"This was a young man that I would wish my daughters would want to bring home for me to meet," Peter Woerpel, his high school principal, said in an interview.
By Brian Williams, Anchor and managing editor
We reached Tehran against long odds -- and once we got here and rushed to the presidential palace compound -- it was clear from the opening moments that President Ahmadinejad had a specific message to impart, albeit wrapped in his usual rhetoric and talking points.
While we were flying here, our producers on the ground were busy -- setting up equipment (until this morning's Today Show, there had never been a live network television broadcast from the grounds of the compound) and assuring the Iranians that we would indeed make it here for the interview -- even though that looked highly doubtful for a while.
We departed New York Saturday evening on Lufthansa, planning to connect through Frankfurt to Tehran without breaking a sweat. When the flight to Tehran was cancelled, that's when we started to sweat.
Our entire team jumped into action. Attempts were made to charter a jet -- but the required paperwork (both pilots would need rare and current Iranian entry visas, and we'd have to get permission to fly through Turkish airspace, among other nightmares) and the threat of making a grave mistake forced us to choose the only other viable option: an exhausting, seemingly insane patchwork of commercial flights...an entire day's worth...to get us here.
CONTINUED >>
By Lester Holt, NBC News anchor
We're juggling a number of major stories today, including that church shooting in Knoxville, Tennessee where a gunman burst into a children's program and opened fire. At least one person is dead, and several others have been badly hurt. All of the victims are adults. NBC's Michelle Kosinksi will be there for us tonight to report the latest.
At this moment, we're also getting news bulletins out of Istanbul, Turkey, where bomb attacks have killed or injured more than two dozen people in a shopping district. We'll have the latest on this story as well.
A fast moving wildfire near California's Yosemite National Park has now claimed over 16,000 acres and 2,000 homes are at risk. Chris Jansing is working on that.
In politics, Barack Obama is back on US soil, but the flash point between the himself and John McCain continues to be over Iraq, on whether the surge was in fact a good idea. John McCain pressed the attack today, as the subject turned to Obama's patriotism. NBC's Kevin Corke is on top of that for us.
We'll also check in with our NBC producer on the ground in Tehran, about Brian William's exclusive interview tomorrow with President Ahmadinejad, and the timing of Iran's disclosure that it has more centrifuges for uranium enrichment than it has previously reported.
I'll see you later on NBC Nightly News.
By Lester Holt, NBC News anchor
Today, Congress passed a mortgage relief bill that will help hundreds of thousands of homeowners who are in danger of losing their homes. The bill -- which the President plans to sign -- will offer those who are struggling to pay their mortgages the chance to refinance to more affordable government backed loans. But NBC's Kevin Corke says there are some other important provision of this bill that affect all of us, and he'll have more on Nightly News.
If, like me, you're one of those people who sometimes makes bad food choices, you'll be interested to know about California's new law banning the use of trans fats in restaurants. New York City, and a number of other cities have imposed their own bans. Chris Jansing will tell us what is behind the growing push to get trans fats out of the foods we eat.
We will also report why many beaches on the East Coast are proving especially dangerous to swimmers this summer. Plus. we'll have the questions western tourists are least likely to be asked by Chinese citizens during the upcoming Olympic games.
Thanks for clicking on the Daily Nightly. I'll see you later on Nightly News.
By Robert Windrem, NBC Senior Investigative Producer and Garrett Haake, Researcher
Editor's note: On Monday, July 28, Nightly News will broadcast live from Tehran, Iran, where Brian Williams will conduct an exclusive interview with President Ahmadinejad.
In the past six weeks, the U.S. has sent a number of unmistakable signals to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of its willingness to negotiate a broad range of issues, all within the context of resolving the main issue of Iran's nuclear weapons capability. Iran has responded to some of these signals. But on Saturday, Ahmadinejad pushed the back-and-forth a step further when he announced that Iran now possesses 6,000 centrifuges, a significant increase in the number of uranium-enriching machines in its nuclear program. Given that some in the U.S. government believe the Iranians are trying to gain an advantage on the Bush administration -- looking for one last success, one important legacy -- it’s a step the U.S. might well see as one step too far, and one likely to engender a political debate both here and abroad.
Below is a timeline of recent exchanges:
May 13: The Iranian Foreign Minister Manucher Mottaki wrote the foreign ministers of the so-called P5+1 (US, UK, Russia, China, France and Germany) that Iran believes there is need for “a new and a more advanced plan for interaction,” a “comprehensive agreement” that includes a variety of issues encompassing “economic, technological, commercial—especially energy—cooperation, that provide other excellent possibilities and avenues for constructive cooperation.”
CONTINUED >>
By Lester Holt, NBC News anchor
Good afternoon. Brian is traveling today and I'll be sitting in for him tonight. Okay, next time you hear the flight attendant say "in the event of a loss of cabin pressure, an oxygen mask will drop down...", perhaps you'll think of the story we have tonight on a mid-air scare aboard a Qantas Airlines 747. You might also pay closer attention.
Part of the skin of the jumbo jet broke off in flight exposing a pretty good size hole in the side of the plane, and causing the plane to lose pressure. A passenger whipped out a cell phone and captured video of the scene on board, including other passengers wearing their masks. We'll show you some of 
that and talk a little about the possible cause.
We'll also have some analysis of those stunning home foreclosure numbers that came out today.
Also, we have a wake-up call for empty-nesters, whose ranks I will soon join. It appears a lot of American parents are still paying bills for their adult children.
Thanks for checking the blog. We'll look for you later on Nightly News.
By Marisa Buchanan, NBC News producer
There is a picture on my refrigerator at home – it’s small, with a regular looking guy lying on a bunk bed reading a book. It’s nondescript, but I love this picture not just because it's a picture of one of my two grandfathers whose memory I cherish.
My paternal grandfather ended up an Air Force Colonel later in life but in Korea was a reconnaissance squadron maintenance officer after flying p38's in WW2. This picture joins others I have of him from the Korean War framed on my desk at NBC. They always felt cool to have -- retro -- but destined to always feel removed from any real life I could imagine. They are in black and white. Thus it struck me slack-jawed last month when I saw long-time NBC foreign correspondent John Rich's color collection of Korean war photographs at his Maine home.
CONTINUED >>
By Mark Potter, NBC News correspondent
Early one morning when she couldn't sleep, Nancy Miller went to her computer and began to write. She had a lot on her mind and figured NBC News would be a good place to share her thoughts, although she wasn't convinced anyone would actually read her e-mail.
In a note to Brian Williams she started off by saying, "This is a first for me. I have never written to a news organization before." She added later, "I don't know how this works and you will probably never see this, but I feel good having written it."
Well, to her absolute surprise, Nancy's e-mail WAS read and has actually become the basis for our report tonight on NBC Nightly News. It's about older Americans dipping into savings and deferring their retirement years in order to help out their adult children who are suffering the effects of today's troubled economy.
About a year-and-a-half ago, because of the housing market downturn, the once-successful construction company operated by her son, daughter and son-in-law collapsed, leaving them in the throes of serious debt, mortgage problems and temporary unemployment.
CONTINUED >>
By Mara Schiavocampo, Nightly News Digital Correspondent
All this week, as I mentioned in an earlier post, I'm in Chicago for the Unity Convention. Every four years a coalition of four organizations (the national associations of Black, Hispanic, Native American and Asian American journalists) hold a joint convention. This year organizers expect about 10,000 people.
A few days before the convention, began it was announced that Senator Barack Obama will be speaking here on Sunday. Sunday just happens to be the last day of the convention, when most people return home. So a lot of folks who may have wanted to hear the Senator speak will miss it. Others are scrambling to change their travel plans at the last minute. (Senator McCain was invited but declined, citing travel obligations.)
When it comes to Senator Obama, one issue we as Black journalists face is that of a perceived bias in favor of his candidacy. Many African Americans -- journalists and non-journalists, conservatives and liberals alike -- admit that Obama's success inspires great pride.
So I asked a question of some my colleagues here at the convention: Can Black journalists cover Obama in an unbiased way? Here's what some of them said:
Marcus Mabry, Assistant Business Editor, New York Times and author of "Twice As Good: Condoleezza Rice and Her Path to Power":
"Is a Republican journalist unable to cover George W. Bush? Part of being a journalist is being able to put your personal feelings aside to do your job. According to polls, a plurality of White Americans support John McCain. Does that mean no White reporters should cover John McCain?"
CONTINUED >>
By Brian Williams, Anchor and managing editor
In this line of work, we seldom get to watch an event the way most people watch an event. But we do get some unusual views -- like when we had to talk our way into the motorcade through Berlin today when it became apparent that there was no other way for us to get to the Barack Obama speech venue. Like when we got there and took our place backstage, and then looked out and saw the crowd as Obama saw them -- people virtually as far as the eye could see.
As a German journalist said here this morning: from the looks of things, Obama could be elected President of Germany by upwards of 70 percent -- perhaps even President of Europe. The question becomes: what does this scene we witnessed here today GET Barack Obama?
I asked him that very question as he walked away from the surging ropeline here tonight -- his answer, as he indicated earlier today in our sit-down interview, has to do with a message he wanted to impart to Europe and the wider world. It's a very basic question concerning what we witnessed here today: what does it mean?
To recite the basic facts, here's what we know: upwards of a quarter of a million people (crowd estimates will vary and are hard to come by) turned out in Berlin today to hear a sitting American Senator -- the presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party for President and the first African American in that role. In the crowd, we saw people from all over Europe and all over the world, crowding forward to touch the candidate, flowing into this city to see him -- along a grand boulevard where Hitler's army once marched -- to witness this speech.
That's what we know. That's what we saw. The Presidential campaign lies ahead back home -- there's a long way to go -- and nothing that took place here will help the Senator during the combat of a tough domestic campaign. Americans, not Berliners, will decide the outcome. Today Berliners came out in extraordinary numbers to see a famous American in their midst.
CONTINUED >>
By Andy Franklin, Senior producer
A lot of the discussion around Barack Obama's speech in Berlin today has mentioned historic visits to that city by two American presidents: John F. Kennedy, declaring himself a citizen of Berlin at the height of the Cold War on June 26, 1963, and Ronald Reagan, calling for an end to that war and the destruction of its most potent symbol -- the Berlin Wall -- on June 12, 1987. But there's another presidential visit worth remembering: Harry S. Truman's trip to Berlin in July 1945.
President Truman came to Berlin to participate in the Potsdam Conference -- the "Big Three" summit between the United States, Great Britain and the Soviet Union, just weeks after the defeat of Nazi Germany. Truman, Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin met on the outskirts of a city shattered by war to map out the postwar world, and to issue a final ultimatum to Imperial Japan. The decisions they made at Potsdam helped define the world we live in to this day.
It was a hopeful moment. The United States was emerging from the wreckage of World War II as a newborn superpower, and it fell to Truman to describe the role his country hoped to take in the world in the years to come -- to tell the world, in effect, what kind of country the United States of America intended to be. He did so 63 years ago this week, in characteristically plain-spoken remarks at the U.S. headquarters in Berlin. The occasion was the raising of the American flag -- the same flag, it turns out, that had been flying over the U.S. Capitol the day Pearl Harbor was attacked.
Here is what Truman said that day:
"This is an historic occasion. We have conclusively proven that a free people can successfully look after the affairs of the world. We are here today to raise the flag of victory over the capital of our greatest adversary. In doing that, we must remember that in raising that flag we are raising it in the name of the people of the United States, who are looking forward to a better world, a peaceful world, a world in which all the people will have an opportunity to enjoy the good things of life, and not just a few at the top. Let us not forget that we are fighting for peace, and for the welfare of mankind. We are not fighting for conquest. We want peace and prosperity for the world as a whole. We want to see the time come when we can do the things in peace that we have been able to do in war. If we can put this tremendous machine of ours, which has made this victory possible, to work for peace we can look forward to the greatest age in the history of mankind. That is what we propose to do."
-- President Harry S. Truman, July 20, 1945
By Brian Williams, Anchor and managing editor
"Berlin, Dresden, Nuremberg."
That's what the massive sign read as I started north toward Berlin this morning on the Autobahn. Looking at the countryside en route here, its impossible not to think of the military struggles on this soil, and the American lives lost here in both World Wars.
It's also impossible not to notice the advances and the technology across Europe -- the scene changes so quickly and from trip to trip. The most striking sight today was the massive windmills, churning in groups of six on various hillsides along the way. They are larger than anything I've seen in the U.S. The highway was spotless and without a pothole or a rough patch over the entire length of the drive...so was it the case driving in Spain a few days ago.
As my wife and I were on vacation here in Europe, it was an easy proposition to peel off and come to Berlin to cover this leg of Senator Obama's overseas trip. We'll do the broadcast from the Reichstag here in Berlin for the next two nights -- tomorrow night's broadcast will feature our interview with the Senator after his outdoor speech tomorrow.
Senior Producer Subrata De just snapped a photo of me as I write this post, looking out at the Brandenburg Gate -- as I pointed out in my video blog earlier today, its the first time I've been here since November 9th of 1989 -- when I chipped off my own piece of the wall as it literally tumbled down before our eyes. What a different city this is.
It's great to be back -- my thanks to the fabulous Ann Curry for filling in -- we'll look for you tonight from Berlin.
By John Rutherford, Producer, NBC News, Washington
Those nine soldiers killed last week in the attack on their remote Afghan outpost were all young - the oldest was 27- and they all had big plans for their futures.
Cpl. Pruitt Rainey, 22, a star high school wrestler back home in Haw River, N.C., wanted to become a physical education teacher and a wrestling coach.
"Kids loved him," his church pastor told the Burlington (N.C.) Times-News. "He would have been very good at it."
Cpl. Jason Hovater, 24, grew up in a deeply religious family in Clinton, Tenn.
"While he was in the Army, he realized his true calling was to be a worship leader," his sister told the Knoxville News Sentinel.
Cpl. Jason Bogar, 25, of Seattle, Wash., wasn't sure if he wanted to re-up, attend art school, or try something else.
"He talked of wanting to be an international correspondent and take pictures of places, all over the world," his mother told the Seattle Times.
Others were content staying right where they were in the Army.
Cpl. Jonathan Ayers, 24, of Snellville, Ga., was a perfect fit.
"He liked spit-and-polish type things," his dad told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "He would fuss at us if our shoes weren't cleaned just right."
CONTINUED >>
By Mara Schiavocampo, Nightly News digital correspondent
Good news on the media front: some newsrooms are becoming more racially diverse.
According to a new survey released Tuesday by the Radio-TV News Directors Association and Hofstra University, journalists of color made up 23.6% of local TV news staffs in 2007, compared to 21.5% in 2006. I think we can all agree that the more diverse the voices in journalism, the better.
Speaking of media diversity, when the results of the survey were released yesterday I was headed to the airport for the 2008 Unity Convention, held this year in lovely Chicago.
What's Unity, you ask? Every four years, four minority journalist groups (National Association of Black Journalists, National Association of Hispanic Journalists, Asian American Journalists Association and Native American Journalists Association) come together for one massive joint convention.
This year, organizers are expecting about 10,000 people. The stated mission is to "advocate fair and accurate news coverage about people of color, and aggressively challenge the industry to staff its organizations at all levels to reflect the nation's diversity."
CONTINUED >>
By Ann Curry, NBC News Anchor
Exactly how does a man accused of masterminding the massacre of 8,000 people in Bosnia stay hidden for 13 years?
The first details are just now coming out, about former Serb President Radovan Karadzic's run from justice.
So far, the facts, including that he was in hiding as an alternative medicine doctor, are as eyebrow-raising as the photos we will show tonight of a man who now looks more like Rip Van Winkle than a former government leader.
The most stunning fact so far may be that he was found all these years later right in Serbia's capital city of Belgrade.
Who helped him elude capture?
That he is now ordered to face a U.N. tribunal on charges of genocide sends a message to all who consider unleashing this kind of brutal violence: you cannot hide forever.
I am reminded that Hitler was once quoted as saying, as a way to justify his war crimes, that the world didn't care what happened to the Armenians in an earlier massacre.
Nuremberg, and the more recent prosecutions in Rwanda, and of Charles Taylor and Slobodan Milosevic, are evidence the world wants to leave its children a future different from its past.
Oh, how long will it take...?
By Ann Curry, NBC News Anchor
I'm starting to wonder if even President Bush's trips to the war region have ever gotten as much play in the media as Barack Obama's.
All weekend, we heard about it as a top story, and now, with the Senator's arrival in Iraq this morning, the story is playing high today. And with interviews with all three network anchors this week, the coverage has long legs, a rarity in news these days.
Public curiosity about this candidate's readiness as Commander-in-Chief, as well as the news he's making along the way, is driving a lot of this attention.
There are memorable images we will show you tonight of Obama and General David Petreaus, one showing both men smiling broadly in a helicopter today, and frankly, it looks campaign-perfect.
This raises a question. After this week is over, will the media feel it had addressed the public's interest in the Obama campaign, with the public's need for balanced reporting of the political process, now four months before the general election?
I hope the public feels so.
On Nightly News tonight, we will have full reports on both Obama and McCain, as the war over the wars intensifies.
Andrea Mitchell will report from Baghdad and Kelly O'Donnell will be in Maine, where McCain appeared with former President Bush today.
We are trying to be not only accurate and informative, but also balanced, so you have the best chance of judging for yourself what these men who could be President are saying.
By Jane Derenowski, NBC News producer
I had the wonderful opportunity recently to accompany NBC's Chief Science Correspondent Robert Bazell and photographer Krzysztof Galica to Iceland to produce a series of reports about genetics airing this week on NBC Nightly News, The Today Show, and CNBC. The stories were edited by Maggie Kassner and researched by Judy Silverman. Below are a few of my unrelated observations.
Friday had just turned into Saturday when I arrived at Iceland's Keflavik International Airport. The clock ticked 2 a.m. as I drove toward Reykjavik past the moonscape of volcanic rock.
It was all so strange.
The sun had barely dipped below the horizon. The watercolor sky was pink, blue, and yellow. It was daylight, the type of magic light photographers call The Golden Hour.
And it got me thinking about love.
Here in the United States, the color of love is most often associated with night: there's moonlight, candlelight, the golden glow from a warm fire. There are stolen kisses in dark corners and under streetlights. Even Frank Sinatra wrote about how he and his summer love would "hide from the lights, on the village green" when he was 17.
But summer in Iceland means it NEVER gets dark. What effect, I wondered, does all that light have on romance?
CONTINUED >>
By Lester Holt, NBC News anchor
I've been known to wake up and start my day forgetting it's my own birthday. Yet somehow this morning, I woke up at my usual 4:30 a.m., checked the calendar, and knew exactly why this date was important, and why I'll never forget it. What happened on July 20th, 1969 hardly earned a mention in most publications I read today. This, despite the fact that our world hasn't been the same since.
The funny thing is, next year at this time, you will be reading all about it. So why is that so? Because it will be the 40th anniversary, not the 39th. I often ponder our fascination with anniversaries that end in zeros and fives, but accept the fact that in life we need predictable mileposts. I was 10 years old on this day in 1969, and remember sitting glued to the television thinking that there is nothing this country can't accomplish when it sets its collective mind and will to it. That memory serves me well as I report the many challenges our country faces today, because I still believe it.
Many of you by now have probably figured out what event I'm referring to. And at least on this newscast, you won't have to wait until next year to be reminded of the day the world paused and stood in awe.
I hope you'll join me tonight for NBC Nightly News.
By Lester Holt, NBC News anchor
Sometimes in the hurry to dash off a quick e-mail, many of us have suffered the embarrassment of sending it to the wrong person, or the wrong email "distribution list." I once accidentally sent my vacation request to someone at GE Aviation, and got a nice note back suggesting maybe I meant it for someone else. Yes, perhaps my boss here at NBC.
We figured that's what happened today when we and other news organizations got an e-mail from the White House with the subject line "Iraq PM backs Obama troop exit plan - magazine." Not something we would expect the White House would go out of its way to trumpet to reporters. The attached article was about a German magazine's interview with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in which he is quoted as saying Barack Obama's 16-month troop withdrawal plan is "the right time frame for withdrawal."
As it turns out, the e-mail containing the article was sent out by a White House press staffer who apparently meant it to go to other White House staff members, not reporters. That staffer admits it was an accident, and says he's gotten lots of calls ever since. My guess is he'll get a fair amount of ribbing too. CONTINUED >>
By Ann Curry, NBC News anchor
Which presumptive nominee for President would best handle the wars America is fighting?
This question will inspire even more intense debate after Barack Obama's trip to the war zones in the coming days.
Tonight, Andrea Mitchell, already in Baghdad tonight, reports on the timing and risks and reasons for his trip, and she will include rare interviews from the very men who will debrief Obama: General David Patreaus and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker.
(Forgive me for this digression, but honestly, whenever I write Andrea Mitchell's name, I actually pause because my brain wants to write Andrea the Great, as in truth, she is.)
As you might expect, John McCain has some things to say about Obama's trip and some of those things are perhaps surprising, as we will hear from Kelly O'Donnell, on the set with us tonight.
There is also real war news today. President Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki have come to a hard-fought agreement on a "time horizon," but not a "timeline," for reducing the number of U.S. troops in Iraq. We will have details on what this means.
Also tonight, stories with stunning pictures, including an especially cool one showing us a rare glimpse of the dark side of the moon. Bet it tickles your brain this Friday evening.
By Mark Potter, NBC News correspondent
Islamorada, Florida -- Offshore charter fishing has long been an important and colorful part of Florida's economy and its history. The lure of a day-trip to the Gulf Stream draws sportsmen and tourists from around the world and is an integral part of the local lore involving novelists Ernest Hemingway, Zane Grey and other intrepid fishermen.
As you'll see in our report tonight on NBC Nightly News, however, the charter industry in Florida and around the country is suffering economic strains, particularly because of high fuel prices. As a result, the industry is in danger at some level of pricing itself out of business.
Just five years ago, a charter trip to deep water to chase billfish, mahi mahi, snapper and other tough species cost about $900 a day. Now, in the Florida Keys, it costs an average of $1,400, mainly due to rising diesel prices.
In the Carolinas and other places where the charter captains have to make longer runs to find the fishing grounds, the trips are even more expensive.
Here's the math: A year ago a gallon of diesel cost about $3.00 a gallon. Now it's more than $5.00. On an average day, the boats burn 100 to 150 gallons on their round-trips to deep water. That's anywhere from $500 to $750 a day in fuel costs alone. Then there's the bait, ice, crew fees, and boat maintenance. Not much left at the end of the day.
CONTINUED >>
By Ann Curry, NBC News Anchor
Ann Curry in for Brian Williams again tonight as the NBC Nightly News team assesses the significance of today's drop in oil prices.
As I write this, it is down to 130 dollars a barrel, below the mark market analysts wanted to see. But what does this mean to gas prices and how soon? If there is an answer, we will have it tonight.
Anne Thompson interviewed Al Gore today about the energy mess we are in, and we will hear his ideas tonight.
The FDA has lifted its salmonella warning on tomatoes, there is some promising news on Alzheimers, and we'll have one family's story about how we can all help our children grieve the loss of a loved one.
If I am allowed, as a regular visitor to this broadcast, I would also like to say that the fight to get it right gets passionate around here, especially when it comes to telling you what you need in this economy.
People here want very much for you to know how to protect yourself, as we all ride this wave.
By Aram Roston, NBC News Producer
The idea of last night’s Nightly News story where NBC’s Chief Justice Correspondent Pete Williams accompanied a Virginia sheriff as he served eviction notices was to capture the grim moment when people are forced out of the homes they think of as their own. The homes were foreclosed, the mortgages were unpaid and it is the moment when a family's American dream is taken away. The statistics of foreclosure are staggering, and each human story is a tragedy.
The people with the unhappy assignment of enforcing the court order are often deputy sheriffs. In Virginia, I rode first with Deputy Sheriff William Cenac, of the Fairfax County Sheriff's civil enforcement division, on a foreclosure eviction. "These are working people...these are working people," he said as he drove to the house.
He says his arrival is usually greeted with shock. In a sense, he says, "At this point in your life, everything that you know to be is over, your house, your yard, whatever. It's the property of the bank and you need to leave. I don't think it’s any different than your house burning down. Everything's gone. All your things are placed on the public right of way. It's helplessness: Where are you gonna go? Where are you gonna take your family? And you are still going to work every day."
CONTINUED >>
by Carmen Wong Ulrich, CNBC, personal finance expert
Pictures and news are coming out of California that I never thought I’d see again: lines of people making a run on a bank—a formerly big bank—in a panic about their money. The police were called in as balances and interest disappeared and answers didn’t come fast enough.
Granted, we have a ways to go when it comes to the repercussions of the mortgage lending mess, but we, as depositors, have control over one thing: where we put our money. If you have an account with FDIC insurance, you should never be in a line at the bank to pull your money. Here’s a walk-through of how you can make sure your money is safe:
1) Confirm that your deposits and banking institution has FDIC insurance. If you’re not sure, head to FDIC.gov and check.
2) Know that FDIC insurance is aggregate—meaning, it’s not $100,000 of insurance on each your checking and savings accounts but your holdings as a whole. To find out which of your accounts is insured, and which is not, use the FDIC’s EDIE tool.
3) Know the guidelines: Insured up to $100,000 = savings, checking, CDs, trusts. Insured up to $250,000 = Individual retirement accounts (IRAs) which include 401(k)s, 403(b)s and Roths. NOT insured = investments such as stocks, bonds, mutual funds, life insurance and annuities.
Click here to read more from Carmen Wong Ulrich's blog.
By John Rutherford, Producer, NBC News, Washington
Dr. Beverly Shaver's husband disappeared over half a century ago, and she still doesn't know what happened to him or whether he's dead or alive.
Navy pilot James Deane's VQ1 reconnaissance plane was shot down on a top-secret mission off the coast of China in 1956, three months after the college sweethearts were married at the age of 24.
"It was obviously devastating when it happened, so soon after my marriage," Dr. Shaver, now 75 and living in Arizona, said in an interview. "I was still writing thank-you notes for wedding gifts that were arriving after our wedding."
Deane is one of 127 Americans listed as missing from the Cold War. Their planes crashed or were shot down while on spy flights over China, the Soviet Union or North Korea in the 1950s and 60s.
"I think most people believe that the 'Cold' War did not involve shooting, or combat, or death, but it did, and these men are missing because of it," said Larry Greer, spokesman for the Pentagon's POW/Missing Personnel Office.
In Deane's case, he is officially listed as missing but declared dead. Dr. Shaver, who remarried, is convinced otherwise.
CONTINUED >>
By Brian Williams, Anchor and managing editor
Okay, so I need to get out more. Yesterday I said the All Star parade was going down Sixth Avenue. It wasn't. Not only did I not leave the building yesterday, I didn't even look out the window. Just sloppy reporting. No excuse for it.
Today I did (go to the window, that is...still no time for fresh air). I walked to the Sixth Avenue end of the third floor, and there, rolling down a red carpet stretched down the street, were the All Stars, two to a Chevy pickup truck, having attracted a sizeable lunchtime crowd behind police barricades. The NYPD officers I saw were great about letting kids walk right up to the players for autographs, and the players appeared to be just as great about it. I clearly need a break.
I'll keep today's post short -- and hate to leave you with a bit of a bummer, but I will quote from an email I received last night from a pal who is a prominent player in the newspaper business. He's a veteran who got into the trade for the very best reasons, and is now watching the changes in the industry in horror, along with the rest of us, while loving what he gets to do for a living, every day.
Of journalism, he writes, "The work is addictive. We do have a social mission. Dirty cops don't get kicked off the force, crooked pols don't get indicted, guys don't get yanked off death row, Chinese toys with lead paint don't get recalled unless we're around."
Roll that around for a while. I'll leave you with that thought, and ask that you join us for tonight's broadcast.
By Robert Bazell, NBC News chief science correspondent
I've gotten a lot of email today about our report last night on Tim Russert's sudden death from a heart attack, and the reaction by so many other people who are having their own hearts checked.
Many of the emails imply Tim did not do enough to reduce his risk. Very few people do everything they possibly can do to reduce their heart disease risk. With Tim's family's permission, I have learned a lot of his medical history.
Yes, Tim needed to lose weight and he was trying to do so. He was dealt a poor genetic hand when it came to blood lipid levels but he tried hard to eat a good diet. He exercised every day and he took medications to try to get his lipids and blood pressure to acceptable levels. He got very good medical care.
Many people are heavier than Tim was, have worse blood lipid profiles, and never get heart attacks.
The treatment of heart disease is one of the great triumphs of medicine in recent decades. From 1950 to 2007, the rate of heart disease deaths, adjusted for the aging population, dropped 64 percent. But clearly, as Tim's death shows, the problem is not solved. He never had any symptoms, and all too often the first symptom for many people is a heart attack, and about one-third of the time it is fatal.
We need better methods to detect the most dangerous plaque in the arteries. But for now, all we can do is try our best to shift the odds. Tim tried and failed, but we hope part of his legacy will be that others will try even harder.By Ann Curry
Word of genocide charges against the President of Sudan is now reaching the displaced persons camps in Sudan's Darfur region.
And we are told people are cheering.
What must is be like for those long suffering, who've seen their homes attacked, their women raped and their loved ones killed, to now learn today, after 5 years of hunger and homelessness, an arrest warrant may be issued against the man they feel is to blame?
President Omar al-Bashir had 10 counts filed against him by the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court this morning..3 of genocide, 5 of crimes against humanity and 2 of murder, on behalf of an estimated 2.5 million victims.
The court documents accuse President Bashir:
- of masterminding systematic attacks in Darfur, causing "murder, extermination, forceable transfer of the population, torture and rape."
- of being responsible, according to the filing, for killing and otherwise harming black African tribes of the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa, "to bring about their physical destruction in part."
- of waging a coverup, in part by supressing media coverage, and in statements to NBC News in an interview released last year. President Bashir said evidence villages were burned in Darfur were, "fabrications," and said, "It is not in the Sudanese culture or the people of Darfur to rape. It doesn't exist. We don't have it." (See link.)
Bashir is also accused of slowing down humanitarian assistance to the victims.
CONTINUED >>
By Brian Williams, Anchor and managing editor
What's the definition of satire? Does artistic freedom have any limits? I'm talking about the new cover of the New Yorker magazine, which turned out to be quite incendiary. See if you agree with the points made by editor David Remnick. Whatever depictions you've seen of the cover, it's important to remember that most New Yorker readers (and all of those who see it on newsstands) "experience" the magazine by seeing only half of the artwork on the cover -- the other half is covered by the headline overleaf.
The lead story in our broadcast tonight is the financial situation -- downright scary for folks with money in affected or threatened institutions. And while life isn't the same as a Capra movie (many of us have the run on the bank in "Its a Wonderful Life" burned into our memories), and while the FDIC wasn't around back when Jimmy Stewart was a young local banker, all of us in the news media must show caution right now to only report what we know, as there is so much at stake.
As I write this, a helicopter is hovering over 30 Rock (it's a friendly -- one of ours) to take pictures of the All Star parade going down Sixth Avenue, a prelude to tomorrow night's big game at Yankee Stadium -- a great baseball shrine that is sadly being replaced -- but that's a subject for another post, another time.
We hope you can join us for tonight's broadcast.
By Lester Holt, NBC News anchor
We have all heard the tag line to those bank ads, "member FDIC." And most of us probably haven't given it a second thought. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation is there to make sure depositors don't lose all their money if their bank goes belly up. If customers of California's IndyMac Bank didn't know what those initials stood for before, they sure do now.
Federal bank regulators who took over the insolvent Indymac on Friday are explaining in detail today what customers of the bank can expect tomorrow, and how much of their funds the government is protecting. Indymac was a big player in the sub prime mortgage market, and has now paid the price. The bigger piece to this story is the fact that it may not be the only bank in trouble. We're going to spend a lot of time on the mortgage crisis on the broadcast tonight. Both the IndyMac situation, and the jitters over the health of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two giant corporations who guarantee the mortgages of millions of Americans. CNBC's Jim Cramer will join me tonight to explain what we should be watching for.
The other big story we're on following for tonight is the deaths of 9 U.S. troops in Afghanistan. It is the biggest loss of American lives there since 2005. In recent months, Afghanistan has become more dangerous to American troops than Iraq. NBC's Richard Engel will explain why a draw down of troops in Iraq could result in a build up of US forces in Afghanistan.
Thanks for checking in, I hope you'll tune in tonight for NBC Nightly News.
By Lester Holt, NBC News anchor
Though I interviewed Tony Snow a number of times via a remote link, I never met him face to face. Like a lot of journalists, however, I had tremendous respect for Tony. As a television commentator he was a thoughtful, engaged, and passionate observer of politics. As White House press secretary, he always presented himself as someone who had great respect for the job we do as reporters, while at the same time serving as a loyal, and effective advocate for the administration's policies.
When the news of his death broke this morning just as we were coming on the air for the TODAY show, my first thought was of the interview David Gregory did with Tony Snow a year ago. Tony talked about his struggle with cancer. He also talked about how it affected his family, and tearfully recounted the words he shared with his children. "I said, look I'm going to bounce your kids on my knee. That's what I'm going to do. And that's what I want to do." But what I remember most from that interview were the simple words that left no doubt as to what was most important to Tony Snow. Words that brought a tear to my eye then, and again this morning. "It's great to love people this much."
David Gregory will be on the broadcast tonight to share more from that interview, and to look back at the life and career of Tony Snow. I hope you join us for tonight's edition of NBC Nightly News.
By Brian Williams, Anchor and managing editor
It will be one of those moments in New York. In a city where summer evenings are my favorite time of day during my favorite time of year, some New Yorkers might find themselves stopping, this evening -- on a corner, in the middle of conversation -- realizing something special is taking place, while they may not realize exactly what it is.
As our beloved and long-time traveling producer Jean Harper pointed out to me in an email this morning, what happens tonight has been nicknamed "Manhattanhenge" by the astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson.
Tyson is a lot of things: an educator, a public intellectual, a scientist, an experienced astronomer...but mostly, he's a romantic. He's a City kid from the Bronx who grew up to go to Harvard and Columbia (turning down Carl Sagan's invitation to attend Cornell instead) and came back home to pursue his life's dream...studying the heavens and spreading the excitement he feels so deeply. He is a New York treasure. Among other things, he makes us aware of events like the one that is unfolding here tonight.
You see, today, in Dr. Tyson's words, is "one of only two days in the year when the Sun sets in exact alignment with the Manhattan grid, fully illuminating every single cross-street for the last fifteen minutes of daylight." Tyson points out this would happen on the Solstice, if only New York were laid out on a parallel North-South grid. Today's event owes to the city's 30-degree angle out of parallel with the poles.
So...I plan to be on one of those cross streets, looking West, after tonight's broadcast -- taking it all in, and looking for other faces in the moving crowd on a Friday night -- who just might be doing the same.
With that, we will start the weekend -- but long before then, we hope you can join us tonight for our Friday broadcast.
By Ian Sager, msnbc.com editor
There’s no better proof that New York never sleeps than the 24-hour Apple store. The Fifth Avenue landmark is open all hours, 365 days a year, and is always buzzing with business. When I arrived there at 7 a.m. this morning – two hours after Apple’s new iPhone went on sale – the store was more than just buzzing. It was vibrating, ring-toning, GPS-ing, and doing everything else that the iPhone 2.0 promised to the line of excited buyers.
By 7:40 a.m., the line snaked down the block, around the corner, and only got longer as the morning progressed. But the crowd kept in good spirits. One woman, Elyannie Espinao of Manhattan, told me that she’d “accidentally” dropped her old iPhone in the toilet recently. “I’m looking to either fix my old one, or upgrade to the new model,” she said. When asked which way she was leaning, Espino looked at me as if I had three heads, smirked, and said, “Leaning towards an upgrade.” Another Manhattan resident, David Major, 28, confessed, “I sold my old iPhone on EBay last night. When I saw what they were going for, I decided to sell my old one to cover the cost of my new phone.” CONTINUED >>
By Brian Williams, Anchor and managing editor
The timing was perfect. I was looking for an excuse to at least duck out of the building for ten minutes on a beautiful summer day, when I heard the call come in over the fire scanner: a basement fire at TGI Friday's at 50th and 7th, a block away from our building. So I went.
I arrived before much of the apparatus -- and because of the nature of the alarm, the FDNY rolled a lot of it: Engine 23, the Engine/Ladder combination 54 & 4 ("The Pride of Midtown"), the Battalion 9 Chief, and 21 Ladder from the nearby Hell's Kitchen neighborhood.
It turned out to be a stubborn, smoldering fire beneath the sidewalk grate outside the adjacent Tad's Steaks -- more of a social get-together for members of the various firehouses. Engine 54 connected to the nearest hydrant when they rolled up on the scene, and they ended up charging a booster line (sending water from the truck to the hose) and hitting the fire with water for a few minutes to douse it.
It sure beat what I'd been planning to do at that hour: return phone calls. I pronounced the scene secure and went back to 30 Rock, ready for the next one. Some things just get in your blood.
IT'S ABOUT TIME...
Those of a certain age will remember the old pink "WHILE YOU WERE OUT" telephone message slips. They included the sole option of "MR. ___ called."
The thinking, back in the Mad Men age, was, I suppose, that you'd never get a call of any consequence in the workplace from a woman. Happily, we've come a long way -- with a few exceptions.
One notable exception: the MEN AT WORK roadside warning signs that are still out there. This will tell you what they are doing about it in Atlanta. Progress.
With that...we're off to work on the broadcast for tonight.
One story to call to your attention: it's our final story tonight, about a great woman, and her story is beyond inspiring.
I hope you can join us.
By Kevin Tibbles, NBC News correspondent
There just aren't words to aptly describe what happens to a person when they encounter the likes of Deforia Lane.
I've seen it happen with school kids, adults, expectant mothers and folks fighting for their lives in a hospital bed.
I can also tell you it happened to me, and to producer Colleen Dudgeon, when we visited Cleveland's University Hospitals Case Medical Center.
Deforia Lane is a teacher, an opera singer...and a cancer survivor. She's made it her goal to bring, through her gift of music, a few rays of hope, comfort and sunshine into the lives of hospital patients. Perhaps she will sing "Lean on Me"... or a moving version of "You'll Never Walk Alone"; anything to lift sagging spirits and dispel fear.
Colleen and I followed Deforia and her little pushcart filled with musical instruments as she 'made the rounds'; and on Nightly News tonight you will have the privilege of meeting this remarkable woman for yourself.
"I can't diagnose it and make it go away", she says. "But what I bring them is what's in here (her heart), and it's music and it's love."
By Brian Williams, Anchor and managing editor
There aren't that many unprocessed, genuine moments in politics anymore -- but something very close took place this afternoon, when Ted Kennedy returned to the well of the Senate and received a spontaneous, bi-partisan standing ovation. He returned chiefly for the Medicare vote -- and the tableau of the Senate floor drove home what strange bedfellows that body of 100 members can produce. We're also watching a breaking story involving Rev. Jesse Jackson and Barack Obama. As they say...developing...
Our time is short this afternoon due to committments that many of us had that took us away from the newsroom in the middle of the day -- we're all back and about to hunker down. I heartily recommend the writing of my Washington colleague, veteran NBC News producer (and U.S. military veteran) John Rutherford. It has to do with a great American story.
We hope you can join us for the broadcast tonight.
By John Rutherford, Producer, NBC News, Washington
Juan Casiano was smitten with Maria Ortiz from the moment he met her at an Army base in Korea.
"She had a smile that lit up a thousand stars, and that smile brought warmth and joy to everyone she touched," Juan said.
When Maria was transferred back to the States, the two lost touch with each other until he bumped into her five years later at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
"The first thing she asks me is, 'Are you single?,' and I say, 'Yes,'" Juan said. "We've been together ever since."
Juan and Maria planned to marry as soon as she returned from a tour in Iraq as head nurse of an intensive care ward in Baghdad.
"She was looking forward to getting married," he said. "That's why she was going to the gym as much as she could. She says, ah, 'I'll have a little surprise for you when I get home.'" CONTINUED >>
By Brian Williams, Anchor and managing editor
I have ample occasion -- several times daily, in fact -- to count my blessings in life and feel especially lucky that I get to do this for a living. Today, as I often do, I was listening to the FDNY Manhattan scanner on my office computer as I went about my work. I just heard a Batallion Chief ask for some "brief R&R" for his men after a particularly hot and smoky roof fire on the East Side. While I so miss serving in that capacity as a volunteer, I don't miss fires like the one they just fought. And now as I write this, they've been called away to dual alarms on the third and fifth floors of a Manhattan apartment building. No rest for the weary.
Another source of fortunate feelings today was the superb piece in this morning's New York Times by a colleague of ours over at ABC News, documentary producer Michael Bicks. It has to do with life and mortality and the loss of our friend Tim Russert. For us (as I know it is for Mr. Bicks and for many of you), the loss is incredibly fresh and urgent and raw -- like yesterday. That lessons have come from it tells us that Tim has had an impact beyond his life's work. This is about life itself.
We hope you can join us for tonight's broadcast.
By Brian Williams, Anchor and managing editor
I had occasion over the long weekend to pull a boat up to a fuel dock and experience the bracing thrill of filling the tank -- and watching the pump dial as the numbers went by, at $4.99.9 a gallon. It will be interesting to see if any hard auto travel numbers become available for this past July 4th holiday -- as there were many advance predictions that car travel would be at a ten-year low.
I'm guessing the sheer cost of getting around is/was a factor in the Obama campaign's selection of an aged charter jet -- which today is in the news because of the unplanned deployment, from the tail cone, of the emergency exit slide, which forced the aircraft (and the campaign) to land in St. Louis -- where the candidate delivered his basic economic speech to a room full of journalists, instead of the North Carolina ballroom he was to address today.
The ramp workers at Lambert Field seemed surprised to see him, as I'm sure the Secret Service had to scramble to come up with the infrastructure to handle an impromptu visit. That's why they have field offices.
We'll have that story tonight, and the rest of the day's news, as we all get back into work mode following the first truly sleepy weekend of the summer...puncuated by an endless tennis match in London and the A-Rod saga here in New York.
With the exception of those last two stories, we'll have it all for you tonight -- and we hope you can join us.
By Lester Holt, NBC News anchor
The big "Gap" fire burning near Santa Barbara is only about a quarter contained, and firefighters are working within a narrow window of opportunity. Hot, potentially record-breaking temperatures are forecasted to return to the region as early as Tuesday.
Meanwhile, 2,700 homes remain under an evacuation order and another 1,400 households have been warned they may be next. Between the fires that have consumed so much of California over the last week, and the floods that inundated parts of the Midwest last month, there have been so many homes lost and lives displaced.
The truth is, even after the flames are extinguished or the flood waters recede, the victims are still living with disaster. Tonight Peter Alexander reports from the California fire lines, but we will also turn our cameras back toward the flood zone. City council member Brian Fagan of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, takes us on a tour of his city as it confronts rebuilding properties and resettling the thousands of residents whose lives were upended in the June floods that consumed 1,300 square blocks.
I'm glad you checked in, and hope you'll tune in later for tonight's edition of Nightly News.
By Lester Holt, NBC News anchor
The number of fires now burning in California has dropped to fewer than 400. That's the good news. The bad news is that the two biggest, the Big Sur Basin fire and the Gap fire in southern California, are still out of control. Our Peter Alexander is on the scene at the Gap fire, near Santa Barbara, and will report tonight that any progress during the day risks being undone at nightfall because of something called "sundowner" winds. He'll explain why this is such a tough one.
We will also update a story that for weeks now has been changing the eating habits of millions of Americans. The government says there have now been over 900 reported cases of salmonella poisoning. And if you thought avoiding tomatoes would keep you safe, you may be wrong. The list of suspect produce has now expanded as health detectives try and track down the elusive source. Martin Savidge will bring us up to date.
If you decided to play tourist at home this holiday rather than hit the road and pay high air fares or gas prices, then you are among a growing number of Americans who have discovered "staycations." NBC's Tom Costello will be reporting that trend tonight.
We don't usually spend a lot of time on sports on this broadcast, but we'd be remiss not to report a pair of stories that have inspired sports fans this weekend. We'll show a little of Venus William's' victory over her sister Serena at the women's championship at Wimbledon today. Meantime we've asked our Mike Taibbi to profile 41-year-old swimmer Dara Torres, who outdistanced competitors half her age to qualify for her fifth Olympics.
CNBC's Trish Regan takes us to Brazil to show us why their economy is booming despite lots of easy credit -- the very thing that has shaken the U.S. economy.
And Nightly News producer Clare Duffy steps in front of the camera tonight to bring us the story of one very lucky and beloved penguin.
I hope you can join us for tonight's NBC Nightly News.
By Lester Holt, NBC News anchor
Brian is off today, enjoying the holiday, so I'll be holding down the fort tonight.
On the program this evening, we will cover the death of a remarkable and controversial figure in American politics. Former North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms died early this morning. As a staunch conservative, he was often at the forefront of hot button social debates, including civil rights, gay rights and public funding for the arts. Helms was often a hero to the right, and reviled by the left, so it is not surprising that there is plenty of reaction to his passing. You will hear some of it on Nightly News this evening.
In politics, as Senator John McCain takes a holiday break from the campaign trail, Senator Barack Obama continues his swing out West. Lee Cowan will examine Obama's stragegy, as the campaign looks to turn some of those so-called western red states, Democratic blue in the fall.
There are fireworks over the use of fireworks in tinder-dry California this holiday. Meantime, with so much of the state on fire, Governor Schwarzenegger has ordered the call up of more National Guard troops to join the fire lines. Our George Lewis is in the Santa Barbara area, and will bring us the latest tonight.
Jim Maceda is back in Iraq where he caught up with members of Alpha Company 464, a unit of the Army's third Infantry Division which led the invasion of Iraq, five years ago. Alpha company is spending its third July 4th in Iraq since 2003. Jim first met them on a previous tour of duty, and will share with us their reflections on the ups and downs they've experienced in the war zone.
I'm glad you clicked on us today, and hope you'll catch us later. In the meantime, I wish you and your family a safe holiday weekend.
By Lester Holt, NBC News anchor
Brian is off and so I'll be in the anchor chair tonight.
It's been said before that if you're the one out of work the unemployment rate is 100%. The government posted its unemployment numbers for last month today and they won't come as a surprise to those out there pounding the pavement for a job and coming up empty. 438,000 jobs have been lost this year as May's high unemployment rate held steady last month. Employers have cut workers for six straight months. CNBC's Scott Cohn will be on the broadcast to show us exactly what job seekers are facing, and the sometimes tough choices they are forced to make.
Barack Obama is sending some interesting signals today that some believe could be a prelude to him changing his tune on when and how to exit Iraq. This all comes ahead of Obama's previously announced trip to Iraq. NBC's Lee Cowan is working the story and will have a lot more on this.
NBC's Mark Potter has learned some fascinating details of exactly how that hostage rescue was pulled off in Colombia yesterday. Call it the anatomy of a sting.
We just received word that another part of California has been placed under a state of emergency because of threatening wildfires. Things there are going from bad to worse. George Lewis will be reporting that story tonight.
I hope you can catch our story tonight on a young man from South Africa who danced his way through long held barriers and out of the townships to become one of that country's premier ballet performers. And now he is in this country. NBC's Amna Nawaz will share his journey with us.
Thanks for checking in. We'll look for you tonight on NBC Nightly News.
By Brian Williams, Anchor and managing editor
I just watched General Motors stock close below $10 a share for the first time in decades. I remember how my grandfather left a few shares of GM to a member of my family when I was young -- those stock certificates were tantamount to owning a small piece of the United States. Insofar as there's a bellwether of the U.S. economy (at least a far-reaching segment) or an iconic brand instantly associated with American industrial might throughout the world, it's always been the companies like GM and GE and Ford. Sooner or later these economic figures are going to cause a more wide-ranging and palpable fallout. For now, we cover them as separate events.
We're also mindful that for many Americans, the Independence Day holiday weekend has started. We're driving less this year as a nation (first time in a decade) because of the price of gas, we're thinking of our troops on the ground in this nation's dual wars, and as I watch the fireworks with my Dad this year, we'll be thinking of all of it while we celebrate the meaning of the holiday.
I hope you all have a safe holiday, and I hope you can join us for tonight's broadcast.
By John Rutherford, Producer, NBC News, Washington
John McCain and Ralph Bisz were Navy fighter pilots flying A-4E Skyhawks off the decks of the USS Oriskany about the same time in 1967.
McCain, of course, was shot down over North Vietnam, spent 5 1/2 years as a prisoner of war, and is today the presumptive Republican nominee for president.
Bisz was shot down the month before McCain arrived on the Oriskany and was never seen again. *
"Our worst fears were that he was killed," Bisz's cousin and closest living relative, Diane Smith, of West Palm Beach, Fla., said in an interview. "Actually, our worst fears were that he wasn't killed instantly and may have been in fact captured and harmed."
On Aug. 4, 1969, two years to the day after Bisz was shot down, three American POWs were released by Hanoi. They brought with them the names of 42 fellow prisoners.
"One of the names they had memorized was an, oh, I think it was Roger Biff, b-i-f-f, something like that, and that was close enough to give us hope that he in fact might have been a POW," Smith said.
"And in those fuzzy pictures that came out during that time of the prisoners of war in Hanoi, my aunt looked at and felt sure she identified him, but, um, we all wondered. It was a hard time."
Bisz's parents died without ever learning the fate of their only child.
"After all the POWs were released [in 1973], we realized in fact that he was not a POW and probably was, we hoped, killed in action," Smith said.
CONTINUED >>
By Brian Williams, Anchor and managing editor
The numbers from the automakers today border on the unreal: sales of the Ford Explorer down 52 percent. That can be called "off a cliff" in anyone's book. SUV owners can't unload used vehicles, and no one is buying new ones. The car and truck business is being pummeled -- hit with a fundamental business shift, the likes of which come along but every generation or so. We'll talk about that tonight.
We'll also take advantage of what will be Richard Engel's last night in this newsroom for a while. Richard is off to do more reporting from points East (or West, depending on where you're reading this), and interviewed a senior Iranian official today. His conversation made news, and we'll ask him for a brief strategic tour of the region while we're at it. I'm like a lot of you -- I love having my friend Richard around; I also recognize that his "natural state" is in the field -- it's where he's happiest and where he does his best work.
We're busily putting together the Tuesday edition of the newscast and we hope you can join us as always.
By Robert Bazell, NBC News chief science correspondent
The government’s investigation of the outbreak of salmonella infections—probably from tomatoes—moved into even more difficult and confusing territory today.
The FDA and the CDC, the agencies responsible for the investigation, said that tainted tomatoes remain “the lead suspect,” and offered their recommendations on what kinds of tomatoes you should avoid and what is safe to eat. You can see those recommendations here
But in a conference call with reporters Tuesday, government investigators grew increasingly testy as more and more outside experts criticize their efforts.
"I just think they're really screwing this one up," said Dr. Michael Osterholm, a professor at the University of Minnesota and Minnesota's former state epidemiologist, who has discovered the source of tomato contamination in other outbreaks.
Osterholm says the current investigation has been characterized by a lack of cooperation and communication among agencies, as well as some faulty methodologies—especially the failure to do "case control" studies as they look for the source of this rare salmonella strain.
In this investigation, FDA scientists are only looking for the source of contamination by trying to find the tomatoes eaten by people who got sick. In a case control study, investigators compare the dietary sources of the sick people with people who ate similar foods and did not get sick.
"I believe that the FDA's ability to find the smoking gun here is almost nil if they don't use this other procedure," Osterholm said.
FDA officials concede he could be right, and said this may be a lesson for the next outbreak.
The extent of the danger should not be underestimated. Close to 900 people have been sickened with diarrhea and fever, the hallmarks of salmonella infection, and were later shown by lab tests to have contracted the illness. Probably 30 times that many people got sick but never went to the doctor. So maybe 30,000 Americans have been sickened overall. In that same period, Americans ate an estimated three billion servings of tomatoes. So, for an individual, the danger is not great. But it is an embarrassment to the government not to find the source.
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