by Brandi Morin | Mar 9, 2026 | Canada, Climate Crisis, Indigenous communities, Oil, Politics and Movements: International, TransCanada, video
The costly completion of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project (TMX)—Canada’s only pipeline system transporting crude oil from Alberta to the West Coast—has been a massive boon for Canada’s oil industry while posing existential threats to the environment and to First Nations. One of the last portions of the pipeline expansion was completed on the sacred Secwépemc site called Pípsell, near Kamloops, British Columbia, in violation of prior agreements with, and the treaty rights of, members of the Secwépemc Nation. In Pípsell: The Last Stand, award-winning Cree/Iroquois/French journalist Brandi Morin and documentary filmmaker Geordie Day expose in stunning cinematic detail the human and environmental costs of Canada’s TMX pipeline—and they follow the intense, dangerous, brave struggle of Indigenous land defenders and their allies to halt the completion of the Pípsell expansion.
Pípsell: The Last Stand was produced in partnership with The Real News Network and Ricochet Media. The documentary made its global debut at the 2025 Calgary Justice Film Festival. If you are interested in organizing an in-person screening of Pípsell: The Last Stand, please send inquiries to contact@therealnews.com
Credits:
Written and hosted by Brandi Morin
Directed by Geordie Day and Brandi Morin
Additional editorial and production support provided by Maximillian Alvarez, Kayla Rivara, Ethan Cox, Andrea Houston
Transcript
A transcript for this will be provided when ready.
by Mansa Musa | Mar 9, 2026 | ICE, Politics and Movements: US, Prison Industrial Complex, Prisons and Policing, Rattling the Bars, Trump, video
A new report from the Marshall Project reveals that the daily number of kids in ICE detention has increased sixfold under the second Trump administration. In this episode of Rattling the Bars, host Mansa Musa speaks with Shannon Heffernan and Anna Flagg of The Marshall Project about the the human cost of Trump’s mass deportation campaign, and about the horrifying reality inside the South Texas Family Processing Center—the “black box” facility in Dilley, Texas, where children are subjected to substandard food, medical deprivation, and prolonged detention beyond legal limits.
Guests:
Anna Flagg is a senior data reporter at The Marshall Project and works with data to report on detention, deaths in custody, crime, race, policing and immigration. Her reporting has appeared in The Marshall Project, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, ProPublica, Politico, The Guardian, The Associated Press, Al Jazeera, and others.
Shannon Heffernan is a staff writer at The Marshall Project whose work focuses on prisons and jails across the US, as well as sexual and gender-based violence, immigration and mental health, and how arts and culture shape (and are shaped by) crime and punishment.
Additional links/info:
Anna Flagg & Shannon Heffernan, The Marshall Project, “‘Why is this happening to us?’ Daily number of kids in ICE detention jumps 6x under Trump”
Maximillian Alvarez, TRNN, “Texas’ one-of-a-kind concentration camp for children and families”
Credits:
Producer / Videographer / Editor: Cameron Granadino
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Mansa Musa:
Welcome to this edition of Rattling the Bars, I’m your host Mansa Musa. Why is this happening to us? Daily numbers
by Maximillian Alvarez | Mar 6, 2026 | Iran, Israel, Media Criticism, Podcast, Politics and Movements: International, Politics and Movements: US, video
The US-Israeli war with Iran is spiraling into a regional catastrophe, and the number of dead is rising quickly. While President Donald Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and the war hawks in their cabinets are responsible for this illegal war, they are not the only ones with blood on their hands. TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez speaks with Abby Martin, host of The Empire Files, and Adam Johnson, co-host of Citations Needed, about how Western media and American politicians in the Democratic “opposition” have helped manufacture the conditions for war with Iran.
Guests:
Abby Martin is an independent journalist, filmmaker, and host of The Empire Files. She is the director of the 2019 documentary Gaza Fights for Freedom and the 2026 documentary Earth’s Greatest Enemy.
Adam Johnson is a writer, media critic, co-host of the podcast Citations Needed, and a columnist for TRNN.
Credits:
Video Post-Production: Cameron Granadino
Podcast Post-Production: Alina Nehlich
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Maximillian Alvarez: Welcome everyone to the Real News Network. My name is Maximillian Alvarez. I’m the editor-in-chief here at The Real News, and it’s so great to have you all with us. Urged on by Israeli Prime Minister and Genes Adair, Benjamin Netanyahu, President Donald Trump thrust the United States into a war with Iran on Saturday, committing what critics say may be the worst foreign policy decision in history. US and Israeli forces have been accused this week of seemingly indiscriminate bombing of Iran as the country’s Red Crescents said that at least 555 people have been killed amid reports of fresh mass
by Maximillian Alvarez | Mar 5, 2026 | ICE, immigration, Politics and Movements: US, Prisons and Policing, video
The Trump administration is moving forward with its plan to convert former industrial warehouses around the US into massive immigration detention facilities capable of holding thousands of people at a time. In rural Western Maryland, near Hagerstown, the Department of Homeland Security purchased a giant warehouse for over $100 million and claims the retrofitted facility will hold upwards of 1,500 human beings. In this on-the-ground report filmed outside the Hagerstown warehouse, immigrant data expert Austin Kocher breaks down the chilling truth about ICE’s detention reengineering program.
Additional links/info:
Austin Kocher Substack, Facebook page, Bluesky page, and Instagram
Project Salt Box, Substack, “A 1,500-bed detention facility is coming to rural Maryland. We’re calling on ICE to account for what that means — and asking you to do the same”
Austin Kocher, Substack, “92% of ICE detention growth in FY 2026 driven by immigrants with no criminal convictions”
Marina Dunbar, The Guardian, “Ice director wants to run deportations like ‘Amazon Prime for human beings’”
PBS NewsHour, “ICE spending billions to turn warehouses into migrant detention facilities”
Credits:
Filmed by Maximillian Alvarez
Post-Production by Maximillian Alvarez and Cameron Granadino
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Austin Kocher:
I’m Austin Kocher, a research professor at Syracuse University, and we are standing in front of the Hagerstown warehouse where ICE plans on holding upwards of 1700 people or more as part of its massive immigrant detention re-engineering program. The government has already spent over a hundred million dollars acquiring this facility and $30 million on design services to refigure the facility to hold human beings. The utilities are not at all equipped.
by Maximillian Alvarez | Mar 3, 2026 | east palestine, Economy and Inequality, Inequality, Politics and Movements: US, sacrifice zones, video
Three years ago, on Feb. 3, 2023, the Norfolk Southern train derailment and chemical disaster—one of the worst industrial disasters in US history—took place in the small town of East Palestine, OH. Since that fateful day, residents have been exploited and abandoned by Norfolk Southern, the government, opportunistic politicians, sensationalist media outlets, and self-serving attorneys, but we haven’t forgotten them. On the three-year anniversary of the day that changed their small-town lives forever, TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez was on the ground in East Palestine speaking with residents about their lives and needs today. Here is what they said…
Additional links/info:
Ohio Valley Derailment Mutual Aid Facebook page and fundraiser
Chemically Impacted Communities Coalition (CICC) website
Golomb Research Group (UCSD) website and East Palestine Health Effects Study website
Maximillian Alvarez, The Real News Network, “America’s toxic future looks like East Palestine, Ohio, today” (click for a full list of all of Max’s East Palestine reporting for TRNN over the last three years)
Josh Funk & Julie Carr Smyth, AP, “Lawsuit blames deaths on Ohio train derailment as Vance says US needs ‘to do better on rail safety’”
Credits:
Filmed by Maximillian Alvarez
Post-Production by David Hebden
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Jami Wallace:
I am Jami Wallace from East Palestine, Ohio. It was three years ago today on February 3rd, 2023, that a Norfolk Southern train derailed in my community carrying hazardous chemicals. It’s now been three years. We are still here. We still need help. Our health is failing. I have been diagnosed with multiple different long-term illnesses that all can be related to the chemicals.
Ashley
by Mansa Musa | Mar 2, 2026 | Politics and Movements: US, Prison Industrial Complex, prison reform, Prisons and Policing, Rattling the Bars, video
The term “mass incarceration” is inaccurate and misleading, Distinguished Professor and author Dylan Rodríguez says: “The masses are not being policed, targeted, and incarcerated; it’s a targeted war with asymmetrical casualties.” In this episode of Rattling the Bars, Rodríguez speaks with former political prisoner and Black Panther Mansa Musa about the horrifying truth behind the US prison-industrial complex—and about the “pseudo-abolitionist” politics that often dilute the power of radical movements trying to dismantle it.
Guests:
Dylan Rodríguez is a teacher, scholar, organizer, and collaborator who has worked at the University of California-Riverside since 200. He is a Distinguished Professor in the recently created Department of Black Study as well as the Department of Media and Cultural Studies. He is the author of three books: Forced Passages: Imprisoned Radical Intellectuals and the U.S. Prison Regime; Suspended Apocalypse: White Supremacy, Genocide, and the Filipino Condition; and White Reconstruction: Domestic Warfare and the Logic of Racial Genocide, which won the 2022 Frantz Fanon Book Award from the Caribbean Philosophical Association.
Additional links/info:
Mansa Musa, Ratting the Bars / TRNN, “Manifest Destiny never ended: the domestic war for white supremacy”
Credits:
Producer, Videographer, Editor: Cameron Granadino
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Mansa Musa:
Talk about what is your critique on mass incarceration and how it is a narrative for white reconstruction.
Dylan Rodríguez:
So it’s important that I start from this statement, which is that Mansa, you’ve heard me say this before, I think in other context we got to stop using the phrase mass incarceration. We got to stop using it. And there’s a couple reasons why. One
