There are roughly 20,000 street vendors working throughout New York City, including many people who started vending after losing their jobs during the pandemic. They kept New York City running when it was at its worst, providing food, masks and conversation. While you can (and should!)  celebrate street vendors for their hard work any day, International Street Vendor day is on Nov. 14.

It took a two-week hunger strike and 46 days of protests on the steps of City Hall to provide much needed relief for taxi drivers. Last week, the New York Taxi Driver’s alliance was able to obtain a city-back guarantee, which means that the drivers’ loans will be restructured to a maximum of $170,000. Drivers will pay a maximum of $1,100 a month.

New York City taxi drivers have been protesting outside City Hall for weeks, in hopes to get real debt forgiveness from the city. You may remember that we previously reported on their plight, but since Oct. 20, cabbies have ramped-up their protest efforts by going on a hunger strike. Today marks two weeks of the hunger strike and with no end in sight, Epicenter-NYC reporter Andrea Pineda-Salgado talked to Augustine Tang, a New York City taxi driver who has been on a hunger strike for more than 12 days, to learn more about what it means and why taxi drivers resorted to such desperate measures to be heard.