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The Story Is with Elex Michaelson

Lionel Messi Retiring From Argentine National Team; 950 Plus Dead, 4,400 Plus Missing In Catastrophic Flooding Aftermath; Rescue Teams Race To Find Workers Trapped In Nepal Tunnels; Trump: Anti-Data Center Communities Will Be "Backwards and Poor"; DHS to Launch Voter Fraud Investigation Surge; 980+ Dead, 3,900+ Missing in Catastrophic Flooding Aftermath; Jets Make Dramatically Low Stadium Flyover in South Africa. Aired 1-2a ET

Aired September 01, 2026 - 01:00   ET

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

[01:00:00]

DON RIDDELL, CNN WORLD SPORT: All saying, quote, "I always fought and left everything on the field for this jersey to bring you joy and make you feel proud to be Argentine through football. It was a decision that hurt and still hurts deep down. But I understand that the time has come. Thank you, God, for making me Argentine," he concluded.

But we should state that this isn't quite the end of the road. Messi is still playing for Inter Miami, his club team in Major League Soccer. Clearly, he's still got a lot to offer.

Get this. Over the weekend, he scored four times in Miami's MLS win against Montreal. So, his fans can still enjoy this magical football player for hopefully a bit more time. Still to come back to you.

ELEX MICHAELSON, CNN ANCHOR: Thank you and thanks for watching. The first hour of The Story Is. The next hour starts right now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Live from Los Angeles, The Story Is with Elex Michaelson.

MICHAELSON: It's 10:00 p.m. here in Los Angeles, 1:00 a.m. in New York. I'm Elex Michaelson.

Coming up on The Story Is, nearly 1,000 killed and 4,000 still missing six days after flash flooding in Nepal and China. CNN teams on the ground as rescuers dig through mud and debris, searching for survivors.

As we await a verdict in the Lindsay Clancy triple murder case, I'll speak to a top psychologist on whether we have reached an inflection point, an understanding addressing the mental health of new mothers.

Plus, let data rain. President Trump goes all in on data centers as the controversial issue takes center stage ahead of the midterms. My political panel live to debate it all.

But we begin with our top story, the mounting death toll in Nepal and China following last week's devastating floods. Authorities now estimate at least 955 people have been killed. Morgues and hospitals in Nepal are running out of space to stop store bodies, according to local officials, forcing some areas to begin digging mass graves for unclaimed victims.

Police are asking relatives of people who are missing to provide DNA samples to help identify recovered remains. More than 4,400 people are still unaccounted for across both countries, among them about 900 workers believed to be trapped inside buried hydropower tunnels in Nepal.

Urgent international rescue efforts are still underway despite poor weather conditions and heavily damaged infrastructure. Despite the scale of the disaster, some families with missing loved ones are holding out hope. Nepal's prime minister says more than 11,000 people have been saved so far. CNN's Will Ripley spoke with one family about the miraculous rescue of their five-year-old daughter.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WILL RIPLEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voiceover): At first, rescuers thought the fain cries coming from beneath the wreckage might be a cat. But under all the mud and debris between two battered buildings, they found a little girl alive, five-year-old Manisha, trapped here in the ruins of flood ravaged Timure, Nepal. For nearly 60 hours, they lay her on brightly colored blankets. Rescuers crowd around her.

And after nearly two and a half days trapped amid the destruction, they begin feeding her one spoonful at a time.

LOK BAHADUR UCHAI MAGAR, FATHER OF RESCUED GIRL (VOICEOVER): Her face was not recognizable. She had injuries. Her condition was serious. Had multiple injuries and blood all around.

RIPLEY: What is it like as a father to look at a video like that and see your daughter in that condition?

L. UCHAI MAGAR (voiceover): She's my child. That's all I have to say. I have no words.

RIPLEY (voiceover): And this is Manisha now. CNN exclusively obtained these first images of her at a children's hospital in Kathmandu. Battered and bruised, but alive and back with her mom and dad. They thought she was gone, but all that time she was waiting for them to find her.

GITA UCHAI MAGAR, MOTHER OF RESCUED GIRL: She says to me, the flood came and swept me away. She says, I called for mummy and Baba. Why didn't you come to save me?

RIPLEY (voiceover): The flood came without warning. Manisha was eating breakfast. Her mom Gita was at work. Her dad Lok was in the vegetable garden.

RIPLEY: What did that feel like? What did that sound like when the water hit your house?

L. UCHAI MAGAR (voiceover): At the time, there was no sound coming. All of a sudden, it came like a tsunami came from the top as it was coming. We were able to save nothing. The difference was 5 seconds. I was running and within 2 seconds the house was toppled and was taken away. I very much tried to save my child, but I could not.

[01:05:08]

RIPLEY: So where did you end up after the flood? How were you rescued and when did you reconnect with your wife first?

L. UCHAI MAGAR (voiceover): After running from there, I had headed towards the jungle already. I met my wife around 2:00 p.m. after running up to the forest, we met. Then my wife asked me, where is the child?

She started crying. She became unconscious for five, six minutes. She lost consciousness.

RIPLEY: Did you have any hope at that point that Manisha was alive?

L. UCHAI MAGAR (voiceover): No, at the time I did not feel that Manisha was alive.

RIPLEY (voiceover): They searched desperately hoping to find her body. All that time Manisha was alive downstream.

RIPLEY: It's miraculous that given the force of that water that she was able to have a place where she could survive.

G. UCHAI MAGAR (voiceover): It was miraculous. When the child was found, it felt like a miracle. I thought there is a God.

RIPLEY (voiceover): But their house and everything they own is gone. Amid so much pain and loss here in Nepal, they know they're among the lucky ones.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MICHAELSON: Will Ripley what an amazing story there. Two people are dead, at least one person still unaccounted for after flash flooding ripped through the Grand Canyon national park in Arizona on Saturday. The National Park Service says search and rescue efforts are still happening right now at this late hour with one person missing based on park permit rescues, but officials caution that other visitors may have been in the area and they don't know that they were there.

One of those killed has been identified by his family as 53-year-old John Giusti. The Texas chiropractor was camping and fishing in the canyon with two friends.

Nearly all footbridges and many trails in the affected area were destroyed by flooding and debris flows, significantly limiting access for emergency responders who are trying to help right now. Heavy rain and the threat of more flash flooding has complicated search efforts throughout the day, but conditions are expected to improve in the overnight hours.

A Las Vegas jury has found Duane Davis guilty of first-degree murder in the death of rapper Tupac Shakur. It took the jury just three hours to come to that decision after weeks of testimony in the 30-year-old case. CNN's Josh Campbell has more from the court.

JOSH CAMPBELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Nearly 30 years after legendary rapper Tupac Shakur was shot and killed not far from where we are here in the city of Las Vegas, there is now a verdict in the case involving the man who prosecutors alleged had been involved in the murder.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The verdict reads as we the jury in the above entitled case find the defendant, Duane Keffe Davis as follows. Count one, murder with use of A deadly weapon. Guilty of first-degree murder with use of a deadly weapon. Dated this 31st date of August 2026.

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, is this your verdict as read? So say you one, so say you all?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMPBELL: Now, in closing arguments on Monday, prosecutors had essentially made their strategy to focus on Duane Davis own words. The defendant here, pointing to past interviews that he gave with police, with the media.

He wrote a book on this topic in which he described his role that night, being inside of a vehicle whenever people that he was with pulled alongside Tupac Shakur. He described handing a firearm in the backseat to his nephew, who ultimately pulled the trigger, allegedly opening fire on Tupac Shakur.

The strategy, again, was to focus not on just what other people were saying who might have been witnesses, but things he said himself.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARC DIGIACOMO, CLARK COUNTY ATTORNEY: Do we honestly think a guy who's dumb enough to write a book could keep this story straight? This many times? This many times over?

Mr. Davis is attempting to escape responsibility for a crime everybody knows he committed, even him. And he admits to it for seven, eight times over the course of 30 years. And there's no evidence contradicting that fact.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMPBELL: Now, for their part, the defense strategy was obviously quite different. His attorney was asking the jury to believe that. Look, despite comments that were made in the past by his client, admitting to certain aspects, despite the interviews with police, the media interviews.

And the book, he wanted the jury to believe that all of that was nonsense, saying that his client made up those admissions essentially for profit.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VOICE OF MICHAEL SANFT, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: You're reading a book that is fiction and not fact, but the state wants you to believe that this is somehow a confession, that he was there and present at the time of the shooting.

The question is always going to be asked, why would he say these words? Well, obviously it was because he wanted to protect himself, he wanted to protect his family, and he wanted to make money.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMPBELL: Now, there was a question all along about how long jury deliberations would take. We've seen trials where it's gone on for days and days. Here, this verdict coming very quickly, within a matter of just a couple few hours, the jury again rendering a verdict of guilty for Duane Davis, sentencing in this case is set for October 13th. Back to you.

[01:10:09]

MICHAELSON: Josh Campbell. Thank you for that. From Las Vegas last hour, I spoke live with filmmaker Mike Dorsey, who directed the documentary Murder Inside the Biggie and Tupac Murders. He also testified as a witness in that murder trial.

I asked him whether this ruling finally answers that question. Who killed Tupac Shakur? Here's what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MIKE DORSEY, DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKER AND TRUE-CRIME PRODUCER: I think any reasonable person, logical person, it's been put to rest. You know, there's the saying, you can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into. There's always going to be some folks who are going to keep pushing conspiracy theories, but I think for most of the public, you know, this was the most famous unsolved murder in history, or one of the most. And it's unsolved, no more, so.

MICHAELSON: Yes. And why was it so important for you to get involved in helping to solve this?

DORSEY: Well, I set out originally just to make a film about it because I read a book called Murder Rap about by Greg Kading was a former detective for the LAPD, and he's the one that got Keffe's first ever confession in 2008. And it just rang true to me. And I said, I think the public needs to know about this. And that's all it was at first.

I was never thinking, oh, this will lead to a conviction. Never in my wildest dreams. And the number of milestones that we had to reach on this road to today. There are so many improbable moments where things had to go right and they went right.

And yes, it's just --

MICHAELSON: What was it like to testify in this case after doing that work for so long? You're up there, and you're up there for basically a day and a half?

DORSEY: Correct. It was a little nerve wracking. I didn't know what to expect. I've never been in a courtroom, even during a trial, much less testified, much less testified at a high-profile trial and up there all day. And I also know that my testimony is very damaging and the evidence that I'm letting them introduce is very damaging.

So, I know the defense attorney is going to come at me, and he did so nerve wracking. But I also know that I probably know more than anybody else about this case, than anybody in that courtroom, including possibly even the attorneys. So, I also know you're not going to come at me with. You're not going to stump me.

MICHAELSON: And for people that may not have watched every second of the case. What was the piece of evidence you think that you prevented for some presented that was so damaging?

DORSEY: Sure. So, Keefe D's first public interview that he ever gave was recorded in the summer of 2017. It was for a show on BET that came out in 2018. And I was there for that interview kind of secretly.

And I ended up making my own recording of that interview. And then when the time came and the prosecution couldn't get that raw footage from, you know, Paramount and all them, they came to me and I said, well, I have my own recording. And I turned it over.

MICHAELSON: Can you believe that he said as much as he said for so long? And then his defense was, don't believe me? I'm a BS Artist.

DORSEY: Right. The funniest example of that is his book, you know, saying he had nothing to do with writing his book. And he went on YouTube and held his book up and said, this is the truth. I want everyone to -- you're getting it from the horse's mouth, you know, I want you guys to all buy this.

And there were so many details in that book from his life that aren't anywhere else that he had to have given that information to the author that he worked with, so.

MICHAELSON: And you said also the night of the shooting that there were details that he said that wouldn't have made sense if he wasn't there.

DORSEY: Correct. There was a moment after the shooting happens and they're fleeing the scene where they almost collide with this carload of girls in a convertible Sebring that were there, and then they get in almost a second shootout. They shoot back at the girls. I don't believe that was ever public information until he confessed. And so that was -- it was kind of like, we call it a Colombo moment. It was like this real life, like he gave a detail that only the killer could know.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

Our thanks to Mike Dorsey, joining us exclusively here on CNN. Sources tell CNN that U.S. army Secretary Dan Driscoll has submitted his resignation following months of friction with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. We learned that Driscoll submitted his resignation to President Trump after speaking with him about the current state of the army.

A White House spokesperson said that Driscoll has been highly effective in advancing the president's agenda and providing outstanding leadership during historic military operations.

His departure comes six months into the war with Iran. Military leaders also issuing a warning to Hegseth over that war. The Washington Post reports that sources say the military leaders of the army, the Navy, the Air Force, and four Star commanders overseeing operations across the globe warned the defense secretary that prolonged large scale military operations against Iran is unsustainable. They added, it risks weakening the U.S. military's ability to confront threats elsewhere, including the U.S. Homeland.

News of Driscoll's resignation comes one day after the U.S. and Iran traded attacks in the first major military escalation in a month. And his departure will not be the first for the army this year. Months ago, Hegseth fired Army chief of staff and two other generals. Democratic Senator Elissa Slotkin spoke to CNN about these developments.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ELISSA SLOTKIN (D-MI): I mean, look, I always had a collegial relationship with him and worked well with him, but it does really start to feel like we're on this never-ending purge. Whether it's a three- or four-star generals, whether it's a colonel who's about to make one star and then Hegseth takes them off the list or the civilian leadership, it just, it feels like Hegseth has an audience of one that's Donald Trump. And if someone disagrees with him or undercuts him or makes him look somehow weak, then he gets rid of them.

[01:15:25]

And I think what is the added context which you mentioned is just we're in the middle of a war and I think that I have to go back and look at my history books, but I cannot remember a time in my history lessons that we have had this many vacancies for this many key positions in the middle of a hot war that just got hotter yesterday.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAELSON: All eyes are on the Strait of Hormuz and the struggle over who will control it amid the U.S. war with Iran, it has brought heightened attention to another key shipping chokepoint in the region, the Bab al-Mandab Stait, connecting the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean. CNN's Nick Robertson gained exclusive access to Perim Island in the Strait and gives us a firsthand look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Right now, we're standing on Perim island, also known locally as Mayun Island. And what you're looking at behind me there is the Bab al-Mandab Strait. And what I can see looking out looking over that shoulder is Eritrea.

What I can see looking out over that shoulder is Djibouti. I see the mountains rising up out of the sea. It's the African continent. And that tells you just how narrow the Bab al-Mandab Strait is. It's about 10 miles or so across to Africa, 15 kilometers, something like that.

What's happening here? There's been a little-known war that's been simmering here in Yemen for over a decade between the Yemeni government and the Houthis. And I think a lot of people don't know much about this conflict. They kind of think that the Houthis are a ragtag force, but they're not.

They're Iran's strongest proxy at the moment. They've got hypersonic missiles. They've been hitting Israel. They've got ship-seeking sophisticated missiles that can target them from a long distance. And they've been hitting international shipping, Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea here, Bab al-Mandab, Red Sea up there.

So, you've got the Houthis with their Iranian sponsors that have been ramping up the war here in recent weeks. And they're turning what was a local war into a geopolitical one, if you will, that has global consequences.

A few years ago, 10 percent of the global oil trade came through here. Vital for commercial shipping, too. Now it's down to about half of that.

And if Iran continues to push its proxies here, and they continue in their operations to try to take the rest of the Red Sea coast, then they would take this place here, Perim Island, Mayun Island, they would take it. That would make shutting off this strait, the Bab al- Mandab Strait, much, much easier for them. The Bab al-Mandab Strait, that potentially has political consequences for President Trump, because of course, if you shut off this route for oil, getting to global markets, particularly Asia, then that's going to drive up the price of oil. And that makes -- that gives President Trump political vulnerability, politics -- particularly going into the upcoming U.S. midterms.

And this really appears to be what Iran is doing at the moment.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MICHAELSON: Nick Robertson there. Still ahead on The Story Is, Lindsey Clancy's murder trial is bringing new attention to postpartum mental health and revealing how much we still do not understand. We'll get into that with a leading doctor live next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[01:23:10]

MICHAELSON: On Tuesday, jurors will reserve deliberations in the murder trial of Lindsay Clancy. Her defense argues she was suffering from postpartum psychosis when she killed her three young children and is not criminally responsible, basically, by reason of insanity. Clancy has pled not guilty.

The case has ignited national conversations and debate about postpartum mental health and how it is so often overlooked and misunderstood.

Joining me now to discuss is Dr. Katie Unverferth. She is the director of the UCLA Women's Life center and the medical director for the UCLA Maternal Mental Health Program. She's treated people with postpartum depression and postpartum psychosis. She joins us live now on set.

Thanks so much for being with us. Why do you think that this case has connected in a way that very few cases ever have with the entire country?

DR. KATIE UNVERFERTH, DIRECTOR, UCLA WOMEN'S LIFE CENTER: Yes, I mean, I think this case really shines a light on postpartum mental health struggles, right? We know that 80 percent of women have postpartum blues, right?

That's mild tearfulness, mild irritability, kind of feeling hormonal for the first two weeks. We know that nearly one in five women have postpartum depression or anxiety, right? So, a really common complication of childbirth and then rarely, but I think feared for a lot of people is postpartum psychosis, right?

One to two out of a thousand women will have postpartum psychosis. Postpartum psychosis, you know, can sometimes start with symptoms that really overlap with postpartum anxiety, like irritability, insomnia, agitation, but then it progresses to more frank psychosis. And I think in some ways it's what a lot of people fear is kind of losing their mind, right?

MICHAELSON: Right. Well, let's go through both of those things. Let's start with postpartum depression or anxiety. One in five, which is a very significant number of women, which may be part of the reason why this case is connecting to so many people. What is postpartum depression or anxiety?

[01:25:13]

UNVERFERTH: Yes, so postpartum depression is a form of depression that happens usually within the first four weeks postpartum, but can really happen for the first year. It's characterized by low mood, a lot of anxiety. We see a lot of anxiety is comorbid with postpartum depression. People have circular thinking. They have a lot of guilt. Right. I see new moms who just feel guilty. They don't feel like they're doing enough. They don't feel like they're a good enough mom.

There can be obsessive thoughts. We see intrusive thoughts. Very commonly, an intrusive thought is an unwanted, uncontrollable thought that pops into your mind sort of unexpectedly.

Sometimes those are of intentionally harming your -- they can be of accidentally harming your infant. They can be so distressing. Postpartum depression also associated with suicidal thoughts at times.

So postpartum depression is a really hormonally driven depressive episode that occurs in the postpartum.

MICHAELSON: So how do you treat that?

UNVERFERTH: Yes, postpartum depression, there are a few different ways of treating it. So, for mild to moderate postpartum depression, therapy has a lot of evidence. For more severe postpartum depression, we can use antidepressants. There's a newer antidepressant called zuranolone that has unique efficacy in this population.

Postpartum depression is very treatable. We know it's important to treat not only because it affects the mom, but we also know that postpartum depression has negative outcomes for the infant. So, we know that postpartum depression really affects infant development as well.

MICHAELSON: So, psychosis, a lot more serious. What exactly is that?

UNVERFERTH: Yes, so postpartum psychosis is a condition that occurs in one to two out of a thousand births. The classic example of postpartum psychosis is someone who has a long labor, like maybe it's days long. They don't sleep during their labor, and then they really don't sleep again. And over the course of a few days, maybe a week or two, they have increasing insomnia, agitation, anxiety, irritability.

That then leads to more frankly, psychotic symptoms like hallucinations, delusions, confusion, loss of touch with reality. It's a psychiatric emergency. If anybody has psychotic symptoms in the first few months postpartum, they really need to go to an emergency room both for a medical evaluation and a psychiatric evaluation.

Importantly, and I think this is really crucial is that it waxes and wanes, meaning sometimes people can look completely lucid, and then at other times, frankly, psychotic.

We see a lot of times that family members are really the first ones who sort of notice the symptoms, because as part of the disease, women often don't realize that they're sick. That's what makes them psychotic. They sort of believe this altered reality.

MICHAELSON: So, you're obviously not treating Lindsay Clancy. She reports of having voices in her head which tell her to kill her kids. Is that sort of the textbook definition of this? Does that fall within this?

UNVERFERTH: Yes, that can be part of postpartum psychosis. Command auditory hallucinations, meaning kind of a voice inside your head that's not your own voice telling you to do things, certainly can be part of postpartum psychosis.

One of the things we see as part of postpartum psychosis is this sort of delusion of altruistic homicide, this belief that by killing your children or infant, you're saving them. So sometimes it's that there's some evil force out to get them, and by killing them, you're actually preventing that.

So certainly, that can be a type of the psychosis we see in postpartum psychosis.

MICHAELSON: And obviously this has sparked a national and international conversation. What's the most important thing you want people to take away or sort of the biggest misunderstanding about this as we have this conversation?

UNVERFERTH: Yes. One of the things that I've been seeing clinically, you know, in my patients, in my private practice in Santa Monica and at UCLA, is this fear that these intrusive thoughts that, you know, are so common in the postpartum mean something new or true about them. An intrusive thought is an unwanted, uncontrollable thought that pops into your head. It can be an image. It can be a thought, right?

In the postpartum, we know that it's a nearly a universal experience. So almost 100 percent of new moms have intrusive thoughts of accidental harm. That would be like they're walking, and they're like, what if I accidentally drop my baby?

And then some will have intrusive thoughts of intentionally harming their infant. Like a really frightening thought about using a knife to harm your baby. And what we know is that those can be normal in the postpartum, and they can also be part of OCD or postpartum depression.

But what's really important is that they do not make someone more likely to harm their infant, right? They're horrifying. They're against the values that person is not likely to harm their infant.

But I see a lot of moms, especially in light of this case, are really much more scared of their thoughts than they used to be and very afraid they might snap or lose control.

MICHAELSON: Well, it's such an important conversation. I think part of the reason people have connected to this is because there hasn't been that much of this conversation and there's now happening. And I think people did not feel like they got the help or the respect when it was happening to them.

So, we appreciate you coming in. Really value information. Thanks so much.

[01:30:07]

UNVERFERTH: Thanks for having me.

MICHAELSON: Coming up next on The Story Is, doubling down on data. President Trump says communities rejecting data centers will end up backwards and poor. Our political panel live next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MICHAELSON: President Trump's going all in on data centers despite some bipartisan backlash.

In a post on Truth Social, the president wrote, quote, "The only reason that communities throughout the U.S.A. should not want data centers is if they want to end up being backwards and poor.

[01:34:50]

MICHAELSON: If they want to be successful and rich with far lower taxes and jobs all over the place, let data reign."

But polling shows most Americans do not agree. In a Fox News poll, 70 percent of respondents said that they would oppose an A.I. data center being built in their area.

New York and Texas have both passed temporary moratoriums on data centers as communities raise concerns about higher electricity bills and pollution.

Vice President JD Vance said tech companies should work to address those concerns.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

J.D. VANCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think probably 99 percent of the backlash to data centers has come in areas where building a data center means higher utility and higher electricity for the people on the ground.

If you build a data center, you should be putting power back into the grid, not taking it out. And if that is happening, I don't think the data centers are that controversial. It's when the utility bills get so much higher. That's when it's a real problem.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAELSON: Let's talk more about this with our panel, "L.A. Times" columnist Gustavo Arellano and Ben Austin, who is the education policy director at the North American Values Institute and a veteran of the Clinton administration.

Welcome back.

Gustavo, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Congress member, said President Trump loves data centers so much, why doesn't he put one at Mar-a- Lago? He's not saying that. What do you think?

GUSTAVO ARELLANO, L.A. TIMES: Yes. Put them put them in all the places where the people who use them the most, the tech bros -- let's put them in Silicon Valley. Let's put them in, you know, Elon Musk's ranch.

People do not like these data centers because they're huge. They make noise. And really, what do they bring to society? You can make cute memes and they're not even that cute memes. Like they bring nothing to it.

Back in the days at least, when you would have like the big factories in the -- in the Midwest, your steel plants, they gave power and the economic power to hundreds, if not thousands of people. This gives nothing to no one. Absolutely not.

MICHAELSON: Well, it gives something to the folks in Silicon Valley who are making record profits off of that.

ARELLANO: Who cares about them.

MICHAELSON: Right. They would say that it's bringing technological advancement, that it's increasing the world knowledge and all the rest of that, and maybe doing things like solving diseases, other things from A.I.

But for a lot of folks, they also represent losing your own job. So it's giving away your power, giving away your community's resources to take your own job.

BEN AUSTIN, EDUCATION POLICY DIRECTOR, NORTH AMERICAN VALUES INSTITUTE: Yes, yes. I mean, Trump's comments are just a gift for Democrats.

This is not a 70-30 issue just because of water and electricity rates. It's a 70-30 issue because voters understand that we're kind of blindly marching towards a dystopian future with no adult supervision.

And if you need any kind of proof points about what that might look like, all we need to do is look to social media where an entire generation of children, including my own daughters, have been deeply harmed by America's laissez faire regulatory approach to social media.

Just last week, Meta had a $17 billion settlement, but you know, court settlements are not the way to make public policy.

And you know this election and maybe 2028 are the -- probably the last elections where we can elect leaders to regulate A.I. before we can't put the toothpaste back in the tube.

MICHAELSON: I mean, it really is interesting that in a state like Texas with a very red governor like Greg Abbott, he's like, no data centers, right?

ARELLANO: Yes. People do not want them again. Do you want acres and acres of these machines just there doing nothing to actually feed people, doing nothing to pretty the environment, doing nothing to employ your Joe Schmo or Jane Schmo out there to do something like that? Yes they do -- they can empower companies to use tech to solve

diseases and you know, algorithms and all that. But does it really make your life that much better?

Trump just sounds so completely clueless when you say like, oh, you're going to be backwards and poor. How does that sound to the people like who are working class? What -- that just shows his disdain for the folks who do not have as much money as him.

MICHAELSON: Or maybe his friendship with the folks who make the data centers.

ARELLANO: He worships -- absolutely.

MICHAELSON: So let's, let's put up another story which is making some news. And it's a CNN exclusive -- we put the headline up on the screen. Talking about what's happening right now with the Department of Homeland Security.

Here it is, exclusive. DHS plans to launch voter fraud investigations surge Tuesday in the coming hours.

And let's put up a quote from that article from Priscilla Alvarez and crew. Offices in nine states are expected to take investigative action from early September to mid-October, according to guidance. Of course, California, one of those nine states; they include Washington, Wisconsin, Missouri, Georgia, California, Pennsylvania, Nevada, New York and Connecticut.

Not a lot of states run by Republicans there, although some with some Republican leadership. Your take on this.

[01:39:46]

ARELLANO: There has been allegations of undocumented immigrants voting in elections going back to my Orange County, California. We pioneered that conspiracy theory.

Does that happen? Of course it does. States have prosecuted those things, but it's such a minuscule number. And this just shows, again, the deportation deluge that the Trump administration has on its mind, really getting HSI and DHS to investigate this.

Isn't their job to go after actual, you know, drug traffickers and the ports. No, they're just wasting our resources again, for Trump's obsessions with undocumented immigrants.

MICHAELSON: Of course, nobody supports voter fraud, although this is a bit of a double whammy for President Trump. You get to do immigration and voter fraud at the same time.

AUSTIN: You know, we live in the oldest democracy in the world, and it's not sustained because of our constitution. Its sustained because of our faith in democracy. And that faith has been promoted by bipartisan presidents for generations. And, you know, as Gustavo said, this is basically a non-issue. I mean,

Trump announced with great fanfare that he had found 250,000 -- I think it was in Nevada -- 250,000 undocumented people on the voter rolls. And then in a closed-door meeting admitted that it was actually 185.

And so, I mean, it's a non-issue. And this is -- he's doing this to distract from the price of gas and the price of groceries, but he's doing it at the expense of American democracy.

ARELLANO: And he's also doing it to intimidate immigrant voters, and especially Latino voters, who can be the swing against them.

MICHAELSON: Gentlemen, great having you here. Thank you so much.

And thanks, everybody, for watching THE STORY IS.

For our international viewers, "WORLD SPORT" is next. For our viewers in North America, I'll be right back.

[01:41:35]

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MICHAELSON: An update now on our top story, the death toll from last week's flooding disaster in Nepal has risen to at least 987. Rescue crews are racing to locate thousands of people still missing in Nepal and China.

More than 900 trapped are feared -- are feared trapped alive inside buried hydropower tunnels in Nepal. Foreign specialists are assisting in the difficult search.

More than 3,900 people are still unaccounted for in both countries. Over the weekend, the U.S. State Department said at least 90 of those missing are American citizens.

CNN's Anderson Cooper is there and spoke to a U.S. doctor who is searching for her missing parents.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST AND ANCHOR: Last Wednesday morning, Ramesh Sharma and his wife, Neelam, New Yorkers were getting ready to cross into Tibet on a Hindu pilgrimage with five other Americans, including Amida Ameen (ph) and Tejal Patel.

Their guide, Abhishek Singh, called his wife in Kathmandu, saying they were about to go through immigration.

A little more than 30 minutes later, this happened -- the border crossing was obliterated.

I spoke with the Sharmas' daughter Radhika, a doctor, and her brother Akash in North Carolina. She was already planning to come to Kathmandu. DR. RADHIKA SHARMA, PARENTS MISSING IN NEPAL: My plan is to first go

to the embassies, talk to them. And then from there, maybe go to the different hospitals.

COOPER: She arrived Sunday with her husband, Pujan. A family friend brought them to the small upstairs office of Trekking Planner, the tour company that organized her parents visit.

How are you holding up?

DR. SHARMA: I've had ups and downs, kind of just fluctuates, honestly. It is nice to be here with people who are, like, also directly affected by this.

COOPER: Diksha Lamichhane runs the company.

DIKSHA LAMICHHANE, TREKKING PLANNER: So he's my husband.

COOPER: Her husband Abhishek was Radhika's parents' guide. He and two other guides are also missing.

LAMICHHANE: He got a tattoo.

COOPER: Wow. It's amazing tattoo.

LAMICHHANE: His whole back one leg. He is a Chelsea fan. I have given all the information about him because he got a lot of tattoos, so it will be very easy to identify him. We have been to everywhere to check the bodies.

COOPER: You've been to the hospital and the morgue?

LAMICHHANE: Yes.

COOPER: You're hopeful, but you also.

LAMICHHANE: Yes. Still checking every place.

DR. SHARMA: Of course, our hope is that if they heard the alarms and the warnings, they either drove or they ran. And we're still waiting for that answer.

COOPER: On the street outside, a Hindu procession passes by. Radhika and Pujan will head to the embassy and then hospitals and the morgue.

We're saying that inside that part of being here. It helps because there's others who are in the same situation.

DR. SHARMA: Yes. Because then I know, I know I'm not going through this by myself. There are other people who are affected, and we will all get through it together. It's like the sense that I feel.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MICHAELSON: Anderson Cooper on the ground in Kathmandu. Anderson, thank you. Wild video of an extremely low flyover. The two jets clear a packed

stadium by just about 50 feet. Was all this unnecessary? Stay with us.

[01:49:02]

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MICHAELSON: Two planes flew just above a stadium full of rugby fans ahead of a match in South Africa. The viral moment has some left praising it as a brilliant publicity move, but others have raised some serious concerns about safety. CNN's Pete Muntean has our story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's so low.

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN CHIEF AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: It was a stunning stadium fly-by over 56,000 people. Two jets from South African regional airline Airlink, only feet from the top of Cape Town's DHL Stadium, one of the empty 98-seat passenger planes low enough to fly through smoke from fireworks launched from the roof.

Data from FlightRadar24 shows the lead jets lowest altitude reported at roughly 210 feet. The stadium is about 164 feet high. Putting the jet may be only 46 feet above it.

Peter Goelz is the former managing director of the National Transportation Safety Board.

PETER GOELZ, FORMER MANAGING DIRECTOR OF THE NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION SAFETY BOARD: It is an unnecessary danger, in part because it leaves no margin for error. You got to fly it right. You can't have any mistakes.

MUNTEAN: The airline celebrated the flyover in a post online, calling it spectacular. Airlink insists the flyby was carefully planned, rehearsed and approved by South Africa's Civil Aviation Authority.

[01:54:51]

GOELZ: This looks like a stunt planned by the PR department and signed off of inappropriately by the Civil Aviation Authority. It looks like the PR people ruled the day, and that's not the way aviation safety ought to be run.

MUNTEAN: And this wasn't a one off. Airlink staged a similar formation flyby over Johannesburg's Ellis Park one week earlier, using the same specially-painted jets.

Low-flying airliners are part of South African rugby history. In 1995, a South African Airways 747 famously flew over the Rugby World Cup final, a flyover featured in the film Invictus.

And in 2024, an Emirates A380 flew over the same stadium though a few hundred feet higher. Saturday's flyover in Cape Town punctuates a summer of low flyovers.

In July, a pilot from the U.S. Navy's Blue Angels flew low over the crowd during the Pensacola Beach Air Show, sending tents flying and military leaders scrambling to defend the maneuver.

A month before, a Boeing 777 on a test flight passed as low as 25 feet over a runway at Horseshoe Bay, Texas triggering a federal investigation.

GOELZ: A fly-by at a thousand feet is already impressive, and people enjoy it, and there's no reason to lower it other than unnecessary risk taking.

MUNTEAN: Pete Muntean, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MICHAELSON: Our thanks to Pete.

Our thanks to you for watching.

I'm Elex Michaelson. I'll see you tomorrow.

[01:56:34

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