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Urgent Rescue for Missing Skiers; Day Three of Georgia School Shooter's Father's Trial; Democratic Showdown in Texas; Shiffrin Takes Gold; Helen Toner is Interviewed about the A.I. Race. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired February 18, 2026 - 09:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[09:30:00]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Six skiers were rescued yesterday in all of this. This morning we have new dispatch audio as this unfolded.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Medical for an avalanche in the area of Castle Peak. Reported as nine to ten people buried. Three others attempting to dig them out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Let's get over to CNN meteorologist Chris Warren for more on this.

Chris, talk about the conditions that they were facing and what they're facing now as this disaster unfolded.

CHRIS WARREN, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Hey, Kate.

This camera right now showing about 20 minutes now before sunrise. And a lot of snow on the ground. Parts of Interstate 80 still closed because of the treacherous conditions yesterday. But one thing you can see from this camera is the lack of snow in the trees, which is and can be a sign that it has been extremely windy lately.

This is from yesterday. The call of the avalanche coming in around 11:30 or so. And this is in the middle of the day. This is likely what the conditions were like for the skiers when the avalanche happened. Visibility very low. The avalanche may have seemingly come out of nowhere. And then the rescue -- search and rescue efforts having to begin in conditions like that.

So, we go forward and show you that that's the atmosphere, what was going on in the air. Now the terrain, with the snow falling, in fact a couple of feet in 24 hours, and three feet coming in 48 hours. This is a lot of snow. And also, with the wind blowing into the terrain and blowing the snow into it can create areas where you get snow buildup in some cases. And this is that Frog Lake area. And somewhere in here is where the

avalanche happened. This is in the back country, so well away from designated ski areas and areas that you get conditions as extreme as they were yesterday, and you can see the snow is how it was coming down for hour after hour after hour, an inch an hour snowfall rates at times, you can see just how difficult it is for the efforts there getting out into the backcountry with all of that snow, making things very difficult.

For today, a bit of a break for search and rescue efforts, but tonight, Kate, once again, another system does move in, bringing more snow and rain down below.

BOLDUAN: Yes. Chris, thank you so much for that. They are facing a lot right now, that's for sure.

John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, we are standing by this morning for new testimony in the trial of the father charged with murder for his role in a mass shooting allegedly carried out by his son. Jurors have now heard from students and teachers who witnessed and lived through the attack at Apalachee High School in Georgia that killed four people.

CNN's Jean Casarez is following this case here with the very latest.

Good morning, Jean.

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.

Well, Joseph Clark has just taken the stand with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. And he is going through the medical records of the students that were wounded, some severely wounded, but survived. Talking about major lacerations, traumatic shock when they were taken into the emergency room. Lesions of lateral nerves, fractures all over their body. And this is so important legally because of the charges of the children, cruelty to children. You have to show that they were injured severely and harmed.

This is something that we've had the students talk yesterday in court and now we're hearing about the medical records. And some were in the hospital for months.

I want you to listen to one of the students, and she's still at Apalachee High. She was 15 years old at the time. And she was severely injured. And when she was put on the gurney and the sheriff was helping, she told the sheriff, don't put that white sheet over me because I don't want you to have me die. She testified herself.

Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NATALIE GRIFFITH, APALACHEE HIGH SHOOTING SURVIVOR: I think I was subconsciously trying to not, once I registered that it was blood and what exactly it was, my brain kind of blocked it out. And I just -- I knew what it was. It was a hole.

And I was also worried that I was going to die and how that would affect my parents, because my dad has a heart problem.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CASAREZ: Now, just about to take the stand right now is Zane Zennie. This was a student at Apalachee. This student is now not a minor anymore, so the student will be shown and we'll be able to see the face and hear the testimony. And it is extremely emotional in this courtroom for this tragedy.

BERMAN: Very emotional. Happening live all day long.

Jean, I know you're watching it and everyone can watch it all day long right on cnn.com.

Thank you, Jean, very much.

So, is it a dog or a wolf or something? Stole the show at the cross country ski race in Milan that, whatever it is, it had no skis and was not an official competitor that much I know.

[09:34:57]

And then a pickup goes airborne and flies, oh, right into the house.

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BERMAN: This morning, new pretty sharp comments from late night star Stephen Colbert, now at odds with CBS over an alleged scrapped interview. Colbert says the network told him he could not air his interview with Texas Senate candidate James Talarico. CBS says that's not entirely true, that "The Late Show" was given legal guidance but was not prohibited. Colbert pushed back last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHEN COLBERT, HOST, "THE LATE SHOW": I'm just so surprised that this giant global corporation would not stand up to these bullies.

[09:40:02]

Come on, you're Paramount. No. No. No, you're more than that, you're Paramount Plus.

Plus what? I guess we're all going to find out pretty soon. And for the lawyers to release this, without even talking to me, is really surprising.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Wow.

With us now is CNN chief data analyst Harry Enten.

Look, there are a few different elements to this.

HARRY ENTEN, CNN CHIEF DATA ANALYST: Yes.

BERMAN: There's the whole CBS versus Colbert element to it. That's over there. But there's also, what's going on in Texas. That element, James Talarico, the Texas Senate candidate who was supposed to be interviewed, I guess it wasn't aired, so to speak, but he's getting a lot of attention.

ENTEN: You know, I'm going to quote one of my favorite singers and actresses, Barbra Streisand. There's a real Barbra Streisand effect going on here.

What are we talking about here? Well, take a look here. Google searches for James Talarico. In the U.S., up 4,900 percent today versus Monday. How about in Texas, where you have that key Senate race going on there? Up like a rocket. We're talking about up 1,150 percent. So, this has actually been very good news for James Talarico. You want that attention. You have that primary going on in a few weeks. And he's absolutely gone both nationwide and, of course, very importantly in the state of Texas as well, the highest on record.

BERMAN: He has never had more Google searches in Texas or in the United States than he did yesterday.

ENTEN: Correct.

BERMAN: All right, that is something.

So, talk to me a little bit more about this race. He is running in a contested primary in Texas against Jasmine Crockett. How is the money raising going?

ENTEN: OK, you know, one of the things I think is so important, there are a lot of Democrats nationwide who want Talarico to win. And obviously this extra attention will certainly help.

And one of the ways we know that James Talarico has generated a lot of interest nationwide is, look at this, the money raised, the Democratic candidates, $13 million -- $13 million for James Talarico. Jasmine Crockett, of course the other candidate running, the other big candidate running, just $7 million. He's doubling up on Crockett in terms of the money race. He's been able to get his name recognition to go way up in Texas. Of course, Crockett, before this race, was a nationally known name for taking on President Donald John Trump.

So, Crockett -- Talarico really raising a lot of money. He has more cash on hand at this point and all that extra attention going into the final few weeks. He's just going to have even more money. The fundamentals -- the money fundamentals really favoring Talarico at this point.

BERMAN: What are the prediction markets saying about this race right now?

ENTEN: Yes, OK. So, what about the prediction market. What do we see? Chance to be the Texas Democratic Senate nominee. Look at this. On Sunday Talarico was the favorite but it was pretty close, a 61 percent chance. But look at that. It turns out this attention was very good for Talarico. The prediction market, Kalshi prediction market having his chance go all the way up to three and four at this point, a 75 percent chance of winning that nomination.

BERMAN: So, this is what Kalshi is saying, the prediction markets. What about the actual polling, which I think albeit was before the whole Colbert situation?

ENTEN: It was before the Colbert situation. But this is going to be very interesting because the polling, at least one poll, actually had Crockett ahead here at 47 percent to Talarico's 39 percent. Now, we'll see if that polling changes in the final few weeks of this campaign, but this could be an indication that the prediction markets are a leading indicator in this race because the polling is a little stale.

BERMAN: One of the most closely watched races in the country, at least over the next few weeks to be sure.

Harry Enten, thank you very much.

ENTEN: A Texas sized good morning to you.

BERMAN: A Texas sized good morning.

We've got a lot of news. We'll be right back.

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[09:48:05]

BOLDUAN: Got this just in for you. We have a big win for Team USA in the women's slalom at the Olympics.

Let's get right over to Coy Wire, who got to watch it all happen.

Coy, fill us in.

COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: Just came down off those slopes. Holy moly, Kate, she did it. Mikaela Shiffrin exorcizing the demons, winning Olympic gold in slalom. I was there to see all the drama on the slopes of Cortina. The winningest alpine skier of all time. Had failed to get an Olympic medal in the last eight years. The two skiers nearest her after round one crashed. Moments before Mikaela's second run, the crowd went silent, wondering if something wrong. You could feel the tension. But Mikaela dominated her final run, taking gold by 1.5 seconds. Camille Rast of Switzerland took silver, Sweden's Anna Swenn Larsson, the bronze. Mikaela dropped to her skis afterwards, almost in disbelief, maybe relief, overcoming the devastating injuries, the mental blocks, breaking that eight-year Olympic medal drought with gold.

Finally, we had a local streaker during a live event on the cross country course today. It's a fur baby, Kate. A dog busting out of its doghouse for a few moments of chaos. Officials had to grab him. Nobody was harmed. They took him back to the local Airbnb, where he broke free from. But not before the Omega Scan'o'Vision captured an epic photo finish, Kate. No medal for the pup, but one of the best highlights for sure. One of the skiers said she thought she was hallucinating. Didn't know what was happening. Unfortunately, the dog was not available for comment afterwards or I would have had those words for you, Kate.

BOLDUAN: That is hysterical. That photo is amazing.

Coy, thank you so much. Amazing to see also Mikaela Shiffrin pulling off a big win.

Love you, Coy. Thank you.

John.

BERMAN: One of the skiers said she thought she was hallucinating. I know how that feels.

All right, new video of a truck slamming straight into a home in northwest Oregon in the middle of the night. Police say they believe the driver was speeding, imagine that, when it hit a dirt pile and launched into the air.

[09:50:06]

It flew about 100 feet before crashing into the house. Fortunately, no one inside was hurt, but there was major damage, as you can imagine, to the home. Look at that. The driver was arrested.

So, a man on fire ran away from a convenience store in Australia after trying to rob it. Let's see if we can see him go. There he goes. And he's off. The fire was extinguished and the building sustained only minimal damage. But a cash register was stolen, and there have been no arrests yet of that man on fire.

Five people are hospitalized after an avalanche hit a train in Switzerland. There is video from people inside the train. Swiss emergency crews responded within minutes -- within hours, I should say, and rescued everyone on board.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: That is terrifying.

Let's turn to this right now. Tech could be humanity's biggest mistake. That's the warning today coming from an upcoming documentary about artificial intelligence, featuring some of the biggest names in A.I. Take a look at the new trailer that just dropped.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How does A.I. understand pretty much everything?

SANMI KOYEJO, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR COMPUTER SCIENCE, STANFORD: Its surprisingly straightforward. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Intelligence is about recognizing patterns.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Patterns.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Patterns.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Patterns.

JEFFREY LADISH, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, PALISADE RESEARCH: If you have learned those patterns, you can generate new information.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A.I. is moving so fast.

DEBORAH RAJI, RESEARCHER, UC BERKLEY: It's being deployed prematurely. There's so much potential for things to go wrong.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why can't we just stop.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: And then there is Michael Wooldridge, an A.I. professor at Oxford, who just told "The Guardian" that the pace of the A.I. race right now risks a Hindenburg-style disaster to come. Remember, the Hindenburg was a massive airship that made round trips around the Atlantic until it burst into flames over New Jersey in 1937 killing 36 crew, passengers and ground staff. And here is the comparison then this leading researcher is making to A.I., saying this, quote, "the Hindenburg disaster destroyed global interest in airships, it was a dead technology from that point on, and a similar moment is a real risk for A.I.," saying that because A.I. is embedded in so many systems, a major incident could strike almost any sector.

Let's talk about this. Joining me right now is Helen Toner, interim executive director for the Center for Security and Emerging Technology, formerly -- also formerly an OpenAI board member.

It's great to have you, Helen.

I want to get to the Hindenburg comparison in a second.

First, I've been tracking the reaction coming out of China, ringing in the lunar new year with a wave of new A.I. models from Alibaba to ByteDance, everyone waiting to see what comes next from DeepSeek. One economist told CNBC that China has now broken America's perceived monopoly on tech and A.I. You studied A.I. in China. What do you think of how China's advancing in this race?

HELEN TONER, INTERIM EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR SECURITY AND EMERGING TECHNOLOGY: It's great to be with you, Kate.

What we're seeing over the past year, really since the big DeepSeek moment last January, is that China is just relentlessly fast following American A.I. companies. So, over and over again the American companies are putting out new model after new model. We actually had two leading companies, OpenAI and Anthropic, release a model on the same day about a week ago. And then the Chinese are following as fast as they possibly can, usually within something like three to six to nine months, it's a little hard to measure, but the pace is certainly relentless.

BOLDUAN: And it's that pace that I'm -- that clearly everyone needs to pay more attention to. Anthropic, just on Tuesday, rolled out another Claude update, I'm just going to say, but that's its second major A.I. model launch in less than two weeks. This is what I'm so focused on. How would you characterize what this race looks like between American companies and between American and Chinese companies? Is it getting faster? Are they equaling out? What do you see in this?

TONER: Yes, the race is certainly tight. And I would say, like you, I've noticed the pace of new releases certainly going up. I think a couple things to watch there. One is, we're really shifting from this chatbot era, which I think is how a lot of people first encountered A.I. was using it as chatbots to what gets called A.I. agents. So, these are A.I. systems that can do things for you. Basically, the way the companies would put it is, they can operate a computer. So that includes, they can write code, they can do the job of, you know, basic entry level programmers. But they can also do other things on your computer. They can, you know, make an Excel file. They can run a financial analysis. They can put together, you know, a marketing deck. And so, you know, that's one really important piece of this.

Another thing to watch is, for a long time A.I. researchers have talked about, you know, could they one day use A.I. to develop A.I. or have A.I. that is, you know, self-improving. And it's been really striking over the past year, we've started to see A.I. companies that are using their own A.I. tools as a core part of their development process.

[09:55:04]

And so we're seeing that again from these companies like OpenAI and Anthropic. They're saying, OK, we're putting out, you know, Codex 5.3. We're putting out Opus 4.6. And that model itself, you know, or the previous model was very helpful for us in putting this new one out, which is really quite striking.

BOLDUAN: Then -- now to this Hindenburg comparison from this leading researcher out of Oxford. He's apparently not attacking modern A.I. models writ large. But basically how the -- how they fail -- how chatbots have failed in unpredictable ways, don't even know that they're wrong, and say everything with such confidence that that's what is so terrifying about it. What do you think of that comparison?

TONER: Yes, I mean, I'm hoping that we don't have any literal flames anytime soon. But A.I. is really a striking -- it's amazing to listen to the people building the technology. It's really not normal that the people themselves who are actually creating a new technology are the ones who are warning most loudly about the potential risks. But with A.I. that is the situation we find ourselves in where some of the leading researchers are saying, well, OK, we have new systems that could, you know, perpetrate cyberattacks, they could hack critical infrastructure potentially, we're worried about that. We're worried about what they're doing to kids' mental health. We're worried that, at some point if they get more sophisticated, they might escape our control entirely and we don't know what we'll do if that happens. And, you know, that's not really what you normally hear from the engineers behind an exciting new technology.

BOLDUAN: Exactly.

Helen, thank you so much. It's good to meet you. I appreciate it

BERMAN: Yes, Hindenburg comparisons, those are ones you want to avoid.

BOLDUAN: I thought maybe we should pay attention to it. Yes.

BERMAN: All right, thank you all so much for joining us. This has been CNN NEWS CENTRAL. "THE SITUATION ROOM" up next.

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