Still 2007

By Lester Holt, NBC News anchor

Good day from New York. Brian is off again tonight and I'll be anchoring Nightly News.

We're at the time of the year when those lists of the year's biggest news stories are about to be published. Chances are some of them had been compiled and written prior to yesterday. Thursday's assassination of Benazir Bhutto, like the Tsunami in late December of 2004, reminds us that the "slow" holiday news periods are often anything but.

Yesterday's events are likely to spill over into one of the major stories of 2008 as the Pervez Musharraf government, and the American role in facilitating Bhutto's return to Pakistan, are cast in a critical spotlight. Tonight NBC's Andrea Mitchell will continue her reporting on how all this affects future American influence in Pakistan, and by extension the hunt for Al qaeda leaders.

On the day Bhutto was laid to rest a remarkable piece of video has emerged that appears to show the gunman taking aim just seconds before he fired. Ned Colt is in Pakistan covering the funeral, the violent reaction, and a new and very different account of how Benazir Bhutto died.

On the campaign trail in this country, where candidates were quick to weigh in on the events in Pakistan, some comments by former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee connecting the killing to the immigration issue here at home is drawing some sharp criticism. NBC's Lee Cowan will have a lot more on that.

Ann Curry will be back on tonight with a Dateline investigation into the ease of getting a bogus passport to cross just about any border. 

I hope you'll join us for the Friday edition of NBC Nightly News.