View in browser ([link removed]) | Support our newsroom ([link removed])
[link removed]
Support fearless independent journalism. Donate today.
DONATE NOW ([link removed][…]m_content=evergreen&utm_term=&campaign=701QP0000074yzHYAQ)


** THE WEEKLY REVEAL
------------------------------------------------------------
Saturday, November 15, 2025


** In a Mississippi Jail, Inmates Became Weapons
------------------------------------------------------------
[link removed]


** Courtesy of Christopher Mack
------------------------------------------------------------
Listen to the episode ([link removed])

Chris Mack has been locked up in Mississippi’s Rankin County Jail on and off since he was a teenager. In a lawsuit, he detailed a jailhouse assault that left him with broken ribs, a broken nose, and two black eyes.

But it wasn’t just guards who attacked him. Mack said a group of inmates joined in—men in the jail’s Trusty Inmate Program, who had special privileges and wore blue jumpsuits.

“They were called the blue wave,” Mack said.

Through more than 70 interviews with former inmates and officers, reporters from Mississippi Today and the New York Times discovered a system in which guards ordered beatings, inmates who participated were rewarded, and those trying to raise an alarm about the system for more than a decade were ignored.

This week on Reveal, on the heels of our reporting on abuses in the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department run by Sheriff Bryan Bailey, we expose a wave of violence in his county jail.

You can listen to the full episode at the link ([link removed]) .


** Catch Up First: The Deputies Who Tortured a Mississippi County
------------------------------------------------------------

In Rankin County, Mississippi, many residents saw members of the Sheriff’s Department as protectors. But for nearly two decades, a select group of deputies that called themselves the “Goon Squad” were beating and torturing people they suspected of drug crimes. It wasn’t until 2023, when one violent arrest was exposed and a local woman came forward to reporters, that the Goon Squad’s reign of terror ended.

Listen at the link ([link removed]) .
[link removed]
🎧 Other places to listen: Spotify ([link removed]) , Overcast ([link removed]) , iHeartRadio ([link removed]) , or wherever you get your podcasts.


** Executions Are Rising in the US. This Reverend Witnesses Them.
------------------------------------------------------------
[link removed]

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Jeff Hood

About 2,100 people are on death row in America. Some have been there for decades, in part because executions have been on the decline in the US. But that’s changing. So far this year, 41 people have been executed, up from 25 last year, and six more executions are scheduled.

Early in his second term, President Donald Trump—a longtime proponent of the death penalty—signed an executive order reinstating federal executions while encouraging states to expand the use of capital punishment. One man has seen many of these executions up close.

The Reverend Jeff Hood is an Old Catholic Church priest, an ordained Baptist minister, a racial justice activist, and something of a go-to spiritual adviser for many currently on death row. Hood often tells people that his job is to become death row inmates’ best friend, "so that their best friend will be with them when they’re executed." On the day of the execution, he goes inside the chamber for the final moments of their lives. This kind of work, he says, is a natural outgrowth of his longtime activism for racial equality and the Black Lives Matter movement.

On this week’s More To The Story, Hood sits down with host Al Letson to describe his work as an advocate for death row inmates, what it’s like being a white Southern reverend vocally advocating for racial justice, and how capital punishment in the US today illustrates American society’s increasing movement in a more violent direction.

Listen here ([link removed]) .

Find this episode wherever you listen to Reveal, and don’t forget to subscribe:
Apple Podcasts ([link removed]) | Spotify ([link removed]) | iHeartRadio ([link removed]) | Overcast ([link removed])
Advertisement
[link removed]


** In Case You Missed It
------------------------------------------------------------
[link removed]


** 🎧 I Study Fascism. I’ve Already Fled America. ([link removed])
------------------------------------------------------------
Former Yale professor Jason Stanley has been taking a lot of heat for moving to Canada. Why? Because he studies fascism—and he believes it’s already arrived in the US.

Photo Credit: ANP/Zuma

[link removed]


** 🎧 America Had a Black President. Then Came the Whitelash. ([link removed])
------------------------------------------------------------

Writer Jelani Cobb traces the tumultuous throughline from Trayvon Martin to the rise of white nationalism and reexamines Barack Obama’s legacy in the age of Donald Trump.

Photo Credit: Saul Loeb/Pool/Getty

[link removed]


** 🎧 The Race to Stop AI’s Threats to Democracy ([link removed])
------------------------------------------------------------

Tech journalist Karen Hao sounds the alarm about the rising risks to the country—and planet—from the growth of artificial intelligence.

Photo Credit: Blondet Eliot/Abaca/Zuma

[link removed]


** 🎧 An Atrocity of War Goes Unpunished ([link removed])
------------------------------------------------------------
An attack on civilians by US Marines during the Iraq War sparks outrage and a war crimes trial, but in the end, no one is held accountable.

Photo Credit: Naval Criminal Investigative Service

Advertisement
[link removed]
This issue of The Weekly Reveal was written by Arianna Coghill and edited by Nikki Frick. If you enjoyed this issue, forward it to a friend ([link removed]) . Have some thoughts? Drop us a line (mailto:[email protected]) with feedback or ideas!

============================================================
** Twitter ([link removed])
** Facebook ([link removed])
** Instagram ([link removed])
** Donate ([link removed][…]m_content=evergreen&utm_term=&campaign=701QP0000074yzHYAQ)
Copyright © 2025 The Center for Investigative Reporting. All rights reserved.
You are receiving this email because you signed up for The Weekly Reveal newsletter.

Our mailing address is:
The Center for Investigative Reporting
PO Box 584
San Francisco, CA 94104
USA
Want to change how you receive these emails?
You can ** update your preferences ([link removed])
or ** unsubscribe from all Reveal emails ([link removed])
.