♪♪ dreams begin here. welcome to the goodnight club. >> john: welcome to "cbs evening news plus." i'm john d >> john: welcome to "cbs evening news plus."

i'm john dickerson. when someone is accused of being diplomatic it means it inoffensive. donald trump called ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskyy a dictator. he responded that trump was living at a disinformation space. we will talk about the lack of diplomacy with cbs's elizabeth palmer. a federal judge heard testimony as the justice department seeks to drop charges against new york city mayor eric adams. at least seven top justice department officials have resigned saying the move is political. scott macfarlane was in the courtroom. and you might want to duck. scientists tracking an asteroid that's large enough to destroy a city now say odds have doubled that it could good strike the earth in 2032. in the interview will discuss what on earth to do about this. those stories and more right after our news headlines. ♪ ♪ upwards of 5 to 10 inches of snow and ice could fall from kentucky and north carolina to maryland and delaware. more than two-thirds of the country is shivering in temperatures far below normal

even for february. the trump administration put the brakes on new york city's first in the nation congestion pricing. the city last month proposed an extra $9 toll on most cars entering manhattan. but today transportation secretary sean duffy said the federal government is rescinding approval of the program. and while pope francis is being treated at a hospital in rome for double pneumonia, he was visited today by italian prime minister giorgia meloni. she says the 88-year-old pontiff was alert and responsive and joking, as always. ♪ ♪ as president trump prepares to meet with vladimir putin to discuss ending his invasion of ukraine, the president has picked up his rhetorical attacks on the president of the invaded country, volodymyr zelenskyy. president trump called zelenskyy

a dictator, a word he has been hesitant to use to describe vladimir putin and more urgently trump said zelenskyy started the war. a sign that he shares the russian worldview. elizabeth palmer has been monitoring what is more than a rhetorical spat but a public morality play in which america is taking on a new role. liz, this was a whole litany of insults against zelenskyy. >> reporter: it was a humdinger of a post on truth social, posted today. a real broadside. he called zelenskyy a "moderately successful comedian." if you'll recall, he was an actor before he became a politician. trump also called him a dictator who had done a terrible job and warned zelenskyy that he better move fast or he's not going to have a country left. finally, he claimed that he, donald trump, was the only one who could negotiate with russia and end the war. >> john: remind us again, liz, why the elections have been delayed in ukraine. >> reporter: well, normally they would have had elections last spring. but the country has been under

martial law, obviously because there's a war on and it would have been impossible to hold elections under the circumstances, zelenskyy has said yes there will be elections as soon as it's possible. but he personally has not confirmed that he would run again. >> john: what's your read what's the read over there about what donald trump is up to? obviously he is saying "i can do what joe biden couldn't do." but he's also saying something about europe too, isn't he? >> reporter: yes, he's asserting dominance, making it clear that europe is not significant and that the us is going to pursue its own interests very directly. there's a third option. we are watching the reemergence of that bond between presidents trump and putin that they forged and cultivated between 2016 and 2020. the face-to-face reunion of the two could come before the end of the month which would be very interesting.

>> john: liz palmer in london. thank you, liz. here at home, at least two peope were killed today after two planes collided midair at an airport outside of tucson, arizona. the crash between two fixed wing single engine planes happened at the marana regional airport. according to the faa, the airport has no control tower. authorities have yet to identify the victims. now to the turmoil within the justice department. at a hearing today a federal judge said he'd need more time to decide whether to accept the department's request to drop the case against new york mayor eric adams so that the mayor can devote his attention to carrying out president trump's immigration policies. seven prosecutors have resigned in protest. cbs's scott macfarlane was in the courtroom and joins us. scott, remind us about what was going on at this hearing today. >> reporter: we have an absolute cliffhanger. this hearing was not resolving the cliffhanger. here's the bottom line. the mayor of america's largest city is facing this public

corruption case, trading his office for gifts in travel. he has pleaded not guilty and here we are. the department of justice under new leadership wants to dismiss the case, clear him of it, the prosecutors argued in court today to help free up mayor adams to run the city and help the president enact immigration reform. that is not the traditional reason to drop a case. >> john: it's usually because there's no facts to support it. prosecutors said there were facts which is why they resigne. what did the judge say, tell, or give any clue from the questioning today? >> reporter: judge acknowledged this is different. this is unprecedented. it's going to take some time to figure out what to do. both parties saying they want the case dropped. there's nobody in the courtroom standing up for the citizens, for the alleged victims, for the taxpayers of new york. the judge pressed one issue. he asked multiple times to both sides, are you saying that department of justice, you can bring this case back when you want to? you can indict him again and

prosecute him for the same charges down the road? department of justice said yes. eric adams acknowledged yes. there is the concern. that's combustible. that means the mayor could be under the thumb of the white house for years. step out of line? this case comes back. >> john: the reason there was nobody there representing the people of new york is because the person who would have done it resigned in protest. >> along with colleagues and people in washington. >> john: we had another resignation in washington from someone in the criminal division. explain what that means. you explain who resigned and also what was the response from the department of justice? >> this is not a household name. nor it should be. her name is denise cheung. she ran the criminal division of the most powerful are giggly prosecutor's office in america. the nation's capital, u.s. she stepped down amid concerns about the person would be her boss, her resignation came one day after donald trump nominated a man named ed martin to be the top prosecutor in washington.

ed martin was a stop the steal rallier, an election denier, close mega ally. knocking down those walls of independence between the department of justice and the white house. >> john: an ongoing story. scott macfarlane, thanks a bunch. homeowners are still cleaning up after that powerful winter storm brought damaging winds, rain and flash floods to parts of the south. among the hardest-hit towns is clarksville, tennessee. cbs's nicole valdes is there tonight. she introduces us to residents trapped in a rising tide of uncertainty. >> reporter: the first time luis davila has had to navigate troubled waters this dee just to get to his front door. >> watch yourself. there's ice. it's hard to do this, to live like this. >> reporter: how many acres of land do you have? how much of that seven and a half acres is flooded? >> seven. only half, where my house is at.

>> reporter: home for more than 20 years, most of davila's clarksville neighborhood is still underwater after a record 8 inches of rainfall over the weekend. just two doors down... >> it got a little bit over a foot tall right here. >> reporter: everything in austin and jenna kerr's basement is getting thrown out after soaking in a foot of water. >> my wedding dress was down there. that has sentimental value because that's my wedding dress. >> reporter: the thought of what's next terrifies jenna, a soon-to-be first-time mom. are you worried about bringing your child home knowing that this could happen again? >> yes. i'm very concerned. >> reporter: both the kerrs and davila say they do not have flood insurance. >> we talked with our lender and insurance company and they told us we are not in a floodplain. >> reporter: could you even begn to guess how much it will or would cost you to try to fix this?

>> you can hit in the tens of thousands of dollars to fix stuff like that. >> we love kayaking. not from the house to the store. >> both these tennessee neighbors stuck trying to chart a course out of the murky mess. nicole valdes, cbs news. clarksville, tennessee. >> john: now here are three things to know. homicides in america's largest cities fell by 16% last year, according to preliminary data from the major cities chiefs association. overall violent crime, including robberies and assaults, also declined. the world's glaciers are melting faster than ever, according to what's been called the most comprehensive analysis to date of earth's ice sheets. the world glacier monitoring service says since the start of the century, glaciers have lost about 5% of their ice as global temperatures have risen, mostly from the burning of fossil fuels. and archaeologists say a tomb discovered in southern egypt

is that of king thutmose ii who lived 3500 years ago. this is the first royal tomb to be unearthed in egypt since the famed discovery of king tut's tomb in 1922. the pharaoh's body, his mummy, was moved from the tomb at some point and found not far away during the 19th century. coming up the "cbs evening news plus," a giant asteroid is on nasa's radar. is earth at risk? plus this. >> what would happen to your farm and to your business if they are all sent back to their home country? >> if that would happen, i'm out of business. >> john: we head to a wisconsin rm to

>> john: according to the department of agriculture more than 40% of the country's farmworkers are undocumented. in tonight's "in depth," camilo montoya-galvez traveled to a dairy farm in wisconsin to report on the tension between cheap labor and the trump administration's immigration crackdown. >> reporter: down this road in waumandee, wisconsin,

population 500, lies john rosenow's farm. he's a fifth-generation farmer who owns more than 900 acres and more than 600 dairy cows. >> takes one person for every 40, 45 cows. >> reporter: and who is doing all this work? >> i would say 90% is done by immigrants. >> reporter: immigrants like kevin, who was born in central mexico and crossed the u.s. border illegally when he was 18. now 21, kevin is among the 11 million undocumented migrants living in the u.s. more than 10,000 of them work on wisconsin dairy farms. what kind of work do you do here on the farm? >> [speaking spanish] >> reporter: you feed the cows and you clean the barns. kevin, who did not provide his last name during our interview, says he often works 12 hours a day, six days a week, sometime starting as early as 3:00 a.m. but the pay is better than back home. does your family depend on your salary here in the u.s.?

"my mother and my siblings and of course but since i have my dad here, he also sends them money." nationally more than half the workers in the dairy industry are undocumented. like kevin, many leave behind loved ones for wages that are below what american workers get. some people would be saying that you could be right now hiring american workers to do this job. and that the only reason you're not doing that is because you can pay immigrants last. how would you respond to that? >> if i hired americans to do the work, i would have to pay probably about $100,000 a year per person and they would only work 40, 50 hours of work. i would be out of business in six months. i couldn't afford it. if the price of milk was, if a gallon of milk cost ten bucks in the store, then i could probably do that. >> reporter: the new administration is already following through on its promise to deport the undocumented. what would happen to your farm and your business if they are all sent back to their home

country? >> if that would happen, i'm out of business. and it wouldn't take long. >> reporter: rosenow fears the future. kevin does not. "four years ago when he was president, he said i'm going to deport everyone but it never happened. sometimes we would watch the news and we would see that a family was deported and we were scared to go out and buy groceries. but i have not felt fear since then." a fear he hopes he'll never feel again. camilo montoya-galvez, cbs news waumandee, wisconsin. >> john: this story is part of an upcoming cbs reports documentary that goes inside the milk supply chain from farm to table. "the price of milk" premieres sunday, march 9, streaming on cbs news 24/7. coming up next, we go stargazing to track a massive asteroid headed in our direction. how likely is a catastrophic coll ion? we'll ask

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cbs cares. >> john: hollywood has made earth killing asteroids into blockbusters with movies "deep impact" and "armageddon." the real life version has a less flashy name. 2024 yr4 is a large space rock spotted 500,000 miles away. late this afternoon nasa said yr4 has a 1.5% chance of doing some real damage. it was double that this morning. for tonight's "interview" franklin institute's chief astronomer derrick pitts explores the hysteria and the wonders of space. derrick, let's start with this asteroid. can you tell us about that and what its trajectory is? >> this is an asteroid that was discovered just a few weeks ago,

john, and it is on a near-earth orbit around the earth such that we think there's a possibility that in 2032 there is a very slim chance it could actually impact earth. that's the reason why it has become very interesting right now. >> john: when you say "interesting," do you mean interesting like "oh, neat. it might go thud in some remote siberian forest"? or "oh, no. it's going to hit and if it did hit the earth it would be a serious thing." >> the idea that it could possibly hit earth is always the one that is most interesting to us. if we need to do something about it, we can. in this instance doesn't look like it. >> john: you and i had a delightful experience being on the air at the same time in 2022 when the dart spacecraft crashed

into an asteroid and you were narrating that as it was taking place. is that the kind of thing that could be possible if this were determined to be heading towards the earth. >> indeed that is the case. we tend to think of the scenario in which we think group of astronauts to land on it and blow it up. that's not realistic. so the key is getting all the information we can as early as we can so we can develop a plan that would really be effective. >> john: what else is delighting you out there in the cosmos these days in your work? >> there are two things, john. number one is the work that's being done right now by james webb space telescope. the cool thing about james webb is it allows us to look farther back in time and therefore earlier into the early history of the universe to help us explain more about how the universe has come to be the way it is today. then the other piece that i find really exciting is, despite what the political ramifications might be, if we look at what's happening with spacex's starship

spacecraft, if it can develop the capabilities, the potential that it has shown us so far, it really will be a gigantic step forward in opening the human exploration of our solar system. >> john: back on the james webb space telescope, you talked about looking further and further back in time. give people a sense of how far back in time you're talking. >> when we talk about looking back in time, we talk about looking back to the time of the very earliest portion of the universe, we're talking about some 13 billion years ago. approximately 13 billion years ago. >> john: derrick, as a final question, you just described something 13 billion years ago. how do you ground yourself on numbers like that that seem just completely out of human conception? >> you're right about that, john. these numbers that we talk about with distance and the size of objects or the number of stars in a galaxy or the number of galaxies in the universe, these are all numbers beyond which

humans have very, very little experience. so none of us really knows what these big numbers mean, although we understand the concepts that they represent. and we think of them relatively like something 5 billion light-years away is closer than something 10 billion light-years awy. we can think of it like that. >> john: and we understand these concepts very much thanks to you. so, derrick pitts, thanks so much for joining us. >> thanks for having me, john. >> john: up next, what happens when the people in charge can't imagine the consequences of their own decisions.

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>> john: when henry ford hired a consultant to streamline his car business, it was the consultant who got the advice about the value of employees. the bean counter suggested firing a guy who spent his time with his feet up on his desk. "no," said ford, "that man saved me $2 million and when he did his feet were on his desk." recognizing that imaginative talent. judging from the reports of misfiring and indiscriminate layoffs in the federal workforce this is not the concern of businessmen donald trump and elon musk. but qualities like imagination matter in public service. catastrophes are often blamed on a failure of imagination. missing the warnings before the attacks of 9/11, the financial crisis of 2007, covid-19. the head of the secret service said a failure of imagination

allowed the assassination attemt on donald trump. bureaucracies can stifle imagination. that's what musk is trying to eradicate, but so can arrogant newcomers. they think they know better until a veteran saves them from themselves. a little imagination would've avoided firing nuclear weapons staff during a critical modernization effort or usda officials during a bird flu outbreak. those mistakes by musk's team we are told are being addressed but the deeper question is whether a lack of imagination will become embedded after the firings are over. if so, we might not need to wait for a commission to report and identify a failure of imagination. we may be watching it unfold in real time. that's tonight's right now on cbs news bay area. >> it is such a shameful part of american history. >> history brought back to life.

>> their whole life has been blown up. >> we'll introduce you to the story tellers who want to keep a painful part of the past vivid in our minds. federal firings leaving a bad taste in wine country. could valuable work to protect the crop go up in smoke? and fighting for social justice. and for all people. and starting their american dream. >> it is not easy to learn english. >> and meet this bay area icon, her impact lasting generation.