The Real News Podcast

From the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 to the Euromaidan Revolution in 2013-14, to the full-scale Russian invasion of 2022, Ukraine has been perpetually caught in a battle for self-determination while outside forces vie over its future. As Sean Guillory succinctly put it in a recent episode of the SRB podcast sponsored by Center for Russian, East European & Eurasian Studies at the University of...

With Laborers Local 79 leading the charge, union demolition workers, construction workers, carpenters, bricklayers, and more have rallied multiple times in the past month outside the Chelsea Terminal Warehouse in New York City to protest the mishandling of workers' pensions and the exploitation, union busting, wage theft, and hazardous conditions workers have experienced at the job site. As Dean M...

Since Vladimir Putin ordered Russian troops to invade Ukraine, thousands of people in Russia have risked their safety and freedom to engage in illegal public demonstrations to protest the war, many of whom have been arrested by Russian police for doing so. As Ilya Matveev and Ilya Budraitskis recently wrote for Jacobin, “While some signs of ‘rallying around the flag’ are inevitable, it is remarkab...

Closing prisons and reducing the incarcerated population should be a good thing, but when local economies become dependent on the prison industry it creates many perverse incentives for keeping our inhumane system of mass incarceration going. Residents of Susanville, California, are experiencing this firsthand after the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation announced the impendin...

At a racial justice demonstration in Portland on Feb. 19, well-known and respected activist June Knightly was shot and killed by far-right vigilante Benjamin Smith, who also severely injured four other activists before an armed protester opened fire on Smith. Activists in Portland have long warned of the increasingly brazen and dangerous violence from far-right groups and individuals, and many fea...

A series of explosive investigative reports has revealed a crisis of police abuse in rural America. This week, Police Accountability Report hosts Taya Graham and Stephen Janis held a live discussion about police overreach and the consequences faced by rural communities across the country, and took questions from viewers about what their investigations have uncovered. Help us continue producing Pol...

The fact that so many across the world did not believe that Vladimir Putin would order Russian troops to launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine is a testament to the drastic rupture in the post-Cold War geopolitical arrangement that we are watching unfold in real time. For the people of Ukraine and the rest of the world, what will the immediate and long-term repercussions of this war be? TRNN con...

From endless wars, militarism, and surges in rightwing “populism” to ceaseless capitalist pillage, neoliberal austerity, and botched international responses to COVID-19 and climate change, the events of recent decades should have galvanized the left much more than they have. Instead of representing and fighting for the interests of working people, however, traditional “left” political parties in t...

The number of podcasts has exploded in the past five years, and so much of the field is dominated by big names and platforms like Spotify and Liberty, but we shouldn’t give up on the medium’s revolutionary potential.  Late last year, TRNN Editor-in-Chief and Working People host Maximillian Alvarez had the honor of speaking to a class at Tulane University called "Introduction to Podcasting and Soc...

From the push to turn more of the workforce into precarious “gig workers” to the ways profit-seeking digital platforms condition how we act and think while extracting free data from us, we can see and feel everyday the creeping evidence that we are living in a new reality. As world-renowned Greek economist, author, and politician Yanis Varoufakis argues, “This is how capitalism ends: not with a re...

For over a month, Canada has been rocked by a “Freedom Convoy” of demonstrators and vehicle blockades that ultimately converged on the capital city of Ottawa in protest of COVID-19 vaccine mandates and restrictions. Having garnered support from conservative media, some members of Canada’s parliament, and prominent online voices like Elon Musk and Jordan Peterson, the convoy quickly became a cultur...

It’s been said many times, many ways before: If our public library system didn’t already exist, there’s no way we could create it in today’s society. But for all the good libraries do, and for all the necessary services they provide, they have been under attack for many years—and the staff who make our library system work, as well as the people who depend on them, need help. As Emily Drabinski, wh...

Eric Lurry's death was a mystery to his family until a police whistleblower leaked damning evidence implicating the Joliet, Illinois, police department. Now Sgt. Javier Esqueda, who came forward with the video evidence, is facing a possible 20-year prison sentence for exposing his fellow police officers. In this episode of the Police Accountability Report, we examine the mechanics of a police cove...

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit and live-action productions in the entertainment industry were put on pause, animated productions carried on, providing millions and millions around the world with entertainment, as they have for over a century, while life as we know it was turned upside down. Many of Hollywood’s most beloved, highest-grossing movies and series, in fact, are animated productions. But...

Matthew Hoh is a disabled Marine combat veteran, a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy, and a member of the Eisenhower Media Initiative whom we have interviewed numerous times before on The Marc Steiner Show. Now he is the North Carolina Green Party’s first-ever nominated candidate to run for the US Senate. “We keep witnessing, undeniably, the brutal reality of a changing world, a...

Pre-release and minimum security facilities connect incarcerated individuals to essential resources for re-entering society and to opportunities for work release, special leave, compassionate leave, and family leave. In the state of Maryland, there are nine separate pre-release and minimum security facilities for men; for women, there are zero. “At the Maryland Correctional Institution for Women (...

The White House claimed on Friday, Feb. 11 that attacks on Ukraine by Russian troops may be imminent, though Russian officials have denied these claims and denounced them as “dangerous lies.” Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, meanwhile, has beseeched the US and NATO powers to not cause panic and further inflame tensions with Russia. With every passing hour, the world watches with trepidation...

When a small town police department came under fire for a series of questionable arrests, PAR dug deeper into the finances of Milton, West Virginia. What we uncovered reveals how economic inequality fuels bad policing, and how prioritization of law enforcement over other communal needs is often at the root of bad public policy. Read the transcript of this podcast: https://therealnews.com/cops-in-t...

Few frozen food brands are as well known in the United States as Amy’s Kitchen, a privately owned, California-based company that makes organic, vegetarian meals that can be found in most frozen-food aisles. Amy’s Kitchen has also long been reputed for, and markets itself as, a socially conscientious manufacturer and employer. Some workers at Amy’s Kitchen, however, tell a different story. As Joshu...

Art Spiegelman’s Pulitzer prize-winning Maus was recently banned from a Tennessee county’s classrooms. The McMinn County School Board’s decision to remove Spiegelman’s graphic novel about the Holocaust from its curriculum has caused a national outcry, but this is by no means the first time that comic books have been accused of being dangerous for young people. In this episode of Art for the End Ti...

With 2.1 million incarcerated people, the United States has the largest prison population in the world. But America’s prison system is part of a larger social apparatus that predominantly targets, criminalizes, and polices poor people and people of color. As the monstrous reach of our carceral system extends further into our daily lives, so too have forms of resistance grown in communities around...

“Christian nationalism has influenced the course of American politics and policy since the founding of this country, while, in every era, moral movements have had to fight for the Bible and the terrain that goes with it,” Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis recently wrote in The Nation. “The January 6 assault on the Capitol, while only the latest expression of such old battlelines, demonstrated the threat of a...

A small-town police department in Milton, West Virginia, is facing more scrutiny after another troubling video surfaced of a questionable arrest. The newly obtained video contradicts the sworn statement of a Milton police officer who said the man who was arrested resisted arrest and tried to escape. PAR investigates the case and delves deeper into the finances of the town, which has nearly doubl...

A crucial labor battle is currently unfolding between railroad workers and BNSF Railway, the largest freight railroad network in North America. Earlier in January, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET) and the Transportation Division of the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail, and Transportation Workers (SMART-TD), which together represent roughly 17,000 railr...

“On December 31, 2020, Tommy Raskin, the only son of Maryland Congressman Jamie Raskin, tragically took his own life after a long struggle with depression. Seven days later on January 6, Congressman Raskin returned to Congress to help certify the 2020 Presidential election results, when violent insurrectionists led by right wing extremist groups stormed the US Capitol hoping to hand four more year...