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, December 20, 2025


** Why Trump Deemed Basic Sanitation Illegal DEI
------------------------------------------------------------
[link removed]


** Lance Cheung/US Department of Agriculture
------------------------------------------------------------
Listen to the episode ([link removed])

Among many disappointing cultural shifts we’ve witnessed under Trump 2.0, one of the most painful for me to watch has been the demonization of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Just like “woke” before it, the MAGA crowd snatched “DEI” from the zeitgeist, morphing it from a progressive effort to be more intersectional in matters of social justice to just another cudgel against the marginalized in their seemingly endless culture war.

However, by stamping out DEI initiatives, the Trump administration is not just harming minorities. It’s harming white people as well.

If you want to see this sabotage in action, look no further than the subject of our latest episode of More To The Story: the Deep South.

As my colleagues report, Southern states like Alabama are in the throes of an environmental crisis. Contaminated drinking water and poor sanitation are hitting poor Black communities, like Lowndes County, the hardest.

In 2024, the Biden administration approved ([link removed]) a $26 million program that would help clean raw sewage and build adequate sanitation systems in these struggling areas. When President Donald Trump returned to office, his administration wasted no time in shutting it down, deeming it illegal DEI.

While it’s important to acknowledge that Black communities will be affected the most, environmental issues transcend racial lines. Don’t we all stand to benefit from clean water and working pipes?

“We have to expand the definition of environmental justice, because we can’t let people think that because if you are not Black and poor, you are not going to be victimized by this,” says author and environmental activist Catherine Coleman Flowers. “That’s not true.”

In this episode of More To The Story, Flowers sits down with Al Letson to talk about why this expansion is so critical in the fight for the protection of our planet, while also explaining how Trump’s rollbacks could actually be fueling an environmental revolution.

You can listen to the link here ([link removed]) .
-Arianna Coghill

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])


** Fancy Galleries, Fake Art
------------------------------------------------------------
[link removed]

Illustration by Brian Britigan for Reveal

In the mid-’90s, two high-end New York art galleries began selling one fake painting after another—works in the style of Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol, Mark Rothko, and others.

It was the largest art fraud in modern US history, totaling more than $80 million.

This week on Reveal, in an update of a show that first aired in 2020, we look at how it happened and why almost no one was ever punished by authorities. We also revisit an investigation into a painting looted by the Nazis during World War II. More than half a century later, a journalist helped track it down through the Panama Papers.
[link removed]
🎧 Other places to listen: Spotify ([link removed]) , Overcast ([link removed]) , iHeartRadio ([link removed]) , or wherever you get your podcasts.
Advertisement
[link removed]


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


** 🎧 Lessons From Trump’s “War” on Chicago ([link removed])
------------------------------------------------------------
The government is using face-scanning apps to check if random people on the street are citizens. And agents say you cannot refuse.

Photo Credit: United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement

[link removed]


** 🎧 Executions Are Rising in the US. This Reverend Witnesses Them. ([link removed])
------------------------------------------------------------
Executions have nearly doubled from 2024 to 2025. We spoke to a reverend who’s seen many of them.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Jeff Hood

[link removed]


** 🎧 The Gaza Flotilla Story You Didn’t Hear ([link removed])
------------------------------------------------------------

Activists sailed to Gaza to deliver aid, but were met with drone attacks and imprisonment—an exclusive look at the Global Sumud Flotilla.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Gulcin Bekar
[link removed]


** 🎧 One on One With Trump’s Black MAGA Pastor ([link removed])
------------------------------------------------------------

A candid—and sometimes heated—conversation with Lorenzo Sewell, who claims President Donald Trump is actually an anti-racist who is improving Black lives.

Photo Credit: Saul Loeb/DPA/ZUMA
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])
.