Friday Politics Roundup | At least 112 starving Palestinians killed in Gaza; Starbucks Workers United's big win; York U strike; "Uncommitted" wins 17% in MI; Exxon CEO blames us for climate crisis

At least 112 hungry and desperate Palestinians were killed early Thursday morning trying to get much needed food and medical aid. Some of the dead were gunned down by Israeli troops, others were run over by the aid trucks attempting to flee the scene. 

In a huge announcement, Starbucks officially announced that it will no longer work to oppose unionization efforts by its employees. Now that nearly 400 Starbucks stores have voted to unionize, and founder and former CEO, Howard Shultz, is no longer running the company, it seems that Starbucks Workers United will now be heading to contract negotiations in good faith. In a joint statement, Starbucks and Workers United said they will, “begin discussions on a foundational framework designed to achieve … collective bargaining agreements for represented stores and partners” 

Thousands of academic workers are on strike at York University in Toronto. On Thursday, members of other unions across Ontario joined the picket lines in support of their striking brothers and sisters. 

Last week, the Pennridge School District - the first in the nation to hire the Hillsdale-inspired Vermillion Education to rewrite their social studies and English curriculum through a Christian nationalist lens - officially scrapped the Hillsdale proposed curriculum. 

An Illinois court has kicked Trump of this year’s Republican Primary ballot, all but assuring another round of Supreme Court decisions. The order has been put on hold pending appeal. Early voting has already begun in the state. 

Mitch McConnell announced he’s retiring from Senate leadership after this year’s election. Let the all out Senate Republican civil war commence. 

“Uncommitted” is set to win two delegates from Michigan as the protest over Biden’s unwillingness to stop the Israeli government’s genocidal war in Gaza. 

Washington State’s largest labor union - the United Food and Commercial Worker - has endorsed “uncommitted” in this year’s Democratic Primary. 

 

In one of the most brazen statements of late from Big Oil, Exxon scolded the world in a recent interview in Fortune magazine saying that Exxon and other fossil fuel companies are not to blame for the climate crisis. Who is? Everyone else but them it appears. Exxon CEO Darren Woods told the magazine, “the world waited too long” to develop green technologies and that "people who are generating the emissions need to be aware … and pay the price." Who are those people? You guessed it, you and me. 

Treacherous blizzard is bearing down on the Sierra Nevada mountain range in California. The storm is expected to dump up to 10 feet of snow with winds already peaking at 145 mph. 

The Smokehouse Creek Fire in Texas has now become the second largest wildfire in U.S. history, burning more than a million acres of land just north of Amarillo - an area larger than the entire state of Rhode Island. 

Former professor at Albert Einstein College to cover all future medical school tuition.