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Judge Pauses USPS Plan To Implement New Mail Voting Restrictions; 530+ Dead, 1,300+ Missing In Catastrophic Nepal-China Floods; Riders Rushed To Hospital After Braving Famous Six Flags Roller Coaster. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired August 28, 2026 - 07:30   ET

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

[07:30:00]

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Happening now, a federal judge has temporarily blocked the U.S. Postal Service from carrying out its Trump-directed plan aimed at limiting mail voting. It required states to submit lists of their mail vote -- mail-in voters to the Postal Service in order to mail the ballots. And then the Postal Service would only carry ballots in envelopes with specific barcodes unique to each voter to help with automated tracking.

CNN's Alayna Treene live at the White House with the very latest. Some states could send ballots to voters as early as next week.

How is the White House reacting to this because this went to the Supreme Court, then it went back down? Now a federal judge has ruled against them, at least temporarily.

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yeah, a lot of twists and turns to this order that the president issued back in the spring, Sara. But look, we haven't yet got any response from the White House to this direct ruling that came down yesterday -- again, temporarily halting this order about mail-in ballots from going through.

But I will say from conversations I've been having, Sara, they were expecting this. They know that the timing, particularly now less than 70 days away to the midterm elections, that they were likely to see a ruling like this.

I will say after the Supreme Court, on Monday, had ruled that this could go forward -- that the initial order limiting mail-in ballots and, you know, having USPS only mail ballots to eligible voters from a voter roll list by DHS -- they had called it a big win for election security and for national security.

But again, they were expecting this. They knew that the win they got from the Supreme Court on Monday was a procedural win and that it would likely be temporary.

I think a big question now is if the administration decides whether to move forward with an appeal and we could see this ruling quickly back before the Supreme Court, or if they choose to hold off on it for now. That's a question we have moving forward. But I do want to break down what happened this week because again, lots of different parts to what we've been seeing with this order.

The president issued this executive order back in March, as we mentioned, telling DHS to -- telling them to come up with an eligible list of voters and then only USPS could mail ballots to those eligible voters and have them send it back.

Then a group of 23 Democratic states, as well as Washington, D.C., challenged that. They said the rule -- or excuse me, the law and the order was unconstitutional. They said it's up to states to determine how to run their own elections.

Then we heard the Supreme Court, on Monday, essentially say look, we're going to temporarily allow this law to stand. They did not rule on whether it was legal or whether it was unconstitutional, but they said we really don't know how this has been in practice. We have to see how this could work out. And so for the time being they said it can move forward.

Then it went back to this judge -- a federal judge in Boston -- who said look, we're going to temporarily pause this again. And really, what she had said in the ruling was that the timing of this is what complicated this. Both -- some mail-in ballots go out next week. States do not have the time that they would typically need in order to change things with imaging and whatnot. So that's what she put down in the ruling.

All to say this is not the end of it. And even if this law that the president put forward doesn't go through for the midterm elections, it could still go forward for 2028. So the stakes are still very high, Sara.

SIDNER: Very high, indeed.

Alayna Treene, thank you so much for your reporting from the White House for us this morning -- John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. So developing overnight, if they are making fun of you during a preseason football game, are you doing good politics? Listen to the legendary Al Michaels talking about the Great Lakes before a preseason game last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AL MICHAELS, SPORTSCASTER: We are now in Cleveland. That is Lake Erie. We think it still called Lake Erie on the right. We're not quite sure at this point.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah.

MICHAELS: But we will be by lake something, like Ontario, or whatever it's going to be called by the time we get to Buffalo. Anyway, you know what I'm talking about.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Some of us do.

MICHAELS: Yeah, right. Read the news.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: All right. Again, that was Al Michaels. I don't want to assign politics to Al Michaels but in the past, it's been pretty well known people have said that he is a conservative and a Republican and he was making fun of the whole thing last night. The president signing an order that renames, in his mind, Lake Ontario to Lake America.

With us now is Axios senior contributor, Margarat Talev. So it's -- you know, it's broken in I think to popular culture here -- to football culture, Margaret, and I'm not sure in a way that the president would find completely flattering. Is this working the way he thinks it will?

MARGARET TALEV, SENIOR CONTRIBUTOR, AXIOS, DIRECTOR, INSTITUTE FOR DEMOCRACY, JOURNALISM AND CITIZENSHIP, SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY: Yeah, it's probably not like a 50-yard pass. Oh, sorry. Early morning analogies.

So I -- you know, I think we've seen the president renaming bodies of water, which he has the ability to do unlike the U.S. Geographic Survey or whatever, but it doesn't change what the other country calls it, and it doesn't change what the rest of the world calls it. And in this case, I think it has the potential to have a backlash in some of these U.S. states that border Alaska.

[07:35:00]

And if you think about some of the big midterm races coming up. Think about Senate contests in Michigan. You think about the race in Alaska. What we've seen pretty consistently in focus groups done both with Axios and with my Institute for Syracuse, is that these tariff issues, these Canada tussles, and the naming, they actually chafe some undecided voters in these border states.

So I think this is, like, not really an area we have been concentrating on yet, but I think it's worth watching. Because if you live in Michigan, for example, so much of your business is tied to the -- across the border in Canada. And many of your friendships and business relationships are also tied there. There is an affinity between the Canadian people and Michiganders, for example.

And so I think what the president is doing is national politics and it's trade politics, but how it plays in some of those states I think could be really crucial.

And politically, it has super-empowered Mark Carney, the prime minister of Canada. His approval ratings are nearly twice what President Trump's are right now and his decision to buckle down and sort of not give an inch on most things -- I know there's been some modifications in Maine -- has made him quite popular with his own people.

BERMAN: Look, not for nothing. Al Michaels was calling a preseason game in Ohio last night. You know what's in Ohio? A pretty important Senate race. A pretty important race for governor. Some House seats that are up for grabs. And it's being ridiculed there in Ohio.

The president's supporters often say when he does something like this, you know, he's trolling Canada. He's trolling the libs. You know, he's trolling the media. He may be trolling voters who will show up in November and it's got to be -- it's something that he may want to think about.

I want to shift gears here and talk about where the president is. He's waking up in Texas, right? He's down in Texas --

TALEV: Yeah.

BERMAN: -- in part to prop up Ken Paxton, who was his pick to be the Republican nominee for Senate there. It's not always a place that Republican president would have to go to campaign for a Republican candidate.

What does it tell you?

TALEV: Well, it does tell you both that Paxton may be in more trouble than Trump thought he would and that Talarico, the Democratic rival, has been able to overcome a lot of Republican efforts so far to sort of diminish him or marginalize him, or paint him in the corner of leftist progressives or whatever.

So I think President Trump's visit there suggests both that he wants to put his time into it and his money into it. And all odds still favor Republicans in Texas but there are polls that suggest that Talarico is even or maybe has even overtaken Paxton.

A poll is a snapshot in time. Momentum in the summer is different than momentum after Labor Day. So this doesn't mean that, you know, Democrats should take a victory lap on Texas. But it does mean that if the president is focusing his efforts there and raising money there that there -- that it's a deficit in other states.

It also suggests that John Cornyn who, you know, Trump doubled down in the primary and wanted Paxton -- wanted a loyalist over John Cornyn who is like 98 percent a loyalist. And a lot of Cornyn supporters haven't wanted to give money to Paxton and haven't wanted to support him. And so, the president has got to do a lot of extra work if he wants to bring this over the finish line. It's not a foregone conclusion anymore.

BERMAN: Margaret Talev, great to see you this morning. Always nice to talk to you. Have a terrific weekend.

All right. This morning we are getting some new images in that really illustrate the scope of the disaster and how much damage was done in Nepal. Of course, what happened was a huge chunk of glacier, we think, snapped off and caused this wave of water to flood down this river, hitting all of these towns and villages.

Some of the video we've seen, right -- this was the first video we saw at the border crossing of this building just being obliterated. There's no other word than that.

Now we have some images that give you a sense of the before and after. This is what that border crossing looked like before that wave of water came in. Look what happened after. It's gone. It's just all gone. What was there before -- there is simply no trace left. It's been completely swept away. You can see the force of that wave that went through.

Slightly downstream from where we just showed you -- again, look at all the buildings and structures right by this riverbed. Look at how it appeared before the water passed through and then look how it appeared after. Every structure that was there just completely gone -- before and after.

One other piece of video that a lot of people have seen is this bridge. This was the furthest downstream. You can see that bridge being swept away by the force of the water filled with debris and cement just taken downstream.

[07:40:00]

I can give you a sense again of what it looked like before and after. This is an image before. Now I have to be honest, I don't know whether the bridge in the video was this one, this one, or there may be one upstream as well. But this is what it looked like in that town before with all those bridges and look like after -- right there. No bridges at all. Completely gone from before to after.

It is just stunning to see the impact of this wall of water as it moved down from that glacier. Just simply disastrous -- Sara.

SIDNER: It really gives you a stark look at just how big, how enormous the damage is. Thank you, John.

Joining me now is Preena Shrestha. She is the Nepal communication officer for UNICEF. Thank you for being here and I'm so sorry for what it is that you all are going through there. You're joining us from Kathmandu which is, you know, about 50 miles from where some of this, you know, happened.

We are seeing images of children who were at schools. They're crying their eyes out as the floodwaters rush near them.

What can you tell us your teams are experiencing as they try to get on the ground in the devastated areas in this utterly enormous disaster?

PREENA SHRESTHA, NEPAL COMMUNICATION OFFICER, UNICEF: Thank you, Sara.

I mean, we've been to the affected areas. We were there yesterday. We visited a school where a group of around 15 people where sheltering, including families with children.

We've heard some really, really harrowing accounts from people who have seen their homes fall -- you know, everything they own destroyed in an instant. And there was one father who told us how the floods just sort of hit like an explosion. It made this terrible noise and there was dust rising up in the sky.

And when you think of how long it takes to build a house, a road or a school and what this means -- what this means for, you know, communities who are already struggling with poverty to have everything taken away like this it's really unthinkable. And the people we talked to, they spoke of how they managed to get out just in the nick of time.

And, you know, it's especially heartbreaking to hear children speak of these experiences. We met a young girl who carried her little brother uphill through this jungle route for hours on end and she had no idea where her parents were or whether they were even alive. And that kind of terror and pain is really something no child should go through.

SIDNER: Yeah. You talk about the physical pain and the destruction but also there's a huge mental load that you are mentioning here for children seeing something like this and experiencing the fear of all this.

Can you give me a sense of just how hard it is to get into some of these areas and if you've been able to make it into the absolute hardest-hit areas?

SHRESTHA: Um, so we've struggled a bit to get access to Rasuwa, which is -- which is the hardest-hit district because the main highways are -- have been washed away. And the only way to access these areas right now is by helicopter. So we've been able to make it to Nuwakot District, which is on the -- on the edge of Rasuwa, but then there are entire communities that are still completely cut off.

There is no news from them because telecommunications are not working. There's no electricity. So loved ones are basically just waiting for news on, you know, what their families are doing and if they're safe at all.

SIDNER: I'm so thankful that you spent a little time with us today just to walk us through what you've been going through. I know that you have been in the region there -- UNICEF -- for decades and this is a particularly difficult disaster to try and help with, but you are doing the work, and we thank you for that.

Preena Shrestha, thank you so much.

Now I'll hand it over to --

SHRESTHA: Thank you, Sara.

SIDNER: -- John in just a bit as we await a potential verdict in the Lindsay Clancy trial.

BERMAN: Yeah. Very shortly the jury there resumes deliberations. They're deciding whether Clancy should be held criminally responsible for killing her three children before trying to take her own life. Her defense argues she was overmedicated and suffering from postpartum psychosis. Prosecutors say the murders were a choice that she made. There are give options on the jury slip. The most serious charge is first-degree murder, which carries a life sentence if convicted. Clancy has pleaded not guilty by reason of lack of criminal responsibility.

With us is Brandi Harden, a criminal defense lawyer and managing partner at Harden & Pinckney. Thanks so much for being with us.

The jury heads back this morning. You know, in the cases that you've seen, when a jury has a night to think about things and goes back that second morning, how have things changed? You know, where are they?

BRANDI HARDEN, CRIMINAL DEFENSE LAWYER, MANAGING PARTNER, HARDEN & PINCKNEY: You know, when a jury has overnight, the mood really does change. I think people sort of come in fresh. They have had a chance to sleep on it. They have new ideas. They think about the evidence differently. And so we'll see ultimately how long it takes for this jury to reach a verdict.

[07:45:08]

But I will say this is a case where I do believe that the defense did a really good job of establishing that she was actually suffering from postpartum psychosis. And I think when your mind is not stable -- when you have been medicated with dozens of medications and had thoughts of suicide and thoughts of killing your children, you certainly have psychosis.

Now, what will a jury do? I guess we'll have to wait and see. But certainly, overnight, I think attitudes and mindsets have shifted. We'll see where parties fall -- whether folks fall in the not guilty by reason of insanity or whether they fall in the guilty camp.

BERMAN: So there are a number of things for the jury to consider here and often what we see juries trying to do is split the difference. But this case is slightly different just for the reason you described there. There's basically one issue the jury has to decide here, which is whether she's responsible or not Whether she had the -- you know, the capacity to make a decision or not there.

So how much do you think the different charges will factor in?

HARDEN: So I really do think jurors are going to be on one side or the other. People are really going to believe the defense -- that she was actually psychotic at the time -- or people are going to pretty much believe the prosecution. I'm not really sure how folks come to a verdict where you have evidence.

And when you go not guilty by reason of insanity you have to have evidence of someone's mental state prior to the offense taking place. And the evidence that we have here is that in the weeks leading up to this crime she was not only seeing a doctor, but she checked herself into a psychiatric hospital. And so I think the evidence is clear that she was not stable. She was actually psychotic.

And if you look at how this also happened, right, she's in the medical field. It's so unlikely that she would take her children's life in this way if she were of sound mind. And I think all of those things show and establish psychosis.

BERMAN: That is certainly what the defense is arguing here. The prosecution are arguing the other side. And we'll see how the jury feels. They head back very shortly in this case, which has certainly become the focus all around the country just because of what you talked about. The focus on mental health. When are you or are you not responsible for your actions?

Brandi Harden, thank you very much.

So a CNN investigation uncovers years of serious injuries linked to a famous roller coaster. And a fireball on the runway right there. The plane catches fire blowing its tires on impact.

(COMMERCIAL)

[07:52:00]

SIDNER: A new CNN investigation this morning revealing an alarming trail of severe brain injuries tied to a roller coaster at Six Flags Magic Mountain in California. In less than a single week, two women were rushed into emergency brain surgery after riding the park's famous X2 roller coaster.

Court filings and internal records show a yearslong pattern of trauma, comas, and even deaths, raising urgent questions over why officials allowed the ride to keep running.

CNN's Kyung Lah has the investigation.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Whoa!

KYUNG LAH, CNN SENIOR INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT (voiceover): Six Flags calls this their cutting edge, break all the rules roller coaster, but these two riders never imagined minutes after getting off the ride this summer they would end up in the same hospital the very same week with similar brain hemorrhages, and they're not the only riders who say they've been hurt.

A CNN investigation finds more than a dozen people who rode the X2 roller coaster at California's Six Flags Magic Mountain suffered serious injuries and hospitalizations over nearly two decades, including a 22-year-old who died.

And the latest cases happened just weeks ago.

PAMELA GUILLEN, INJURED ROLLER COASTER RIDER: It was seconds. You go in as yourself and then when you come back, you're a medical emergency.

LAH: This was from a roller coaster.

GUILLEN: Exactly.

LAH (voiceover): Pam Guillen was at Magic Mountain with her daughter Camille celebrating her 16th birthday on July 5. They boarded X2.

CAMILLE MARQUEZ, PAMELA GUILLAN'S DAUGHTER: We got off the cart and we saw my mom. She looked lifeless. Not a thought behind her eyes -- nothing. I was talking to her. "Mom -- mommy, please wake up. Mommy, mommy, it's OK. We're here." She had a brain bleed. Mom had a really bad brain bleed.

LAH (voiceover): An ambulance rushed Pam from Six Flags to the hospital where surgeons discovered what's called an acute subdural hematoma with brain compression. Surgeons cut her skull open to relieve the pressure on her brain.

MARQUEZ: I was shocked. I was just -- it's just not OK. It wasn't OK for me to see my mom like that. Like, it's my mom.

LAH: How large is the incision?

GUILLEN: Um, it's pretty long.

LAH (voiceover): While Pam Guillen fought in this hospital bed, X2 kept running.

Twenty-five-year-old Naomi Greer-Wilkinson had no idea what had just happened. Six days after Pam's injury, Naomi got on the X2 roller coaster. She collapsed after she got off the ride.

LAH: What had happened to her brain?

JOSHUA WILKINSON, FATHER OF HOSPITALIZED RIDER: The jarring had damaged part of her brain, and it had begun to bleed.

LAH (voiceover): She was rushed to the same hospital. Joshua Wilkinson and Artemis Greer are Naomi's parents.

[07:55:00]

ARTEMIS GREER, MOTHER OF HOSPITALIZED RIDER: I do remember one of the surgeons storming through the E.R. and yelling, "How many is it this month? They've got to shut that ride down." He was furious.

LAH (voiceover): This is Naomi, and just like Pam Guillen, she had emergency brain surgery.

GREER: They sat us down and said, "She is at the end of life." And I just -- I didn't have any thoughts. I was totally blank. We leaned over her and said, "Naomi" and she fluttered her eyelid.

WILKINSON: We look at each other like she's in there. Like, she's there.

LAH (voiceover): Naomi, a healthy, vibrant, young woman who loves cats and the arts, remains in the hospital with an uncertain future.

GREER: Naomi should have never --

WILKINSON: No.

GREER: -- ever in a million years even had the option to get on that ride. It's absolutely insane.

LAH: Why do they leave it open?

WILKINSON: Revenue. There's no other explanation.

LAH (voiceover): Six Flags says what makes X2 different from other roller coasters is this. The seats spin 360 degrees forwards and backwards independently around the track. Riders plummet 200 feet at speeds up to 76 miles per hour with two so-called raven turns or half- loops that turn into sheer drops.

Doctors who treated both Naomi and Pam say "...the severe brain injuries were the result of a traumatic rapid acceleration- deceleration event experienced while on the X2 ride."

Court cases alleging serious brain injuries from X2 date back years.

Christopher Hawley died after riding the X2 four years ago. A coroner's report found he died of blunt head trauma during a park ride accident.

Six Flags didn't answer CNN's questions, but the company's court filings have stated the ride went through daily inspections and a normal rider using the ride as instructed would not have traumatic brain injury.

CHRISTOPHER BULONE, ATTORNEY FOR INJURED RIDERS: It's greed that keeps this thing going.

LAH (voiceover): Lawyer Christopher Bulone represents both Naomi and Pam's families.

BULONE: No ride should ever be dangerous enough for anyone that they're coming off of it with severe intercranial bleeding.

LAH (voiceover): More than three million people visit Magic Mountain each year. But on this day, we find X2 is temporarily closed. Six Flags tells us it hasn't run since shortly after Naomi Greer-Wilkinson was hurt.

LAH: You're looking at a very long road.

GREER: It could be six months, it could be two years, it could be five years. I don't know. This is the hardest thing a human being could go through.

GUILLEN: I remember everyone was so excited that I could walk. I have headaches every day and fatigue after doing simple things. I won't be 100 percent because it's brain damage. Sometimes I just, like, feel really down. Like, because I'm not me anymore. LAH: Multiple lawsuits we've reviewed have settled before going to

trial, and that includes the wrongful death suit of 22-year-old Christopher Hawley.

And California's Occupational Safety and Health Division oversees amusement park ride operations but did not respond to our questions about X2's history and did not say how it was allowed to reopen.

Kyung Lah, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN: In Los Angeles, a cargo plane had its brakes locked during landing, blowing four tires. And you can see it caused something of a fireball there as well. No one was hurt. All crew members were able to exit safely. DHL says the plane experienced a brake issue that did cause it to overheat.

Outside Sacramento a mother was arrested after climbing through a bus widow to confront a school bus driver who apparently refused to let the kids off.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh -- oh, my God.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Authorities say she shattered the bus door, climbed inside through a window along with some other parents, and urged students to get out. Students jumped out of the bus windows onto the highway -- you can see there. Ultimately, the mother was arrested for vandalism.

In Colorado, a bear wandered into a kitchen. The family say they often leave the doors open in the morning to let the breeze in. Well, they let the breeze in and the bear who took the trash out at least. I mean, at least it's a polite bear, right? It does your chores for you. You can see what was able to happen there. The dad, I guess, who seemed pretty chill, sort of just shooed the bear away. I'm not sure I would be that chill with a bear eating my breakfast.