NTD Evening News Full Broadcast Feb 15 20mb

Welcome to NTD Evening News. Our top story tonight, new development in the search for Nancy Guthrie. The FBI says a glove containing DNA appears to match those worn by a suspect in evidence footage. What we know about the test results. A partial government shutdown has begun and lawmakers and agency heads are making demands. All this while President Trump prepares to give his yearly State of the Union address. President Trump announces that the new Board of Peace has pledged more than $5 billion for the Gaza Strip. At the same time, a U.S. delegation is now heading to Europe for the next round of talks with Iran. Jason Perry has the update. Secretary of State Marco Rubio getting a standing ovation in Munich after his speech at the security conference. Darren Gobb joins us to unpack what a new Western century looks like. And the Departments of War and Energy mark a milestone in U.S. nuclear energy development. It's something President Trump made a core mission of his presidency. 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 Tiffany Meyer. The search for Nancy Guthrie is now entering its third week. The FBI says a glove containing DNA was found about two miles from the Tucson home of the 84-year-old. In a statement to The Epoch Times, the FBI says the glove appears to match those worn by a masked person seen outside Guthrie's front door the night she vanished. The FBI has already identified that person as a suspect. The agency described him as about 5 feet 9 inches tall with a medium build. He was carrying a 25 liter Ozark Trail hiker pack backpack. The FBI spokesperson says today that it has received preliminary results from the DNA testing on Saturday. Authorities are now waiting for official confirmation. After confirmation is received, the unknown male DNA profile will be entered into CODIS. That's the FBI's national DNA database. This process typically takes 24 hours from when the bureau receives DNA. Investigators found about 16 gloves in various areas near Guthrie's house. Most of them were discarded by searchers. Nancy Guthrie, mother of today's show host Savannah Guthrie, was last seen at her Arizona home on January 31st. She was reported missing the following day. Last week, the FBI increased the reward in the case from $50,000 to $100,000. Lawmakers and agency heads spoke ahead of President Trump's State of the Union address. They gave their opinion on the partial government shutdown as well as the Department of Homeland Security funding battle. Officials took questions and spoke about the president's progress and on how to keep the Department of Homeland Security funded. What we have been focused on and what I've laser focused on is DHS funding. Trying to get away from this Democrat shutdown with DHS, that's actually political theater. The shutdown is also affecting other government agencies, including FEMA. But the major point of contention between Democrats and Republicans is ICE, and each side has their own party's view on how to move forward. Well, hopefully it won't last too long because FEMA is incredibly important and, I will admit, is operating pretty well under this president, at least the people on the ground that are helping people after the natural disasters. But ICE is out of control. They have an American body count. They have injured and wrongfully shot others. They have two agents that are being investigated for perjury. Borders are Tom Homan responded to allegations of ICE wrongdoing. These recent allegations and ones like it have become political talking points. In any instance where there has been allegations of misconduct or working outside the policy has been referred to internal affairs. My first press conference in Minnesota, I said I was bringing in more internal affairs officers to review the allegations and those allegations are now being investigated. ICE has continued to enforce law across the country. They're already funded. Now the ICE officers won't be getting paid, but they're getting used to that, seems like. So, no, the immigration mission, the reason why President Trump was elected to be president continues. We have the most secure border in the history of the nation. We've got record numbers of arrests and deportations that will continue. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer gave his views on what needs to happen before Democrats will allow funding to be restored to homeland security. Well, two points. First, we have proposed that the guardrails that will be applied to ICE are not just to the present funding, but to the previous funding that was in the big bad bill. That's very important to us. So that will rein in all of the ICE agents, no matter where they're funded. But second, there's a simple answer to this. Republicans, go along with this common sense, these common sense proposals, and we'll fund the whole DHS bill. The government stopped funding for the Department of Homeland Security yesterday. Other agencies affected by the shutdown include the Transportation Security Administration, the Coast Guard, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency. President Trump says members of the new Board of Peace have pledged more than $5 billion for the Gaza Strip. Meanwhile, Secretary of State Marco Rubio says a U.S. delegation is traveling to Europe for the next round of talks with Iran. NTD's Jason Perry has the update. Over the weekend, the Israel Defense Forces released this video of what they said were armed terrorists emerging from a tunnel near Israeli troops in the Gaza Strip. Israel said they struck two of those terrorists and then launched strikes on other terrorists throughout the Gaza Strip for what Israel said was in response to an alleged ceasefire violation. A man at a funeral in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, whose son was reportedly killed by an Israeli airstrike, said this about the newly established Board of Peace. Do you believe that there is a Board of Peace? Do you believe that U.S. President Donald Trump would come to help us or defend us, the one who is supplying Israel with all sorts of deadly weapons? However, on the same day, President Trump said in a post on Truth Social that members of the Board of Peace have pledged more than $5 billion toward reconstruction and humanitarian efforts for the Gaza Strip. This comes as Trump recently ordered a second aircraft carrier group to the Middle East amid ongoing talks with Iran over a nuclear deal. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said President Trump prefers diplomacy over military action against Iran. Now, we're dealing with radical Shia clerics. We're dealing with people who make geopolitical decisions on the basis of pure theology, and it's a complicated thing. I mean, no one's ever been able to do a successful deal with Iran, but we're going to try. Steve Woodcock and Jared Kushner will be traveling. I think they're traveling right now to have important meetings, and we'll see how that turns out. And Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said this on Sunday about a possible nuclear deal between the U.S. and Iran. There shall be no enrichment capability, not stopping the enrichment process, but dismantle the equipment and the infrastructure that allows you to enrich in the first place. In another development, the U.S. military said they conducted 10 strikes against more than 30 ISIS terrorist targets in Syria over the past two weeks. Jason Perry, NCD News. The U.S. military intercepting another sanctioned oil tanker in the Indian Ocean. Officials say U.S. forces boarded the vessel overnight without incident. In a post on X Today, the Department of War said it tracked the ship from the Caribbean to the Indian Ocean. The vessel is named Veronica III. The department said the tanker tried to defy President Trump's quarantine on sanctioned vessels in the Caribbean. It explained that U.S. forces closed in and shut the vessel down, adding that, quote, international waters are not sanctuary. According to Open Sanctions, the tanker is listed on the Treasury Department's specially designated national sanctions list. It is accused of transporting hundreds of thousands of tons of sanctioned Iranian oil. Secretary of State Michael Rubio is on a two-day visit to Central Europe to meet with conservative leaders in Slovakia and Hungary. The secretary emphasized America's commitment to working with European allies as equal partners. We don't want Europe to be dependent. We're not asking Europe to be a vassal of the United States. We want to be your partner. We want to work with Europe. We want to work with our allies. We want to work in cooperation with you. Under President Trump, this administration is going to make not just Slovakia but Central Europe a key component of how we engage the continent and the world, and that we are not just going to engage in meetings and pleasantries but in concrete actions that we will take together in ways that are beneficial to your people and our people, in ways that are beneficial to your country and our country. Rubio held a joint press conference with Slovakia Prime Minister Robert Fico earlier today. Fico said he hopes to sign a deal with the U.S. next year to build a new nuclear power plant in Slovakia. A separate agreement on nuclear cooperation was signed during Fico's recent trip to Washington. Rubio is now in Budapest for a meeting with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán that's scheduled for tomorrow. Orbán has confirmed plans to travel to Washington next week to attend the inaugural meeting of Trump's Board of Peace. Rubio also met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the Munich Security Conference yesterday. Rubio said While many EU countries stopped buying Russian energy after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, both Slovakia and Hungary continued importing gas and oil from Moscow. The United States has criticized that decision. Joining us now on what these moves mean for Europe and beyond is retired Lieutenant Colonel Darren Gobb. He's a geopolitical strategist, retired Black Hawk helicopter pilot, battalion commander, and author of Veritas Vincit. Darren, thank you so much for joining us. Good to have you here. Now, many are calling this speech by Rubio in Munich yesterday, quote, moving a message of reassurance. He had a standing ovation by the end. What did you make of this speech and the message here? Hey, good evening, Tiffany. I think the speech was very well written and very well delivered. And so that's very much a positive thing for Rubio, for the United States, for the message that we're sending to our European allies. Under the surface of that entire thing, though, is this move in Europe, again, towards the crushing of free speech and this mass migration that they've allowed for over 10 years now that has significantly hindered their nations and the security in their countries. That includes Germany, France, UK, Ireland, and others, where such things are creating massive problems when it comes to security of their nations and the welfare of their people. So that is there. That doesn't mean that we don't try to do the best we can to work with these European nations to keep them as allies, and to even try to help turn the ship away from where they seem to be going right now. But, you know, again, I think this is a positive move, positive speech, very well delivered. I like what Rubio has been doing overall. The question is, will Europe not only hear the main message, but also hear kind of a little bit of that undertone that says, hey, we see what else is happening here, and you guys really need to fix it. And in Munich, Rubio highlighted that America and Europe are part of one civilization, Western civilization, and that united we can build a new Western century, drawing a contrast with communism there. What does a united Western civilization mean for adversaries like communist China? Well, first of all, what it would mean to China is that they're losing their grip on some of the things they've invested in over the years. They're specifically targeting Western nations in Europe and elsewhere, to try to peel them away from us and create different coalitions of nations and peoples that would, you know, turn and make an enemy out of the United States, or at least a competitor out of the United States in a negative way. You've already seen some of that happen anyways, not necessarily purely with Western European nations, turning away somewhat, but the effect of what's going on in Venezuela, what's already happened with the elections in Argentina. And they're watching very closely what could happen with elections in places like Brazil. So if this keeps going down the road where Western nations draw closer to each other and crawl further away from communist influence, regardless of its source, then the strength of China will continue to wane as it has been for a while, just because their economy is failing the way it is right now. And Darren, in his speech, Rubio spoke of a strong Europe saying in part, we want allies who can defend themselves so that no adversary will ever be tempted to test our collective strength. Now this follows the national security strategy released just before the end of last year, which had a section on promoting European greatness. What does that look like in practice? Well, some of it in practice looks like what some of us are already seeing, which is the increase in defense spending by the nations of NATO who talk about defending themselves from an aggressive Russia, whether you agree with that stance or not. Germany and France and some of these nations increasing their budgets for their own self-defense is absolutely essential because we can't be the backbone of NATO by ourselves. We shouldn't have to be either. So that's part of the deal. But military security through budget expenses and the percentages that they spend is not all of it. They have to become more energy independent amongst themselves so they're not reliant on nations who might be able to dictate terms to them for what they need to import. A perfect example, of course, is energy from places like Russia. And Darren, before Munich, Rubio heralded a new era in geopolitics. Here's actually that clip now. The world is changing very fast right in front of us. The old world is gone, frankly. The world I grew up in, and we live in a new era in geopolitics. And it's going to require all of us to re-examine what that looks like and what our role is going to be. And we've had many of our allies. We are our allies. And we need to continue to have those conversations. And I think Saturday, hopefully, in the meeting, we'll have their remarks. What does this new era of geopolitics look like? Yeah, that's the great question. I guess you could say for the next 10 to 15 years. But to me, it looks like the strengthening of our relationships with Europe, their ability to defend themselves better than they have been for much of NATO's history. But it also means that we, as Americans, maybe need to step back from some historical biases or assumptions about which nations can be our adversaries and which ones can be our allies. There are many people that leadership is changing out all over the world. And a lot of undercurrent that is happening that could say, these European nations could be greater allies than, unfortunately, some of our Western European nations. But there's nations like India, too, where we've had historical ties that could get a lot stronger. But the one to focus on really a lot is in the Middle East, and look at what the Abraham Accords could do if reinvigorated and it grows. You could see a Middle East and a Central Asia that becomes less warlike, and more focused on improving the lives and standards of living for the people that live there, to include the Gaza Strip if they actually try to fix that rather than use it as a wedge issue against Israel. Well, Darren Garvis-Holmes, thank you so much for joining us. Thanks, Dan. Coming up, the Departments of War and Energy work together to mark a milestone in U.S. nuclear energy. A next-generation nuclear reactor is at the center of the celebration. And more in just a minute here on NTD News. Welcome back. I'm Tiffany Meyer. Baby food recalled in 49 U.S. states. Tippy Toe's Apple Pear Banana Fruit Parade is affected by the recall. No illnesses or injuries related to the recalled product have been reported. Initiative Foods has recalled a single lot of its Tippy Toe's Apple Pear Banana Fruit Parade due to elevated levels of patulin, that is a naturally occurring substance, which is produced by molds that may grow in various fruits. The FDA says long-term exposure from patulin ingestion can lead to several health issues, including nerve damage and immune suppression. No illnesses have been reported in connection to the recall. Customers should either throw it away or return it to the store for a refund. The Department of War are working together on a nuclear energy initiative. A next-generation nuclear reactor was transported from an airbase in California, with its ultimate destination being a lab in Utah to undergo testing. For the Department of War to deploy transportable nuclear micro-reactors, many logistic scenarios need to be tested through demonstrations like these to develop a robust understanding of the challenges involved. One of President Trump's core missions when he assumed the presidency was to unleash American energy dominance. He recognized that more energy made America stronger economically, job opportunities in our country, stronger militarily, better able to project power abroad. The Pentagon says the program is based on an executive order from President Trump. It's a collaboration with private energy firm Valor Atomics and is aimed at strengthening American nuclear energy capability. Secretary Wright said four of President Trump's executive orders have reduced obstacles in pushing American energy development forward. The reactor was flown into a Utah airbase on a C-17 military aircraft. Its next stop is Utah's San Rafael Energy Lab in Orangeville, where it will undergo testing and evaluation. A crowd of approximately 250,000 gathered peacefully in Munich on Saturday in a major demonstration against Iran's current regime. Crowds called for leadership change and support for exiled opposition figure Reza Pahlavi. Entity's Sean Marshall has more details. A peaceful protest against the Iranian regime happened in Munich on Saturday. The protesters, who arrived from across Europe, displayed pre-1979 revolution Iranian flags and carried signs bearing Reza Pahlavi's image alongside banners critical of the Iranian government. Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of Iran's last Shah, said on Saturday that the Iranian regime was on the verge of collapsing. The crowd erupted into cheers when Pahlavi took the stage and addressed the crowd. The Iranian people are in full revolt, and the regime is at the weakest it's ever been. It's on the verge of collapse. It's a matter of time before this regime goes. My point, however, is that the world needs to understand, including the U.S. administration, that whether or not the Western world intervenes, our fight will continue and the regime will collapse anyway. The only question is, at what price do the Iranian people can regain their freedom? If they have the support, there will be less casualties and will happen quicker. But we are committed to fight this fight forever. There's too much blood between us and this regime, and there's no recourse other than to continue fighting until we finally prevail. U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham also appeared at the event. He told the cheering crowd a message against Iran's leadership. Make Iran great by picking the people, not the Ayatollah. Make Iran great by putting the people in charge. God bless you all. Iran will be great again with the people in charge. Help is on the way. The Iranian people realize that this intervention will eliminate the most important stumbling block between them and liberation, which is the regime's mechanism of repression and its killing machine. What does it mean? It means IRGC. It means any other instrument of repression. It means further economic sanctions. It means cutting economic, the regime's means to basically pay the checks of their mercenaries at the end of the day. Iran's government has faced sustained accusations of human rights abuses, and opposition groups have ramped up efforts to galvanize international support for change. For many attendees, Saturday's rally was not only an act of solidarity but also a significant step in their call for global action. Sean Marshall, NTD News. A new crew of four astronauts, or crew 12, has arrived at the International Space Station for an eight-month science mission. They traveled aboard SpaceX's Dragon capsule Freedom, which launched from Florida last Friday. Leading the team is veteran astronaut Jessica Meyer on her second trip to the space station. She's joined by rookie astronaut Jack Hathaway, European Space Astronaut Sophie Adnott, and Russian cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev. Crew 12 was welcomed aboard the International Space Station by three current occupants. The station is the largest man-made object in space, spanning the length of a football field. It has been continuously operated by a U.S.-Russian-led consortium that also includes Canada, Japan, and 11 European countries. NASA says crew 12 will dive into a busy schedule of scientific, medical, and technical research in microgravity. Their work includes studying pneumonia-causing bacteria to improve treatments on Earth, and they will experiment with plants to boost food production in space. Much of the science is focused on perfecting technologies NASA hopes to use in future missions to the Moon and Mars. It's aimed at helping astronauts live and work safely further from home. Meanwhile, SpaceX successfully launched 24 new Starlink satellites Saturday from California. The Falcon 9 rocket's first stage landed safely on a drone ship in the Pacific Ocean. Coming up, with Monday marking Presidents Day, what lessons can we apply from the nation's top presidents? Author and historian Thomas Boston joins us to discuss. And two athletes of American-Chinese heritage are making headlines during the Winter Olympics in Milan. One has made millions of dollars thanks to working with Chinese companies, while the other has been a target for Chinese spies. Welcome back. I'm Tiffany Meyer. Next, an update from the Winter Olympics in Milan. Two young athletes, both of American-Chinese heritage, are in the spotlight. That's for their quite different paths in relations to and opinions on China. Figure skater Alyssa Liu, representing Team USA, just won a gold medal. Her father told NTD that he's taking about 20 family members to Milan today for more of her upcoming games next week. NTD's Flora Hua has the story. Both athletes were born and raised in California, but one of them chose not to compete for her homeland, the United States, and went with China instead. Aileen Gu has brought four Olympic medals under coming China's flag, including two gold medals when she competed in Beijing. Gu made 23 million dollars last year alone after being showered with Chinese endorsement deals. Her mother is a Chinese immigrant. Sports isn't Gu's only specialty. She's also majoring in international relations at Stanford University. When Time magazine asked her about Beijing's suppression of the Uyghur ethnic group, Gu said it's not her business. Gold medalist Alyssa Liu also competed in the Winter Olympics in Beijing. The U.S. State Department took special precautions during her stay there, assigning security guards to her 24 hours a day. Why? Because the 16-year-old was targeted by Chinese spies while she was preparing for the games. They were after her father, Arthur Liu. Liu was a student activist who escaped China during the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre. Decades later, the CCP is still targeting Liu's family. FBI agents broke the news to Alyssa that her family could face danger and said they would ensure her safety. The young skater told media that Chinese spies were trying to intimidate them so that her father would never organize anti-CCP protests again. She said the experience made her understand her dad's choice to speak out even more. Flora Hua, NTD News. With the contrast between Chinese-American Winter Olympians Aileen Gu and Alyssa Liu sparking discussions about money and principles, we recently spoke with Enes Kanter-Freedom, former NBA star and leading activist for human rights around the world. He's made a name for himself standing up for principles over fame and gain. Here's that interview. The Chinese government understands the power of the It uses celebrities, sports, and global events to project an image of legitimacy and strength. Recruiting internationally recognized athletes is not just about competition. It is about soft power and propaganda value and shaping global perception. Financial incentives and market access are powerful tools in that strategy. So this does not diminish the athletes' hard work, but it reveals how the regime blends prestige, economics, and national messaging advances influence. So it is a strategic playbook designed to win admiration abroad while suppressing dissents at home. Enes, in many ways, the story of these two Winter Olympians mirrors your own personal story. You famously spoke up against the Chinese regime's persecution of Uyghur Muslims at great risk to your professional career. Talk to us about what that cost you professionally and why you chose to do it anyway. Speaking out came with real consequences, especially when I wanted to speak about all of China's human rights violations. I lost endorsement deals. Business ties disappeared. I played basketball and NBA for 11 years, and I was healthy. I could have competed another five or six years. Unfortunately, because of the relationship between NBA and China, they said enough is enough. Unfortunately, the platform and broadcast opportunities shrank, and I faced threats, and everybody knows about this. I was doing a hearing in the Congress with foreign affairs, and I asked one simple question. I was like, how can the biggest dictatorship in the world, China, can control a 100% made American organization like the NBA and fire a U.S. citizen? And unfortunately, they did not answer. They couldn't answer. When you learn about forced labor, mass detention, organ harvesting, religious persecution, you cannot claim ignorance. Freedom is not meaningful if you only defend it when it's convenient. I chose to speak up because human dignity matters more than contracts and more than any kind of endorsement deals because using your platform for truth is more important than your comfort. I want to talk about gratitude because Alyssa Liu is being praised for what people perceive as having gratitude for America and the freedom it provides. Now, in an op-ed for Fox earlier this year, you actually said, I came here for my basketball dream. I stay for freedom in the American dream. Talk to us about that. I really want people to understand. America literally gave me more than just an NBA career. America gave me a home. It gave me a voice. In many places, criticizing those in power leads to prison or worse, tortures to death. In the United States, I can speak openly, practice my faith, and advocate for human rights without fear of government retaliation. So that freedom is not abstract. It shapes everyday life. Gratitude does not mean believing the country is perfect. It means recognizing the rare opportunity to improve society through free speech, democratic participation, and the rule of law. So that is the promise of the American dream. And it was so crazy because when my teammates were criticizing America, they were saying, oh my god, America is terrible. We need to get out of here, blah, blah. I was like, listen, the grass is not greener on the other side. Look at China, look at Iran, look at Russia, look at all the Turkey and many other countries. Literally, forget about pulling out the government. You criticize those regimes, you and your family member will be tortured to death. So people need to understand how lucky and blessed they are to be in a country like America. And you can watch the full interview on NTD.com. Monday marks President's Day, established to celebrate President George Washington's birthday and all former presidents. Reflecting back, what lesson can we learn today from Washington in our nation's history? Joining us now is attorney and historian Tomas Boston. He's also the author of How the Best Did It? Leadership Lessons from Our Top Presidents. Tomas, thank you so much for joining us. Great to have you here now with President's Day almost upon us, marking the birthday of George Washington. Talk to us about Washington's legacy and his ideals for the nation. Well, Washington, first and foremost, realized that for this new country to survive, everybody involved in government was going to have to be in a mode of unity. And he was a great unifier. He was so incredibly respected by people on all sides that he was unanimously chosen for his presidency, both for his first term and his second term, just as he had unanimously been chosen to be the chairman of the Constitutional Convention and to lead the army as commander-in-chief during the American Revolution. So it's pretty rare for anybody to go through life with all these important positions and no one ever opposed him. And that's because everybody realized that he had the country's best interest at his heart, as evidenced by eight years of leading the Continental Army during the American Revolution. Also, a huge part of his legacy is his integrity, that not only was he the commander-in-chief, he was the conscience-in-chief of the country. He was able, in his cabinet, he had Alexander Hamilton on one side as Secretary of Treasury and Thomas Jefferson as Secretary of State, who anybody who's seen the Broadway musical knows that they were not exactly a mutual admiration society. And yet he got them to work together, got them to agree that the Compromise of 1790, that the nation's capital would move down to on the Potomac near Virginia in exchange for the federal government assuming the state's debt. So he made government work, obviously, at the very beginning when it was so crucial that it did work. And your book, How the Best Did, it discusses eight presidents. You've said before that your book is a study in applied history. How can we embody some of those excellent traits of past presidents today? Well, we all would love to have our presidents be people of complete integrity like Washington was. We also like to think it'd be great to have a president who's very good at unifying the country instead of dividing the country. We like to recognize that humility is still a virtue. And Washington was, despite all of his achievements, fundamentally humble. And thus, he was very collaborative. He recognized that there were other people who were particularly good at things that he wasn't, and so he used them. At the Constitutional Convention, he relied on Madison to be the main draftsman of the Constitution. While he was president, he knew he was not a fiscal wizard. He relied on Alexander Hamilton to figure out how to start and run the nation's economy. So he was very collaborative. And these are all important traits for any successful president. And talk to us about the power of optimism, because you've said before people don't elect pessimists. What do people look for in who to elect? Well, this gets into unifying. Not many people are going to get excited by somebody who's a downer, who's always thinking the glass is half empty instead of half full. Washington believed in the power of the country. He had given so many years of his life to making it all happen. And so he projected this sense that this is going to work, but we must all work together to make it work. People bought into it. And here we have this country almost 250 years later, still going strong thanks to its getting off to such a good start. And speaking of unity amidst this increasingly polarized political climate, we seem to find ourselves in. What are some lessons we can take from past presidents to find common ground and shared values? Well, you've got to have dialogue. And not only do you have to have dialogue, but people have to listen to each other. And people typically are more willing to listen to each other if they have some sort of a good, positive personal relationship with them. Thomas Jefferson was a real master during his presidency. He entered into the country, was deeply divided. But over the course of his eight years, he hosted dinners at his home where he would invite people from both sides to eat great food, drink great wine, but above all, have conversation not about the hot political issues, but about their families, their jobs, what their tastes were in literature, music, so forth. He had conversations with people, trying to make friends with them. And it worked. He didn't have one a month or he had two to three dinners every single week. And he didn't achieve breaking the walls down of polarism in a month or three months or six months. But over the course of eight years, the country came around to his way of thinking. He was a dynamic conversationalist. He was a Renaissance man. He could talk about anything. And so after his eight-year presidency, his best friend Madison followed for another eight years, then his little brother figure James Monroe for another eight years. So he got the country turned around toward his way of thinking by building positive relationships, even with people on the other side of the aisle. And that has become an increasingly lost arc in our national politics. And lastly, very quickly, do you have a favorite president or one you admire the most? Abraham Lincoln's at the top of the list. President's Day is the celebration that Lincoln's birthday was on February 12th and Washington's on the 22nd. So it's usually a happy medium. But the C-SPAN presidential ranking poll, which takes place every time one president leaves the White House and a new one comes in in the 21st century, Lincoln always finishes at the top of the list for his handling of the Civil War, the greatest crisis in our country's history, and his bringing an end to the evil institution of slavery and doing it all with unequaled eloquence and magnanimity and equanimity. So all of his subsequent presidents have used Lincoln as the ultimate role model who they aspire to follow. Well, Thomas Boston, thank you so much for joining us. It's my pleasure. Thank you, Tiffany. Coming up, how close are we to discovering life beyond Earth? A leading city scientist explains the multiple ways researchers are searching from microbial life in our solar system to technological signals from distant civilizations. Coming up. Welcome back. I'm Tiffany Meyer. Frank Marchese is an astronomer and senior scientist working in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. He explains that today's hunt for life extends far beyond radio signals, ranging from probing oceans on distant moons to analyzing the atmospheres of Earth-like exoplanets for signs of biology or technology. In this conversation, Marchese also outlines what would happen if a potential alien signal were ever confirmed and how the world would be told. Now, at CETI, it's mainly looking for signals, right? Signals from far away. Right. So CETI is a search for extraterrestrial intelligence. Yes. It's a different way of finding intelligence, of finding even microbes. Observe the inner planet, in the solar system, planets like Mars, or dig the ocean to find, to analyze the water in the ocean of Europa, or Enceladus, which are moons, but we believe there is an ocean underneath the icy crust. We can explore the caves of Mars. Maybe there is life there. So this is one way. That would be very primitive life. That would be very primitive life, microbiological life, probably. Then we have the search for life by analyzing the lights of exoplanets, planets in orbit around other stars. So we know now the universe in our galaxy has, in average, in our galaxy, there is two planets per stars. Average. In average. And we know that there is at least 300 millions of those planets that could look like Earth in size, and also the temperature close to the temperature of, which is compatible with liquid water on the surface. That's a lot of words. So now what we're trying to do at the CETI Institute is to look at those planets, find them, analyze the light, and maybe see the signature of life on this planet. It could be basic life, like microbiological life, or maybe we're going find something more interesting, such as the light of cities, for instance, or technologies, because technology has a signature, and technology will lead to finding intelligence. And then the third way is to search for technosignatures. So this is basically searching for an alien civilization, which is using technology to communicate. Maybe they're using radio. Maybe if we listen to the stars in radio, we may see a signal which could infer that there is intelligence there. It could be the TV, or the radar, or something like that. Or it could be also lasers. Maybe those civilizations are so advanced that they have created this technology to accelerate gigantic solar cells, and they use powerful lasers to do that. So we need to find those lasers. That's the third way, that the search for technosignatures. Now I have to ask you about the protocol. Let's assume that SETI discovers a signal, be it laser or radio or whatever, that's in some way artificial. What would you do? What would be the steps that, you know, if you discover it somehow, or someone told you, what are the steps that you would approach this discovery, I guess? Well, the first thing we will do as scientists is to confirm that this is a real signal, and it's not someone playing with a cell phone nearby the antenna or shining light into our instruments. It could be that, right? So what we're going to do is to ask our colleagues who operate the same type of instruments to listen or to watch this part of the sky and confirm the existence of this technosignature. So this will take time, probably a few hours, but after a few hours we will get a confirmation of this. When the signal is confirmed, there will be a recording. The snare will be recording continuously and analyzed to make sure it's not coming from a satellite, because we now launch satellites, a lot of them, so maybe this is coming from a satellite or maybe a spacecraft that we have launched a long time ago. So there will be this work to assess and to be sure that this is truly coming from a non-human technology. And that's difficult. To be very honest with you, this is not that easy, because radio, they bounce, there is always this weird phenomena, there is always someone who is wearing something that emits radiation, for instance, that could basically make us make mistakes of thinking that it's an alien technosignature. When this is done and it's confirmed that it's not coming from a human and the signal is recorded, there will be a committee that will basically decide how to announce it. So we have derived a protocol at the SETI Institute, at the SETI Permanent Committee, that has been redesigned as we speak. It will be announced probably next year, in 2026, end of this year. But part of this protocol is to make an announcement with all the scientists involved and also warn in advance the United Nations and the president of the country where the discovery was made. And when this is done, everybody will have access to the data, and make their own analysis. That's key, I think. And then we will have people, other instruments, following and tracking this signal. It may be very boring, to be very honest with you. You may hear, oh, the scientists think they found something. And it will take a long time for this, maybe we found something to, yes, we truly found, detected the first technosignature. Frank, thank you so much for your time. It's been a fascinating conversation. Really appreciate it. Thank you for having me, Steve. A manatee takes the scenic route through a Florida storm drain before heading to SeaWorld Orlando. A pilot pulls off a roadway landing in Gainesville. Here are more funny and crazy viral videos. Take a look. Rescue crews and wildlife officials worked feverishly to free a manatee discovered stuck in a storm drain in Florida. WESH-TV reported the manatee was discovered in the drain by coincidence and emergency responders from multiple agencies quickly got to work drilling and removing slabs of concrete and were able to lift the trapped mammal out of the drain. Officials confirmed the manatee was alert and not showing signs of cold stress and was later sent to SeaWorld in Orlando for rehabilitation. In Georgia, a small plane made a harrowing emergency landing when engine problems forced the pilot to land the craft on a busy Gainesville roadway. The small plane struck and damaged several vehicles upon landing, but thankfully only minor injuries were reported. The FAA is now sorting out exactly what led to the trafficking touchdown. An Amazon delivery drone also had a rough aerial approach when it crashed near a Texas apartment building, raining down debris before plummeting to the ground. The cause of the crash was unclear, but no injuries were reported. Amazon said the building sustained minimal damage and it apologized for any inconvenience. Finally, compelling satellite images revealed a massive crack forming across frozen Lake Erie. The National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration said the gargantuan 80-mile-long crack could be seen forming from Port Burwell, Canada, to near Cleveland, Ohio. The agency also added Lake Erie is nearly 100% frozen, which itself is a rarity. 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.