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Newsweek
11 hours ago
- Business
- Newsweek
Nationwide McDonald's Boycott Planned for June 24: What To Know
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. McDonald's is set to join the growing list of companies subject to boycotts this year, led by a group advocating for "economic resistance" as a means toward corporate accountability and "real justice for the working class." As part of its ongoing "Economic Blackout Tour," The People's Union USA, the movement behind boycotts of Target and Walmart, is urging Americans to refrain from shopping at the restaurant chain between June 24 and 30. Newsweek has reached out to McDonald's and The People's Union USA's founder, John Schwarz, via email for comment. Why It Matters The first half of 2025 has been marked by boycotts of several household-name companies, sparked by certain corporations rolling back diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, as well as wider pushback against practices such as tax avoidance and underpaying workers. Since late 2023, McDonald's has also been battling a boycott led by the pro-Palestinian Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement for alleged complicity with the actions of the Israeli military in the Gaza Strip. A sign towers over a McDonald's restaurant on May 13, 2025, in Chicago. A sign towers over a McDonald's restaurant on May 13, 2025, in To Know The boycotts are being led by The People's Union USA, described on its website as "a grassroots movement focused on economic resistance, corporate accountability, and real justice for the working class." Since February, the group has orchestrated boycotts of Amazon, Walmart and Target, as well as periodic "economic blackouts," during which it says Americans should "avoid shopping, streaming, online orders, fast food, and everything in between," and rely exclusively on small, local businesses. The McDonald's boycott has received less attention than the campaigns against Walmart, Amazon and Target, the latter of which Schwarz said should be subject to a "permanent boycott" in order to feel "the full power of the people." Earlier this year, The People's Union USA published a list of core grievances with each targeted company to its website, largely centered around tax avoidance, conditions of workers and general monopolistic practices. McDonald's was included in the list for "tax avoidance and known lobbying against wage increases," issues that have in recent years resulted in significant criticism of the company, as well as legal consequences. What People Are Saying John Schwarz, founder of The People's Union USA, in a video posted to Instagram in late May: "Economic resistance is working. Target, Walmart and Amazon are all feeling it, talking about it. They are talking about the boycotts. They are talking about The People's Union USA. My friends, we are fighting for these corporations to finally pay their fair share of federal income taxes to alleviate that from the American worker. We are also fighting for these companies to hold manufacturers and themselves to a reasonable profit margin cap and equality across the board." Genna Gent, vice president of government relations for McDonald's, in a 2019 letter to the National Restaurant Association and obtained by Politico: "Going forward, McDonald's Corporation will not use our resources, including lobbyists or staff, to oppose minimum wage increases at the federal, state or local levels. Nor will we participate in the association advocacy efforts designed expressly to defeat wage increases." What Happens Next The People's Union USA plans to organize an Independence Day boycott, along with a month-long boycott of Starbucks, Amazon and Home Depot in July. Schwarz has also announced that McDonald's, Walmart and Lowe's will be subject of a boycott in August.
Yahoo
12-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Zohran Mamdani brings the Bernie Sanders method to New York
NEW YORK — 'It's easy to forget now,' said Zohran Mamdani, 'but four years ago, Eric Adams was hailed as the new face of Democratic Party politics.' Mamdani, a 33-year old state assemblyman and member of Democratic Socialists of America, had just launched a canvass in Harlem with 100 of his campaign's 29,000 volunteers. He was waiting out a summer rainstorm in a coffee shop, laying out his strategy for the June 24 Democratic mayoral primary — briefly interrupted by three young women who saw him, gasped, and called him 'the mayor.' The candidate finished his point: Adams, who quit an unwinnable primary to seek election as an independent, had 'pitted different sets of New Yorkers against each other, so as to evade any actual institutional response' to the city's problems. A new mayor could confront the Trump administration, which Adams decided not to do. He could also prove that progressives, if given the keys to a city, could make life cheaper and safer. To get there, and past former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, he's proposed $10 million in upper-income and corporate tax hikes, for which he'd need improbable sign-off from the state. Four years ago, Democrats saw their future in a tough-talking Black ex-cop who seemed to synthesize calls for racial justice and safer streets. Now, even as its Washington wing frets about finding moderate candidates to remake the party's damaged, elitist image, the biggest city in the country is considering a move in the opposite direction. That would be toward the Bernie Sanders model: A proud socialist and critic of modern Israel who promises huge new taxes and an expansion of city government. 'We've allowed this language of tackling fraud and waste, and prioritizing efficiency, to become the language of the right, when in fact it should be the language of the left,' said Mamdani. 'If you are passionate about public goods and about public service, you have to be just as passionate about public excellence.' Thirteen days out from the primary, the race for Adams's job has evolved into a competition between Mamdani and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, with seven candidates trailing behind. Five are trying to notch enough ranked-choice votes to win the final count; state senator Jessica Ramos and businessman Whitney Tilson are largely running to stop Mamdani. None had built campaigns quite as ready for this moment, as Democratic anger at the Trump presidency boils over. Mamdani did not join other Democrats in renouncing the 'defund the police' movement. He defended his support for the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel, and his opposition to a 'Jewish state' of Israel instead of one that defended 'equal rights' unlinked from religion. Those had been candidate-killing issues in other campaigns. But New York Democrats will vote while the Trump administration is ramping up immigration raids and enforcement in major cities; when Israel's 20-month war in Gaza has infuriated younger voters; and when the cost of housing and groceries has become a bigger issue than crime. In polling conducted by Data for Progress, which found Mamdani only narrowly behind Cuomo in the ranked-choice vote, 28% of voters ranked 'housing' as their top issue, 20% ranked other economic issues, and 18% ranked 'crime and public safety.' Support for Israel didn't rank. 'Trump has shown us that on one side of politics, there's a limitless imagination, and on the other, we are constantly constructing an ever-lowering ceiling,' Mamdani told Semafor. He has promised to freeze rent, make city buses fare-free, open city-run discount groceries, and raise taxes on the richest New Yorkers and businesses to pay for this. Those promises sounded more credible, he said, after Democrats watched the new president demand deeper tax cuts at the same time he wanted to buy Greenland. 'I'm talking about less money than Andrew Cuomo gave to Elon Musk as a corporate tax break.' Mamdani entered the race in October, when conventional wisdom said that a more experienced, less progressive candidate could unseat the scandal-plagued Adams. City Comptroller Brad Lander positioned himself early as that candidate, joining the campaign before Mamdani; Adrienne Adams, the (unrelated) city council speaker, jumped in three months ago, after Adams' deal with the Trump DOJ effectively ended his campaign as a Democrat. Cuomo entered the race weeks later, and neither Lander nor Adams has been able so far to dislodge Mamdani as the ex-governor's biggest threat. The ranked-choice voting system complicates any other candidate's strategy. Voters up to five candidates on their ballots, and tabulators count their preferences until one candidate gets a majority. In 2021, the first year under the new system, city sanitation commissioner Kathryn Garcia was the first choice of only 20% of primary voters, but nearly won the primary, because so many Democrats marked her as an alternative, lower on their ballots. 'The state of politics for New York right now for the Democratic Party is really an amazing litmus test for the Democratic Party across the nation,' Adrienne Adams told the New York Editorial Board, in one of its candidate interviews. Progressive groups and leaders, like the Working Families Party and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., have urged voters to leave Cuomo off their ballots and rank only the candidates they align with most. For the WFP, that was Mamdani in first place, followed by Lander, followed by Adams, followed by state senator Zellnor Myrie; for Ocasio-Cortez, it was Mamdani, Adams, Lander, former Comptroller Scott Stringer, and Myrie. The non-Cuomo alternative candidates have sometimes portrayed Mamdani as green and unrealistic. But they've been busier introducing themselves as the responsible alternatives to Cuomo, appealing to the 50% of likely primary voters who view him unfavorably. 'If I'm running against someone, I'm running against Andrew Cuomo. He's who's leading in the polls,' Lander said in an interview after a forum for Jewish voters in the Upper West Side. 'I'm running against a corrupt, abusive, self-serving politician who's only running to rehearse his own grievances.' Mamdani's buoyant, omnipresent social media campaign has been hard for Lander and the rest of the field to compete with. When the spotlight has fallen on him, he has kept it by proposing simpler, bigger, and more aggressive ideas, like free childcare and a graduated rise to a $30 minimum wage. Justin Brannan, a city council member running for comptroller with Mamdani's support, said that he would not support him on BDS. But Adams, he said, had helped create the conditions for an electorate that craved an anti-austerity agenda, and didn't want to be told it was impossible. 'New York City used to be the place for big ideas, and somewhere along the way, we just stopped doing them,' said Brannan. 'De Blasio with universal pre-K was, like, the last time we did something big. The past almost four years with Eric Adams, we've been like, 'Oh, if we can keep the libraries open six days a week, that's a huge victory.'' At the Upper West Side 'New York Jewish Agenda' forum, Stringer proposed a $1 billion 'very, very rainy day' fund to protect the city from Trump administration attacks on grants or programs. Lander suggested putting 'less than $100 million' of the city's Medicaid funding into an independent authority 'so we can provide reproductive and gender affirming care' without Trump interference. Three days later, Mamdani summoned reporters to the Financial District for his plan to 'Trump-proof' New York: The taxes that would raise $10 billion, and total resistance to his deportations. Asked if he agreed with Mayor Adams that the NYPD should arrest protesters who interfered with ICE enforcement, Mamdani rejected the premise. 'It's ironic to hear that from a mayor who literally drove on the sidewalk in the final days of the previous mayoral election,' he said. 'This is an indication of their willingness to be accomplices to what is going on and what ICE agents are inflicting upon New Yorkers.' Six months ago, that answer might have been a problem for Mamdani. But most Democrats assumed, at that time, he had a lower ceiling — that the positions he'd taken would hold him down. After Mamdani's 'Trump-proof' press conference, an X account that clips news interviews shared one of the candidate sticking to his position that ICE should be abolished altogether. 'A lawless president does not mean we abolish entire agencies and our laws,' Adrienne Adams wrote on top of the video. 'People elect us as leaders to solve problems, not pledge allegiance to rigid ideologies.' One day later, she deleted that response, which had been torn apart by pro-Mamdani commenters. It was not, according to her campaign, what she really wanted to say. The decline of Eric Adams, since he wrapped himself around the president's finger, was the catalyst for Mamdani's rise. He presided over falling crime, which lowered the salience of that issue; he suggested that the forced busing of migrants from Texas, to take advantage of the city's generous sheltering laws, was forcing austerity on the city. As Adams receded, with Trump in office, the agenda changed. Mamdani's campaigning changed it too. His early ad campaign, put together by the team that made ads for Bernie Sanders and John Fetterman, got him into the conversation with candidates (Lander et al) who were taken more seriously as potential mayors. He leapt over them as Cuomo's closest competitor — and then put him into the cohort of potential mayors. This involved a lot of risks, taken in attention-getting ways, like his visit to the courthouse where a grad student leader of Gaza protests was being arraigned. Following the candidates, I heard many times that Trump had given Democrats envy of enormous plans that were crisp and memorable and not green-eyeshaded to death; Mamdani was the only contender doing that. Two years ago, some of the same dynamics here played out in Chicago — which has an all-party runoff system, not a Democratic primary then a general election. Voters forced a choice between Brandon Johnson, an anti-austerity progressive, and Paul Vallas, a conservative Democrat who, unfortunately for his campaign, was on tape attacking Barack Obama. If Mamdani wins this primary, I'd expect the specter of Johnson, who is tremendously unpopular now, to hover over New York. Adams is already running as an independent; Cuomo has the ability to. Tilson's campaign, after Cuomo's, is the most oriented around stopping Mamdani. At a weekend stop at a Ukrainian festival, after he gave a short speech while wearing a patch-covered jacket from his trips to bring aid to that country, he warned of a city that would be threatening to Jewish New Yorkers and far more poor, if Mamdani were able to win. 'We are the wealthiest city in the world,' said Tilson. 'I think he and the DSA people he surrounds himself with would create a hostile business environment that would drive away businesses and hurt economic growth.' For In These Times, the socialist writer and editor Bhaskar Sunkara asks whether Mamdani can become the millennial generation's Bernie Sanders. 'Mamdani has shown that it's possible to build a campaign that is simultaneously insurgent and competent.' In the New York Times, Nicholas Fandos studies Mandani's biography, which Cuomo is attacking as scarily unfit for a serious mayor. 'There are candidates in the field with exciting ideas and no track record of delivering on them,' said Lander. In The Free Press, Olivia Reingold why the current trend in the primary is a 'nightmare scenario' for Cuomo, and for New Yorkers who might have supported Adams again. For the Manhattan Institute, Liena Zagare why most of the non-Cuomo candidates are not using their sharpest knives on Mamdani, even as he soars.
Local Spain
06-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Local Spain
Artists skip Spain's Sonar festival in support of Palestinians
In an open letter posted on social media, more than 60 artists -- including Arca, Asia, DJ Paquita Gordon, and Shaun J. Wright -- accused the private equity firm KKR of being "fully complicit in the genocide committed by Israel in Gaza". Sonar -- which will be held in Barcelona this year June 12-14 -- is one of around 80 global events operated by Superstruct Entertainment, which has been majority-owned by KKR (Kohlberg Kravis Roberts) since October 2024. The artists are urging the festival to sever ties with KKR and to adhere to the principles of the international Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement, which seeks to financially pressure Israel into ending the occupation of the Palestinian territories. BDS accuses KKR of complicity in "Israel's genocide and colonial apartheid regime", citing the firm's stake in German media group Axel Springer. That group owns Israeli classifieds site Yad2, which BDS says features listings for real estate projects in occupied Palestinian territories. The Sonar festival said on its website that the 2024 acquisition of Superstruct shares by KKR and other investors was "purely financial" and that Sonar had no say in the transaction. "We categorically condemn the genocide of the Palestinian people," the festival said in a statement, adding: "At no time have we ever sent -- nor will we ever send -- a single euro to KKR." Spanish Culture Minister Ernest Urtasun, a member of the far-left Sumar alliance, voiced concern last month over what he described as KKR's involvement in Spanish festivals and its business activities in "illegally occupied" Palestinian territories. "We do not want a fund that actively contributes to the illegal occupation of Palestine to have a role in our cultural life," he told reporters. Contacted by AFP in New York, KKR did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Spain, Ireland and Norway officially recognised a Palestinian state in May 2024 in a coordinated decision slammed by Israel. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez is one of the most outspoken critics in the European Union of Israel's military operations in Gaza.
Irish Times
04-06-2025
- Business
- Irish Times
Trinity College Dublin board votes to cut ties with Israeli universities and companies
The board of Trinity College Dublin has voted to cut all ties with Israeli universities and companies headquartered in Israel. This will include ending all investments, commercial relationships, academic and research collaborations. The university will no longer facilitate Erasmus+ exchange agreements with Israeli universities. The decision follows a series of taskforce meetings between staff and student representatives. These meetings were established as part of an agreement to end a five-day encampment that occurred on the university's campus in May 2024 over the institution's ties to Israel. Outgoing president of Trinity College Dublin Students' Union Jenny Maguire welcomed the board's decision, saying 'this historic win must be a catalyst for action across this island'. READ MORE She thanked 'everyone who has raised a sign, threw down a tent and demanded a better world'. Freedom of Information records seen by The Irish Times show the university's endowment fund invested in 13 Israeli companies, three of which feature on a United Nations Human Rights Council list of companies involved in illegal Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. The university had already divested from some of these companies. A protest organised by the students' union and the Trinity College Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign took place in the hours before the vote. It was held outside the school of business, where discussions were taking place. Speaking at the protest, Sinn Féin TD Donna McGettigan commended the students who participated in the encampment, saying it was 'a display of people power in action'. People Before Profit-Solidarity TD Paul Murphy criticised the Government, claiming it was 'promising to pass the Occupied Territories Bill, but then on the other hand, trying to avoid annoying, irritating, clashing in any with US imperialism or big powers within the European Union'. In a statement following the vote, chairperson of the board of Trinity College Paul Farrell thanked members of the taskforce 'who contributed significant time and expertise over the past year to consider these important issues so thoroughly'.
Arab News
03-06-2025
- Business
- Arab News
Norway fund's ethics body reviews Israeli bank stakes over West Bank settler loans
OSLO/LONDON/JERUSALEM: The ethics watchdog for Norway's $1.9 trillion wealth fund is scrutinizing Israeli banks' practice of underwriting Israeli settlers' housebuilding commitments in the occupied West Bank in a review that could prompt up to $500 million in Council on Ethics, a public body set up by the Ministry of Finance, has, however, decided not to object to the Fund's investments in accommodation platforms such as Airbnb that offer rentals in the Jewish body checks that firms in the portfolio of the world's largest wealth fund meet ethical guidelines set by Norway's an interview with Reuters on May 22, Council head Svein Richard Brandtzaeg said it was examining how Israeli banks offer guarantees that protect Israeli settlers' money if the company building their home in the West Bank should practices are also being looked at 'but this is what we can see so far,' he said. 'That is what is well documented.' He declined to say how long the review would did not name the banks but, at the end of 2024, the fund owned about 5 billion crowns ($500 million) in shares in the five largest Israeli lenders, up 62 percent in 12 months, according to the latest banks — Hapoalim, Bank Leumi, Israel Discount Bank, Mizrahi Tefahot Bank and First International Bank of Israel — did not answer requests for 2020, they have been included in a list of companies with ties to settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories compiled by a UN mission assessing the implications for Palestinian investor concern has grown around the world over a 19-month-old Israeli onslaught that has killed more than 50,000 Palestinians and devastated the Gaza Strip in response to an attack by Hamas militants that killed more than 1,200 700,000 Israeli settlers live among 2.7 million Palestinians in the West Bank and East settlements are adjacent to Palestinian areas and some Israeli firms serve both Israelis and United Nations' top court last year found that Israeli settlements built on territory seized in 1967 were illegal, a ruling that Israel called 'fundamentally wrong,' citing historical and biblical ties to the RENTALS IN WEST BANK SETTLEMENTSIn mid-2024, the Council on Ethics began a new review of investments linked to the West Bank and examined 65 companies but recommended only petrol station chain Paz and telecoms company Bezeq for divestment, resulting in share Council also scrutinized some multinationals to see if their activities in the West Bank met its them were the accommodation platforms, including Airbnb, TripAdviser and Expedia, named on the UN list and accounting for about $3 billion in Fund the Council will not recommend watchlisting or divesting from those, Eli Ane Lund, head of its secretariat, said in the joint interview.'The company's activity must have some kind of influence on the (ethical) violations,' she said. 'It's not (enough) to have a connection, it has to have something to do with the violation, it must contribute to it.'The Council's recommendations go to the central bank, which is not obliged to follow them but generally investments are sold, it is done gradually to avoid alerting markets, and the decision is then made campaigners say the Council sets its bar too high for recommending divestments, and that the Norwegian government should instruct the fund to conduct a general divestment from Israel just as it did for Russia in 2022, three days after Moscow invaded most lawmakers support the Council's approach, and are set on Wednesday to formally endorse a parliamentary finance committee's decision not to order a wholesale boycott.
