The Daily Nightly

Images from Myanmar

Sam Singal — Fri, 09 May 2008 20:19:00 GMT

By Ann Curry, NBC News anchor

Tonight we will see more dramatic images from Myanmar's delta region, hardest hit by last weekend's cyclone, our report from one of the few journalists able to get close.

The images are haunting. Showing the dead, and the survivors, their suffering is palpable. But even they do not even begin to tell the horror of what happened.

The government of Myanmar, which tells us 100,000 people were killed or injured, and that one and a half million are homeless, today is still preventing foreign aid from coming in.

We hear food and supplies from the UN are still in warehouses, as the government, which denied aid workers visas, doesn't have the infrastructure to get the help to the suffering.

People need food and shelter, and are expected to start getting sick and many are orphans.

How long can the world sit and watch, allowing it's hands to be tied?

If Myanmar's government can prevent the world from seeing images like those we are going to show you tonight, the world could well forget.

Making a Difference in education

Sam Singal — Fri, 09 May 2008 20:10:00 GMT

By Trudy Hall, Headmaster of the Emma Willard School

Editors Note: Shelby Davis, featured in Rehema Ellis' segment tonight, began his investment crusade by providing scholarships for international boarding schools and American universities. In tonight's piece, we did not have time to share Mr. Davis' newest venture, an effort to diversify American boarding schools. Each participating school has been asked to design their own program to recruit the most promising need-based students representing new dimensions of international diversity.

Upon graduation, this new branch of Davis International Scholars will be eligible for continued scholarship support if they are accepted into a participating college.

Pilot programs will begin at 5 select boarding schools this fall: Emma Willard, Phillips Academy, Lawrenceville, Taft, and Westminster.

Trudy Hall, head of Emma Willard, reflects on her goals for the unique program.

Making a difference. Altogether a good thing. I think we might agree, however, that the Davis idea of making a difference through scholarships is to do so on a grand scale; indeed, a global scale. It is an incredible notion really: the way to make a global difference just might be through one relationship at a time. The Davis family in their remarkably visionary way is betting on this concept in new ways even as the NBC story airs. They are pushing the needle of cross-cultural influence ever deeper into the core of American culture through a fascinating partnership with five American high schools.

Emma Willard School in Troy, New York has the good fortune to be one of those partners. For nearly two hundred years, amazing girls from around the world have come together to create an educational community, and as they have done so, their lives are transformed in remarkable ways. “Empower a girl. Transform the world,” we are fond of saying. And the Davis family is holding us accountable as they extend their visionary philanthropy to include the secondary school experience.

We want nothing less than for our students to thrive and to lead in this global environment, so we must jostle them out of their cultural comfort zones. Each girl, no matter what country she calls home, needs to understand that she cannot know the challenges she will face, she will not possess all the answers, and the only way she can create a meaningful life is to become interdependent. She will need to share, across cultures with people who are very different from her, the questions, the knowledge, the energy, the character, and the commitment she brings to making the world better.

I have become intrigued with how to get this done right. If we were to “go global,” how could we guarantee transformational cross-cultural experiences? What role does technology play in such a dynamic environment? Intellectual rigor must continue to be at the heart of such an undertaking, and there must be agreement on core competencies. Yet beyond these essentials, imagine what the future holds. I am.

Fortunately, Emma Willard has a head start. Already our students hail from 20 countries. The recently announced Davis Scholars program allows us to provide scholarships to talented and motivated girls from around the world, thereby strengthening the diversity of our student body even further. But what is the best way to promote lasting global awareness? And how can we leverage such opportunities so that those around the world with whom our girls connect will benefit and then some?

I want to take the Emma Willard experience global. I am committed to making cross-cultural awareness an essential element of every girl’s experience here so that her mind opens and her passion to be a global citizen is powerful. We cannot do this alone. We need ideas, information, conversation, partnerships, and resources. If this blog inspires you to respond, offer a suggestion, or enter the dialogue about what it means to “go global,” I am ready to hear your thoughts. In fact, I’m eager to gather as many ideas as possible. Help us make a difference, won’t you?

Corresponding from Myanmar

Sam Singal — Fri, 09 May 2008 14:36:00 GMT

By Subrata De, NBC Nightly News senior producer

You might remember the e-mails I posted back in September from a friend who lives in Myanmar's capital Yangon (Rangoon). He'd been describing the monk uprising against the military rulers there. Well, he's now living in the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis. He's ok and finally getting messages out. We'll maintain his anonymity once again, given the retaliatory nature of this regime. Here are excerpts from his recent e-mails:

"It's Tuesday evening, 4 full days since the world of Yangon was turned upside down by Cyclone Nargis. We had known for several days that a big cyclone was in the Bay of Bengal, gathering strength for a run at Burma, but it didn't seem like an imminent danger. On Friday, some parents took their kids home early, but it didn't even rain that afternoon. We had heard stories that landfall would come around 6 pm on Friday evening, but at that hour all seemed quite normal. I laughed it off as an overreaction, and went to bed confident that at worst we would get a thorough soaking with rain.

I woke up on Saturday morning around 5:15 to the sound of banging windows. Our windows are poorly made, and are neither wind- nor rain-proof, while their latches tend to work themselves loose. We got up, closed the offending windows and looked out at some pretty intense winds that were lashing our street from the SW. Not a drop of rain was falling, and it all still seemed pretty innocuous. At 6:30 the wind died down for a while and we ventured outside to take pictures of fallen trees and bits of roofing that were coming loose from nearby houses. A quarter of an hour later, the winds reversed 180 degrees and picked up in intensity; allegedly they were over 100 knots. They didn't seem that bad, but our windows continued to pop open. After a while, I tied one offending window shut, and was rewarded by the sliding French door beneath it popping right through its rail and out against our outside grate. We pulled it free and laid it inside. It was an example of how low the pressure gets in the eye of a cyclonic storm, blowing windows and doors outwards rather than inwards...

On Saturday afternoon I set off by bicycle...I was amazed at the destruction I saw everywhere along my bike route, with every tall tree in the city seeming to be on the ground, and innumerable roofs missing. Already, though, people were chopping up fallen trees to clear roads, and running to the hardware shops for corrugated metal sheets and nails.

Over the past three days the extent of the damage has revealed itself gradually...

[An employee's] house disintegrated in the wind and she was hurled through the air by the wind. A huge storm surge came up the river and swamped her neighbourhood, sweeping many people away to their deaths. Many of our employees lost either roofs or entire houses.

Only yesterday, though, when we started to hear from friends and acquaintances, and to listen to the BBC World Service, did we realize how widespread the destruction was. To the SW of Yangon, two entire towns essentially ceased to exist, with a 3.5-metre storm surge just washing 90% of the houses away...

The big problems now are a complete lack of power, water and fuel. The phones came back today, but there is no city power, and diesel fuel (all imported) is in short supply to run generators, as the port facilities have been badly damaged by the storm. Many water lines have been broken by the roots of fallen trees, and many areas have no water at all. I have seen people digging under fallen trees to tap into water mains below. In the crowded downtown core, almost everyone on the streets is carrying a water bucket to or from a makeshift standpipe. With no power and no water, it's tough to live in this extreme heat and humidity. The big worries now are sanitation, housing for the hundreds of thousands of homeless, and a lack of basic supplies as the factories for things like compressed natural gas and bottled water aren't running (since they have no power, nor any fuel to run generators).

... The prices of basic foodstuffs and fuel have at least doubled, leaving many poor people unable to afford food or transport. The lack of CNG means few buses running, and those that are running are charging 6 times the usual rate; taxis have doubled their fares. Even roofing materials are running out. I don't know how long it will take for the basic infrastructure to recover; so many power lines are on the ground that restoring power is going to take forever. People can't live long without water, so that is going to be a real flashpoint.

... Already there are worries about looting and unrest. Amazingly, the government is going to go ahead with their shambolic referendum on Saturday (although not in the worst-affected areas), and we're starting to see openly hostile anti-government posters going up. I think that this cyclone is the last straw, as the government has failed utterly to do anything constructive before, during or after the storm. I'd love to see the people make the most of the horror and at least get angry enough to throw the military out."

His e-mail today:

"Hello Everyone:

Sorry about the mass e-mail, but internet access is limited... There's still no power in the city, although water and fuel shortages are getting better. THanks for the innumerable messages of concern and support. I wish that the Burmese people could enjoy the outpouring of support from around the world, but they won't be allowed to. The government here deserves to hang for what they have done over the past week."

Springsteen and Obama

Sam Singal — Thu, 08 May 2008 21:16:00 GMT

By Brian Williams, Anchor and managing editor

I got off the air last night, sped through the Lincoln Tunnel and soon entered the familiar confines of home -- the Jersey Shore, and a benefit concert by Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band at the Count Basie theater in Red Bank, NJ. Bruce and his wife Patti granted me one of the great honors of my lifetime when I took to the stage on my home turf to introduce the band. As a fan of over 30 years, who spent countless Friday and Saturday nights chasing rumors of impromptu E Street concerts up and down the Jersey Shore -- it was an emotional event. Followed by a history-making concert: Bruce performed, in order, the songs from Darkness on the Edge of Town and Born To Run. It's never been done, and won't be done again. It was heaven. Those of us who were present for it knew it at the time -- there were shared looks of amazement among complete strangers last night. In all our years together -- we'd never seen or heard anything like it.

I'm typing this on my Blackberry in a car en route from LaGuardia, having flown to Washington to interview Senator Obama. We'll have a large portion of it on the broadcast tonight; it will also air in its entirety tonight on MSNBC and on the web.

Time is short. We're late, and I don't like getting a late start on writing for the broadcast. So that's all for now -- I hope you can join us for the finished product tonight. Oh -- I almost forgot -- thanks to Bruce and Patti.

History lesson

Barbara Raab — Wed, 07 May 2008 20:46:00 GMT

By Brian Williams, Anchor and managing editor

Watching Evan Bayh warm up the crowd last night before Hillary Clinton's speech, I could not help but think of the spiderweb of relationship that fuses our modern politics to the generation before it.

Consider this, a story many people have forgotten: Senator Bayh's father, Senator Birch Bayh, was on board a twin-engine plane when it crashed in an orchard in Westfield, Massachusetts. It was June of 1964. Senator Bayh and his fellow passenger, Senator Edward Kennedy, had just cast affirmative votes for the Civil Rights Act, and were en route to make a joint appearance at the Massachusetts Democratic Party convention. The crash killed Ted Kennedy's pilot, Ed Zimny, and a Senate aide, Ed Moss. After Senator Bayh pulled his own wife from the wreckage, he returned to rescue his friend Ted Kennedy. The Massachusetts Senator had a "negligable" pulse when he emerged from the wreckage. He came near death that night, and it must be said he would have died were it not for Birch Bayh's efforts.

Fast forward to present day: Bayh is in the Senate, filling his father's seat from Indiana. Ted Kennedy is still there, and the mere sight of him still stops crowds of visitors cold, when he ambles around the corner in the Capitol, walking with evident discomfort and a distinct forward tilt at the waist -- all a result of the injuries (a broken back among them) he suffered that night.

Kennedy is backing Obama, and Bayh ran the Indiana effort for Hillary Clinton.

Candidates are still rushing off to events (though NetJets have largely replaced twin-engine props as the conveyance of choice) and accidents still happen. But the sight of a Senator named Bayh at the podium in Indianapolis last night started me to thinking about bloodlines and politics and accidents.

Tonight we'll offer the best and freshest analysis of what happened last night.

Please know: reporting from Myanmar is proving exceptionally difficult. Those few journalists openly working there have had to protect their own identities and locations. We are having the same trouble getting in that the U.N. and U.S. are having -- and countless other aid agencies. I will never forget flying into Banda Aceh on a charter jet after the tsunami. Our pilot had to offer to bribe the guy in the control tower with hard currency before we were offered a landing slot. It wasn't because of volume -- there were very few arrivals at that time -- it was because of corruption, which doesn't take a holiday after a disaster.

We sure hope you can join us for tonight's broadcast.

Fallen but not forgotten: Staff Sgt. Jason Brown

Daily Nightly Contributor — Wed, 07 May 2008 18:57:00 GMT

By John Rutherford, Producer, NBC News, Washington

There's not a lot of information available on Army Staff Sgt. Jason L. Brown, a 29-year-old Green Beret killed April 17 in Iraq.

He was from Magnolia, Texas, north of Houston, and he graduated from Sam Houston State University with a degree in criminal justice. He enlisted in 2003 and was just two weeks from completing his second tour in Iraq when he died.

He was killed by small arms fire while entering a building in Sama Village in search of an Al Qaeda leader. He is survived by a daughter, Alyssa Gomez of Cypress, Texas, and his parents, Rosemary and James Brown of Cartwright, Okla.

His mother and father were too distraught to talk to reporters after his death, but you can practically trace his life through the tributes friends wrote in the online Guest Book:

"I remember like it was yesterday the fun we had growing up together - playing slip n slide on the side of your house ... and going to the state fair with our dads (I rode the rides with my dad, you always rode by yourself - even then you were strong and courageous)."

"It feels like it was just yesterday that Dad was coaching yall in pee-wee football. All the cheerleaders just went crazy over you!!!"

"I still have not paid for my roommate's door you kicked down so you could crash in his bed my freshman year at SFA! :)"

"You always found a way to brighten my day (Vitamin 'J')."

"You were the type of person who knew how to have fun and live life to its fullest. My heart goes out to your mom and dad and especially little peewee."

A funeral was held for Brown on April 26 at the First Baptist Church in Durant, Okla. He was buried last week in a private ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery, the 420th casualty of the Iraq War to be buried at Arlington.

Click here to view tributes to the 186 service members killed this year in Iraq and Afghanistan, including the following 20 casualties from last week:

1. Army Sgt. Jerry DeLoach, 45, of Jonesboro, Ga.

2. Marine Sgt. Merlin German, 22, of Manhattan, N.Y.

3. Army Pfc. William Dix, 32, of South Hill, Va.

4. Army Pfc. Adam Marion, 26, of Mount Airy, N.C.

5. Army Sgt. Marcus Mathes, 26, of Zephyrhills, Fla.

6. Army Sgt. Mark Stone, 22, of Buchanan Dam, Texas.

7. Army Spc. David McCormick, 26, of Bay City, Texas.

8. Air Force Senior Airman Jonathan Yelner, 24, of Lafayette, Calif.

9. Army Sgt. 1st Class David McDowell, 30, of Ramona, Calif.

10. Army Staff Sgt. Clay Craig, 22, of Mesquite, Texas.

11. Army Staff Sgt. Bryan Bolander, 26, of Hemet, Calif.

12. Army Spc. Jeffrey Nichols, 21, of Granite Shoals, Texas.

13. Army Cpt. Andrew Pearson, 32, of Billings, Mont.

14. Army Spc. Ronald Tucker, 21, of Fountain, Colo.

15. Army Staff Sgt. Chad Caldwell, 24, of Spokane, Wash.

16. Army Sgt. 1st Class Lawrence Ezell, 30, of Portland, Texas.

17. Army Pvt. Corey Hicks, 22, of Glendale, Ariz.

18. Marine Sgt. Glen Martinez, 31, of Monte Vista, Colo.

19. Marine Lance Cpl. Casey Casanova, 22, of McComb, Miss.

20. Marine Lance Cpl. James Kimple, 21, of Amanda, Ohio.

Washington Producer John Rutherford is a decorated Vietnam veteran. He also posts stories on the military at www.fieldnotes.msnbc.com (click on "John Rutherford" under "categories") and at http://john-rutherford.newsvine.com/. The tribute gallery can be found at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22802019/.

Here we go again

Barbara Raab — Tue, 06 May 2008 20:25:00 GMT

By Brian Williams, Anchor and managing editor

Chuck Todd, our Political Director, has it about right about tonight: the ground game, while not over, takes on much less importance after tonight, because the number of undeclared superdelegates will exceed the number of available "regular" delegates in the remaining primary states.

Tonight could be a game-changer, and it could be the 6th inning in a long ballgame. We get our first indication at about 5:30 Eastern time, when Sheldon Gawiser briefs us on his read of "first wave" exit polling results (which he puts through his algorithym pro-rating blender) and about which we are sworn to secrecy. It can "educate" but not otherwise affect our coverage in the Nightly News feeds prior to the poll closings. Tonight might go fast. We will be here nonetheless, making sure each time zone gets a new, live and updated feed. Tonight's speeches will be fascinating, depending on the outcome. The morning shows have already booked a "roadblock" -- both Democrats, in separate interviews, on all three broadcast networks. It feels like the height of primary season. I guess, in a way, it is.

I want to thank the great folks, my friends (sitting about 50 yards from me) at MSNBC for helping me put on a great hour earlier today. We did it seat-of-the-pants style; I hadn't written a word, no teleprompter, and just the most basic format -- the best kind of television news there is. The only problem is: while it's huge amounts of fun for the anchor (and, we hope, the guests) it's hell on a control room, where they always need to plan 2 or 3 moves in advance. But they keep having me back...

We've now swung over to work on Nightly News and begin the writing (they insist on it here) for tonight. We have a great broadcast planned, no matter your time zone, and we hope you can join us. Off to work.

The mind body connection

Sam Singal — Mon, 05 May 2008 22:31:00 GMT

By Robert Bazell, NBC News chief science correspondent

When we were planning this week’s series “the Mind Body Connection,” Alex Wallace the executive producer of Nightly News asked me what was new with the alternative medicine movement, which has been in full swing for more than a decade.

The answer is that a handful of billionaires have brought alternative medicine into many the nation’s major medical centers, long the bastion of opposition. The new approach is called “complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM) or integrative medicine. Tonight we profile the program at Duke where meditation, massage, biofeedback, and acupuncture among other alternative approaches are offered along with conventional medicine.

John Mack, the CEO of Morgan Stanley gave the money to set up the Duke facility. His wife Christy, the daughter of a physician, has long been a proponent of integrating alternative and mainstream medicine.

Other donors have set up similar programs at Harvard and the hospitals of the University of California in San Francisco and Irvine. The goal of these programs is to establish a model for medicine of the future focusing on wellness instead of disease.

The challenge they face is that alternative medicine includes not just meditation, massage, biofeedback, and acupuncture but herbs and supplements, extensive enemas, magnets, leeches, chelation, and a list that goes on almost endlessly. Clearly some of these treatments are harmless at worst and sometimes beneficial, while some can be horribly dangerous. As I have written many practitioners of alternative medicine either see no need for their claims to be tested with scientific studies or simply ignore results if they don't like they way come out. They often see regular medicine as a conspiracy aligned against them.

The Loving case

Barbara Raab — Mon, 05 May 2008 20:20:00 GMT

By Brian Williams, Anchor and managing editor

First-year law students everywhere, along with students of contemporary American history, know it as "The Loving Case" -- shorthand for the landmark 1967 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Loving vs. Virginia. The court ruled unanimously, in an opinion written by Chief Justice Earl Warren, that laws forbidding interracial marriage (in this case, a law in the Commonwealth of Virginia) violated the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.

Mildred Loving (formerly Mildred Jeter) was a black woman who fell in love with a white man. They married in Washington, D.C. in 1958, when she was 18. It was upon their eventual move to Virginia that their union was legally challenged. Her husband died in a car accident (in which Mildred was also injured) back in 1975.

Mildred Loving shunned the spotlight for her entire adult life, often saying she never set out to be famous, only to fight for her right to marry the man she loved. Her case was brought to the attention of the U.S. Department of Justice (under Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy), who referred it to the A.C.L.U. The Supreme Court ruling voided similar laws in at least 16 other States. The Lovings had three children and several grandchildren.

Mildred Loving died today in Milford, Virginia. She was 68 years old. Her name will live on, like Linda Brown and Jane Roe before her -- the surnames in American jurisprudential history that now stand for the cases that changed the course of our nation.

On the broadcast tonight, we'll preview tomorrow's presidential primaries. A word about our coverage tomorrow night, for those of you who see the first feed of Nightly News at 6:30 Eastern time: while the polls will not be closed in all of Indiana (80 of the 92 counties will be closed -- but polls in Gary and Evansville will still be open), we will be able to report the raw vote tallies from the rest of Indiana as early as 6:30 ET. That is because the State of Indiana puts the numbers out -- posts them on the web. I didn't want anyone to think we were violating any agreement, principle or policy when those numbers pop up on the screen tomorrow night... the state itself will be reporting the early (albeit incomplete) raw vote.

Also tonight: why some passenger jets are flying more slowly today than they did in 1959 -- and a fascinating health news story.

I hope you all had a good weekend -- we hope you can join us for tonight's broadcast.

Pitched battles

Ian Sager — Sun, 04 May 2008 19:59:00 GMT

By Lester Holt, NBC News Anchor

Today we witnessed what is probably the closest thing to a debate before Tuesday's Democratic primaries in Indiana and North Carolina. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton appeared on rival Sunday morning news programs, and while each appeared alone, if you had placed two televisions side by side, you might have felt like you were in fact listening to a debate. Obama sat for a full hour on "Meet the Press," taking Clinton to task on her comments about "obliterating" Iran, calling it "the language of George Bush." He also continued to ridicule Clinton's proposed gas tax holiday. Clinton, appearing on another news program, pointedly responded to Obama's criticism, defending both positions and calling economists who oppose her gas tax plan "elitists." Our Lee Cowan and Ron Allen continue their reporting from both camps tonight, as the candidates press for an advantage in the final two days before the primaries.

Many people are still talking about the joy and sorrow that marked the ending to yesterday's Kentucky Derby. I watched the drama unfold from our Nightly News set as we were preparing to do our east coast feed last night. What a shock it was for all of us, as the victory celebration for Big Brown turned into a tragedy, as second-place finisher Eight Bells was euthanized after breaking two ankles. It was a brutal reminder of how fragile these equine athletes are. The tragedy raises a lot of question about what these animals are put through. Chris Jansing will address many of the questions in a report she is preparing for tonight's broadcast.

Two of our veteran war correspondents will be reporting from the front lines of different wars. Richard Engel called into the newsroom from Baghdad this afternoon, after returning from Sadr City where he and the U.S. forces he was covering were under fire for 5 hours. Richard says they were attacked with everything from Rocket propelled grenades to Molotov cocktails. He is filing a report about the harrowing ordeal for tonight. Meanwhile NBC's Jim Maceda, who last week was under fire in Afghanistan, remains with U.S. Marines who have taken up the hunt for Taliban fighters. Tonight he will introduce us to some troops who don't get a lot of glory, but take some extraordinary risks to keep their fellow Marines on the move.

Mike Taibbi will be on the program tonight with a reality check of sorts about those GPS navigation systems that so many of us won't hit the road without. The risk is, that we may be depending on them to a fault. Mike will have more on that. Thanks for checking in. I hope you'll turn on your TV later for the Sunday edition of NBC Nightly News.