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CNN Headlines: AI Execs Agree To "Self-Police" After White House Meeting; Jury Finds Former "AMERICAN IDOL" Contestant Guilty Of Murdering His Wife; NY AG Reviews Cornell's Response To Rape Allegations As D.A. Reopens Investigation. Aired 5:30-6a ET
Aired September 30, 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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[05:30:35]
BRAD SMITH, CNN ANCHOR: It's half past the hour. Let's hit the refresh button on our top stories.
Lindsay Clancy returned to court Tuesday for a status hearing and her attorney, Kevin Reddington, made a shocking claim before the judge that it may not have been Clancy who killed her three children. The prosecution called that allegation "laughable." And Reddington wants Clancy's case tossed out after her first trial ended in a hung jury. The next hearing has been scheduled for November 2.
Also, the two candidates vying for California's governor's seat will debate later tonight here on CNN. Democrat Xavier Becerra and Republican Steve Hilton will face off as voters weigh the cost of living, housing, homelessness, natural disasters, and artificial intelligence. CNN anchors Jake Tapper and Dana Bash moderate starting at 9:00 p.m. Eastern.
And President Trump believes the artificial intelligence industry can regulate itself, and that's exactly what came out of Tuesday's closely watched meeting at the White House with the heads of some of the top AI companies. The president posted a one-page document with four bullet points of voluntary guardrails. The document features the signatures of six tech company CEOs alongside President Trump's name. Many of these AI executives themselves are saying that self-policing is not enough and they want regulation and guardrails, but the president is not interested.
CNN's Kristen Holmes has more from the White House.
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KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: We certainly heard from Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, who has been one of the loudest voices raising flags about AI, and he did not sound completely convinced that everything was Kumbaya. He said there are still enormous risks when it comes to AI.
So now we know that these tech leaders and President Trump kind of signed these principles of self-policing.
And we heard from Meta's Mark Zuckerberg, who kind of described what this is going to look like. Take a listen.
MARK ZUCKERBERG, CEO, META: We drafted a set of principles and commitments around building robust internal controls and detecting if there are any issues with the technology, coupled with multiple layers of auditing and controls, starting with internal risk review, external auditors and evaluators, and agreeing that we're going to have all of our boards of directors independently review the reports that come from the auditors.
HOLMES: So obviously there's some questions about who is on this external board of trustees, I understand, or external board that was going to review the outpouring of this versus the internal board. It didn't sound like any of this was government related.
I specifically asked, noting that 71 percent of Americans think the federal government is not doing enough right now to regulate AI. President Trump dodged that question when I asked specifically, "What was your message to the American people, as you continue to say, President Trump, that there are no guardrails?" And he essentially said that these companies are doing a lot, which was not really an answer to the question of what's your message to the American people who are concerned about federal regulations on artificial intelligence.
He also said that he was renaming artificial intelligence to super intelligence. I mean, this goes back to something that I had heard from some of Trump's top advisors weeks ago, which was this idea that AI is not being sold the correct way to the general public, so clearly that they're doing some sort of a rebrand here.
Now, it was clear President Trump did not change his mind that he does not want guardrails. We talked a lot about President Xi, about China, about the race in AI, and not wanting to get behind or be slowed down by these guardrails.
It'll be interesting to see what we actually hear from some of these CEOs as this goes into practice. It's still unclear what it actually looks like.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SMITH: Thank you, Kristen.
A jury found former "AMERICAN IDOL" contestant Caleb Flynn guilty of murdering his wife and other charges. In Ohio, CNN's Marybel Gonzalez breaks it all down for us.
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JUDGE JEANNINE PRATT, ADMINISTRATIVE JUDGE FOR THE COURT, MIAMI COUNTY, OHIO: We, the jury in this case, being duly impaneled and sworn, find the defendant, Caleb C. Flynn, guilty of aggravated murder. MARYBEL GONZALEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voiceover): After about two hours of deliberations, jurors found Caleb Flynn guilty of murdering his wife, Ashley.
PRATT: Guilty of tampering with evidence as charged in count nine of the indictment.
[05:35:00]
GONZALEZ: Flynn was found guilty of all nine charges, including aggravated murder, murder, felony murder, felonious assault, and tampering with evidence.
The case stemmed from a 911 call on February 16, when he told authorities his wife had been shot and killed in their home by an intruder.
CALEB FLYNN, FOUND GUILTY OF WIFE'S MURDER: My wife, she -- she's got two shots to her head. There's blood everywhere. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.
GONZALEZ: Prosecutors allege Flynn murdered his wife and staged the crime scene, pointing to his affair with a fellow worship leader at his church as a motive.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The evidence does not lead to some unknown intruder who vanished into the night. The evidence shows that Ashley was executed by her husband.
GONZALEZ: Flynn's defense team said the prosecution proved Flynn had an affair, but they did not prove he killed his wife, noting the missing murder weapon.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's no proof Caleb fired a gun that day.
GONZALEZ: The case garnered national attention. Some voiced their opinion outside the Ohio courthouse following the verdict.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I knew in my heart that he was guilty.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Rest in paradise. You got your justice.
GONZALEZ: A sentencing hearing is set for October 5. Flynn faces a sentence of life in prison without parole.
I'm Marybel Gonzalez reporting.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SMITH: Thank you, Marybel.
The office -- the office of New York Attorney General Letitia James says that it's reviewing Cornell University's response to an alleged gang rape at a fraternity house. Now, this month, a former student filed a 101-page civil lawsuit saying that she was sexually assaulted by seven fraternity members in 2024. The suit also claims the university and prosecutors mishandled the investigation, sparking a wave of outrage. But some Cornell students say this is too little too late.
CNN's Erin Burnett spoke to the editor-in-chief and senior editor of The Cornell Daily Sun, who broke the story on the lawsuit.
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SOPHIA DASSER, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, THE CORNELL DAILY SUN: There is shock, there is outrage, but there's this underlying feeling that the majority of students are unsurprised by the situation. And there's this huge wave of solidarity and kinship with Jane Doe that I think both Cereese and I have experienced through our inboxes and our voicemails. It was one of the reasons why The Sun then released a sexual misconduct tip line specifically for community members to talk about their Title IX processes at Cornell.
But we've been absolutely floored by how positive the reactions to the coverage and how supportive the community has been to Jane Doe. And so we are really, really grateful to the community at large.
CEREESE QUSBA, SENIOR EDITOR, THE CORNELL DAILY SUN: I don't think you could really expect the national attention it got, and I think that's largely due to the fact that we included graphic details of the lawsuit -- that the lawsuit wrote and we did not sugarcoat anything in our coverage. And we've continued to offer transparency to the Cornell community, but also to everyone.
DASSER: I think at the end of the day, the Sun is really asking for something that everyone deserves, which is a level of transparency and accountability. We are students, we have the right to demand safety from our university administrators. And we have the right to demand things like anonymized data reports of outcomes and sanctions and punishments from cases that were reported.
To the Sun, it was extraordinarily concerning that the last we had heard on any solution from the case was a sexual assault task force that had approached sexual misconduct as an educational problem, one that could be solved with workshops and lectures and website links. And within the paper and kind of clearly to anyone who's reading those websites, the individuals who would probably be committing the sexual misconduct are not the individuals who will be showing up to these workshops. So we fundamentally believe that this was a poor approach to the issue.
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SMITH: The local district attorney has reopened the case and will seek a grand jury review of the allegations.
Well, the Supreme Court is allowing the Trump administration to resume its controversial deportation program for moving migrants to countries other than their homeland.
CNN's Joan Biskupic has the latest.
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JOAN BISKUPIC, CNN CHIEF SUPREME COURT ANALYST: The disputed policy in this case does not give migrants a chance to claim they could be tortured in these countries where they have no ties or to raise any other human rights concerns.
Lower court judges had blocked the policy. The conservative Supreme Court majority revived it on Tuesday without any explanation in an unsigned order and over the dissent of the three liberal justices on the nine-member bench. But it seems the dissenters pulled one concession from the conservatives who control the court and have largely favored Trump -- the Trump administration on immigration.
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The court scheduled arguments in the case for this December on an expedited schedule. The justices said they will decide whether U.S. lower court judges actually have jurisdiction to hear claims against the removal policy, as happened here, and whether, more importantly, these third-country deportations are lawful.
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SMITH: Well, officials in New Mexico are declaring flash flood emergencies in the southern part of the state. Heavy rain has slammed the area, causing water in the Rio Grande to rise to dangerous levels. The river has breached levees and authorities are warning that a dam is at risk of imminent failure. Just shocking visuals here. Surrounding communities have been ordered to evacuate.
The woman accused of shooting an AR-15 at Rihanna's home while the singer and her family were still inside will stand trial. The judge made the long-awaited ruling on Tuesday, and police say that Ivanna Ortiz fired at least 10 shots from the front gate of the home back in March. She's been undergoing mental evaluations since May. Rihanna and her partner, rapper ASAP Rocky, were in an Airstream trailer parked in the driveway at the time. Ortiz is facing attempted murder charges and she's pleaded not guilty. If convicted, she faces up to life in prison.
It's time for Buzz Express, the stories that have people talking.
And a trailer just dropped for a documentary on the life of Matthew Perry. His sister says that the three-part Netflix series isn't going to shy away from the darker parts of the "FRIENDS" star's life.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My brother would talk about that feeling of emptiness or loneliness that he couldn't quite fill. He spent $7 million trying to get sober. That's how seriously he took his disease.
MATTHEW PERRY, DIED FROM KETAMINE OVERDOSE: I have people telling me to stop, saying you're gonna kill yourself.
(END VIDEO CLIP) SMITH: His sister goes on to say while her brother struggled with drug addiction, making people laugh helped in his battle. Matthew Perry died in 2023 of a ketamine overdose. Five people were charged in connection to his death.
Want to own a bit of music history? This jacket worn by the King of Pop, Michael Jackson, in the 1990s. This jacket was worn and it's up for auction starting tomorrow. Prop store Auction House estimating it could bring in up to $470,000.
And maybe you're more of a Bon Jovi fan. Well, you could bid on this Dolce and Gabbana jacket worn by Jon Bon Jovi during concerts in 1995 in the U.K. Or how about an autographed guitar used by Noel Gallagher of Oasis during the '90s? That too is up. And this piano from a recording studio in Germany and was used by artists like Freddie Mercury of Queen, the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, and Black Sabbath and more. This is also up for auction. And then you have John Lennon's glasses that he wore back in 1973. Those could bring in a quarter of a million dollars.
All right. All right. Shoot me the link.
Next on CNN HEADLINE EXPRESS, Target has been plagued with a series of problems over the last few years, and now the company says they're lowering prices on thousands of items. We've got the details on that later in the hour. Keep it right here.
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SMITH: Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich is speaking out about his 16-month imprisonment in Russia. In his new memoir, "This Cursed, Beautiful Land," Gershkovich opens up about his 2023 arrest on suspicion of espionage while working as a correspondent in Moscow. He was later used as a key bargaining chip in a landmark multi-country prisoner swap between the U.S., Russia, and Germany.
He spoke with CNN's Jake Tapper about the experience.
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EVAN GERSHKOVICH, WALL STREET JOURNAL REPORTER IMPRISONED IN RUSSIA: They treated me like the sort of pristine package to be kept and swapped, so my value would stay very high. And that was a kind of known -- you know, known secret from day one.
My first night in prison, you know, there's a -- we have a television and on state news, you know, a newscaster like you, except it's for state propaganda, says, you know, it might be cynical, but we've replenished our exchange fund, so to speak. The term the Russians use for what they -- you know, the group of
people that they take capture to then trade. And so that -- knowing that as a reporter who was working in the country for 5 1/2 years up to that point and had reported on cases like this, that really helped. You know, also having this wide support network from my newsroom to
other journalists like yourself, also my family, my friends, my girlfriend who really, you know, rallied around me. So I really wasn't alone.
And also my Russian background that you alluded to at the beginning. You know, I spoke the language. I understood the customs. And so I could have conversations with my cellmates, understand what was going on on the television and newspapers, but also talk to prison guards and talk to, you know, FSB officials. And as a journalist, it was a sort of unique opportunity, kind of, you know, to end up there.
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SMITH: Wow.
Gershkovich's memoir is out now and in it he explores the time in captivity as well as what the Russian population as a whole is enduring.
Let's go around the globe to see what else is making headlines today.
We begin in the Middle East. That's where an apparent violent incident between two pilots on a Dubai-Tel Aviv flight forced a diversion in Saudi Arabia -- Saudi Arabia. So sources tell CNN that the incident triggered a rapid drop in altitude and an emergency signal from the plane.
[05:50:05]
So sources tell CNN that the incident triggered a rapid drop in altitude and an emergency signal from the plane. This involved a Flydubai flight, and you're looking at some file video of the airline. Sources say the plane dropped from 34,000 feet to just over 17,000 feet in less than two minutes. Israeli officials say it was not a hijacking, but fighter jets were scrambled because of the heightened tension in the region. The flight landed safely, but there are a lot of questions about what
happens now. Israel and Saudi Arabia have not normalized relations, and it's unclear when or how those passengers will get to Israel.
We've got some new developments in the alleged terror plot against a British air base. One of the suspects reportedly called police before the arrests, according to multiple British media outlets. Five men were taken into custody on Sunday near the base on suspicion of explosives and terrorism offenses. Now, the U.S. has been using that base to fly missions against Iran. The men were ultimately released after no explosives were found.
And a developing story in the Middle East. The U.S. is saying that its troop withdrawal from Iraq is now complete. The exit ends a 12-year fight against ISIS and closes out a two-decade U.S. military presence in the country. Iraq is marking the moment with a four-day national holiday. But at least one official is raising concerns, pointing to the current U.S. war with Iran. American forces first entered Iraq during the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. Well, still to come on CNN HEADLINE EXPRESS, a dramatic night rescue.
Deputies called in to help three people after their boat capsized in the Florida Everglades. And the latest on a Georgia college student who somehow fell out of an eight-story window in an apartment complex. That story and much more coming up on CNN HEADLINE EXPRESS.
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SMITH: In today's Money Express, some good news for student loan borrowers. You still have time to enroll in auto pay to secure a lower interest rate.
Let's go to Maribel Aber live from the NASDAQ MarketSite with more. Maribel, the Education Department extended the deadline to enroll. What do we know here?
MARIBEL ABER, CNN CORRESPONDENT, MONEY MATTERS: OK, Brad, federal student loan borrowers have three more months to sign up for an interest break. According to the Education Department, eligible borrowers have until December 31 to enroll in autopay and cut their interest rate by one point. The discount lasts through June 30, 2028, as long as borrowers remain eligible in repayment and enrolled in autopay enrollment. And other details can be found at studentaid.gov.
Target is cutting prices on nearly 2,000 products ahead of the holiday shopping season. The markdowns include clothing, shoes, and home essentials like bedding. That follows more than 10,000 price cuts over the past year. Target has also opened in-store beauty studios at more than 600 locations nationwide.
And a holiday favorite is heading back to the grocery aisle. Little Debbie Christmas tree cakes. They return in mid-October and will be available through mid-December. The company says this year's holiday lineup includes two new treats: hot cocoa mini muffins and glazed donuts with red and green sprinkles. Returning favorites include North Pole nutty buddy wafers, cherry cordials, and gingerbread cookies.
Brad, Swiss rolls were my jam.
SMITH: I feel the sugar nap -- sugar-induced nap coming on already.
Maribel Aber, thank you so much.
Now to some other stories across the country that we are tracking.
We start in Georgia where a college student was dancing on a sofa when she fell out of the window and somehow survived falling eight stories. Authorities say the University of Georgia student landed on a pool deck at the apartment complex where a lounge chair may have broken her fall. Her father says it happened after the Georgia Bulldogs' victory Saturday over the Oklahoma Sooners. He adds that she is awake and still recovering in the ICU after breaking several bones.
All right. Let's take you out to Las Vegas. That's where firefighters rescued a man who fell from a bridge and into a drainage tunnel. You can see him being pulled from the fast-moving water Monday night. Crews used a rope system to lift the man and a firefighter to safety. The man was checked out at the scene and released.
All right. Now, in Florida, deputies rescued three people after their boat capsized.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We've got three juveniles here. They're both -- they're all fine. We're just trying to get them onto our boat right now.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Anybody injured?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right. Give me your hand if you can. Give me your hand. All right, I got one coming on board.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SMITH: They were about two miles offshore, and they used the light on a phone to help deputies find them in the dark. Wow.
And how about this? Olympic officials announcing a first-of-its-kind event in the United States ahead of the 2028 Summer Games. Before the games begin in Los Angeles, the Olympic torch will travel through all 50 states, starting in Atlanta, the host of the 1996 Olympics. Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens joined Olympic icons for the announcement.
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MAYOR ANDRE DICKENS, ATLANTA, GEORGIA: Atlanta will be ready. Ready to welcome it from Greece, ready to celebrate the spirit of the games together as a community, and ready to send it forward towards Los Angeles and the next chapter of America's Olympic story. Atlanta was proud to carry the flame in 1996. We will be proud to welcome it back.
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[06:00:05]
SMITH All right. Can't wait to watch that get lit.
Casey Wasserman, chairman of the L.A. '28 organizing committee, says that the torch relay will begin in spring of 2028. Officials plan to reveal the route and city stops next year.
Well, that does it for CNN HEADLINE EXPRESS. I'm Brad Smith. "CNN THIS MORNING WITH AUDIE CORNISH" starts right now.
