The Excerpt

A USA TODAY exclusive investigation found thousands of in-custody deaths that could have been easily prevented. USA TODAY Investigative Data Reporter Austin Fast explains what the records reveal about sepsis, medical neglect and the human cost for families left behind. He shares stories from jails and prisons across the country, including people who died waiting for basic care and inmates who feared punishment for asking for help.

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Before a Supreme Court ruling in 2018 opened the flood gates to legalized sports betting across the country, the proposition bet or prop bet – picking one statistic in a game to place a wager on that has nothing to do with the game’s outcome - wasn’t a big factor in online sports betting. Now it’s ubiquitous, causing a huge headache for leagues and making fans question the integrity of the games. USA TODAY Sports Reporter Steve Gardner joins The Excerpt to explain.

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If the meteoric rise of New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani illustrates one thing, it’s this: affordability, or a lack thereof, has energized young voters. But that’s not the only term voters and politicians are buzzing about. Mamdani is also a member of the Democratic Socialists of America. What does that even mean in 2025? USA TODAY Chief Political Correspondent Phillip M. Bailey joins The Excerpt for more on all things Mamdani and what it might mean for the party that lost control of all three branches of government in the 2024 elections.

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The Epstein files are back in the news, with fresh speculation about how deep President Donald Trump’s involvement goes. A new trove of 20,000 pages released last week has everyone talking about how much Trump knew and when did he know it? Cue the coming House vote on releasing the full batch of documents that has been supposedly sitting on US Attorney General Pam Bondi’s desk since she took office. What has this latest batch of Epstein documents reveal? And what are the chances that we’ll see even more before the year is out? USA TODAY White House Correspondent Bart Jansen joins The Excerpt to discuss the fallout.

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Teenagers are increasingly using AI chatbots for friendship, emotional support, and even romance. When 14-year-old Soul Setzer III formed an intense bond with a character on Character AI, his mother didn’t know what was happening until it was too late. USA TODAY Wellness Reporter Alyssa Goldberg walks us through the lawsuit, the platform’s design, what her own testing revealed and new research showing how widespread — and risky — AI relationships have become for minors.

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In honor of World Kindness Day — we’ve partnered with the Humankind team at USA TODAY for a deeper exploration on the topic of compassion. What drives us to carry out acts of kindness for total strangers and how can we actively cultivate this selflessness as a society? Abigail Marsh, Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Georgetown University, joins The Excerpt to talk about empathy and altruism — why we help, even when it costs us. 

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Nobody seems to have gotten everything they wanted out of the longest shutdown in U.S. history. Not the Democrats. Not the Republicans. And definitely not the American people whose healthcare premiums are set to dramatically rise in 2026, whose SNAP benefits aren't yet fully funded and whose air travel has been greatly disrupted. Was it worth it? USA TODAY Congress reporter Zach Schermele joins The Excerpt to talk through the fallout.

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College football season this year is…. different. How so, you ask? It’s not just the breakout success of Indiana’s Hoosiers and the crushing disappointment of Penn State, although those are both noteworthy developments. It’s the golden parachutes being doled out to bad coaches from public schools. Some of the biggest parachutes we’ve so far include Penn State’s payout to coach James Franklin to the tune of $49 million dollars. We also have another big payout to Brian Kelly at LSU. So far across the country, we’re looking at millions in go-away payouts for failing college football coaches from public colleges, colleges where many students continue to take on exorbitant debt to earn a degree. Is this okay? USA TODAY Senior National College Football Writer Matt Hayes and USA TODAY Sports Project Reporter Steve “Berk” Berkowitz join USA TODAY’s The Excerpt to dig into all of it.

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After record highs in 2024, border crossings have collapsed. ICE raids, deportations and new asylum limits are now driving a wave of reverse migration. Arizona Republic Immigration Reporter Daniel González shares what he saw in Mexico and Panama — and what comes next.

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It wasn’t so long ago that America’s fisheries were in a state of collapse, with cratering fish stocks and well-meaning but impractical government regulations threatening the livelihoods of 1.6 million people and a $180 billion dollar industry. But then, an unlikely alliance of environmental activists and commercial fishermen kind of miraculously turned things around, leaving the nation’s four million square miles of fishing grounds healthier -- and more profitable -- than they’ve been in decades. Buddy Guindon, a commercial fisherman on the Texas Gulf Coast, and Scott Hickman, a charter fisherman who once saw Buddy and his ilk as ruthless competitors for ever-more-elusive fish join The Excerpt to share their stories.

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