-Good evening.
I'm Seth Meyers. This is "Late Night."
We hope you're doing well tonight.
And now, if you don't mind, we're gonna get to the news.
President Biden signed an executive order today
that increases background checks on gun purchases.
From now on, gun dealers
are gonna ask your first and last name.
[ Laughter ]
Republican presidential hopeful Nikki Haley
said on Sunday that taxpayers
"should absolutely not bail out Silicon Valley Bank."
But I think that's largely because
it's polling ahead of her.
[ Laughter ]
The Pentagon said today that a Russian jet
crashed into a U.S. military drone over the Black Sea.
And I think I speak for all Americans when I say,
probably an accident, right?
This doesn't have to be a whole thing.
[ Laughter ]
Just go with accident.
[ Laughter ]
Russia is reportedly restoring hundreds
of decades-old Soviet tanks to use against Ukraine
amid a shortage of weapons and equipment.
Oh, they are struggling.
Next it's just gonna be,
"Any way to trick out these T-shirt cannons?"
[ Laughter ]
Fox News host Brian Kilmeade
interviewed Florida governor Ron DeSantis over the weekend
and played catch while wearing suits.
It kind of ruined the flow of the interview, though.
"So, Governor, what do you think the U.S. role should be
in the war in -- Oh, wait, car!"
[ Laughter ]
That's right, Fox News aired an interview over the weekend
where host Brian Kilmeade played catch
with Florida governor Ron DeSantis
at a high school baseball field in Iowa.
And no surprise here, their fathers chose
not to come out of the corn and reconnect with them.
[ Laughter ]
Democrats are reportedly worried that efforts to ban TikTok
could make it harder to reach young voters.
Well, you could do what Republicans do
and reach them on Venmo.
[ Laughter ]
Just a thing that happened.
I don't know why everybody's so weird about it.
Former president Trump has reportedly been invited
to testify before a New York grand jury
as part of the Manhattan district attorney's
investigation into hush-money payments
that were made to adult film star Stormy Daniels.
And despite everything, Trump was still excited
to get invited to something in New York again.
[ As Trump ] I'm back, baby.
Any -- Any word from the Met Ball?
Have they reached out?
[ Normal voice ] California congressman Mark Takano
recently reintroduced a bill
that would make a 32-hour workweek a national standard,
which would finally give Americans
the free time they need to look for a third job.
[ Laughter ]
Microsoft is set on Thursday
to hold a "Future of Work with AI" event, and this is scary --
None of the executives can remember organizing it.
[ Laughter ]
"Playboy" is reportedly planning
to relaunch as a digital-first magazine,
and, dude, I just found my dad's stash in his closet.
[ Laughter ]
"The New York Times" published an op-ed today titled
"Working From Home Is Less Healthy Than You Think."
Oh, how unhealthy could it be?
I mean -- Oh! Oh, crap.
Is that a ghost?
[ Laughter ]
The NYPD is looking for a group of teens
who allegedly stole more than $40,000 worth of calculators
from high schools in the Bronx.
Said the teens, "Actually, it's...
$41,672."
[ Laughter ]
That's how you do it, right?
In my -- In my -- In my mind's eye,
it also had that little paper thing that was...
And fin-- Alright. We're gonna go --
[ Laughter ]
Oh, boy.
How hopeful are you guys based on this photo?
[ Laughter ]
And finally, a clam was recently discovered in Florida
that's believed to be more than 200 years old.
And like most 200-year-old clams in Florida,
it moved there from the Upper West Side.
You guys, we just -- That was the monologue.
[ Cheers and applause ] It's officially a monologue.
We got a great show for you tonight.
He's an Emmy-winning actor and the star of "The Blacklist,"
which hits 200 episodes this Sunday.
The fantastic James Spader will be here.
Friend of the show James Spader.
You know him from "Deadwood" and "American Gods."
He's currently starring in "John Wick: Chapter 4,"
which is out next weekend.
Ian McShane is joining us.
[ Cheers and applause ]
And she is a fantastic comedian.
She stars in "The Ms. Pat Show"
and is kicking off her "Ya Girl Done Made It" stand-up tour.
Our friend Ms. Pat will also be here.
[ Cheers and applause ]
Before we get to all that,
these days, the news stinks.
I don't have to tell you that.
Every headline I see makes me feel worse than the last.
Every once in a while, there's a story that makes me feel great.
I'd like to share one in a segment
called "The Kind of Story We Need Right Now."
[ Cheers and applause ]
This is a Eurasian eagle-owl,
but it's not just any Eurasian eagle-owl.
This owl's name is Flaco,
and last month he was minding his own business,
living in the Central Park Zoo,
when some vandals cut a hole in his enclosure
and Flaco did what any self-respecting owl in captivity
would do -- he escaped. That's right.
Flaco Shawshanked out of that cage,
which according to one article was the size of a bus stop
and which he'd been living in for 12 years,
and he started flying around Central Park.
This is the kind of story we need right now.
Every New Yorker dreams of moving out
of their tiny [bleep] apartment into a nicer neighborhood,
and Flaco did it.
Every New Yorker wants to live on Central Park.
Suddenly this dude was living in Central Park.
Without a trust fund. Incredible.
Also, Flaco had been living next to the penguin enclosure,
and if there's one thing every New Yorker
has had to put up with at some point,
it's living next to somebody who eats a ton of fish.
My man Flaco escaped a nightmare.
Not long after Flaco left the zoo,
he was spotted on Fifth Avenue
peering in the window at Bergdorf Goodman.
Of course he was.
He spent 12 years living in Manhattan.
Never got to see the sights.
That's why he was also spotted at the Statue of Liberty,
at the M&M's store, and in the front row at "Hamilton."
There he is.
Probably a montage of him somewhere
trying on a bunch of outfits.
Flaco's escape created an exciting opportunity
for him to spread his wings.
But more importantly, it created an opportunity
for reporters to say owl puns.
-It's a "Hoodunit."
-"Hoodunit."
-Hoo-hoo-hoo-dunit.
It's a "how did you not
come up with something better than that?"
I love that they don't even come up with different puns.
It's like they're all using the same copy
of "Bartlett's Puns for Reporters."
But the best part of this whole story
is everybody underestimated Flaco.
When he first escaped, an owl expert told "The New York Times"
that Flaco would be easy to catch because,
in his experience, owls were not particularly smart.
Oh, yeah? Then why are they the only birds who graduate?
[ Laughter ]
Authorities were worried Flaco
wouldn't be able to feed himself in the wild
because he had spent his whole life in captivity.
Well, guess what owls eat.
Rodents and birds.
Worrying an owl will starve in Central Park
is like worrying a toddler will starve
in a chicken nugget factory.
Flaco did just fine on his own because Flaco's not a dumbass,
but zoo officials were still determined to get him back.
So they set up an elaborate ruse.
They left a dead rat out in an open field,
and they put it inside a trap,
and then they played a recording of owl mating calls
to lure Flaco to it.
And you know what happened next?
Flaco swooped down, grabbed the rat,
but didn't stay long enough to get caught in the trap.
But he did stay long enough
to look directly at a camera and pose.
Look at his face.
I don't know Flaco, but I'm pretty sure that face is saying,
"Do I look like a [bleep] idiot?"
[ Laughter ]
The zoo officials were like,
"We shouldn't tell anybody about this."
[ Laughter ]
They made several more attempts to catch Flaco.
They followed him around Central Park with nets.
The NYPD even tried to catch him with a dog crate.
Nothing worked.
And pretty soon New Yorkers started putting pressure
on officials to just leave Flaco alone.
And after weeks of trying to catch him,
zoo officials did just that.
They announced they would end their attempts to capture Flaco
and let him be free.
This is the kind of story we need right now.
Everyone underestimated Flaco.
They said he couldn't survive on his own.
He did it.
This is a story for the underdogs,
a story for anybody who's ever been told,
"You're too short to play basketball,"
or, "Girls can't do math,"
or, "J.Lo is never gonna date you a second time."
So tonight, you walk through Central Park,
look up at the sky.
You just might see something amazing.
You might see Flaco flying free with a rat in one talon
and a "Hamilton" playbill in the other,
'cause this is the kind of story we need right now.
[ Cheers and applause ]