On Saturday’s episode of The Excerpt podcast: An Illinois sheriff will retire in the wake of the deputy killing of Sonya Massey. Sixty-one people are dead after a plane crash in Brazil. USA TODAY Personal Finance Reporter Daniel de Visé talks about new rules for withdrawing from a 401(k). Americans are in favor of reforming the Supreme Court, according to a new USA TODAY/Ipsos poll. USA TODAY World Affairs Correspondent Kim Hjelmgaard reports from Paris on the inclusion of amateur athletes in a unique marathon. Plus, Olympic events wrap up this weekend. Here's a schedule.

Hit play on the player below to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript beneath it. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.

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Taylor Wilson:

Good morning. I'm Taylor Wilson and today is Saturday, August 10th, 2024. This is The Excerpt. Today, an Illinois sheriff will retire amid criticism over the killing of Sonya Massey, plus the latest from Brazil after a devastating plane crash, and it's the final weekend of the Olympics in Paris.

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Sangamon County Sheriff, Jack Campbell says he will retire amid criticism over the killing of Sonya Massey in Illinois. The head of the agency since 2018 said in a statement that he will retire no later than the end of this month. The July 6th killing of Massey in her own home has sparked national outcry over police brutality and led to demonstrations and a federal probe by the Justice Department. Former Deputy, Sean P. Grayson has been charged with three counts of first degree murder in connection with Massey's death. Grayson claims he fired his gun after fearing Massey would throw boiling liquid at him, according to a sheriff's office report released to the public. Noted civil rights attorney, Ben Crump, who represents the Massey family, said in a statement yesterday evening that Campbell's impending retirement marks a turning point in the Massey case. For more, tune into Monday's show when I speak with USA Today National Correspondent, Trevor Hughes, about his reporting on the ground in Springfield, talking with members of Sonya Massey's family pressing for accountability.

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A regional plane carrying 61 people crashed yesterday in a residential neighborhood in Brazil, killing everyone on board, according to the airline. In a social media post, Voepass, a regional airline based in Sao Paulo State, confirmed the crash of its flight and said 57 passengers and four crew members were on board, all carrying Brazil-issued documents. Brazil's UOL news channel reported at least three passengers were refused entry to the plane before it took off. Marcelo Moreno, who leads Brazil's Aviation Incident Investigation Center, cautioned in a news briefing that it was still too early to determine the cause of the crash, but said that it appeared the aircraft did not reach out to traffic control reporting an emergency.

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Do you need 1,000 bucks to cover an unexpected expense? Starting this year, you may be able to withdraw the money from your 401(k) with relative ease. I spoke with USA Today Personal Finance Reporter, Daniel De Vise to learn more. Daniel, always great having you on. Thanks for making the time.

Daniel De Vise:

It's a pleasure.

Taylor Wilson:

So Daniel, what do these new rules allow when it comes to withdrawing from a 401(k) for an emergency?

Daniel De Vise:

Yeah, as I understand it, starting this year, you can take basically a quick $1,000 out of your 401(k) for an emergency that you define yourself. If you think you have an emergency, you can say so and you can get the money, and the Wall Street Journal in a headline said it was like turning your retirement account into an emergency ATM.

Taylor Wilson:

And how do taxes apply on this?

Daniel De Vise:

I'm actually asking the IRS because this is complicated. If you use this new emergency withdrawal provision, you can take up to 1,000 bucks and you can do it once a year, and I think that you end up having to pay regular income tax, but I'm reading it from some sources that you may be able to avoid the income tax if you pay the money back. It's not clear to me exactly how you'd pay it back, but that's something I'm actually asking the IRS folks to answer.

The important thing is that you avoid the penalty, which I think is a 10% penalty that you would normally pay if you take money early out of a 401(k). So in other words, if you or I just went and raided our 401(k) account right now, without explanation, you'd pay income tax and you'd pay a whopping 10% penalty on the money.

Taylor Wilson:

Yeah, so then is that the big difference from other withdrawal possibilities from retirement accounts?

Daniel De Vise:

That's right, and that's what makes this maybe a more attractive thing for maybe a lower income family that's more struggling to open a 401(k). It's kind of a drawback to the 401(k). You can't easily get the money out if you need it, right? But with this emergency withdrawal provision, let's say you have a car repair that comes up or a really big air conditioning bill and you just don't have the funds in your salary, you can take a few 100 bucks or even 1,000 bucks out with very minimal consequences to your taxes. It makes the money feel more available to you. Not quite like an emergency savings account, but close, right?

Taylor Wilson:

Yeah. So as you say, minimal tax consequences, Daniel. So should folks take advantage of these rules? What do experts say here?

Daniel De Vise:

Well, this is a very difficult question because it's retirement money. You're not supposed to raid your retirement savings until you retire. My source from Vanguard was telling me, "You're better off, of course, if you have a savings account, an emergency savings account." You put $1,000 in there, $5,000, $10,000. I've heard estimates as high as $20,000 or 30,000. That's hard to do, but if you can do it, use that money to pay for the car repair, use that money to pay for the emergency dental extraction. Don't take money out of your retirement.

The reason is if you take money out of your 401(k), even if you eventually put it back, you're missing out on a lot of the interest that that money would've earned. And if you keep doing it, if you keep going back to the well year after year and taking out $1,000 here and $1,000 there, you'll ultimately sap your retirement savings, and then you won't have the money when you retire.

Taylor Wilson:

Yep, great point. Great insight as always. Daniel De Vise covers personal finance for USA Today. Thank you, sir.

Daniel De Vise:

Thank you.

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Taylor Wilson:

Americans are overwhelmingly in favor of reforming the Supreme Court along lines proposed by President Joe Biden, even as approval for the high court is marked by a political divide, that's according to a new USA Today Ipsos poll. 76% of Americans support a binding code of conduct for the Supreme Court, according to the poll. The result comes after more than a year of revelations that Justice Clarence Thomas failed to disclose receiving millions of dollars worth of free luxury trips and other gifts. On the question of whether the Justices make decisions based on the law or their partisan political views, 65% of Democrats said politics drove the court, while 51% of independents and just 26% of Republicans agreed. Meanwhile, some 66% of Republicans had a very favorable or somewhat favorable view of the court, while 71% of Democrats had a very unfavorable or somewhat unfavorable opinion. The court has a conservative majority. You can read more of the poll's findings with a link in today's show notes.

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As the Olympics wrap up this weekend, the men's and women's marathons will be held today and tomorrow respectively, but in-between, there's an Olympic first, as some 20,000 amateur athletes get set to run in a marathon of their own tonight. I spoke with USA Today World Affairs Correspondent, Kim Hjelmgaard, for more from Paris. Kim, thanks for making the time.

Kim Hjelmgaard:

Thanks for having me.

Taylor Wilson:

So Kim, tell us about this Olympic first, amateur athletes in a marathon? What is this?

Kim Hjelmgaard:

Yeah, it's right. It's an initiative that the Paris organizers have decided to do this year. It's never happened before, and basically, about 400,000 or 500,000 people around the world applied to take part in one of two events. One is a marathon and another is a 10K race, but it's not as straightforward as that. The courses are the exact same courses that the Olympic athletes are using, so they do it within the same security perimeter. They do it, they get medals. There's lots of fanfare associated with it. So it's like an opportunity basically for, "Ordinary people," to follow in the footsteps of Olympians, to try to have some sort of experience of what it's like to compete in the Games even though they're not actually competing.

Taylor Wilson:

Right. So what was the qualifying process or the criteria like for these folks to get involved?

Kim Hjelmgaard:

Most marathons, competitive ones, you've got to qualify with a certain time. In this case, there's no qualifying time because they wanted to try to keep it, what the organizers say is, as inclusive as possible. Instead, they set people these different challenges. You had to download an app, you had to get a Garmin style sports watch. They'd throw out these challenges each week that you could do or not. A typical challenge, for example, would be they'd ask you to run for a couple of hours to check your stamina and fitness and all the rest of that. Once you've done a certain amount of these challenges over the course of... I believe it was like six months or a year, you accumulated points and you needed to get 100,000 points. And once you got 100,000 points, they basically entered you into a lottery because it was far more people that wanted to do it than they could actually accommodate. There's 20,000 people running in the marathon, 20,000 people running in the 10K.

One of the things that they tried to engineer, similar to what they've tried to do on the field of play more generally, is complete gender parity. So same amount of men and women running in both of these races.

Taylor Wilson:

Yeah. So Kim, I want to hear about some of the participants here. You spoke with an American woman named Sue. What's her story and how did she get involved?

Kim Hjelmgaard:

Yeah, she was super cool. Sue was basically one day in her house outside Washington DC. She was watching the Tour de France with her daughter and it flashed up that the Olympics were going to be in Paris the next year. And not only that, but it flashed up that people could participate in this public marathon and she's an avid marathoner. She's run 28 of them. She's also, like a lot of people, super into the Olympics. And so it was a dream come true for her to be able to apply for this thing and go through the challenges. And she lucked out. She got chosen, but basically, she has a bit of a money backstory because the anecdote she told me is that she'd always tell her husband that she had to go running because she was trying for the Olympics. And of course, that is true in one sense because yes, she's coming to Paris, but she's not quite doing it in the same way that Olympians did it.

Taylor Wilson:

I also have to hear a little bit about this, Kim. You wrote about China's so-called fastest delivery man who is participating. What can you tell us about him?

Kim Hjelmgaard:

He seems like he's quite a character. He's a delivery guy, has been doing it for almost a decade. He's also a runner, and one of the things that he would do to train while he was working is he would attach some sandbag weights to his legs. It would make it even harder while he was doing his job, and he's over here now in Paris. By all accounts, he's like a super-fast runner, so I think he's got a good chance.

Taylor Wilson:

I'm also just curious about the logistics here. The marathon route is a bit atypical, and also, just running at night, Kim, what are some of these things present in terms of challenges for the participants?

Kim Hjelmgaard:

I should put all my cards on the table. I've never run a marathon. I can't really relate to the stamina and the skillset involved. However, what I've been told by people who are doing it and have done it is that it's quite unusual to do it at night. It changes the rhythm of it. It changes what your body's expecting to consume at night. They're starting it at... Depends on the 10K or the marathon, but they're starting it between 9:00 and 11:00 PM, and then they have to finish by 4:30 AM because they're doing it ahead of the women's marathon, which is on the last day.

The marathon course is going to snake through... There'll be a backdrop of all the landmarks and monuments that you might expect as a visitor to Paris, whether that's the Eiffel Tower or the Louvre Museum, and it's going to finish in Versailles, which has its own historical resonances for various different reasons to do with signing peace treaties there. It was also the seat of French political power in the 17th 18th centuries. And there's also a component of this marathon and our general theme of the Olympics. The International Olympic Committee has tried to roll out in various different ways, as I was saying before, gender parity. And Versailles also has some connective tissue to that concept because around the time the French Revolution, the start of the French Revolution, there was a 6,000-strong march that included a lot of women who were protesting about rising prices.

Taylor Wilson:

Kim Hjelmgaard joining us from out on the street in Paris. Thank you, Kim.

Kim Hjelmgaard:

Thanks for having me.

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Taylor Wilson:

Also this weekend, competitions will wrap up in men's and women's basketball and women's soccer, with the US involved in all three games. And Breaking, also known as Breakdancing, will roll on in its first Olympics. The closing ceremony is set for tomorrow night, Paris time, afternoon US time. You can find a full schedule with a link in today's show notes.

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Robin Williams was an Oscar-winning actor and comedian, best known for his improv skills. From his role as a radio broadcaster in Good Morning Vietnam to his portrayal of a man grappling with death and karma in What Dreams May Come, he had a powerful repertoire. Robin died 10 years ago at the age of 63. On the anniversary of his passing, we remember the incredible person he was as I sit down with his son Zak. Tune in tomorrow after 5:00 AM Eastern Time to hear our conversation.

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And thanks for listening to The Excerpt. You can get the podcast wherever you get your pods. And if you're on a smart speaker, just ask for The Excerpt. I'll be back tomorrow with more of The Excerpt from USA Today.

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