Ann Curry writes: It appears Egypt is nearing a "tipping point," as NBC Richard Engel puts it, with tomorrow's planned demonstration in Cairo expected to be the biggest yet.

Which is why Brian Williams has been spending a lot of time on planes, flying to Egypt to broadcast live from there tonight, despite some overwhelming technical odds against success. 

I write this preparing to co-anchor the broadcast from New York, and can tell you our plan is to report in-depth on this gathering storm, and on the evacuation of hundreds of Americans today.  We’ll have reports from Cairo, Washington and Israel.

On top of that, we have another storm to tell you about, this one of snow and ice, that's predicted to affect no fewer than 30 states. 

It's intense here behind the scenes, the clock ticking as everyone scrambles for tonight's broadcast.

Fingers crossed.

Brian Williams writes:

This is the table where we have dinner on weekend nights, when its warm enough to be outside and not covered in snow.

These were once lawn chairs.

This is my driveway. Last night. Those White Cliffs of Dover in the background are 5 feet high thanks to the plow.

Brian Williams writes: As a lifelong and dedicated magazine reader, I could not believe our good fortune when we hired former Newsweek editor Mark Whitaker. Mark became our Washington Bureau Chief following the death of Tim Russert—a tough job, a big job, and it was so great to have him there. More broadly, it has always been such a luxury to have access to Mark's mind. Harvard-educated, connected, experienced and razor-sharp, he's been part of our on-and-off-air analysis team since the moment he took the position. Sadly for us, Mark is leaving to take a big job at CNN. Which then, in turn, takes our story briefly back to 1994 or so.

I was Chief White House Correspondent for NBC News. Our great veteran travelling producer Russ Moore, who in demeanor and speaking style bore a physical (if not ideological) resemblance to an Ed Rollins/Dick Cheney genetic combination, came to me one day to say it was time to work a young man into the mix. The young man he had in mind had worked his way up from the entry-level rank of intern, and his name was Antoine Sanfuentes. Russ, knowing that music is the way to my heart, quickly added that Antoine was a musician...and a photographer as well.  Antoine joined our team, and over millions of miles we had only good times, and never had a cross word. He was a tireless worker, of persistent and endless good cheer and astounding competence and cool under fire for his age...or any age.  As the years went by, Antoine stayed at the White House, working with the likes of David Gregory and the late David Bloom—and then worked his way up to Deputy Bureau Chief.

Today Antoine Sanfuentes was named our Washington Bureau Chief by NBC News President Steve Capus. While it admittedly makes me feel old, mostly it makes me enormously proud. Our Washington Bureau is such a crucial part of our operation—and this was such a crucial selection—it is just great news all around. 

I'm writing this from our news set, where we were expecting a live statement from the President—which did not happen at the rumored/appointed hour. We are watching the situation in Egypt very closely, as is much of the world—and we'll have the very latest for you tonight, including the reporting of Richard Engel, at street level in Cairo. Importantly: The White House is not denying that there is contingency planning underway should Mubarak be deposed, among other options.  This sure looks and sounds like a revolution in the making, to many of those who are watching. It’s certainly an event of great moment, perhaps in its early stages, for Egypt and that entire region of the world.

On another note: Watch our music site for the interview I conducted today with the astonishingly talented Lissie, a musician I'm proud to have first mentioned on Jimmy Fallon's show months ago. You'll get to see her on Jimmy's show soon. First, you'll get to see our conversation and her performance in the days ahead. We'll alert you when it’s up.

We hope you can join us tonight for our Friday night broadcast.

NBCUniversal

Brian Williams writes: Today NBC underwent the second change in ownership in its history. In a studio 55 stories beneath the red neon letters atop this building that will continue to glow "GE,” Comcast of Philadelphia officially took the reins of ownership in what is, at first, a 51/49 takeover deal, leaving GE the minority owners. It was my job to preside over an employee forum, introducing the new CEO Steve Burke to employees.  Steve is the scion of a great television family: His father, Dan Burke, of Cap Cities/ABC fame, is one of the greatest and most popular executives of the modern television era. Steve was literally raised on over-the-air television, and now runs a massive cable, broadcast and internet communications company—the largest there is. And so: While you won't notice anything different about us tonight, a new era begins here behind the scenes. And there are many, many stories to report to you tonight. Beginning right outside our window. We hope you can join us tonight.

Brian Williams writes: The two discoveries happened concurrently, just after I boarded Amtrak from New York to Washington on Monday night: The blood drained from my head when I realized I'd left my iPod headphones in my office in New York—and then, in an instant, the man in front of me and the man behind me both embarked a string of cell phone calls, at loud volume, in the otherwise-quiet car. The following has to do with the era of over-sharing, the era of personal electronics...and subsequent death of discretion. While I could not believe what I heard, I was mostly stunned that either man would chose to conduct their business inside the close confines of a train car, and for everyone around them to hear. It was as if they were all alone, on a private train car—and yet I was not the only passenger who could hear every word spoken by both men for the entire trip.

I learned the full names of both men, and where they both live. The man in front of me was planning to sell his company today, to a well-known, immediately recognizable media firm...which he named several times. I learned his approximate compensation, and the fact that deferred compensation was a sticking point in the talks. I learned the names of all those who would likely be fired in the event of a merger, and I heard him disparage his own legal team. Here was a particularly rich quote: "You know how in our business you have big dogs...or you have puppies? I have...modified puppies. They're so naive." The man behind me was coming from a ski outing. I got to hear about his drive through the Hudson River Valley, and his time in the home of a loved one. The good news? He had inspected the shower valve as requested, and it wasn't broken. It was installed upside down!  There's your problem! On a different call, he used the name of a prominent Member of Congress, and told a graphic and off-color story about the Congressman, who had missed a press conference because he was "tied up"—literally, with a flight attendant he'd met on a business trip. He then turned to Rahm Emanuel's efforts to get on the ballot in Chicago—speculating about the appointment history of the Supreme Court Justices in Illinois, and making what I can only hope and assume was an uncomfortable attempt at a joke: "Rahm's walking around with $10 million (in donations)—he could spend half of that, $5 million, to bribe the members of the court, and still have $5 million to spend on the campaign." That was a head-turner.

At several times during our journey, I made a kind of commiserating eye contact with my fellow travelers, one of whom was lucky enough to have remembered his headphones. Early on in the three-hour ride, the conductor asked the man in front of me (who was selling his company, apparently by cell-phone) to "keep it down, please."  He lowered his volume to a conversational level, while still entirely audible. I considered changing seats but stayed put, just to witness it all. I have chosen to use no proper names or monetary amounts, though there were plenty to choose from.  There was nothing extraordinary about the journey—and as loud-talkers go, these guys were just about average—but the ride was a lesson in volume, privacy and discretion.

Nicholas Kamm / AFP - Getty Images

Editor's Note: Brian is in Washington tonight for special coverage of the President's State of the Union Address starting at 9:00PM ET. He'll be back on the blog tomorrow.

Holy Hannah...the New York Times is reporting on the web about the discovery of children in Williamsburg, Brooklyn—many of them apparently living inside local buildings with their parents, and travelling via wheeled strollers when outdoors. While the paper has already chronicled the presence of looms, artisanal cheeses, outdoor film screenings, ironed tea towels and vintage block-and-tackles in the Burrough, this is new territory—as was the reporting in the article about snow shoveling and smoking. We'll stay on this.

In the meantime, somewhat lost over the weekend (though chronicled by Lester Holt and Nightly News) was the loss of the very last member of the Band of Brothers. Tonight we'll also remember Jack LaLanne, and we'll cover today's terrorism in Russia and update the treatment and health of Congresswoman Giffords.

Welcome back from the weekend -- we hope you can join us tonight.

Two weeks after the shooting rampage that left six dead and a dozen injured, including Representative Gabrielle Giffords, Brian Williams returns to Tucson today for an exclusive interview with Suzi Hileman. Hileman, a Tucson resident and neighbor of Christina Taylor Green, escorted nine-year old Christina to Giffords' event outside a local grocery store on January 8, 2011. In her first interview since the shooting, Hileman shares the details of that fateful Saturday afternoon, and how she is coping with both her own physical injuries and the loss of young Christina. You can watch a preview of the interview below.

The news conference between President Obama and president Hu of China showed a fascinating dynamic— the Wall Street Journal today called it the most important (bilateral) relationship in the world right now, and they're right. We'll have extensive coverage tonight, along with the situation in Haiti, and our new polling on how Americans view their country and their President.

We hope you can join us tonight.

(Editor's Note: This post was intended to be published on Tuesday - apologies for the delay)

Brian Williams writes: We have put together a full remembrance of Sargent Shriver for the broadcast--you can see it here. Our condolences to the entire family -- and that includes two people I count as friends: Bobby Shriver of Santa Monica, California, and Maria Shriver, a longtime member of the NBC family.

Bob Epstein, Nightly News Executive Producer, writes: As the M4 bus tried to make it down an ice-covered Fifth Avenue this morning, New Yorkers muttered about why there wasn't more salt on the sidewalks. A few too many of my fellow passengers had done the slip-on-a-banana-peel routine while trying to negotiate the sidewalk and came on board looking for a little relief. As everyone piled in, no one moved to the back. Tension was building. A voice (a dead-ringer for Ted Williams, who just passed his moment of fame and is now in some heated rehab center after an intervention by Dr. Phil) came over the PA system to try and move the crowd:

"I will open the rear door for 20 dollars." 

A nervous chuckle. No one moved.

"Ladies and gentlemen, there is free beer in the back of the bus. Free beer, compliments of Mayor Bloomberg."

Some movement.

And finally: "This is Leo, your fabulous and fantabulous M4 driver, making all express stops on our way to our final destination: Orlando. Be safe, be well."

The pressure off--we knew we'd survive the day.

Sophia Chua-Rubenfeld, daughter of Amy Chua, the "Tiger Mother" featured in Rehema Ellis' Nightly News report above, has written an open letter to her mother in the NY Post in which she responds to the controversy created by her mother's new book.

"Dear Tiger Mother," she writes. "One problem is that some people don’t get your humor. They think you’re serious about all this, and they assume Lulu and I are oppressed by our evil mother. That is so not true. Every other Thursday, you take off our chains and let us play math games in the basement."

You can read the entire letter here.