Épisodes

  • What does it mean to be a union member in these times?

    What does it mean to be a union member in these times?
    Nov 20 2025
    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 for democracy, civil rights, the rule of law, and a livable planet? We posed these questions to a range of emerging labor leaders from different unions and worker centers enrolled in the 2025-26 Minnesota Union Leadership Program (MULP). Here’s what they told us…

    Additional links/info:
    • Minnesota Union Leadership Program website
    • Workday Magazine website
    • Maximillian Alvarez, Working People / The Real News Network, “What good is a union in Hell?”

    Featured Music:
    • Jules Taylor, Working People Theme Song

    Credits:
    • Audio Post-Production: Alina Nehlich


    Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.

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    58 min
  • 'The Alabama Department of Corrections is a drug cartel'

    'The Alabama Department of Corrections is a drug cartel'
    Nov 17 2025
    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 an American Prison, and his work has appeared in Counterpunch Magazine, Alabama Political Reporter, Scheer Post, Jacobin, Eunoia Review, New York Journal of Books, The Brattleboro Reformer, and elsewhere. He runs the publication Hard Times Reviewer.
    Credits:
    • Producer / Videographer / Post-Production: Cameron Granadino


    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.

    Follow us on:
    Bluesky: @therealnews.com
    Facebook: The Real News Network
    Twitter: @TheRealNews
    YouTube: @therealnews
    Instagram: @therealnewsnetwork

    Become a member and join the Supporters Club for The Real News Podcast today!
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    46 min
  • At COP30, humanity must choose: Fossil fuel industry profits or a livable planet?

    At COP30, humanity must choose: Fossil fuel industry profits or a livable planet?
    Nov 19 2025
    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 climate summit will mean for humanity’s future on a rapidly heating Earth.

    Additional links/info:
    • Dharna Noor, Guardian US, “‘Without our expertise, mistakes get made’: The Cop30 campaign to give workers a voice”
    • Dharna Noor & Jonathan Watts, Guardian US, “Thousands hit streets of Belém to call for action during crucial Cop30 summit”
    Credits:
    • Studio Production / Post-Production: David Hebden


    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.

    Follow us on:
    Bluesky: @therealnews.com
    Facebook: The Real News Network
    Twitter: @TheRealNews
    YouTube: @therealnews
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    28 min
  • Nora Loreto's news headlines for Monday, November 17, 2025

    Nora Loreto's news headlines for Monday, November 17, 2025
    Nov 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.

    Follow us on:
    Bluesky: @therealnews.com
    Facebook: The Real News Network
    Twitter: @TheRealNews
    YouTube: @therealnews
    Instagram: @therealnewsnetwork

    Become a member and join the Supporters Club for The Real News Podcast today!
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    7 min
  • Starbucks workers strike nationwide

    Starbucks workers strike nationwide
    Nov 14 2025
    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 workers’ 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 line in Philadelphia, PA.

    Videography: Maximillian Alvarez
    Post-Production: David Hebden, Maximillian Alvarez

    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.

    Follow us on:
    Bluesky: @therealnews.com
    Facebook: The Real News Network
    Twitter: @TheRealNews
    YouTube: @therealnews
    Instagram: @therealnewsnetwork

    Become a member and join the Supporters Club for The Real News Podcast today!
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    11 min
  • How farmers fought the banks and won: Penny auctions in the Great Depression

    How farmers fought the banks and won: Penny auctions in the Great Depression
    Nov 14 2025
    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.
    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 year’s Signal Awards for best history podcast! It’s a huge honor. Thank you so much to everyone who voted and supported.

    And please consider signing up for the Stories of Resistance podcast feed on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Spreaker, or wherever you listen. And please take a moment to rate and review the podcast. A little help goes a long way.

    The Real News’s legendary host Marc Steiner has also been in the running for best episode host. And he also won a Gold Signal Award. We are so excited. You can listen and subscribe to the Marc Steiner Show here on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

    Please consider supporting this podcast and Michael Fox’s reporting on his Patreon account: patreon.com/mfox. There you can also see exclusive pictures, video, and interviews.

    Written and produced by Michael Fox.


    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.

    Follow us on:
    Bluesky: @therealnews.com
    Facebook: The Real News Network
    Twitter: @TheRealNews
    YouTube: @therealnews
    Instagram: @therealnewsnetwork

    Become a member and join the Supporters Club for The Real News Podcast today!
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    4 min
  • ‘This is the hill to die on for universities’: Free speech can survive Trump, but not without a fight

    ‘This is the hill to die on for universities’: Free speech can survive Trump, but not without a fight
    Nov 13 2025
    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 California, Berkeley, and earlier taught at the University of Michigan, the State University of New York at Buffalo, and the University of Oxford. Hollinger’s books include Protestants Abroad: How Missionaries Tried to Change the World but Changed America (Princeton, 2017), After Cloven Tongues of Fire: Protestant Liberalism in Modern American History (Princeton, 2013), Science, Jews, and Secular Culture (Princeton, 1996), and Postethnic America: Beyond Multiculturalism (New York, 1995, 2000, and 2006). He is an elected member of the American Philosophical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a former President of the Organization of American Historians.

    Credits:
    • Producer: Rosette Sewali
    • Studio Production: David Hebden
    • Audio Post-Production: Stephen Frank



    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.

    Follow us on:
    Bluesky: @therealnews.com
    Facebook: The Real News Network
    Twitter: @TheRealNews
    YouTube: @therealnews
    Instagram: @therealnewsnetwork

    Become a member and join the Supporters Club for The Real News Podcast today!
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    48 min
  • Nora Loreto's news headlines for Friday, November 14, 2025

    Nora Loreto's news headlines for Friday, November 14, 2025
    Nov 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.

    Follow us on:
    Bluesky: @therealnews.com
    Facebook: The Real News Network
    Twitter: @TheRealNews
    YouTube: @therealnews
    Instagram: @therealnewsnetwork

    Become a member and join the Supporters Club for The Real News Podcast today!
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    8 min