It's 79 degrees in New York City headed up to 90 degrees with no rain in the forecast until Tuesday with temperature getting into the low 90s. We are also coping with moderate air quality. That means people with pre-existing coronary or respiratory issues, as well as essential workers in non-air conditioned work environments should take special care.
The Guardian is reporting that President Trump has signed two new executive orders targeting birthright citizenship, just weeks after the nation's highest court rejected his earlier shot at denying automatic citizenship to the children born to undocumented immigrants by narrowing the definition of the births that would qualify.
Aljiazeera is reporting that Iran says a deal with Oman to reopen the Strait of Hormuz is on the verge of being finalized after both countries confirmed they have agreed on the shipping routes to be used through the global fossil fuel choke point through which one fifth of the world's oil and liquefied natural gas flow transits.
Here at home, a Federal judge has ended her February order which paused the Trump administration's drive to deport over 350,000 Haitians who had Temporary Protective Status citing last month's 6 to 3 ruling that backed the Trump administration's move to end TPS.
This morning we shared some audio from a very powerful New York State Nurses Association rally at Maimonides Medical Center protesting the Trump Administration’s termination of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for 350,000 Haitian immigrants in the United States, leaving them vulnerable to increased enforcement activity and subject to deportation.
“This choice is rooted in racism and hatred,” said NYSNA President Nancy Hagans, who herself came to the United States as a child from Haiti. An estimated 40,000 Hatitans are essential workers in the hospital and congregant care sectors which have yet to fully recover from the COVID pandemic. “As a nurse, I know our hospitals are already facing staff shortage----more nurses, better care,” Hagans explained.
“This is not justice, this is cruelty”, said New York Attorney General Letitia James, who called on Congress to take action. In the meantime, James said her office has committed to leading multistate legal challenges by the Trump regime to undo the entire TPS program affecting over one million people from not just Haiti but El Salvador, Honduras, Nepal, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Yemen, Venezuela, and Ukraine.
James resounted that the impact of the Trump policies would tear families apart forcing Haitian parents with American children to leave the U.S. after building their lives here.
We also got an update on the most recent in-custody deaths at Delaney Hall in Newark, the private immigration jail from Kathy O'Learly, Pax Christi NJ, Larry Hamm, Peoples Organization for Progress and Sally Pillay, Eyes on ICE NJ.
We shared Mayor Mamdani's press conference in which he addressed Delaney Hall after the reports of additional in custody deaths there as well as Dr. Abdul El-Sayed's victory in Michigan's Democratic US Senate Primary.
Bob shared his reporter-at-large notebook from a visit he had this week with the high energy members of the Hotel & Gaming Trades Council on an Unfair Labor Practice picket line in front of Fairfield New York Manhattan and 4 Points in Times Square. Of course Scabby the Inflatable Rat was on hand.
We closed out with an update on an impressive organizing drive by CVS pharmacists and pharmacy technicians with The Pharmacy Guild/IAM. Hundreds took their fight for safe patient care to CVS’s front door with actions in California and CVS’s home state of Rhode Island to announce the next steps in their negotiations with CVS.
"Guild members announced that strike sanction votes for pharmacy units organizing in Rhode Island, California, and Arizona passed by overwhelming majorities," according to a union press release. "The votes are as follows: Rhode Island - 90.3% vote in favor, California - 96.7% vote in favor, Arizona - 100% vote in favor.
The union continued. "CVS pharmacy professionals are demanding safe staffing levels, realistic workloads, and the time needed to properly review each prescription to keep patients safe. Under immense time pressures set by grueling schedules, pharmacists are sometimes expected to spend less than 1 minute reviewing each prescription that comes through their system, according to members of The Pharmacy Guild/IAM.
Back in 2024, CVS's blind pursuit of profits that led to short staffing was referenced by the Biden Department of Justice in a case that ultimately resulted in the corporate giant paying out close to a billion dollars.
"The complaint alleges that CVS’ violations resulted from corporate-mandated performance metrics, incentive compensation, and staffing policies that prioritized corporate profits over patient safety," according to the DOJ. "CVS set staffing levels far too low for pharmacists to both meet their performance metrics and comply with their legal obligations. CVS also allegedly deprived its pharmacists of crucial information (including by, for example, preventing pharmacists from warning one another about certain prescribers) that could have reduced the number of unlawful prescriptions filled. The complaint alleges that CVS’ actions helped to fuel the opioid crisis and that, in some particularly tragic instances, patients died after overdosing on opioids shortly after filling unlawful prescriptions at CVS."
“As a pharmacist, my top priority is and will always be the patient. We are prepared to strike if necessary to win actual improvements to staffing and patient care that we know will help,” said Christopher Eggeman, a frontline pharmacist at the 24-hour CVS Pharmacy in Wakefield, RI, one of the first locations to unionize with The Pharmacy Guild/IAM. “We're tired of watching a system where profits edge out a priority over fixing a broken care model; safe staffing and patient care should always come first.”
