UNBIASED - Lindsay Clancy Mistrial Explained | Trump Offers $5,000 + AI Human Extinction Warning

Episode Date: September 10, 2026

Get the facts, without the spin. UNBIASED offers a clear, impartial recap of US news, including politics, elections, legal news, and more. Hosted by lawyer Jordan Berman, each episode provides a recap of current political events plus breakdowns of complex concepts—like constitutional rights, recent Supreme Court rulings, and new legislation—in an easy-to-understand way. No personal opinions, just the facts you need to stay informed on the daily news that matters. If you miss how journalism used to be, you're in the right place. In today's episode: Lindsay Clancy Mistrial Explained: What the Jury Was Actually Deciding, What We Know About the Holdout Juror, and More (0:21) New TSA Rule Allows Non-Flying Guests Past Security for First Time Since 9/11 (15:16) Trump Administration Proposes 'Stay-At-Home Parent Subsidy.' Here's What We Know. (~21:00) New York City Releases 170,000 Documents Related to Post-9/11 Air Quality (~29:40) Former and Current Anthropic Employees Warn of Possible Human Extinction from AI (~40:17) Quick Hitters (~47:10) Rumor Has It: Did a U.S. Court Say We Don't Have a Constitutional Right to Drinking Water? (~51:16) Critical Thinking Segment (~55:55) ⁠Watch⁠ this episode on YouTube. Follow Jordan on ⁠Instagram⁠ and ⁠TikTok⁠. All sources for this episode can be found ⁠here.⁠  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome back to unbiased politics. It's Thursday, September 10th. And we have a lot to talk about. We're talking about the Lindsay Clancy mistrial, a reported plan out of the Trump administration to pay stay-at-home parents, a new TSA program that allows non-flying guests past security, these newly released 9-11 air quality documents, an AI employee warning of possible human extinction, and more. So we're going to start today's episode with the Lindsay Clancy case. However, I do need to copy out this by saying we are not going to be going through all of the facts and evidence. is not going to be a trial recap because realistically, that could take an entire episode. What I want to do today is what I'm good at. I want to focus specifically on the legal side of all of this because there's a lot of confusion about what the jury was supposed to decide, the possible verdicts the jury could have returned, what happens if a holdout juror doesn't follow the law, the insanity defense, reasonable doubt, all of it. So we're going to

answer all of those questions. First, we do have to back up just a little bit and talk about why were here. Lindsay Clancy was charged with murdering her three kids back in January of of 2023. Now, I know there are a lot of theories on social media about whether she actually did it, whether it was really her husband who did it. But I do want to be clear that neither Clancy nor her attorney have ever disputed that she killed the kids. Okay. In fact, just yesterday, Clancy's attorney, Kevin Reddington, defended Clancy's husband. That was in an interview with CBS and, you know, condemned the theories that have to do with Clancy's husband. So this wasn't really a case where the jury was trying to determine who killed the kids.

The issue in this case was whether Clancy was criminally responsible for killing the kids. And we'll touch more on that in a little bit. But first, we need to talk about the fact that Clancy's defense argued that she was suffering from postpartum psychosis and was experiencing a psychotic break when she killed the kids. And therefore, under Massachusetts state law, she wasn't criminally. responsible for what she did. Prosecutors, on the other hand, argued that, yes, Clancy was mentally ill, but she was still criminally responsible. Their position was basically that she deliberately planned the killings. She knew what she was doing and she understood that what she was doing was

wrong. Now, you've probably heard this referred to as the insanity defense, but Massachusetts actually calls it a lack of criminal responsibility. And what's important to understand here is that having a mental illness is not the same or isn't automatically the same thing as being legally insane. So the question for the jury wasn't just whether Lindsay Clancy had postpartum psychosis or some other mental illness. It was what effect that mental condition had on her at the time of the killings. Under Massachusetts law, a person is not criminally responsible for a crime if because of a mental disease or defect, that person lacked the substantial capacity either to appreciate the criminality or wrongfulness of what he or she was doing or to conform his or her conduct to the

requirements of the law. So basically, the jury had to ask one of two things. Was Clancy's mental condition so severe that she couldn't meaningfully understand that what she was doing was wrong? Or even if she did understand it, even if she did understand, you know, that what she was doing was wrong, was she unable to control her behavior and obey the law? If the answer to either of those questions was yes, she lacked criminal responsibility. You don't have to satisfy both. If a mental disease or defect caused someone to lack either one of those substantial capacities, that person lacks criminal responsibility under Massachusetts law. But here's probably the most important thing to understand because people hear insanity defense and assume that, you know,

Lindsay Clancy had to prove that she was insane. She did not. Massachusetts puts the burden on the prosecution. So once lack of criminal responsibility is raised in a case, the Commonwealth has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was criminally responsible. And prosecutors could do that one of two ways. They could prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Clancy didn't have a mental disease

or defect when she killed the kids, or even if she did have a mental disease or defect, prosecutors could still prove she was criminally responsible by showing beyond a reasonable doubt that she could both understand that what she was doing was wrong and control her behavior enough to follow the law. Remember, the test for lack of criminal responsibility says you're not responsible if you lacked either capacity. So if the prosecution accepted that she had a mental disease or defect, it had to prove that she could still do both of those things. Now, before we get into this holdout juror and the reasonable doubt issue, I do want to also explain what the jury's actual verdict options were. So there were three separate verdict forms, one for each child,

and the jury had five possible verdicts on each one. They could find Clancy guilty of first-degree murder, guilty of second degree murder, guilty of manslaughter, not guilty, or not guilty by reason of lack of criminal responsibility. So we're going to walk through each of those. First degree murder could be proven under two different theories in this case. The first was deliberate premeditation. So prosecutors had to prove that Clancy intended to kill the children and made the decision after a period of reflection. And under Massachusetts law, that period of reflection can can happen over days, hours, even a few seconds. So you have to consider killing someone, then you decide to kill that person, and then you carry out that decision. The second theory of

first-degree murder was something called extreme atrocity or cruelty. And Massachusetts actually gives jurors specific factors that they have to consider. So these are things like, you know, whether the defendant's method of killing was reasonably likely to substantially increase or prolong the victim's conscious suffering, whether the defendant was indifferent to or took pleasure in the suffering, whether the means used were excessive compared to what would have been necessary to cause a death. So those are some of the factors that a jury could look at to determine whether this was extreme atrocity or cruelty so as to prove first degree murder. Now, if the jury didn't think prosecutors proved first degree murder, it could consider second degree murder.

Second degree murder required prosecutors to prove the killing and one of the required forms of intent, but without proving those additional factors that elevate murder to first degree. So, for example, maybe the prosecution proved that she killed the kids and had a form of intent in doing so, but didn't prove deliberate premeditation or extreme atrocity or cruelty. That would be second degree murder. If the jury didn't believe prosecutors proved murder at all in the first degree or second degree, it could then consider involuntary manslaughter. For the manslaughter, for the manslaughter theory given to this jury, prosecutors wouldn't have had to prove that Clancy intended for the children to die. They had to prove that she intentionally engaged in the

conduct that caused their deaths and that her conduct was wanton or reckless. Basically, that it created a high degree of likelihood that substantial harm would result from the conduct. And then, separate from deciding which charge fit the evidence, the evidence, the the jury still had to decide whether Clancy was criminally responsible at all. So as an example, a juror could believe that she intentionally killed her children, even that she planned it, but they could still find that she wasn't criminally responsible because of her mental condition. And I think that's where a lot of people are getting confused,

because although prosecutors pointed to things like her sending her husband out of the house as evidence that she planned the killings, planning doesn't automatically mean you are criminally responsible for it under Massachusetts law. The jury still had to separately decide whether because of her mental condition she could understand that what she was doing was wrong and control her behavior enough to follow the law. So now that we hopefully understand all of that, and I know I didn't touch, I only touched on really first degree murder, second degree murder and manslaughter, but also the jury could have found not guilty, you know, at all or not guilty by reason of.

lack of criminal responsibility. So those were two of the, those were the other, I guess, remaining two choices on the jury verdict. So now let's talk about what happened inside this jury room because after seven days and more than 38 hours of deliberations, the jury told the judge for a third time that it was not able to reach a unanimous verdict. And Judge Sullivan did end up declaring a mistrial. But before that happened on the sixth day of deliberations, the jury four person sent the judge a note that said one of the jurors had acknowledged doubt, but refused to apply that doubt to the verdict as required by law. So Clancy's attorney, Kevin Reddington, argued for that juror to be removed on the basis that the juror was not following instructions, was not

following the law. However, the judge said the note did not establish definitively that the juror refused to follow the law and therefore kept the juror on. And there's actually an important difference here because having some sort of doubt isn't necessarily the same thing as having legal reasonable doubt. Okay. So proof beyond a reasonable doubt doesn't mean proof beyond every conceivable or imaginary doubt. A juror can still have questions about the evidence or, you know, things that he isn't 100% certain about, but still ultimately decide that prosecutors prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt. So Judge Sullivan took the position of, yeah, look, you know, the foreperson says this juror has acknowledged some sort of doubt, but that doesn't mean the juror has legally found that the commonwealth failed to meet its burden, right? Those are different things.

And the judge actually questioned the jurors individually about whether they could follow his instructions. And all of them, including the juror, believed to be the holdout, said they could. So Sullivan then, you know, he reminded the jury again, they were required to follow the law, whether they agreed with it or not. and he sent them back for more deliberations. So then the following day, when the jurors sent that final note saying that they just could not reach a unanimous verdict, Clancy's attorneys ended up filing an emergency request with Massachusetts highest court trying to get further review of this juror issue. That request was denied. The trial judge, Judge Sullivan, ultimately declared the mistrial.

And then this week, three members of the jury, including the four person, Ronnie Carlson, spoke to a local news outlet NBC10 Boston about what they say happened inside the jury room. And according to them, the jury was ultimately split 11 to 1 with 11 jurors ready to find Clancy not guilty by reason of lack of criminal responsibility and one male juror refusing to agree. Now, okay, keep in mind that distinction, right? We just said 11 jurors were ready to find her not guilty by reason of lack of criminal responsibility.

Not not guilty altogether, specifically not guilty by reason of lack of criminal responsibility. So essentially, 11 of the jurors felt that the prosecution proved that she killed the kids, but that because of her mental disease, mental defect, she could not be held criminally responsible. So the four person, Carlson, says there was a point during deliberations where she thought they had reached a unanimous verdict because this whole datcher admitted that he had reasonable doubt. So she actually started filling out the three verdict forms and signed them. But then she says the juror told everyone that he still wasn't going to say that Clancy wasn't guilty by reason of insanity. The other jurors who spoke said deliberations

got extremely heated. They said that they were frustrated because they felt that this juror was refusing to apply reasonable doubt the way the judge had told them to. And it caused some commotion inside deliberations. Now, we haven't heard from the holdout juror himself. And we don't know if we will. But until we do, we don't know for sure what he meant when he said he had doubt. Because here's the thing. If what he meant was, I have reasonable doubt that the Commonwealth proved Lindsay Clancy was criminally responsible, but yet still refused to return a verdict of not guilty by reason of lack of criminal responsibility, then yes, that would be very difficult to reconcile with the law. The judge gave this jury. Because remember,

criminal responsibility was something the prosecution had to prove beyond a reasonable doubt. So if a juror concluded that prosecutors failed to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt, Clancy was entitled to the benefit of that doubt. But we don't know that's exactly what he meant. It's possible he was saying he had doubts about certain evidence or certain parts of the case, but, you know, nevertheless believed prosecutors had met the legal standard overall. We just don't know. There's one final thing that I want to explain because I've seen a lot of confusion about this, too.

if the jury had found Clancy not guilty by reason of lack of criminal responsibility, that doesn't mean she would have been released and gone home. Massachusetts has a separate process for someone who is acquitted because they lacked criminal responsibility. If someone is found not guilty by reason of insanity or lack of criminal responsibility, they can be sent to a psychiatric hospital for evaluation and prosecutors can ask the court to keep them there. If a judge decides that a person is still mentally ill and would be dangerous if they were released,

they can stay committed. And those commitments can be renewed over and over and over again. So there isn't necessarily a set date where the person automatically gets out. They could potentially have to stay in a psychiatric facility for years, even for the rest of their life, as long as they continue to meet the requirements for commitment. So that's where we are. There's no conviction. There's also no acquittal.

And because this mistrial was caused by a deadlock jury, double jeopardy does not prevent prosecutors from trying her again. A hung jury is one of the circumstances where the government is allowed to retry a defendant because the first jury never actually reached a final verdict. You might remember this from Karen Reed's trials, which were actually also in Massachusetts. Same thing happened there. In Clancy's case, though, the Plymouth County DA has not said whether Clancy will be retried. there is a status hearing scheduled for September 29th, so perhaps we find out more at that point. But for now, the charges against Clancy remain pending, and we will just have to wait and see what the prosecutors decide to do next. Hopefully that answered most, if not all, of your questions.

Moving on, TSA has launched a new program that will allow people to go through airport security and actually walk all the way to the gate, even if they don't have a plane ticket, which if you're old enough to remember flying before 9-11, was pretty standard at one time. Before September 11th, you didn't need a boarding pass to go through airport security. You could walk someone all the way to their gate. You could meet someone at the gate when their flight landed. That was normal back then. But after 9-11, obviously, airport security changed a lot. One of those changes meant that only people who had tickets could get past security. Now, though, TSA is bringing a version of that back through a new program called a gate side by TSA pre-check. So first, you do have to be a member of TSA pre-check or some other trusted traveler program because those programs give you a known traveler number. Reason being, those people have already gone through a background check and a vetting process.

Then you have to separately apply for a gate side pass for the specific day that you want to go to the airport. TSA says you should apply between one and three days beforehand. And approval isn't guaranteed because airports can limit the number of passes available, particularly during busier times. If you are approved, the pass is completely free. It's valid for one day. You have to bring an acceptable form of ID to the airport and you do have to go through the TSA precheck, the TSA precheck security line, just like you would if you were flying. If you leave the secure area once or through, the pass does allow you to reenter that same day, but you do have to go through the TSA precheck security line again. Children are allowed to come

with an approved adult. they do have to be included on the adults gate side request. So that's the deal with the program. That's the general gist. It is starting pretty small. It's currently available at 13 airports. So that's L.A., Dallas, Fort Worth, Detroit, Las Vegas, Indianapolis, Salt Lake City, San Diego, Little Rock, Wichita, and a couple of others. However, TSA does say it plans to add more airports in phases over the coming months. Now, I don't know if you knew this because I didn't, but this idea isn't totally new. There are actually a handful of airports that have already created their own visitor past programs in recent years. Pittsburgh started one back in 2017. Seattle launched one in 2018,

and then airports like Philadelphia and Kansas City have done something similar. I did not know that. What's different here, though, is that this is obviously a TSA program specifically tied to TSA pre-check and other trusted traveler programs that can be used across participating airports. All right, let's take our first break here. When we come back, back, we will talk about this new stay-at-home parent subsidy proposal. We'll talk about the newly released 9-11 air quality documents and more. Welcome back. The Trump administration is reportedly considering a plan that would allow some stay-at-home parents to receive federal child care money for staying home and taking care of their children. Interestingly, this proposal is causing a

pretty big debate among conservatives over whether this is a pro-family policy or an expansion of the welfare system. And we'll touch more on that debate toward the end of the story. But First, I want to be clear about the fact that this is a draft proposal. It is not final yet. It's not even close. Okay. I've also seen this described as a new $9,000 tax credit for stay at home parents, but that's also not exactly what's happening here. So first, let me explain how this program works right now because this is an expansion or a proposed expansion of an already existing program. So the childcare and development fund is a roughly $12 billion federal program that sends money to states to help lower income families afford child care. States then use that money to subsidize things like daycare or another child care provider while the parent either goes to work, goes to school, or goes through job training. So if you're a single mom who can't afford daycare but you need someone to watch your kid while you go to work, you might qualify for a subsidy that helps pay for the daycare provider. Now, under federal law, a child can generally qualify if the child is under 13 years old. The family's income is no more than 85% of that state's median income, although states can set a lower income limit. And the child lives with a parent or parents who are working or in school or going through job training.

There's also an exception for children who need protective services. But under this new draft proposal, the administration would create what it calls a new category of parent-based child care. So a married couple could qualify when one parent stays home. and personally cares for the child, as long as the other spouse works at least 35 hours a week and the family meets the program's income requirements. So instead of the government helping pay a daycare or another provider to watch your kid while you work, the government would be helping compensate a parent for staying home and doing the child care themselves. Now, at least under the draft that's been reported, this would apply specifically to married couples. So if you're

married, have kids, one of you works at least 35 hours while the other stays home, you could potentially qualify for this new program depending on income. But this current draft does not apply to unmarried couples or single parents. So if you're unmarried, yet you, you know, you live with your partner and you guys have kids and one of you works 35 hours. As this draft is reported, this would not apply to you. As far as how much money a parent would receive, that's also something we don't know for sure. You may have seen this reported as $9,000 per kid per year. That number actually comes from the existing CCDF program, which provides about $9,000 in assistance per child each year. The new proposal would create this stay-at-home parent benefit inside that same program and

using the same pool of money and the same existing income requirements, which is why that $9,000 number is being used as an estimate. But the draft doesn't specifically say that every stay-at-home parent would receive $9,000 per child per year. We don't know exactly how those payments would be calculated yet, and the amount could end up being different. Now, Vice President Vance has apparently been one of the biggest proponents of this idea. Vance has actually argued for years that federal family policy shouldn't effectively favor families who use paid child care over families who make the financial sacrifice to have a parent stay home. And supporters of this policy make that same argument. They argue that the government is already spending thousands of dollars to help somebody else

take care of a child. So why should a family lose access to that just because the mom or dad is the person that's providing the care? In fact, Roger Severino from the Heritage Foundation, who wrote the child care section of Project 2025, argued that the current system discriminates against stay-at-home parents. His position is that family should have more control over how this money is used. If the government is willing to help pay for a commercial daycare, it should also recognize the value of a parent staying home. Now, the biggest criticism of the proposal has to do with where this money comes from. The administration isn't proposing, at least right now, to create a separate pot of money for stay-at-home parents. It would use the same child care and development fund that

currently helps working families afford outside child care. As I said before, the federal government provides roughly $12 billion for the program, at least it did for fiscal year 2026, and data shows that the program already serves hundreds of thousands of families every month. So critics argue that if you now make this whole new group of people or families eligible, yet Congress doesn't put more money into the program, everyone is now competing for the same pot of money. And as I kind of briefly mentioned in the beginning of the story, some of the criticism is actually coming from people who support helping stay-at-home parents. So for example, Patrick Brown, he's with a conservative family policy group. He said he supports giving more help to stay-at-home parents, but he doesn't think

this is the right way to do it because expanding eligibility without expanding the funding could end being a disadvantage to the current recipients, particularly single-working parents. And then there's also this other big debate, specifically within conservatives where, you know, you have people like conservative commentator Michael Knowles who says this is one of the most pro-family policies that the administration could pursue. And his argument is that we're already spending this money to help families pay for child care. So why should the government only help if you pay somebody else to watch your kid? That's the same argument as Vance, right?

Same argument as some supporters of this proposal. But then you have other conservatives saying, okay, but if we're supposed to be the party of smaller government, why are we finding more ways to hand out government money? So you have, you know, conservatives like Dana Lash, Tommy Lerrin, and Jenna Ellis, who argue that the government shouldn't be expanding government benefits in the first place. Lash has called this part of what she describes as the quote unquote new socialist right. Laren has compared to the idea that has compared this idea, this proposal to government payouts that we saw during COVID. And Ellis has argued that taxpayers shouldn't be paying someone to stay home with their own children. But again,

on the flip side, supporters say this isn't creating a new pot of government money. It's not expanding, you know, how much money the government's doling out. It would just change who can access the money that Congress is already spending on daycare. And then you have that third argument, which is like arguing with both of these things that the money that's already there that's been appropriated by Congress isn't enough money. So there's debates on all sides of this. But aside from the debates, there are also a couple of legal questions here. The first one has to do with Congress, because Congress created this CCDF program through federal law.

So the administration can't just rewrite, you know, the law that it wants to through a new rule. The law currently defines an eligible child as one who, among other things, lives with a parent or parents who are working or attending a job training or educational program. So, you know, the administration can't just rewrite the law. And then there's actually another provision. in that same law that specifically says the HHS secretary doesn't have the authority to allow

states to change the eligibility requirements involving things like parents work, education, or job training requirements. So if the administration ultimately does try to do this without Congress, one legal question could be whether allowing one married parent to get paid for staying home while the other parent works is a permissible interpretation of existing law or whether this effectively changes a work requirement that only Congress can change, because only Congress can change the laws that it writes. The other potential legal issue involves the marriage requirements. There's a question about whether the administration can legally and perhaps constitutionally

offer this benefit to married couples but leave out unmarried couples in similar situations. But again, this isn't a final rule. This is a draft that can still change. Now, once the draft is done, it would first. seen White House approval and then HHS would have to publish the proposed rule. And once the rule is published, it then opens up this period where the public can make comments before the agency can actually finalize it. So we still have a ways to go here. All right, next story. Tomorrow marks 25 years since the September 11th attacks. And New York City just released more than 170,000 pages

of records dealing with the air quality around ground zero after the attacks, including internal memos, contamination reports, environmental testing, and some of these records raised some pretty big questions about what information existed inside city government at the time that all of this was happening versus what New Yorkers were being told. So obviously, you know, when the World Trade Center collapsed, this massive cloud of dust and debris spread throughout lower Manhattan, that dust contained all kinds of materials from buildings, asbestos, glass fibers, metals, concrete chemicals, et cetera. And in the weeks and months after the attacks, you had thousands of first responders that were actively working at Ground Zero. And then you also had the people who lived and worked

nearby who were being told that they could return to the area. And during that time, city, state, and federal officials repeatedly reassured the public that outside of Ground Zero, outside of that immediate disaster site, the air was generally safe. So as an example, on September 16th, 2001, which was obviously five days after the attack, the New York City Health Department said that based on the asbestos testing that it had received so far, the risk of short or long-term health effects for the general public was quote-unquote very low. Then on September 28th, the mayor's office acknowledged that there were occasional reading

showing high and unacceptable levels of asbestos, but at the time, officials described them as isolated and said the air quality was, quote, safe and acceptable, end quote. In October, the then city commissioner for environmental protection reportedly told residents of downtown Manhattan that the dust and the debris from the collapse were, quote, not a health concern, end quote. And then you also had federal officials who were also reassuring the public. So Christine Todd Whitman, for example, who was running the EPA at the time, made similar statements reassuring New Yorkers about air quality. said at a news conference, quote, the good news continues to be that the air samples have all been at levels that cause us no concern. End quote.

But these newly released records show that behind the scenes, some parts of city government were also getting information that was more concerning. So for example, on October 6th, 2001, Associate Health Commissioner Kelly McKinney wrote this internal memo where she said that the city's Department of Environmental Protection didn't believe the air quality in certain areas was ready for people to move back in, but also said in that memo that the mayor's office was under pressure from buildings and business owners to reopen more of lower Manhattan and that she had been told that the mayor's office was instructing officials to reopen some of those areas the following week.

Then in November of 2001, in audit submitted to the EPA, found spikes of benzene, which is a carcinogen. that was near the footprint of the towers, so at Ground Zero. And then the report also found increasing levels of asbestos at the Fresh Kills Landfall, which is where World Trade Center debris was being taken. Records from the former Deutsche Bank building that was right next door to Ground Zero also showed high levels of asbestos, along with carcinogenic chemicals and heavy metals. That was between September 2001 and April of 2002. And then 10 months after the attack, inspectors were still finding asbestos, at 15 John Street, which is about half a mile away from the World Trade Center. So those are just

a few examples. But one of the more interesting documents in this entire release is something called the Harding memo. Now, this was an internal memo written in October 2001 to Robert Harding, who was one of Giuliani's deputy mayors at the time. And the purpose of the memo was to answer what New York City could do to limit its potential legal liability from September 11th. And And when the memo listed the kinds of lawsuits the city could potentially face, one of them specifically involved city health advisories causing people to return to lower Manhattan too soon, resulting in toxic exposure. And then the memo went on to discuss ways that the city could protect itself from some of those lawsuits. One idea was asking Congress to create a compensation fund, similar to the one Congress had already created for the victims of the actual airplane crashes. and then another one was asking the federal government to indemnify the city, which means the federal

government would agree to cover some or all of the city's legal liability if people did successfully sue. The memo specifically said that those things could help with what it called toxic tort cases that might arise over the following decades. Obviously now, we know that the health effects of 9-11 persisted long into the future, at least 140,000 people from all 50 states are enrolled in the World Trade Center Health Program, and according to the 9-11 Memorial, about 49,000 people have been diagnosed with cancers that have been certified as World Trade Center related. At the time, though, not everyone was aware of what this kind of disaster would lead to as far as health effects. So that, I mean, that's kind of big picture. But why are we

seeing all of this now? Well, there's a group called 9-11 Health Watch that has spent years trying to get these records through New York's freedom of information law, which is New York's version of FOIA, the law that lets people request government documents. And eventually the group sued the city because it wasn't getting the documents that it was asking for. And as that lawsuit played out, the city kept searching for more and more documents. And in 2005, officials say they found 68 boxes containing a lot of records that are now being released. But at the time, said that the earlier records request had failed to turn these records. up. So the

Mamdani administration has now settled two lawsuits with 9-11 Health Watch and created this online portal where anyone can search through these records themselves. The city has said that this is the first batch and that officials will continue reviewing and releasing more records over the next year. Momdani has been very clear about what he believes

these documents show. He said in part quote, people got sick because the leaders they trusted lied and told them they were safe to breathe in toxic air. And quote, John Stewart who has spent years advocating for 9-11 first responders similarly accused previous administrations of essentially burying information about what the city knew. However, you also have some former officials who are pushing back on the idea that there was some sort of deliberate cover up. One of those officials is Thomas von Essen. He was New York

City's fire commissioner on September 11th. He served under Rudy Giuliani. He told News Nation this week that he attended a lot of the meetings and the aftermath of the attacks. And he says he never saw officials intentionally trying to hide information about the air. He said, quote, I don't remember Giuliani ever being like that. It was never keep this a secret or whatever. And quote, he, Bonesson said that everyone knew that the air directly at ground zero was bad. He said that wasn't a secret. But in those first few weeks, they didn't know exactly how dangerous the contamination throughout the rest of the city was. He said the initial reports that officials received indicated that the air outside the immediate site was okay, but he doesn't think that officials at the time understood

just how serious the long-term health consequences would eventually become. Now, Von Essen did also acknowledge that these newly released records could have been useful much earlier. He said that if doctors had this, had access to some of this information back in 2002 or 2003, he thinks they might have been able to better help the people who got sick. So again, these newly released records absolutely show that parts of the city were actively documenting concerning information about contamination and therefore there were people who were on notice about this. These documents also show city officials were already thinking about the potential legal liability from toxic exposure. Now, at the same time, they don't necessarily prove on their own that every official

who was making public statements about the air quality knew those statements were false when they were making them. But nonetheless, that is what's going on with those documents. Just kind shows us that people were aware at the time that this air quality was not great. Let's take our second and final break here. And when we come back, we'll talk about this new AI warning from a former anthropic researcher. And then we'll finish with quick hitters, rumor has it, and critical thinking. Welcome back. An anthropic employee caused quite a stir this week when he said that there's more than a 10% chance that AI could kill all humans by 2036.

So let's talk about it. On Tuesday, former Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon announced on X that he was resigning from Anthropic and leaving the AI industry altogether. Anthropic, by the way, is the company that makes Claude. Coxon also previously worked at OpenAI as well. But in his post, he wrote in part, quote, I resigned from Anthropic today. I spent the last three years doing pre-training research at both Anthropic and Open AI. Neither company is acting responsibly.

They are racing straight to self-improving super-intelligent. and gambling with our lives. The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade. This is not a marketing stunt, if anything. Many executives and senior researchers will couch their phrasing in the press to sound sensible, but I hear the same people express fear privately. No other human activity poses this level of danger, end quote. So after he wrote that, a man named Evan Hubinger, who's in alignment science lead at Anthropic.

I'll explain what that is in a minute, quoted Coxon's posts and wrote, quote, Jacob is correct here. We really do earnestly believe AI could kill all humans. I personally think it is greater than 10% within the next decade. I believe Anthropic is trying its best, but we do not yet have a plan to solve alignment for super intelligence and are not clearly on track to do so. End quote. He then wrote another post that said, quote, to be clear, as we say in our latest risk report, I think the risk from present models is low. What I'm worried about is super intelligence arising from recursive self-improvement, as we have said, is happening faster than we thought, end quote. So the concern from both of these individuals is what's called self-improving super intelligence.

Super intelligence is the idea of an AI system becoming better than humans at almost every major thinking tasks. So things like writing software, doing scientific research, solving complex math problems, analyzing very large amounts of information, making strategic decisions, even helping design new technology. And when we talk about self-improvement and superintelligence, the concern is what happens if AI also becomes better than humans at improving AI itself? If that happens, it could help build a smarter version of itself, and then that smarter version could help build an even smarter one after that and on and on and on. So the fear is that at some point, the technology could start improving so quickly that humans can't fully understand what it's doing or keep up with

controlling it. And the main issue researchers talk about here is something called alignment, which means making sure AI does what humans intend for it to do. So the concern is that humans could give an AI system a goal. The system pursues that goal in a way that we didn't necessarily anticipate and eventually the system becomes capable enough that we can't correct it or shut it down. So remember just a few minutes ago, I said that the one guy is the alignment science lead to Anthropic. He's part of the alignment team. The alignment team is responsible for figuring out how to keep AI under human control as it gets smarter. So they test these AI models to see whether they can do anything dangerous or unexpected. They figure out how humans can supervise AI that

might eventually become smarter than we are. They try to make sure that the safety measures we have today still work as the technology becomes more powerful. So that's what the alignment team is responsible for. But I want to talk about this 10% numbers. So Huberinger said that, and I don't know if it's Huber or Huberinger, but regardless, he says that his personal estimate is greater than a 10% chance within the next decade. He did not explain exactly how he arrived at that number, but he did kind of explain what's behind his concern when he said that even though he believes Anthropic is trying its best to develop AI safely, they don't yet have a plan to solve alignment for super intelligence and aren't clearly on track to solve it. In other words, he's worried that we

might be moving toward much more powerful AI before researchers have figured out how to keep something that powerful under human control. Now, there's disagreement over how seriously we should take an estimate like 10%, right? So some AI researchers think that extinction scenarios require our attention right now. Others argue that when we assign percentages like this to an unprecedented and hypothetical event, it creates a sort of false sense of accuracy. Now, keep in mind for human extinction to be on the table, we would have to actually build superintelligence because as of today, superintelligence doesn't exist yet, then lose control of it, give it access to enough real world resources to cause catastrophic harm and fail to stop it. Okay, so, you know, there's still

a ways to go. However, two things can be true, right? While these risks may seem far-fetched right now at the same time, think about how much these AI capabilities have advanced in just a few years. And that's kind of why Huberinger's argument is that even if nobody knows whether the real probability is 1%, 10% or 30%, if you think there's any meaningful chance that the technology you're building could cause human extinction, extinction, you should probably take that risk seriously. Now, I know a lot of people wonder how AI could even kill humans. So I do want to run through a few scenarios. This is not meant to scare you. This is just meant to inform you. One is cyber attacks. an extremely capable AI could potentially hack things like power grids, hospitals, water treatment plants,

communication networks, et cetera. And they could potentially hack these things on a scale that humans couldn't keep up with. Another is biological weapons. So for example, you know, could an advanced AI help someone figure out how to create a new deadly virus? Could it figure out how to make an existing virus spread more easily or become more deadly? Could it help someone create a toxin that could kill a lot of people? So there's that too. And then there's just this bigger concern that we we just lose control of it, right? So imagine you eventually have an AI that's smarter than we are and can make its own decisions and can do things on its own and has access to things like the internet or bank accounts or machines. If it starts doing something we don't want it to,

would we be able to stop it? But again, none of this is happening today. These are hypothetical scenarios involving AI that would be far more capable than the systems we currently have. The concern, though, is that we can eventually build something that powerful before we have figured out how to make sure we can control it. All right, let's do some quick hitters. Republicans are holding their first ever national convention during a midterm election year this week in Dallas. It's a two-day event at the American Airlines Center and it's focused on Republican candidates and the party's message heading into November elections. Typically, when we see conventions or party conventions, they involve formally nominating a candidate or,

you know, conducting the usual business of a presidential convention, but this is a little bit different. President Trump appeared on the first night. He is scheduled to appear again today. Vice President Vance is also scheduled to speak. And in some related news, while Trump spoke last night at the convention, he promised a $5,000 stipend to every American citizen if Republicans maintain control of both the House and Senate in November's midterm elections. He called the payments a Trump dividend and said the money would have to be spent in the United States. However, he did not provide details about how these payments would be funded or distributed. Notably, a program like this would require approval from Congress. And Vice President Vance did tell Fox News later

that night that the payments could exclude wealthier Americans and suggested tariff revenue as a way to help pay for them. The Supreme Court blocked Missouri from using a new Republican-drawn congressional map in the November midterm elections, leaving the state's previous map in place for now. The Republican-led legislature approved the new map last year after President Trump urged the state to re-rejure. odds districts. And the changes could have helped Republicans win seven of Missouri's eight house seats. A federal judge previously issued an order requiring the state to use the new map, but the Supreme Court today temporarily blocked that ruling. And Missouri voters are scheduled to vote on the new map in November. The Trump administration is proposing changes to the 2030 census,

including excluding undocumented immigrants and potentially some people who are legally in the U.S. but don't have lawful permanent resident status. And if excluded, this would this would exclude those individuals from the population totals that are used to determine how many house seats each state receives. The Census Bureau says it would do this by changing how it defines someone's quote unquote usual residence, which has historically been based largely on where a person lives rather than their citizenship or immigration status. The proposal would also remove questions about race and ethnicity from the main census.

and prohibit questions about sexual orientation. Now, as I briefly mentioned, the 14th Amendment does say that House seats are apportioned based on the whole number of persons in each state, not just citizens. So excluding non-citizens from that count would face legal challenges. The proposal is not final. It is currently going through the federal rulemaking process. The NTSB says one of the pilots of the Amazon contracted cargo plane that crashed at the Miami International Airport, repeatedly warned that the aircraft was going quote unquote too fast during the

final approach and after touchdown. However, investigators did not identify which pilot made the warnings. The cockpit recording also captured several automated alerts, including sink rate and too low terrain. And the NTSB says there was not a consistent verbal response to the warnings about speed. Flight data shows the pilots did briefly attempt a go around after landing, but they abandoned it and, you know, started breaking again. Investigators also found no indication that the plane's speed breaks or thrust reversers were deployed before it overran the runway, signaling that the plane may not have used two of the main systems that help an aircraft slow down after landing. The NTSB does say these findings are preliminary and the investigation into the cause of the crash is ongoing.

And the TSA is reportedly considering allowing some pre-check passengers to bring full water bottles through airport security. According to reports, the change would initially be limited to certain airports that use advanced CT scanners that are capable of distinguishing water from other liquids, but it's not yet clear which airports would participate, and the TSA does not currently have enough of the equipment or the funding to expand the policy nationwide. Okay. It's time for rumor has it, my weekly segment where I address recent rumors submitted by all of you and do my best to confirm them, dispel them, or add context. Today, we have one. Rumor has it that a U.S. court ruled Americans have no constitutional right to safe

drinking water. This one is true. Let's add some context. So this case was specifically about whether safe drinking water is protected by the U.S. Constitution. Okay. This case comes out of Jackson, Mississippi, where residents sued the city as well as several current and former officials over long running issues with the city's water system. And the residents allege that city officials took affirmative actions that caused or worsened the lead contamination in their drinking water and then continued telling people that the water was safe, even though the officials knew that there were serious issues. Now, the residents sued under a federal law called Section 1983, which allows you to sue state or local officials for violating your federal constitutional rights. So for example, if a police officer

uses excessive force against you in violation of the Fourth Amendment, section 1983 is what allows you to sue that officer for violating your constitutional rights. But in order to successfully sue under section 1983, you have to point to something in the Constitution that protects you. So in this case, the residents pointed to the 14th Amendment. And they argued that knowingly exposing them to lead contaminated water violated their constitutional right to bodily integrity. And they also relied on something called the state created danger doctrine, which says that, you know, while the government normally doesn't have a constitutional duty to protect you from every danger, there can be situations where the government itself creates or makes a danger.

worse. And initially, a three judge panel on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals allowed the resident's bodily integrity claim to move forward. But then the full Fifth Circuit reheard the case on Bonk, which means a much larger group of judges on the appeals court reconsidered the earlier decision. And last week, the full court ruled 10 to 5 against the residents. And as part of that ruling, the majority said, quote, the Constitution does not guarantee clean water. And quote, But in actuality, the residents weren't arguing that the government has to, you know, has a constitutional obligation to provide everyone with clean water. Their argument was that once the city chose to provide water, it couldn't take actions that allegedly contaminated that water and send it into people's homes, tell them it was safe and cause them harm without violating the Constitution, specifically the 14th Amendment. But the majority rejected that argument.

The judges said the Constitution does not guarantee competent public service. and they weren't willing to expand the constitutional right to bodily integrity, which traditionally has involved more direct government intrusions into someone's body to cover the alleged mismanagement of a public water system. The court also rejected the idea that residents have a constitutional right to receive accurate information from government officials about contaminants in their water. The judges said officials absolutely should tell people the truth about something like this, but something being good policy or morally right is different than something being guaranteed by the Constitution. What's interesting, though, is that other federal

appeals courts have decided similar cases differently. The Sixth Circuit, for example, allowed residents of Flint, Michigan to pursue constitutional bodily integrity claims over allegations that government officials knowingly expose them to lead contaminated water. And in fact, the Fifth Circuit acknowledged that decision, but said, that it disagreed with the Sixth Circuit's reasoning. So as of now, this new ruling is binding on the Fifth Circuit, which covers Mississippi, Texas, and Louisiana. This was not a Supreme Court ruling, though, so it doesn't create a nationwide rule. It doesn't apply to any state other than Mississippi, Texas, and Louisiana. Because there is a circuit split, so the Sixth Circuit ruled one way,

fifth circuit ruled another way, we might see this go to the Supreme Court. I mean, in reality, the residents in Jackson can appeal this case to the Supreme Court. It'll be up to the Supreme Court to take it. They don't have to take it. But typically when there's a circuit split like this, they're more inclined to take it. But again, they don't have to take it. And also keep in mind that finding there's no constitutional right to clean drinking water doesn't mean there aren't laws that require drinking water to be safe. The Fifth Circuit actually acknowledge this. And in its ruling, it basically said that that's where these claims belong. under statutes rather than by creating a new constitutional right under the 14th Amendment. But yes, a federal appeals court did rule that the constitution itself does not guarantee clean water. For today's critical thinking segment, we're going to go back to that AI story. The first question is this. If AI can potentially do great things like cure diseases, extend human life, solve major scientific problems, create massive economic benefits, how much risk would you be willing to accept to get those benefits. And two, if nobody can tell us whether the risk of human

extinction is 1%, 10%, 30%, something else, how are we supposed to decide when the risk is high enough that we should slow down? Is the possibility of something that's catastrophic enough, even 1%, or do we need stronger evidence before we start limiting this technology that can serve a beneficial purpose. If we need stronger evidence, what does stronger evidence look like to you? That's what I have for you. Thank you so much for being here, as always. If you love today's show, if you learn something, please leave me a five-star review wherever you listen. Those five-star reviews really help with SEO, helps other people find the show and ultimately tune in. And then I can keep doing this for a very long time. So thank you very much. I hope you have a fantastic weekend.

And I will talk to you on Monday.