by Lester Holt

Greetings from New York. We'll be taking a close look at food safety on tonight's edition of Nightly News. This weekend, in the face of an E. coli scare that has already sickened more than a dozen people, Topps Meat expanded its recall of frozen hamburger patties to include over 21 million pounds of ground beef. Like many of you, we wondered - is it our imaginations - or have there been more food recalls lately? NBC's Dawn Fratangelo puts it all in perspective for us tonight.

Ian Williams continues his reporting on the crisis on Myanmar. He'll report on a very tense calm in the former capital of Yangon, enforced by government troops with all sides waiting for the next shoe to drop.
 
Pete Williams previews the big cases before the U.S. Supreme Court as it prepares to begin its fall term. On a related note, Pete last night brought us the story of Justice Clarence Thomas's soon to be released autobiography in which he breaks his silence on the sexual harassment allegations that nearly derailed his confirmation to the court. In the book he describes his accuser, Anita Hill, as "a left-winger, a mediocre employee, and someone who was touchy and apt to over react."  I sat down with Anita Hill a few weeks ago, and tonight we will air that interview which includes her thoughts on Justice Thomas and the Senate hearings 16 years ago that changed both of their lives.

John Yang takes a look at the changing profile of spouses on the Presidential campaign trail.  He'll include Bill Clinton's comments on "Meet the Press" this morning on what his role would be should his wife be elected President.

Those stories, plus the latest trend in travel called 'couchsurfing,' and California's shrinking Gray Whales.

Thanks for checking-in. We'll look for you tonight on Nightly News.

by Lester Holt

Good afternoon from New York. General David Petraeus, who emerged relatively unscathed from the political battles in Washington over war policy, is back on a more familiar battlefield. In an NBC News television exclusive, our Richard Engel will report tonight on his tour of a Baghdad neighborhood with the General, who underscoring his testimony to Congress, showed Richard what he says are concrete signs the security situation is improving.

From Afghanistan we will report on President Hamid Karzai's offer to the Taliban amid continuing violence there.

From Asia, NBC's Ian Williams is reporting calm on the streets of Yangon, Myanmar after days of clashes between government troops and protesters. He'll also report on government efforts there to quash Internet and phone communications regarding the situation.

In politics, we will report why former Speaker of the House of Representatives Newt Gingrich will not run for the Republican nomination for President.

Tonight we will also preview Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas's soon to be released memoir in which he break his silence about the sexual harassment allegation that almost derailed his confirmation to the court.  We will also hear some of what Thomas's accuser Anita Hill told me in a recent interview.

Plus, we wrap-up our series "Thirsty Planet" with a look at how Israel has successfully harnessed sea water as a source of clean drinking water.

Thank you for clicking on to see what we're up to. I hope you can join us tonight for NBC Nightly News.

By Rehema Ellis, NBC News correspondent

He raps, he dances, and he goes headfirst down the two-story tubular slide in the school's atrium. He's not a student; he's Ron Clark, co-founder, head master, and math teacher of the new non-profit, private middle school in Atlanta that bears his name. We profile him tonight on NBC Nightly News because he's a teacher who's making a difference in kids' lives-- most of whom are African-American, some of them with troubled backgrounds.

The thing that I found so wonderful about this new school is not just that Clark has a high-energy, even wacky approach to education but that he's brought together so many like-minded people to help him realize his goal.  There are the generous donors whose support is critical to keep this non-profit enterprise going.  And, of course there are the teachers. With their help Clark is restructuring the educational model so that it's more in tune with what's happening in today's world.

I'm not just talking about the high-tech hardware that graces this school and gives it a twenty-first century look.  I'm talking about the approach to education that, quite frankly, is kind of old fashioned.  There is a balance of manners, respect, and discipline.  This is all because the school has a very rigorous curriculum that the students have to master. And as Clark says, there's not time to spare.

His right-hand partner in this venture is co-founder, and language arts teacher, Kim Beardon.  Like Clark she is also an award-winning teacher.  Beardon says their students will achieve high marks in the classroom because time isn't wasted on discipline issues.  "They (the students) are behaving, they are listening, they are paying attention".  Mix into this equation talented, smart, creative, and entertaining teachers who the kids say, make it all worthwhile and fun.  The result is learning of the highest caliber.

Another thing about Clark Academy -- that I've found to be true at other top notch alternative schools I've visited -- there really is a sense of family.  It's not just a cliché. The kids feel it.  There's a genuine notion that everyone in the school cares about each and every one of the students.  And these kids have found out that when someone cares about you, believes in you, and come hell-or -high water, refuses to let you fail, you don't fail.

Student after student said things like, "I love my teachers.  They're strict but it's worth it". Another student said,  "The work is hard but, I know I can do it".  And with tears running down her checks an eleven-year old said, because of Clark Academy,  " I'm gonna grow up and be somebody".

In just the few short weeks this new school has been open in Atlanta, kids aren't just imaging a future anymore, they're charting a road map to get there.

Find out more about Ron Clark Academy.

By Ann Curry, NBC News anchor

Until President Bush spoke about it Tuesday before the United Nations General Assembly, most Americans did not know the depth of human rights abuses there.  Though in less than four days, the struggle of these people in what some still refer to as Burma, has rocketed to the front pages of our newspapers, and evening newscasts, thanks to images sent out through the internet.

They show peaceful people, including Buddhist monks being chased, beaten and shot in a government crackdown.

The tragedy of Myanmar is not new, but these images, captured and sent at great risk, have brought it home.  Much the same way as the images of the civil rights movement in America's south outraged the rest of the country.  What we are now seeing in Myanmar violates our fundamental belief in that all humans deserve fairness and dignity.
 
Now tonight comes word the government is cutting off the internet, to stop the world from seeing what is happening.

On our Nightly News broadcast, where I am sitting in for Brian, you may be seeing some of the last images sent out through the internet.

Look at them.  And hope that even if there is no way found for the images to get out, news organizations will find a way to report what seems an assault on decency.

By John Rutherford, NBC News producer, Washington

How much strain have extended troop deployments put on American soldiers in Iraq? I asked several Purple Heart recipients at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and received a mix of opinions.

"You get a little too familiar with your surroundings, and 15 months to be over there is a long time for a person, and I wish they could come home sooner," Sgt. Jeffrey Wray, 29, of Chesapeake, Va., said. Wray was wounded by a roadside bomb in Tikrit.

Pfc. William Goodman, 23, of Concord, N.C., took a "grit and bear it" attitude to Army deployments being extended from 12 months to 15 months. (Marine deployments remain at seven months.)

"Everybody knows they have to do what they have to do, so you just have to tough it out," he said. "You gotta do your job, that's all." Goodman was injured in an ambush while on patrol in Baghdad.

First Lt. Juan Guerrero, 36, of Miami, who was wounded by a roadside bomb south of Baghdad, felt the soldiers' families have had the toughest time with the longer tours.

"The families, because of the length of the deployment, the extended length, they tend to pay a higher price," Guerrero said.

Army Secretary Pete Geren acknowledged the problem but passed the buck to his field commanders.

"We moved from 12-month deployments to 15-month deployments," he told the House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday, "to meet combatant commanders' needs in the field."

Geren made no mention of President Bush, whose decision to order a troop surge triggered the extended deployments in the first place.

Do you have an opinion? If so, we'd like to hear it. Send us your comments.

Video: Army 1st Lt. Juan Guerrero, accompanied by his 9-year-old son, Mark, speaks after being awarded a Purple Heart today at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

Washington Producer John Rutherford is a decorated Vietnam veteran. He posts a weekly tribute to service members killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Editor's note: It's our third week of a new feature on this blog. Every weekday, you can check out our First Person "Photo of the Day"  --  breaking news pictures and photography submitted by you.

Wendi Weidner provides this photo for the Autumn In America gallery.:

"Moulton Farmstand, Gilford, N.H."

Click here to see more Photo of the Day features. 
Click FirstPerson.MSNBC.com to submit an entry.

Tell us what you think, on comments, below.

Every weekday for 110 straight days we will feature a different living recipient of the Medal of Honor. These are the men who have received their nation's highest military honor. Brian is a board member of the Congressional Medal of Honor Foundation. The words and photos are courtesy of Artisan Books, publishers of Medal of Honor: Portraits of Valor Beyond the Call of Duty by Peter Collier with photographs by Nick Del Calzo.

James L. Stone
First Lieutenant, U.S. Army Company E, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division

On November 21, 1951, Lieutenant James Stone, a month away from his twenty-ninth birthday, was trying to keep warm in a desolate hilltop outpost above the

By Subrata De, NBC News senior producer

I continue to receive regular updates from my friend in Yangon (Rangoon). He still wishes to remain anonymous on this blog. This e-mail came in late last night. With the government shutting down public access to the internet, it'll probably be the last note we see for a while.

"People are sheltering monks in their houses, at great personal risk.  The monks are taking off their robes and leaving the monasteries to avoid being arrested.  Several people in our neighbourhood sheltered monks last night.  A lot of monasteries are empty and shuttered at the moment.  There is going to be another big monks' march today.  People are really, really angry, and I think that they're determined to stare down the soldiers. "

And this from one of his friends who heard there has been some resistance from the military:

"Good news! No.33 Army force refuse to shoot the people officially. So, Government ordered to No.33 Army for move out from Mandalay but they are not following the order. We need to pray for our people and real Myanmar Soldiers."

By Adrienne Mong, NBC News Producer

One of the great gentlemanly travel writers of a bygone era, Norman Lewis, once observed that "the lives of the people of the Far East are lived in public….  The street is the extension of the house and there is no sharp dividing line between the two."

Here in the Mekong Delta in Vietnam, the street is the river.

And the people's lives are played out on the muddy waters of the world's ninth longest river system.

One afternoon, off the River Can Tho, everywhere we looked there was human activity.  An elderly man with a caved-in chest was washing his neck.  A woman swung in a hammock hooked up inside a boat cabin.  Teenage girls, fresh from a meal at a nearby hawker stall, rinsed their feet and hands in the water.  A young man squatting on a makeshift dock was sorting eggs.  Thin long boats cruised the canals, more than a few of them sporting a potted green shrub and the day's washing.  On some, dogs or cats lounged in the shade - one even sported a rooster pecking around the deck.

Further along the river, the pace stepped up.  A lone fisherman gathered his net from the water, the skeleton of a new bridge (one of two in the immediate area) looming over him.  We chanced upon a crane unloading loose rock and gravel from a barge onto a construction site by the riverbank.  Not far, on another barge, four men sifted slowly through a pile of wood logs a dozen feet tall. 

THE RIVER IS THE ROAD

Seeing all the cargo shuttled about, we begin to appreciate that here the rivers are roads.

Puttering along the water, narrow long boats and cargo ships criss-cross the Mekong's tributaries and canals all day long -- ferrying people and goods.  Lots of goods. 

In Ben Tre province, we were transfixed by the sight of four men in a longboat tossing coconuts several feet UP to fellow workmen standing on a huge freighter.  On a second ship moored not more than a few hundred feet away, groups of men stacked large bales of straw on top of one another.

At the early morning floating market -- a defining feature of Vietnam's Delta region -- we filmed tradesmen plying regular and potential customers with lychees, pineapples, coconuts, limes, in fact, all manner of tropical fruits from boats bursting with locally-grown produce.

Later, as the light fell, and the sky behind us erupted into a mixture of pink and orange, the riverbank was dotted with the day's last bit of activity.  We smelled - rather than saw - cooking.  Even at the widest point of one canal, fried garlic and baked bread (no joke; to the western palate, the Vietnamese baguette ranks among the finest bread in Asia) wafted out to our longboat zipping down the middle of the water. 

Men of all ages - shirtless and gaunt -- washed their torsos with river water.  Strips of fluorescent lighting dotted the landscape before us as families gathered for a meal.  Teenagers took a last dip as the rain began to come down. 

It was hard not to summon Norman Lewis once again.  Although his description below from A Dragon Apparent comes from Saigon in the 1950s, it seems befitting of the Mekong Delta in the 2000s:

"Here it was the diversity of occupation that was so remarkable.  There must have been many hundreds of people in sight, all busily living their own lives and most of them independently of the actions of others in their immediate neighbourhood."

view photos from along the journey

By Brian Williams, anchor and managing editor

We gathered today at West Point for a farewell to Gen. Wayne Downing, with full military honors.  Posted below is what I wrote following Wayne's death. Today we gave our friend a fitting military tribute, accompanied by some great and heroic warriors.  Following his burial, after the sound of 17 cannon rounds were fired out over the Hudson River Valley, the stillness of the gravesite was broken only by the sound of a passing train -- on the very same tracks that carried Wayne Downing here for the first time on June 6th, 1958.

We hope you can join us for our broadcast tonight, from the grounds of the U. S. Military Academy.

The following is Brian's blog entry about his friend Wayne Downing from July 19, 2007

There's a long list of people who say they are alive today thanks to retired U.S. Army four-star General Wayne A. Downing, and my name's on it.

When his mighty heart stopped beating early Wednesday morning, America lost a warrior, a patriot and a public servant. I lost a traveling companion, teacher, protector and friend.

Word of his death unleashed a torrent of emotion from the ranks of the normally stoic community of warriors. Within minutes, postings to our blog started coming in, from members of the military and civilians alike, from men who had served with him and people who had never met him. To read them is to be inspired, truly, by the power and sway one individual can have over American life. Hour after hour, our electronic gathering place has become the guest book for those who feel the need to talk about a man of so many facets: a diminutive giant, gregarious yet discreet, a soldier who taught us so much about humanity. It's not so much a testament to the power of the Internet as it is to the power of a life in service to this country.

The biographical points of Wayne's life are these: he was the son of a soldier in World War Two. His father lost his life in one of the last engagements of the war in Europe. Wayne's mother depended upon government survivor benefits to raise the fatherless five-year-old boy in Peoria, Illinois. After graduating from West Point in 1962, Wayne served two tours of duty in Vietnam. His dozen or so combat decorations included a couple of Silver Stars, a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart, though we should quickly add that had all of his combat wounds been written up, he would have returned from the war with a chest full of purple. Recounting the time he was wounded by a Viet Cong soldier while filling his canteen with water for a Viet Cong prisoner, he once told me, "What war movies never get right is how angry you get when you get shot. It hurts. I went and got the guy." And the prisoner got his water.

From there, his career becomes a blur of passing years, advancing rank and multiple stars. It was capped off by his last title: Commander in Chief of U.S. Special Operations. The guys we used to call the Green Berets, the Seals, Delta Force -- if it operated under the radar, off the books or in the dark of night, Wayne ran it, at one point commanding over 30,000 U.S. personnel in uniform. It was Wayne Downing who accepted Noriega's surrender in Panama in 1990. It was Wayne Downing who was chosen by General Schwarzkopf to find and destroy the Iraqi scud missiles that were terrorizing Israel during the first Gulf War. Schwarzkopf famously emphasized that it was an assignment to be carried out not by Wayne personally, but by the spooky, stealthy and secretive men under Wayne's command. He threatened to demote Downing if he followed his men over the border into Iraq on the mission to destroy the missiles. He evidently knew Wayne very well.

Of all things, it was one of Mohamed Aidid's mortar shells in Mogadishu that came closest to ending Wayne's life. While it was a close call, it was almost impossible to shake him, and just as difficult to impress him. He retired after four stars and 34 years. At the time, everyone knew "retirement" was a euphemism.

They were right. Within weeks after 9-11, President Bush brought him back into Government service as Deputy Director of the National Security Council -- better known as White House Anti-Terrorism Czar. The title and responsibility spoke volumes about his experience and ability. That he never talked about why he left that job spoke volumes about his discretion.

In later years, Wayne slipped back and forth between the worlds of the private and public sectors with the ease of a Special Ops veteran. He would disappear from our lives for weeks at a time, and we would smile and say, "Wayne's gone to the dark side." He consulted for various companies, and that's where NBC News entered the picture, and Wayne entered our lives.

Wayne and I lived as part of the huge NBC News contingent in Kuwait City for weeks prior to the start of the Iraq War in 2003. His job was to provide expertise, intelligence and contacts. He put all three to work when the first bombs were dropped, and the first cruise missiles passed over our heads on the way to their targets deep inside Iraq.

If I told the story of how Wayne got us into Iraq during the start of combat operations, he'd come back from the dead to kill me. On one particular occasion, he talked me into going on a "day trip" with an Army Reserve Unit -- a flotilla of four twin-rotor Chinook helicopters on a mission we couldn't discuss. Each chopper carried a heavy section of a military bridge, flying slowly and at only 100 feet above the desert terrain. We were headed to the Euphrates River. It was the bridge that, once assembled, would carry the Third Infantry Division north to Baghdad.

Looking back at that day, I now like to say we encountered the first insurgents of the war. Wayne peered out of a plexiglass bubble window on board the chopper and was watching the terrain below as we flew. He said over the intercom system that it didn't "look good" to him on the ground. I now know what he meant: no U.S. forces had yet been where we were. This was un-patrolled territory. Not long after Wayne's warning, some men on the ground fired an RPG through the tail rotor of the chopper flying in front of ours. There was small arms fire. A chopper pilot took a bullet through the earlobe. All four choppers dropped their heavy loads and landed quickly and hard on the desert floor. Wayne never said aloud (to the young and relatively inexperienced crew) what we all knew to be true: he was the senior officer, by a long shot, retirement or not. He very soon took de facto control of our situation -- and when an American mechanized platoon came upon us, Wayne helped the young commander, a Captain and fellow West Pointer, set up a perimeter around those four big green birds, which at the time felt more like sitting ducks. Within hours an epic sandstorm later nicknamed "Orange Crush" moved in from the West with a gritty vengeance. We needed help and we needed fuel, and it quickly became apparent we weren't going anywhere for a while. The soldiers protecting us spotted two Iraqis approaching with an RPG on that first night, and killed them. Those days in the desert amounted to my first exposure to U.S. troops in this war. It was also my first exposure to Wayne Downing. I lived to tell the tale, and came away indebted, impressed and in awe.

He was the master of understatement (see "day trip" above) and the most resourceful man I ever met. He could build a Blackhawk helicopter from an Altoids box and a rubber band. The truth is, during those days inside our inert, sand-blasted Chinook, he was blissfully happy. The situation made him an infantryman again. He would wake up in the morning, empty two packets of instant coffee into a dirty half-liter bottle of water, shake vigorously and drink as if he was at Starbucks in the States. He enjoyed every MRE he ate (and often negotiated side deals with unsuspecting soldiers on my behalf, to help me acquire my favorite plastic pouch meal, spaghetti and meatballs) and every day in the desert. By night, we sat together on the helicopter ramp and watched the missile launches and bursts of light in the distance. We later learned we were watching the initial bombardment of Najaf, to our north. It was the Fourth of July for Wayne Downing.

When we arrived in Baghdad two days after the statue fell (another journey Wayne "facilitated"), we were just hours from Nightly News airtime. Working in the dark on the vast tarmac at the airport, surrounded by the noise and flashes of the war being fought around us, Wayne was in awe of NBC News producer Justin Balding as he hot-wired a portable satellite dish and made contact with New York. We established a television signal, but there was still the matter of lights. We crouched alongside an Army truck, and when I was introduced on the air by Tom Brokaw, my face appeared on the screen, illuminated by the headband flashlight worn by Wayne Downing. My co-workers in the New York control room remember me saying in the seconds before airtime, "Hit me with the sweet spot, General." It always struck me as a good title of a potential book someday. Wayne approached his task with military precision and gusto. We slept, in those days, on floors and in bunks and on rope seats in helicopters. We were a ripe bunch, in dirty surroundings while going days between showers...what gentlemen refer to as "close quarters."

During our trips to Iraq since that first one, and in all the thousands of miles I traveled with the General, I learned much of what I know today about the modern-day military. Wayne made our coverage better -- in part because he made me smarter. I can now easily spot a Combat Infantry Badge on the chest of an Iraq War veteran, and I know what it means. I watched Wayne carefully -- and watched those in uniform treat him like a rock star when he appeared in their midst. He trusted me with the U.S. war plan, he introduced me to his galaxy of friends in all ranks and branches of the service, and he gave me a primer in warfare that I will carry with me forever.

He loved his country and he loved his family. He agreed with my not-so-serious credo: never trust anyone who doesn't love a dog. Wayne loved his Labrador retrievers, and would never dream of a household with just one. He loved anyone in uniform and they seemed to love him. He remembered thousands of names, if not EXACT pronunciations. Speaking with his signature slight stutter that worsened with haste or fatigue, he had several names for our Producer Subrata De, including Subatra -- something akin to the Indonesian island nation of Sumatra. For her part, Subrata's favorite memory of the tough General is the advice he offered her -- as a father of eight children -- on how to potty-train her infant daughter.

Because I knew Wayne in his retirement years, I only knew him in plain clothes. There were no visible stars or battle scars, meaning that not all the fighting men and women we encountered knew they were talking to a retired four-star. Many just thought they'd had an encounter with a nice man who somehow seemed to know his way around a Bradley Fighting Vehicle.

I can't tell Wayne's story as well as the e-mails can. These are the folks you should listen to. I just discovered that one of them is from my wife; she feels strongly about what Wayne did to keep her husband safe, and her nation safe. I've never been to Iraq without Wayne by my side. I know I've got to go back there, but right now I can't quite imagine going it alone.

Our textbooks will always contain the stories and images of this nation's iconic Generals and their carefully-chosen trademark accessories: Patton's shiny helmet and white gloves, MacArthur in Ray Bans wading ashore. I will remember forever the compact frame of the square-jawed General I came to know so well in Iraq: wearing the tan safari vest he purchased at Banana Republic. It was perfect. It was General Downing.

By Anne Thompson, NBC News chief environmental affairs correspondent

 

Hi. Last night's debate on MSNBC has a lot of people using the words "Hillary" and "Inevitability..." but remember what the Sage of Montana Tom Brokaw always, always says about politics: UFO! the UnForseen will Occur! Also: looking back and forward on Iran, and the housing meltdown gets worse.. punctuated by a news report from Miami that's acheived instant icon status on the internet. 

Salon's Tim Grieve lays out the moment where he thinks Hillary really turned into the front-runner (which included her endorsement of the Israeli strike on the alleged Syrian-North Korean nuclear facility. At least she "thinks" she knows that's what it was.) By the way, Senator Clinton also "thought she knew" Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and a nuclear weapons program back in 2002. Just sayin'. (and P.S. not "everybody" believed that stuff at the time.) Hugh Hewitt looked at the same exchange Tim Grieve looked at and pronounces Clinton "feckless." Powerline makes an argument heard in several places this morning: Clinton is running out the clock. But Andrew Sullivan thinks the perception of Clinton as Bionic Woman Who Cannot Be Stopped is overblown. Ed Morrissey at Captain's Quarters thinks the reason the Democrats wouldn't commit to leaving Iraq by-- gulp-- 2013 is because of... General Peteraus. And Blackfive points to a poll showing Americans disapprove of the General Betray-Us ad and tells the "haters on the anti team" to talk to the hand.

Joe Conason reflects on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's trip to New York and offers a prescription for dealng with Iran: "Engage the regime, draw Iran into the world economic system and penetrate its closed borders peacefully to strengthen its civil society and weaken its overgrown theocratic state. Stop making heroes of the villainous mullahs and their puppets, and start dividing the pragmatists and reformers from the fanatics. And mute the threats that in Iranian eyes justify a nuclear weapons program. That would be the beginning of wisdom." Daniel Ellsberg of Pentagon Papers fame thinks the coming war with Iran will lead to a police state here at home. Oy. the NYSun's Eli Lake talks to former Cheney aide David Wumser about those allegations that he's behind the "new product rollout (war with Iran). Oh and SpookInTheMachine sees a battle brewing bewteen the President and Vice President and the head of CentCom.

An interesting take on yesterday's Pentagon request for $190 billion more for Iraq.

If you're wondering where Vice President Dick Cheney is, ThinkProgress sort of knows.

David Brooks got quite a bit of attention on his column on how the "netroots" is really irrelevant .. including from Glenn Greenwald. Ouch.

Bill Curry makes a case against Rudy Guiliani.

James Fallows explains why we sould be saying Burma instead of Myanmar. (Hat Tip: Instapundit).

Provocative Questions Department: Is Dan Rather right? (Hat Tip: Cursor.org)

Housing/Mortgages/the Economy now: David Ignatius writes about the dark shadow over global financial markets. CalculatedRisk has a chart-fest on the dismal new home sales number out this morning. The LATimes' LALand blog on the massive glut of unsold homes across the country. (Hat Tip: Implode-O-Meter) Bloomberg quotes Fannie Mae's CEO saying the housing slump will extend through '08 and beyond. And the original "Economic Eeyore" Nouriel Roubini now says he was way too opitimistic on the housing crash. And this YouTube video of a news report of the Miami condo market has been posted everywhere this week... selling real estate at 50% off seems to get people's attention. (Hat Tip: Patrick.net)

By Robert Bazell, NBC News Chief health and science correspondent

Tonight we report on the latest study showing an increased risk for breast cancer among women who drink alcohol.    One reason to pay attention to this study by the Kaiser Permanente Health Group is its size.  It looked at more than 70,000 women over an approximately 20-year period.  If confirms what may other studies have shown, but when it comes to these kind of associations, the more studies there are the more believable the association becomes.
 
Women who consume about one drink of alcohol a day have about a 10 per cent increased risk of breast dancer.  Those who drink about 3 drinks a day have a 30 per cent increase.  One of the study's main conclusions is that it is the alcohol alone that is responsible.  It does not matter if the woman drinks wine, beer or spirits.  Scientists suspect that alcohol increases production of the female hormone estrogen, which can account for the increased risk of breast cancer (and also for the fact that women who drink moderately have a DECREASED risk of heart disease.)

Should women be concerned? To put these findings in perceptive it is useful to understand that women who smoke a pack of cigarettes a day have about a 2000 per cent increase in their risk for lung cancer, and while the 30 per cent increase is tiny by comparison, it is comparable to the increased breast cancer risk for woman who take long term hormone replacement (HRT)

One reason to pay attention to these relatively low risk increases is that most factors that influence breast cancer risk cannot be controlled.  These include age, family history, whether a woman has children and at what age, and the age of onset of her first period.  But it is also crucial to understand that these are always numbers for the general population, not for an individual.   Lots of women drink heavily and never get breast cancer while the disease often strikes women who never had a drink in their lives.

One of the best guide to understanding breast cancer risk factors comes from the advocacy group: the National Breast Cancer Coalition .

There is a similar guide from the federal government's National Cancer Institute. 
But the government guide uses the word "prevention".  Unfortunately nothing is known that prevents breast cancer and we should always keep that in mind.

By John Rutherford, NBC News  producer, Washington

Last week, while Congress debated whether to rein in President Bush's Iraq policy, 15 U.S. soldiers died in the war, bringing the total to 3,793 through Sept. 22. Eight of the 15 were non-combat deaths.

"These deaths [are] often caused by accidents, illness, or in a growing number of cases, suicide," according to editorandpublisher.com. "There has been an epidemic of them in recent days."

What follows is a brief tribute to each of last week's 15 casualties:

1. Army Staff Sgt. Michael Townes, 29, of Las Vegas died Sept. 16 in Balad from an undisclosed illness. He joined the Army in October 1999 as a wheeled vehicle mechanic and deployed to Iraq with the 1st Cavalry Division in September 2006. "The Nellis community has truly lost one of its own," the Hopper family wrote in legacy.com.

2. Army Spc. Joseph Landry III, 23, of Pensacola, Fla., had to lose 40 pounds to join the Army, so he strapped a 50-pound pack on his back and walked two miles back and forth to work at Taco Bell until he lost the weight. "He was always interested in serving, even as a child," his father told the Pensacola News Journal. Landry was one of three members of the 2nd Infantry Division killed Sept. 18 by a roadside bomb in Muqdadiyah.

3. Army Spc. Nicholas Olson, 22, of Novato, Calif., loved motorcycles, horseback riding, and skiing. He also loved his wife, Nicole, and their one-year-old daughter, Melody. Olson died in the same blast that killed Landry. "It just isn't right," a student at Olson's former high school told the Marin Independent Journal. "I hope the next person who becomes president cleans it up."

4. Army Spc. Donald Valentine III, 21, of Orange Park, Fla., married his wife, Lucia, on Sept. 22 of last year. He wrote her from Iraq about starting a family. "I'm still thinking about what to do after Iraq," he wrote in July, according to the Florida Times-Union. "If we do have a kid, I'm going to reclass to another job." Valentine was the third casualty of the Sept. 18 bombing in Muqdadiyah.

5. Army Spc. Matthew Emerson, 20, of Grandview, Wash., and his colleagues in the 1st Infantry Division often dreamed about where they'd rather be than the dusty streets of Mosul. "Matthew said the same thing every time," his mother told the Yakima Herald-Republic. He'd rather be home in Grandview. "At a barbecue," added his father. Emerson died Sept. 18 when the Humvee in which he was riding rolled over in Mosul.

6. Army Spc. Aaron Walker, 23, of Harker Heights, Texas, deployed to Iraq with the 1st Infantry Division in August and was killed by small arms fire in southern Baghdad on Sept. 18. He is survived by his widow, Amber. "Our hearts are broken," his father told the Killeen Daily Herald. "I know things will never be normal again, but we will redefine normal."

7. Army Pfc. Christian Neff, 19, of Lima, Ohio, a member of the 3rd Infantry Division, was killed Sept. 19 by a roadside bomb in Baghdad. "He had a calm nature, and his ornery smirk warmed the room," his family said in a statement. Neff enlisted in the Army after graduating from high school in 2006. "He didn't have an opportunity to live his life," one of his teachers told the Toledo Blade.

8. Army Sgt. Edmund Jeffers, 23, of Daleville, Ala., was on his second tour in Iraq with the 2nd Infantry Division. He wrote an essay about the war in February that was widely distributed online. "Let's stop the political nonsense, let's stop bickering, let's stop all the bad news, and let's stand and fight," he wrote. He died of injuries suffered in a non-combat accident on Sept. 19 in Taqqadum.

9. Army Cpl. Graham McMahon, 22, of Corvallis, Ore., graduated from high school in 2003, joined the Army in 2004, and deployed to Iraq in April. He died Sept. 19 in Balad of an undisclosed illness. McMahon was a combat medic with the 2nd Infantry Division. Of 57 military deaths in the first three weeks of September, he was among 22 of them to die of non-combat causes.

10. Army Pfc. Luigi Marciante Jr., 25, of Elizabeth, N.J., was home on leave last month for the birth of his son, Lorenzo. He returned to the 2nd Infantry Division on Aug. 23 and was killed by a roadside bomb in Maqdadiyah on Sept. 20. His last e-mail to his wife, Stephanie, ended, "I love you steph, always & forever. Give Lorenzo a hug & a kiss and tell him that daddy loves him."

11. Army Spc. John Young, 24, of Savannah, Ga., died Sept. 21 at Camp Stryker, Iraq, of injuries suffered in a vehicle accident. Young enlisted in 2005 and was a member of the 10th Mountain Division. He is survived by his father, mother, and sister, all of Savannah. Nearly 39 percent of military deaths in the first three weeks of September were non-combat in nature, compared with only 18.2 percent for the entire war.

12. Army Capt. (Dr.) Roselle Hoffmaster, 32, of Cleveland died Sept. 20 of injuries from a non-combat incident. She graduated from Smith College in 1998 and from Case Western Medical School in 2004. She had just deployed to Iraq as a surgeon with the 10th Mountain Division. "You couldn't find a more caring or compassionate person," a Smith faculty member told the Boston Globe. Hoffmaster is survived by her husband, Gordon.

13. Army Cmd. Sgt. Maj. Jonathan Lankford, 42, of Scottsboro, Ala., was on his third tour in Iraq, assigned to the 79th Ordinance Battalion. He died Sept. 22 in Baghdad of a heart attack while working out with his men. "Now, all we have are fond memories of him," his mother told the Huntsville Times. "But that's what we're going to cling to." He is survived by his widow, Cheryl, and their 2-year-old son, Jonathan Jr.

14. Army Spc. Joshua Reeves, 26, of Watkinsville, Ga., celebrated the birth of his son, also named Joshua, last Friday. "He got to hear him cry over the phone and said 'Hi' to him," Reeves' wife, Leslie, told the Nashville Tennessean. One day later, on Sept. 22, Reeves, a member of the 1st Infantry Division, was killed by a roadside bomb in Baghdad. "It hurts so terribly," his father told the Tennessean. "You just can't know how bad it hurts."

15. Army Spc. David Watson, 29, of Newport, Ark., was the fifth soldier from the 4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, to die in Iraq in less than a week. A combat medic, he died in Baqubah of injuries suffered in a non-combat accident. His mother saved all of his voicemail messages since he deployed to Iraq in April. "I'll probably never erase them," she told the Jonesboro Sun. Watson is survived by his widow, Lisa, and their two children, Caelan, 8, and Dayton, 4.

Washington Producer John Rutherford is a decorated Vietnam veteran. He posts a weekly tribute to service members killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Editor's note: It's our third week of a new feature on this blog. Every weekday, you can check out our First Person "Photo of the Day"  --  breaking news pictures and photography submitted by you.

A late entry for Wednesday's photo of the day, Colleen Rathnapala submitted this photo last night.:

"This is the tallest Buddha in the world! 160 ft tall!  This was taken in Dambulla, Sri Lanka."

Click here to see more Photo of the Day features. 
Click FirstPerson.MSNBC.com to submit an entry.

Tell us what you think, on comments, below.

Every weekday for 110 straight days we will feature a different living recipient of the Medal of Honor. These are the men who have received their nation's highest military honor. Brian is a board member of the Congressional Medal of Honor Foundation. The words and photos are courtesy of Artisan Books, publishers of Medal of Honor: Portraits of Valor Beyond the Call of Duty by Peter Collier with photographs by Nick Del Calzo.

James M. Sprayberry
First Lieutenant, U.S. Army Company D, 5th Battalion, 7th Cavalry, 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile)

James Sprayberry was born in

Last week, while Congress debated whether to rein in President Bush's Iraq policy, 15 U.S. soldiers died in the war, bringing the total to 3,793 through Sept. 22. Eight of the 15 were non-combat deaths.

"These deaths [are] often caused by accidents, illness, or in a growing number of cases, suicide," according to editorandpublisher.com. "There has been an epidemic of them in recent days."

What follows is a brief tribute to each of last week's 15 casualties:

1. Army Staff Sgt. Michael Townes, 29, of Las Vegas died Sept. 16 in Balad from an undisclosed illness. He joined the Army in October 1999 as a wheeled vehicle mechanic and deployed to Iraq with the 1st Cavalry Division in September 2006. "The Nellis community has truly lost one of its own," the Hopper family wrote in legacy.com.

2. Army Spc. Joseph Landry III, 23, of Pensacola, Fla., had to lose 40 pounds to join the Army, so he strapped a 50-pound pack on his back and walked two miles back and forth to work at Taco Bell until he lost the weight. "He was always interested in serving, even as a child," his father told the Pensacola News Journal. Landry was one of three members of the 2nd Infantry Division killed Sept. 18 by a roadside bomb in Muqdadiyah.

3. Army Spc. Nicholas Olson, 22, of Novato, Calif., loved motorcycles, horseback riding, and skiing. He also loved his wife, Nicole, and their one-year-old daughter, Melody. Olson died in the same blast that killed Landry. "It just isn't right," a student at Olson's former high school told the Marin Independent Journal. "I hope the next person who becomes president cleans it up."

4. Army Spc. Donald Valentine III, 21, of Orange Park, Fla., married his wife, Lucia, on Sept. 22 of last year. He wrote her from Iraq about starting a family. "I'm still thinking about what to do after Iraq," he wrote in July, according to the Florida Times-Union. "If we do have a kid, I'm going to reclass to another job." Valentine was the third casualty of the Sept. 18 bombing in Muqdadiyah.

5. Army Spc. Matthew Emerson, 20, of Grandview, Wash., and his colleagues in the 1st Infantry Division often dreamed about where they'd rather be than the dusty streets of Mosul. "Matthew said the same thing every time," his mother told the Yakima Herald-Republic. He'd rather be home in Grandview. "At a barbecue," added his father. Emerson died Sept. 18 when the Humvee in which he was riding rolled over in Mosul.

6. Army Spc. Aaron Walker, 23, of Harker Heights, Texas, deployed to Iraq with the 1st Infantry Division in August and was killed by small arms fire in southern Baghdad on Sept. 18. He is survived by his widow, Amber. "Our hearts are broken," his father told the Killeen Daily Herald. "I know things will never be normal again, but we will redefine normal."

7. Army Pfc. Christian Neff, 19, of Lima, Ohio, a member of the 3rd Infantry Division, was killed Sept. 19 by a roadside bomb in Baghdad. "He had a calm nature, and his ornery smirk warmed the room," his family said in a statement. Neff enlisted in the Army after graduating from high school in 2006. "He didn't have an opportunity to live his life," one of his teachers told the Toledo Blade.

8. Army Sgt. Edmund Jeffers, 23, of Daleville, Ala., was on his second tour in Iraq with the 2nd Infantry Division. He wrote an essay about the war in February that was widely distributed online. "Let's stop the political nonsense, let's stop bickering, let's stop all the bad news, and let's stand and fight," he wrote. He died of injuries suffered in a non-combat accident on Sept. 19 in Taqqadum.

9. Army Cpl. Graham McMahon, 22, of Corvallis, Ore., graduated from high school in 2003, joined the Army in 2004, and deployed to Iraq in April. He died Sept. 19 in Balad of an undisclosed illness. McMahon was a combat medic with the 2nd Infantry Division. Of 57 military deaths in the first three weeks of September, he was among 22 of them to die of non-combat causes.

10. Army Pfc. Luigi Marciante Jr., 25, of Elizabeth, N.J., was home on leave last month for the birth of his son, Lorenzo. He returned to the 2nd Infantry Division on Aug. 23 and was killed by a roadside bomb in Maqdadiyah on Sept. 20. His last e-mail to his wife, Stephanie, ended, "I love you steph, always & forever. Give Lorenzo a hug & a kiss and tell him that daddy loves him."

11. Army Spc. John Young, 24, of Savannah, Ga., died Sept. 21 at Camp Stryker, Iraq, of injuries suffered in a vehicle accident. Young enlisted in 2005 and was a member of the 10th Mountain Division. He is survived by his father, mother, and sister, all of Savannah. Nearly 39 percent of military deaths in the first three weeks of September were non-combat in nature, compared with only 18.2 percent for the entire war.

12. Army Capt. (Dr.) Roselle Hoffmaster, 32, of Cleveland died Sept. 20 of injuries from a non-combat incident. She graduated from Smith College in 1998 and from Case Western Medical School in 2004. She had just deployed to Iraq as a surgeon with the 10th Mountain Division. "You couldn't find a more caring or compassionate person," a Smith faculty member told the Boston Globe. Hoffmaster is survived by her husband, Gordon.

13. Army Cmd. Sgt. Maj. Jonathan Lankford, 42, of Scottsboro, Ala., was on his third tour in Iraq, assigned to the 79th Ordinance Battalion. He died Sept. 22 in Baghdad of a heart attack while working out with his men. "Now, all we have are fond memories of him," his mother told the Huntsville Times. "But that's what we're going to cling to." He is survived by his widow, Cheryl, and their 2-year-old son, Jonathan Jr.

14. Army Spc. Joshua Reeves, 26, of Watkinsville, Ga., celebrated the birth of his son, also named Joshua, last Friday. "He got to hear him cry over the phone and said 'Hi' to him," Reeves' wife, Leslie, told the Nashville Tennessean. One day later, on Sept. 22, Reeves, a member of the 1st Infantry Division, was killed by a roadside bomb in Baghdad. "It hurts so terribly," his father told the Tennessean. "You just can't know how bad it hurts."

15. Army Spc. David Watson, 29, of Newport, Ark., was the fifth soldier from the 4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, to die in Iraq in less than a week. A combat medic, he died in Baqubah of injuries suffered in a non-combat accident. His mother saved all of his voicemail messages since he deployed to Iraq in April. "I'll probably never erase them," she told the Jonesboro Sun. Watson is survived by his widow, Lisa, and their two children, Caelan, 8, and Dayton, 4.

Washington Producer John Rutherford is a decorated Vietnam veteran. He posts a weekly tribute to service members killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

 

By Subrata De, NBC News senior producer

I received this e-mail today from a friend living in Myanmar. He's in Yangon (formerly Rangoon) and would like to remain anonymous, at least for now.  It seems everyone there is clinging to the lifeline that technology has given them.

It's eerily quiet here in Yangon.  It's 10:30 and the streets have been empty and more silent than I've ever heard them, ever since the curfew hour of 6 pm.  The schools have been closed down until the situation normalizes.  I met a student tonight who was at Shwedagon Pagoda when the riot police charged; he thinks that 2 of the monks he saw being beaten died of their injuries.  Later this afternoon he saw a sit-in of monks downtown shame a cordon of riot police into giving way and letting the monks pass.  Moments of horror, moments of slight hope.

My Burmese friends are sending me messages on GoogleTalk; their status messages reflect their states of mind.  "Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed." Martin Luther King,Jr "Buddha + Suu Kyi + Students + People - Army = Democracy under Suu Kyi"

We huddle inside, listening obsessively to the BBC and checking the internet.  Who knows what tomorrow will bring?  Rumours swirl:  Than Shwe's family have fled the country, Aung San Suu Kyi has been taken to prison, 1 or 3 or 5 or more monks have been shot dead.

It has been a few days of extreme emotion here, both for us foreigners and for our Burmese friends and colleagues.  After the euphoria of Saturday, Sunday and especially Monday, the menace yesterday and the violence today has deeply depressed people.  We have seen the faint hope of progress and decency and good government badly damaged today, although not completely extinguished.  Today as we said goodbye, perhaps forever, to my Burmese boss (our organization has closed down indefinitely), there wasn't a dry eye in the room as we realized that all our efforts to give Burmese people a brighter future may simply evaporate over the next few weeks and months.

In a country so intimately connected to George Orwell's life and work, perhaps it's appropriate to close with a quote from 1984:  "If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face --for ever."  I hope that events prove this prediction wrong, but I fear that the Burmese people will continue to live out an Orwellian nightmare for the foreseeable future, barring a miracle."

By Brian Williams, anchor and managing editor

It was kind of a thrill, as a college dropout from the Jersey Shore, to read this morning that a gathering I attended in New York last night is getting some attention.  I was part of a huge dinner in New York last night at which the president of Iran listened to and then addressed various media types, academics and think-tankers. We heard his views on love and life, human nature and Adolf Hitler, George Bush and the war in Iraq. It was equal parts delusion, attempted charm, faux humility and bluster.  

To the present moment: we exited today's editorial meeting with more individual items -- more news stories to tell (that were hand-written on our pre-printed rundown of what we planned to have in the broadcast) -- than I can ever remember. It's a matter of an active number of stories around the world, a lot of our own exclusive reporting, and a ton of items that our audience needs to know about. We'll see.

Face to Face

There has been no shortage of presidential debates this year -- starting in April, a full year and a half before Election Day. The latest matchup happens tonight: the Democrats at Dartmouth, with Tim Russert. As it turns out, this is the 47th anniversary of the Great Debate that started it all: the first Kennedy-Nixon debate, broadcast nationwide from WBBM-TV in Chicago on September 26, 1960. It marked the beginning of the modern era of televised presidential politics, and John F. Kennedy's polished performance that night gave him an edge over Richard Nixon in what turned out to be a very close election. Political pundits have been dissecting that showdown ever since -- but what did the participants themselves think? Just four days after the debate, Kennedy was asked about it in an interview with NBC's Chet Huntley and David Brinkley:

BRINKLEY: Senator, you mentioned the debate. I think every other person in the United States has expressed an opinion about it. What is yours? What did you think of it?
KENNEDY: I thought it was very useful. We could get up and talk and give our views and make a speech, and give the arguments. But it's like a lawyer in a court; unless you have the two lawyers together, presenting their arguments to each side, how can any judge or any jury give a verdict? … I think it does give a flavor that you could not possibly get any other way. I think it's going to change campaigning. …
BRINKLEY: One more question about the debate. How did you think you came out?
KENNEDY: Well, I think we held our own. However, it's like playing Ohio State. You have to play three more Saturdays.
HUNTLEY: During the next day or two after the debate, or even that night after you went to bed, did a couple dozen things go though your head, did you say to yourself, "Why didn't I say this or that"?
KENNEDY: No, I thought that you can always improve, afterwards. But I would settle for the way it went, and it's a -- I thought it was all right.    

And Richard Nixon? 18 years and several political lifetimes later, he wrote this in his memoirs:

"It was a devastating commentary on the nature of television as a political medium that what hurt me the most in the first debate was not the substance of the encounter between Kennedy and me, but the disadvantageous contrast in our physical appearances. After the program ended, callers, including my mother, wanted to know if anything was wrong, because I did not look well."

After his loss in 1960, Richard Nixon ran again for president -- twice -- and won both times. But he never again participated in a debate.

Please take a moment to read today's Medal of Honor biography. We hope you can join us for tonight's broadcast.

By Robert Bazell, NBC Chief science correspondent

The possible connection between thimerosal, a mercury preservative that was widely used in childhood vaccines through the 1990s, and autism, the common developmental disorder, is a difficult story to report. Autism leaves many children unable to communicate with the world, including their parents. Often the children are disabled in many ways. Caring for an autistic child is one of the greatest burdens any parent could face.  Because mercury can indeed be a poison to the nerves and because children are often diagnosed at the time they get vaccinated, it is easy to understand why many parents would make the connection.

A federal study, out today in the New England Journal of Medicine, looked at the connection between a mercury-based preservative and children's vaccine. It does not directly concern autism, but it is very closely related to the ongoing dispute. Scientists from the Centers for Disease Control headed the effort where 1,047 children, aged 7 to 10 years, underwent a battery of tests measuring language, verbal skills, intelligence and fine motor coordination. Because the children were enrolled in large health insurance groups the scientists had good data on how much themerosal they had been exposed to earlier in life. For the vast majority of measurements the scientists did not find any correlations between thimerosal exposure and these neurophysiologic outcomes.

Many scientists outside the study say it would be difficult to see how thimerosal could cause something as severe as autism without causing huge changes in these measurable parameters.

You can see the study itself at content.nejm.org.

Two things to note:  This is certainly not the end of this argument. Until researchers truly understand the cause of autism, no hypothesis can be ruled out. And parents who are now getting their children immunized should realize that, with the exception of some formulations of flu vaccine, there is no more than the smallest trace amounts in thimerosal remaining in any childhood vaccine

By Peter Alexander, NBC News correspondent

The irony is impossible to miss. Until he's sentenced on November 20, Warren Jeffs, the convicted leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS), a polygamous sect, will be behind bars at Purgatory Correctional Facility here in Hurricane, Utah.

In fact, in the mid-1850's, pioneers named this part of southwestern Utah "Purgatory Flats." Not far from the spectacular scenery of Zion National Park, this area is known for its red rock and giant bluffs. Anticipating Jeffs might find sympathetic residents in this part of the country, not far from the isolated towns along the Utah-Arizona border where most of his 7,500 followers live, I was surprised to find so many of those here ecstatic about his conviction. Just 120 miles outside Las Vegas, this is one of the fastest-growing communities in the West. Years ago, settlers here thought these were the Badlands, today, developers and retirees are more likely to view them as the "Good Lands."

Following Tuesday's verdict -- where police spotters and snipers surrounded the courthouse in St. George, Utah  -- security remains tight. Before our live reports this morning on TODAY and MSNBC, we contacted the Washington County, Utah Sheriff Kirk Smith for permission to be outside the jail. He agreed, but wanted specific details about where we would be and what time we would be there. "We're still a little on edge," he said, adding that authorities didn't know what to expect from the FLDS.

Although Jeffs could face life in prison, it's unclear how his conviction will affect his standing within the FLDS. To his followers, Jeffs is a living prophet, who speaks directly with God and delivers the word of God. Being behind bars does not change his stature. While Jeffs no longer runs the FLDS' day-to-day operations, it's believed he is trying to continue to lead from behind bars.

One perspective we are unlikely to hear is the reaction from within the sect. Fifteen of Jeff's followers sat stoically in the courtroom during the trial. After the verdict was read, they marched out in silence, showing no emotion and sharing no comments with the gathered media. It's doubtful they will see any of the news coverage either. FLDS members are not allowed to watch television, movies or use the Internet.

Jeffs' legal problems are just beginning. Two similar cases are pending in Arizona. In each one, Jeffs is charged with four identical charges: two counts of sexual conduct with a minor as an accomplice, and two counts of incest as an accomplice.

Video: Victim speaks out

Every weekday for 110 straight days we will feature a different living recipient of the Medal of Honor. These are the men who have received their nation's highest military honor. Brian is a board member of the Congressional Medal of Honor Foundation. The words and photos are courtesy of Artisan Books, publishers of Medal of Honor: Portraits of Valor Beyond the Call of Duty by Peter Collier with photographs by Nick Del Calzo.

Robert E. Simanek
Private First Class, U.S. Marine Corps Company F, 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines, 1st Marine Division

Like other young men who grew up in the

By Martin Fletcher, NBC News correspondent

You hear a lot these days about sustainable resources, forest degradation, sensitive ecosystems and water-borne disease. So much that it all begins to fade into incomprehensible eco-jargon. A bit like the war of the Bosnian-Herzogovians against the Serbo-Croats, which one writer described as a war of the unspellables against the unpronounceables. It all seems a long way away. What's it got to do with me?

But up close and personal, it's different. In a clinic near the Masai Mara in Kenya, the smallest unit of the Kenyan health system, my NBC News team and I crammed into the tiny room of surgical officer Richard Lemiso, and watched as a stream of worried mothers entered carrying their sick babies. Most had walked miles to visit this last beacon of hope, the man in the white coat.

Fever, diaorreah, stomach cramps, vomiting, sweating. The tiny faces either serene in sleep, or contorted in pain. The mood – resigned. The cause was almost always the same – dirty water. The diagnosis – typhoid, dysentery, dehydration, all potential killers.

This is the process, put very simply: trees have been cut for firewood, or died from disease, or been broken by large animals like elephants near the water springs. This allows other animals and cattle to approach and their feces and germs to enter the water source. That changes the balance between water for animals and water for people, dirtying the water available for villagers.

In other words, forest degradation harms the sensitive ecosystem, which reduces sustainable resources and leads to water-borne disease.

And so twelve-year-old Patrick sits in front of Nursing Officer Richard Lemiso and hears the verdict – typhoid. Again. He's suffered from one water-borne disease or another every year of his life. His father James says it wasn't always like this. Once his Masai village drank water from the same spring and nobody fell sick.

 "So what's changed?" I asked.

"Too many people today, too many animals, the water gets dirty." he answered. Population growth, increased herd sizes, and all competing for declining amounts of water, because more is used for agriculture, which is expanding.

NBC News/ Jeff Riggins

Masai warrior pictured shortly after Masai baby naming ceremony.

It's hard to imagine that of Africa's 800 million people, almost one in three, 250 million, have no access to clean water. Not even a tap. And no Perrier for the Masai, or even San Pelegrino. Even in the capital Nairobi, people fall sick from the water.

And as for the hospitals, take care. On one day we spent in the capital, the national newspaper carried a story headed: "Skeleton found in Hospital Tank." In Nandi South District, the paper reported, hospital patients and staff had been drinking from a water tank with a decomposing body inside it. Patients found human hair in their cups. They all gathered to watch as the skeleton was pulled out.

Our report for NBC will focus on a new Dutch invention, Lifestraw, which is a cigar-like filter you put into any dirty water and suck. The water passes through a series of filters and comes out clean into the mouth, say the manufacturers.

NBC News/ Martin Fletcher

Masai herder boys drink with LifeStraw.

If it works, it could be revolutionary. It costs less than $3.75, although a newer model may reach $5. People with no access to tap water and who routinely live on water they find on the land, such as cattle herders like the Masai boys near the Masai Mara, could now take along their portable water cleansers.

The trouble is, drinking clean water is only part of the solution to water-borne disease. Rural people have to be taught to wash their hands before they eat. That helps. But if the water they wash with is dirty, tit doesn't do much good. And if the dirty water spills and mixes with a mud floor, and children lie or play in it, it doesn't matter how much water they drink through a Lifestraw, they still face the risk of water-borne diseases.

NBC News/ Jeff Riggins

African Sunset - Acacia tree surrounded by wildebeest on Masai Mara.

Frankly, it's heart-breaking to measure the difference between the lives of children in Europe and America and those in areas without clean water, especially in Africa.

And I'll be a lot more sympathetic to eco-jargon.

To contribute to the distribution of LifeStraws
More information on LifeStraws and to purchase them

By Brian Williams, anchor and managing editor

The helicopter that just flew over 30 Rock heralded the approach of yet another motorcade past our building on 6th Avenue a short time ago.  This was a big one -- not the President, but the next level down -- possibly Ahmadinejad, on the way to his United Nations speech.  I looked out my window and saw a menacing sight, familiar from my days covering the White House: the agents in the back of the black Suburban following the lead car, their feet propping the rear passenger doors open slightly, their fingers at the trigger of automatic weapons on their laps, at the ready. 

New Yorkers wishing to travel by air this Thanksgiving are being warned to leave for the airport now.  The gridlock is awful here -- and with President Bush in town, it's worse.

We took home two Emmys last night.  I am enormously proud of this team.  That the awards were both for foreign news coverage says something great about this broadcast, I think.  I'm blessed to be surrounded by the best in the business, every day.

Remembering Little Rock

Looking back on the integration of Little Rock Central High School 50 years ago today, it might seem tempting to see that landmark event as ancient history with an inevitable outcome -- as distant from us now as, say, the first flight of the Wright brothers might have seemed back in 1957. But Little Rock was a real turning point for America; a showdown over whether children in this country would attend racially integrated schools, and whether the 1954 ruling to that effect by the U.S. Supreme Court would be carried out. A half a century ago, the instruments of official power in Arkansas were in open defiance of the court. Initial attempts to enroll black students in Little Rock were actually blocked by armed state troops acting on direct orders from Governor Orville Faubus, cheered on by hundreds of whites. It took federal troops -- ordered into Little Rock by President Dwight D. Eisenhower -- to enforce the law of the land. On September 25, 1957, soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division ringed Central High and, with bayonets fixed, escorted nine black teenagers inside. All of this played out on a national stage through the power of television, still relatively new and untested as a source of news in 1957. The impact of television was immeasurable, and leading the way was a 30-year old NBC News reporter named John Chancellor, who filed daily reports on the Little Rock crisis for The Huntley-Brinkley Report. Chancellor's reporting earned him a national reputation, and he went on to become Huntley and Brinkley's successor -- the anchor of NBC Nightly News.

Please take a moment to read today's Medal of Honor biography. We hope you can join us for tonight's broadcast.

By Robert Bazell, NBC's chief science correspondent

On tonight's show we tell another segment of Shams' story, and if people want to help her and other children like her there is information below

When we first saw the  a five year old Iraqi girl rushed by an American patrol into the 28th Combat Support in Baghdad she was a bundle of bloody rags.  A U.S. platoon on patrol found her just after an insurgent's mortar exploded where she was playing.  Her leg was severed.   Her arm was shattered an she had shrapnel in her abdomen.

The doctors of the 28th were at first doubtful she could be saved.  But they performed their typical heroics and she made it.  He next day her mother Najet made her way into the hospital in the Baghdad's Green Zone.  I cried when I watched their reunion.

Sham's recovered but there were big questions.  She still had her arm but without intensive treatment it could not be saved  In Iraq there is no such thing as rehabilitation. Where would she go?

While we were there a military unit that specializes in such cases contacted Dan McFerrin, a contractor who runs the Iraqi operations for ECC, a huge contractor.  McFerrin generously offered to arrange for the transpiration.  And Shriners a group of 22 hospitals in North America that magnificently treats  children with burns and severe orthopedic problems free of charge offered to care for her.

In tonight's spot we see how healthy Shams is.  Her name means sunshine in Arabic and she lives up to it.  After many operations the surgeons at Shriners have repaired her arm to the point where she can grasp with it.  And with her new artificial leg she can run and ride a tricycle as fast as any girl her age. (She is now six)  In the earlier version of this story we changed Shams name.  Her family and the doctors who were treating her asked us to do this because they feared the family might face reprisals because they got care from Americans.  Now that the family is out of Iraq it is no longer a concern

Shams' case was the start of something much larger.  Dan McFerrin's wife Brenda who helped transport Shams to Sacramento began an organization to assist  other Iraqi children needing medical care.  So far the group has brought more than a dozen kids for care either in Jordan or to Shriners and other hospitals in the US.  The group is called Children In Need International.  It doesn't yet have a website but you can contact: Brenda@childreninneed-intl.org  or phone her at her US number 864-884-7941.

If you'd like to help children like Shams please call the Shriners Hospital in Sacramento at 916-453-2000. 

The Shriners Hospitals are always deserving of a donation.

But tonight's story does not have a happy ending. Shams' father and her five brothers and sisters are now refugees in Damascus Syria, driven out by the violence not just against Shams, but others in the family as well. Shams and her mother are in the US on emergency visas and could not return if they left. The father ahs been unable, like most Iraqis, to get a visa to the US. They are one part of a huge political problem involving millions of refugees from the Iraq war.

Watch Robert Bazell's report
http://video.msn.com/v/us/msnbc.htm?g=bdd8deb3-be47-482d-b770-e0a3499ffa3c&f=00&fg=copy