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USA's Elana Meyers-Taylor Wins First Monobob Gold at 41; Hillary Clinton Alleges Cover-up With Epstein Files; Sheriff's Office Says DNA on Glove Has No Matches in Federal Database; Law Enforcement is Working With Nancy Guthrie's Pacemaker Company to Locate the Bluetooth Signal; Civil Rights Icon Jesse Jackson Dead at Age 84; U.S. Expects Detailed Proposals From Iran Following Geneva Talks. Aired 2- 2:30p ET
Aired February 17, 2026 - 14:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[14:00:00]
COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: -- USA's Breezy Johnson, Olympic downhill gold medalist, but the gold medal is not the only bling that she's taken away from these games. Her boyfriend proposed her at the bottom of the slopes.
I asked her about it just a bit ago.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BREEZY JOHNSON, WOMEN'S DOWNHILL GOLD MEDALIST: I did have an inkling that he was going to do that. I had suggested that it was always kind of my dream to get engaged at the Olympics. And so, yeah, he planned the whole thing out. And it was a very awesome moment with all of my teammates and friends and family around. So, yeah, it was pretty special.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WIRE: All right, Brianna, we have some special guests here. All the way from New York, we have the ringing church bells, we have the Olympic flame. And you are, sir?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Emilio.
WIRE: Emilio, and?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Kevin.
WIRE: Nice to meet you. What do you make of these Winter Olympics in Cortina?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Absolutely a wonderful experience.
WIRE: Yes, and how has the food been treating you? The pizza, the pasta?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's been great. Every night, great food, morning, you know, great breakfast, everything. WIRE: What's been one of the Olympians that you've been excited to see while you've been here?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For me, it's the hockey. I've been watching all the hockey games. We're going to the women on Thursday night, the gold medal match.
WIRE: They're outscoring their opponents 31-1. It's Team USA versus Team Canada in the finals again. Both of these teams have won every gold medal match dating back to 1998, the Nagano games. Brianna, it's about to be the greatest show on ice.
How about you, sir? Food treating you well here? The food.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Food's amazing.
WIRE: What was the best thing you ate?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Last night, the tiramisu.
WIRE: I'm still looking for a Cannoli, and Mamma Mia, cannot find one, Brianna?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You got to go to Sicily for that.
WIRE: Got to go to Sicily for that, see? Learn something new every day. Hey, let's get a 'Go Team USA,' and we're going to send it back to Brianna. Say, USA! USA!
CROWD: USA! USA! USA!
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": Yeah, you're going to have to go back to New York.
WIRE: We're having more funs (ph) here, Brianna.
KEILAR: Yeah, no fun. New York for your Cannoli, because I don't think there's going to be any Winter Olympics in Sicily, unfortunately.
(LAUGH)
KEILAR: Coy Wire, thank you so much for all the updates and the wonderful good feels coming out of Cortina. We appreciate it. And a new hour of "CNN News Central" starts right now.
BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": We have Breaking News on the search for Nancy Guthrie. An update on the DNA test results of a glove found near her home. We'll get you that live update in just seconds.
Plus, an icon of the civil rights movement has passed away. We'll discuss the life and legacy of Jesse Jackson, a groundbreaking leader who mounted two electrifying runs for the presidency.
And a new accusation from Hillary Clinton, the former Secretary of State going after President Trump over his handling of the Epstein Files. We're following these major developing stories and many more, all coming in right here to "CNN News Central."
KEILAR: We have Breaking News in the search for Nancy Guthrie. Moments ago, the Pima County Sheriff's Department putting out this statement. "DNA evidence from gloves found approximately two miles from the house was submitted to a lab in Florida and to CODIS this morning. There were no DNA hits in CODIS. At this point, there have been no confirmed CODIS matches in this investigation."
We're joined now by Ed Lavandera, who is in Tucson. This is going to make things a little more difficult, of course, for investigators that there aren't these DNA hits.
ED LAVANDERA, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, right. So on the 17th day of this search for Nancy Guthrie, disheartening news for the family as they try to, you know, keep up hope in the search for 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie. This is what we know. Remember, there was DNA -- traces of DNA found on a glove within two miles of Nancy Guthrie's property here.
And investigators were hoping that that DNA could match the DNA found here on the property of Nancy Guthrie's home. We are told that those are two separate DNA samples, that they do not match. And then above all of that, those matches and those DNAs, the DNA that has been recovered in various places does not match anything that is in the criminal database.
So, disheartening news here at this point because that could have provided, obviously, perhaps a name, perhaps a suspect and more importantly, or another level of detail. It could have provided perhaps a way or the route that the suspect in this case might have left the neighborhood after abducting Nancy Guthrie. So, all of that appears to be at a dead end at this moment.
Investigators say that the DNA recovered here on the property of Nancy Guthrie's home is still being analyzed. Obviously, that is a key piece of evidence if other DNA emerges as the investigation continues. But, you know, very disheartening news. And I should point out, Brianna and Boris, too, one of the other things to look out here for in the days ahead is, remember, the video from the front doorbell camera that was recovered from the doorbell camera took almost 10 days to recover, to resurrect from that system. And there are multiple cameras on this property.
[14:05:00]
So perhaps and we do know that, according to the sheriff, that that work continues to try to resurrect that video as well. So, that could be something -- if they're able to do that, that could provide them another perspective on what happened here on the -- in the early morning hours of February 1st. Perhaps it could be something like a video of a car or a better look at who the suspect is. But that's going to take some time and it's not clear it's going to happen. But it's something to look out for.
KEILAR: Yeah, certainly. And where does the investigation then go from here, Ed?
LAVANDERA: Well, you know, the FBI in Phoenix here put out another statement earlier today, reiterating that the reward for information in this case is at $100,000. It just seems like there's just not much coming to fruition from the thousands of tips that are being called in. And that is difficult to hear. It's frustrating to hear, as you can imagine, and painful to hear for the Guthrie family, which just yesterday, the sheriff went out of his way to ensure that the public knows that no one in their family is suspected of this crime.
And it's, you know, it's difficult. I have talked to a lot of law enforcement officials and we have over the last several weeks. A lot of people believe that based on that video, those images that came from the front-door camera, that somebody out there knows who this person is and it's just a question of getting them to do the right thing, to call the tip in that leads them to who this person is.
So a lot of law enforcement officials, I believe, believe that they think that that someone out there knows who that person is, that is in perhaps close contact with them and they just need to be able to figure out a way to convince those people to call it in.
KEILAR: Yeah, that's such a good point. It's really hard to think that there isn't someone who doesn't know. Ed Lavandera, thank you. And for anyone who has seen anything suspicious or knows anything about the potential whereabouts of Nancy Guthrie, you are asked to call the Pima County Sheriff or 1-800-CALL-FBI. Boris?
SANCHEZ: Today, we're remembering a giant of the civil rights movement, the Reverend Jesse Jackson, who passed away this morning at age 84. Jackson marched with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., carrying that movement forward after King's assassination and through his Rainbow Push coalition, became one of the most enduring and influential voices for Black America.
Today, former President and First Lady, Barack and Michelle Obama credited Jackson for paving the way for their own political rise, writing, "We stood on his shoulders." The former president said Jackson's two historic runs for president laid the foundation for their journey to the White House.
CNN's Abby Phillip has a look at his life and legacy from the segregated South to the national stage.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Jesse Jackson's life was defined by a relentless fight for justice and equality.
REV. JESSE JACKSON, CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVIST: I was born in Greenville, South Carolina, in rampant, radical, racial segregation. I had to be taught to go to the back of the bus or be arrested.
PHILLIP (voice-over): Those early experiences drove Jackson to join the civil rights movement.
JACKSON: The fact is, against the odds, we knew there were great odds, we were winning.
PHILLIP (voice-over): In 1965, he began working for Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.
JACKSON: I learned so much from him. Such a great source of inspiration.
PHILLIP (voice-over): King named Jackson to lead Operation Breadbasket in Chicago, an economic justice campaign for black people. However, some say King was frustrated by Jackson's brashness and ambition.
JACKSON: I'm sure he thought I needed more time. I was 24-years-old.
PHILLIP (voice-over): Both men were in Memphis in April 1968 to support striking sanitation workers. King and other civil rights leaders were staying at the Lorraine Motel.
JACKSON: He said, Jesse, you know, you don't even have on a shirt and tie. You don't even have on a tie. We're going to dinner. I said, Doc, it does not require a tie, just an appetite. We laughed. I said, Doc, and the bullet hit.
Everything changed at that moment. It was a defining moment in the history of our struggle.
PHILLIP (voice-over): With King gone, his movement was adrift. Years later, Jackson formed Operation Push, pressuring businesses to open up to black workers and customers, and adding more focus on black responsibility, championed in the 1972 concert 'Wattstax.'
JACKSON: In Watts, we have shifted from burn, baby, burn to learn, baby, learn.
PHILLIP (voice-over): And he expanded his own global reach too, helping to free U.S. Lieutenant, Robert Goodman, who was held by Syria after being shot down and later, other Americans held in Cuba and Serbia.
JACKSON: I learned how to negotiate as an African-American growing up among white people. You have to negotiate every day.
PHILLIP (voice-over): The reverend set his sights on the White House in 1984.
[14:10:00]
JACKSON: Milking cows in Iowa, then coming back to the inner cities. So I learned a lot during that period.
PHILLIP (voice-over): First thought of as a marginal candidate, Jackson finished third in the primary race with 18 percent of the vote. That campaign almost went off the rails when Jackson used an ethnic slur to refer to New York Jews.
JACKSON: Just mistakes and they hurt. PHILLIP (voice-over): He ran again in 1988, this time doubling his vote count and finishing in second in the Democratic race. At the time, it was the farthest any black candidate had gone in a presidential contest.
JACKSON: But 20 years later, when President Barack ran, we were laying the groundwork for that season.
PHILLIP (voice-over): In 2017, Jackson had a new battle to fight, Parkinson's disease. But that didn't stop him.
JACKSON: If you hold on, if your cause is right and your grip is tight, you'll make it.
PHILLIP (voice-over): Late in life, he was still fighting. He was arrested in Washington while demonstrating for voting rights. His silent presence at the trial of Ahmaud Arbery's killers prompted defense lawyers to ask that he leave the courtroom. Jackson stayed.
JACKSON: I am --
CROWD: I am --
JACKSON: -- somebody.
CROWD: -- somebody.
JACKSON: I am --
CROWD: I am --
JACKSON: -- somebody.
CROWD: -- somebody.
PHILLIP (voice-over): From the Jim Crow South through the turbulent '60s and into the Black Lives Matter movement, Jesse Jackson was a constant, unyielding voice for justice.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SANCHEZ: Our thanks to Abby Phillip for that look back at his life. Later this hour, former NAACP President, Cornell William Brooks is going to join us with his thoughts on Jesse Jackson's legacy. So stay tuned for that.
And still to come, U.S. officials are touting progress made after talks with Iran today. We'll look at the next steps toward a new nuclear agreement. Plus, the partial government shutdown entering its fourth day with no agreement in sight as the debate over immigration enforcement remains a major sticking point.
And later, there is a heavy snowstorm piling up in the mountains of Southern California. Much more on the traffic buildups from the snow and flooding when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[14:16:57]
SANCHEZ: We're seeing some positive signs emerging from indirect talks today between the United States and Iran. As the Iranians demonstrated outside the meetings in Geneva, U.S. officials say they've made progress on their nuclear negotiations.
Iran's foreign minister announced an agreement on guiding principles for further talks. CNN's Kylie Atwood is here with the details. Kylie, it sounds like they made a deal on how they're going to talk about making a deal.
KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Exactly. Which is progress, right? It does appear that they at least delved into the top layer of substance here. The fact that both sides are saying there's progress made.
The Iranian foreign minister, in addition to saying that they agreed to those guiding principles, also saying that they agreed to follow-on talks to discuss what the text of an actual agreement could potentially look like. And a U.S. official saying that in the next two weeks, what they're expecting is that the Iranians come back to the table with proposals that speak to the gaps between the United States and Iran that exist right now.
So, that's not necessarily a final draft that they are indicating to us that they're looking towards, but they're looking to delve into that substance in follow-on meetings.
But what we're hearing from both sides significantly is that the hard work is yet ahead here. And what that means is that when you talk to folks who have negotiated these nuclear deals in the past, it is really nitty-gritty details that often end up collapsing the talks altogether. The Iranian foreign minister saying when it comes to the text, work becomes more detailed and harder.
So it's very clear that there are these hurdles ahead. And then the dramatic backdrop, obviously, is that the U.S. military is building up its presence in the region. We have that second aircraft carrier coming to the region. President Trump said just as late as last week that it would be not good for the Iranians if they don't agree to a nuclear deal.
So, therefore, threatening that that military buildup could actually be used for U.S. strikes inside of Iran. One thing I do want to note, I've heard from sources, is that in the back and forth between the U.S. and the Iranians through intermediaries, the Iranians have floated some ideas that might give the United States something to dig their teeth into in terms of potentially moving their stockpile of nuclear-enriched uranium outside of the country, to Russia, the possibility of halting uranium enrichment for some time.
But a permanent halt to uranium enrichment is not something that the Iranians are open to at all. And that is fundamental to what the U.S. has said they want to achieve in any nuclear deal. We'll see if there's any wiggle room there, but we're not sensing that that exists at this moment. Boris?
SANCHEZ: Yeah. We'll see how the conversation moves forward.
ATWOOD: Yeah.
SANCHEZ: Kylie Atwood, thank you so much. Still to come, the NAACP honoring Jesse Jackson as a lifelong soldier for justice who shaped the fight for racial equality. We'll discuss his legacy with a former president of that organization when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[14:24:35]
SANCHEZ: We have Breaking News in the Nancy Guthrie case. The Sheriff's Department just minutes ago confirming the glove found near Guthrie's home was run through the federal CODIS database and did not return any matches.
Let's get some perspective now from Jeffrey Halstead. He's the former Police Chief of Fort Worth, Texas, a spokesperson for Genesis, an emergency management and law enforcement organization. Jeffrey, thanks so much for being with us.
So, no DNA hits in CODIS for the glove, no confirmed CODIS matches in the whole investigation yet.
[14:25:00]
So, where do investigators turn next?
JEFFREY HALSTEAD, FORMER POLICE CHIEF OF FORT WORTH, TEXAS: Thank you for having me, Boris. So this is not necessarily a setback, but it's probably very frustrating for investigators, but it does tie into a couple of very important factors.
One, probably not a career criminal that was in possession and/or used that glove because they don't have any DNA that was ever taken, swabbed, things like that. With that said, it could be someone that is literally unknown within the law enforcement profession. This has happened before.
It does not hinder any aspect of the investigation or the aggressiveness of these investigators to continuing narrowing their lead focus and the highest priority individuals that they still need to either discount and/or do more investigation into.
SANCHEZ: This also doesn't necessarily mean that there won't be a DNA match of other databases, right? Like publicly available ones that private companies host, things that people do like check their ancestry, DNA swabs and all of that, right?
HALSTEAD: Yeah, that's also a good point. It would contribute to that possibility of working collectively with our private sector partners, but also the delay in that information could be a little more significant than being in control or having the CODIS hit as soon as it was submitted, either by the Florida Lab with Pima County and/or Quantico for the FBI.
With that said, I can tell you right now, they are still truly aligned with their highest lead being the most powerful investigative lead to start narrowing down their list of profiles.
SANCHEZ: I wanted to ask you about another lead as well because the sheriff also just talked about Guthrie's pacemaker, and here's what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SHERIFF CHRIS NANOS, PIMA COUNTY, ARIZONA: The pacemaker, we'd like to find that, and we're working with that pacemaker company and other experts in that field as we speak, to explore all ways possible to finding her.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SANCHEZ: There's a signal sniffer that officials are using to try to ping the pacemaker's Bluetooth signal. How does that work? What's your takeaway from the comments we just heard from the sheriff?
HALSTEAD: There's other related technologies that can get the Bluetooth emitted from different pieces of technology. The key is how close do you have to be with some of these? Like the really powerful ones, you just need triangulation on different cell towers for devices like your smartphone.
More small ones, whether it's a smartwatch and/or pacemaker or other items that have Bluetooth connectivity, those batteries are very, very long-term, and they do have an extremely low-level emittance. The key is how close does this piece of technology need to be from the host or the item that is transmitting that signal. That is going to be critical.
But with that said, kudos to them to deploying these advanced technologies because it does benefit the investigation, and it greatly enhances the efficiency rate of the investigative timeline.
SANCHEZ: There was also a direct response from the sheriff to so- called armchair detectives, people that have speculated about what happened to Nancy Guthrie online and have made all sorts of accusations specifically about her family. The sheriff's office making clear that her family, her kids, and adult spouses have been ruled out as suspects. How significant is that public announcement?
HALSTEAD: It's very significant. I think, as you saw over the weekend, the heartfelt post by Savannah Guthrie, the pain that she's going through, the stress, the grief, when they are excluded and discounted from any suspected involvement, it is a sigh of relief without a doubt. However, they are still in pain, and law enforcement needs to continue their mission.
One of the things as a former chief, and I know all of my peers did the same, there needs to be a continued dialog with our media partners in getting some of these small pieces and updates out because it does benefit. And when you have sometimes eight days before anything is released, there's a lot of people that go in different directions for this, and it comes back to the control of information, having that point of contact, and making sure it's deliverable immediately to our media partners because it's absolutely critical.
But I'm glad they put that out for the family's sake.
SANCHEZ: Jeffrey Halstead, thanks so much for sharing your point of view. We appreciate your time.
HALSTEAD: My pleasure.
SANCHEZ: To anyone who may have seen anything suspicious or who knows anything about the potential whereabouts of Nancy Guthrie, you're being asked to call the Pima County Sheriff with the number on your screen. You can also reach out to the FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI.
Stay with CNN. We'll be right back.
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