By Lester Holt, NBC News anchor
Some new fuel has been added to the fire of the health care debate. Today, lawmakers were not only reacting to last night's Senate vote to begin consideration of a health care reform bill, they were also sounding off on the government's controversial new recommendations for breast cancer screening.
Republicans are quickly making those suggested mammogram guidelines central to their opposition to the Democratic health care plans, saying they could result in limits on mammograms and a rationing of care. We'll hear some of those voices on tonight's broadcast and report on the difficult days ahead for Democrats as they try and find unity on a health care reform bill.
If you're staying home for Thanksgiving this year, NBC's Tom Costello will explain why you'll have plenty of company this year. Tom is looking at the holiday travel picture for us tonight.
Jeff Corwin will preview his fascinating msnbc documentary "100 Heartbeats," on animals facing the threat of extinction.
We will also tell you about a U.S. astronaut who is over the moon about some news he got last night from back here on Earth.
I hope you can join us later for NBC Nightly News.
By Lester Holt, NBC News anchor
The road to health care reform approaches a shaky bridge tonight. Democratic leaders will test the strength of the underpinnings of that bridge – their 60 seat majority in the US Senate – in a vote over whether to allow debate on a health care bill. It will mark the second Saturday night this month that critical votes on health care have taken place on Capitol Hill.
Although tonight's vote is strictly procedural, as GOP Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire told me this morning on TODAY, as far as Republicans are concerned "the gun is loaded," meaning they consider a vote in favor of allowing debate, likely a vote in favor of the bill itself. No Republican is expected to vote yes. At this writing, Democrats believe they have secured all 60 votes they need to open debate. NBC's Kelly O'Donnell is on the hill and will update where things stand when we come on the air.
On tonight's broadcast we will also show you an anguished plea for help by a British couple hijacked at sea by Somali pirates. Their captors have released video of the couple speaking on camera as menacing young men surround them with guns. Of course the pirate's intent is to raise pressure on British authorities to pay ransom for their release. We'll get reaction from London.
Walking through Manhattan's famous shopping districts these days, two things stand out. Holiday decorations are up, and the number of empty store fronts has exploded since last Christmas season. With that said, NBC's Rehema Ellis will report tonight that retailers may be turning the tables on shoppers who be thinking they can once again cash in on bloated store inventories.
Thanks for reading the blog. Please join me later for NBC Nightly News.
Brian Williams, anchor and managing editor
It struck us as fundamentally wrong that the Postal Service would no longer accept or deliver letters from kids written to Santa at the North Pole—but we, along with others, reported last night that the program was being halted. Apparently the good folks in North Pole, Alaska (Santa's helpers...the good people of that town who have been volunteering since 1954 to read and answer children's letters) have met to alleviate the crisis, and we will read their response on the air tonight. Believe me, when stories involve Santa (or similar topics), I automatically switch to parent mode—and I try mightily not to ever say anything during Nightly News that I would not have wanted my own young children to hear. You will often hear me warning viewers of a particularly tough topic—fair warning to hit mute, turn the TV off or escort the kids out of the kitchen—because there's nothing more annoying than getting caught without warning when something awful comes on the television when little ones are in the room.
As I say, we'll re-visit this topic tonight—and hopefully, we'll clear all this up. As someone who worked long and hard on letters to Santa as a child... and sent them off while trying to picture him reading them—I firmly believe that experience should be available forever.
We hope you can join us tonight! Have a good weekend, and I'll see you back here on Monday.
Brian Williams, anchor and managing editor
Our own Andy Franklin did some digging and came up with this, from the last time mammograms were in the news this heavily. It’s fascinating viewing, and we'll air a portion of it tonight.
My thanks to everyone at the Walter Cronkite School at Arizona State, and at our NBC Station KPNX-TV in Phoenix -- I am honored beyond my ability to express it. It’s the greatest honor of my professional life.
We're back in New York and I hope you'll be watching tonight.
By Ann Curry, NBC News anchor
HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said today the independent panel that made the new breast cancer screening recommendations "do not set federal policy" and that "our policies remain unchanged...my message to women is simple. Mammograms have always been an important life-saving tool..keep doing what you have been doing for years."
Her statement appeared to fly in the face of the panel's dramatic recommendations this week delaying when women are advised to start getting regular mammograms to 50, and questioning the usefulness of self-exams.
Just a few moments ago, I asked Secretary Sebelius to explain why she's stepping back from the recommendations and sending a mixed message to the American people--and whether, because of the fallout, this was a case of politics trumping science.
Nancy Snyderman also helps sort through the mixed messages, which understandably have a lot of women confused today.
We'll also hear from President Obama, who talked to Chief White House Correspondent Chuck Todd, and Anne Thompson has a pretty darn cool story—from my hometown, it turns out. Dear old Ashland, Oregon gives us a surprise about what can go green.
On a personal note, all this running around has caused a run in my stockings. Bet Brian never has this problem.
By Anne Thompson, NBC News chief environmental affairs correspondent
Growing up, motorcycles always seemed so cool. They looked like the ultimate expression of motorized freedom. My mother thought they were frightening. I had a romantic vision of seeing the world from a bike, the wind blowing through my hair. She saw broken bones, trips to the hospital and worse. In high school, a lot of the guys had bikes, but I could never ride with them. Mum said no. I obeyed and never rode… until this story.
Producer Kelly Venardos heard about electric motorcycles and got intrigued. A clean motorcycle? Talk about counterintuitive. Aren't they supposed to be all about power and smoke and that loud rumbling sound? We had to check it out.
We traveled to Ashland, Oregon, just north of the California border where Brammo builds electric motorcycles. Brammo is run by Craig Bramscher, not a tree-hugger by anyone's definition. He made his money in computer software. Tired of the fast lane in Malibu, he moved his family to Ashland to start a new life and a new business. He made quite an impression at first. As he says, he rode into this liberal city in a Hummer with a Bush sticker on the bumper.
Not only that, but he came to build high end sports cars for big guys like him. As his company built those cars, he watched the price of gas go up and became curious about electric cars. Tesla was already in the market and struggling, so Bramscher thought is there another way to go? The owner of gas motorcycles and an enthusiastic rider, he decided to build an electric motorcycle.
Light, quiet, no emissions, Bramscher thinks of the bike as more as a gadget like your iPod, Flip camera, or Blackberry. In other words, a gadget that makes a statement and a gadget you don't want to live without.
The BRAMMO Enertia
So of course, Kelly and I had to try out the bikes. Kelly got on and rode like she had been doing it all her life. Me? Not so much. When you see the standup in tonight's story, I look pretty comfortable. If you could only see what it took to get me there! The guys at Brammo gave me a crash course in how to ride a motorcycle. Unfortunately, I took the "crash" part to heart. I fell off the bike three times just trying to ride. I would lose my balance and go over on the side. Eventually, I got the hang of it and shot the standup.
Yes, I know I am not wearing a helmet. We made that decision because otherwise I would have looked like Darth Vader. I never left the parking lot, never hit the open road without a helmet. And after my lesson, I know why wearing a helmet is always a good idea. No bones were broken in the shooting of this standup, but I came away with quite the collection of bruises.
Riding a motorcycle is trickier than I ever anticipated but even on my very short ride, it was a blast. Sorry, Mum!
Video: Green bikes, born to be mild
Brian Williams, anchor and managing editor
If it’s Tuesday, it must be Phoenix. We are here on the campus of Arizona State University for an awards ceremony—I had a great time with journalism students this morning, and there's more planned for later in the day. It’s an emotional experience being here, at an institution that bears the name of Walter Cronkite.
My email is getting flooded with the personal stories of women, many of them our viewers between ages 40 and 50—telling their personal stories. We are going to take on the breast cancer guidelines again tonight…and having lost my only sister to this disease, I have my own motivation and feelings concerning this development.
We hope you can join us—and we hope you will continue telling us what's important to you. We'll see you tonight from Phoenix.
By Albert Oetgen, Managing Editor NBC News Washington
Washington -- Sarah Palin's book, which feels like it came out a month ago, finally arrived at bookstores just today. Six days of exposure to leaks and provocative teases from big-name interviewers has this town on the verge of exhaustion. With the president in China, there's a celebrity vacuum here. As usual, Ms. Palin's timing is impeccable.
The problem with this book, as Andrea Mitchell reported last week, is it has no index. And that's a huge problem here in the nation's capital.
You see, Washington is not a town full of people who read books. But it's a town full of people who write books.
Washington also is a town full of egotists who love to see their names in print.
Thus, the importance of the index.
Every non-reader who writes a book in and about Washington, all of the in-the-know establishmentarians who grace us with the stories of their lives-up-to-this-point, also help their non-reading colleagues out. They publish indexes. That way, the non-readers can look up their own names, see where they are mentioned, and throw the book in the the pile of other books they never read.
Enter Sarah Palin, famous for her professed disdain for everything Washington. Her indexless book, Going Rogue, attacks the city at its very core. Washington is aghast.
Mark Whitaker, our Washington Bureau Chief, suggested this morning that desperate Washingtonians can buy an electronic copy of the book, secure a wireless reading device like the Amazon Kindle, and use the search function to find their names.
The idea of actually reading the book? How very un-Washington. Going Rogue, indeed.
Brian Williams, anchor and managing editor
Not much time to post today. Sharp-eyed viewers will notice we're in our Los Angeles bureau tonight–a remote broadcast necessitated by a visit we must pay to Arizona later this week. We apparently just had a 4.6 earthquake here in Southern California, but no one here felt it. Our lead story tonight is a major medical story, about a new Federal guideline which I'm afraid might result in a lot of confusion for millions of Americans. So—welcome back for another week, and we hope you can join us for the broadcast tonight, from Los Angeles.
By Lester Holt, NBC News anchor
The American approach to Islamic terror is changing on many levels. Tonight we'll show you what may soon become the American prison for Guantanamo Bay detainees, on a day there was more sharp reaction over the 9/11 terror trials to be held in New York.
Our chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel is in Afghanistan, and he will have the latest from the battlefield on this evening's broadcast. Meantime, White House correspondent Savannah Guthrie is traveling with the president in Shanghai. She'll tell us about the changing dynamic between the U.S. and China, as well as the decision still hanging over the president about the way forward in Afghanistan.
I recently spent a terrific day over in Queens, New York with singer Tony Bennett and his wife Susan. They toured me through a new school of the arts they founded. It's a New York public high school that demands excellence on not only the stage and in the studio, but in the classroom. We'll have some of my conversation with Tony about the school and his career tonight on NBC Nightly News. I hope can join us.
