April 2009 - Posts
By Brian Williams, Anchor and managing editor
I warned the organizers. I warned my fellow jurors. I know nothing about filmmaking ... but I love movies, and I watch a ton of them (It's kind of like saying, I didn't direct "The Godfather," but I did stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night!). They asked me anyway. I was a juror this year for the Tribeca Film Festival.
The jury I was on judged the entries in the "World Documentary" category -- a dozen of them. Deliberations were last evening, in a Midtown hotel ... and we had a blast. I developed so much admiration and respect for my fellow jurors and for their viewpoints. It was a great evening. Voices were raised -- but never in anger, just with passion over a great movie or a clunker. We had consensus, we had compromise -- and we were all thrilled with the dynamic and the result. I was sorry to say goodbye to my fellow jurors at the end of the night. It was an unforgettable experience, and I want to thank the good folks at the Festival. It was born in the aftermath of 9-11, and now in its 8th year it has become a New York institution like the neighborhood in its title.
Back to the news: we're preparing tonight's broadcast, and we hope you can join us!
by Brian Williams, anchor and managing editor
First off, we all noted the new, darker and more dramatic lighting down the central hallway, and the emphasis on the candelabra-like fixtures. The president continues to use the single, large flat-screen teleprompter in the center of the room (not the dual flanking glass panes) to make it look like he's looking right at the cameras/American people.
Photo by Mandel Ngan | AFP/Getty Images
Click on image to watch the full press conference.
He called on the journalist from Detroit very early -- we're guessing it was in order to hit his talking points on the auto industry.
A co-worker here is worrying aloud that the combined Fiat-Chrysler entity could wind up shortened to: Fiasco. That would be bad. Especially as the owner of a Chrysler product.
This hand-washing obsession, combined with the Stimulus package, could lead to badly-needed public restroom refurbishing.
Zeleny-enchanted: While multi-layered (and the President played along), Jeff Zeleny of the New York Times asked the question that might have given us the most revealing and reflective answer of the night. Though I thought we'd hear a mention of what it's like to look out his office window and see his family. Or walk upstairs after work to dinner.
The President continues to call on a lot of journalists who have never had a question in prime time.
Now we do two new feeds of Nightly News for the West Coast!
By Brian Williams, Anchor and managing editor
The very best thing I can do with this space today is focus attention on the great work of others: from this New York Times study of where we've been to some fascinating images -- whether you're a fan of the Obamas or not -- if the inner workings of history, the Presidency and the White House are of interest to you, this is for you.
I meant to call attention yesterday to a good q+a web exclusive with Robert Bazell that attempts to answer your flu questions emailed to us.
We hope to see you for tonight's broadcast.
By Brian Williams, anchor and managing editor
I've received a big response from my post yesterday on the most boneheaded air mission in the history of aviation photography. Many people have raised the folly of secrecy: the White House notifies both the FAA and NYPD to expect Air Force One to "buzz" lower Manhattan and New Jersey with fighter escort -- and yet they are told not to share the information … especially not with the public or news media. National security, you know.
Imagine if the wrong element found out that a near empty 747 was going to make low passes over the city for the sake of an updated glossy calendar photo! The problem was: the RIGHT element wasn't notified...us.
Allow me to note, with a sledgehammer, the irony here: the very same mindset behind the "secret" air mission (the unchallenged, unquestioned use of "security" as all-purpose cover) is a direct outgrowth of 9-11...the very event yesterday's ridiculous fly-over conjured up among thousands of people who reflexively ran out of their office buildings and into the streets of this city. A deputy White House Chief of Staff is heading up an investigation. The West Point and Harvard-educated chief of the Military Office has already taken full responsibility and remains in his post tonight.
Tonight we continue to cover swine flu. Everyone should remember: flu-related illness kills 36,000 Americans during an average year. This strain has yet to claim its first fatality in the U.S. … of the 68 confirmed cases at the time of this writing. We have another informative newscast planned for you tonight, and we hope you can join us.
By Brian Williams, anchor and managing editor
I met an investment banker at a New York luncheon today who told me the mindset at her firm has been "re-set to a 9/11 mentality" after what happened in Lower Manhattan this morning. Many in her office evacuated, along with many other firms and buildings. I'll link to the story here, but here's the lay version with my added bias: word started spreading through New York during the morning rush hour that a "jumbo jet flanked by a fighter jet" was flying low over the Hudson river near the southern tip of Manhattan. Networks like ours switched our footing to preparation to report the incident. People who looked on from a distance were horrified at the sight. What's worse, people who were close to the "fly-over" were even more troubled -- as some of them recognized the world-famous livery -- the paint scheme on the fuselage: it was Air Force One. The real one. The fighter jet was real. Was the President on board? Was he in jeopardy? Could this really be happening in the sky over New York?
Photo courtesy Jason Mclane / AP
The finger-pointing reached Olympian heights before lunch. The Air Force said they told everyone who needed to know, including the FAA and NYPD. The NYPD said they were told not to tell the public. It was apparently a "photo mission" (masked as a "training mission"?) to take pictures of the aircraft with the Statue of Liberty in the background. I understand the need for pretty pictures of the aircraft against a dramatic backdrop, and I've flown a lot of miles with the air wing that operates Air Force One... but why was it staged during Monday morning rush hour? Why not make it a public event -- widely announced via electronic media -- and invite the public, a la an air show, to come to lower Manhattan with their cameras on, say, a Saturday morning to take their own pictures of this dramatic sight?
This was dangerously mishandled. As I said the other evening at a gathering of New York City firefighters: even after all these years, among many New Yorkers, 9/11 still feels like it was about 10 minutes ago. The pit is still there, though it's now a construction zone. The losses don't go away. No one is bringing my neighbor back to me. I will drive by his house on my way home from work tonight, and he won't be there. We still look up at the sky (in ways we never did before) when we hear low-flying aircraft, and we still worry. Lower Manhattan is no place for an unnanounced low-altitude jumbo jet-and-fighter-jet flyover.
Someone should pay for this.
Now to the news of the day: we will have comprehensive coverage of the swine flu outbreak, and Mike Taibbi will cover the story above. We'll end on an uplifting example of Making a Difference... and we hope you can join us as we start a new week.
By Maria Menounos, NBC News contributing correspondent
Visiting Dr. Wilson's ranch outside Phoenix, I immediately saw just how much she loves animals. A stream of constant drop offs and pickups fill the day with Dr. Wilson saving creatures that would otherwise be euthanized or slaughtered. She is so passionate about the plight of animals that she's scheduled another day of surgery into her full-time job as a gynecologist to help pay for all the expenditures. She has forgone luxuries and vacations as well, all to finance the animals.
Skeptics may argue that people and children need this attention more than animals and ask why she doesn't save them as well? Well, she does. In addition to her practice, she travels the world doing pro bono work for the underprivileged. She just happens to be equally passionate about animals. Her belief is that animals are God's creatures and we are supposed to help them, too. They provide us with love, companionship and even healing as proven with therapy animals. So why not save them?
CONTINUED >>
by Lester Holt, NBC News anchor
When dealing with something as serious as a public health threat, words matter; so does context. The swine flu outbreak which has spread from Mexico to at least 5 U.S. states was declared a "public health emergency" today by the U.S government. That, officials say, does not mean there is a "greater threat," and they point out that such declarations are generally precautionary, and have been used for such varied events as the presidential inauguration last January, and the recent flooding in the Midwest.
No one wants to panic – or create a panic – but we're mindful that words like "emergency" and "pandemic," have the potential to raise our anxiety.
There is no downplaying the fact this is a very important and serious story. The virus has now appeared in several other countries, and the number of dead in Mexico is at least 81. We will be spending a lot of time on the flu outbreak in tonight's broadcast, and no doubt in the days to come. Our goal is tell you as much as we can about what this flu strain is, how it spreads, where it has spread, how it's treated, how you can protect yourself, and what the government is doing to contain it. Information is the only vaccine we have at this point, and we are going do our best to deliver it as accurately and with as much context as possible.
We'll have lots to tell you on the newscast tonight but the headlines at this writing are:
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20 confirmed cases in the United States
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No deaths in the U.S.
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Has not been declared a pandemic
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Swine flu is treatable
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The government is making 12-million doses of the anti-viral drug Tamiflu available from its stockpiles for local governments IF needed.
I hope you'll watch Nightly News tonight for the very latest developments.
by Lester Holt, NBC News anchor
Good day from New York. I'm writing this from the anchor desk, preparing to go on with a special report during the hockey playoffs, on the swine flu outbreak. We have just learned that it has likely spread to New York City, while its presence has been confirmed in Kansas.
We've been monitoring a news conference where New York City health officials confirmed 8 students at a high school here have tested positive for "probable" swine flu. Kansas authorities are at the same time announcing two confirmed cases there. It has killed 68 people in Mexico, and infected over a thousand there, as well as a handful of people in California and Texas.
There have been no reported deaths in this country, however the World Health Organization is calling this "a public health event of international concern." Experts say this has the potential to become a pandemic.
We have our chief science correspondent Robert Bazell working late breaking details on the story, and Michelle Kosinski is in Mexico City – the apparent ground zero for the outbreak – from where she will be reporting live on Nightly News tonight. We'll tell you what we know about the spread, prevention and treatment of this dangerous virus when we see you later this evening.
by Bob Epstein, Executive Producer
We understand there may have been a technical problem for some of our viewers watching Nightly News Friday night. You may have missed Michael Okwu’s Making a Difference report on bringing health information to barbershops.
We apologize and if you want to see the report, you can watch it below:
By Brian Williams, Anchor and managing editor
On Fridays, and not just out of work evasion, I like to feature some of the pieces of interest that we've come across. Today that would include The Candy Bomber, the Perfect-Gamer, Bus culture and what we define as "necessity" these days. And what may be the sweetest story to come from the White House Press Briefing Room (and the White House Press Corps, for that matter) in some time. And after what's been a busy week around here, I will simply wish you a good weekend, and hope that you will join my friend Lester Holt this weekend, and hope that you'll look fo rus back here on Monday night.
by Jim Miklaszewski, NBC News Chief Pentagon Correspondent
U.S. officials tell NBC News the Pentagon and military are preparing to release as many as 2,000 photos from more than 400 separate cases involving alleged prisoner abuse at U.S. military prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan, and for the first time may include prisoner abuse photos from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The photos are being released in response to a federal lawsuit filed by the ACLU.
One U.S. official said the photos are "not as bad as those from Abu Ghraib," the prison where U.S. military guards stripped prisoners naked and threatened them with guard dogs, but "they're not good."
Descriptions of some of the prisoner abuse photos include:
* A prisoner shoved up against a wall as military guards or interrogators appear to threaten to sexually assault him with a broomstick.
* Female soldiers posing with hooded, shackled prisoners who were stripped naked.
* Hooded prisoners on transport planes with Playboy magazines opened to pictures of nude women on their laps.
Most of the 2,000 photos are those that were confiscated in more than 400 military investigations into prisoner abuse between 2001 and 2005.
The military at first was prepared to limit their response and release only 21 photos sought by the ACLU in a federal lawsuit, but Centcom Commander David Petraeus ordered that all 2,000 photos be released at once to keep from "dragging this issue out forever."
As of now the photos are expected to be released May 28.
Critics are already claiming the still unreleased photos will provide proof that prisoner abuse was not the result of "a few bad apples" but was widesrpead and sanctioned by top Bush administration officials.
By Brian Williams, Anchor and managing editor
My thanks to the Captain and men of FDNY Engine 23 in Midtown Manhattan (pictured below) -- I've happily spent time there before, and spent a little time with Meredith Vieira this morning talking about firefighting.
VIDEO: Watch more from Brian and Meredith's visit to Engine 23
And we will take a moment on the broadcast tonight to remember the last of the Bedford Boys -- the young men from the town in Virginia that paid such a high price on Omaha Beach in the D-Day invasion.
We have a great broadcast planned for you tonight -- and as usual it means the world to us when you can join us for it.
By Ian Williams, NBC News correspondent
As last-minute supplies were brought on board the research ship, technicians tightened bolts on a mini-submarine sitting on the deck and tested its cameras. The ship's tannoy crackled to life inviting all scientists to a meeting in the library, and Bill Chadwick could barely conceal his excitement.
"Around half the species we've found are new to science, It's really a fantastic frontier," he told me. We'd met Chadwick in Guam on board the RV Thompson, a research ship operated by Oregon State University, at the start of an expedition he was leading to study a bubbling underwater volcano off the North Mariana islands in the Pacific.
His was one of the first expedition to the area's volcanic arch since it was designated a marine protected zone - a national monument - by President Bush, one of the last acts of his presidency.
Unique species of crabs, mussels, scrimps and worms have been found near the volcano's vents - and they are the ones we know about.
CONTINUED >>
By Ian Williams, NBC News correspondent
Will Howard used to think the biggest threat to the World's oceans came from the things you could see - like the detritus clogging so many our estuaries and coastal regions. Now he's found new evidence of how invisible changes in the chemistry of the water pose a disturbing new threat to life in the oceans.
"The impact has already begun. It's not a matter for laboratory experiments. It's happening now," he told me.
The world's oceans are becoming more acidic, as they absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and Howard has discovered the first direct field evidence of the impact on marine life - tell-tale changes in tiny sea snails the size of a grain of sand, which are struggling to make their shells.
"These organisms are the base of the marine food web, and what happens to them reverberates throughout the eco-system - right up to whales and penguins," says Howard, who's based at the Antarctic Climate & Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre at the University of Tasmania.
CONTINUED >>
By Brian Williams, Anchor and managing editor
I'd have a longer entry today, but much of my time was spent with Maverick. Mav, as I called him, is a lab, and he was in our studios today as part of a Public Service Announcement I did today with VetDogs --the good folks who provide canine assistance to the blind and vision-impaired--and returning veterans with injuries. Mav sniffed me out immediately as a dog lover, and I've never seen a guest in our studio (since perhaps Yo Yo Ma brought his cello) attract quite as many fans.
Then, after our afternoon editorial meeting, I got completely hooked reading this from start to finish. It’s hard to explain -- the style is 2009 Old English, but Chris Buckley's writing about his parents is impossible to put down -- perhaps because when it comes to their life together, I have nothing to compare it to. It's coming out in print this Sunday as the cover of the New York Times Sunday Magazine, to help promote his book. As I have just done.
We hope you can join us for tonight's broadcast, which will feature a story e-mailed to us by a viewer -- our Making A Difference segment tonight. Thank you for being with us...as always.
By Robert Bazell, NBC News chief science correspondent
Few products in our food supply evoke as much emotion as high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). Food manufacturers use tons of it to sweeten products ranging from sodas and other sweetened beverages to chicken fingers and pizza sauce.
What I learned this week while working on the story we air tonight about the sugar and HFCS in our diet is that table sugar, usually made from sugar cane or sugar beets (called sucrose) is almost identical in its chemical composition and effects on the body as HFCS, made from corn.
Both HFCS and table are combinations in about equal amounts of two sugars called glucose and fructose. Despite its name HFCS contains little if any more fructose than table sugar. There is in fact evidence that pure fructose may be worse for the body than pure glucose. But for the purposes of this discussion, it doesn’t matter. HFCS and table sugar are basically the same.
VIDEO: The sweet truth about high fructose corn syrup
Since HFCS was introduced a few decades ago articles and bloggers have blamed it for all sorts of ills—especially the rapid increases in obesity and type 2 diabetes. As a result several companies have begun selling products labeled as “natural” because they are sweetened with table sugar. But that misses the point.
The problem, if you can call it that, with HFCS is not what it IS but what it COSTS. Usually HFCS is less expensive than sucrose. As a result food manufacturers are more prone to use more of it in their products. Almost anything tastes better if it is sweetened.
The problem is not the TYPE of sweetener we consume but the AMOUNT. According the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Americans consume on average 140 pounds a year of sugar added to the diet – either as sucrose or HFCS. That level of consumption, up almost 20 percent in recent decades, accounts for a large part of the obesity and diabetes problems.
The biggest sources of dietary sugar are drinks--not just soda, but energy drinks, sports drinks and vitamin water. There is growing evidence that sweetened beverages, in addition to the calories they add, increase the propensity for obesity and diabetes in other ways. Because they are consumed so rapidly into the blood stream, the drinks can leave a person as hungry or hungrier within a few hours than had they not consumed all those calories in the first place.
That is something to think about when you grab that extra large drink in a fast food restaurant or convenience store.
By Brian Williams, Anchor and managing editor
Today we welcomed back our Nightly News Director, Brett Holey, who ran in the Boston Marathon yesterday, turning in an impressive time. He reports relatively little pain, looks no worse for wear, and we are awfully proud of him for the achievement it represents.
So the internet "developing story of the day" is called "Confessions of a TARP Wife." It appeared originally on the Web site of Conde Nast Portfolio. Take a read, and now take a look at the Web-detective deconstruction of the clues sprinkled throughout her essay. It will make for a good East Side parlor game among the TARP set. What's the chance it's a work of fiction?
Also, while I'm not a doctor (though I have stayed in a Holiday Inn Express numerous times), did anyone notice, during the Fox interview with former VP Cheney(content aside), that Mr. Cheney's breathing
seemed noticeably audible and labored? Just asking...
Back to the news of the day: We'll have it all for you tonight, including a terrific piece our own Richard Engel did for us in Iraq. Early warning to our legions of Engel fans: He will be sitting beside me for his segment on the broadcast tonight!
We hope you can join us.
By Anne Thompson, NBC News Chief Environmental Affairs Correspondent
We hope you'll take another look at our overfishing story from Sunday night. The United Nations 2008 report "The State of the World Fisheries and Aquaculture" states that 28 percent of the world's fisheries are overexploited, depleted, or recovering. It goes on to state that this means they are producing less than their maximum potential owing to excess fishing pressure. In other words, they are in big trouble. We are providing a link to the report as well as the definitions for "overexploited," "depleted," and "recovering."
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Underexploited
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Undeveloped or new fishery. Believed to have a significant potential for expansion in total production; |
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Moderately exploited |
Exploited with a low level of fishing effort. Believed to have some limited potential for expansion in total production; |
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Fully exploited |
The fishery is operating at or close to an optimal yield level, with no expected room for further expansion; |
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Overexploited |
The fishery is being exploited at above a level which is believed to be sustainable in the long term, with no potential room for further expansion and a higher risk of stock depletion/collapse; |
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Depleted |
Catches are well below historical levels, irrespective of the amount of fishing effort exerted; |
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Recovering |
Catches are again increasing after having been depleted |
Source: State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture 2008
By Brian Williams, Anchor and managing editor
We are always looking for good news, especially in this economy. Specifically, here's our request: nominate people who are doing good things where you live or work... perhaps a random or regular act of kindness in a cruel economy. Please leave us a suggestion below.
(To read some of the earlier comments sent in by viewers, click here.)
By Brian Williams, Anchor and managing editor
While in our editorial meeting this afternoon, we learned that my friend Jon Meacham has won the Pulitzer for his superb biography of Andrew Jackson, "American Lion.” He wrote the hell out of that book, and it's great to see a great work of Presidential history be so recognized.
And if you read just one thing today, here it is: an essay...about a book...about the societal trend that is to blame for much of what currently ails us and distracts us from the real work we need to do.
If you read TWO things today, check out this item about the unforeseen effect our new President has had.
We're back at work for a new week...we sure hope you'll be along for the ride with us, each night...starting tonight with NBC Nightly News.
By Ian Williams, NBC News correspondent
TASMANIA, Australia-Will Howard used to think the biggest threat to the World's oceans came from the things you could see - like the detritus clogging so many of our estuaries and coastal regions. Now the researcher at the Antarctic Climate & Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre at the University of Tasmania has found new evidence of how invisible changes in the chemistry of the water pose a disturbing new threat to life in the oceans.
"The impact has already begun," he told me. "It's not a matter for laboratory experiments. It's happening now."
As they absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, the world's oceans are becoming more acidic, and Howard has discovered the first direct field evidence of the impact on marine life - tell-tale changes in tiny sea snails the size of a grain of sand, which are struggling to make their shells.
"These organisms are the base of the marine food web, and what happens to them reverberates throughout the eco-system - right up to whales and penguins," says Howard.
It was the raw beauty of this remote corner of Australia that drew Howard here from his native New York fourteen years ago. He came on a short-term research project and never left. I met him in his Hobart laboratory, where researchers weighed the shells of sea snails collected from deep beneath the southern ocean, which separates Australia from Antarctica. The weight had fallen by half in a decade.
"The fact that we are seeing it now, that it's already happening, came as a bit of a surprise to us," he says. "If these organisms are seeing the impact, the rest of the system can't be far behind."
VIDEO: Oceans offer warning on climate change
Photo by Ian Williams
Dr. Will Howard of Australia's Antarctic Climate and
Ecosystems Co-operative Research Centre
Because the oceans naturally absorb carbon, they've been seen as a buffer against climate change. Around half the carbon dioxide pumped into the atmosphere is absorbed by the oceans, and scientists say acidity levels have risen 30 percent in the last 100 years. The impact has been faster in the cold waters of the southern ocean, which is why it is such a good laboratory, and why Tasmania-based scientists have been at the forefront of this emerging research. They believe the oceans' natural processes are now being overwhelmed.
"We're just pumping carbon into the ocean at too rapid a pace for the system to adjust itself and offset this problem," says Bronte Tilbrook, who heads an acidification project a the Australian government's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) in Hobart.
Shell-making is one the processes by which carbon is absorbed and then transferred to the depths of the ocean, and if this is inhibited, so ultimately might be the oceans ability to buffer against climate change.
"So if they're not making shells, it means the mechanism that transfers carbon from atmosphere to the ocean depths is also altered," Howard says.
What's more difficult to predict is just how quickly the rest of the eco-system might be affected by the changes. Ron Thresher, another New Yorker now based at the CSIRO in Hobart, thinks we will soon have a clearer picture thanks to ground-breaking research on recently discovered reefs near the Antarctic shelf.
In January, an unmanned submarine, the Jason, was able to collect the first coral samples from highly acidic water up to ten thousands of feet beneath the ocean.
"Look, you can see the effects of acidification," he said, handing me a small piece of coral, which started to disintegrate like a piece of chalk as I rubbed it. "See how fragile it is. It's flaking away."
The submarine collected live coral from a depth of around four thousand feet; below which the coral began to die off. Thresher calls this the "saturation point", the point at which the acidity is so high that the reef can no longer live. That point is moving higher as more and more carbon goes into the ocean. Coral reefs are vital marine habitats - nurseries for thousands of fish.
"As these things die off, all the associated things that live with them can't survive either," Thresher told me as we stood in front of a large cupboard stacked with coral.
It's early still, but he now believes his coral samples will yield more precise information than ever before about the pace and impact of acidification on marine eco-systems.
"It will enable us to predict the ultimate fate of these things," he says. The information will also hopefully help them devise strategies for mitigating the effects.
Before we left Australia, we visited Sydney, where we wanted to catch up with a young PhD student at the University of Western Sydney. Laura Parker was suddenly thrust into the scientific limelight when she discovered abnormalities in the shells subjected to rising levels of acidity in the laboratory.
"It was a bit scary," she told me. "Because oysters are bioindicators, so anything that happens to them might happen to other organisms in the environment."
Rock oysters are also big business in Australia - worth US $30 million a year in New South Wales alone, and Parker's findings not only re-enforced the Hobart research, but is a reminder - a wake-up call to the more hard-headed - that there also the serious economic issues at stake.
The Hobart research has led to an extraordinary meeting of Australia's leading marine scientists - and a call for more and urgent global research.
When Howard isn't pouring over his microscope in his lab near Hobart's spectacular harbor, he often found sailing along the coast, where the abundance of life--from birds to penguins and dolphins--is a reminder to him of why he settled here, but also of just how much is at stake.
He and Thresher believe they've found the ocean equivalent of the "canary in the coal mine," an early warning of what is fast emerging as the biggest threat to our oceans.
by Lester Holt, NBC News anchor
We’ll be marking some grim anniversaries this week. It was 14 years ago today that Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols murdered 168 people in the bombing of the Oklahoma City Federal Building. Tomorrow marks ten years since the shooting rampage at Columbine High School in which 12 students and a teacher were killed before the 2 student attackers took their own lives.
It is perfectly understandable that survivors of such horrors would want to put as much distance as they can between themselves and reminders of those nightmarish experiences. Yet that is not the case for five former Columbine students I recently had the privilege of meeting. Each was there on the day of the shooting, and now they are back as teachers at the school. Their memories of that day are chillingly vivid. But unlike ours, their memories of Columbine are not solely defined by what happened on a single day in 1999. They have far more memories of the good days; the same sort of things that many of us cherish when we look back at our high school days. Those are the memories, they say, that brought them back.
Tonight on Nightly News you'll meet these remarkable young adults and hear their stories, and how their experience has shaped the kinds of teachers they are today.
I hope you can join us tonight.
By Roger O'Neil, NBC News correspondent
Anniversaries of tragic events like Columbine are never easy. Perhaps I've covered too many of them in my 30 years with NBC. Perhaps I am just too old to rekindle memories of shootings and bombings and plane crashes. Like the event itself, we in the "media" are invading the privacy of those who suffered and lost the most--and yet, having said that, ignoring an anniversary would also be wrong.
The story I will do for the Nightly News on Monday will not be about what was lost. That has been well chronicled, and going over it again serves no useful purpose in my view. Instead, when asked to do this anniversary story, I decided along with my producer Sylvie Haller to find some of the students (now adults) who are establishing careers to see how they are doing. While there are no surveys we're aware of detailing how the students who were at the school on April 20th are doing, two were found with inspiring stories of survival and moving on. Survival not in the sense of injuries sustained, but learning to cope with friends slain, making sense of it, and choosing careers, which will leave a lasting legacy of columbine.
One is a filmmaker who this week will release a film he wrote and directed. Andrew Robinson's "April Showers" is an independent production focusing on how difficult it was for several students like him to come to grips with the shootings. The message, Andrew says, is not about those who lost their lives--that can't be undone--but rather those who lived through the tragedy and the help or lack of help they received in the days and weeks and months after when the news media went home and life for most returned to "normal." That, Andrew believes, is a lesson not learned or understood very well, even to this day.
Another student we will focus on is Crystal Woodman Miller. She was in the library when the shooting started, and she spent the longest seven and a half minutes of her life under a table as the two shooters killed all they could. There were 10 killed in the library, and several were friends of Crystal. Like Andrew, Crystal's career was in part guided by that day. She is now a motivational speaker who has taken her story to at least 25 states and seven or eight foreign countries. I had the opportunity the other day to listen to one of her talks, and the most amazing thing happened. A group of 100 or so teens had gathered, and, teens being what they are, there was a lot of chatter, and their adult instructor was having trouble calming them down. When Crystal spoke, however, the room fell silent, and for 20 minutes you could hear a pin drop. The teens were riveted to Crystal’s story, which, yes, was about April 20th, but more importantly, it was about finding a path to guide your life on and committing yourself to it.
Both Andrew and Crystal will be in Colorado for the anniversary. Most high school students tend to go their separate ways after graduation, but for Columbine grads, there is a bond which, as the years go by and the news media finds another story to cover, will continue to unite them and, I suspect, keep them in touch with each other. But not about what was lost. Crystal says April 20th was really a beginning. And that is that story I am happy to cover.
by Lester Holt, NBC News anchor
Whenever a journalist is jailed in the line of duty, it sends a chill among those of us who do this for a living. The threat of arrest is something many reporters working overseas face. It is often used as a form of intimidation meant to block access to the truth.
By the end of 2008, the Committee to Protect Journalists reported 125 reporters were imprisoned around the world. One of the newest names on that list is Roxana Saberi, an American-born reporter who also holds Iranian citizenship. She has been sentenced to 8 years in prison by an Iranian court that convicted her of espionage. Saberi was arrested earlier this year after her press credentials expired.
You may have seen her work in the past on Fox and BBC. The evidence against her is unknown because the trial was closed, which makes this case all the more curious. The sentence has sparked expressions of outrage from the White House and press freedom organizations. Tom Aspell is reporting the Roxana Saberi story for us on the broadcast tonight.
We'll likely lead off, however, with that hand shake seen around the world between President Obama and American critic, President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. The encounter was brief, and seemed to catch Mr. Obama off guard, but it has touched off larger conversations about whether it signals a potential thaw between the two nations. Our Chief White House correspondent Chuck Todd is covering the president at the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad, and will have a lot more to tell us about the matter.
I hope you will join us this evening for the Saturday edition of NBC Nightly News.
By Brian Williams, Anchor and managing editor
How about the State Department web site briefly listing "Texas" as a foreign country? How about our favorite headline, anywhere, thanks to the folks at PC magazine today: "OPRAH HITS TWITTER, EARTH CONTINUES TO SPIN." Here's how it works: if I was on Twitter, I would have told all my followers that I was about to write that. Right now I'd be Twittering that I was writing about Twitter on my blog.
In other news, who says Washington people aren't fun? There's new evidence we're up to our necks in czars and finally: Peggy Noonan on what we're about to look like.
That was exhausting. Especially reading it all first. Off to do the newscast...please join us tonight, please have a good weekend while pausing each evening to watch my friend Lester...and we'll see you back here on Monday.
By Brian Williams, Anchor and managing editor
I'm a football fan. It turns out I'm better at watching it on TV than I was as outside linebacker or offensive end. When he was in the game, John Madden was known as a "player's coach." When he was talking us through a game, he was a "fan's announcer." I understand his reasoning. At 73, he wants to spend time on the important stuff. He was married the year I was born, and is now finally ready to spend concentrated amounts of time with his wife and family and grandchildren. His famous bus, a consequence of terrible claustrophobia and the inability to fly, will stay with him and point the way into retirement. There are already kind remembrances in print today but the best tribute to the great, big man will be how much we miss him...when the big game comes on and his face and voice aren't there.
Feel free to send us your favorite Madden memories--and please keep sending us your stories of the good deeds being done for others in this bad economy.
We hope you can join us for tonight's broadcast.
By Brian Williams, Anchor and managing editor
An Op-Ed in the Wall Street Journal may come closest to describing the backdrop for today's tax-related goings-on around the country, while on Politico, Arizona State has fully rolled over and admitted they screwed up royally in their handling of the Honorary Degree for the President of the United States. I'll put it this way: I'm a college dropout and I have about 8 or 9 honorary degrees -- I'm looking at three of them in my office, from Tulane, Ohio State and Villanova, for starters.
And finally, the reason every player in the major leagues is wearing a "42" on their uniforms, regardless of their individual number. This is Jackie Robinson Day – the 62nd anniversary of the great man's first day in the Majors. Because the changes in language are fascinating and tell us a lot about ourselves and our society, I thought it was useful to print the following – the words of sportswriter Arthur Daley from the New York Times, April 16th of 1947. For the context of the time, remember: Harry Truman is President, World War II is over, and the post-war American machine is starting to hum – societal change was coming quickly, and note how he wrote:
THE ROBINSON DEBUT
The muscular Negro minds his own business and shrewdly makes no effort to push himself. He speaks quietly and intelligently when spoken to and already has made a strong impression. "I was nervous in the first play of my first game at Ebbets Field," he said with his ready grin, "but nothing has bothered me since." A veteran Dodger said of him, "Having Jackie on the team is still a little strange, just like anything else that's new. We just don't know how to act with him. But he'll be accepted in time. You can be sure of that. Other sports have had Negroes. Why not baseball? I'm for him, if he can win games. That's the only test I ask." And that seems to be the general opinion.
We hope you can join us for tonight's broadcast.
By Brian Williams, Anchor and managing editor
This story, brought to my attention by Garrett Haake of our staff, struck quite a chord when I read it after the broadcast last night. If you've read the book "The Lone Survivor," this story will have special resonance... but I'm pretty sure it will resonate just the same. It's sad, poignant and disturbing.
The video clip getting the most forwards and circulation these days comes from one of the many talent-search shows out there, this one in the U.K. We will reference it on the air tonight, and ask people to watch it on our web site. It requires no advance explanation or set-up, and it left a few people in tears in our newsroom today.
We'll have the news of the day--the economy, the pirates, some of your e-mails, and yes...the DOG...when we see you tonight. We sure hope you can join us.
By Brian Williams, Anchor and managing editor
A spokeswoman for Congressman Donald Payne (D-NJ) might have misspoken on live cable earlier this morning when she raised the possibility that "a mortar landed on his plane," while he was taking off from Mogadishu, Somalia this morning. Not only does landing a mortar on a plane carry with it a high degree of difficulty, the Congressman made it clear late today: he took off from Somalia unaware that there had been any shelling at or near the airport. Crisis averted.
My favorite on-air "tease" of this past weekend came when an anchor on a newscast Sunday night said to viewers, as an enticement to get them to continue watching through the commercial break, "Still to come, the much-anticipated arrival of the First Puppy! Has (sic) the media made too much of this story?" Nice try.
I also enjoyed the New York Times story this morning about the new journalism trend of, in effect, having reporters...attend LOCAL events...and report on them.
'On the upside, for Alt/Indy music fans, a new favorite song: "The House She Lived In", by the Veils. The superb lead singer is the young scion of a rock-and-roll family -- and while the group has been struggling, the music, lyrics and the soulful and lingering vocals on this particular outing form a beautiful piece of work. Except for a little reverb on one verse, it’s a pretty simple production. Louder is better. That's generally a good rule of thumb.
Except where Nightly News is concerned. We are preparing a full package of coverage on the pirate episode in the Gulf of Aden. As you may know, I'm lucky to hang out with current and former U.S. Navy SEALs on occasion (for those wishing to know more, "The Warrior Elite" by Dick Couch is the single best work I've ever read on the training they go through), and they are thoroughly impressive Americans. Wearing the Navy SEAL Trident on your chest means you have survived perhaps the most grueling military training on the planet. They are called upon to carry out military miracles often, and they've done it again. We'll round out the broadcast tonight with a great Making A Difference report.
We're back for a new week and we hope you can join us.
by Lester Holt, NBC News anchor
We came on the air much earlier than we had planned, with a special report just after 1:30 ET; just minutes after Jim Miklaszewski confirmed that the Navy had successfully rescued kidnapped American sea captain Richard Phillips from his Somali captors.
The reaction – from Captain Phillips' family, to the shipping company he works for – has been flooding in ever since. The newsroom briefly fell silent at one point as all eyes turned to the monitors and the stirring scene of Captain Phillips’ crew celebrating his freedom. They cheered and waved an American flag from the deck of the Maersk Alabama, which is now safely docked in Mombasa, Kenya. Mik, who recently traveled on a U.S. Navy patrol in the region, is learning details of how the operation unfolded, and will lay it out for us in a full report on Nightly News tonight. We're also in Kenya with reaction from Phillip's jubilant crew, and in his hometown in Vermont where there are also celebrations going on.
I hope you'll join us for our Sunday evening broadcast of NBC Nightly News.
by Lester Holt, NBC News anchor
The word "pirates" conjures up all kinds of images in my mind – admittedly from countless movies and books – but none that fits the breed of kidnappers and extortionists terrorizing mariners in the waters off the East African coast. This is organized crime, which by some estimates has netted kidnappers and their syndicates up to $80,000,000 last year alone.
We learned this afternoon that the thugs who are bobbing along in a lifeboat with the captain of the Maersk Alabama have fired on a Navy vessel, and drifted within 20 miles of the Somali coast. These developments raise the stakes in the standoff, and increase the pressure to secure Captain Richard Phillip's release before his captors can hide him ashore.
Tonight on Nightly News, Keith Miller will report from Mombasa, Kenya, where the Maersk Alabama safely reached port today minus its skipper. Meantime, Jim Miklaszewski continues to break new developments in the story, and will join me with the latest details of what's transpiring at sea.
I hope you will join us then. Thanks for checking in. I'll see you on TV.
By Brian Williams, Anchor and managing editor
Our friends at WSMV-TV in Nashville, one of the finest local television stations in the country, are having a tough day. I've been watching their live, streaming coverage in my office all afternoon as tornados roared through their area. Their coverage has been nothing short of excellent. I should add something here: All of our colleagues in Nashville are working through great pain and sadness. Just a few days ago, longtime anchorman Dan Miller died suddenly of a heart attack at the age of 67. Dan was a giant – the dominant, driving force on the air in Nashville for as long as I can remember. He was synonymous with our NBC Station. We spoke via satellite not long ago and had met several times. He was a local institution, he loved the news business and he loved breaking news coverage. So perhaps it is the vivid memory of Dan – and honoring Dan's memory – that is driving our friends today at WSMV in Nashville, where nature has again taken a terrible toll.
We hope you can join us for our Friday night broadcast – have a good and safe holiday weekend (Lester Holt will be here with you both nights) and I'll see you on Monday.
By Brian Williams, Anchor and managing editor
I don't usually wade into these waters, but two pieces of video making the rounds on the web are unusually interesting for vastly different reasons. The first one has to do with a celebrity interview -- shocking for the behavior on display. Of note here isn't the fact that a celebrity is behaving badly, but the restraint and class on the part of the Canadian radio and TV host conducting the interview.
On the other side of the coin is our friend Keith Olbermann's poignant remembrance of his mother, who died last weekend. Several of our colleagues attended the memorial service north of the city this afternoon, and Keith took some time a few nights back to give his mom a proper tribute. As I say: notable for entirely different reasons.
Right now we're following a fire in an apartment building a few blocks from here (the two of us in the newsroom who listen to the fire scanner). We're doing further reporting on the pirate standoff off Somalia, and have an extraordinary and uplifting Making A Difference report to bring you tonight. We hope you can join us.
By Brian Williams, Anchor and managing editor
We've noted here today that the Maersk Alabama has been taken down from the usual GPS-based ship-tracking software we've used in the past. We just spoke to Jim Miklaszewski at the Pentagon who warns us its a "fluid" situation -- that may be putting it lightly -- but what a yarn.
I took some time today to go over some of the emails sent to the blog -- thanks to those of you who sent congratulations and kind words, and thanks to my young fellow music fan out there. Along those same lines, we have a great Making A Difference report tonight.
We will also be remembering a Medal of Honor Recipient who passed away this week. Allow me to synopsize the story of Russell Dunham, in addition to linking to the complete story. Battle of the Bulge, France, 1945: despite being shot in the back, he took out four machine gun nests and killed 9 Germans. He was captured, and when the Germans found his cigarettes, they fought over them. They didn't find the pistol in a shoulder holster, which he used to kill his captor. He escaped, froze his feet and ears, and was awarded the Medal of Honor in the field in 1945. What a great American. His death leaves us with 97 living Recipients. Our condolences to the Dunham family.
We hope you can join us for tonight's broadcast.
By Kelly O'Donnell, NBC News Capitol Hill correspondent
With all the power plays and big time personalities, it's easy to miss that Capitol Hill can be a place where real people's lives can change.
A new program is small but ambitious and aimed at helping battle-scarred young veterans find a way back to an unexpected civilian life.
We met Iraq and Afghanistan vets who sacrificed a great deal during their service. They suffered life-altering injuries and medical problems while at war. Now at home, they struggled to find jobs in what is already a tough economy for everyone.
The vets explained to me that they had a hard time translating their military experience into the skills that would attract employers. Some said they even felt a kind of stigma and suspected some employers hesitated to consider hiring an amputee.
CONTINUED >>
By Robert Bazell, NBC News chief science correspondent
Since most of us want to lose weight, there is an enormous audience for books, articles and broadcasts about anything to do with diet and fat. So it can be hard to know when something comes along that is actually a new and important piece of information.
Three new reports published in the New England Journal of Medicine about the discovery of “brown fat” in adult humans are indeed significant.
Will it lead to new methods of weight loss? It will take years of study to answer that question and the odds are, the answer will be no. Anytime scientists try to manipulate metabolism, it can have unforeseen consequences, and until big, careful studies in people show that a drug that affects "brown fat" is safe and effective, we have to be cautious.
Nevertheless, the research is fascinating. What is brown fat? As opposed to the white fat that makes bellies big as it stores extra calories, brown fat actually burns calories and make the body warmer. Scientists have long known that human babies and many animals have brown fat. Because babies have a much smaller surface area than adults, they need more mechanisms to control their body temperature. So they keep some brown fat and burn it if they start to get cold.
Doctors had always assumed that adults had no brown fat because it doesn't show up during autopsies. But the relatively new technology of PET scanning shows there are traces. PET scans combine a CT X-ray scan with the measurement of every organism's metabolism after an injection of radioactive glucose. PET scans are usually used to determine how much cancer has spread in the body. But a re-analysis of PET scans has shown that adults maintain at least a tiny amount of brown fat.
At the same time, research with mice has revealed a drug that can make the animal store extra calories as brown fat instead of white fat. Studies in people are just beginning. They could end up working. But don’t stop exercising or start eating more in anticipation of the results.
By Brian Williams, Anchor and managing editor
So we switch today from music to sports -- and history and society. Two pieces I came across today -- one about a trend and the other about a giant.
If you were watching the morning shows, then you saw today's surprise development: the President paid a visit to Baghdad. Because this is sand storm season, the closing weather forced him to stay on the ground (Camp Victory is on the grounds of the airport), where he spoke to hundreds of military personnel at a place our travelling team knows well: the Al Faw palace, built by Sadaam and now occupied by the U.S. military. On one of our last visits there, I had dinner with General Petraeus in his office in the palace. It's not uncommon for visiting journalists (who plan to do short-term embeds with soldiers) to stay in cinder-block "guest houses" along the man-made lake on the property -- the whole complex originally built as a "conference center" for the Baath party under Saddam.
A confession: I marked the territory when I was there last...with a Dale Earnhardt "3" sticker that I had in my bag. As far as I know, it's still there, on the outside wall of one of the structures on the bank of the lake. I figured it's about time the Iraqis knew about the greatest driver in NASCAR history.
Photo by Subrata De
Back to the news: We have the president's side trip, the violent aftershocks in Italy, a great profile of swimmer Dara Torres, and a great moment in Boston today. We hope you can join us tonight.
By Brian Williams, Anchor and managing editor
My thanks to Ann Curry for allowing me to travel back from London and rid myself of much of the jet lag from our week's trip. Back in New York today, where the following got my attention:
Correction of the day
This is a verbatim quote from today's New York Times corrections: "The Basics column on Tuesday about using quantitative reasoning to find an approximate answer to complex problems, misstated the number of utilities in a game of Monopoly. It is two, not four." Brilliant. Bravo.
New music of the day
While overwrought music writing always sounds like overwrought wine reviews, ("a hint of plum and accents of oak, with a woody finish...") the song "Kingdom of Rust" by the Doves is interesting for the influences that you can hear on just one listen: the Moody Blues, The Edge, the E-Street Band (keyboard and glockenspiel, for starters) not to mention the Chris Martin-esque vocals. In the mellow category, another nice new one is "Everything Is Moving So Fast" by the Great Lakes Swimmers...their song "Palmistry" is also good. And longtime Leonard Cohen fans and followers may be surprised at the banter and humor on his new live recording. I was. Especially strong are "The Future" and "Tower of Song." And it’s been a while, so it deserves another mention: the great song "Dirty Dishes" by the Rhode Island bar band called Deer Tick. I've received a few emails from fellow fans...I notice they are getting a bit more traction. The new single by the 17-year-old Australian phenom Gabriella Cilmi "Sweet About Me" is hooky and great, and for something heavier, try "To Lose My Life" by White Lies...a couple of Brits who sound a lot like Interpol. And that's today in music.
Back to our day jobs: tragedy in Italy, three awful shootings in three days here in the U.S. The President continues overseas, and we'll end the broadcast with a Making A Difference report tonight. We're glad to be back at home base, and we hope you'll join us.
by Lester Holt, NBC News anchor
If U.S. intelligence is correct, North Korea has upped the ante in its quest to become a nuclear player. American experts believe the long-range missile fired overnight – which North Korea argues was delivering a satellite into space – was really a test of a way to launch nuclear warheads.
If that's the case, then that launch can also be viewed as an early test of President Obama on a critical national security matter. It's not lost on anyone that the missile was sent aloft at the very moment Mr. Obama was in Europe establishing himself on an international stage. On Nightly news tonight, we’ll share what we know about the launch, as well as North Korea's possible intentions. Chuck Todd is with the president in Europe, and will tell us about his reaction during a previously scheduled address on nuclear arms control. Andrea Mitchell will join us to talk about what happens next on the diplomatic front.
Among the stories of those who died in Friday's shooting rampage in Binghamton, New York, one that stands out is of a woman who recently arrived in this country from Iraq. She survived a car bomb attack in her former home, only to lose her life in an equally mindless attack in a small American city. Ron Allen continues his reporting from Binghamton tonight with more on the shared dream that brought many of those victims together on that fateful day.
Thanks for checking in. I hope you will tune in later for the Sunday edition of NBC Nightly News.
by Lester Holt, NBC News anchor
Years ago, when I was just starting out as a reporter at a California radio station, an editor rejected a piece of my news copy about a local crime. He instructed me to write it again, and take out the phrase "senseless murder." As he handed it back to me he simply said, "Have you ever heard a murder that made sense?"
That question came to mind today as I was about to describe yesterday’s "senseless" massacre in Binghamton, New York. We all want to know why the shooter did what he did, but in the end, I wondered if any explanation would make sense.
No answer can satisfy why 13 innocent people had to die at his hand. We have, however, learned a great deal about the shooter's state of mind, as well as his advance planning, and we will share all of that on Nightly News this evening, along with a closer look at the victims.
We're also covering another tragedy that defies explanation: The murder of three Pittsburgh police officers today. This attack comes just a few weeks after four officers were gunned down in Oakland, California. Today's violence raises troubling questions about whether the job may be becoming more dangerous, and we will explore some of those questions tonight.
Also on the program, we’ll explore the one anti-smoking approach that may finally be forcing smokers to kick the habit. Plus we’ll have a rare glimpse at a dolphin whose unusual coloring may make you think you're seeing things.
Please join us, if you can, for the Saturday edition of NBC Nightly News.
By Ann Curry, NBC News anchor
Before the Nightly meeting, Executive Producer Bob Epstein just accused me of being like the guy in the Li'l Abner cartoons, who walks around with a dark cloud over his head.
He says when I fill in for Brian, the chance of news breaking seems to go up.
That is not really a compliment, given the tragedy of today's breaking news, big enough for a NBC News special report. As many as 13 were killed in shooting at an immigrant center in upstate New York. No motive yet, but NBC's Ron Allen is working on finding one. The White house is expected to make a statement about it.
Then there is the news about just how many people in America the government says are out of work. It's up to 8.5 percent the highest since 1983, and means 663,000 more people have lost their jobs. Two of them are members of my own family, but then is there a family in America that is still immune?
We will also address North Korea's missile launch..and Obama-mania in France, but the story I can't wait to see will reveal photos hidden from public view for decades, of the scene of Martin Luther King's last moments of life. The photographer got intimate access to that infamous hotel room in Memphis, and shows us even MLK's open briefcase, and tells us why the pictures are only now being made public.
He knew the world had changed in those moments he pressed the shutter. Boy has it.
By Janet Shamlian, NBC News correspondent
It was an impulse buy. A few minutes too many at Reagan National, and I drifted into the airport equivalent of a mini-mart. Determined to resist the call of Reese's, I opted for Runner's World magazine instead. It's there I read about the young woman you'll meet in tonight's Making a Difference report.
It started as a small gesture between strangers. A simple wave. The guys at the shelter were curious about the petite blond who ran past each day before dawn. This was one of those so-called transitional neighborhoods. She was tiny and alone and they worried about her. In the days to follow they would call out warnings, 'be careful' and 'stay safe.' She'd smile and nod and continue on.
CONTINUED >>
By Brian Williams, Anchor and managing editor
Marine One just departed the "Red Bull Landing Zone" adjacent to the ExCel Centre and flew just past us, taking President Obama back to the U.S. Ambassador's Residence, built ages ago with money from the Woolworth retailing fortune. All agreed he looked tired at his news conference, and he has every right to be. It was a classy gesture to offer his condolences to our friend Chip Reid, who just lost his father.
Forgetting for the moment we are a short distance from a gathering of close to two dozen world leaders, I'm writing this from a hotel workspace built on top of land that had to be rebuilt some 60 years ago. This location, near the docks on the River Thames, was pulverized by German bombers during World War II. You can trace the war damage through London based on the age of the architecture. New neighborhoods, by and large, were built up after the war out of necessity. For those of us who are slightly twisted aficionados of such things, the web is full of locations in London where war damage is still plainly visible—we drove past one location this afternoon, where pockmarks scar the base of a statue along the river. And just a few hundred yards from us here, a vessel with a solemn history in this country: When the vessel Havengore brought the body of Winston Churchill up the River Thames, the cranes working along these docks bowed their gangly frames in tribute as he passed by. What a City for those who love history. What a City, period.
We hope you'll join us one last time from London tonight.
By Brian Williams, Anchor and managing editor
As a kid, I simply had no reason to think I would ever see London...or, for that matter, any of the other extraordinary places I've been able to travel during an adult life spent in the news business. It was a rare, sunny and breezy and generally extraordinary April day here -- this morning, awaiting a live report on Today, I stood with Keith Miller outside Buckingham Palace (and old friends Bill Plante and Chip Reid who were manning CBS's camera position adjacent to ours) and took in the scene along with several visiting American tourists. The big local news story (which on our sister network ITN knocked the Summit out of its lead story position) is the helicopter crash in the North Sea. Since my niece's husband does the same thing (piloting a chopper all day from the mainland to an oil platform to ferry the workers) in Louisiana, I've been especially interested. What's going unspoken in much of the coverage is: the North Sea is a tough place to try to survive for too long. Local news in general here is fascinating to watch this week. The Obamas have put in a marathon day -- and I'm guessing the highlight must have been the private time with the Queen and Prince Phillip. Someone on the web tonight (an American) asks an interesting if not irreverent question: why does the Queen carry a handbag at a reception in her own home?
We will join you again tonight from our NBC News London Bureau...and we hope to see you then.
Apr. 1: Brian Williams, reporting on the G20 summit in London, talks about the gorgeous weather, protests, and the pressure on G20 leaders. WATCH THE VIDEO BLOG
