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No DNA match in database from gloves found during Nancy Guthrie investigation, officials say

Updated on: February 17, 2026 / 1:57 PM EST / CBS News

A DNA profile recovered from gloves found during the investigation into the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie in Arizona that was submitted to a national database maintained by the FBI didn’t come back with any matches, the Pima County Sheriff’s Department said Tuesday.

The profile was submitted to the database known as CoDIS, or Combined DNA Index System, Tuesday morning, the sheriff’s department said.

The DNA profile of an unknown male was recovered from gloves that investigators found about 2 miles from Guthrie’s home, according to the FBI. The glove appeared to match the ones seen on the suspect in Guthrie’s Nest doorbell camera video.

The DNA database could have provided a match if the individual had a previous arrest for certain crimes and supplied a DNA sample that put him into the system.

The gloves were found in a field near a roadside, the FBI said. It was one of 16 gloves found in various areas during the search, but most of them were determined to belong to investigators who had discarded them, the FBI said.

This is a breaking news story. Check back for updates.

Laura Geller and Anna Schecter contributed to this report.

Mississippi holds hearing on xAI data center amid environmental lawsuit threat

February 17, 2026 5:00 PM UTC / Reuters

By Valerie Volcovici

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xAI logo is seen in this illustration taken, February 16, 2025. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab

WASHINGTON, Feb 17 (Reuters) – Mississippi regulators will host a public hearing on Tuesday over plans by Elon Musk’s xAI to build a gas-fired power plant to power its Colossus II data center, as the company faces a lawsuit threat by the NAACP, accusing it of violating federal law by installing and operating gas turbines without air permits.

The civil rights group, acting on behalf of the largely African American local community living near the existing Colossus I facility in Memphis, Tennessee, said xAI began illegally installing and then operating 27 gas turbines at a site in Southaven, Mississippi to power Colossus II, sited across the state line in Memphis.

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It said this was being done without properly obtaining the necessary preconstruction or operating air permits required by the Clean Air Act.

AIR QUALITY

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“Pollution from these turbines is worsening and will continue to worsen the already poor air quality in Southaven, Mississippi and the Memphis metropolitan area,” the NAACP said in a letter declaring its intent to sue xAI.

xAI was not immediately available for comment.

The NAACP said the turbines have the potential to emit a significant amount of smog-forming nitrogen oxides (NOx), above the Clean Air Act’s “major source” threshold, and other pollutants including fine particulate matter and carcinogenic formaldehyde, harming largely African American local communities.

The Clean Air Act requires plaintiffs to signal their intent to sue 60 days in advance.

xAI has been rapidly building its Colossus supercomputer which is being used to train the company’s Grok AI chatbot in Memphis and expanding to Southaven. It is currently in phase 2 and is seeking to begin a third phase soon.

After the Southern Environmental Law Center, which is representing the NAACP in this new lawsuit threat, filed an intent to sue xAI in 2024 for installing 35 non-permitted turbines at its Colossus 1 site, the company removed 20 turbines and obtained permits for the remaining 15.

The Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality hearing is the only chance for the public to weigh in on the project, which SELC has said will be the largest new source of pollution in the area around Memphis in years.

The DEQ said xAI has submitted permit applications for 41 permanent turbines at the site and will run a number of temporary turbines while the applications are being reviewed.

Reporting by Valerie Volcovici; Editing by David Holmes

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Fulton County accuses Justice Department of misleading the judge who approved elections office search warrant

PUBLISHED Feb 17, 2026, 1:21 PM ET / CNN

By [Tierney Sneed]

Ballots from the 2020 election are loaded onto trucks by the FBI at the Fulton County elections center in Georgia on January 28.

Mike Stewart/AP

Officials in Fulton County, Georgia, accused the Justice Department of making “serious” omissions in the application the FBI filed to obtain a search warrant for [2020 election ballots] last month.

The local officials, who are seeking the return of the election materials, wrote in a court filing Tuesday that “instead of alleging probable cause to believe a crime has been committed,” the FBI’s application “does nothing more than describe the types of human errors that its own sources confirm occur in almost every election—without any intentional wrongdoing whatsoever.”

[Fulton County] bashed the FBI for not informing the magistrate judge who approved the warrant that the allegations of election “defects” it was putting forward had been previously investigated. The local officials also took the FBI to task for not including information in the application that would cast doubt on the credibility of the witnesses the federal criminal probe apparently is relying on.

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CNN has reached out to the FBI and the Justice Department for comment.

[Related article Georgia state elected officials attempt to access the Fulton County Election Hub and Operation Center but are turned away after the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) executed a search warrant there in relation to the 2020 election, according to a law enforcement official familiar with the matter, in Union City, Georgia on January 28, 2026. Alyssa Pointer/Reuters Breaking down the evidence DOJ used to justify searching a Fulton County elections office 5 min read]

[Kurt Olsen], a 2020 election denier now serving in the White House who made the referral that launched the criminal probe, has been sanctioned by multiple courts, the new Fulton County filing noted. The county also argued that other witnesses the affidavit cited lacked election administration expertise or reached conclusions based on speculation.

The seizure of the election materials last month came as President Donald Trump has remained fixated on the false idea that the 2020 vote was rigged against him. A federal judge will hold a hearing next week on the county’s request that those materials be returned. The judge previously granted the county’s request to unseal the warrant application materials, including an affidavit by an FBI agent that revealed the search was being justified with long-standing and already-scrutinized claim.

Fulton County responded to those allegations Tuesday with a declaration from Ryan Macias, an election technology and security expert who has worked on thousands of elections.

He said the FBI’s affidavit was full of “gross mischaracterizations of the facts of how elections work and are directly at odds with the findings and conclusions of all of the prior investigations of the November 2020 election in Fulton County.”

Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin to leave agency

Updated Feb 17, 2026, 2:19 PM ET / Published Feb 17, 2026, 11:39 AM ET / CNN Politics

By Priscilla Alvarez, Michael Williams

Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin speaks during a news conference in Washington, DC, on, May 21, 2025.

Jose Luis Magana/AP/File

The Department of Homeland Security’s top spokesperson, Tricia McLaughlin, is stepping down, a Trump administration official told CNN.

McLaughlin is expected to leave her position as assistant secretary next week.

Her departure comes on the heels of high-profile shootings in Minnesota, where conflicting accounts called into question the department’s credibility. McLaughlin was one of the agency’s most vocal — and, apart from Secretary Kristi Noem, most visible — defenders, making appearances across news networks to defend President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda and taking to social media to blast reporting on the agency.

Noem said in a Tuesday post on X that McLaughlin “served with exceptional dedication, tenacity, and professionalism.”

“She has played an instrumental role in advancing our mission to secure the homeland and keep Americans safe,” she said.

McLaughlin started to plan her departure in December but stayed in the aftermath of the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis, according to a source familiar. Her plans to leave the administration were first reported by Politico.

Even before the killings of Pretti and Good last month, DHS’ public affairs office faced questions about its credibility after several incidents in which McLaughlin and the agency made claims that were later undermined by video or statements from local officials.

The agency’s credibility issues, combined with its officers’ use of aggressive tactics to carry out Trump’s deportation mandate, have led to a drop in public opinion on DHS and its components. A recent Ipsos poll showed that 62% of Americans think Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s efforts have gone “too far.”

The agency’s conduct is a central sticking point in the partial government shutdown that began last week after Congress hit an impasse to negotiate reforms in DHS’ immigration operations.

During the first Trump administration, McLaughlin worked as the chief of staff for nuclear arms control at the State Department and in the public affairs office at the Treasury Department.

She went on to work as a spokesperson for Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, and later, for Vivek Ramaswamy’s 2024 presidential campaign.

McLaughlin came under scrutiny last year after ProPublica reported that a firm run by her husband was subcontracted to produce an advertising campaign for DHS in a $200 million deal.

McLaughlin told ProPublica at the time that DHS had no visibility into which subcontractors were selected and that she recused herself because of the conflict of interest.

She is the latest top DHS official to leave about a year into the new administration. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Deputy Director Madison Sheahan announced last month she would also step down from her position to run for Congress in her native Ohio.

This story has been updated with additional information.

Psaki joins Democrat push for Epstein files after ex-Biden spox rarely mentioned it from White House

Republicans argue Democrats had four years under Biden to make files public

By Ashley Oliver
Fox News
Published December 15, 2025 9:39am EST | Updated February 17, 2026 11:53am EST

Former Biden White House press secretary Jen Psaki raised alarm recently about an international “web” surrounding Jeffrey Epstein’s sex-trafficking case, echoing remarks from many Democrats who have seized on the politically expedient topic in the wake of the Department of Justice releasing Epstein’s unclassified case files.

“It is Trump, yes. … But it is the wealthy, the elites, and basically every faction of the world,” Psaki, a political analyst for MS Now, said in a video clip. “It’s global leaders. It’s people in the business sector. It is people in Hollywood probably, who knows. It is a bunch of people who think that they can get away with anything.”

Democrats have since last year claimed that Epstein’s case has newfound salience because Trump, once among Epstein’s many wealthy friends before Epstein was accused of trafficking underage girls, was, in their view, suspiciously dismissive of the files when he took office.

Republicans have countered, however, that Democrats had full access to the documents for four years under the Biden administration — when Psaki served as the chief White House spokesperson — and neither released them nor uncovered information damaging to Trump. Fox News Digital reached out to Psaki for comment.

FEDERAL JUDGE ORDERS UNSEALING OF EPSTEIN CASE GRAND JURY RECORDS

Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell were both indicted on federal sex trafficking charges stemming from Epstein’s years of abuse of underage girls.(Joe Schildhorn/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images)

Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, told Fox News Digital claims of Democratic inconsistency “are seriously detached from reality” and pointed to his own investigations dating back to 2019 into former Trump Labor Secretary Alex Acosta’s handling of a 2008 plea deal with Epstein.

Raskin argued the Democratic Party has not shifted, but rather that the Trump administration has.

“Trump abruptly killed the ongoing federal investigation into Epstein’s co-conspirators when he took office,” Raskin said, alleging the administration undertook a “massive redaction project” to hide evidence of Trump’s and others’ ties to Epstein.

The DOJ in January released more than three million pages of files but signaled that another three million were withheld because they contained victim information or were protected by various privileges.

“Democrats have always fought to support an investigation of Epstein’s co-conspirators,” Raskin said. “We have always been on the side of full transparency and justice for the victims.”

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., has made similar remarks, saying, “All we want is full transparency, so that the American people can get the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”

COMER ACCUSES OVERSIGHT DEMS OF ‘CHERRY-PICKING’ EPSTEIN ISLAND FILES: ‘CHASING HEADLINES’

Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., arrives to speak to reporters as he introduces legislation at the U.S. Capitol Building on May 8, 2025, in Washington, D.C.(Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

The heightened Democratic push for transparency comes after years during which the party showed more intermittent interest in Epstein’s case, which some Democrats have attributed to the sensitivity of seeking information while Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell’s sex trafficking case was pending and while some of Epstein’s victims were pursuing litigation.

But the Democrats’ new, unified fixation on Epstein has come as Republicans have struggled to manage the issue, which has caused intra-party fractures.

The files became a political thorn for the administration after Attorney General Pam Bondi’s chaotic rollout last year of already-public files by the DOJ, which enraged a faction of Trump’s base who had been expecting new information.

The DOJ said at the time that it would not disclose further files because of court orders and victim privacy and said the department found no information that would warrant bringing charges against anyone else. In a turnabout, however, Bondi ordered a review, at Trump’s direction, of Epstein’s alleged connections to Democrats, including former President Bill Clinton.

The president, who was closely associated with Epstein but was never accused of any crimes related to him, also relented to months-long pressure to sign a transparency bill last year that ordered the DOJ to release all of its Epstein-related records within 30 days. Among the most vocal supporters of the bill was former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., which resulted in her highly public falling out with the president, whom she once fervently supported.

Attorney General Pam Bondi speaks as President Donald Trump looks on during a press conference in the Oval Office of the White House on Oct. 15, 2025, in Washington, D.C.(Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

The Epstein saga has also plagued the administration because some of Trump’s allies, now in top roles in the DOJ, once promoted the existence of incriminating, nonpublic Epstein files, including a supposed list of sexual predators who were his clients. FBI Director Kash Patel, for instance, said in 2023 the government was hiding “Epstein’s list” of “pedophiles.” But the DOJ leaders failed to deliver on those claims upon taking office.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., meanwhile, faced accusations from Democrats that he kept the House in recess for about two months in the summer to avoid votes on Epstein transparency legislation. Johnson shot back that Democrats had, in his view, been lax on the Epstein case until Trump took office.

“We’re not going to allow the Democrats to use this for political cover. They had four years,” Johnson told reporters at the time. “Remember, the Biden administration held the Epstein files for four years and not a single one of these Democrats, or anyone in Congress, made any thought about that at all.”

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The House Oversight Committee has also spurred infighting over how Epstein material has been handled, as it has been actively engaged in subpoenaing, reviewing, and releasing large batches of Epstein-related records from both the DOJ and Epstein’s estate.

Committee Republicans have said their Democratic counterparts “cherry-picked” material to release, such as photos featuring Trump and Epstein, and that they “keep trying to create a fake hoax by being dishonest, deceptive, and shamelessly deranged.”

Ashley Oliver is a reporter for Fox News Digital and FOX Business, covering the Justice Department and legal affairs. Email story tips to ashley.oliver@fox.com.

https://www.foxnews.com/video/6389428098112

Hillary Clinton alleges Epstein files “cover-up” by Trump administration ahead of House deposition

February 17, 2026 / 1:26 PM EST / CBS News

Washington— Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton accused the Trump administration of a “continuing cover-up” over its handling of the release of files related to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

“There’s something about this administration’s attitude toward this, which I think really leads us to conclude they have something to hide,” Hillary Clinton told the BBC in an interview released Tuesday. “We don’t. We have been willing to say whatever we know. We’ve even done it under oath.”

Hillary Clinton is set to appear before the House Oversight Committee on Feb. 26 for a deposition as part of its Epstein investigation. Former President Bill Clinton is scheduled to be deposed the next day. Neither has been accused of wrongdoing.

Their appearances before lawmakers, which will happen behind closed doors, come after a monthslong back-and-forth that led the committee to recommend holding the Clintons in criminal contempt of Congress for failing to appear under subpoena. The full House was on the verge of voting on the contempt resolution, which was expected to pass with bipartisan support, when the Clintons agreed to the committee’s terms to appear.

But the Clintons have pushed for the testimony to occur in public. House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, a Kentucky Republican, has said that is a possibility after the private depositions.

“We will show up, but we think it would be better to have it in public,” Hillary Clinton told the BBC.

The Clintons submitted sworn declarations in January describing their interactions with Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving a prison sentence on sex trafficking charges.

Hillary Clinton reiterated in the BBC interview that she doesn’t remember ever meeting Epstein and that her husband’s association with him was related to the Clinton Foundation’s philanthropic work. Bill Clinton has said Epstein offered his private plane to him, his staff and his Secret Service detail in support of his charity work between 2002 and 2003, and that he had not been in contact with Epstein for more than a decade before his 2019 arrest.

“We have no links. We have a very clear record that we’ve been willing to talk about, which my husband has said he took some rides on the airplane for his charitable work. I don’t recall ever meeting him,” Hillary Clinton said.

Hillary Clinton said she met Maxwell “on a few occasions” through the Clinton Foundation.

The couple’s knowledge of Epstein and Maxwell is “very limited and totally unrelated to their behavior or their crimes,” Hillary Clinton said.

The former secretary of state accused Comer of forcing them to appear for depositions “to protect” President Trump, who is also mentioned in the Epstein files and has denied any wrongdoing. She noted that other former officials subpoenaed in the inquiry have not been forced to testify.

“We have nothing to hide. We have called for the full release of these files repeatedly,” she said. “Get the files out. They are slow-walking it. They are redacting the names of men who are in it. They are stonewalling legitimate requests from members of Congress. That has nothing to do with us. Something is going on. They know it. I know it.”

She said lawmakers won’t “like what I have to say” if the committee follows through with the private deposition.

“I have very strong opinions about what it is they’re hiding and who they are protecting,” she said. “Why do they want to pull us into this? To divert attention from President Trump. This is not complicated.”

Asked Sunday about his response to Hillary Clinton’s allegation that they are being used as a diversion, Mr. Trump told reporters, “I have nothing to hide.”

“I have nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein,” Mr. Trump said.

Hillary Clinton on Epstein files handling

https://www.cbsnews.com/video/hillary-clinton-slams-trump-administration-over-esptein-files-handling/

Abby Phillip reflects on Jesse Jackson’s place in American politics | CNN Politics

By Dana Bash, CNN
Published 1:38 PM EST, Tue February 17, 2026

CNN’s Abby Phillip spent time with Reverend Jesse Jackson when she wrote her book, “A dream deferred: Jesse Jackson and the fight for Black political power”. She tells CNN’s Dana Bash, “This is a man who started out as a disciple of Dr. King in the 1960s, but he continued on to do so many other things. He spent a lot of time on this issue of economic equality… He had two groundbreaking campaigns for the presidency and those campaigns really laid the groundwork for the next three decades of Democratic politics.”

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U.S. Air Force VIP fleet being repainted in Trump’s preferred palette, sources say

February 17, 2026 / 2:18 PM EST / CBS News

The Kennedy-era paint colors on the exterior of aircraft in the U.S. Air Force presidential and VIP fleet are being replaced with a new design in President Trump’s preferred palette. The new colors will appear on planes including the donated Qatari jet and two planes Boeing is converting to serve as Air Force One, sources told CBS News.

Some of the blue and white aircraft are already being repainted in dark navy blue, deep red and gold as they come in for scheduled due repairs and maintenance, the officials said.

The classic robin’s egg blue color scheme of the current fleet dates back to the Kennedy administration.

The new red, dark blue and white paint job is being required for Air Force One jets as well as others in the executive fleet, including the new 747-8i from Qatar and C-32 aircraft, an Air Force spokesperson said.

File: Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth at meeting with President Trump in the Oval Office at the White House on Sept. 3, 2025. Alex Wong / Getty Images

Mr. Trump in his first term rolled out a model airplane with the paint colors he wanted for Air Force One, but President Joe Biden canceled that paint design for the VC-25Bs, the Defense Department’s version of the Boeing 747 airliner.

The new paint requirement includes the smaller C-32 aircraft, which carry high-priority personnel such as the first lady or top cabinet officials, and serve as Air Force Two when the vice president is aboard.

Contractor L3 Harris has been upgrading the Air Force Two planes at its plant in Greenville, Texas.

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Boeing continues to work on a new generation of Air Force One planes in a deal signed in 2018. Meanwhile, the plane donated by Qatar that the Air Force is refurbishing is expected to be ready for use as Air Force One no later than this summer.

The first C-32 has been painted and is expected to be delivered to the Air Force in the next few months.

The War Zone, a defense news and analysis website, reported on images of the C-32 painted in the new color scheme.

US military says it killed 11 people in strikes on three alleged drug boats

By Natasha Bertrand
Updated 2 hr ago
Updated Feb 17, 2026, 12:56 PM ET
PUBLISHED Feb 17, 2026, 12:23 PM ET

Late on February 16, 2026, the US military conducted strikes on three vessels killing 11, US Southern Command said in a statement.

US Southern Command

The US military struck three alleged drug-trafficking vessels in the eastern Pacific and Caribbean on Monday night, killing all 11 people on board, US Southern Command said Tuesday.

“Intelligence confirmed the vessels were transiting along known narco-trafficking routes and were engaged in narco-trafficking operations,” Southern Command said in a statement. “Eleven male narco-terrorists were killed during these actions, 4 on the first vessel in the Eastern Pacific, 4 on the second vessel in the Eastern Pacific, and 3 on the third vessel in the Caribbean. No U.S. military forces were harmed.”

The strikes bring the death toll from the US campaign, which began in September, up to at least 135 people killed, with several more survivors of the strikes presumed dead. The last US strike on a suspected drug-trafficking vessel was carried out Friday in the Caribbean and killed three people, according to Southern Command.

Last fall, the Trump administration produced a classified legal opinion that justified the lethal strikes against a secret list of at least two dozen cartels and suspected drug traffickers classifying them as enemy combatants, CNN has reported.

The strikes have come under intense scrutiny, however, by legal experts and Democratic members of Congress who say they amount to murdering civilians since the US is not in a declared, congressionally authorized war with drug cartels.

In at least one instance last September, the US military deliberately killed survivors after an initial strike on an alleged trafficking vessel did not kill everyone on board, prompting accusations that the US had committed a war crime and sparking congressional investigations.

This grid of images shows 10 of the incidents in which the US military has targeted boats in international waters, from September 2 to October 29. Pete Hegseth/X/Donald Trump/Truth Social A timeline of US strikes on boats that have killed at least 135 2 min read

Before the US military began blowing up boats in September, countering illicit drug trafficking was handled by law enforcement and the US Coast Guard, and cartel members and drug smugglers were treated as criminals with due process rights. The Coast Guard has continued to interdict drug-trafficking vessels and seizing narcotics in the eastern Pacific without the use of lethal force.

美国民权领袖杰克逊逝世 享年84岁

发布时间：2026年2月17日 22:24 / 来源：联合早报

杰克逊（Jesse Jackson）自20世纪60年代以来一直是民权运动的领袖，他于星期二（2月17日）逝世。 （路透社档案照片）

美国民权领袖杰克逊逝世，享年84岁。

法新社报道，美国资深民权活动人士杰克逊（Jesse Jackson）牧师星期二（2月17日）上午安详去世。

美国总统特朗普对杰克逊的离世表示哀悼，并称他“是一个好人，个性鲜明，坚韧不拔，而且很有‘街头智慧’”。

杰克逊的家人发声明说，杰克逊牧师是美国最具影响力的黑人领袖之一。“我们的父亲是一位服务型领袖——他不仅服务于我们的家庭，也服务于世界各地受压迫者、无声者和被忽视者。”

声明也说：“他对正义、平等和爱的坚定信念激励了千百万人，我们恳请大家继续为他毕生秉持的价值观而奋斗，以此缅怀他。”

杰克逊的家人没有公布死因，但杰克逊曾在2017年透露自己患有帕金森氏症。据媒体报道，他去年11月因另一种神经退行疾病入院接受观察。

杰克逊自20世纪60年代以来一直是民权运动的领袖，60多年来为非裔美国人在国家舞台上拓展了空间。

杰克逊原名杰西·路易斯·伯恩斯，1941年10月8日出生于南卡罗来纳州格林维尔。他后来随继父查尔斯·杰克逊的姓氏。他曾说过：“我并非含着金汤匙出生，而是天生就该用铁锹干活。”

他在种族隔离的高中里成绩优异，并凭借橄榄球特长获得伊利诺伊大学的奖学金。但后来他转学到以黑人学生为主的北卡罗来纳州农业技术学院，并在那里获得了社会学学位。

1960年，他参加在格林维尔举行的第一次静坐示威，随后又参加1965年从塞尔玛到蒙哥马利的民权游行，并在那里引起民权领袖马丁·路德·金的注意。两人后来曾一起参加民权活动。

杰克逊后来成为多个重要国际领域的调解人和使者。

他积极倡导结束南非的种族隔离制度，并在20世纪90年代担任克林顿总统的非洲事务特使。他也前往叙利亚、伊拉克和塞尔维亚等地，为释放美国囚犯奔走斡旋。

1996年，他创立总部设于芝加哥、致力于社会正义与政治行动的“彩虹联盟”（Rainbow PUSH Coalition）。

在2009年巴拉克·奥巴马就任总统之前，杰克逊一直是竞逐美国总统职位中最知名的黑人政治人物，并曾在上世纪80年代两度争取民主党总统候选人提名，但都未成功。