Non-unanimous jury verdicts were a Jim Crow–era policy designed to silence Black jurors and secure convictions even when the state failed to prove its case. In 2026, over 1,000 people remain imprisoned in Louisiana after being convicted by non-unanimous juries. In this episode of Rattling the Bars, Mansa Musa speaks with Erica Navalance, Associate Director of Strategic Criminal Litigation at the Promise of Justice Initiative, about the case of Lloyd Gray and why the state of Louisiana continues ...
Feb 01, 2026•36 min
On Friday, Jan. 23, around 50,000 people in Minneapolis, MN, engaged in a historic mass strike and day of protest to demand an end to ICE terror and President Trump’s federal siege of Minnesota. Then, on Saturday, Jan. 24, an ICE agent shot and killed Alex Pretti, volunteer ICE observer and a registered union nurse who worked for the Veterans Health Administration. In this episode, we speak with Mary C. Turner, a registered nurse inn Minnesota and a member of the Council of Presidents of Nationa...
Jan 28, 2026•25 min
The Third Circuit Court of Appeals handed the Trump administration a victory this month in its ongoing attempt to deport Syrian-born Palestinian activist, husband, father, and former Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil. Khalil remains in the country for now and the legal battle is far from over, but the future of free speech in the US hangs in the balance. This week on The Marc Steiner Show , Marc speaks with Amy Greer, an associate attorney at Dratel & Lewis and a member of ...
Jan 27, 2026•28 min
In the hours after the Jan. 3 US invasion of Venezuela, social media was inundated with fake videos and images. Some showed Venezuelans holding huge rallies in favor of the US invasion. Others showed US troops landing or firing from helicopters. Others showed Maduro being kidnapped. Not all were AI. Some were old, showing anti-government rallies from years past. Or from other places—other invasions or bombing raids, unrelated to the current US attack. But these videos racked up tons of views, mi...
Jan 23, 2026•48 min
The Trump administration’s federal invasion and occupation of the state of Minnesota continues to sow chaos in the Twin Cities, but grassroots resistance to ICE and Trump has also exploded. And on Friday, Jan. 23, unions, community organizations, small businesses, faith communities, and Minnesota residents of all kinds will participate in a mass strike, a day of “No work, no school, and no shopping.” From Minnesota, we get firsthand accounts from Aminah Sheikh , a union organizer and an active m...
Jan 23, 2026•24 min
Returning citizens are being funneled into exploitative temp jobs that pay poverty wages, deny them basic labor protections, and deepen the state’s control over their lives long after they’ve served their time. This week, Mansa Musa speaks with Katherine Passley and Maya Ragsdale, Co-Executive Directors of Beyond the Bars, about how Florida’s temp industry traps the most vulnerable workers and operates as a profitable and punishing extension of the prison system. Guests: Maya Ragsdale is the fou...
Jan 22, 2026•35 min
The state of Minnesota is under siege by our own federal government, and residents—immigrant and US-born alike—are living in fear. With the deployment of over 3,000 federal agents to Minnesota in recent weeks, this is the Trump administration’s largest and most violent so-called “immigration enforcement” operation yet—and with President Trump threatening to invoke the Insurrection Act in Minnesota in response to protests over ICE’s terror campaign, the situation on the ground is extremely volati...
Jan 21, 2026•57 min
Today, people are protesting across the United States. They’re rallying. They’re walking off their jobs to mark the one-year anniversary of the inauguration of president Donald Trump. It’s part of a nationwide protest called the “ Free America Walkout .” It’s organized by the Women’s March , the group that led the huge women’s marches against Trump in his first term. More than 400 events, rallies, and actions are happening throughout the United States. People are braving the cold weather, walkin...
Jan 20, 2026•6 min
The Trump administration has said that the “second phase” of the ceasefire in Gaza is now in effect, but the fire has yet to cease. “What's happening now is that we are still being settled silently, we are still being killed slowly, away from the world's cameras,” Eyad Amawi, a father living in Gaza and a representative of the Gaza Relief Committee, tells The Marc Steiner Show this week. “That's the real meaning of the ceasefire.” Follow The Marc Steiner Show on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Credi...
Jan 20, 2026•28 min
Thousands have marched against Trump’s invasion of Venezuela. And leaders are leading the charge against U.S. intervention in the region, in some unexpected places. But Trump is now also pointing elsewhere in the region. Cuba, Colombia and Mexico are in his sights. Today, host Michael Fox looks at the response around the world to Trump's invasion of Venezuela. He also takes a deep dive into Trump’s threats elsewhere across the region, and introduces you to some of the leaders and the people stan...
Jan 16, 2026•50 min
People continue to take to the streets all across Iran, even as state forces massacre protestors and the US ramps up sanctions and threatens military intervention. While a total internet blackout remains in effect in the country, TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez speaks with award-winning Iranian-Canadian journalist Samira Mohyeddin of On the Line Media about what we do and don’t know about the crisis unfolding in Iran right now. Studio Production / Post-Production: David Hebden Become a ...
Jan 14, 2026•16 min
Marc Steiner speaks with Geo Maher, abolitionist scholar and author of We Created Chávez: A People's History of the Venezuelan Revolution , about the untenable goals behind President Trump’s invasion of Venezuela, and what the US bid to reassert imperial dominance in the Western hemisphere reveals about its declining place on the global stage. Additional links/info: Geo Maher Facebook page and Instagram Geo Maher, Duke University Press, “ We Created Chávez: A People's History of the Venezuelan R...
Jan 13, 2026•25 min
Canadian journalist Nora Loreto reads the latest headlines for Monday, January 12, 2026. 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 con...
Jan 12, 2026•4 min
Prisons have frequently been presented as a “solution” to the economic woes and employment needs of rural communities around the US—but that doesn’t mean residents of these communities want them there. In Franklin County, Arkansas, for instance, residents are banding together in opposition to the state’s plans to build a mega-prison in their area. In this episode of Rattling the Bars, host Mansa Musa speaks with Lauren Gill, a staff reporter from Bolts magazine, and Natalie Cadena, executive dir...
Jan 12, 2026•35 min
Canadian journalist Nora Loreto reads the latest headlines for Friday, January 9, 2026. 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 cont...
Jan 09, 2026•7 min
They called Ali Primera “The People’s Singer.” The Venezuelan ambassador of the Nueva Cancion, protest song, movement, which spilled across Latin America in the 1960s and ’70s, and included others like Mercedes Sosa and Victor Jara. Ali Primera sang in solidarity. He sang for rights and for justice. He sang in defense of the people, the humble and the working class. He sang in solidarity with El Salvador in the 1980s, and Nicaragua. He sang for revolution and for peace. He sang to demand an end ...
Jan 09, 2026•9 min
Canadian journalist Nora Loreto reads the latest headlines for Thursday, January 8, 2026. 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 co...
Jan 08, 2026•9 min
Canadian journalist Nora Loreto reads the latest headlines for Wednesday, January 7, 2026. 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 c...
Jan 07, 2026•7 min
Canadian journalist Nora Loreto reads the latest headlines for Tuesday, January 6, 2026. 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 con...
Jan 06, 2026•6 min
In the early, pre-dawn hours of Saturday, Jan. 3, the US invaded and bombed the sovereign country of Venezuela, and kidnapped Venezuela’s president Nicolas Maduro and the First Lady of Venezuela, Cilia Flores. This is the first time the United States has used its own military to invade a South American country, and President Trump made the purpose of the invasion very clear: oil. What will happen to Venezuela’s government now? What will be the geopolitical fallout in the Western Hemisphere from ...
Jan 05, 2026•38 min
In the early hours of Saturday morning, January 3rd, Venezuelans were awoken by the sounds of bombs falling. US helicopters whirled overhead. Explosions struck across the capital Caracas and in surrounding states. Hours of chaos, fear, and uncertainty. President Donald Trump would post over social media that the US had “captured” Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores amid a “large-scale” strike against the country. This is the first US invasion of another country in Latin...
Jan 05, 2026•41 min
Canadian journalist Nora Loreto reads the latest headlines for Monday, January 6, 2026. 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 cont...
Jan 05, 2026•6 min
On January 1, 1994, Indigenous peoples from Chiapas, Mexico, rose up. They took control of city halls in towns across the state. They took the state capital San Cristobal de las Casas. And they held them for days, despite a violent response from Mexico’s military. This was not just any movement confined to the mountainous jungles of Mexico. It was an Indigenous uprising against injustice. An uprising against neoliberalism. An uprising against globalization and free trade agreements, and it would...
Dec 30, 2025•7 min
On September 2, 2025, President Donald Trump announced from the Oval Office that the U.S. Navy had carried out an air strike on a boat in international waters. That boat strike rewrote U.S. policy for Latin America overnight. Three months later, 26 boats have been hit, killing more than 90 people. The United States has codified its justification for the boat strikes as part of a new National Security Strategy, published in early December 2025. In the National Security Strategy, Trump announced a...
Dec 23, 2025•44 min
It's late 1914. December cold in the trenches of the Western Front of World War I. Rations are in short supply. Men shiver… dreaming of home. Wishing they were far away. For months, here in the trenches, the sounds of the machine gun fire have peppered every waking moment. The whining of the bullets. The hissing and the cracking. But this morning — Christmas morning — the guns stop. It’s not planned. It’s spontaneous. But it happens all along the front. And over hundreds of miles of trenches. Si...
Dec 22, 2025•7 min
On Dec. 20, each year, people march in Panama City. They march to remember the fallen. They march to continue to demand justice for the violence, the destruction, and for those who were killed in the last US invasion in Latin America—the 1989 invasion of Panama. 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 fee...
Dec 22, 2025•7 min
For incarcerated people and their families, the holidays are the most painful time of year. In this episode of Rattling the Bars , host Mansa Musa and TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez speak frankly about what it’s like to be locked up during the holidays, why inmate suicides, violence, and depression spike this time of year, and about the life-saving and society-improving steps we can take this holiday season to help prisoners maintain contact with the outside world. C/W: Discussion of s...
Dec 22, 2025•26 min
Canadian journalist Nora Loreto reads the latest headlines for Friday, December 19, 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 co...
Dec 19, 2025•8 min
Canadian journalist Nora Loreto reads the latest headlines for Thursday, December 18, 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 ...
Dec 18, 2025•8 min
On Monday, Nov. 24, after more than 1,100 days on strike, Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh members were cheered on by supporters at a rally in downtown Pittsburgh before returning to work at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette . Even though strikers have returned to work, however, many issues at the center of the strike are still in legal limbo—and their fight for a fair contract is not over. In this episode of Working People, we speak with three Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh members—Bob Batz. Jr, Natalie ...
Dec 18, 2025•1 hr 17 min
