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CNN Headlines: Iran: Awaiting "Definitive" U.S. Response To Hormuz Proposal; Testimony Resumes In Murder Trial Of One-Time "American Idol" Contestant; Five Men Held On Suspicion Of Terror, Explosives Offenses. Aired 5:30-6a ET

Aired September 28, 2026 - 05:30   ET

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

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[05:30:30]

BRAD SMITH, CNN ANCHOR: It's half past the hour. Let's hit the refresh button on our top stories.

We're learning new details about Bryan Kohberger's state of mind before he pleaded guilty to killing four University of Ohio students -- Idaho students. His legal team says that they had difficulty -- he had difficulty understanding key parts of the proceedings and their consequences during a sealed hearing in May of 2025. They asked for more time to evaluate his comprehension, but the judge denied that request. Now his new attorney wants that judge removed from overseeing Kohberger's post-conviction case.

And the brutal nor'easter that has hammered parts of the U.S.' East Coast is slowly starting to ease up but the storm is still dumping additional rain on parts of the Northeast, and it's not expected to leave fully until several more days pass.

Also, internationally, Iran says it's waiting on a definitive response to its latest proposal on reopening the Strait of Hormuz, despite President Trump rejecting the offer. However, Trump did say that he expects talks between Tehran and Washington to resume this week.

CNN's Paula Hancock has the latest for us.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The latest that we've heard, certainly from the U.S. side, is that there could potentially be more talks this week. We heard that from President Trump speaking to Axios, and it follows what we saw on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly last week, that there were negotiations. The Trump administration or one U.S. official told CNN that they were positive, and they were constructive between mediators as well, certainly on hand to try and push things forward.

But at the same time, we are hearing that both sides say they are willing to go back to war if that is what it takes. You can really see the jostling for position -- both sides trying to play up any leverage that they believe they have.

The latest proposal that we have heard from Iran, from the foreign minister Abbas Araghchi has been rejected by President Trump, but Tehran is saying that they are waiting to hear a definitive rejection through mediators themselves. The foreign minister saying that they have heard a lot from the U.S. president, some of it positive, some of it contradictory, and so they're going to wait to get that definitive answer through the mediators themselves.

We also heard from the foreign minister saying that Iran is waiting for any eventuality, is ready for any eventuality. Let's listen to what he said.

ABBAS ARAGHCHI, IRANIAN FOREIGN MINISTER (through translator): We care about our national interests. We are ready to negotiate as much as we are ready to face any challenge. We stand firm in the face of any challenge -- any aggression, sorry. We stand firm in the face of any aggression against us, even if it comes to a doomsday war.

KRISTEN WELKER, NBC MODERATOR, "MEET THE PRESS": Well --

ARAGHCHI: At the same time, we are ready for diplomacy.

HANCOCKS: So the U.S. official that I spoke of earlier also told CNN that the Trump administration is not in a rush to try and secure a deal. That's something we've heard mirrored by Tehran as well. But we did hear from President Trump that the deal that Iran is offering at this point may have been something they would have considered agreeing to a year ago, but that they believe now that Iran has overplayed its hand.

This proposal was effectively Tehran saying that if the U.S. agreed to its conditions, then within a week, the Strait of Hormuz would be open. They said that the conditions were nothing more than what was in the original memorandum of understanding.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SMITH: CNN's Paula Hancocks there in Abu Dhabi.

We are now just 36 days into the critical midterm elections, and the White House has released another taxpayer-funded ad with the president. This time, the ad features audio of President Trump saying, "This is the final battle." The ad aired during at least two NFL games Sunday. While the White House is comparing the spot to a public service announcement, it's drawing some scrutiny with just over a month until the midterms.

Meanwhile, retiring Sen. Thom Tillis is sending a midterm warning of his own. On Sunday, Tillis said Michael Whatley, the Republican hoping to replace him, could face a tough fight against Democrat Roy Cooper. Tillis also said it may be time for the GOP to move money to states where it thinks it has a better chance of winning as Republicans try to hold on to the Senate.

[05:35:05] (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. THOM TILLIS (R-NC): The reality is we have to keep a majority. We've got to make sure Susan Collins wins. We've got to focus on Alaska. We've got to focus on Ohio. But we've also got to focus on some of these states that are popping up as competitive -- Texas, for example. That, to me, is an unforced error created by the president. Now the president needs to invest in there to make sure Paxton wins.

We just got to have an honest discussion with our colleagues, with our NRSC, and with the voters about what good Republicans are doing and why we deserve to keep a majority in Congress.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SMITH: Tillis also fired back at President Trump's attacks on him and Texas Sen. John Cornyn, saying Trump made a colossal mistake with his comments about Cornyn. Cornyn, meanwhile, lost the GOP primary to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who's now facing his own questions in a tough race.

Testimony is set to resume this morning. It's in the murder trial of Caleb Flynn. He's the former "AMERICAN IDOL" contestant who is accused of murdering his wife and then staging a cover-up. The trial so far has focused on what prosecutors see as likely motive, Flynn's affair with a much younger member of their church.

As Jean Casarez reports, Flynn's wife Ashley likely knew about his infidelity.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The prosecution had a full day on Friday of testimony. One witness, Special Agent Andrea Kinzig with the FBI, took the stand. She had done an extraction of Ashley Flynn's cell phone, and she found many things in it.

One, she said that there was some frustration in the marriage between Ashley and her husband, Caleb, at one point relatively close to her murder. She had asked him where he was in a text and he said that "I'm worshiping." And she asked him, "Is it her?" And the evidence has shown that she did know or potentially knew about the extramarital affair that he was having.

At another point, the day before she was so brutally killed, the extraction of the phone showed that she went to Casey's General Store, which was also a gas station. She went to Goodwill. She went after that to a car wash to get the car done. And then in the afternoon she went to Target and then she went home and she did not leave the house. And it was several hours later that she was actually murdered.

We want to play for you a little bit about 14 hours after the killing. Her husband, Caleb Flynn, voluntarily went to the police department. They asked him a lot of questions. It was a lengthy interview. It was played for the jury. Take a listen. CALEB FLYNN, ON TRIAL FOR MURDER OF HIS WIFE: I didn't know what to do. I froze. I was scared. OK. I didn't know -- they didn't know what happened. I mean, I didn't do what I heard, but I didn't know and then I walked out. We ran in the door. The end of the garage is open, and I turned and went in the room and literally even grabbed her foot. I said Ashley -- please, Ashley, and she didn't answer.

CASAREZ: The prosecution's case-in-chief continues on Monday. We did hear in open court that they have another video to play to the jury, and it is a long one. Once the prosecution rests their case, the big question is, will the defense present a case? And will the defendant, Caleb Flynn, himself, take the stand?

Jean Casarez, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SMITH: Thank you, Jean.

Tomorrow, Lindsay Clancy returns to court for the first time since her murder case ended in a mistrial. Now, Clancy was charged with murdering her three young children, but the jurors could not unanimously agree on a verdict. Her attorney now wants an investigation into the lone juror who wanted to convict her. Tomorrow's status conference should signal how the case will proceed after a month of uncertainty.

That powerful nor'easter that slammed the East Coast over the weekend is finally winding down, but before the storm moves out, it's still expected to cause travel headaches across parts of the Northeast, especially around Boston.

CNN's Melissa Nord has the latest from the CNN Weather Center.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MELISSA NORD, AMS METEOROLOGIST: A nor'easter keeps working up the coastline. It is weakening, but still a messy commute first thing Monday morning expected from New York City up through Boston in addition to still some gusty winds. Now these winds are nowhere near as strong as they were over the weekend, but it's an inconvenience. Still some wind gusts could be 20 to 30 miles per hour, so that'll make for messy transportation.

Monday afternoon, drying out in New York and Philadelphia altogether, but still some of that rain working through Boston and it doesn't completely clear Maine until the end of Tuesday. So we're tracking that nor'easter working its way up the coast and weakening.

[05:40:06]

The other big weather story that's going to be unfolding the next couple of days, a flood threat across the four corners and that flood threat will move eastward by the middle of the work week. But we've got this deep tropical moisture working inland from Hurricane Polo and that tropical moisture gets hung up in this frontal system. And you can see here on our available moisture map a lot of these areas expecting much higher humidity than normal that could squeeze out in the form of heavy rain showers and lead to flash flooding.

So you see on the map here for Monday and Tuesday a moderate risk of excessive rainfall. We're talking rainfall totals over the next three days that could be one to three inches on average. Some places could see four to six inches in places that only see for the whole month of September on average one to two inches of rainfall. So we could go down easily as the wettest September on record for a place like Albuquerque, New Mexico with already over 3 1/4 inches of rain to date for the month of September. No shock here. A lot of flood watches are in effect.

Now to the east of there still some pretty pleasant weather, lower humidity working its way in towards the Midwest down to the Southeast. High temperature in Nashville, Atlanta in the 80s after a crisp start Monday morning.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SMITH: It's time for Buzz Express, the stories that have people talking.

MTV's Video Music Awards kicked off Sunday in Los Angeles with a musical icon.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MADONNA, SINGER-SONGWRITER, SABRINA CARPENTER, SINGER-SONGWRITER: Singing "Bring Your Love."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SMITH: Oh, yeah, it's Madonna returning to the VMA stage for the first time in more than two decades. Sabrina Carpenter joined Madonna as they performed "Bring Your Love." Madonna led this year's nominations with 13. She took home seven prizes in total, including Artist of the Year, Best Dance, and Best Collaboration.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MADONNA: Seriously, uh, I really want you to know that I spent the last year and a half finding myself, believing in myself and really making the music that I wanted to make.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SMITH: Taylor Swift also made headlines last night. A big night for Swift, setting the record for the most decorated artist in the show's history -- 33 wins. And last night, she took home three trophies, including the inaugural Artist Director Honors and Video of the Year for "The Fate of Ophelia."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TAYLOR SWIFT, SINGER-SONGWRITER: Lastly, but most importantly, I want to thank and dedicate this award to one person without whom this wouldn't be happening. And that person is the ultimate showgirl, Dolly Parton.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SMITH: Well, next up on CNN HEADLINE EXPRESS, you have to look closely, but someone leading police on a high-speed chase started throwing money out of their car. More on this bizarre incident coming up.

And Pope Leo prepares to wrap up his papal journey to France with a massive outdoor mass. We've got details on that next.

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[05:47:45]

SMITH: In the U.K., five men were arrested on suspicion of terror and explosive offenses. Now, this was all close to an air base in England that is used by U.S. long-range bombers in the war with Iran.

CNN's Nic Robertson has the details for us.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: The five men were detained in the early hours of the morning and it does seem to be as a result of a tip-off from somebody who lived very local to the air base here.

Now, villagers have been telling us that the air base had been on a lockdown -- that's what they believe -- for the past week or so, because there were there was nobody, they said, coming off the base into the village. And they're used to seeing people, you know, service personnel in the village all the time.

And when I asked a local councilor here who was involved in the evacuation of those 85 families who live close to the base -- close to where these five men were arrested and these three white vans seized and then investigated by the Army bomb squad. When I asked him about the base being on lockdown, he said yes, that there was extra vigilance. There had been extra security around the base. In fact, he said that the IRGC, the Iranian high military command, had actually threatened RAF Fairford base by name just five weeks ago.

Now, certainly the police are not saying that this is linked to Iran. They're not saying the five men are linked to Iran at the moment. They are saying that they're being held on suspicion of terrorism offenses. But the local council are framing it this way, that it was very good

that somebody in the village had been perceptive enough and had actually called into the police when they when they saw something that was out of the ordinary.

The investigation is going on and because these five men are now being held on suspicion of terrorism charges they can be held for up to two weeks. While we've been standing here now, I heard what sounded like a controlled detonation coming from the direction of coming from the direction of the air base.

[05:50:00]

But there's very little information about the nature of the explosives that the police believe that they seized from the vehicles or the five men who've been detained. But it does appear as if the security of this base was helped by one of the local villagers spotting something out of the ordinary in the early hours of the morning.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SMITH: Well, let's go around the globe to see what else is making headlines today.

We start in Nepal. That's where catastrophic flooding has killed at least 14 people. Just look at these images from Sunday as you can see some of the magnitude of the destruction that's taken place. Homes completely underwater. And there's still more potential of flooding as more severe weather is expected.

Police in South Africa are looking for whoever carried out three deadly shootings. More than 30 people were killed in separate attacks Saturday night. One police commissioner says a business dispute may be what sparked the violence. So far, no suspects have been identified and no arrests have been made.

Pope Leo the 14th is on the final leg of his whirlwind trip to France. The pope arrived in Metz in northeastern France a short time ago. He's scheduled to hold an outdoor mass at St. Stephen's Cathedral later today before returning to Rome. He spent a busy Sunday in the southwestern town of Lourdes celebrating an outdoor mass near a famous shrine to the Virgin Mary. The pope also addressed the abuse scandal that has shaken the church's standing in France, telling the crowds the church must have the courage to face its past and to heal the, quote, deep wounds.

Still to come on CNN HEADLINE EXPRESS, some of your favorite snacks and sodas are about to get more expensive. Why prices are rising, next.

And why dozens of people were called in to pull by hand this United Airlines 737. We've got that story on the other side of the break. Stay with us.

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[05:56:25]

SMITH: In today's Money Express, SNAP benefits are set to increase in the coming days, but new rules mean states will end up shouldering more of the cost.

Maribel Aber joins us from the NASDAQ MarketSite with that and the rest of your top Money Express headlines. What do we need to know here, Maribel?

MARIBEL ABER, CNN CORRESPONDENT, MONEY MATTERS: OK, Brad, millions of Americans who receive SNAP food assistance could see an increase in benefits beginning October 1. The USDA says food stamps for the average family of four will rise by about $29, while individuals will receive about $8 more.

Also, beginning October 1, states will begin paying 75 percent of SNAP benefits, up from 50 percent. Analysts warn the shift could squeeze state budgets, potentially leading to fewer participants, longer wait times and reduced services. Full increased details are on the USDA's website.

Hey, game day parties could soon get more expensive if you buy Pepsi products. The company plans to raise prices on some sodas, chips and dips to keep up with rising inflation. PepsiCo says increases will likely be around five percent or less, with shoppers seeing higher increases later this year or early next. The move comes just months after PepsiCo cut prices on many larger snack bags by as much as 15 percent.

Crocs is suing discount retailer Five Below, alleging it copied elements of its popular footwear and charm accessories. Five Below sells its version for $7.00, while authentic Crocs are often priced between $40.00 and $65. Crocs says it sent Five Below a demand letter March 4 detailing its concerns but alleges that Five Below continues to sell the lookalike. Crocs and charm maker Jibbitz are asking for a jury trial, unspecified damages, and an injunction to stop Five Below from selling the shoes. The companies have not yet responded to media requests for comment.

Brad, listen, don't knock Crocs or similar footwear, lyme planter fasciitis is no joke.

SMITH: It's no joke at all. And I was wondering if the Jibbitz are close at all in design because we know Crocs is known for those Jibbitz that you put on those.

ABER: Oh, yeah.

SMITH: Maribel Aber, thank you so much.

Let's take a look at some of the other stories we're tracking across the country.

We start in Florida. That's where authorities say they caught a civilian who got through the perimeter at MacDill Air Force Base. Now, officials say that the person got into a fight with security officers on Saturday. Both that person and one of the officers were taken to the hospital with injuries but were not seriously hurt. Authorities are still trying to figure out how the civilian got past the perimeter barrier.

And take a look at this next video from Texas. Someone inside a truck started throwing money out the window during a police chase.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

POLICE OFFICER: You threw a bunch of money out of the car.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SMITH: That was about $6,000 thrown out there. And officers near Houston say they were trying to stop the truck in connection to a report of someone using multiple cards at an ATM and taking out a lot of cash. The driver was arrested along with a passenger.

And in Los Angeles, a disturbing incident on Skid Row. Bystanders used bolt cutters to free a four-year-old pit bull named Rosie after the van that she was living in was set on fire. Rosie wasn't hurt, and now police are searching for a suspect. The mayor's office is investigating as well.

[06:00:00]

And in Chicago, more than 110 teams turned out at O'Hare International Airport to pull the United Airlines 737 by hand. It was all part of the annual O'Hare Plane Pull, a fundraiser for the Special Olympics. Teams of up to 20 people competed to pull the 95,000 pound plane 12 feet as fast as they could. In the end, the event raised more than $230,000. An incredible feat and no need to go to the gym after that effort with the team.

That does it for CNN HEADLINE EXPRESS. I'm Brad Smith. "CNN THIS MORNING WITH AUDIE CORNISH" starts right now.