• New NYT/Siena polling shows Democrats surprisingly competitive in several traditionally Republican states.
• Democrats lead gubernatorial polling in Iowa, Ohio, Texas and Alaska, while Republicans hold the advantage in Kansas.
• Iowa Democrat Rob Sand posts the biggest lead at +11.
• Amy Acton narrowly leads Vivek Ramaswamy in Ohio.
• Gina Hinojosa and Greg Abbott are locked in a close Texas race.
• Alaska’s ranked-choice system makes its numbers especially complicated.
• We break down what the polling means — and why nobody should confuse polls with Election Day results.

JACK SMITH: “BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT”

• Former special counsel Jack Smith tells Congress his team believed it had enough evidence to convict Donald Trump.
• We revisit the federal 2020 election-interference case and classified-documents investigation.
• Why neither case ever reached a jury.
• Smith says he stands by bringing the charges and would make the same decision again.

JACK SMITH’S POST-DOJ CONCERT ERA

• Days after his Senate hearing, Smith turns up at the politically charged Power to the People Festival wearing a “No Kings” Springsteen shirt.
• Dave Grohl reportedly dedicates “My Hero” to “my new friend Jack.”
• Republicans seize on the optics.
• Plus: the bizarre Senate mix-up involving the Iowa Hawkeyes and Atlanta Hawks.

CORNELL SEXUAL-ASSAULT INVESTIGATION REOPENED

• A civil lawsuit brings renewed scrutiny to allegations surrounding a 2024 incident at Cornell’s Chi Phi fraternity.
• New York officials reopen the criminal investigation.
• Gov. Kathy Hochul appoints Attorney General Letitia James as special prosecutor.
• Cornell agrees to an independent review of its response.
• Students demand greater transparency and changes to university sexual-assault procedures.
• We also examine the larger debate surrounding intoxication and consent under New York law.

ELON MUSK, NEWT GINGRICH & THE FUTURE OF WAR

• Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth launches Project Meridian.
• Elon Musk, Palmer Luckey and Newt Gingrich will help study the technologies shaping future warfare.
• Topics include AI, autonomous weapons, robotics, directed-energy weapons, biotechnology and even warfare around the moon.
• We look at the potential conflicts of interest when defense contractors help advise the Pentagon on future technology spending.

TRUMP VS. TIME MAGAZINE

• Donald Trump becomes frustrated during a wide-ranging TIME interview and complains that he hasn’t received “one positive question.”
• The interview covers Iran, press freedom, the Supreme Court, pardons, the midterms and White House renovations.
• Trump criticizes several Supreme Court justices he appointed and takes another shot at CNN’s Kaitlan Collins.
• Somehow, presidential policy questions eventually turn into a discussion about crown molding.

NYC EXPANDS FREE CHILD CARE

• Mayor Zohran Mamdani announces that more than 10,000 children will be moved off New York City’s child-care voucher waitlist.
• The expansion is backed by major state funding from Gov. Kathy Hochul.
• We break down eligibility, remaining waitlists and Mamdani’s larger push toward universal child care and free 2-K.

WINTER HEATING BILLS ARE ABOUT TO HURT

• Heating-oil households could spend nearly $900 more on average this winter.
• Maine and Vermont could see increases exceeding $1,000.
• Global oil disruptions, diesel shortages, shipping costs and the conflict around the Strait of Hormuz are pushing prices higher.
• Lawmakers are already discussing releases from emergency heating-oil reserves.
• And higher fuel costs could eventually ripple into groceries, trucking and other everyday expenses.

411 ON THE 405

The Batman Part II

• Production pauses while director Matt Reeves steps away for a family matter.
• The film has already been delayed multiple times, with its current release scheduled for 2028.

Avengers: Endgame

• A theatrical rerelease pushes Endgame past Avatar again for the worldwide box-office crown.

Digger

• Tom Cruise’s expensive original film opens to just $8 million domestically.
• Its massive budget makes the weak debut particularly painful.

Tulsa King

• Paramount+ renews the show for Season 5 before Season 4 premieres.
• Production moves to New York.
• Scarlet Rose Stallone becomes a series regular.
• The franchise is also expanding with Frisco King starring Samuel L. Jackson.

Hollywood Production Crisis

• Entertainment unions warn that U.S. film and television production is being hollowed out.
• Foreign tax incentives, lower costs, the end of Peak TV and years of industry disruption are squeezing American production workers.
• Industry groups are now pushing for federal incentives to keep more filmmaking in the United States.

LINKS

https://instagram.com/itsnewstous

https://tiktok.com/@itsnewstous

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Lauren Boebert pushes back against a House Ethics complaint alleging inappropriate relationships with staffers and a reported $200,000 payment to a former aide. We break down what’s actually alleged, what Boebert and the people named in the complaint are denying, and why the ethics questions go beyond the more sensational headlines.

CNN, MS NOW, and Politico sue the Trump administration after being barred from the White House, while major television networks refuse to fill CNN’s spot in the presidential press pool. We look at the First Amendment fight, the 1977 Sherrill v. Knight precedent, and the surprising return of the same judge involved in CNN’s 2018 Jim Acosta case.

Joe Rogan criticizes some of Donald Trump’s most devoted supporters as “rabid” and “f***ing nuts,” despite endorsing Trump in 2024. We dig into Rogan’s increasingly complicated political identity and his recent criticism of both Trump and Bernie Sanders.

Trump’s approval rating falls to 32% in new Reuters/Ipsos polling, with some of the steepest declines coming from Republicans dissatisfied with the economy and cost of living.

The FBI warned immigration agents about an alleged scheme involving fake “tradwife” dating profiles designed to lure and potentially dox law-enforcement officers. The catch: the FBI itself described the intelligence as not fully evaluated, and the memo did not identify any confirmed victims.

Poland warns that Russia could deliberately launch ambiguous drone or missile attacks against NATO countries and then claim they were accidental, potentially forcing NATO to decide how to respond to increasingly dangerous “gray-zone” incidents.

More than 70 people are involved in a proposed lawsuit against Meta over claims that its smart glasses captured highly private footage and that some AI-related imagery may have been reviewed by human workers. We get into the much larger consent problem created by wearable cameras and AI.

On The Horse’s Mouth, Red Leather and WesGhost join the show to talk about their new collaborative project REDGHOST, their debut EP WASTEDYOUTH, the strange reality of becoming famous while remaining anonymous, building music for outsiders, balancing accessibility with mystery, and taking the project

LINKS

https://instagram.com/itsnewstous

https://tiktok.com/@itsnewstous

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

LINKS

https://instagram.com/itsnewstous

https://tiktok.com/@itsnewstous

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Catie takes a deep dive into one of the most complicated and emotionally charged criminal trials in the country.

Lindsay Clancy is charged in the January 2023 deaths of her three children—Cora, Dawson and Callan—at the family’s home in Duxbury, Massachusetts. Clancy has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.

The facts of what happened are largely undisputed. The trial instead centers on Clancy’s mental state and whether she was legally responsible for her actions.

Her defense argues that Clancy was experiencing severe postpartum psychosis, had undergone extensive psychiatric treatment and medication changes, and had lost touch with reality when she killed the children. Defense expert Dr. Phillip Resnick testified that she was psychotic at the time.

Prosecutors argue that although Clancy suffered from significant mental-health problems, she still understood right from wrong. They point to evidence they say demonstrates organization and planning, including sending her husband Patrick out of the house on errands before the killings.

Patrick Clancy’s testimony became one of the trial’s most emotional moments. He described Lindsay as a loving mother before her mental-health decline and said she had never previously expressed a desire to harm the children.

The trial ultimately became a battle between competing psychiatric interpretations: was this a deliberate murder committed by someone suffering from depression and other mental-health problems, or the catastrophic result of postpartum psychosis severe enough to eliminate criminal responsibility?

After testimony from more than 80 witnesses over roughly five weeks, jurors began deliberating on August 27.

And they still haven’t reached a verdict.

As of August 31, the jury has deliberated for approximately 17 hours across three days. Jurors have requested to review physical evidence including prescription bottles and the knife Clancy used during her suicide attempt.

The available verdicts are not simply “guilty” or “not guilty.” Depending on how jurors interpret Clancy’s intent and mental state, they may consider first-degree murder, second-degree murder, manslaughter or a finding that she was not criminally responsible because of mental illness.

If the jury ultimately finds her not guilty by reason of insanity, that would not necessarily mean Clancy simply goes free. She could instead be committed to a psychiatric hospital, potentially for an extended period.

The case has also forced a much broader conversation about postpartum psychosis, how seriously severe postpartum psychiatric symptoms are treated, and whether the medical system failed to recognize just how sick Clancy had become.

Also in this episode:

The U.S.–Iran war heats up again as Trump declares Iran “dead,” threatens additional strikes and shares AI-generated footage depicting an attack that apparently never occurred.

The Supreme Court, USPS and the Trump administration collide over mail voting while election officials warn that thousands of otherwise valid ballots are arriving too late to be counted.

Texas Republicans begin asking uncomfortable questions about changes to the state’s $3 billion-plus broadband program that benefited Elon Musk’s Starlink.

Meta reportedly discovers a flaw in its plan to replace huge portions of its workforce with artificial intelligence: humans still have to fix everything the AI screws up.

Plus another food-recall roundup, the Pentagon gets government versions of ChatGPT and Grok, Howard Stern heads to HBO Max, AMC becomes a movie distributor, and plenty more from another completely normal week in America.

LINKS

https://instagram.com/itsnewstous

https://tiktok.com/@itsnewstous

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.