The Hound | Sept. 21

The Trump admin. covered up U.S. troop deaths in Iran, the U.N. gathers in NYC this week, and more.

September 21, 2026

Hi there,

It’s Monday. Alex Gibney's four-hour documentary on Elon Musk premiered to five-minute standing ovations at Venice and earned strong reviews. Comcast-owned Universal Pictures paid millions for international distribution rights. Now, sources say Universal is getting "cold feet." The reason, per The Hollywood Reporter: the film is "politically sensitive for parts of the Trump administration."

This is censorship by cowardice. Musk has already threatened Gibney with legal action — the act of a man who calls himself a "free speech absolutist" while trying to suppress a documentary about his own record. And this isn't isolated: Amazon MGM also dropped a film this year to avoid angering a tech oligarch. The public deserves both the film and the truth about why it almost didn't reach them.

In addition, grand juries and judges are swatting down federal prosecutions against anti-ICE protesters at a historic rate. And to fully tackle AI regulation, Congress needs to rebuild its own brain trust of experts.

Read about these, and more, in today’s stories:

Until next time,

Harry from The Hound

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