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.
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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.
By Brian Williams, Anchor and managing editor
As we often try to do around here, we hosted a noted energy expert today for an informal lunch and editorial board meeting. Daniel Yergin came by, and was very generous with his time and opinions. He was quoted over the weekend in a New York Times piece on the current situation in Nigeria, and testified before Congress just days ago. He's a veteran of the energy wars -- and by temperament and experience he remains optimistic that technology will emerge to help us with our problems (he is quick to point out it will take more than technology alone). That is a gross oversimplification of the long and nuanced presentation he gave (answers to our non-stop questions), but as experts go in this vital field, he has seen it all, over two generations of American life -- from the gas lines of the mid-1970's... to the gas lines I saw while driving the family on the Jersey Turnpike this weekend.
The New York Times and the New Yorker magazine have both contributed to the renewal of the discussion of the war in Afghanistan. I feel as if our trip there was timed well to coincide with an increase in attention to that conflict, where we just learned that the number of coalition troops who died exceeded the U.S. death toll in Iraq for the second straight month. Our focus aired last week, in the story we hand-carried back from the field and , on the whereabouts of Osama Bin Laden, is also proving timely. A lot of people have asked about the trip, and how I found the Americans in the fight. I found morale to be high -- highly-motivated soldiers who believe in the mission and the people (and history) of Afghanistan. I heard many open complaints about resources -- specifically, not having enough because of the drain that Iraq represents.
We're working on what we think is a very solid Monday night broadcast -- for a number of factors, a lot of our stories have to do with the environment tonight. We hope you can join us.
By Michelle Kosinski, NBC News correspondent
A few weeks ago, on a flight over the Pacific, I was surprised to be handed a menu-- with a gleaming photo of a lionfish on the cover. It wasn't actually ON the menu that night, but it reminded us that the formidable fish with the mane of poisonous spines and a seemingly boundless appetite of its own, is actually a food item on the other side of the world, and decidedly NOT an environmental menace.
Over here in the Atlantic, not so much.
Scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, among other entities studying the issue, have made lionfish Priority One, in the battle against invasive species. A rapid response plan is being crafted, to deal with them in our waters.
Avid divers, who know the reefs off Florida and the Bahamas, tell the story: A few years ago, they were somewhat awed to suddenly see the gorgeous specimen show up outside the Pacific. A fluke, they thought... maybe someone had released one from an aquarium, once they realized it would devour all the other pet fish in short order. Irresponsible to release them, but no real harm done-- they thought.
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By Lester Holt, NBC News achnor
Coming off a week that saw oil top $140, and the Dow sliding towards bear market territory, our colleagues at CNBC are releasing a poll this evening that shows, among other things, an overwhelming majority of Americans think the economy is in fair or poor shape. There are also new indications of the brewing economic trouble; high gas prices and real estate woes are now beginning to take a toll on the wealthy. We'll have more findings from that poll on Nightly News tonight as we try to explain all the forces eating at the economy, and why turning the corner toward recovery seems so difficult.
On a related note, the price of crude oil is affecting drivers in more ways than just the cost of gasoline. Savannah Guthrie is working on a piece for tonight about why we all may be facing more uneven and bumpy road surfaces as we drive this summer.
Michael Okwu continues his reporting on the Northern California fires, and the growing threat they pose to public health. Air pollution levels are high and it is having a profound effect on how many Californians are going about their lives.
We will also be looking at the science of speed and the controversy over the swim suits American athletes may be competing in at the summer Olympics. Some say they provide an unfair advantage, and NBC's Leanne Gregg will explain why.
I hope you'll join us for NBC Nightly News.
Editor's note: For a look inside the new planetarium, watch the video below.
By Denise Baker and Ron Mott, NBC News
I was the kid who missed all the class trips to the Adler Planetarium in my hometown of Chicago, so I learned alot of things while producing this story. I learned that planetarium domes don't open up and present a magnified view of the sky. (Yes, I now know, that's an observatory.) I also learned that it's extremely relaxing to recline in the dark and watch images of galaxies digitally projected with music tracks in stereo surround sound. But the most important lesson I will take away from this story is that dreams don't have to bow to limitations.
Despite her visual challenges, Kris McCall chased her dreams and now shares them with thousands of others. She credits her mother who fought to keep her in mainstream classrooms, and her 14-year-old daughter Kira Celeste, who keeps her grounded. I came up with the title "Star Lady" for this segment before we traveled to Nashville to tape the story. After meeting Kris McCall, I can say she is that and so much more.
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By Lester Holt, NBC News anchor
The elements have stolen the headlines more times than I can count these past two months. From an especially active tornado season, to massive flooding in the Midwest, to drought and wildfires in the west, and we’re only a week into summer. That's certainly a sobering thought in California where true to all the predictions, this has been an early and awful fire season. The Big Sur area, a popular weekend getaway with its art galleries and trendy inns, is under siege from a fire that has shutdown the famous Highway 1, and destroyed 16 homes. There have been at least a thousand wildfires reported this past week from the central California coast all the way to the northern tip of California. We're talking over 400 square miles that have been charred. NBC's Michael Okwu is reporting that story for us tonight.
Much farther east, nature has won another round against man in the flood battle along the Mississippi River. We'll tell you about one town's valiant effort to save their community, and how it came to an end just before dawn today.
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