The Real News Podcast

On Apr. 27, 2022, Houston police officer Shane Privette shot and killed Jalen Randle within seconds of pulling him over. Body camera footage clearly shows that Jalen was shot before he had an opportunity to raise his hands in surrender. Jalen had a warrant out for his arrest at the time, but he was unarmed and made no threats to the arresting officers. For months, city officials made no public mov...

In a special 'George Floyd Memorial Lecture' hosted by the University of Houston, historian Robin D.G. Kelley draws links between the 2020 uprisings and the 2001 rebellion in Cincinnati against the police killing of Timothy Thomas, a 19-year-old unarmed Black man. The Real News is an independent, viewer-supported, radical media network. Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-...

The train derailment disaster in East Palestine, Ohio catapulted the degraded condition of the US's freight rail network into national consciousness. But workers have been sounding the alarm for years. Long hours, short staffs, poor sick leave, and dangerously extended trains have raised the risks inherent in railroad operations for workers and the public in order to fatten the profit margins of c...

Read the transcript and show notes for this episode: https://therealnews.com/umich-docks-pay-calls-cops-on-striking-grad-students Graduate student-workers at the University of Michigan are still on strike after hitting the picket line for the second time in three years at the end of March. In the time between the Fall 2020 and Winter 2023 strikes, according to the union, the gap between graduate w...

Read the transcript and show notes for this episode: https://therealnews.com/kayla-denker-speaks-out-against-death-threats-transphobic-backlash Kayla Denker is a military veteran and a trained archaeologist who has worked in the private sector and for the US Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management. She is also a trans woman living in America, and every day she navigates the difficult and...

Click here to read the transcript Marshall "Eddie" Conway was framed for the murder of a police officer and incarcerated for 44 years—but even behind bars, he continued to organize. In the early 1970s, Maryland's state prisons were overcrowded and lacked education opportunities for incarcerated people. As a form of intervention, Eddie organized a university-level education program with fellow pris...

Read the transcript of this podcast: https://therealnews.com/us-marshals-swat-bully-alzheimers-patient-into-warrantless-search Lance Thornton was sitting at his home in Erie, Pennsylvania, on the morning of March 12, 2023, when US Marshals, Pennsylvania State Police, and a SWAT team appeared at his door demanding to be let in. The officers were responding to the recent shooting of two state troope...

Read the transcript and show notes for this episode: https://therealnews.com/ive-been-a-train-conductor-for-17-years-corporate-greed-has-ruined-the-railroads Bryan Mack is a second-generation railroad worker from Florence, South Carolina, with a master's degree in music performance. Both Bryan and his father worked for CSX Transportation, each hiring out at times when there were statistically few...

Click here to read the transcript Attacks on LGBTQ rights, abortion access, and movements for racial justice aren't exclusive to any one state in the union. But Texas is certainly a place where state officials and vigilantes are working hand-in-hand to bring about a dangerous new future. Texas-based journalists Andrea Grimes and Steven Monacelli join The Marc Steiner Show to explain where Texas is...

Click here to read the transcript Even though he was framed for the killing of a local police officer, sentenced without a fair trial, and imprisoned for 44 years, former Black Panther and dearly departed TRNN Executive Producer Marshall “Eddie” Conway never stopped organizing. In 1980, while incarcerated himself as a political prisoner, Eddie helped organize a prisoners’ educational outreach prog...

For call center workers in the Philippines, attempts to unionize the workplace don’t just entail confrontations with local management—but overseas US-based multinationals and the US federal government’s foreign policy agenda as well. Since 2022, the Biden administration has promoted a new economic initiative known as the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF). Touted as a vehicle fo...

Read the transcript and shownotes for this podcast: Under the new leadership team led by General President Sean M. O'Brien, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters are re-introducing themselves to the bosses and to the world as a fighting union, and they are gearing up for their biggest test yet: the impending negotiations of the IBT's contract with United Parcel Service (UPS). With UPS employi...

This Feb., Norfolk Southern's train derailment catastrophe in East Palestine, Ohio dragged the decrepit state of the US rail system into the national spotlight. A rash of other railroad catastrophes in recent weeks has only piled on questions about why and how the railroads have become so dangerous. With over 1,000 train derailments per year, the rate and net occurrence of rail disasters in the US...

Click here to read the transcript: https://therealnews.com/the-ron-desantis-counter-revolution-is-about-stopping-floridas-progressives Under Gov. Ron DeSantis, "Florida" has become synonymous with attacks on LGBTQ rights, public schools, and unions. Yet this offensive isn't only driven by hatred and ideology. It's also about curbing the power of Florida's progressives—power that was building stead...

Click here to read the transcript: https://therealnews.com/jalil-muntaqim-the-time-to-end-prison-slavery-is-now In 2021, the International Tribunal On US Human Rights Abuses Against Black, Brown, and Indigenous Peoples found the United States government guilty of genocide. The tribunal drew upon the legacy of the 1951 petition submitted to the United Nations by the Civil Rights Congress: "We Charg...

Click here to read the transcript: https://therealnews.com/atlantas-cop-city-is-a-blueprint-for-americas-future We went on the ground in Atlanta, GA to find the truth behind the Cop City protests, the police shooting death of Manuel "Tortuguita" Tehran and the dark money funding the creation of the Atlanta Public Safety Center. We will also have special guests joining us like cop watcher, auditor...

Read the transcript of this podcast: https://therealnews.com/the-pendleton-2-saved-a-mans-life-a-judge-sentenced-them-to-200-years-for-it On Feb. 1, 1985, prison guards at the Indiana State Reformatory (now Pendleton Correctional Facility) affiliated with a KKK-splinter group known as the Sons of Light chained prisoner Lincoln Love in their office and began to mercilessly beat him. John "Balagoon"...

Read the transcript of this podcast: https://therealnews.com/an-essential-workers-history-of-the-pandemic The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic devastated the working class from the start. Those deemed "essential workers" in the service, medical, transportation, agriculture, and other sectors were hit particularly hard. While the sacrifices of workers were paid lip service in the early days of the pandemi...

Read the transcript and shownotes for this podcast: https://therealnews.com/youre-going-to-see-more-books-get-banned-floridas-war-on-public-schools Things are getting very dark in Florida, and educators at all levels have found themselves on the frontlines of a reactionary political crusade led by Republican governor Ron DeSantis. "As the new semester began," Florida-based journalist Michael Saina...

Read the transcript of this podcast: https://therealnews.com/israels-protest-movement-cant-succeed-without-embracing-palestinian-liberation As Israelis march en masse against Benjamin Netanyahu's judicial coup, many around the world are questioning why these protests did not materialize in defense of Palestinian land and life. For a special Passover installment of the "Not in Our Name" series, Rab...

Read the transcript of this podcast: https://therealnews.com/ugandas-draconian-new-anti-lgbtq-law-includes-life-in-prison-and-the-death-penalty A new law in Uganda broadly criminalizing the LGBTI* community has captured global attention. The law includes provisions against "Aggravated Homosexuality" that criminalize the sexual activity of HIV+ people with life in prison or even the death penalty....

Read the transcript of this podcast: https://therealnews.com/university-of-michigan-seeks-court-injunction-to-stop-grad-student-strike Editor's Note (4/3/23): In the first half of the episode, Alvarez mistakenly refers to the previous GEO strike as having occurred in the fall of 2022, but it took place in fall of 2020. Stark and Alvarez make the correction in the second half of the conversation. G...

At colleges and universities across the country, a heated battle is playing out right now over workers' right to organize and have a say over how the institutions they keep afloat with their labor are run. From graduate student-worker unionization efforts and strikes at Temple University, the University of California, Columbia University, Johns Hopkins, Northwestern University, Northeastern Univer...

For the past five years, Tevita Uhatafe of TWU Local 567 has dedicated himself to advancing the labor movement. Known affectionately as "Mic Guy," Uhatafe has traveled from coast to coast to rally in solidarity with striking workers in multiple states. Uhatafe entered the union movement as an outsider without family connections, but has nevertheless risen as a rank-and-file leader. He is now the V...

In the midst of the largest strike wave in the US in a century, corporate media is more focused on amplifying the bigotry and fearmongering of right-wing politicians and their base than on covering working class movements. What is the role of media in upholding the status quo, and how can it be used to service people's movements instead of profits? This question lies at the heart of a long-ranging...