The Real News Podcast

President Trump signed a bill on Wednesday directing the Justice department to release more files from the investigations into the infamous sex offender, sex trafficker, and international political power broker Jeffrey Epstein. Will the public finally see the full release of the Epstein Files? Or will the Trump administration withhold and redact the information it does not want people to see? TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez and “Inequality Watch” reporters Taya Graham and Stephen Janis report back from a truly wild week in Washington, DC, and answer your questions about one of the biggest political scandals in US history.

Stud...

Nov. 20 is Black Consciousness Day in Brazil. A day celebrating the struggle of Black organizations, people, and movements in Brazil. Celebrating the ongoing fight against racism. And, above all, celebrating the history of Brazil’s most historic Black leader: Zumbi dos Palmares.
He was leader of the great Palmares Quilombo, present-day Alagoas, an autonomous state built by escaped slaves in the 1600s.

Palmares would last for roughly a century. It would grow to a population of tens of thousands of people spread out over 11 towns in the forested mountains and hillsides of northeastern Brazil. And they would de...

Making ends meet in today’s economy is difficult enough, but with so many societal crises affecting working people’s lives on and off the shop floor—from mass layoffs to untenable costs of living, from an authoritarian federal government to AI and the climate crisis—it can feel all but impossible. What does it mean to have a union job, to be a union member, and to be part of the labor movement in these overwhelming times? What role do unions and other labor organizations have to play, not just in the fight for economic justice, but in the fight fo...

The 2025 United Nations Climate Change Conference, more commonly known as COP30, began on Nov. 10 in Belém, Brazil, on the edge of the Amazon rainforest. This year’s COP conference has more fossil fuel lobbyists in attendance than any previous conference, but it has also drawn the biggest delegation of Indigenous peoples from around the world—each group representing competing visions for addressing the climate crisis. TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez speaks with Dharna Noor, fossil fuels and climate reporter at Guardian US, about what actions are and are not being taken at COP30, and what the results of this year’s clima...

The Alabama prison system functions like a modern-day plantation: overcrowded, understaffed prisons like Bullock Correctional Facility run on forced labor, violence, and deliberate neglect. In this episode of Rattling the Bars, host Mansa Musa speaks with journalist Matthew Vernon Whalan about his book Bullock: Chronicles of Deprivation and Despair in an American Prison, and about the systematic corruption and inhumane horrors endured daily by incarcerated people in Alabama.

Guest:
Matthew Vernon Whalan is a writer and oral historian living in New England. He is the author of the book Bullock: Chronicles of Deprivation and Despair in...

Canadian journalist Nora Loreto reads the latest headlines for Monday, November 17, 2025.

TRNN has partnered with Loreto to syndicate and share her daily news digest with our audience. Tune in every morning to the TRNN podcast feed to hear the latest important news stories from Canada and worldwide.

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