Venezuela's Socialist VP New Interim President | NTD Evening News (Jan. 4)

Welcome to NTD Evening News. Our top story tonight, Venezuela's Supreme Court is trying to put another socialist figure into power. At the same time, Venezuelan refugees are celebrating an end to autocratic rule. That's in light of the fall of socialist leader Nicolas Maduro. A human rights group has said that Iranian forces have killed 17 protesters during recent demonstrations. This comes after President Trump said the U.S. would intervene if Iran kills As for the global impact of the strikes in Venezuela and what signal this sends, our panel breaks it down. Average life expectancy has been rising globally, yet historical accounts suggest that human lifespan is now shorter than it could be. Physician shares why he believes our diet is to blame. And a rare treat for art lovers, 17th century masterpieces by Rembrandt and the people he inspired is on show at an exhibition in the Sunshine State. Find out how many artists are featured in the exhibition. This is NTD Evening News, live from our global headquarters in New York City. Good evening and thank you for joining us tonight. I'm Tippi Meyer. After the fall of socialist leader Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela's Supreme Court is already trying to put another socialist figure into power. Meanwhile, Venezuelan refugees are celebrating an end to autocratic rule after yesterday's military operation. NTD's international correspondent Irian Pazdar has more. Venezuelans are celebrating after the U.S. captured socialist leader Nicolas Maduro, but the country's Supreme Court is already appointing another socialist figure as the It is hereby ordered that Del C. Eloína Rodríguez Gómez, Executive Vice President of the Republic, assume and exercise all the powers, duties and authorities inherent to the office of the president. The former vice president used to actively support the so-called socialist revolution of late Hugo Chávez. It's not clear yet how this will play out, as President Trump on Saturday said the U.S. would now, quote, run Venezuela. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem told Fox News that President Trump is already speaking with the new interim leader of Venezuela. His conversations now with the vice president in Venezuela are very matter-of-fact and very clear. You can lead or you can get out of the way. She added that the U.S. wants to see someone lead Venezuela as a free country the U.S. can work with, rather than a dictator. Besides capturing Maduro, the U.S. also hit various military bases in Venezuela. Footage shows the aftermath of the strikes on Sunday. The plan to capture the socialist leader had been in the works for months and included detailed rehearsals. Elite U.S. troops reportedly created an exact replica of Maduro's safe house. They practiced how they would enter the strongly fortified residence to make sure the operation wouldn't fail. The U.S. quickly reopened the airspace in the Caribbean after the successful military operation. This after key airlines cancelled hundreds of flights. Major companies such as United Airlines, American Airlines, Spirit and Delta already resumed flights early on Sunday. A look at air traffic from Flightradar24 shows that the airspace above Venezuela is still mostly empty as of Sunday afternoon. Venezuelan refugees in Colombia are now celebrating the fall of the socialist regime. We are celebrating, seeing Maduro behind bars, taken to the United States because of all the damage that man did. It's really something we've been fighting for a long time, an experience that has truly been unforgettable today. Heads of state from across the globe are weighing in as well. I want to express the entire government's support for the determined decision and action of the United States to restore freedom and justice to that part of the world as well. After hearing the U.S. captured Maduro, Argentine President Javier Millet said, quote, today's news is excellent news for the free world. Some countries are opting not to take a direct stance, neither for the U.S. nor for Venezuela. Canada, Germany, France, Paraguay and others are instead calling for democracy to prevail, with some saying international law must be respected. And a few countries like China, North Korea, Russia and others are directly siding with socialist Nicolás Maduro. Ariane Pastar, NTD News. Parts of northern California are submerged after a combination of heavy rains and an ocean phenomena known as king tides. The combination is causing dangerous conditions in many coastal areas. King tides occur when the earth, moon and sun are in alignment and when the moon is closest to the earth, the stronger gravitational force this causes brings tide levels higher. The northern part of the state is facing the heaviest impacts, but southern California is also seeing flood advisories. The impact of the tides were more than what would normally have been felt due to weeks of heavy rain. Kayakers paddled down flooded streets and some areas face risks of landslides. The area north of San Francisco took on damage while a man died in Santa Barbara County after being swept into a creek by storms. The rain was expected to ease today and conditions should get drier through the week. From peace talks with Ukraine to rural health care funding, plus a milestone anniversary launch, NTD's Dana Monaghan has your White House Week in Review. President Trump met Sunday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach. The talks followed a two-hour phone call between Trump and Russian President Putin. Trump expressed optimism that a peace agreement was in sight following the meeting. We could be very close. There are one or two very thorny issues, very tough issues, but I think we're doing very well. One such lingering issue is the heavily Russian-occupied Donbass area. This is a very difficult question. You know our position, so we have to respect our people, we respect the territory which we control. The Trump administration announced a 50 billion dollar rural health transformation program with states expected to receive between 150 million and 280 million dollars each in 2026. Our hope is that we all get healthier in America and no longer will our zip code dictate our life expectancy. Federal child care funding to Minnesota was frozen following allegations of widespread fraud highlighted in an investigative video by journalist Nick Shirley. We believe the state of Minnesota has allowed scammers and fake daycares to siphon millions of taxpayer dollars over the past decade. Governor Tim Walz's office responded calling the move a politicized attempt to defund programs that help Minnesotans. Protests over economic conditions spread across several Iranian provinces with some demonstrations turning deadly. During a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump warned Tehran against rebuilding its nuclear program. The consequences will be very powerful, maybe more powerful than the last time. Netanyahu said at the meeting that Israel is awarding Trump Israel's highest civilian honor. So we decided to break a convention too or create a new one and that is to award the Israel prize which in almost our 80 years we've never awarded it to a non-Israeli and we're going to award it this year to President Trump. Trump said National Guard troops will be withdrawn from Los Angeles, Chicago, and Portland citing significant crime reductions. The move followed legal setbacks with having the troops in the cities. Nationwide 2025 was projected to end with an estimated 20 percent drop in murders, the largest on record, National Crime Analyst Jeff Asher told ABC News. President Trump hosted a New Year's Eve party at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach on Wednesday. Trump was asked by a journalist if he has a New Year's resolution. Our nation began. The administration also kicked off its Freedom 250 initiative on New Year's Eve, projecting images and historical messages onto the Washington Monument. And EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced new steps to regulate dozens of phthalate chemicals which are used in the production of plastic. Zeldin says exposure levels exceed safe limits in some settings and may impact reproductive health. Daniel Monahan, NTD News. The human rights group has said that Iranian forces have killed at least 17 people during the protests. This comes after President Trump warned that if Iran shoots peaceful protesters, the U.S. will come to their rescue. NTD's Jason Perry has the update. Protesters were seen in Iran's capital of Tehran this weekend over the country's economic crisis. Western sanctions over Iran's nuclear program have had a major impact on the value of Iranian currency. So far, the demonstrations have reached over 170 locations in Iran. This crowd was heard chanting in Farsi, death to the dictator. President Trump recently warned that if Iran kills peaceful protesters, then, quote, the United States of America will come to their rescue. However, according to the human rights group Henga, Iranian security forces have killed 17 people during the protests. And a human rights activist news agency reported over 580 were arrested during the recent demonstrations. Iran's supreme leader, who was the country's political leader and also the country's spiritual leader, shared his thoughts this weekend about the protests. And he spoke in front of a crowd that chanted death to America, death to England, death to the infidels, and death to Israel. We talk to protesters, the officials must talk to them. But there is no benefit to talking to rioters. Rioters must be put in their place. And he alluded that the Iranian government was not entirely at fault for the country's economic crisis. The uncontrolled rise in foreign exchange rates and the lack of stability in rates and constant fluctuations is not normal. It makes sellers and merchants unable to work. This is done by the enemy. However, the prime minister of Israel, a country Iran considers an enemy, said this about the situation. We identify with the struggle of Iranian people with their aspirations for freedom, liberty, and justice. It is very possible that we are standing at the moment when the Iranian people are taking their fate into their own hands. The future of Iran remains uncertain as the value of Iranian currency continues to drop with no immediate signs of bouncing back. Jason Perry, NCD News. Coming up, what's the global impact of the U.S. strikes in Venezuela and what signal does this send to countries like Iran, China, and Russia? Casey Fleming and Rick de la Torre join us to break it down. And average life expectancy has been rising globally, yet historical accounts suggest that human lifespan is now shorter than it could be. A physician shares why he believes our diet is to blame after this short break. Welcome back. I'm Tiffany Meyer. The world is watching closely after U.S. forces carried out the historic capture of Venezuela's leader, Nicolas Maduro, yesterday. Just hours before, he met with Chinese delegates with reports saying they were still in Venezuela when the capture took place. What will happen to Venezuela and what message does this send to dictators around the world? Joining us now to unpack it all is Chairman and CEO of Black Ops Partners and National Security Advisor Specializing in Unrestricted Warfare, Casey Fleming, as well as Rick de la Torre, CEO and founder of Tower Strategy and former CIA Caracas Chief of Station. Thank you both so much for joining us. Now, Rick, starting with you, there's a lot of talk about the CIA involvement here. And as the former CIA Caracas Station Chief, how are you viewing Operation Absolute Resolve and the message it sends globally? Well, technically and tactically and operationally, I think the operation itself was near perfect in just about every way. What you witnessed was something that only the United States can do anywhere globally, and that is travel over 3,000 miles and within just a matter of a few hours, really eliminate surface to air threat of that country and arrest its illegitimate leader and bring them back to New York to face justice. There's no one else really out there who can do that kind of thing. And I think that sends a message not just to Maduro's neighbors or here in the Western Hemisphere, but that sends a message globally to Russia, Iran, and in particular China, that the United States is refocusing its attention on this hemisphere, and we're making sure that adversaries are aware of that, and that the United States will continue to lead the way here. And Casey, expanding on that, how far-reaching is this operation in terms of geopolitical impact? For example, how is Russia, Iran, and China likely viewing this? Well, like Rick said, it's absolutely global. Venezuela was a forward-operating base for China, Russia, Iran, and the rest of what we call the China axis. So it's a message to the rest of the world and our totalitarian adversaries that we're serious about taking over the Western Hemisphere. But it's a serious message to our adversaries who pretty much have gone unchecked for the past 15-so years. But this is just the beginning. Don't have a false sense of security around this thing. It's much bigger. The curtain has just been pulled back to what the military calls great power competition. But make no mistake, it is absolutely war that we're in. It's unrestricted war, and it pulls back the curtain to really what's going on. Secondly, I want to point out that from a weaponization standpoint, I believe that China actually let us come in with all these Chinese technologies to give us a false sense of security that we can absolutely dominate them going into Taiwan. What this does is raise awareness to everyone that the show has begun. I want to get into that a bit more. But first, Rick, Secretary of State Marco Rubio in the press conference yesterday saying that President Trump is not a president who plays games, mentioning Maduro chose to invite Iran into the country. He also mentioned Cuba. What signal is that sending to countries like Iran, Cuba, and China, but also cartels closer to home? Oh, it's exactly that, that this president means what he says. He's not going to continue to allow the death of thousands of Americans to drug overdoses, fentanyl, cocaine. He's not going to allow other countries to dominate through immigration terrorism or immigration diplomacy of opening their borders and letting people flood into our country. And he's not going to allow the Russians, the Chinese, the Iranians, and others to benefit from the natural resources and capabilities within Latin America. As Casey said, you're absolutely right. Venezuela served as the aircraft carrier in our hemisphere where every enemy of ours was launching off from, and continuing to spread in other areas. Luckily, now, a lot of countries have woken up to this fact. They've realized that deals with China in particular, but Russia also, and Iran, is not conducive for the people and certainly not for democracy. And the electorate has recognized that. So we're seeing now this swing of voters electing candidates who are much more aligned with democracy and with the United States. So what happened there, I think Maduro found himself to be very, very much alone in those final hours, final days. And although even the PRC tried to extend a hand and help at the last one, none of that mattered. That was certainly not enough. But this is, as was already stated, this is not the end. This is just the beginning. There's so much at stake now, not just in the Caribbean basin, but in Antarctica, on the Pacific side, in the Arctic Circle, around Greenland. There's so much going on that we need to focus on. And Casey, in terms of China, Maduro had just met with Chinese officials in Venezuela hours before his arrest. The two nations have been pretty close, especially when it comes to oil. How does this operation change the dynamic with China? Well, there's absolutely a currency flow that went on with transporting the oil back to China and so on. So it sends a very, very strong message back to China. It'll curb a lot of that financial transfer that goes on from the oil piece of it. But I have to restate this. We already stated it a couple of times. This is just the beginning of totalitarianism versus freedom. And I've got to plug a book. I just wrote a book. It'll be hitting the stands. It's going to print on January 20th. And it describes everything here of what's going on and what to expect and how to decode it. The name of it is called The Red Tsunami. And again, it's a book written to the American people and all free people of the world to understand and decode what is really going on behind the scenes. As I mentioned, it's just pulling the curtain back right now, and it's just the beginning. And Casey, I want to stay with you Desert Storm during the Gulf War had a massive impact on the CCP. It resulted in two colonels writing what is now known as Unrestricted Warfare. Was this operation on that level? How is Beijing likely viewing this operation and what is it taking away from it? Well, it basically puts Beijing on notice that for the first time that we're actually going to address unrestricted war. The two Chinese colonels that wrote the book after Desert Storm, they said, well, we can never beat America with the might that America has in the military. So we're going to do what we can do around unrestricted war, which is over 100 different methods of weakening your enemy inside, basically weakening the tree inside without really hitting the bark. So the plan is to weaken the United States and our allies and our ability to go to war and our will to fight a war through over 100 different methods, biological war, COVID, cognitive war, TikTok, drug war, fentanyl, vaping, even digital fentanyl, which is dopamine, and all these different methods. So again, this is just pulling back the curtain for the American people and the free people of the world to understand that this is just the beginning. Rick, President Trump saying we want good neighbors when asked how this is America first. What do you see as the future of Venezuela, but also the security of Americans? Well, I think our security is one step better than it was a couple of days ago, certainly. There's a lot more that needs to be done. We're focusing just solely on Venezuela. I think the comments about working with the current folks that were left behind in Venezuela, I think perhaps it was a bit of a garble or wasn't explained as best. I know Secretary Rubio made some attempts to kind of walk those comments back today. Obviously, it makes perfectly good sense if the entire opposition party is in a third country, well, they can't run things today because they're not there today to run it. So we have to get the security situation in place to make sure that when people like Maria Carina Machado and others come back to Venezuela, they're then afforded the opportunity to maintain that control. So there's still a lot more cleaning up to do in Venezuela. But I'm certainly encouraged about the fact now that the United States now controls just about 50% of the world's oil supply. And that is a significant wake up call to the folks in Beijing and in Moscow and in Tehran. We can now see in the future, oil prices at around $50 a barrel. That's certainly something that we now have the power to do. And that will decimate a lot of these economies, these totalitarian economies that rely so much on the extraction of oil. Rick De La Torre, Casey Fleming, thank you both so much for joining us. Thank you. Coming up, average life expectancy has been rising globally, yet historical accounts suggest that human lifespan is now shorter than it could be. A physician shares why he believes our diet is to blame. And a rare treat for art lovers, 17th century masterpieces by Rembrandt and the people he inspired is on show at an exhibition in the Sunshine State. Find out how many artists are featured in the exhibition after the break. Welcome back, I'm Tiffany Meyer. Advances in medical science have dramatically increased average life expectancy worldwide over the past few decades. Yet the upper limit of human lifespan appears to have remained largely unchanged or may even be shorter than what historical accounts suggest. So what's behind this lack of progress? In this episode of Vital Science, physician Dr. Anthony Chaffee joins host Brennan Falun to explain how our modern diet could be a key factor. How long do you expect to live to? 80, 90, 100 years? In America, the average lifespan for men is around 76 years. Women are tallying a little higher at 81 years. But what if it could be and should be much longer? History is punctuated with accounts of people living exceptionally long lives, well beyond 100 years. Is this really possible? If so, what exactly is limiting the lifespan of modern humans? Today's guest, Dr. Anthony Chaffee, says the shift away from eating what our primitive ancestors ate is largely to blame. Dr. Chaffee is an American physician and a professional athlete who's used the carnivore diet to optimize his performance and health. A diet comprised solely of meat, eggs, fat, and possibly some dairy. Is human health really on the upward trend that we've been led to believe it's on? What can we learn from ancient and indigenous societies about eating to live healthier and longer? And how is modern food coming to resemble a narcotic? Welcome to Vital Signs, where we learn how to get healthier from all angles, from the biochemical and nutritional, to the things we do that nourish our minds and our souls. I'm Brennan Falun. In terms of everything that we could be doing to improve our health and increase our longevity and things like that, where would you place doing dietary intervention? Where would you place carnivore or doing a ketogenic diet in the scheme of that? Well, I think it's extremely important. Again, we look at those animal models. If you feed animals food that they're not supposed to eat, they get very sick, but they get the same chronic disease as we get. They get obesity, diabetes, cancers, autoimmunity, arthritis, etc., Alzheimer's or dementia of one degree or another. These are the same things that we're afflicted with. We see native populations that haven't been exposed to agriculture for 8,000 years, 10,000 years, like some of us have, such as the Native Australian Aboriginal and Native Americans. They have far higher rates of these chronic diseases, cancers, autoimmunity, diabetes, etc. Only when eating a Western diet, though. When they're eating their traditional diet, which is predominantly meat, maybe some different plants, native plants that they know of, but typically they would eat those in times of distress when they weren't able to get the normal food that they did. But there are hunter-gatherers with an emphasis on the hunter. Native Americans, the Great Plains, they had bison. They just ate bison year-round, and that's why the American military and government wiped out all of the bison, killed over 100 million bison, down to about 50 of them. That was while Bill Hickok said, every buffalo killed is an Indian dead because they require this for the year. They need that food. They've transitioned in the last 150 years or so, and we saw in real time their health be significantly impacted, and now they have some of the highest rates of chronic disease in any population. I think that that is solely on the head of eating an inappropriate diet. Now, we have a lot of other things now. We have artificial ingredients. We have all these different chemicals that had never existed in nature before that we just invented, and we get to put them in the food supply without proving that they're safe first. That's pretty crazy to me. We have stevia as a sweetener, but studies in mice have shown that using stevia, just like equivalent of one can of stevia a day, actually lowers fertility rates by 55% in mice. You say, okay, well, that's an animal model. Is that translatable to humans? Well, go back a step further and look at where that stevia comes from. It comes from a stevia plant that's used down in Paraguay, and what did the natives use it for in Paraguay? They used it for over 1,000 years for birth control. So, this is crazy that we're just randomly putting these—and it may not even be random. Maybe they know exactly what they're doing. I don't know. But I do know that these things can cause harm, and they don't have to prove that they're safe first. And so, we're putting all these random things in our food supply, and I think they are getting worse. We have ultra-processed seed oils that go through an extremely intensive industrial process using things like hexane and bleaches and all these other sorts of harmful chemicals to produce this nasty substance, and we see people having very serious harmful effects because of it. So, we're putting all these things that just didn't even exist in nature, and now we're putting them in our food supply, let alone just eating plants that were not designed to eat also. So, I think this is a major, major burden on human health. And so, about 90% of the things that people die from in Western countries, like Australia, like America, like Europe, 90% of them are from these so-called non-communicable chronic diseases, and it's 74% worldwide. I think the vast majority of those non-communicable chronic diseases are from eating an inappropriate diet, and all the best evidence shows that humans biologically are carnivores, and that this is what—you get every single nutrient that you need in the proportion that you need it for eating fat and meat, and you get nothing that's harmful to you. Saturated fat is not harmful to you. Cholesterol is not harmful to you. Bread meat does not cause cancer. That has been shown again and again and again. To see that full interview and others on how to optimize health, go to ept.ms forward slash vital signs. Vital signs offers general health information, not intended as medical diagnosis or advice. Please consult your doctor before undertaking a new health regimen. Good news for pasta lovers. The Commerce Department is rolling back proposed steep tariffs, which were set to take effect on over a dozen Italian pasta makers later this year. In October, the Commerce Department announced a 92% tariff on the pasta. That was on top of the 15% tariff on those imports from the European Union. The newly announced rates would put the tariffs between 24% and 29% and are set to be announced in March. The Commerce Department says the final rates stem from an investigation into some Italian producers selling pasta at unfairly low prices. The Commerce Department officials says the decision to recommend lower rates comes after the pasta producers addressed many of the concerns raised in the review. Coming up, the most spectacular birthday party the world has ever seen. That's what President Trump says is in store for this July as the USA celebrates 250 years of independence. And a rare treat for art lovers, 17th century masterpieces by Rembrandt and the people he inspired is on show at an exhibition in the Sunshine State. Find out how many artists are featured in the exhibition after the break. Welcome back. I'm Tiffany Meyer. America will celebrate 250 years of independence this year in July. President Trump has pledged to give America the most spectacular birthday party the world has ever seen for the occasion. Entity's Dana Monahan takes a look at what to expect this year as part of the festivities. America. Celebrations kicked off on New Year's Eve with the projection of images depicting the country's history on the Washington Monument and will continue throughout the year. Our nation began not as an idea invented in the minds of men but as a land discovered. The illumination will take place through January 5th. The 25-minute projection displays will recur at the top of each hour every night and feature five themed segments including Discovery, Revolution, and Westward Expansion. America has already had big celebrations to commemorate the 250th birthdays of the Army, the Navy, and the Marines, but President Trump promised in a December address that there's much more to come. From June 25th to July 10th, Washington, D.C. will host the Great American State Fair on the National Mall. Featuring pavilions from all 50 states highlighting breathtaking innovations and celebrating America's exceptional history and culture. The first ever Patriot Games will be hosted in the autumn. An unprecedented four-day athletic event featuring the greatest high school athletes. One young man and one young woman from each state and territory, but I promise there will be no men playing in women's sports. You're not going to see that. Trump says a National Garden of American Heroes will be built featuring statues of all-time greatest Americans as well as a triumphal arc. We're going to have one in Washington, D.C. very soon. Construction will start in the very near future. The president says in spring the Capitol will host a major prayer event on the National Mall to rededicate the country as one nation under God. We're not changing that. A lot of people would like to see it. It'll never happen. And on Flag Day, a major UFC event will be held at the White House. It'll be the greatest champion fighters in the world all fighting that same night. The great Dana White is hosting and it's going to be something special. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum says the 250th anniversary gives America the opportunity to think about unity and our shared future, speaking on Good Morning America. It's not about the perfection of our country. It's about the aspiration. That's what makes us the greatest country in the world because we keep aspiring to be better and better. President Trump has also announced the U.S. 250 Freedom Tour. Trump says the coast-to-coast free tour aims to celebrate the patriotism, pride, and pioneering spirit of America and lay the groundwork for the next 250 years. It will kick off in Nevada on January 9th with free concerts by Shenandoah and Natasha Owens and a fireworks display. And on July 4th, Freedom 250 will commemorate the nation's 250th birthday with Salute to America on the National Mall during the Great American State Fair. The event will have a military flyover, an address by Trump, and the largest fireworks display in the world, according to Freedom 250. Daniel Monahan, NTD News. Scenarios here and revelers all across the country reign in with a super cool tradition, the polar plunge. And by super cool, we mean ice cold. One town took a freezing dip to try to break a world record. Take a look. Several thousand fearless Washingtonians rang in the new year by making a big splash, attempting to break the world record for the largest group polar plunge ever. A sea of thick-skinned Pacific Northwest participants in the town of Birch Bay waddled into icy cold waters in hopes of wading into the record books. The official numbers are still being pinned down, but folks involved in the event say there were nearly 5,000 participants, which, if confirmed, would smash Norway's previous record of 3,134 polar plungers. The Birch Bay event was one of many held across the U.S. as this fun, frigid frivolity has become a well-known New Year's Day tradition. And although Guinness World Records has yet to officially name the Washington attempt the new king of the cold, one thing's for sure, the event certainly puts the brr in Birch Bay. A freaky, frigid water phenomenon put the eerie in Lake Erie, when strong winds in Michigan pushed freezing water from one end of the body of water to another, exposing a portion of the lake bed and revealing a host of random items that had been hidden below the surface. Among them were what was left of an old vehicle, an outboard boat motor, a high school class ring, and the remains of a submerged snowmobile covered in frosty barnacles. Finally, not all of the waters holding captivating contents were necessarily bone chilling. Just take a look at this great big gathering of manatees in Florida. The Southwest Florida Water Management District shared the look on social media of the wildlife refuge waters of Three Sisters Springs on New Year's Eve, where the blubbery bunch huddled and cuddled, likely to find warmth or perhaps to simply enjoy the renewed water quality of the once eroded shoreline, which was recently repaired and rebuilt. For Take a Look at This, I'm Jeremy Roth. A centuries-old Slovenian art form is being revived by a rural artist. It depicts icons and traditional motifs, but not on canvas. Instead, they're painted on beehive panels. The artist even collects her own stones to create the pigments needed for the paints. I wanted to show a variety of motifs. First, protective motifs, such as trutha mora, stars. Other simple motifs, such as the six-fold rosettes, that were believed to offer protection. Then there are motifs with saints, satirical motifs, historical motifs, various motifs familiar to us. The artist is also an art teacher who said she got inspired to bring this Slovenian tradition to a wider audience. She says she wants to paint traditional motifs in the traditional way, and that means no shortcuts. So instead of using acrylic paints, she decided 15 years ago to start making her own paints, painstakingly grinding stones into powder before mixing them with flaxseed oil. The oldest of these traditional paintings dates back to 1785 and is now part of the museum exhibition celebrating the unique culture. Painted beehive panels are part of our agriculture heritage. They are the pearl of our heritage because they tell real-life stories of the people who lived here in the old days. They tell us about their beliefs, their way of life. They are an extraordinary witness of old times. They are unique to Slovenia, unknown in other parts of the world. The exhibition has galleries entirely reserved for the so-called bee art, not only as a cultural display, but to celebrate the art of beekeeping in Slovenia. A cyclist in Baltimore is turning lost hubcaps into unique pieces of art. He's found hundreds during his rides through the city, giving him plenty of material for his large works. NTT's Andrew Thomas has more on the artist. This large bust of Snoopy the dog is made entirely out of hubcaps. Cyclist Barnaby Wickham is the artist behind the work. He's collected more than 700 hubcaps over the last two years riding around Baltimore. Partway through the year, I was like, what are we going to do with all these things? So that's when I started to think about, you know, maybe we could create some sort of sculpture. His unusual artwork has drawn the attention of his local community. So residents would give him a heads up when they saw a hubcap he could use for his pieces. So they would send me a pin on a map, a text, or sometimes they would send a photo with the street location. The hubcaps have also been an opportunity for Wickham to see a side of Baltimore he wouldn't otherwise. This whole journey has really caused me to get out to a lot of places that I wouldn't necessarily get to because I get these tips and it's taking me to a place that I've never been before. As long as cars are losing hubcaps, Wickham should have plenty of material to work with. Andrew Thomas, NTT News. A rare treat for art lovers in Florida, 17th century masterpieces by Rembrandt and the people he inspired is on show at an exhibition in the Sunshine State. So this exhibit is called Art and Life in Rembrandt's Time, masterpieces from the Leiden Collection. And essentially what we're looking at here is 76 paintings that span the 17th century, all made by Rembrandt and his contemporaries, or even people in his circle that he taught. So you have a few generations, but they all worked and were active in the 17th century in the Netherlands. Rembrandt van Rijn was really one of the most influential painters of all of art history. He's really well known for bringing a formal sense of realism into these compositions where artists before were much more focused on ideas of idealism or painting the perfect human form. Rembrandt kind of threw that all away and said, I'm going to paint people the way that we see them. 17th century art has come to Florida. 27 artists are included in the exhibition. The artwork depicts everyday life in 17th century Netherlands, including portraits of merchants, scenes of people eating, praying, or playing music, as well as allegorical paintings that conveyed moral lessons. Rembrandt and the other artists featured in the exhibit are known for their hyper-realistic techniques, capturing the details and emotions of their subjects in a way that brings them to life on the canvas. This is a rare opportunity to see a large collection of artwork from this period, as exhibitions of this caliber and size are not common in the South Florida area or the United States. The exhibition coincides with the 400th anniversary of the Dutch founding of New Amsterdam on the island of Manhattan. It runs until March 29th. That's all for today's news. For around-the-clock coverage, visit us at ntd.com slash live or download our NTD app. Thanks for tuning in. I'm Tiffany Meyer. Good night. There are real consequences to controlled media and NTD's founders know them firsthand. Our freedom of thought is the price. This is the lesson that guides us in everything we do. So there's the tear gas there. We know the value of a free society and we take seriously the responsibility to preserve it. We are NTD.