By Brian Williams, Anchor and managing editor

I had a 2-hour outing (rare, as I hardly ever leave the building during the day) to attend a luncheon and moderate a panel discussion at the American Society of Magazine Editors gathering at the impressive Hearst headquarters building in Midtown Manhattan -- and since we just broke from our delayed afternoon editorial meeting, and since I'm now screening an incoming interview for air tonight and must start writing for the broadcast -- while it pains me not to join in on the boisterous debate on our blog these days, today time just won't permit it.

Over time, we'll try to get to as much of it as we can. We may change lead stories tonight at the last minute -- we're still debating over what should be at the top of the broadcast, but we'll certainly cover the economy and politics up high -- along with Iraq, infrastructure, and health. I'm trying to concentrate on work despite the fact that its beautiful outside, and I have Chris Rock tickets for later this week. We hope you can join us for tonight's broadcast.

By John Rutherford, Producer, NBC News, Washington

The B-24J Liberators of the 492nd Bomb Group might as well have been flying over Germany in the summer of 1944 with giant bull's-eyes on their wings. That's because they were the first bombers to be unpainted and silver-colored to cut costs and reduce weight.

"The silver planes were like flying giant mirrors into enemy territory," historian Paul Arnett said. "The reflecting sunlight made it easier for the Luftwaffe to establish and maintain visual contact."

On one day alone, July 7, 1944, 12 bombers and 67 men were lost, including the McMurray Crew, which dropped out of formation after dropping its bombs on an aircraft factory in Bernberg, Germany, and was never seen or heard from again.

Captured records revealed the crippled bomber - swarmed by German fighters - had crashed in an area of eastern Germany that fell under Communist control until 1990.

In 2001, a German civilian named Enrico Schwartz, using transcripts of old radio transmissions, traced the crash site to a potato field near Westeregein, about 20 miles from the original bombing target, and began excavating.

"Enrico actually found Lt. McMurray's dog tags and some watches and parts of combs and Air Force wings, and he found some skeletal remains, and that was enough for him to turn it over to the [U.S.] Army," Bob Barlett, who assisted Schwartz in his initial search, said.

U.S. military personnel completed the excavation and recovered the remains of nine airmen.

"The exact placement of the remains in relation to the aircraft debris can tell a forensic anthropologist or archeologist quite a lot about who the person might be, or where he might have been located within the fuselage," Larry Greer, spokesman for the Pentagon's MIA/POW office, said.

The remains were identified through DNA tests and returned to family members in 2007. The men are to be buried June 12 at Arlington National Cemetery (partial remains of three of them were also interred separately).

What follows is a brief tribute to each of the airmen:

1. First Lt. David McMurray of Melrose, Mass., was the plane's pilot. He flew sub patrols as a co-pilot out of Langley, Va., and was promoted to pilot at Alamogordo, N.M. He piloted 15 missions over Europe. His first bomber was shot down over France on June 15, 1944, and his second one went down over Germany less than a month later. His name and those of his crew members are inscribed on the "Wall of the Missing" in Henri-Chapelle, Belgium.

2. Second Lt. Millard Wells Jr. of Paris, Ky., was the plane's co-pilot. Six weeks before Wells died, his wife gave birth to a son, Wayne. Wells wrote his son a letter, which Wayne still has. "He addressed the letter to me, and just told me to take care of my mother," Wayne told the Lexington Herald-Leader. "He was a romantic kid. He was only 21 years old when he died. It's hard to think of your father as a kid, but he never got beyond that."

3. First Lt. Raymond Pascual of Houston, Texas, was originally from Brooklyn, N.Y. He died just months before his wife gave birth to their only child, Raymond Pascual Jr. "I wish I had known him," Pascual Jr. told the Houston Chronicle. A few photographs and stories told by his mother and grandmother are all he knows of his father, a 28-year-old bombardier at the time of his death. "He was a good man, my mom told me," Pascual Jr. told the Chronicle.

4. Tech Sgt. Leonard Ray grew up on a farm near Upper Falls, Md., and quit school to enlist in the Maryland National Guard. He patrolled the East Coast for German submarines before going to England. He was 22 and the plane's engineer when he died. He was buried last October in Joppa, Md., in front of a headstone his father purchased just weeks after he disappeared. "He's at rest now, and at home," his sister told the Baltimore Sun.

5. Tech. Sgt. Hyman Stiglitz was born in Lithuania in 1919. His family lived in Cuba for 10 years before settling in Boston. Stiglitz, an accomplished violinist, was a 25-year-old radio operator when he died. He was remembered as an excellent dancer and a quiet person who kept mostly to himself. Stiglitz was buried in December 2007 in Tucson in the same plot as his parents "to symbolically reunite them," his nephew told the Boston Globe.

6. Staff Sgt. Robert Cotey was remembered as a rebel growing up in Vergennes, Vt. "When he was a teenager, he had an Indian motorcycle and tried to ride down the hiking road at Mount Philo," his nephew told the Burlington Free Press. "He broke his leg and had a bad limp after that." No remains were recovered of Cotey, the plane's turret gunner. His death was confirmed by discovery of his dog tags and the knowledge he was on the plane.

7. Staff Sgt. Francis Larrivee of Laconia, N.H., enlisted in the Army Air Corps on Jan. 19, 1942, and was a right waist gunner. He married and had a daughter, Judith, who was three months old when he disappeared. "I always thought he would come home," she told the Manchester Union Leader. "I always thought as a child he would knock on our door." Her mother remarried and little was said of her father. "Now, finally, there is closure," Judith said.

8. Staff Sgt. Robert Flood of Neelyton, Pa., was remembered as quiet and bright. He graduated from high school in 1941 and worked at the Letterkenny Army Depot near Chambersburg before entering the military in 1944. A 22-year-old turret gunner when he died, Flood was buried last October in Path Valley, Pa. "We are so thankful he was finally brought home," a cousin told whptv.com. An 84-year-old brother survives him.

9. Staff Sgt. Walter Schlosser lived in Detroit as a child and moved to Lake City, Mich., with his mother, Hazel, and sister, Babe, and brother, Robert, when his mother separated from his father, Otto. His mother worked for a man named Walter Proctor, and Schlosser entered the Army Air Corps while living in Lake City. He was a left-wing waist gunner on B-24J's with the Eighth Air Force. No family members remain in the Lake City area.

(Photo courtesy of Paul Arnett)

Click here to view tributes to the 166 service members killed this year in the Middle East, including the following 13 casualties from last week:

1. Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Cherie Morton

, 40, of Bakersfield, Calif.

2. Navy Airman Apprentice Adrian Campos

, 22, of El Paso, Texas.

3. Army Spc. Steven Christofferson

, 20, of Cudahy, Wis.

4. Army Sgt. Adam Kohlhaas

, 26, of Perryville, Mo.

5. Marine 1st Lt. Matthew Vandergrift

of Littleton, Colo.

6. Army Pvt. Ronald Harrison

, 25, of Morris Plains, N.J.

7. Marine Lance Cpl. Jordan Haerter

, 19, of Sag Harbor, N.Y.

8. Marine Cpl. Jonathan Yale

, 21, of Burkeville, Va.

9. Army Pfc. John Bishop

, 22, of Gaylord, Mich.

10. Army 1st Lt. Timothy Cunningham

, 26, of College Station, Texas.

11. Army Staff Sgt. Ronald Blystone

, 34, of Springfield, Mo.

12. Army Sgt. Guadalupe Ramirez

, 26, of Mohave Valley, Ariz.

13. Army Staff Sgt. Shaun Whitehead

, 24, of Commerce, Ga.

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/.

By Brian Williams, Anchor and managing editor

So, in this space yesterday, I had a little fun with the New York Times. I hope it's obvious to our frequent readers that the Times's news pages are normally my first journalistic stop every morning -- for all the arguments over ideology, the paper's depth and breadth are often without parallel. In fact, it is quoted here more than any other publication, for good reason.

A few of you correctly noted I've yet to respond to the recent Times front-page article on the military analysts employed by the television networks, including this one.

I read the article with great interest. I've worked with two men since I've had this job -- both retired, heavily-decorated U.S. Army four-star Generals -- Wayne Downing and Barry McCaffrey. As I'm sure is obvious to even a casual viewer, I quickly entered into a close friendship with both men. I wish Wayne were alive today to respond to the article himself.

I made four trips to Iraq with Wayne. We were together, in close quarters, for over two months at the start of the war and survived at least one harrowing adventure. I won't attempt to respond on Wayne's behalf, and I know Barry McCaffrey has his own response to the article.

All I can say is this: these two guys never gave what I considered to be the party line. They were tough, honest critics of the U.S. military effort in Iraq. If you've had any exposure to retired officers of that rank (and we've not had any five-star Generals in the modern era) then you know: these men are passionate patriots. In my dealings with them, they were also honest brokers. I knew full well whenever either man went on a fact-finding mission or went for high-level briefings. They never came back spun, and never attempted a conversion. They are warriors-turned-analysts, not lobbyists or politicians.

As far as Wayne was concerned, he was an NBC News employee, and while he would never do anything to diminish his decades of extraordinary service (nor would we expect him to), we all marveled at how quickly he took to the notion of being a journalist -- taking a good, hard, critical look at the Pentagon as an entity, the way "analysts" do.

And about General McCaffrey: I was among those who fielded complaint calls -- from the Pentagon, from the White House, from the highest levels of the Administration -- protesting his harsh criticism of the Rumsfeld Pentagon and the war effort. General Downing and I (during some unscheduled "down time" in the Iraqi desert at the height of the invasion) watched the U.S. military supply line in the distance, driving through the darkness, undefended. Because he viewed it as a result of fighting the "war on the cheap," he was infuriated by it, and said so. General McCaffrey's criticisms were too numerous to mention, but here's a particular favorite from Nightly News on August 3, 2006:

"Well, I think some of the debate over civil war is absolutely nonsense. It's been a civil war for a couple of years. Thousands are being killed and wounded. It is clearly a struggle between the Shia, the Sunni and to some extent the Kurds. Secretary Rumsfeld, in my judgment, is increasingly going to become irrelevant to this debate. The ambassador on the ground, Khalilzad, General George Casey, General John Abizaid and the White House are going to have to sort this out. It's a very bad situation, and it's getting worse."

Another man deserves mention here: Jack Jacobs is a familiar face to MSNBC and NBC News audiences. We have employed Jack as an analyst for years. He is also a personal friend. Most important: he's among 105 living recipients of the Medal of Honor. I serve on the Board of the Medal of Honor Foundation -- our job is to raise awareness and funds for the recipients, as I've done rather unabashedly in this space over the past two years. Jack, a retired U.S. Army Colonel, travels often to embark on tours of the combat zone, and I've always regarded his analysis as rock-solid... and he has never hesitated to take a whack at the Pentagon brass.

I think it's fair, of course, to hold us to account for the military analysts we employ, inasmuch as we can ever fully know the "off-duty" actions of anyone employed on an "of counsel" basis by us. I can only account for the men I know best. The Times article was about the whole lot of them -- including instances involving other networks and other experts, who can answer for themselves. At no time did our analysts, on my watch or to my knowledge, attempt to push a rosy Pentagon agenda before our viewers. I think they are better men than that, and I believe our news division is better than that.

By Tom Costello, NBC News correspondent

About a week ago, my producer and I got a sneaking suspicion that we were about to take a train trip.
 
Brian Williams had just blogged about his ride next to the engineer on the front end of an Acela express train from Washington to New York.  Top speed:  135 miles per hour. 

Brian mentioned that he'd probably soon be asking for a story about the state of the nation's rail infrastructure and high speed trains.

Since my producer, Jay Blackman, and I do the bulk of transportation reporting for NBC News, we had a feeling he was talking about us.  Sure enough, it took only a few hours before the first e-mail hit. 

Yesterday, Jay and I were able to experience what Brian had experienced....and then some!

Any fan of trains would be envious:  Amtrak invited us into an Acela Express locomotive, next to engineer Mike Finn - an Amtrak veteran with a thick Boston accent - as he pulled out of Boston station for the hourly run South.

Within minutes, Mike was pushing his electric Bombardier train past 80 mph, then past 100, 120, and finally 150 miles per hour....the fastest that any train travels in America. 

While I've been fortunate to ride on both the French TGV and Japanese Bullet trains, I must say there was something about the Amtrak Acela at 150mph that was exhilarating.  The tracks along the corridor are all relatively new, but the right-of-way was carved out for trains more than 100 years ago!  Thick vegetation hangs out on both sides of the tracks... making it appear far narrower than the high speed right-of-ways in Europe.  And that makes the ride in the front seat even more thrilling.

In service for just eight years, Acela has proven to be tremendously popular with the traveling public.  Last year, it attracted 3.2 million passengers and brought in $405 million in revenue. 

Nationally, a quarter of all Amtrak ticket revenue comes from Acela. 
So why aren't there more of them?

They only run along the Northeast Corridor between Boston and Washington, DC. 
20 electric trains, each traveling roughly 200,000 miles each year.

The rest of Amtrak's passenger trains are diesel trains.  The average age is 33.

The answer is that America hasn't invested in its rail infrastructure like the rest of the world.  Since World War Two, the private sector has generally been responsible for managing the nation's rail lines.

The question now, with sky rocketing fuel prices and airlines struggling to eke out a profit by grounding aircraft, is it time to re-invest in the nation's rail system?

Is there room for more Acelas?

If we build it, will they - the passengers - come?

We'll look at that tonight on NBC Nightly News with Mr. Williams. 

Just don't tell him that I did 15mph better than he did while in the front seat on the Acela!

By Brian Williams, Anchor and managing editor

I read that the New York Times Sunday (and weekday) circulation is down. I must admit that on Sundays it becomes a tough paper to figure out. While this week's paper featured an op-ed piece by Elizabeth Edwards bemoaning the lack of serious, in-depth coverage of the political race, it's tough to figure out exactly what readers the paper is speaking to, or seeking.

Consider this: the Sunday Styles section lead story on April 13th was "Scavengers on the Urban Savannah" (people buy things at flea markets!), and promoted on Page One was "A Sex Chair Becomes A Battlefield." Alrighty then.

This Sunday's lead story was "Through Sickness, Health, Sex Change..." in a section that included the essay, "Was I On A Date Or Baby-Sitting?," and "Let's Say You Want To Date A Hog Farmer" (and who among us hasn't?).

The magazine cover story this week was "The Newlywed Gays!" (happy gay men in Massachusetts who are married outdoor grilling enthusiasts!), and another feature story profiled a man who "lives and paints" in New Mexico (one of those states west of New Jersey) and has an old-fashioned typewriter!

This week's restaurant/bar review featured a place in Brooklyn that features (tragically-hip/quaint alert!) "old-time cocktails and cheeses" (it strikes me: so did my Mom, at home in Jersey) and the so-called "big box" featured wedding was a classic: the groom wore the obligatory sneakers with his tux, the bride was a "spitfire" with a "wide and ready Julia Roberts smile." Per usual, bride and groom are both free-spirited, with strong opinions.

The lead story in the Travel Section? The rise of vacation resorts catering to nudists. It did occur to me that I haven't been getting out a lot on weekends. Is it just me?

On the other hand, one sparkling piece of journalism (which touched on a lot of themes frequent readers of this space will recognize) was by Peggy Noonan in this weekend's Wall Street Journal. Curl up with this one and give it the quality time it deserves. I'll say it again: Peggy is doing the work of her career and must be considered an early favorite for next cycle's Pulitzer for commentary.

A mea culpa and a thank you to the sharp-eyed Newsviners who wrote us (along with others) to tell us we had used file tape of penguins in a piece on the North Pole! There are no penguins on the North Pole. I must admit I was watching from home, and muted the sound to talk to a family member. Something registered, and I'd like to think I'm smart enough to have noticed. It was the visual equivalent of a kangaroo bouncing through Central Park.

Also, to Joan: I did not attend the Correspondent's Dinner this weekend, though sampled some of the festivities on C-Span (I thought the President was very good). I have attended those dinners for 26 years or so, and on occasion I opt for home and hearth. I saw the first 50 laps of Talladega, however, from the comfort of my kitchen. You were nice to ask.

We hope you had a good weekend. We hope you can join us for tonight's broadcast.

By Kevin Tibbles, NBC News correspondent

Even though I am writing this from Chicago, I bet there are a lot of you out there who can feel the pain....

There is construction virtually EVERYWHERE. The 'City of Big Shoulders' is being renamed the 'City of Big Boulders' as work crews scramble to clean up fallen chunks of concrete and fill up Buick-eating potholes.

Americans drive an average of 3 trillion miles each year, on a road system that is beginning to show its age. It causes delays, boosts stress levels and makes getting behind the wheel anything but pleasant.

"You know", says Transportation Secretary Mary Peters, "A lot of the roads in our nation today are like some of us...they are about half a century old!".

That's a mid-life crisis we can all do without.

That combination of heavy traffic and heavy wear and tear is being blamed for everything from flat tires to more accidents to increased air pollution.

Of America's 600 thousand bridges, some 70 thousand of them are considered "deficient'. And, while a suspected design flaw is being looked into as the cause of that deadly bridge collapse in Minneapolis last August, the bridge had been inspected just a few months prior.

Some might go so far as to say our infrastructure is falling apart'. I'll have that report tonight on Nightly News with Brian Williams, that is if I'm not stuck in traffic.

By Justin Balding, NBC News producer

Editor's note: Ann Curry's report on saving the Congo's gorillas airs tonight on the broadcast.

"My director died immediately," he recalled.

During his 17 years as a park ranger in eastern DR Congo's Virunga National Park, Pierre Kakule had many close calls, but none as close as the time he was riding with his boss. Their car hit a land-mine, and though Kakule survived, his forehead is still decorated with scars caused by the blast. In other instances he was involved in gun battles. And he has lost many friends and relatives.

Some 120 park rangers in the last 10 years have been killed trying to keep the war-torn Virunga National Park safe from poachers and armed groups looking to make money out of killing animals. Antelopes, buffaloes and elephants are all routinely slaughtered, their "bushmeat" sold in nearby towns and villages. But most sickening of all to Kakule is the killing of gorillas.

The gorilla is not just an iconic living ancestor to him, but a part of the human family tree nearing extiction. In the last two decades the worldwide gorilla population has been cut in half -- mainly by by deforestation and disease. In eastern Congo, the gorillas' plight is complicated by a 10-year war which has left hundreds of thousands of people displaced and desperate for money and food.

Kakule says he understood the answer to Congo's conservation problem was much more complex than killing poachers or putting them in jail. "We put them in prison but we didn't educate people. There was a distance between us as park guards and the population, " he laments.

So he dreamed up an extraordinary conservation experiment -- a 350 square mile laboratory-in-the-jungle for gorillas and people, about 200 miles north of the Virunga. The idea became a reality once Kakule, a local man, convinced tribal chiefs that their people and the rainforest and the gorillas would be better off as a "community conservation area" managed by the people themselves. They would declare their rainforest land a protected area, and in return they would receive development for a zone surrounding the Nature Reserve. Kakule reached out to Conservation International's Patrick Mehlman, based in Kinshasa, who, in the past seven years, has obtained more than $7 million from USAID and other donors to finance the project.

Together Kakule and Mehlman took us to see what they are creating -- called the Tayna Nature Reserve. Ours would be the first TV cameras in the remote enclave.

Five of us, laden with camera and audio gear, jammed ourselves into a small bush plane and bumped our way through the clouds. An hour later we disembarked on an unassuming dirt strip and were summarily dressed down by a man in fatigues for taking photos of it. "Strategic place" he shouted, gesticulating wildly, reminding us we were still in a war zone.

Then we drove five hours into the rainforest on a road that only just qualified as that, passing freelance gold miners sifting gravel in a stream; villagers with anything from technicolor purses to hefty logs on the heads; and lots of cattle. The cattle are a bad sign -- at least as far as the gorillas are concerned. Farmers expanding pastureland for their herds means precious rainforest is cut down -- which means the gorillas lose their habitat.

"They're a kind or barometer for the health of the rainforest," says Kakule. "Gorillas cannot live where the forest is destroyed".

But what about the people's need for dairy and meat?

"The issue," says Mehlman,"is finding a balance--finding the balance between preserving globally important biodiversity in areas where you have that and also having areas that can be used for development, that can be used for perhaps pastureland or agriculture or any number of other development activities."

Right now, he adds, the balance is upset and too many gorillas are being lost.

After five hours of rough road, past the occasional home made of mud, we emerged from the forest to an almost unbelievable sight -- the village of Kasuogh. It's a huge clearing, where new buildings have sprung up, their tin roofs reflecting the evening rays, a thriving community of several thousand people. There's a hospital, a school, even a university with 400 students dedicated to conservation science. But most amazing is that this remote corner has running water; and electricity from a small hydroelectric power station, powering satellite dishes, computers and even a radio station.

For the people here, maintaining their rainforest is personal. It's the reason they receive development aid -- and no one wants to stop that. So any would-be poachers have to take on a whole community.What's more, the people here believe that in the future their gorillas will bring eco-tourist dollars, just as they have in neighboring Rwanda.

Since it's a relatively new project, it's hard to know exactly how the experiment is affecting the gorilla population in the Tayna Nature Reserve. But according to Patrick Mehlman, early indications are that the gorillas are thriving. One of the park rangers there recently spotted a newborn baby.

By Lester Holt, NBC News Anchor

Good afternoon. We're watching a story develop in Southern California that is the kind of thing we're more used to seeing in summer and early fall. A brush fire is raging out of control just east of

By Lester Holt, NBC News Anchor

Hello from New York.  On this evening's broadcast, we are going to look at the hand-wringing going on among some influential Democrats over just where the protracted contest between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama will leave the party when all is said and done. Hillary Clinton had a new challenge for Obama today, while Obama nursed his tired body from some late night basketball and worked on re-casting his image. Ron Allen and Lee Cowan are covering the candidates for us, and will update us on the battle for Indiana.

We'll also double-team the economy tonight with Mike Taibbi focusing on the stimulus checks many Americans are about to receive and why many citizens will not be using them as intended. CNBC's Trish Regan will offer a report on the things many air travelers used to take for granted, like getting a window or aisle seat, that are now raising the cost of flying.

NBC's Lisa Myers will show us the chilling video messages left behind by one of the bombers who struck the London subway system in 2005. She will also have information on why British anti-terror officials believe the risk of another attack there is growing.

On this final day of our special Green Week coverage, I will take you on an extraordinary journey inside one of Alaska's shrinking glaciers. Experts recently warned that many glaciers around the world are melting at an accelerated rate, potentially putting millions of people at risk. I hope you can join us this evening for the Nightly News.

By Brian Williams, Anchor and managing editor

U.S. Army Lt. John Fernandez (Ret.) didn't wear shorts to his interview with us here at 30 Rock today -- he wore long pants -- so there was no way the folks who passed us in the hallway would ever know that John's lower legs are made of titanium. But those who come out to watch the former West Point lacrosse Captain in this weekend's Army/Navy alumni lacrosse match will see how he gets around...and will no doubt marvel at it. But if you ask him, in the classic swagger of a soft-spoken military combat veteran, he'll tell you, "I was never that quick on my feet anyway..."

John's injuries were caused when an American F-15 dropped a bomb on his position. He was the commander of a missile battery -- they're called MLRS's -- and if they weren't instruments of war they'd be beautiful things to watch. As I told him today, I was stranded with General Downing during that stage of the war, and the MLRS launches we were watching at night could easily have been from John's position.

These days, John is working for the Wounded Warrior Project. He's a native of Long Island -- married, father of two with one on the way. He is a great guy, and in a few days we'll air portions of our interview with him, and we'll put all of it on the website.

By the way: my favorite story of the day? Right here.

We have a great broadcast planned to cap off what I think has been a great week. Have a great weekend, and I hope you can come back to join us on Monday night.

By Janet Shamlian, NBC News correspondent

I spend a lot of time on planes, but the flight I took from Dayton to D.C. last Saturday will be hard to top. The seats were filled with American heroes, seventy World War II veterans traveling to their memorial aboard an Honor Flight. The Greatest Generation is moving a little slower these days, and more than a few initially feared the trip was beyond their reach.

82-year-old Robert Huesing of Hamilton, Ohio was my seatmate. I am now fully briefed in the antics of a navy cook aboard a Landing Ship Tank in 1944. It was great stuff, and I couldn't help wonder about the stories in the seats all around me.

Most of the veterans aboard didn't know Earl Morse, which suited him just fine. Earl is a retired Air Force Captain whose passion for flying is surpassed only by his love of country. During a stint at the VA, he was struck by veterans who told him they physically or financially couldn't swing a trip to see their newly completed memorial. Earl refused to accept that, and Honor Flight was born.

Oh, to be on that first flight; three veterans and Earl at the controls of a can opener-sized Cessna. It didn't stay small for long. Today, Honor Flight offers our heroes free trips out of 30 states. Guardians help them navigate airport security (they volunteer for that!) and push wheelchairs. Private donations fund it all at a cost of about $250 per person.

Earl's photo must be in a dictionary somewhere under the word 'restless.' Just getting him to sit down with us for tonight's Making A Difference report took the better part of a day, as my patient camera crew will attest. As Earl sees it, he's racing the clock. While 6,000 veterans have taken an Honor Flight, he's focused on those who haven't. Thousands of World War II vets are passing away each month, and hundreds are still waiting for a trip. Earl won't rest until he honors each and every hero. With that kind of job ahead of him, there's little time to talk.

Find out more about the Honor Flight Network.

photo - NBC's Janet Shamlian with World War II veteran Robert Huesing aboard an honor flight to Washington, DC

By Brian Williams, Anchor and managing editor

If you measure life's occurrences through the prism of our newsroom -- our daily editorial meetings and the broadcasts we air each night -- I'm not sure what it says about our world. A few days ago no one in the national media was giving much thought to rice -- except perhaps those who do the family shopping and had reason to know its price had risen globally 140% over the past year. Ditto the housing market, in that it only got to where it is now over the last few months.

We have some interesting stories tonight -- including a high-interest story on lasik surgery (if you're considering it or if you've had it, you'll want to see this) and a strange occurrence (what is it about strange occurrences this week?) in Alaska, which is my personal favorite story of the day. We also have a revealing interview with John McCain -- and right now I'm watching some supercell storms roll through parts of Texas and the upper Plains.

So we'll put it all together in some manageable fashion for your approval tonight. I continue to read all posts -- and wish I had the time to respond to all.

By Robert Bazell, NBC News chief science correspondent

 

Tomorrow I'm going to try something new.  I will be answering questions online about LASIK vision surgery or any other health and science issue I have covered recently, including plastic bottles,  Please send them in and I will answer as many as possible tomorrow from noon to 2pm Eastern.

 

Meanwhile for people who are interested now in more information about tonight's story on the complication rate from LASIK, laser vision correction surgery, check out the FDA's website.

And Matt Kotsovolos, the man we profile who suffered complications with LASIK has started a website to communicate with others who have had difficulties.

By Mark Potter, NBC News correspondent

Editor's note: Mark Potter's report airs tonight on the broadcast.

Arriving on the island of Vieques, Puerto Rico recently, it was clear we had come to an extraordinarily beautiful place. The beaches are gorgeous, the water is crystal clear, the tourist hotels and restaurants are laid-back and the tropical vegetation and terrain are stunning, especially in the fiery light of sundown.

Looking below the surface here, though, we found a lingering and ugly controversy involving allegations of environmental contamination by the U.S. military and elevated health risks to long-time residents. In the words of a lawsuit filed by more than 7,000 plaintiffs against the U.S. government, "residents of Vieques experience a 30% higher rate of cancer, a 381% higher rate of hypertension, a 99% higher rate of cirrhosis of the liver and a 41% higher rate of diabetes than the rest of Puerto Rico."

From World War Two to 2003, the U.S. Navy maintained a military training and firing range on Vieques, where millions of pounds of bombs, missiles and mortar rounds rained down on the eastern end of the island. Living downwind from the site were more than 9,000 people, many of whom now claim that the accumulated chemicals from all that weaponry made them sick and ruined the land. Among the "explosives, ordnance and contaminants" used here, according the lawsuit, were napalm, agent orange, depleted uranium, white phosphorous, chemical weapons, arsenic, lead, mercury and many other toxic substances.

The U.S. Navy has refused to pay medical claims from residents, and says that based on an environmental study, the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, has concluded "there were no health risks to the residents of the island."

Critics say the U.S. government study was incomplete, with a Puerto Rican epidemiologist insisting, "they cannot say that there is no link (between the target practice and cancer risks) because they never tested the population."

Two of Nannette Rosa's daughters were treated for cancer after one of them was born with eight tumors in her stomach and intestines and the other developed a tumor on her jaw. Rosa, who sold her house to pay for a trip to New York to seek treatment, says she wants the government to help finance her daughters' care. She also wants a cancer center built on Vieques, where currently there is only a clinic.

As the arguments rage, an undercurrent of despair, fear and anger flows along the stunning landscape here. Meantime, contractors are now detonating or retrieving millions of tons of unexploded bombs and other debris from the old firing range that, five years after the Navy left Vieques, has been turned into a wildlife refuge. It, too, is one of the most beautiful places on earth, although signs posted along the beaches there say it's still too dangerous for anyone to visit and is off-limits.

By Ian Williams, NBC News correspondent

Editor's note: Ian Williams's report airs tonight on the broadcast. Watch a preview here.

Phi Phi Islands, Thailand--Andrew Hewett fished a small fragment of coral from a bucket of water and held it between his fingers.

"It's been knocked off, broken by an anchor or somebody standing on it," he said, explaining that while the devastating 2004 tsunami caused a lot of damage to the area's coral reefs, the bigger threat to the reefs comes not from nature, but from man.

He then showed how to drill a small hole in the fragment and attach it to a metal rack (see photo, right). Moments later, a production line was up and running on the deck of the dive boat, students threading hundreds of fragments and pulling them tightly to the racks.

"If I can't pull it off, then a fish certainly can't," said Nichole Niewald, a biology major at the University of Missouri.

The fragments had been collected from the ocean floor, the remains of a badly damaged reef.

"Day by day people are walking on the reef, not paying enough attention, and not treating the coral like the animals they actually are," said Steve Monson, who studies food science at Mizzou.

Eighteen students and staff traveled from Missouri to the Phi Phi islands in Thailand to take part in a pioneering coral rehabilitation project. Their trip was organized by Bob Sites, Professor of Entomology at Mizzou's Division of Plant Sciences, a regular visitor to the Kingdom. It's the second year he's brought students to the coral project. All the students are from Mizzou's College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources. (Photo, left: NBC cameraman Kyle Eppler videotapes as Andrew Hewett and the students examine coral fragments.)

"Getting some college students from the central U.S., where there are no reefs, to come here and study reefs, is a very important thing," he told me. "It's hands-on conservation."

Once the racks were full, the students -- most of them recently qualified divers -- donned their dive suits and tanks and took the plunge, carrying the racks down to a coral nursery a few yards beneath the surface. The nursery is a suspended platform, anchored to the seabed. The fragments were left here to grow for ten months, away from the sediment.

"It's very much like a greenhouse. First getting it to grow, then transplanting it back to the real thing," said Allison Clarke, a major in Agricultural journalism.

"The coral's going to grow now, without anybody bothering it," said Niewald.

The project began as reef clean-up after the tsunami, which killed more than seven hundred people in the Phi Phi islands alone. In the weeks that followed, all manner of rubbish, from beds to air conditioners, was pulled off the reef by volunteer divers organized by Hewett, who runs an eco-tourism company called the Adventure Club.
Hewett, his wife, and two young children narrowly escaped, running to high ground, when the wave swept across the island.

He now runs the rehabilitation project with marine biologists from the Phuket Marine Biological Centre, welcoming young volunteers, like the Mizzou students.

"The tsunami did some damage, but not nearly as much as man," said Mizzou's Sites. Perhaps five to 10 percent was destroyed by the force of the wave.

The Phi Phi Islands, comprising giant limestone cliffs, as well as stunning beaches, is slowly recovering from the trauma of the tsunami, though redevelopment has been slowed by disputes over land ownership. The seas around the Phi Phis still contain some of the most pristine reefs in Asia, but they are increasingly under threat - with careless divers and snorkelers, as well as dive and tour and fishing boats taking a heavy toll.

The coral project now concentrates on reef rehabilitation and education. Once the students had placed the new racks in the nursery, they took racks from last year, the coral showing healthy growth, for replanting on a damaged reef (see photo, left). They did this by finding small natural holes, or by drilling holes, into which to insert the stem of the coral, which they hope will bond with the host coral. Once the students have returned to the U.S., the local marine biologists will monitor the growth.

Many corals take decades to grow; others are quicker. The coral fragments the students worked with had grown around half an inch in a year.

"Some grow so slowly that if you break off an inch, that could be a decade of growth," said Kizzi Roberts, a Animal Science major.

The project is also trying to create an entire reef of its own -- an artificial one, made from giant concrete blocks, some thirty feet below the surface. They hope it will provide an alternative dive site, to take pressure from tourism off natural coral formations. When I dived with the students, the coral was showing healthy growth, and curious marine life was moving in. A pair of clown fish had taken up residence.

"Seeing the dead coral, then planting the coral, its kinda neat to see, bringing it back," said Dustin Warner, who studies Business Management.

The Mizzou students certainly felt they were making a difference for the marine environment: "Getting down there and planting the coral, you really feel you are actually doing something," said Allison Clarke, who looked on with deep concern as a bunch of snorkelers splashed around in an area close by. "I'm feeling protective," she said. "We've put a lot of work in, and I wouldn't want to see them stamping all over it."

 

By Brian Williams, Anchor and managing editor

Today's announcement about the change in this nation's combatant commanders was extraordinary, for several reasons.
To review: Gen. David Petraeus (photo: Petraeus with Brian in Iraq in March 2007) goes from Iraq to Central Command (with command over the war effort in Iraq and Afghanistan, and then some). Importantly for the General (and his wife and two children), this will bring him home (Tampa, Florida) after over a total of four years overseas.

He'll be replaced by Lt. General Ray Odierno (photo: Odierno with Brian in Iraq in March 2007), a New Jersey native whose son lost an arm while fighting in Iraq. Odierno is just home for two months and had been nominated to become the Vice Chief of Staff of the Army.

That nomination will now go to Lt. General Peter Chiarelli (in photo, left, with Brian in Jan. 2005), the gregarious and well-liked three-star long-rumored to be in line to replace Petraeus.

I was struck by how personal Defense Secretary Gates's remarks were: much talk about the families of these General officers, appropriate recognition of their various moves, overseas service and towering sacrifice. As I watched the news conference this morning, I also felt privileged to have spent time with all three Generals during our various journeys to Iraq.

Most of my time with Chiarelli and Odierno was onboard helicopters (Odierno is rather well-known for perferring that the doors be removed from his Blackhawk -- he likes the fresh air! -- though I doubt he'll be allowed that luxury, for security reasons, in his new job). And during my last visit with Petraeus in Iraq, he hosted a very nice dinner for my late friend, retired Army four-star General Wayne Downing and me, in his personal residence.

Like Ike, Bradley, Marshall and Patton before them, these Generals will come to define this era in the American military. While today's announced re-shuffling is, of course, subject to the wishes of the next President, all three moves are a recognition of the strength and experience of our current slate of combattant commanders.

And then there's politics. Our director of polling, Sheldon Gawiser, says it looks like a single-digit victory last night for Senator Clinton. Sheldon believes when the last vote is counted, she will have won by 9.2 percent -- the number, as I write this, stands at 9.4 percent. The race goes on.

Also in tonight's broadcast, today's Congressional tribute to Dr. Michael DeBakey.

My thanks to those who wrote to point out our error in the Soyuz graphic depiction. We would not have caught the error without your sharp eyes, and we appreciate you pointing it out. It was corrected for later feeds of the broadcast after the initial 6:30pmET airing.

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

By John Rutherford, Producer, NBC News, Washington

Marine Lt. Col. William Hall of Seattle had two loves in his life: the Marine Corps and his family.

"He was very proud to be a Marine," his cousin told KING. "He ate, lived and breathed the Marine Corps. He was even excited about going to serve in Iraq."

Hall deployed to Iraq in February and sent his family and friends an e-mail in March.

"Please don't think that I am trying to paint the picture of this country as a rose garden, because it isn't," he wrote. "It's still a very dangerous place, and people are dying here every day. I am doing fine, I am safe, and will wrote again soon."

Hall died the next day of wounds suffered in a roadside bombing in Fallujah. He was 38 years old.

"I can't tell you how fine this young man was - the finest husband, father, son, Marine, individual - warm, gracious, just our very best," a friend told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

Hall was a graduate of Washington State University and had a master's degree from the University of Phoenix. He served 15 years in the Marine Corps.

"He could have chosen anything, an astronaut, an engineer, anything," another cousin told KCPQ. "He was dedicated."

Hall was buried today with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery. He is survived by his widow, Xiomara, and daughters, Tatianna, 6, and Gladys, 3, and stepsons, Xavier, 13, and Xander, 9.

Click here to view tributes to the 153 service members killed this year in Iraq and Afghanistan, including the following nine casualties from last week:

1. Marine Cpl. Richard Nelson, 23, of Racine, Wis.

2. Marine Lance Cpl. Dean Opicka, 29, of Waukesha, Wis.

3. Army Sgt. Joseph Richard III, 27, of Lafayette, La.

4. Army Spc. Arturo Huerta-Cruz, 23, of Clearwater, Fla.

5. Marine 1st Sgt. Luke Mercardante, 35, of Athens, Ga.

6. Marine Cpl. Kyle Wilks, 24, of Rogers, Ark.

7. Army Staff Sgt. Jason Brown, 29, of Magnolia, Texas.

8. Army Sgt. Lance Eakes, 25, of Apex, N.C.

9. Army Spc. Benjamin Brosh, 22, of Colorado Springs, Colo.

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/.

Editor's note: Anne Thompson's full report from Costa Rica airs tonight on the broadcast.

                   

By Brian Williams, Anchor and managing editor

While somewhat hard to believe, and while tonight's results might be moot in the scope of the fight for the Democratic nomination, the Pennsylvania primary is here.

We had a great hour of coverage on MSNBC at noon -- per usual, Subrata De produced it for me with backup from Megan Marcus -- and we got to work with the very talented team at MSNBC. I'm continually in awe of the volume of coverage they put on the air every day.

We are awaiting the "first wave" exit poll results -- the first indication we will get of any emerging trend. Sometimes they are noteworthy, sometimes they end up being wrong.

Tonight we'll do continuous updates of Nightly News for all time zones, and then we'll drop by and visit the MSNBC studios as part of their coverage. Either way, barring a major defeat for Clinton tonight (it was Tim Russert who said on Nightly News last night: if she loses Pennsylvania, her campaign is "over") it's on to Indiana and North Carolina and beyond. There are 10 contests left.

We'll have it all for you tonight, along with stories featuring some amazing stats: did you know fully 28 percent of all the grain produced in the U.S. this year will go to ethanol production? Did you know the U.S. has fallen to 42nd in the world in terms of life expectancy? Those two stats fall in two separate stories in what we think is a very interesting Tuesday night broadcast. Don't forget UFO's in Arizona! And Florida! It will only have an impact if you're there to watch it! Thanks from all of us.

By Pete Williams, NBC News Justice Correspondent

Espionage charges revealed today against a former U.S. Army civilian engineer shed new light on one of the most notorious spy cases in modern U.S. history, one which remains a sore point between the United States and Israel.

Federal prosecutors charged a New Jersey man, Ben-Ami Kadish, with providing dozens of classified documents to the Israeli government while he worked at the U.S. Army's Picatinny Arsenal from 1979 through 1985. Investigators say he provided closely guarded secrets involving nuclear weapons design, details of the U.S. F-15 fighter jet, and information about the U.S. Patriot missile defense system. The materials were sought by a secretive Israeli nuclear spy organization called the LAKAM, since disbanded.

"Kadish believed that providing classified documents would help Israel," court documents say. Kadish is a U.S. citizen, born in Connecticut, prosecutors say. According to local newspaper accounts in New Jersey, Kadish served in both the U.S. and British militaries during World War II, then joined the Haganah, an underground military organization, during Israel's struggle for freedom.

Investigators say Kadish provided the materials to his handler, who worked for the Israeli government at its consulate in New York City. That same handler, prosecutors say, directed another spy -- Jonathan Pollard, convicted in 1986 of providing a trove of U.S. defense secrets to Israel during the 1980's. Pollard, who worked as a U.S. Navy intelligence analyst, is the only American ever sentenced to life in prison for spying for a U.S. ally. Israel has repeatedly sought his release from prison, but several U.S. presidents have refused to do so, acting on the recommendations of their CIA Directors.

Court documents say Kadish received a wish list from his handler and would bring classified documents home with him at night so they could be photographed. The contact for both Kadish and Pollard, Yosef Yagur, fled the U.S. shortly after Pollard was arrested.

But court documents say Yagur continued to maintain contact with Kadish, by phone and e-mail, and that Kadish visited Yagur in Israel in 2004. Law enforcement officials say Kadish has been under investigation for the past three years, and phone calls between the two men have been carefully monitored.

After FBI agents interviewed Kadish at his home last month, investigators say, the two men talked by phone again. Court documents quote Yagur advising Kadish not to admit anything: "Let them say whatever they want. You didn't ... do anything. What happened 25 years ago? You don't remember anything."

The man who prosecuted Pollard, Washington, D.C. lawyer Joseph Di Genova, told NBC News that the new information about Yagur's conduct shows was "brazen, further proof that the Israelis were running several spies in the US, as we thought at the time."

Investigators say Kadish was never paid for his spying. Instead, Yagur gave him small gifts and occasionally bought him and his family dinner at a Bronx restaurant.

 

By Brian Williams, Anchor and managing editor

After a classic parenting experience yesterday -- an hour-long drive with my wife to see our son pitch at an away game -- which he did not (he's been starting this year, and was rumored to on the bubble to come in in relief yesterday, alas) -- we are back at work on a surprisingly nice Monday in New York.

The talk of the staff meetings today was the Pope's surprising visit (a huge media tour de force, by most reviews here in New York and elsewhere), and tomorrow's vote in Pennsylvania. The expectations management is something to watch carefully. I'll be doing the noon ET hour on MSNBC tomorrow afternoon, just eight hours before the polls close! Tim and I will do Nightly News from here and will have updates on the NBC Television Network and on MSNBC all evening long.

We're thinking of Richard Engel -- we miss having him in the newsroom during his extended "shore leave" -- and he's now headed back overseas and back to work. I've always found it to be an endearing feature of our blog community -- the large number of our readers who express an almost-maternal concern for his safety and love of his work. Please know our feelings for him are even more intense, and we do our level best to make sure he's safe and surrounded by the best professionals in the business.

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

By Lester Holt, NBC News Anchor

Some in the Democratic party are beginning to grumble about what happens when political candidates have too much time on their hands.

The six-week gap between primaries has reduced much of the presidential debate to questions of who has been more negative. We saw some of that when the respective campaign strategists for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton squared off on "Meet the Press" this morning. Finally, the voters get back in the drivers seat of this race on Tuesday for the Pennsylvania primary. Our Lee Cowan and Ron Allen are with the candidates as they make their final push, and we will have their reports on tonight's newscast, including the potentially uncomfortable moment for Obama at an unannounced campaign stop earlier today. As I sit in the newsroom, a wall of TV monitors, all tuned to different channels and networks are showing the same picture: the papal mass at Yankees Stadium in New York. Three years ago yesterday I was in Rome to cover the papal election, and vividly recall the emotional scene as Benedict XVI made his very first appearance as pope before the crowds that swelled into St. Peter's Square. This trip to America is in many ways very similar, in that American Catholics are seeing him, and greeting him for the first time. NBC's Rehema Ellis will tell us about the pope's final day in the United States, and how during this trip he may have exceeded expectations and shattered some perceptions. In an NBC investigation, Lisa Myers takes a closer look at some industrial plants recognized by the EPA for their outstanding environmental records. It turns out, however, that some of those companies have amassed significant violations of environmental standards. She'll tell us how that happened.

A quick thanks to my colleague Natalie Morales for covering for me last night while I tried to get the upper hand on a nasty cold I've been fighting. I am happy to report I'm feeling much better, even though I suspect some of my colleagues here are giving me wide berth in the hallways. :) See you later for NBC Nightly News.

by Natalie Morales, NBC News Anchor

Lester Holt is a little under the weather today, so I will be filling in.  We are starting this evening with Pope Benedict XVI celebrating an historic mass at New York's St. Patrick's Cathedral today – the first papal mass at the Cathedral. Speaking to mostly 3,000 clergy, he again returned to the clergy sex abuse scandal calling for purification and healing.  And this afternoon, thousands of seminarians are holding a youth rally to greet the pope. 

We turn next to politics, on this final and critical weekend before the Pennsylvania primary on Tuesday. The Democratic candidates are in full force campaign mode, firing away at each other.  Obama is casting Clinton as a game player using "slash and burn" tactics. Clinton is telling voters to look beyond "whoop-dee-do" speechmaking, and calling for voters to look for substance in who can best handle the nation's problems.

It was a hard landing for the Soyuz space capsule, returning to Earth with three astronauts – including American commander Peggy Whitson, on board. The craft ended up crash landing in flames into a field in Northern Kazakhstan, where no one was expecting them.  Fortunately, villagers and the astronauts were ok, though no doubt all a bit shaken, to say the least.

And we're following last night's developments on a ruling by a Texas judge to keep the 416 children removed from the polygamist compound, in protective custody, as officials continue to investigate whether they were at risk of abuse. The judge also ordered maternal and paternal DNA testing for all the kids and their parents. This comes as officials are looking into the possibility that the phone call that launched their raid of the compound could have been a hoax. 

That and a whole lot more coming your way this evening. Hope you'll join me then.

By Brian Williams, Anchor and managing editor

I read on one of our industry websites this morning that our ABC News colleague Cynthia McFadden fell down the steps yesterday at Penn Station in New York -- she is thankfully on the mend, and apparently not seriously injured. While knowing next to nothing about her accident, it reminded me of something I did not say in yesterday's post about my Amtrak experience: it has to do with a current obsession of mine, (more like a constant rant that my friends and family are probably sick of hearing) having to do with our infrastructure.

Some days, in this city especially, it can seem as if we just reached a decision a few years ago to give up, to stop building, stop improving. It's as if we decided that we, the nation that saved the free world in the 1940's, entered the Cold War in the 1950's, made it to the moon in the 1960's... and so on... had built enough, improved enough to declare we were finished.

Upon arriving in New York on the Acela train yesterday, we exited on to the dank, dark train platform, and passed by no fewer than four idle, frozen escalators for the long trek to the main level to the station. It was like a scene from "The Land That Time Forgot." It is a daily reality for millions of daily commuters. I watched as senior citizens, laden with luggage, hoisted it up the long flight of stairs, some of them pausing to rest and catch their breath on the landing or with each individual step.

An Amtrak police officer took pity on one waiting group of passengers and actually turned the "up" escalator on with the flick of a key. When we made it to the first level, two more sets of stairs awaited -- slick, narrow and dirty -- the only way to get to street level, as the crowds waiting for the elevator bank were already three elevator cars deep.

There is no sign of any capital improvement to the station going back years -- not a dollar spent on easing the passenger experience. So many of the streets of the city resemble moguls on a ski slope -- huge steam vents below my office window on 49th street force traffic to negotiate holes in the middle of the road and snarl traffic.

Many of our bridges and parkways and highways are just as Robert Moses left them the day they were completed. The 2-mile stretch of highway leading from the Lincoln Tunnel to the New Jersey Turnpike in Hoboken might be the single worst stretch of highway in America. It never changes. And I'm motivated, every day, by knowing we can do so much better -- knowing we're the nation that went to the moon and saved the world in World War Two. While there are a few public-minded souls here in New York and elsewhere who are pushing this issue (it sure isn't sexy, as issues go), it is much easier to get up each day and put up with it and pretend not to notice.

THE CARDINAL AND ENGEL

What an eventful 2:30pm editorial meeting today. In addition to formating Nightly, we had a special guest, and a major farewell. Cardinal Foley, an old friend of this network, stopped by after an appearance down the hall on MSNBC. His Eminence the Cardinal has been our on-air expert "voice of the Vatican" for many special events over many years, a wonderful man always of good cheer.

Speaking of which, we said farewell to Richard Engel today, who will soon be returning to his post. Richard will return to New York in a few weeks to go on tour with his new book. In the meantime, he's off to do some reporting. As of today, he carries with him a new title: NBC News Chief Foreign Correspondent.

His outlook remains shockingly cheerful, given the violence he's seen in the past five years. In talking about daily life in our Baghdad Bureau, he mentioned as an aside that following the last bombing in the neighborhood, a human leg was found floating in the swimming pool of the building we rent in Baghdad. We went on to the next topic... and we wished our friend Richard safe travels, as always.

We hope you can join us for tonight's broadcast. Please have a good weekend.

Photos by M.L. Flynn

By Robert Bazell, NBC News chief science correspondent

 

We have more today on plastic bottles. My blog Thursday on this subject, which you can see below behind a couple of Brian's entries, generated an unusually large number of responses. I'll try to answer to some of your questions. That blog has a lot of the basics of this issue and links to sites where you can find more information. Please refer to it, I won't repeat all that.