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CNN This Morning

Nepal Floods Update Death Toll Exceeds 600, 2,500 Missing As Rescuers Race Against Time; Fed Chair Kevin Warsh Warns Inflation Is Still Too High; Rescue Efforts Resume As Storms, New Lakes Threaten Flood Zone. Six Hundred-Plus Dead, 3k Missing After Catastrophic Flood in Nepal; Trump Appeals Ruling as Battle Over Mail-In Voting Escalates; Massachusetts Jurors Still Deciding Fate of Lindsay Clancy. Aired 6-7a ET

Aired August 29, 2026 - 06:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:00:27]

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to CNN This Morning. Here's what's new.

We're getting a better sense of the scale of the devastation after a wall of water and mud and rock swept across the Nepali-Chinese border.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We saw people just getting sucked in the water. It was so traumatizing to see that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: The death toll is rising. Dozens of Americans are still missing. The latest from our teams in the region, we have that just ahead.

Also, the jury in the Lindsey Clancy murder trial will continue deliberating on Monday with more on the options they're weighing and the critical pieces of evidence they asked to see on Friday.

A federal judge has temporarily blocked President Trump's plan to limit mail-in voting. But that fight is far from over. It's causing some confusion heading into the midterm elections and the change that Tennessee's governor is proposing to remember country music icon Dolly Parton. It's all coming up on CNN This Morning.

August 29th. Welcome to your weekend. I'm Victor Blackwell. Thank you for joining us. We're starting with the latest developments out of Asia, the death toll, also the number of those missing rose again this morning after the devastating flood this week along the Chinese-Nepali border.

More than 600 people are dead in Nepal and Tibet. Authorities are struggling to identify those bodies that they've recovered. We have a warning for you. The video you're about to see is distressing.

Wednesday's landslides and the floods wiped out entire towns. Survivors told CNN that they were helpless as they could only watch the devastation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANJANA RAJA, AMERICAN SURVIVOR: Just came going all the way up. And just like a tsunami, how it sweeps, going like a roll. It just took the buses, the lands, houses, people, everything. We saw people just getting sucked in the water. It was so traumatizing to see that people are screaming. But of course, water doesn't hear anything. It just kind of sucked them in. I don't know if they were thrown away somewhere in the shore. But then this happened. It was just a span of 30 minutes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Well, the mortuaries are already at capacity. Authorities say they will start burying some of the unidentified victims today along the riverbank in one of the hardest hit towns, more than 2,500 people are still missing. At least 500 of them are foreign nationals.

Another warning the pictures you're about to see here are graphic. You can see rescuers carrying the survivors and also the body bags from the devastation. Time is running out to find those missing as the 72- hour so called golden window for finding survivors of natural disasters is coming to a close. Families worldwide are anxiously waiting for any news of their loved ones.

The son of an American couple told CNN that he was really fortunate to get the news his parents were safe quickly.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KIVRAM RAVI, SON OF AMERICAN COUPLE WHO SURVIVED FLOOD: I think my first emotion was confusion because it's just something I wasn't prepared for. Like the news wasn't out yet as far as I'm aware. I got more context about the whole situation over the next few days. But I guess looking back on this retroactively, I'm just thankful that I was able to hear her tell me that she's OK rather than again having to go look for her in this impossible ordeal.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: More rain is falling in the flood affected areas and experts are keeping a close eye on two newly formed lakes created by Wednesday's landslide. They worry that with more rain, the new lakes could flood too. The devastation there is just unreal. CNN's Hanako Montgomery is there now.

Hanako, what are you seeing?

HANAKO MONTGOMERY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Victor, right now we're in an area of Nepal called Batar, which is really at the heart of search and rescue operations. You can actually see there's a constant stream of people coming up behind me also going down this path because just beyond these trees there's actually an area, a village by the river that was very, very devastated by the flooding. You could actually see there were diggers there trying to create a clearer path so that some of these people could go home.

But this is a scene that we keep seeing play out across Nepal.

[06:05:00]

Earlier on Saturday, we were at another area of the country. Oh, actually, Victor, I just want to point out you can hear choppers in the air over here. And again, these choppers here, they are going to an army barrack in Batar where we are delivering survivors and making sure also that aid is going back up the mountain so that individuals who are injured are getting the right medical attention. And again, these are the scenes that we keep seeing play out over the past few days.

Now in this, in this village that we were in earlier on Saturday, we were speaking to the locals there. We were speaking to some survivors. And I mean, Victor, this devastation, I haven't seen anything like it. Homes were half buried in mud. You could even see the road, it was just that deep the mud.

The livelihoods of these people, I mean, just completely strewn out in the debris. And we spoke to one survivor who actually came back to his house to see just what he had lost in this disaster. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MONTGOMERY: What were you thinking when you saw that water coming?

SADIP NEPAL, FLOOD SURVIVOR: I want to run, but my legs is not working, so I don't know what to do.

MONTGOMERY: Because you were so scared?

NEPAL: Yes, yes, yes.

MONTGOMERY: You couldn't even run.

NEPAL: Yes.

MONTGOMERY: And is everyone in your family OK? Are they alive?

NEPAL: We alive. OK.

MONTGOMERY: OK. And where are you sheltering now? Where are you staying now?

NEPAL: Now I am living in the hospital.

MONTGOMERY: Your house looks really badly damaged. I'm so sorry. Has anything been left in there?

NEPAL: There is lots of rice, maize, everything was boy (ph). MONTGOMERY: Everything.

NEPAL: Yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MONTGOMERY: And you know, this man, he told us that he lost his livelihood, he lost his business, he lost his home, but at least he and his family were able to get out safely because that's not the case, for example, for his neighbors, for his family, friends who had lost that town called Jenigot (ph).

Now also, Victor, I do want to point out this critical window, the 72- hour window after natural disasters when the chances of finding survivors alive who might be trapped in the debris in the rubble, those chances are very, very high. But that critical window is now come to an end. And now some of these search and rescue missions are turning into search and recovery.

We actually were with the Nepali police and army on Saturday as they were going around with sniffer dogs with shovels trying to any bodies. They actually did find one and they were able to extract this individual. But they said that because the body was so badly decayed and I'm sorry, Victor, this is extremely disturbing, but because the body was so badly decayed, they weren't able to identify the individual.

And you know, Victor, again we're in the foothills of the Himalayas. And if you go further up these mountains where the devastation is even worse. You can only imagine just how traumatic this has been for locals who still have no idea whether they'll be able to see their loved ones once again. Victor.

BLACKWELL: It's unthinkable. I mean, you look at just the feet of mud and rock that have flooded in on these towns and now having to search for some of those, those people who are impacted. More than 2500 missing. Hanako Montgomery, thank you so much for the report and we'll get back to you throughout the morning.

Here in the U.S. people are mourning as they await word from their loved ones. The Long Island Nepalese Society held a vigil in Hicksville last night for the honor of those missing, offered prayers as well and hope. One man said that he already knows he lost several people he knew in the floods.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was the teacher in there. I lost my three students in there, one my neighbor, people I lost in there. A lot of the people I lost in this time in this incident.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Now that community is working to collect donations to help the overworked hospitals in the region. In Nepal, rescue crews are struggling to navigate as you saw, through

that devastation and across the border. New video into CNN shows that teams in Tibet are attaching emergency supplies to heavy lift drones. They're using those drones to deliver critical aid to first responders in the areas far too difficult to reach by vehicle.

More rain is coming to that flood devastated area and officials are warning that the danger's not over. Authorities are closely monitoring two mountain lakes created by Wednesday's deadly landslides. They're swelling rapidly upstream from where hundreds of people were killed. That's raising fears of fresh flash flooding.

CNN's Allison Chinchar is tracking the latest force in the region. To think that the work that they're already doing, which is dangerous on its own without this additional threat, how serious, how real is this threat?

ALLISON CHINCHAR, CNN METEOROLOGIST: I think the key thing is that we don't have warning. It could be days that those dams burst, you know, the natural dam that were made by it.

[06:10:05]

It could be weeks, it could be months. We simply don't know. And that's not very comforting feeling to a lot of the crews that are there, knowing that at a moment's notice they could have to move for their own safety.

So we look at what is going on in the area. You can see in the last couple of hours we've had some cloud development and some thunderstorm development right there along that particular region. And rain is expected not just today, for the remainder of today, I should say, because it is late in the day, Saturday there.

But even as we go into breaks will be in the morning time, a lot of the shower activity is going to be late into the afternoon and into the evening, both Sunday, Monday and even going into Tuesday. So this is going to be a multiday thing. I want to emphasize too, this is normal this time of year. We are right in the middle of monsoon season for this area.

August is the second wettest month of the year. And we're not just talking like Phoenix or L.A. or Seattle where that could be a couple of inches. These areas get 10 to 12 inches in the month of August. Again, you're talking a tremendous amount of rain and that's normal for them.

So to understand that when you get these heavy rains, one of the concerns are areas like this. You see all of that mud and the debris that is left behind that has hardened almost to like a concrete like material. But once you add rain on top of it, it liquefies again, Victor. And that makes the ground more unstable and makes it very dangerous for those rescue and recovery crews as well.

BLACKWELL: Yes. All right, Allison, thank you. If you want to help the communities devastated in Nepal and in China,

remember, no donation is too small. You can scan the QR code at the bottom of your screen or text the word flood to 707070 to donate.

Next, we heard from the elder son of filmmaker Rob Reiner for the first time eight months after his parents were killed.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My parents had unconditional love for all three of us. Every moment that I wake up, I'm reminded of my reality.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: With his brother charged with murder, Jake Reiner opened up about losing more than half of his family.

Plus, a tribute fit for the legend that was Dolly Parton. We'll tell you about the plans to give Nashville's airport a makeover.

And doomsday now goes mainstream. We'll take you inside the booming world of modern preppers.

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[06:17:02]

BLACKWELL: For the first time since his parents were killed, Jake Reiner is speaking publicly about the loss that changed his life. Now, Jake is the oldest child of filmmaker Rob Reiner and photographer Michele Reiner. His younger brother Nick is accused of stabbing both parents to death at their home in Los Angeles last December. Jake says that his family was shattered, understandably in ways he's still trying to process.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAKE REINER, ROB AND MICHELE REINER'S SON: Romy told me in part our dad was dead. And then she said I can't find mom.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You have described that after what happened. It was losing more than half of your family. That includes Nick.

REINER: Yes. I mean he's in jail so. You know, it's like I physically lost my parents and then Nick was arrested and it's like now it's just me and Romy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Jake says that he's focused on supporting his family and honoring his parents' legacy while trying to make sense of an unimaginable tragedy.

A wildfire along California's central coast that's growing. The Plasket Fire in Monterey County near Big Sur has burned nearly 6,000 acres, 0 percent contained. Firefighters say at least one building has been destroyed, and crews are working steep, rugged terrain using helicopters and air tankers to try to slow the fire spread. Evacuation orders and warnings are in place across the area.

Dolly Parton's name could soon greet travelers flying in a Nashville, Tennessee, Governor Bill Lee has proposed renaming the Nashville International Airport after Parton, just days after her death at age 80. More than 150,000 fans have already signed an online petition to back that idea. The airport's board will take it up next month, but current rules say people should be dead at least two years before an airport can be named for them.

Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh is worried about inflation. In a speech on Friday, Wash did not reveal whether an interest rate hike might be coming, but investors took notice when he said he was concerned about how quickly prices are rising.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KEVIN WARSH, FEDERAL RESERVE CHAIRMAN: As of now, I believe the labor markets are broadly consistent with full employment. But on the price stability side of our mandate, the numbers are more concerning. Inflation is running above our 2 percent target, so the Fed's predominant focus right now should be on prices.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: The Consumer Price Index tells the story. Prices have gone up 3.4 percent over the past year. The Fed wants to see that number closer to 2 percent.

Ben Werschkul joins us now. He's a Washington correspondent for Yahoo Finance. Ben, good to see you again.

[06:20:02]

So Washington and Wall street had been concerned about whether he would take action to combat inflation considering the President's concerns about the interest rate when Jerome Powell was the Fed chair. Did he do an effective job to quell some of those concerns?

BEN WERSCHKUL, WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, YAHOO FINANCE: Yes, I think, I think there's definitely a message here in this speech yesterday in Jackson Hole, Wyoming that does move the Warsh closer to action here on interest rates. That sound you played. I think the key word in there is concerned that Warsh is saying he's concerned about inflation and that he's looking to take action.

Elsewhere in the speech he talks specifically about interest rates, short term interest rates being the primary tool that he has to deal with to deal with action in the months ahead.

Investors are clearly combining those two things together in a sign of increased chances of interest rate hikes in the weeks or months ahead, the next time the Fed meets is in mid-September and when the next time they're going to have a decision to make here and investors immediately put up a higher chance of interest rate hikes here. The betting from some -- from traders before now was about a 1 in 3

chance of an interest rate hike in mid-September. It's that immediately kind of flipped over and now it's 57 percent. So almost a 2 degree chance of an interest rate hike. That's far from a slam dunk. This was very clearly avoided saying specifically what he's going to do. He's maintaining his idea of not giving forward guidance.

But the markets have clearly taken a message here that the Fed under Warsh is looking to combat interest -- combat inflation and interest rates are the way he wants to do it.

BLACKWELL: And so you're right, which I read highlighted that he did not mention the U.S. passing that $40 trillion debt threshold, did not mention massive deficits. He didn't tick them off rhetorically. But did he at least show any insight into how he thinks that they can be combated?

WERSCHKUL: Yes, it was mentioned very vaguely and you kind of have to squint to get into the second issue. Arguably going into this meeting in Jackson Hole there was. These were the two main concerns of investors. Interest rates on one side and bond market jitters on the other, which have at the root fueled by this debt which passed 40 trillion as you mentioned just last week and by other measures is at a share of the U.S. economy that's at historical levels that aren't maintainable outside of wartime.

Warsh did not get into it. He never mentioned the national debt once in his remarks. He never mentioned the national -- the deficit in his remarks either. And so his getting into this topic was clearly a choice not to wade into the Fed's role there.

Specifically, he asked for things like clarity from the treasury on their role here in terms of buybacks. I think another part of the speech that was notable was the AI section. And I think you can take a hint there of how he might try to approach this in terms of the idea of what AI growth could mean, though the message from the Trump -- the Trump team has been that the U.S. is going to grow its way out of this.

These are -- that would be a tall order 4 percent annual growth for the next decade. But Warsh talks about AI even before his task force brings back recommendations that talks about huge growth. He called it a super Moore's Law was one of the terms he used, which is a reference to the idea that computing capacity can double every few years.

That's really optimistic growth projections fueled by AI. Warsh didn't specifically make the argument that that's the way we get out of debt and deficits. Again, he didn't mention the word debt or deficits in his speech, the national debt. But that's -- that's the kind of closest way he's, he's pushing for it.

BLACKWELL: Hey, Ben, one more for you here. The President announced this massive deal with Venezuela. We've seen that the President's announcement of a deal doesn't actually mean that there is a deal, but at least. What is he saying that he's come to some agreement with Venezuela? WERSCHKUL: Yes, what he's talking about is a deal that he announced last evening that is very significant on its face. He called it the biggest oil deal in world history and would touch 65 billion barrels of proven oil reserves in Venezuela. The details are pretty scarce here about exactly how this works. We don't have the text of an agreement at all yet.

And what's being outlined by officials both in the U.S. and Venezuela is essentially a joint partnership between, between the U.S. government and a private operator in Venezuela to take over these oil fields and extract the oil. Again, this is a massive number. 65 Billion barrels of proven oil reserves is another way of saying oil that's in the ground and could be extracted that's bigger than the U.S. is proven oil reserves. So that's -- it's a significant amount. But Venezuela, we've had decades of challenges of getting oil out of Venezuela.

[06:25:03]

It's a much different issue to get it out of the ground and get it to the markets. So, so that remains to be seen exactly how that works and whether Venezuela can increase its output. The president also promised in last night's speech about lowering gas prices for Americans. That could be true eventually, but very few expectations of this happening quickly.

This is a multiyear process to get infrastructure in to develop these oil fields and get these billions of barrels out.

BLACKWELL: Ben Werschkul with Yahoo Finance. Always good to have you on a Saturday morning. Thank you very much.

Next, we'll take you back to Nepal. The geoscientist will join us who actually wrote a report for Nepal. Ahead of this we'll talk about preparation for something like this and what happens next.

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[06:30:00]

VICTOR BLACKWELL, ANCHOR, CNN THIS MORNING WEEKEND: We are following the flooding on the China-Nepal border that has killed more than 600 people so far. Rescue crews are searching for now more than 3,000 people who are still missing in both countries.

The devastation left behind, it's heartbreaking. Reports from China that there is no sign of survivors at the border crossing that was engulfed by the fast-moving flood waters. In Nepal, officials said, an entire village full of people was just washed away.

The situation is dire. Survivors are desperately searching for any information about their missing family and friends.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (SPEAKING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE) UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): We have even put-up photos,

but we don't know anything. Nothing is known over there. It has been three days. There has been no update about any of my family members. When will I be able to meet them?

No other family members are left in my family. I am the only one who is here now. I don't know where to go and I don't know what to do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Joining me now is Geoscientist Jakob Steiner. He is going to help us understand exactly how and why this happened. Jakob, thanks for being with me. Was this glacier break a consequence of global warming? Is there a straight line from that phenomenon to this?

JAKOB STEINER, GEOSCIENTIST, UNIVERSITY OF GRAZ: Good morning, Victor, thanks for having me. Well, unfortunately, it's not that easy. There is no clear straight line. These kind of events of this magnitude, they happen so rarely that, you know, we don't really have strong statistics to talk about trends.

But we do see a couple of indications that probably, you know, climate change has played a role to make the processes happen that eventually led to the failure of that rock face and the ice that was sitting on top of that.

So, I, you know, I would strongly think that, with the recent changes that we have seen in the region as well, there is a link between the two. Yes.

BLACKWELL: And so, the question then and follow up is, should we expect more of these?

J. STEINER: You know, I mean, we looked in detail into a -- another event that happened exactly a year ago at this -- at this location. It was a glacial lake outburst flood. But this was devastating already, killed many people, was a serious blow to the Nepali economy.

And we detailed the -- made a detailed assessment. And of course, we were hoping that this wasn't going to happen so soon. Again, now, we are here only 12 months later, when I saw the pictures that many of you have seen on social media as well, and the videos the first time, I was also -- you know, I was shocked.

And it has been devastating for many of my friends who are still looking for family members. But I wasn't so surprised as a scientist because unfortunately, we see such processes and such events more and more often across the world, not just in Nepal. And that also means, yes, we have to be prepared that we will see this again in future.

BLACKWELL: You just talked briefly about studying what happened a year ago, clearly, not as devastating as what we are showing on the screen right now. Was the Nepali government prepared? Did they take what you offered them and act on it before what happened on the 26th?

J. STEINER: You know, unfortunately, in the end, we have to -- I also -- I have to look in the mirror, you know, advising them, no, the Government and we as scientists advising governments were not prepared, otherwise the destruction that we've seen and the huge loss of life would not have been as big as it is now, right?

They -- the Nepal government realizes what is at stake, and they are concerned about this event. It's not that they don't care, but you need capacities and resources to address these issues when they come up. And unfortunately, in these 12 months, there was a lot of talk.

There were a lot of discussions, there were a lot of workshops and meetings, but there were no concrete actions that would have prepared us to address the event that happened two days ago better unfortunately.

BLACKWELL: Let me ask you about the concern over this newly formed overflowing lake that could cause more flooding. "Associated Press" says that its capacity is 1,200 Olympic-sized swimming pools. How fragile is the situation there? What's your greatest concern?

J. STEINER: The risk is definitely still there. That material will come again and that high flow will impact the valley in the coming days, also the coming weeks. Unfortunately, we can't discount that. I am less concerned that we will see a huge breach scenario with, you know, enormous flood waves in the coming days.

[06:35:00]

This is not the lake that's behind a very unstable dam, as it seems. But what is concerning is, there is still a lot of material, is hanging up on the mountain, still a lot of ice and rock, if that material drops for some mechanical failure, and drops into the water bodies below and dislodges some other material, we will again see such cascading effects.

And that risk of happening is not completely -- is not completely gone. So, we have to be alert, but we also have to be sure not to, you know, cause too much panic across the population in the region because it is already hard enough as it is.

BLACKWELL: Jakob Steiner, thank you so much for joining us. The Trump administration is fighting back after a federal judge blocked its new mail-voting rules. The Justice Department has appealed a temporary order that put the changes on hold for two weeks.

Now, the plan would require states to share information on mail ballot voters with the Postal Service. It prompted legal challenges from several states and voting rights groups. CNN's Gabe Cohen looks at what is in the proposal and this growing court battle.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Hopefully there will be no mail-in ballots. Mail-in ballots are inherently corrupt.

GABE COHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): President Trump fixated on mail ballots and baseless claims of election fraud, has ordered the U.S. Postal Service to aid his crusade. Following an executive order, USPS has published new vote by mail regulations, including a requirement for election officials to upload the names and addresses of every mail ballot recipient in the U.S. into a government portal, which could ultimately be shared with federal law enforcement and used for audits and investigations.

SEN. GARY PETERS (D-MI): If a state refuses to turn their absentee voter list over to the federal government, will the Postal Service still mail their ballots?

DAVID STEINER, USPS BOARD OF GOVERNORS NOMINEE: Under our proposed regulation? No. We would tell the state that we need the manifest.

COHEN: That initiative still has large legal hurdles to clear, but it's just one piece of Trump's power grab at the Postal Service, with reports that he considered stripping the agency of its independence and shifting it under his Commerce Department.

Trump and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick are also testing a plan to have USPS workers help conduct the U.S. census.

HOWARD LUTNICK, SECRETARY OF COMMERCE, UNITED STATES: The postman drives by a house, I will go in that house. Nobody lives there. They know where everybody lives. It's going to save us billions of dollars.

COHEN: Sources tell CNN that the Postal Service has at least publicly played ball with the President, largely because of its looming financial crisis, which will require reforms from the administration and Congress.

D. STEINER: Let me be very clear. We are out of cash.

COHEN: But soon, Trump may have even more control over USPS as he aims to reshape its independent Board of Governors. Only one of the board's four current members is a Republican, but the President has nominated four new Republicans who, if confirmed, could give him greater influence over the agency. Two of the nominees were asked specifically about mail-in ballots.

SEN. ELISSA SLOTKIN (D-MI): Do you believe that mail-in voting now is safe and secure?

D. STEINER: That's a very good question. I would say it's not mail-in -- under the proper -- under the proper guidance and monitoring, yes, I do think --

SLOTKIN: I mean, for instance, President Trump won my state in 2024, and there was a ton of mail-in voting. Was that voting for President Trump safe and secure, or no?

D. STEINER: It was safe and secure.

COHEN: And it's unclear if they will fully back Trump's mail ballot claims.

SLOTKIN: Mr. Brodsky(ph), have you voted by mail? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, I have.

SLOTKIN: OK, and presumably, you feel the system was safe and secure that we had long --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was a wonderful way to vote, and I did it three times --

SLOTKIN: Yes --

COHEN: But on the central question of who won in 2020, at least, one raised some alarm. Writing in his Senate questionnaire, Joe Biden was certified as the President of the 2020 election. I have no information to reach a conclusion that it was free and fair.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLACKWELL: Gabe Cohen, thanks so much for that report. Next, ten hours of deliberating, still no verdict. What could be keeping jurors from a decision in the Lindsay Clancy murder trial? And if you're heading out, all right, remember, you can stream our show from anywhere in the U.S., right from the CNN app.

Also, you can go to CNN.com/watch. And good morning to everyone there along the beach in Norfolk, Virginia.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:40:00]

BLACKWELL: Welcome back. Jurors have not yet reached a verdict in the case of Lindsay Clancy. She is the mother in Massachusetts charged with killing her three children. The Judge sent them home for the weekend, but they will resume deliberations next week.

But Clancy does not deny strangling her children to death, but she says that she was suffering from postpartum psychosis at the time, and she is pursuing an insanity defense. Jean Casarez has details.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): Judge William Sullivan, Friday afternoon told the jury, you are excused for the weekend, but asked them to come back to this courthouse in Plymouth, Massachusetts, Monday morning at 9:00 a.m.

[06:45:00]

Our producer in the courtroom noted that several of the jurors were speaking to each other as they walked into the courtroom, as they walked out of the courtroom, but that is to be expected because they've gotten to know each other.

They have sat listening to the testimony for several weeks now. And as far as the evidence, the juror asked for two pieces of evidence on Friday. One, prescription pill bottles from Lindsay Clancy, the other being the knife. Prescription pill bottles were entered into evidence by the prosecution.

Patrick Clancy was the first witness on the stand. He had a paper bag of pill bottles and he wanted to take them after the event to law enforcement and officials, the jury saw those pill bottles, and it was learned that only a few pills out of every prescription were actually out of the bottle.

The defense showed the jury during closing arguments, a drawer from the nightstand next to the bed with a plastic Ziploc bag filled with prescription bottles. And law enforcement had never collected that.

Secondly, the knife. The knife is truly and not an issue in regard to the suicide attempt, because both sides believe this was a very serious suicide attempt. But there was blood on the knife, blood in the bedroom as we know, the jury did a jury view where they went into that bedroom now.

And so -- but they wanted to see the knife up close. We do not know why, but it is something that they wanted to see. In other news, Dr. Avram Mack, who was a prosecution rebuttal witness, CNN has confirmed that he has resigned from a Children's Hospital in Delaware.

We do not know why he has resigned. CNN has reached out to Dr. Mack, but he was a board-certified forensic psychiatrist that testified that he did not believe Lindsay Clancy had bipolar shortly before she killed her children.

He thought it was an episode of depression and also anxiety. The reasons why he is no longer with that Children's Hospital remain unknown. In Plymouth, Massachusetts, I'm Jean Casarez for CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLACKWELL: Jean, thanks. Another high-profile case could soon be handed over to the jury. Closing arguments start next week in the Tupac Shakur murder trial. Prosecutors accused Duane Davis of orchestrating the drive-by shooting in 1996 of Tupac Shakur.

Now, because of the limited physical evidence remaining, prosecutors have been relying heavily on Davis' own words to convict him. He was recorded talking about setting up the murders as retaliation for an attack on his nephew.

Davis now claims that he made up those stories to profit off the murder. He refused to testify in his own defense. Now, CNN "ALL ACCESS" is giving you gavel-to-gavel coverage of this. Go to CNN.com/Tupac Trial. You can also find it on the CNN App.

The President's helicopter goes radio silent. Ahead in the next hour, the air traffic control audio behind another presidential flight-scare aboard Marine One. And as we go to break, live look at the sunrise in Cincinnati. Good morning.

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[06:50:00] BLACKWELL: Top stories for you now. More than 600 people are

confirmed dead after the deadly flooding and landslides ripped through Nepal and China. More than 3,000 people, including dozens of Americans, are unaccounted for on both sides of that border.

International aid is just starting to arrive. We've got more coming up at the top of the hour. It's been six months since the U.S. and Israel launched that war with Iran. President Trump initially called the conflict an excursion, and that it would be over quickly.

But Iran shows no indication that it plans to surrender, abandons its nuclear ambitions or reopen the Strait of Hormuz anytime soon. Repeated strikes on Iran have also depleted U.S. weapons stockpiles. Art and music can help veterans process trauma that may be difficult to put into words.

Well, CNN Hero Richard Casper experienced that healing power after returning from war. He started his nonprofit to share that feeling with other combat vets. But now, his group is transforming an abandoned Nashville church into a 24-hour art center for veterans. As CNN Heroes marks its 20th year, we're highlighting how he's expanding his mission.

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RICHARD CASPER, CNN HERO FOR 2022: It is always wanted to serve other people, but I didn't know how to ultimately do that. And all of a sudden, 9/11 happened when I was a junior and everything changed.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: In 2003, Richard Casper joined the Marines and was deployed to Iraq, within the first four months, his Humvee was hit four separate times, and he watched as his best friend, Luke Jeppson(ph), was shot and killed by a sniper. When Casper came home, he struggled to process the trauma.

CASPER: You just don't want to talk to people about it because you feel like you're weak. They never gave me my vulnerability back.

COOPER: Casper enrolled in community college and found himself in an art class. He began to express himself in ways he couldn't before. In 2013, he started CreatiVets, to bring the healing power of art and songwriting to other veterans.

CASPER: I try to explain to him in the beginning, it's going to be easier to tell your story once you create your art piece, because you're not going to be talking about you, you're going to be talking about your art piece and focus on it.

[06:55:00]

COOPER: Casper was honored as a CNN Hero in 2022, and his work continues to grow. He recently purchased an abandoned church in Nashville to create a facility with art studios, songwriting rooms, performance spaces, and more. The goal is for part of the space to eventually be open 24/7. CASPER: Arts and music is not something veterans are drawn to, but they need a place to go when PTSD hits, it always seems to come at like 1:00 a.m., 2:00 a.m., 3:00 a.m., and the only places you can go is to be destructive.

Instead of going to a bar somewhere and just letting it go, I want them to come here, have a place where they can beat up some clay. They could write a song, they could do anything that they need to, to really get it off their chest, but also to turn all that pain into something beautiful that they can just sit with and process it in a completely new way.

COOPER: As the new facility takes shape, Richard hopes it will inspire more veterans to discover the power of creativity and a path toward healing.

CASPER: I want them to know that art is an option for healing. It's what allows you to understand that it's OK to not be OK.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: To learn more about Richard's inspiring work, go to CNN Heroes.com. We'll be right back.

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