The Real News Podcast
Daily Reports, specials, and podcasts by The Real News Network (TRNN). TRNN makes media connecting you to the movements, people, and perspectives that are advancing the cause of a more just, equal, and livable planet. TRNN is a nonprofit media organization. We do not accept advertising revenue or corporate sponsorship.Sign up for our newsletter at therealnews.comText us at (410) 431-0868Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.
Nora Loreto's news headlines for Thursday, December 11, 2025
Canadian journalist Nora Loreto reads the latest headlines for Thursday, December 11, 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.
Find more headlines from Nora at Sandy & Nora Talk Politics podcast feed.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.
Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.
Venezuela and the challenge of international solidarity
Throughout 2025, the government of NicolĂĄs Maduro in Venezuela has faced growing and violent pressure from the United States, with President Trumpâs administration deploying naval fleets in the Caribbean, ordering lethal and illegal strikes on suspected drug trafficking vessels departing from the Venezuelan territoryâand, most recently, seizing a massive oil tanker off the Venezuelan coast. In response, Maduro has invoked emergency powers, mobilized militias, and signaled that his regime is preparing for military confrontation rather than compromise with the US, all while Trump and Maduro face waves of popular dissent and unrest within their own countries. In this urgen...
Nora Loreto's news headlines for Wednesday, December 10, 2025
Canadian journalist Nora Loreto reads the latest headlines for Wednesday, December 10, 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.
Find more headlines from Nora at Sandy & Nora Talk Politics podcast feed.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.
Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.
Standing Together: Inside Israelâs Jewish-Arab movement for equality and peace
Out of the rubble of Israelâs genocidal war on Gaza, a grassroots movement of Jewish and Palestinian citizens inside Israel has emerged to forcefully reject a future of endless war and occupation. In this episode of The Marc Steiner Show, Alon-Lee Green, national co-director of Standing Together, explains how their movement is confronting state repression, settler violence, and rising fascism while working to build a new Jewish-Palestinian majority in Israel.
Guest:
Alon-Lee Green is the national co-director of Standing Together, a progressive Jewish-Arab grassroots movement that aims âto build a new majority within Israeli societ...
Nora Loreto's news headlines for Tuesday, December 9, 2025
Canadian journalist Nora Loreto reads the latest headlines for Tuesday, December 9, 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.
Find more headlines from Nora at Sandy & Nora Talk Politics podcast feed.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.
Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.
Nicole Porter: The US is âby far the worldâs number one jailerâ
Fifty years into the era of mass incarceration, states like Arkansas, Montana, California, and Colorado are pushing to build new prisons and expand immigrant detention. In this episode of Rattling the Bars, host Mansa Musa talks with Nicole Porter of The Sentencing Project about how federal and state governments are doubling down on new prison construction and ICE contracts to expand the prison-industrial complex, what sets the US criminal justice system apart from other countries around the world, and how organizers are fighting for real prison population reductions instead of more cages.
Guest:
Nicole D. P...
Thousands march across US against Trumpâs drive for war in Venezuela
On Dec. 6, people across the United States marched. They protested. They carried banners: No war on Venezuela. No blood for oil. US hands off Venezuela. They chanted and waved Venezuelan flags.
Trump says heâs coming to remove Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. Heâs promised itâs only a matter of time. The United States has amassed the largest military buildup in the Caribbean since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.Â
But according to a recent CBS poll, 70% of Americans are opposed to US military action in Venezuela. And over the weekend, those voices were loud. Marches against US military...
Nora Loreto's news headlines for Monday, December 8, 2025
Canadian journalist Nora Loreto reads the latest headlines for Monday, December 8, 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.
Find more headlines from Nora at Sandy & Nora Talk Politics podcast feed.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.
Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.
Remembering the resistance to US intervention in Latin America
In the 1980s, the United States wreaked havoc in Central America. Backing authoritarian dictatorships. Fueling massacres and violence. Funding, training, and organizing the Contras, a paramilitary organization created to overthrow the leftist Sandinista government in Nicaragua. The US government was spending billions on its interventionist policies across Central America in the name of fighting so-called communism.
But people pushed back across Central America. And they also responded in the United States. Hundreds of thousands of people marched in the streets against US intervention in the region. It was the Central American solidarity movement.
BIG NEWS! This...
Nora Loreto's news headlines for Friday, December 5, 2025
Canadian journalist Nora Loreto reads the latest headlines for Friday, December 5, 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.
Find more headlines from Nora at Sandy & Nora Talk Politics podcast feed.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.
Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.
Nora Loreto's news headlines for Thursday, December 4, 2025
Canadian journalist Nora Loreto reads the latest headlines for Thursday, December 4, 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.
Find more headlines from Nora at Sandy & Nora Talk Politics podcast feed.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.
Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.
Nora Loreto's news headlines for Wednesday, December 3, 2025
Canadian journalist Nora Loreto reads the latest headlines for Wednesday, December 3, 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.
Find more headlines from Nora at Sandy & Nora Talk Politics podcast feed.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.
Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.
How to stand up to ICE: Lessons from Chicago and Charlotte
ICE, Border Patrol, and other federal agencies have turned immigrant neighborhoods in Chicago, IL, and Charlotte, NC, into open-air hunting grounds, snatching people off streets, out of parking lots, and in front of their children. But in each city, federal forces have also faced strong grassroots resistance. In this episode of The Marc Steiner Show, Marc speaks with organizers from Charlotte and Chicago, Miguel Alvelo Rivera and Andrew Willis GarcĂ©s, about the on-the-ground reality of President Trumpâs immigration raids and the ways communities are organizing and mobilizing against them.Â
Guest:Miguel Alvelo Rive...
How Baltimore is enabling ICEâs lawlessness
ICE raids and the expanded use of expedited removal are tearing apart immigrant families and neighborhoods in Baltimore. In this episode of Rattling the Bars, host Mansa Musa speaks with Baltimore reporter Kori Skillman about how lack of democratic oversight and collusion between local government and federal law enforcement have enabled ICEâs lawless tactics and left Baltimoreâs immigrant communities living in constant fear, economic precariousness, and social isolation.
Guest:
Kori Skillman is a Report for America Corps Member covering justice and accountability for the Baltimore Beat. Skillman investigates policing, incarceration, and civil rights in Bal...
Nora Loreto's news headlines for Monday, December 1, 2025
Canadian journalist Nora Loreto reads the latest headlines for Monday, December 1, 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.
Find more headlines from Nora at Sandy & Nora Talk Politics podcast feed.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.
Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.
How prisons and temp agencies exploit the most vulnerable workers
In this episode of Rattling the Bars, host Mansa Musa speaks with Miami-based organizer Katherine Passley about how prison labor, temp agencies, and the 13th Amendment have created a system that traps formerly incarcerated people in unending cycles of cheap, hyper-exploited work. Passley, Co-Executive Director of Beyond the Bars, also talks with Musa about how her organization is fighting to win free jail phone calls, erase millions of dollars in fines and fees for systems-impacted people, and build powerful bridges between the prison abolition movement and the labor movement in Florida.
Guest:
Katherine Passley is C...
Nora Loreto's news headlines for Thursday, November 27, 2025
Canadian journalist Nora Loreto reads the latest headlines for Thursday, November 27, 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.
Find more headlines from Nora at Sandy & Nora Talk Politics podcast feed.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.
Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.
Thanks to Epstein, Americaâs elite are losing control of the narrative
Investigative reporters Taya Graham and Stephen Janis go to Capitol Hill to speak with Representatives Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie, who co-sponsored the Epstein Transparency Act. Many of the women who survived Epstein's abuse and human trafficking ring share their experiences and their determination to receive justice. Now that the bill has passed both Houses, the Department of Justice is obligated to share with the public thousands of previously secret documents, emails, and photos. Although many critics are concerned that redactions will make these documents ineffectual in exposing the predators and predator protectors, there is still hope that these women...
Thanksgiving Ceremony on Alcatraz: Remembering the 1969 Native American Occupation
On Thanksgiving morning before dawn, the ferries run every 15 minutes, taking people to a sunrise gathering. An Indigenous Peopleâs Alcatraz Thanksgiving ceremony.Â
The boats arrive to the island in the middle of the bay. People get off. Climb on to the island. They huddle against the chilly air and the cold winds that whip across San Francisco Bay. Lights from the cities across the water flicker in the distance. A ceremonial fire is lit. Drums beat as the sun rises. Songs are sung. Words are said. Dances danced. Prayers spoken. Stories told. Resistance remembered. This event is sacr...
Nora Loreto's news headlines for Wednesday, November 26, 2025
Canadian journalist Nora Loreto reads the latest headlines for Wednesday, November 26, 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.
Find more headlines from Nora at Sandy & Nora Talk Politics podcast feed.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.
Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.
People are dying inside Wisconsin's '18th-century' prisons
Wisconsinâs much-touted prison overhaul plan promises to close crumbling facilities like Green Bay Correctional Institution, but people locked up inside these facilities may have to wait years for relief they desperately need now. In this episode of Rattling the Bars, formerly incarcerated organizer Sean Wilson joins host Mansa Musa to discuss whether Wisconsinâs bipartisan prison plan will deliver real transformation to a broken justice system, or if it simply amounts to a construction project that leaves that system intact.
Guest:
Sean Wilson is the Senior Director of Organizing and Partnerships at Dream...
The Israeli and Palestinian combatants building a shared movement for peace
Having witnessed relentless horrors over two years of genocidal war in Gaza, former Israeli and Palestinian combatants are coming together in nonviolent co-resistance and shared struggle. In this episode of the Marc Steiner Show, Palestinian educator and healer Nimala Karoufeh and former Israeli soldier Noa Harrell of Combatants for Peace explain how their binational movement has held together since Oct. 7, 2023, and what real peace-building from the ground up would require.
Guests:
Noa Harrell joined Combatants for Peace in 2016 and directly witnessed the power of nonviolent resistance to Israelâs occupation in the West Bank. This li...
Nora Loreto's news headlines for Tuesday, November 25, 2025
Canadian journalist Nora Loreto reads the latest headlines for Tuesday, November 25, 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.
Find more headlines from Nora at Sandy & Nora Talk Politics podcast feed.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.
Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.
Nora Loreto's news headlines for Monday, November 24, 2025
Canadian journalist Nora Loreto reads the latest headlines for Monday, November 24, 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.
Find more headlines from Nora at Sandy & Nora Talk Politics podcast feed.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.
Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.
Will we ever see the FULL Epstein Files?
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 âInequality Watchâ 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...
Zumbi dos Palmares: Brazil's hero of Black resistance
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 Brazilâs 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...
What does it mean to be a union member in these times?
Making ends meet in todayâs economy is difficult enough, but with so many societal crises affecting working peopleâs lives on and off the shop floorâfrom mass layoffs to untenable costs of living, from an authoritarian federal government to AI and the climate crisisâit 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...
At COP30, humanity must choose: Fossil fuel industry profits or a livable planet?
The 2025 United Nations Climate Change Conference, more commonly known as COP30, began on Nov. 10 in BelĂ©m, Brazil, on the edge of the Amazon rainforest. This yearâs 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 worldâeach 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 yearâs clima...
'The Alabama Department of Corrections is a drug cartel'
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...
Nora Loreto's news headlines for Monday, November 17, 2025
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.
Find more headlines from Nora at Sandy & Nora Talk Politics podcast feed.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.
Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.
Starbucks workers strike nationwide
Over 1,000 unionized Starbucks workers in over 40 cities across the US walked off the job on an indefinite Unfair Labor Practice strike on Thursday, Nov. 13. The union, Starbucks Workers United, says more workers at more unionized stores will be joining the picket line during the busy holiday season to pressure Starbucks to return to the bargaining table with proposals that seriously address workersâ ongoing demands regarding better pay and work hours, safe staffing, and resolving the hundreds of Unfair Labor Practice charges that have been filed against the coffee giant. TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez reports on the ground from the picket li...
Nora Loreto's news headlines for Friday, November 14, 2025
Canadian journalist Nora Loreto reads the latest headlines for Friday, November 14, 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.
Find more headlines from Nora at Sandy & Nora Talk Politics podcast feed.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.
Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.
How farmers fought the banks and won: Penny auctions in the Great Depression
It was the Great Depression. Early 1930s. United States. More than a thousand mortgages a day were being foreclosed on. Hundreds of thousands of families were losing their homes each year.Â
Times were hard for everyone. Especially hard for farmers. But neighbors found a way to push back and help their friends in a very creative way. They called it a penny auction.
BIG NEWS! This podcast has won Gold in this yearâs Signal Awards for best history podcast! Itâs a huge honor. Thank you so much to everyone who voted and supported.Â
And pl...
âThis is the hill to die on for universitiesâ: Free speech can survive Trump, but not without a fight
Historian David Hollinger connects the history of the 1964 free speech movement in Berkeley, California, to the protest movements and repressive crackdowns on free speech gripping universities today. In this episode of the Marc Steiner Show, co-hosted by Marc Steiner and Michael Fox, Hollinger draws on his firsthand experience and decades of research to explain the lessons we can learn from 1960s civil rights activists and antiwar organizers about how to defend free speech and academic freedom from extinction today.
Guest:
David A. Hollinger is the Preston Hotchkis Professor of History Emeritus at the University of...
Nora Loreto's news headlines for Thursday, November 13, 2025
Canadian journalist Nora Loreto reads the latest headlines for Thursday, November 13, 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.
Find more headlines from Nora at Sandy & Nora Talk Politics podcast feed.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.
Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.
'We're done': Starbucks workers prepare for indefinite national strike
Four years after the first Starbucks store in the US unionized in 2021, workers across the country are still facing rampant union busting and still fighting for a first contract with the coffee giant. That is why a supermajority of unionized baristas with Starbucks Workers United recently voted to authorize an Unfair Labor Practice strike, which is set to begin on Thursday, Nov. 13, on âRed Cup Day,â in over 25 cities around the US. âUnion baristas mean business and are ready to do whatever it takes to win a fair contract and end Starbucksâ unfair labor practices,â says Michelle Eisen, Starbucks Workers United spo...
Nora Loreto's news headlines for Wednesday, November 12, 2025
Canadian journalist Nora Loreto reads the latest headlines for Wednesday, November 12, 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.
Find more headlines from Nora at Sandy & Nora Talk Politics podcast feed.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.
Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.
Nora Loreto's news headlines for Tuesday, November 11, 2025
Canadian journalist Nora Loreto reads the latest headlines for Tuesday, November 11, 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.
Find more headlines from Nora at Sandy & Nora Talk Politics podcast feed.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.
Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.
Inside the modern-day plantation: How theater confronts incarceration
Rattling the Bars's Mansa Musa explores how a one-woman play, The Peculiar Patriot, reveals the human cost of mass incarceration and the enduring ties between slavery and the prison system. The artist behind the play, Liza Jessie Peterson, has worked with incarcerated youth for decades, bringing their stories to the stage and to national audiences. Performed in more than 35 US prisons and filmed at Louisianaâs Angola Prisonâonce a plantation, now a maximum-security facilityâthe play became the basis of the documentary, Angola: Do You Hear Us? (Paramount Plus / Amazon Prime). As the fight for abolition and prison re...
Nora Loreto's news headlines for Friday, November 7, 2025
Canadian journalist Nora Loreto reads the latest headlines for Friday, November 7, 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.
Find more headlines from Nora at Sandy & Nora Talk Politics podcast feed.
Become a supporter of this podcast:Â https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.
Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.
...
