

Citing an unnamed Trump administration official, The Washington Post reported Thursday that "the White House has reached agreements with 13 drugmakers and expects to soon conclude an additional four." As part of these deals, companies are planning to invest at least $400 billion in new US plants.

The Post also pointed out that "some imported drugs will face much lower tariffs under trade deals Trump negotiated with five US trading partners. Goods from the European Union, Japan, South Korea, and Switzerland will face 15% levies, while drugs from the United Kingdom, which was the first to sign a deal with Trump, will be hit with a 10% tariff."

Thanks to Trump's new order, brand-name pharmaceuticals made in other countries could be hit with tariffs as high as 100%.

Merith Basey, CEO of Patients for Affordable Drugs, warned in a statement that "while these tariffs aim to pressure pharmaceutical corporations into US manufacturing and most favored nation agreements, the current MFN deals remain opaque and voluntary, and have not delivered meaningful savings for the vast majority of American patients. There's a real risk these tariffs will drive up costs and create more uncertainty for millions of patients already struggling to afford their medications."

Experts at Public Citizen, another advocacy group that has sued to expose the secretive MFN agreements, were similarly critical.

"By announcing these tariffs without even producing the evidence from the investigation that supposedly justifies them, Trump is continuing his pattern of grabbing headlines by using the word 'tariff' while engaging in secretive ongoing negotiations and opaque exemptions processes that are ripe for corporate corruption," said Public Citizen Global Trade Watch director Melinda St. Louis—who also wrote a broader takedown of Trump's trade policy published Thursday by Common Dreams.

"While strategic tariffs can be used to support domestic manufacturing and good jobs, they must be paired with real public investments and support for workers' rights, which Trump has systematically undermined," she said. "Instead, he's bullying other countries like the UK into paying more for medicines, which will lead to windfall profits for Big Pharma and do nothing to reduce US prices."

Peter Maybarduk, director of Access to Medicines at Public Citizen, stressed that "Trump's tariffs will be either ineffective or harmful for what people need, which is a reliable, plentiful, affordable supply of medicine."

Also taking aim at the "secretive arrangements that allow Trump to claim specious victories on manufacturing and high drug prices," Maybarduk explained that "in reality, many manufacturing commitments claimed under the deals were part of previously planned projects and the drug pricing commitments appear designed to largely spare drug company profits rather than earnestly address affordability concerns."

"Meanwhile the administration has given drugmakers perks like lucrative vouchers to accelerate FDA review of their medicines and a promise from the Trump administration that it will bully other countries into adopting higher prescription drug prices, using tariffs as leverage," he continued, referring to the Food and Drug administration.

"If the administration wants to fix problems like medicines shortages and fragile supply chains," he argued, "it should focus on real solutions to support more transparent and diverse supply sources and make targeted investments for the supply of key medicines."

Police in Paris apprehended and briefly detained European Parliament Member Rima Hassan Thursday on suspicion of "apology for terrorism"—an allegation critics slammed as "judicial harassment" aimed at silencing her outspoken criticism of Israel's genocidal war on Gaza and the French government's support for it.

Hassan, who represents the leftist La France Insoumise (LFI, or France Unbowed in English) party in the European Parliament, was summoned as part of an investigation by the National Center for Combating Online Hate (PNLH), Le Parisiene first reported.

The newspaper also reported that "a few grams" of a synthetic drug—possibly 3-MMC—were found on Hassan, allegations that sparked skeptical reactions.

PNLH is probing a since-deleted March 26 post on the social media site X in which Hassan referred to Kōzō Okamoto, a member of the Japanese Red Army who, along with two others, killed 26 people and wounded 80 more in the name of Palestinian liberation during a 1972 massacre at Lod Airport in Israel.

Hassan, a descendant of Palestinians ethnically cleansed from their homeland during the foundation of the modern Israeli state, was born in a refugee camp in Syria and emigrated to France as a child.

The Sorbonne-educated jurist was one of the leaders of the June 2025 Gaza Freedom Flotilla Madleen mission, along with climate campaigner Greta Thunberg and others. Hassan and others aboard the Madleen were intercepted by Israeli forces and arrested in international waters as they attempted to deliver food, children’s prosthetics, and other desperately needed supplies to Gaza’s besieged and starving people. Hassan said that she was beaten in Israeli custody.

While far-right and pro-Israel French lawmakers celebrated Hassan's detention and called for her to be stripped of parliamentary immunity, Palestine defenders condemned the arrest.

"Once again, the offense of glorifying terrorism is being used to repress a Palestinian activist known worldwide for her fight against genocide," said leftist lawyer Elsa Marcel. "While Israel bombs Iran and Lebanon and colonization accelerates in the West Bank, the French state continues to repress the voices fighting for the liberation of Palestine. Immediate release!"

LFI French National Assembly Member Gabrielle Cathala voiced her "full support for Rima Hassan" in a post on X.

"In violation of her parliamentary immunity, she is currently being held in custody for a simple tweet that had nothing to do with 'apology for terrorism,'" she wrote. "This judicial harassment must stop."

"If this is already happening, just imagine what would occur in the event of a vote on the Yadan Law," Cathala added, referring to a highly controversial bill critics say would criminalize anti-Zionism by conflating opposition to Israel with animus toward Jewish people, aligning with the dubious International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance Working Definition of Antisemitism.

Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the de facto LFI leader and a former European Parliament member, said on Bluesky: "The political police have once again summoned Rima Hassan for questioning regarding a retweet from March. Parliamentary immunity, then, no longer exists in France."

"It is intolerable," he added. "The Yadan Law was not passed—yet is it already being enforced?"

Hassan was previously summoned by authorities following a December 2024 complaint over social media posts, including one in which she asserted, “If Franco-Israelis are allowed to serve in the Israeli army while enjoying the gains of dual citizenship, every Franco-Palestinian must be able to join the Palestinian armed resistance, the legitimacy of which is recognized by [United Nations] resolutions on the right to self-determination of peoples."

Since she started speaking out against the Gaza genocide, Hasan has been subjected to online bullying, including death and rape threats and doxing.

Last week, Hassan was denied entry into Canada—where she was scheduled to speak at multiple conferences in Montréal and meet with left-wing pro-Palestine members of Québec's National Assembly—following concerns from the pro-Israel groups B’nai Brith Canada and the Center for Israel and Jewish Affairs. Hassan attended the conferences remotely.

“The revocation of [Hassan's] travel authorization is part of a worrying trend of restricting freedom of expression and movement of political representatives," LFI said in a statement, "as well as part of a broader pattern of censorship affecting democratic debate."

Other Palestine defenders have been targeted by the French government, including Olivia Zemor, president of the advocacy group Europalestine, who last week was hit with a 24-month suspended sentence for "apology for terrorism" due to her support for Palestinian rights.

After pledging in a prime-time address that the United States and Israel would bomb Iran "back to the Stone Ages where they belong," President Donald Trump on Thursday shared a video of the US blowing up an Iranian bridge and promised, "Much more to follow!"

"The biggest bridge in Iran comes tumbling down, never to be used again," Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform, sharing footage of an attack on the B1 highway bridge that connects Iran's capital, Tehran, to the city of Karaj.

Trump added a message to the Middle East nation's government, writing, "IT IS TIME FOR IRAN TO MAKE A DEAL BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE, AND THERE IS NOTHING LEFT OF WHAT STILL COULD BECOME A GREAT COUNTRY!"

Citing an unnamed source, Israel's i24NEWS reported that the bridge's "destruction was intended to cut off supply routes that bring drone parts and missiles to Iranian firing units that launch them at US and Israeli forces."

According to Reuters national security correspondent Idrees Ali, "Iranian state media says eight people were killed and 95 wounded in the attack."

While war cheerleader Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) welcomed Trump's social media post, anti-war activists, journalists, and legal experts called out the US president for not only engaging in war crimes, but promoting them with his "atrocity propaganda."

Progressive US-Middle East policy analyst Omar Baddar said that Trump was "openly bragging about destroying civilian infrastructure to force the Iranian government to meet his political demands."

Rutgers University law professor Adil Haque said in a series of social media posts that "the president of the United States would like everyone to know that he is acting with criminal intent, in case there was any ambiguity."

"Attacking civilian infrastructure—to create political pressure or punish civilians—is both illegal and stupid," Haque added, blasting Trump's post as "obscene," and stressing that "states must act now to end this lawless war."

British writer Owen Jones declared that "Donald Trump is openly flaunting his war crimes. Journalists who won't call them that are complicit."

Zeteo editor-in-chief Mehdi Hasan said that "this is what terrorism looks like, state terrorism, we do it to others, and then we act shocked when others do it back to us."

Drop Site News co-founder Ryan Grim described Trump's post as, "An extremist group in Washington, DC has claimed credit for the terrorist attack on the Iranian bridge."

Earlier Thursday, Grim noted that Iran has shut down the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman that's a key shipping route for fossil fuels. Oil prices have surged, as Americans have already seen at the gasoline pump.

"The more civilian infrastructure we destroy in Iran and the more we set back their economy, the more determined Iran will be to extract the maximum possible toll from oil passing through what is now their strait," Grim wrote. "That toll will be paid by us and the rest of the world through a higher cost of living. So just be aware that every video of a bridge being blown up, a pharmaceutical [plant] destroyed, a medical clinic flattened, is a video of something *you* are going to pay to rebuild."

As Common Dreams reported earlier Thursday, online retailer Amazon is planning to add 3.5% fuel and logistics surcharge for vendors that use its fulfillment service in the United States and Canada, and fresh food distributors have been adding such fees to deliveries, due to increased fuel costs caused by the Iran war.

Responding to the bridge attack, Iran's foreign minister, Seyed Abbas Araghchi, said that "striking civilian structures, including unfinished bridges, will not compel Iranians to surrender. It only conveys the defeat and moral collapse of an enemy in disarray. Every bridge and building will be built back stronger. What will never recover: damage to America's standing."

Since launching the war in late February, the US and Israel have also bombed at least tens of thousands of other civilian locations, including homes, schools, medical facilities, energy installations, courthouses, and UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization World Heritage sites.

The richest 0.1% of people on Earth are hiding more than $2.8 trillion in offshore accounts to avoid taxes. That money alone is more wealth than is owned by the entire bottom half of humanity, more than 4.1 billion people.

These findings were published in a report released Thursday by Oxfam International on the 10th anniversary of the 2016 Panama Papers, which provided an unprecedented look at how the world's most powerful capitalists, financiers, political leaders, celebrities, and criminals exploited offshore tax havens to stash their money.

"Ten years on, the superrich are still sequestering oceans of wealth in offshore vaults,” said Christian Hallum, Oxfam International’s tax lead.

The percentage of untaxed wealth in offshore accounts has dropped in the past 10 years, in large part due to global reforms like the adoption of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's Automatic Exchange of Information framework (AEOI), which allows revenue authorities around the world to easily share information and crack down on cheats.

However, many nations in the Global South are excluded from this system, even though they need the tax revenue the most.

Oxfam found that a staggering $3.5 trillion, more than 3.2% of the global gross domestic product, still remains in untaxed accounts. That's more than the entire GDP of France and is more than twice the combined wealth of the world's 44 poorest nations.

And while the percentage of untaxed wealth is shrinking, that doesn't mean inequality has shrunk.

On the contrary, the December 2025 "World Inequality Report" found that the richest 0.001% of humanity—fewer than 60,000 multimillionaires and billionaires—now have three times as much wealth as the poorest half of the world’s population combined.

Inequality has surged around the world in part due to taxation policies and pandemic recovery packages that overwhelmingly favor the rich. The most glaring was adopted in the world's financial hub, the United States, last year.

The megabudget passed by Republicans and signed into law by President Donald Trump handed a $1 trillion tax cut to America's wealthiest 1% while slashing more than $1 trillion in spending from Medicaid, food assistance, and other safety net programs. It has been described by some economists as the largest upward transfer of wealth in US history.

While the global top 0.1% holds about 80% of untaxed offshore wealth, an even smaller group of uber-wealthy individuals does most of the cheating. The world's richest 0.01%, who hold at least $50 million apiece, control about half of all money in global tax shelters—$1.7 trillion.

According to the Tax Justice Network's Corporate Tax Haven Index, Caribbean islands under UK ownership, including the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, and Bermuda, are among the worst offenders. Other notable tax havens include Switzerland, Singapore, Hong Kong, Ireland, and the Netherlands.

A February Oxfam report on Elon Musk, who is well on his way to becoming the world's first trillionaire, found that his company, Tesla—which managed to pay zero dollars on its $2.3 billion income in 2024—has not published a country-by-country report on its taxes and that it has subsidiaries in many countries considered to be tax havens.

Big Pharma companies, including AbbVie and Merck, also used tax shelters to lower their total tax expense in 2025 by more than $1 billion, according to a report released earlier this month by the Financial Accountability & Corporate Transparency Coalition.

"This isn’t just about clever accounting—it’s about power and impunity," Hallum said. "When millionaires and billionaires stash trillions of dollars in offshore tax havens, they place themselves above the obligations that bind the rest of society."

"The consequences are as predictable as they are devastating," he continued. "We see our public hospitals and schools starved of funds, our social fabric shredded by rising inequality, and ordinary people forced to shoulder the costs of a system rigged to enrich a tiny few.”

Even a fraction of the money currently stashed away by the world's wealthiest could alleviate untold amounts of suffering.

In November, the United Nations' World Food Program estimated that extreme hunger, which currently affects more than 318 million people around the world, could be eradicated by 2030 with investments of about $93 billion per year, but that global hunger programs instead remain “slow, fragmented, and underfunded."

According to a 2021 UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) report, investments of around $114 billion per year would similarly be enough to ensure that everyone on Earth has access to safe drinking water and sanitation.

Oxfam called on governments around the world to increase coordination to prevent the wealthy from hiding their riches from tax authorities. It also urged them to adopt more aggressive policies to tax the 1%'s wealth at home, including taxes on income and on extreme wealth.

Americans having been paying more for gasoline since the start of President Donald Trump's illegal war with Iran, and now it seems the war's costs are spreading to other areas of the economy.

Amazon announced on Thursday that, beginning April 17, it would add a "3.5% fuel and logistics-related surcharge" to vendors that use its Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) service in the US and Canada.

The company said that it needed to add the surcharge due to "elevated costs in fulfillment and logistics" that "have increased the cost of operating across the industry."

"We have absorbed these increased costs so far," Amazon said. "However, similar to other major carriers, when costs remain elevated, we implement temporary surcharges on our fulfillment fees to recover a portion of the actual cost increases we are experiencing."

Amazon spokesperson Ashley Vanicek told CNBC that the company's surcharge will be "meaningfully lower" than rival carriers, and insisted that "we remain committed to our selling partners' success and to maintaining broad selection and low prices for customers."

Tahra Hoops, director of economic analysis at Chamber of Progress, said that Amazon's surcharge is "yet another example of more increased costs to come," as "the ongoing supply shock" caused by the Iran war "has lasted longer than expected."

Amazon isn't alone in adding surcharges due to the war's impact on fuel costs.

According to a Tuesday report in The New York Times, fresh food distributors across the US have been adding surcharges to deliveries to make up for the increased fuel costs caused by the Iran war, with the result being that "grocery stores, restaurants, hospitals, and even schools are most likely seeing costs for their food shipping climb."

John Ross, the chief executive of the Independent Grocers Alliance, told the Times that the increased shipping costs from the surge in diesel fuel costs have come at a particularly inopportune time since many Americans were already stretched thin financially before Trump attacked Iran.

"For people who spend every nickel they have on daily expenses, if grocery prices go up $5, that $5 has to come from something else," Ross said. "But it’s hard for the grocers to eat it also. For every $1 that consumers spend at the register, the grocery store is keeping about two pennies. There’s very little room there."

The price of fuel isn't the only factor seen driving food prices higher, as CNBC on Thursday reported that experts expect to see a spike in food prices later this year thanks to the Iran war's impact on fertilizer prices.

University of Minnesota economist Kjetil Storesletten told CNBC that "the price of food is going to move quite a lot" in the coming months, predicting that "all of the increased price in fertilizer is going to be passed through to food."

Storesletten said that food prices won't jump immediately, but warned that coming grocery sticker shock will grow more severe if Iran keeps its stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz for the foreseeable future.

"Imagine [the strait] remains closed until the summer," the economist said. "We will see substantial increases in food prices."

Just as President Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress were warned would happen, close to 100,000 US veterans are currently behind on their mortgage payments or are in the process of foreclosure as a result of the White House's decision to shut down a Department of Veterans Affairs program that helped people with VA-backed home loans when they were behind on their monthly payments.

As NPR reported Thursday, more than 10,000 have already lost their homes, nearly a year after the Trump administration abruptly did away with the VA Servicing Purchase (VASP) program.

The program was rolled out during the Biden administration, after the VA ended a pandemic-era assistance program that had allowed VA home loan borrowers to gradually pay back mortgage payments that they had needed to skip.

Under VASP, the VA purchases home loans that were in default from mortgage services and then modified the loans.

In March 2025, a representative from the Mortgage Bankers Association told the House Veterans Affairs Committee that widespread foreclosures would result if the VASP program—which Republicans in Congress said had been created by former President Joe Biden for "political purposes... to undercut the VA Home Loan program—was not protected.

Despite the warning, the VASP program was halted two months later.

Nearly a year after the program's end, the VA is still developing a replacement to help veterans—many of whom are struggling to afford essentials just like the majority of other Americans as the cost of living crisis intensifies with rising fuel prices due to Trump's war on Iran.

Sources in the mortgage industry told NPR that many of the vets who have lost their homes so far had enough disability benefits or other income to avoid foreclosure, had the VASP program remained in operation.

NPR interviewed Leann Ledford, whose husband, a Marine veteran who served in Afghanistan, has a brain injury, experiences seizures, and suffers post-traumatic stress disorder. The family is one of tens of thousands who learned in October 2022 that the Biden administration had ended the earlier pandemic-era program and that they would have to pay a year's worth of back payments in one lump sum.

The Ledfords were also one of many veteran families who were unable to enroll in VASP before Trump abruptly shut it down.

Ledford told NPR that with her husband's $3,971 monthly disability check, they could have afforded mortgage payments under the VASP program.

Army veteran Jon Henry was also unable to enroll in VASP before it was shut down, and was forced to take a modified loan with payments that are $380 more per month than his original mortgage.

"It's a struggle," Henry told NPR. "Especially with everything else being inflated in the country, you know, with groceries, gas … I'm like, what the hell?"

NPR's reporting led Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), an Iraq War veteran, to denounced Trump as "the most anti-veteran president in history."

When Trump's new VA home loan assistance program is up and running—which isn't expected to happen for several more months, veterans will be able to move their missed payments to the back of their loan term. But in the current draft of the plan, reported NPR, "the VA is telling mortgage companies that if a new, modified loan at a higher interest rate only raises a veteran's monthly payment by up to 15%, they must place vets into that more costly loan."

"So a veteran with a $2,000 monthly mortgage payment could still be pushed into a modified loan that raises their payment by up to $300 a month. And they wouldn't be given the option of moving their missed payments to the back of their loan and keeping their original, lower-cost mortgage," reported the outlet.

Pete Mills of the Mortgage Bankers Association told the VA last month that under Trump's plan, "as drafted, veterans will continue to have worse options than similarly situated non-veterans."

Senate Democrats are pushing for an investigation into US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth following a report that he attempted to make a “big investment” in weapons stock just weeks before President Donald Trump launched an aggressive war against Iran.

Three Democrats on the Senate Armed Services Committee—Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) were joined by Sens. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) and Jeff Merkley to send Hegseth a letter on Wednesday.

They told the secretary that his reported attempt to broker the deal "would be a profound conflict of interest and a potential violation of your federal ethics agreement—and betrayal of the nation paying the price for this war and the troops you are sending into harm’s way."

The Financial Times reported earlier this week that Hegseth's "broker at Morgan Stanley contacted BlackRock in February about making a multimillion-dollar investment in the asset manager’s Defense Industrials Active ETF... shortly before the US launched military action against Tehran.”

However, the purchase was reportedly never made because the massive bundle of stocks was not available to Morgan Stanley clients at the time.

A Pentagon spokesperson has also denied the story, calling it "entirely false and fabricated" and claiming that neither Hegseth nor any of his representatives ever approached BlackRock.

But, as the lawmakers noted, FT reported that the inquiry was significant enough for BlackRock to flag it internally.

Hegseth and other Pentagon officials confirmed by the Senate are prohibited by law from owning or purchasing publicly traded stock in the 10 companies that have received the largest Defense Department contracts over the past five years.

But the fund held stocks in several of these companies, including Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, Huntington Ingalls, Boeing, RTX Corporation, and L3Harris Technologies.

Reports of the proposed deal by Hegseth's broker come as the Trump administration has faced other accusations of trading on insider information about the president’s next moves to win big on prediction market services. Platforms like Polymarket have seen bettors take home monster winnings by placing wagers predicting major military actions in Venezuela and Iran just hours before Trump launched them.

The lawmakers noted that while the war is costing American taxpayers more than $1 billion per day and has saddled Americans with soaring gas prices, it has proven highly lucrative for major defense contractors, whose stocks jumped significantly in the days after the war was launched, even as the rest of the market took a tumble.

The Trump administration is currently demanding another $200 billion to prosecute the war on top of a $1.5 trillion budget request to fund the Defense Department, which the lawmakers said would likely result in these companies’ profits and stock prices continuing to climb.

The US-Israeli war against Iran, launched on February 28, has been condemned as illegal by many international law experts and human rights groups, who have accused the US of violating the UN Charter and committing war crimes.

According to a report on Wednesday from the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), a US-based human rights monitor for Iran, more than 1,600 civilians have been killed since the war began, including 244 children. At least 13 US troops have also been killed since the conflict broke out.

The lawmakers told Hegseth regarding his reported investment attempt: “If this report is accurate, it would appear to represent an appalling effort to profit off of your knowledge of the president’s plans for war.”

Global criticism has mounted since Israeli lawmakers approved a death penalty law targeting Palestinians earlier this week, including fresh calls for the European Union to suspend a key political and trade deal, the EU-Israel Association Agreement.

On Thursday, 31 groups, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Oxfam, said in a joint statement that "we are appalled by the Israeli Knesset's decision to approve a bill that makes death penalty effectively mandatory in the West Bank and which will de facto apply exclusively to Palestinians."

The coalition also specifically put pressure on the EU, noting that the bloc "has consistently held that capital punishment is cruel, inhuman, and incompatible with human dignity under all circumstances," and that the Israeli law violates "the right to life and protections enshrined in international humanitarian and human rights law, such as the Fourth Geneva Convention, the Hague Regulations, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the Convention Against Torture."

"Diplomatic engagement by the EU and its member states urging Israel to reverse course has so far proven ineffective. This appalling development occurs amid an ongoing manmade humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, which a UN Commission of Inquiry, multiple Palestinian, Israeli, and international organizations, and independent experts have characterized as constituting genocide, and against the backdrop of an accelerating de facto annexation of the West Bank," the coalition wrote, pointing to the July 2024 advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice. "The adoption of the death penalty law is thus part of a pattern of discriminatory policies and practices against Palestinians."

The coalition continued:

In furtherance of these policies, Israel has already crossed established EU red lines: the advancement of settlement construction in the E1 area, which breaks the territorial contiguity of the West Bank, with the intent to prevent a future Palestinian state; the ban on [the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East] and attacks on its facilities, including schools and clinics built and run with EU contributions; the expulsion of international NGOs through restrictive registration procedures; forced evictions of Palestinian residents in East Jerusalem; forced displacement of tens of thousands of Palestinians and widespread demolitions of Palestinian homes and infrastructure in the West Bank, including EU-funded projects; persistent impunity for abuses by Israeli security forces and state-backed settler violence; reports of widespread and systemic torture and mistreatment of Palestinian prisoners; restrictions on religious freedoms; attacks on journalists; and denial of access to EU officials.

As also recalled by the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Kallas in her statement... the EU-Israel Association Agreement establishes respect for democratic principles as an essential element of EU-Israel relations. A review conducted by the EU in June 2025 based on Article 2 of the agreement found Israel in breach of its human rights obligations for serious abuses against Palestinians and violations of the laws of war, both in Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

When the bloc refused to halt the trade deal over Gaza last year, Amnesty International secretary general Agnès Callamard called the decision "a cruel and unlawful betrayal—of the European project and vision, predicated on upholding international law and fighting authoritarian practices, of the European Union's own rules, and of the human rights of Palestinians."

The coalition concluded Thursday: "Nine months on, the time for action is long overdue. The European Union must uphold its stated principles and legal obligations by finally suspending, as a minimum immediate measure, the trade component of the EU-Israel Association Agreement and adopting other measures."

One political group in the European Parliament, the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D Group), also expressed "deep concern following the Israeli Knesset's approval of legislation introducing the death penalty for Palestinians convicted of terrorism," and put pressure on the European Council, which is made up of the bloc's heads of state or government.

"The S&D Group is calling on the European Council to urgently suspend the EU-Israel Association Agreement in light of Israel's continuous and grave violations of Article 2 of the Agreement on human rights, which is central to the partnership," the group said in a Tuesday statement, the day after the law passed.

Yannis Maniatis, S&D Group vice president for foreign affairs, said that "reintroducing the death penalty is a step back into the past and yet another blow to the values that underpin our partnership with Israel. We cannot and will not remain silent."

"When a partner repeatedly ignores the warnings from its friends and civil society alike, there must be consequences," added Maniatis, a Greek politician. "It is high time the Council suspended the EU-Israel Association Agreement. The time to act is now."

The S&D Group's statement came not only after the death penalty law's passage but also amid a European citizens' initiative collecting signatures to demand the suspension in response to Israel's "unprecedented level of killing and injury of civilians, a large-scale displacement of population, and the systematic destruction of hospitals and medical facilities" in the Gaza Strip. So far, over 645,000 people from EU member states, of the necessary 1 million, have signed on to that call.

The Council of the European Union—which is composed of national ministers from each member state—this week issued a statement reiterating the EU's "principled position against the death penalty in all cases and in all circumstances," condemning the Israeli law as "a grave regression," and highlighting deep concerns about its "de facto discriminatory character."

"Consistent with our global efforts towards universal abolition of the death penalty, the EU urges Israel to abide by its previous principled position and with its obligations under international law, as well as its commitment to democratic principles, as reflected also in the provisions of the EU-Israel Association Agreement," the council said.

However, there have been no signals from EU leadership about progress toward suspending the agreement in light of the law's passage.

US President Donald Trump fired Attorney General Pam Bondi on Thursday after reportedly growing frustrated by her failure to pursue his political enemies with sufficient zeal and her handling of the Epstein files.

Trump confirmed in a Truth Social post that Bondi is out as attorney general and will be moving to an "important new job in the private sector." The president said Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, will replace Bondi in an interim capacity as the White House considers its options for a permanent replacement. Lee Zeldin, a Trump loyalist who currently heads the Environmental Protection Agency, has been floated as a leading candidate.

Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, said in a statement responding to Bondi's ouster that "she will not escape accountability and remains legally obligated to appear before our committee under oath," referring to a subpoena the panel approved last month.

"Bondi has been leading a White House cover-up of the Epstein files. She has weaponized the Department of Justice to protect Donald Trump and put survivors in harm’s way by exposing their identities," said Garcia. "Oversight Democrats have been leading serious investigations into Bondi and Secretary Kristi Noem. If they think we are moving on because they were fired, they are gravely mistaken."

In her response to the news, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) pointed to Bondi's refusal to apologize to Epstein victims whose identities were exposed in the Justice Department's disclosures, which Democrats said were rolled out and redacted in a way that protected the powerful—including Trump himself.

"Bondi called apologizing to the Epstein survivors getting into the 'gutter,'" Jayapal wrote Thursday. "Good riddance."

Politico reported ahead of Bondi's removal that she "has been under pressure since last summer over her ill-fated handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files inquiry, with even close ally Susie Wiles admitting Bondi 'completely whiffed' her response."

Trump also publicly complained late last year that Bondi was not being aggressive enough in trying to prosecute the president's political opponents.

"Pam," Trump wrote in a Truth Social post in September. "I have reviewed over 30 statements and posts saying that, essentially, 'same old story as last time, all talk, no action. Nothing is being done. What about Comey, Adam 'Shifty' Schiff, Leticia??? They’re all guilty as hell, but nothing is going to be done.'"

Following Trump's post, the Justice Department pursued charges against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, but a federal judge tossed the cases in November.

“No one can be loyal enough. No one can punish Trump’s enemies fast enough," Public Citizen co-president Lisa Gilbert said Thursday. "Pam Bondi took the DOJ in a lawless, non-independent, shameful direction, and the institution of justice has suffered as a result. Bondi has trivialized the DOJ, the sanctity of law, and the attorney general position."

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) noted that under Bondi's leadership, the Justice Department was "handing out merger approvals as political favors."

"Under AG Pam Bondi, the DOJ became a cesspool of corruption," Warren wrote on social media. "Good riddance."

One of the worst Western US snow droughts of the century—exacerbated by a historically warm winter and a record-shattering March heatwave—has experts increasingly worried about wildfire and water supply risks heading into the spring and summer months.

On Wednesday, the California Department of Water Resources reported "no measurable snow" recorded at Phillips Station in the Sierra Nevada range. Because there was some visible snow already on the ground, DWR is calling this the second-lowest April measurement on record.

The agency said this is "a stark indicator of how record‑hot March temperatures and high‑elevation rain have erased the Sierra Nevada snowpack months ahead of schedule."

"The combination of warm storms and unusually hot temperatures rapidly melted what remained of this year’s already sparse snowpack," DWR added. "Statewide, the snowpack is now just 18% of average for this date, according to the automated snow sensor network."

DWR Director Karla Nemeth said that “it feels like we skipped spring this year and dropped straight into a summer heatwave."

“What should be gradual snowmelt happened suddenly weeks ago," Nemeth added. "We’re seeing fewer, warmer storms and shorter wet seasons. Future water supplies will depend upon our ability to capture water when it’s available and manage it more efficiently.”

(Image by US Department of Agriculture)

Jeff Mount, a senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California’s Water Policy Center, told the San Francisco Chronicle on Wednesday: "It didn’t snow where we needed it to snow, and where it did snow, it didn’t stick. This is going to be an ugly summer."

Oregon's iconic Crater Lake is experiencing its lowest snow water equivalent levels on record for this time of year, according to the National Weather Service.

In Colorado, US Department of Agriculture (USDA) data show the statewide snowpack is at just 26% of median levels as of Thursday.

“This year is on a whole other level,” Colorado State University climatologist Russ Schumacher told The Guardian. "Seeing this year so far below any of the other years we have data for is very concerning."

Last week, the Denver Board of Water Commissioners declared Stage 1 drought restrictions, a move that seeks to reduce water use by 20%.

“The snowpack within Denver Water’s collection system has deteriorated significantly and continues to decline,” said Nathan Elder, Denver Water’s manager of water supply. “Snowpack levels in both basins are now the lowest observed in the past 40 years, with accelerated melting underway. The conditions we are experiencing are unprecedented, and we need customers to save water to protect the supply we have right now.”

April measurements of alpine snowpacks—which are sometimes described as water savings accounts—typically indicate peak levels of water that, with spring warming, melt into reservoirs, rivers, and other bodies that help hydrate the West during the parched summer and fall months.

“March is often a big month for snowstorms,” Schumacher said. “Instead of getting snow we would normally expect we got this unprecedented, way-off-the-scale warmth.”

“This year has the potential of being way worse than any of the years we have analogues for in the past,” he added.

As University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources climate scientist Daniel Swain explained last week:

Meteorologically speaking, March 2026 will go down in the record books as the warmest March on record for at least a third, and possibly half or more, of the continental United States. But even more remarkable is the ~10 day window of peak heat during this truly exceptional March heatwave—when many, if not most, locations across the western two thirds of the United States in a broad swath stretching from the Pacific Coast in California eastward past the Mississippi River broke their all-time March monthly heat records. The margin by which March heat records were shattered was so wide that more than a handful of locations also broke their all-time April heat records, and in a few locations even tied or broke their May heat records!

“Beyond the conspicuous ‘weirdness’ of it all, the most consequential impact of our record-shattering March heat will likely be the decimation of the water year 2025-26 snowpack across nearly all of the American west," Swain warned. "The toll wrought on our 'water tower in the sky' is nothing short of shocking."

The National Interagency Fire Center is among those projecting above-normal fire risk throughout the American West in the coming months.

“Unless there’s a major change in the weather patterns and we somehow pull out some sort of miracle springtime precipitation, we’re looking at an extended fire season,” Joel Lisonbee, senior associate scientist at the Cooperative Institute for Research at the University of Colorado Boulder, told The Guardian.

In addition to the risk of drought and wildfire, low water levels threaten wildlife, including California's flagging salmon runs—which are also imperiled by Trump administration actions including habitat disruption caused by water flow manipulation.

“No sooner do we start to gain a little ground back in rebuilding our salmon runs, the federal Bureau of Reclamation is destroying them again,” Vance Staplin, executive director of the Golden State Salmon Association, told The Sacramento Bee last week. "These fish are in big trouble if the bureau doesn’t relent very soon.”

Scientists have long warned that planetary heating driven by human burning of fossil fuels will result in longer and more frequent snow droughts. One 2020 study showed how the Western United States is fast becoming a "global snow drought hot spot," with the length of such dry spells increasing by 28% between 1980 and 2018.

“Climate change is going to result in a lot of these extreme events worsening,” Clark University climatologist Abby Frazier told The Guardian on Thursday. "It is heartbreaking to see it all playing out as we have predicted for so long. The changes we have teed up for ourselves are going to be catastrophic.”

President Donald Trump's executive order placing restrictions on mail-in voting in the US is now facing a sweeping lawsuit from the Democratic Party.

In a complaint filed Wednesday with the US District Court for the District of Columbia, the Democrats argued that Trump "has tried again and again to rewrite election rules for his own perceived partisan advantage," this time going after mail voting, which he has baselessly claimed cost him the 2020 presidential election.

The Democrats contended, however, that Trump has no constitutional authority to single-handedly rewrite election laws, noting that the US Constitution explicitly gave states the power to administer their own elections.

"Our Constitution’s framers anticipated this kind of desire for absolute power," the complaint states. "They recognized the menace it would pose to ordered liberty and the ways in which it would corrode self-government like an acid... They left most election authority with the states, permitted state regulations to be displaced only upon the agreement of both chambers of Congress, and established an independent judiciary to repel threats to individual rights."

The complaint then dives into the contents of Trump's order, which it says "seeks to impose radical changes to the manner and conditions under which citizens may cast absentee or mail-in ballots," and would "imminently threaten to disenfranchise lawful voters."

Specifically, the lawsuit argues that Trump is asking the US Postal Service to "take actions unrelated to the agency's statutory mandate that run roughshod over established protections for voters who rely on the mail to exercise their fundamental right" to vote in US elections.

Given that the order doesn't "stem either from an act of Congress or from the Constitution itself," the complaint continues, "it is an unlawful exercise of authority that must be declared invalid."

A joint statement released by Democratic leaders, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), accused Trump of trying to restrict mail-in voting as a last-ditch effort to stop voters from ousting his Republican congressional allies.

"The American people are fed up with Republicans’ price-spiking, healthcare-gutting agenda and are ready to vote them out," they said. "That’s why Donald Trump is desperately trying to rig our elections by making it harder to vote for seniors, Americans with disabilities, members of the military, rural communities, and other working families who rely on vote-by-mail. This move is blatantly unconstitutional, and we will fight against it."

Shortly after the Democrats filed their lawsuit, the Campaign Legal Center and Democracy Defenders Fund filed a complaint against the Trump executive order on behalf of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), Secure Families Initiative, and Arizona Students’ Association.

Danielle Lang, vice president of voting rights and the rule of law at the Campaign Legal Center, said that the suit was necessary to block Trump's "unprecedented" effort to "unconstitutionally assert total authority over our elections."

"Attempts to command the US Department of Homeland Security to work with independent agencies on efforts to disenfranchise eligible voters... are simply unconstitutional and violate long-standing protections for Americans," Lang added.

Elections expert Rick Hasen, a law professor at the University of California, argued in a Wednesday op-ed for Slate that lawsuits against Trump's executive order would probably prove successful and that it "likely will be found unconstitutional by courts."

However, Hasen also warned that the order could still create enough chaos and uncertainty to throw the outcome of close elections into doubt.

"Trump is engaging in election denialism theater," Hasen explained. "It makes voters of all sides mistrust the election process and the virtues of democracy. It convinces his supporters that Democrats have to cheat to win, something that will come in handy should Democrats take back control of the House in November with the intent of beginning investigations and potentially impeachment."

The Trump administration's response was swift following the news that the death of a nearly blind New York man who was left by US Border Patrol agents in the freezing cold was ruled a homicide—and it made clear that the Department of Homeland Security has no intention of taking accountability for the agents' actions that preceded the 56-year-old's death.

But state Attorney General Letitia James warned that despite the deflections of the administration, her office would continue to review "the circumstances and treatment that led" to the death of Nurul Amin Shah Alam, a Rohingya refugee, in February.

"Mr. Shah Alam fled genocide to build a life in this country," James said. “Instead, he was abandoned and left to suffer alone in his final hours. No New Yorker should be treated this way.”

As Common Dreams reported, Shah Alam was found dead on a Buffalo, New York street five days after Border Patrol agents dropped him off at a closed coffee shop. They had not informed Shah Alam's family or lawyer where he was, making it impossible for him to find his way home as extreme winter weather hit Buffalo. In addition to being visually impaired, Shah Alam was unable to speak or read English.

The "manner of death," said the county medical examiner's office, "was homicide."

The medical examiner emphasized that on death certificates, "homicide" refers to "death resulting from the volitional act of another, which may include negligent acts or omissions," and does not imply the intent to cause someone's death.

The designation does "not indicate criminality, which is the purview of the judicial system," said the office.

Dr. Gale Burstein, the Erie County Department of Health commissioner, announced Wednesday that Shah Alam's death had been directly caused by complications from a perforated ulcer that had formed when hypothermia decreased blood flow and weakened the lining of his intestines.

Shah Alam experienced “severe stress” and that “stress was felt to be hypothermia, being in very cold temperatures, and dehydration, so no access to liquids," said Burstein.

The perforated ulcer doubtlessly caused "severe pain," the health commissioner added at a news conference.

“If that is not repaired in a short period of time, it can cause death, which is what we have, we felt we’ve seen in this instance,” said Burstein. “It’s a medical emergency.”

On Thursday morning, hours after the officials announced the homicide determination and described the health crisis Shah Alam experienced in his last days as he walked through the streets of Buffalo in subfreezing temperatures, DHS said on social media that the account of Shah Alam's death was "another hoax being peddled by the media and sanctuary politicians to demonize our law enforcement."

“This death had NOTHING to do with Border Patrol. Mr. Shah Alam passed almost A WEEK AFTER he was released by Border Patrol," said the agency before listing a number of allegations regarding the man's "serial violent criminal rap sheet."

The charges DHS referred to were related to an incident in February 2025, when Shah Alam was detained after getting lost on the way home from a store where he had purchased two curtain rods to use as walking sticks. He ended up on the porch of a woman who called the police, who later accused him of swinging a rod “in a menacing manner," which his lawyer denies.

Police body camera footage shows him saying, “OK” and dropping one end of the curtain rod when an officer told him to put it on the ground.

Shah Alam was charged with assault, trespassing, and possession of a weapon and taken to Erie County Holding Center, where he was held for a year.

He was released in late February after his family posted bail. The local police alerted Border Patrol, which sent two agents to pick Shah Alam up from jail. His son was waiting outside the jail to take him home, The New York Times reported, but the agents took him to a closed Tim Hortons location instead and left him there, describing their actions as giving Shah Alam a "courtesy ride."

The agency claimed after Shah Alam's death was reported in February that he had shown “no signs of distress, mobility issues, or disabilities requiring special assistance."

After officials announced their findings regarding Shah Alam's death on Wednesday, his son, Mohamad Faisal Nurul Amin, told The Guardian: “When I got the call from the medical examiner, my body went into shock. I felt like I was going to throw up. I couldn’t move. Someone told my mother, and she was devastated. I am still depressed.”

Jeremy Konyndyk, president of Refugees International, said Shah Alam's fate amounted to "death-by-policy."

"In Minnesota, DHS often released detainees in secluded areas in freezing evening conditions with no alert to family. It seemed calculated to endanger people. Very similar to what they did here," he said.

Afaf Nasher, executive director of the New York chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said the medical examiner's ruling confirms what Shah Alam's "family and community feared from the beginning: This was not a tragic accident, but a preventable and deeply disturbing loss of life."

“We call for an immediate, independent criminal investigation into the actions of the US Border Patrol agents who abandoned a nearly blind refugee miles away from his home in freezing conditions," said Nasher. "No one, regardless of immigration status, should ever be treated with such disregard for their safety and basic human dignity.”

The Erie County district attorney's office told The Guardian it had requested the autopsy report regarding Shah Alam's death.

“We are committed to seeking the truth and upholding justice,” the office said.

Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, said in a statement that "the cruelty and inhumanity" of the actions that preceded Shah Alam's death "should shock the conscience of every American."

“As more details of this case emerge, I want to be crystal clear: Every individual involved in the death of Mr. Shah Alam must be held fully accountable," said Hochul. "To ensure a fair and impartial investigation, the Erie County district attorney must continue his investigation and, if warranted by the evidence, prosecute to the fullest extent of the law.”

Thursday marks the one-year anniversary of President Donald Trump unleashing a sweeping package of global tariffs on imported products, which has prompted many critics to reflect on how much economic damage the president has caused.

The Tax Foundation on Monday published an analysis examining the promises Trump made about the benefits of the tariffs, including a claim that "jobs and factories will come roaring back," as foreign investments would pour in.

This particular promise, the Tax Foundation found, has completely failed to materialize.

"Foreign direct investment (FDI) into the United States has seen no such dramatic spikes," the Tax Foundation explained. "In 2025, FDI totaled $288.4 billion—more than an order of magnitude smaller than President Trump’s claims. Total FDI in 2025 was below the prior 10 years’ average of $320.7 billion and lower than the annual totals in 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024 ($405.5 billion, $338.4 billion, $297.4 billion, and $292.3 billion, respectively)."

The analysis also found manufacturing jobs continued to decline after the tariffs went into effect, with a net 89,000 jobs lost between April 2025 and February 2026.

Dario Perkins, head of global research at the consultancy TS Lombard, said in an interview with The Guardian that Trump's chaotic tariff scheme, which was ruled unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court in February, was a signal to foreign firms that they should avoid making investments in the country for the foreseeable future.

"If you think that discouraging investors from buying assets in the US is a victory, then you don’t believe in a growing economy," Perkins explained. "If it was possible for Trump to have spent the last 14 months on the golf course, we would be in a better place."

Russ Mould, investment director of the British stockbroker AJ Bell, wrote in a Monday research note flagged by CNBC that Trump's tariffs have caused global investors to shy away from pouring money into the US, instead seeking nations with more stable economic policies.

"Investors do seem to have thought carefully about where to allocate capital in a post-liberation day world, and one where presidential social media posts carry heft politically, economically and militarily,” Mould wrote. "The US stock market may have bounced back strongly from the liberation day low, but it has not been the first destination of choice... In other words, it is no longer a case of America first and the rest nowhere."

Nigel Green, CEO of deVere Group, told CNBC that Trump's trade war chaos had dented America's image as a financial safe haven.

"Investors are no longer treating the US as a uniform opportunity; they’re picking sectors that align with policy tailwinds and avoiding those exposed to trade disruption,” Green explained. "Liberation day accelerated a bifurcation in markets. On one side, companies aligned with domestic production, AI and energy security are attracting capital. On the other, globally exposed firms with complex supply chains are facing higher scrutiny and, in some cases, valuation compression."

Groundwork Collaborative on Thursday released a fact sheet about the Trump tariffs that highlighted how the president has used international trade policy to boost his own finances.

"Tariff policy has been used as leverage to secure favorable treatment for Trump’s personal business interests, such as a Trump-linked golf development," explained Groundwork Collaborative. "Trump turned U.S. trade policy into a transactional system, using tariff leverage to help Trump-linked and -favored business ventures win special treatment from foreign governments rather than prioritizing fixes to help balance US trade and help US workers."

In a Thursday social media post, the Democratic Party marked the one-year anniversary of Trump's tariffs by counting ways they had made the US economy weaker.

"One year ago, Trump announced sweeping tariffs that completely fucked the economy," the party wrote. "Since then: Americans have faced 1+ million layoffs; inflation has soared; the job market is the weakest it’s been in decades. Trump's economy is a complete failure."

A day after President Donald Trump threatened to bomb Iran "back to the Stone Age" during a primetime speech, a group of more than 100 international law experts said US strikes over the past month of war clearly violated the United Nations Charter and may amount to war crimes.

On Thursday, Just Security released a letter signed by senior professors, law association leaders, former government advisers, military law experts, and former judge advocates general (JAGs) arguing that the US has violated international law both by launching the war alongside Israel on February 28 and through its conduct while prosecuting it since then.

"The initiation of the campaign was a clear violation of the United Nations Charter," the experts said, "and the conduct of United States forces since, as well as statements made by senior government officials, raise serious concerns about violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law, including potential war crimes."

The charter allows for the use of military force against other nations only in self-defense against an imminent armed attack or when authorized by the UN Security Council.

"The Security Council did not authorize the attack. Iran did not attack Israel or the United States," the experts said. "Despite the Trump administration’s varied and sometimes conflicting claims to the contrary, there is no evidence that Iran posed an imminent threat that could ground a self-defense claim."

They highlighted statements from administration officials, such as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who has described the rules of military engagement as "stupid" and said the US was seeking to prioritize "maximum lethality, not tepid legality."

They also mentioned the defense secretary’s pledge to give “no quarter, no mercy for our enemies” in mid-March—noting that the threat is not only “especially prohibited” under international law, but also the Department of Defense’s own war manual.

Trump himself has said explicitly that he doesn't "need international law" and suggested that the US was conducting strikes against certain Iranian infrastructure, including an oil hub, "just for fun."

This has culminated in what the experts say have been widespread violations of the laws of armed conflict, including rampant strikes against civilians and political leaders with no military role, as well as critical infrastructure like oil and other energy facilities, which the UN's high commissioner for human rights, Volker Türk, condemned last month for their “disastrous” impacts on civilians.

They also raised serious concerns about attacks on schools, health facilities, and homes, citing recent data from the Iranian Red Crescent, which found that at least 67,414 civilian sites have been struck, including 498 schools and 236 health facilities.

According to a report on Wednesday from the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), a US-based human rights monitor for Iran, more than 1,600 civilians have been killed since the war began on February 28, including 244 children.

The experts raised particular concern about the US bombing of the Shajareh Tayyebeh Primary School in Minab on the first day of the war, which killed at least 175 people, most of whom were children aged 7-12.

"The strike likely violates international humanitarian law, and if evidence is found that those responsible were reckless, it could also be a war crime," they said. "The strike is among the deadliest single attacks by the US military on civilians in recent decades."

They warned that a lack of accountability has only allowed the administration's conduct to grow more aggressive and reckless, with Trump issuing increasingly bombastic threats, including to "obliterate” Iran's power plants and water facilities and "do things that would be so bad they could literally never rebuild as a nation again.”

They also called out Hegseth's dismantling of internal safeguards meant to prevent the military from violating international law, including the removal of senior lawyers from oversight positions and the elimination of "civilian environment teams" meant to help the military understand how their operations could impact the population.

While the letter focused on violations by the US government, it also said Iran's government has committed illegal actions during the conflict, by continuing its violent crackdowns against protesters and by conducting strikes on civilian areas in Israel and the Gulf states in retaliation for the war.

The experts urged US officials to uphold international law and reminded other nations "of their legal obligations not to aid or assist the United States, Israel, or Iran in the commission of internationally wrongful acts."

The legal scholars who signed the letter joined a growing chorus of international law experts and human rights organizations that have condemned the war as illegal, including multiple UN bodies, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and Human Rights First.

One of the letter's signatories, American University law professor Rebecca Hamilton, said she hoped the letter would spur action from "those with constitutional responsibilities," including the US Congress, which she said was "flailing in the face of illegal actions by the executive."

Hamilton said she was "proud to be part of this professional community, willing to come together to give voice to the rule of law."

After a decade since the launch of the Fight for $15 movement in New York City, a record number of U.S. states and communities are set to raise the minimum wage in the new year.

From New Year's Eve to New Year's Day, the minimum wage will increase in 23 states and 41 cities and counties, according to a report released Thursday by the National Employment Law Project (NELP). In 40 of those 64 jurisdictions, it will hit or exceed $15 an hour for at least some workers.

"The raises we are seeing are a true testament to the power of organizing."

By the end of 2023, additional increases are planned in five states and 22 localities—with 21 reaching or topping $15 an hour—bringing the total for next year to 86: 27 states and 59 cities and counties, says the report, Raises From Coast to Coast in 2023. The totals take into account that multiple increases are planned in Michigan and four local jurisdictions.

"The raises we are seeing are a true testament to the power of organizing," said Yannet Lathrop, senior researcher and policy analyst at NELP, in a statement. "These raises were achieved in a variety of ways, from ballot initiatives to statehouses to workers making their demands to employers directly."

"As these wins continue and we see the real-world impact of higher pay—from growing unionization to narrowing racial wealth gaps—we encourage lawmakers to go further and raise pay broadly across our economy," Lathrop added.

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As the report details:

In the 10 years since fast food workers walked out of their jobs demanding a $15 minimum wage and a union, the Fight for $15 worker movement has won minimum wage increases in 28 states and nearly five dozen cities and counties. These victories have led to an estimated $150 billion in additional annual pay for 26 million workers and to the narrowing of the racial wealth gap.
The movement has also put pressure on employers to raise their pay scales, leading… hundreds of businesses, large and small, to raise wages to $15 or more. Among them are corporate giants employing hundreds of thousands of workers from coast to coast, including Amalgamated Bank, Bank of America, Barclays, Best Buy, Charter Communications, Chobani, Chipotle, CVS, Ikea, JP Morgan Chase, LabCorp, Macy's, MetLife PNC, Sam's Club, Southwest Airlines, Synchrony Financial, T- Mobile, Target, Under Armour, USAA, Verizon, Walgreen's, Walmart, and Wells Fargo.

"The monumental impact of the Fight for $15 is clearly visible in this year's record wage increases as well as those in years past," said NELP executive director Rebecca Dixon. "But in those same 10 years, congressional action to expand worker rights has been limited."

"While it is encouraging to see boosts to the minimum wage in cities and states across the country, we need federal policy to address the mounting crises brought about by record increases in the cost of living and pandemic recovery," she stressed. "We must pass a higher federal minimum wage—at least $15 an hour—that accounts for rising costs of living and ensures that workers have the ability to support themselves and their families."

In March 2021, eight members of the Democratic caucus, joined all 50 Republicans in the U.S. Senate to kill legislation that would have established a $15 federal minimum wage, lifting millions of people out of poverty. Among those Democrats was Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, who officially declared herself an Independent in recent weeks.

State-wide polling conducted shortly before that vote last year showed a majority of Arizonans across the political spectrum in favor of increasing the minimum wage to $15 per hour. In November 2021, the people of Sinema's hometown of Tucson approved a ballot initiative to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour in Arizona's second-largest city.

NELP's new report notes that Tucson residents are on track to see a $15 hourly wage by 2025. The city's current rate is $13, but it is set to increase to $13.85 on January 1, with a $10.85 tipped wage—both in line with the state's floor.

Worker wins from 2022 highlighted in the report include campaigns in Foster City and San Mateo County, California; Hawaii; Nebraska; Tukwila, Washington; and Washington, D.C.

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"In 2023 and 2024, the campaigns to watch include an $18 ballot measure in California and possible ballot measures in Arizona, Ohio, and Michigan," the publication points out.

"On the legislative front, there may be one fair wage campaigns in Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, and Maryland," the report adds, "as well as efforts to raise the minimum wage in Maryland (to speed up the state's implementation of a $15 minimum wage), Massachusetts (where the minimum will reach $15 in 2023 and there are no inflation adjustments planned for following years), and New York (where the demand is $21.25 by 2026-2027)."