Jump to May 2011 archive page: 1 2 3

  • Palin's pizza party

    NBC producer Megan Marcus spotted Sarah Palin hosting a pizza party at La Famiglia. On the guest list: Donald, Milania and Piper. Pepperoni pizza was on the menu.

     

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  • A passing giant: Andy Robustelli

    Brian Williams writes

    Back from my beloved Jersey Shore, a great break for a few days. And, speaking of Jersey--and New York--and the great football tradition of the New York Football Giants, we learned earlier today that Andy Robustelli has passed away. He lived a rich life on the field and off, as a robust athlete and a small business owner. Here is the New York Times obituary, if you'll forgive this point of personal privilege. It’s a sad day for those of us who love the Giants, and revere the early era in the NFL and those who played the game.

    We hope you can join us tonight.

  • The stink bug invasion

     

    Stink bugs have invaded 34 states in the last decade and they're still on the move – destroying millions of dollars worth of crops as they go. NBC's Kerry Sanders reports on farmers' best hope in the battle against the stink bug.

     

    Ashlea Surles writes:

    The brown marmorated stink bug has moved to America.  Scientists say the shield-shaped brown insect likely hitchhiked from Asia on a cargo load into Allentown, Pennsylvania in the late 1990s and prospered.    

    Spreading to 38 states and already reaching epidemic levels, the stink bug has colonized America.  Within the next 10 years scientists expect they will invade the entire continental United States, sparing no state.  

    They are named for the spicy arsenic-cilantro odor they emit when squished, but, while the name might be funny, the problem they are creating is decidedly less so.

    The stink is the least of the worries.          

    They are a threat because they eat just about every major crop grown in America.       

                                                   

    University of Maryland professor Michael Raupp said entomologists have never seen a pest as serious as this.  “This one feeds on fruit, it feeds on grapes, it feeds on corn, it feeds on soybeans, on tomatoes, on peppers, in agricultural fields, in people’s home gardens and then in the autumn, it’s coming into people’s homes.  This is what I call a perfect pest.”

    From tobacco to cabbage to melons to cotton – they are indiscriminant eaters who haven’t eaten in months.

    Hibernating in crevices and warm spaces since the fall – making their malodorous presence known in homes – the invasive insects are now coming out into the open to feast, and they will destroy millions of dollars worth of crops. 

    Stink bugs ate through more than 50 million dollars worth of fruit crops alone last year, this season they will be worse.   

    “We’re now seeing the price of food going up,” said Virginia Congressman Frank Wolf at a stink bug town hall event in his district.   “Nationwide, this could be a serious impact of the cost of food.    

    If you’re a farmer, and you’re life is invested in your crop, and you’re wiped out …” Wolf trailed off.  “The last time we saw something like this hit the farmers was the drought.”

    “We’ve seen ‘em along the edges of the field, and we’re just anticipating that they’re gonna be in the field come the spring,” said Tyler Wegmeyer, a strawberry farmer.  “We are worried about it.”

    At this point, farmers are helpless – some reduced to walking the orchards and crop rows, picking off the stink bugs they see with their hands and throwing them in a bucket of detergent or oil.

    “I’m worried I’m throwing away an entire crop,” said John McCann, who lost an entire harvest of Asian pears to stink bug damage last year.

    Scientists are researching pheromone traps that could be placed amid crops to attract the bugs and also pesticides that are effective yet safe to consume, but the brown marmorated stink bug is remarkably resistant.  While some have been shown to paralyze the bark-colored bug for hours, few chemicals have been found to actually kill it.  There is no golden ticket product scientists are endorsing.

    And not only will the stink bugs be eating this summer, they will also be reproducing.  Last year, in some parts of the mid-Atlantic region, they completed two generations (laid two batches of eggs), reproducing at double the pace. 

     In China, in the warm, southern part of the area they inhabit, they can complete six generations a year, Raupp said.  “If we look at the latitude of where they are China, and we superimpose that on North America … we’re concerned that when these stinkers move into the southern states – Georgia, the Carolinas – there could be multiple, as many as four or five generations a year.”

    The stink bug plague is spreading like kudzu because there is nothing to mitigate the population – nothing in the environment kills it.  While there are a variety of stink bug species living in North America, these generally go unnoticed because natural predators keep their populations in check.  The brown marmorated migrated solo.

    But United States Department of Agriculture scientist Kim Hoelmer has zeroed in on the insect that is the stink bug’s natural enemy in Asia and is now in the process of offering the single best hope for farmers across the country girding for a stink bug infestation.

    “These wasps that we’re considering introducing we know will only attack stink bug eggs and will not themselves become a problem anywhere else,” Hoelmer says from his lab situated on a remote swatch of the University of Delaware campus. 

    The insects Hoelmer keeps behind a series of pressurized quarantine doors actually look more like feckless gnats than their relatives, the paper wasps that descend on picnics and build basketball-sized nests in the summer.  These are smaller than ants, just big enough to drill through stink bug eggs masses and incapable of stinging humans or animals.

    “These wasps are so closely tied in to the biology of their host that their fate depends on the fate of the stink bug.  If the stink bug were to cease to exist, these wasps would cease to exist,” Hoelmer described. 

    But there are still risks to the predator introduction method.  Raupp calls it an “imperfect science,” citing parasitic flies released in the early 1900s to combat the gypsy moth population in New England, which them moved over to attack native silk moths.

    But Raupp and Hoelmer both say that the risks are comparatively small and these wasps are farmers’ best chance.

    USDA regulations have tightened since the gypsy moth experiment and the vetting process for releasing a new insect is vigorous: Hoelmer must demonstrate unequivocally that these wasps will eat only brown marmorated stink bug eggs and nothing else.

    “The kind of research needed to make this determination will take about two years typically to conduct,” Hoelmer says, predicting the wasps could be released in 2013, a dent in the stink bug population maybe seen a year after that.

    For the next two to three years, farmers can hope--and that’s about it. 

    Ashlea Surles is a production assistant for NBC Nightly News in the Washington D.C. bureau 

  • Memorial Day 2011

    Kate Snow writes

    After a very busy news week (see Brian’s post from Friday), this Memorial Day is the kind of rare day in the news business when the phones stop ringing.  Some of our summer interns started today and they’ve been quietly asking “Is this how it usually is?”  Well, no.  Usually it’s controlled chaos.  But today, much of the nation seems to be taking full advantage of the holiday, truly taking a break.

    We’ve been asking our Facebook followers to tell us what they’re up to today.  And sure, we’ve gotten a lot of mentions of barbeques and parades, family and friends.  But some of you took a moment to reflect.  Molly is “praying quietly for permanent peace in the world.”  Daryl is “thanking all of those who have given so much to even make this day possible.”  Barbara is in the midst of researching the POW records of her husband’s father, who was shot down over Germany in 1943.

    However you spent your day off, we hope you’ll put your feet up and join us for tonight’s broadcast.  We have 2012 politics to talk about, some severe weather, recovery in Joplin and an unbelievable story about a teacher in Mexico who kept a classroom full of Kindergartners safe as a gun battle raged right outside.

    Brian is back with you tomorrow.  We thank those of you who serve the nation and wish you all a safe and happy Memorial Day.

     

     

  • All the news that didn't fit

    Brian Williams writes

    So tonight, out of sheer frustration, I've written and compiled a ton of the news stories--of all kinds--that we didn't have time to include in the broadcast this week.

    While I stood there on Grand Street in Joplin, unable to figure out exactly where a friend of mine used to live (I'd been to the house when I lived there 30 years ago, but the notion of "addresses" is a vague, ephemeral thing in parts of Joplin these days), I knew we were staring out at a story...a tragedy...of historic proportions.

    Sure enough, we devoted almost all of our Monday and Tuesday broadcasts to Joplin, while reporting live from there. We had to let a lot of stuff go as a result. The stories that DIDN'T air range from the White House limousine mishap in Ireland to the loss of a Medal of Honor Recipient in Baltimore. So with speed, brevity and hopefully good humor, we will try to make up for lost time tonight.

    I hope you can join us for the broadcast, I hope you have a great holiday weekend, and I hope you can join us throughout and right back here as usual next week. Be safe out there, pray for the people in Joplin, and please pause to remember those who have served our country.

  • For Mladic's victims, justice is long overdue

    By Ian Williams, NBC News Correspondent

    I never thought I'd see the day that Ratko Mladic was finally brought to justice.

    I witnessed his Bosnian Serb underlings at their most cruel and barbaric, reporting in 1992 on the horrific detention centers in which Bosnian Muslims were incarcerated – bringing back memories of Nazi concentration camps in scenes we thought we would never again witness in Europe.

    The sheer terror in the faces and voices of those herded behind the wire is something I will never forget.

    Over the years, I have kept in touch with many of those who survived the camps. Dr. Idriz Merdzanic, a doctor in one of the camps I reported from, is one of the bravest men I have ever met.

    He took photographs of some of the appalling injuries he had to treat in the Trnopolje concentration camp in northern Bosnia and, in the face of enormous personal danger, gave the film to my ITN colleague Penny Marshall to smuggle out.

    He's now in Germany, where he started a new life. He still sends me Christmas cards, asking about my family. He says he'd like to return one day, but the scars from that period will take a long time to heal.

    The television reports from Marshall and I were the first to expose the horror of the camps set up by the Bosnian Serbs. (Click on the video link above to see the original 1992 report).

    Kevin Coombs / Reuters file

    International forensic experts examine dozens of bodies, believed to be some of the 8,000 missing persons who fled Srebrenica in July 1995, in a mass grave in the Serb entity of Pilicer, Bosnia in a September 18, 1996 file photo.

    I still recall roaming around the camp, trying to interview the terrified prisoners. They desperately wanted to talk, to expose what was happening there, but they – and I – knew that for them to speak too openly was a death sentence, as their guards watched and listened. So they spoke in coded English, only hinting at the horrors they faced.

    I worried terribly afterward that I might somehow have made things worse for them, but have been enormously grateful over the years for all the letters from former inmates saying how things improved after the worldwide outrage that followed our reports – that our reports helped save lives.

    I never met Mladic, I just saw his handiwork. 

    The Bosnian Serb wartime army commander is facing international war crimes charges, including some stemming from the slaughter of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the Bosnian town of Srebrenica during Bosnia's 1992-95 war. After 16 years on the run, he was arrested Thursday in a northern Serbian village. A Belgrade court ruled on Friday that he will be extradited to a U.N. tribunal at the Hague.

    Over the years, I also met many of those who had tried to track him down. In Iraq I came across a group of British special forces who had been tasked with grabbing Europe's most wanted man in the mid-‘90s. They described weeks of undercover work in Serbia, which culminated in their grabbing the wrong man – an innocent farmer, whom they quickly released after arranging some quick compensation for the rattled Mladic lookalike.

    Those I have kept in touch with had largely given up hope that Mladic would ever be found. His capture probably reflects the changing political situation in Serbia. It’s hard to imagine that his whereabouts were not known over the years. His capture will never erase the appalling memories of those who suffered and lost loved ones at the hands of his thugs, but it will bring some relief that he is at last to face justice.

    Related links:

    See a Channel 4 report on Ian Williams' reporting on the concentration camps in 1992: Ratko Mladic arrest: life-saving journalism

    Opportunity lost: How U.S. backed off in hunt for Mladic

     

  • The stone carver

    By Thomas Snowden

     

    As a video editor for NBC Nightly News in the Washington, DC bureau,  I’m usually editing stories right down to the last seconds of a deadline.  Once in a while, it's a nice break to find a story where I can take my time. Recently, I stumbled upon Sean Callahan, a stonemason and stone carver at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC.  

    Despite living less than a mile from the Cathedral for the past ten years, I found out about Sean and his work through my wife, Cathy.  Both happened to grow up in large Irish-Catholic families who were raised in a neighborhood called Stonegate in Silver Spring, Maryland. 

    Through the ancient art of stonemasonry, Sean Callahan creates beautiful carvings,   bringing the likenesses of such inspitational figures as Rosa Parks and Mother Teresa into the stone interiors of the National Cathedral in Washington D.C.  NBC's Kerry Sanders reports. 

    Sean studied fine arts in college, and found himself attracted to working with stone. The National Cathedral hired him as an apprentice in 1987.  Two years later, he went to the White House, doing restoration that included architectural cutting and stone setting.    

    Callahan calls it a "fun exercise" to take on the challenge of creating a lasting piece of art work from a blank block of stone.  The carvings have a permanance to them that give him satisfaction.  

    Start to finish, the process takes about about two months.  A sculptor does the portrait then sculpts it in clay.  Once the Cathedral committee approves the sculpture, a plaster cast is made of the model and that’s the model that Sean works from.    

    Stone carving, Sean notes, is not for everybody.  It’s physically demanding work and takes patience, working alone for many hours at a time.  He says the medium of stone fits his personality.

    When he's not working on a carving, Sean does maintenance work on the masonry of the Cathedral.

    Sean feels the National Cathedral's beauty naturally attracts people.  He considers that beauty to be something innate in all of us.  He describes the feeling as the one you get when you see  beautiful architecture, stained glass, and carvings.  Sean saw it all and wanted to be a part of it.  He  feels very lucky to do what he does, calling it his dream job. 

  • Introducing...the new Nightly News iPad app!

    Welcome to the new, free NBC Nightly News iPad app.  Now you can take NBC Nightly News with you wherever you go and easily access continuously updated videos, photos, Brian Williams' blog posts, plus join in the conversation on Twitter and Facebook right from within the app!

    The app supports streaming over both Wi-Fi and 3G - so you can watch the full broadcast as well as individual video clips with the same high-quality video experience that you've come to expect online from nightly.msnbc.com.

    We're thrilled to be able to bring you the news every day, wherever you are.

  • Back from Joplin

    Photo by Subrata De

    Wedding photo of Bethany and Don Lansaw

    Brian Williams writes

    I cannot shake my feelings for Joplin, Missouri. Nor can I express how they are holding up. It was an emotional few days—including a visit back to where I lived, and where I started my career. And at one point, 30 years ago, I thought that would mean putting down roots and settling into a life of local news in Joplin, as several of my friends did. It turns out my friend Dowe Quick (who is my age and has been married exactly as long as I have) is the dean of the local anchors, always so steady and superb on the air, always a great journalist and a first-rate reporter. He taught me a lot when I first arrived at that first TV station, and he's a wonderful guy whose decency comes flying through the screen.

    Before leaving Joplin, I stopped to visit with a young woman. The interview I conducted with her will air on the broadcast tonight. It’s a tragic story of love and loss and heroism and survival—and tonight I want you all to meet an extraordinary young woman named Bethany Lansaw.

    With one eye on the weather radar from the Midwest, and forever changed by what we saw in Joplin—we hope you can join us here tonight.

    Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

     

     

  • 1925: Deadliest tornado year on record

    NewspaperARCHIVE.com

    News of tornado damage in Twin Falls, March 23, 1925

    NewspaperARCHIVE.com

    News of tornado destruction in Illinois, March 18, 1925

    According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, in 1925 there were 794 deaths from tornados. View accounts of the devastation from these 1925 newspaper reports, courtesy NewspaperARCHIVE.com

  • Joplin tornado: How to help

    (Eric Thayer / Reuters)

    Kyle and Alicia Gordon of Joplin, Mo., embrace in what's left of their son's room.

     

     

    The below is a list of organizations and individuals helping victims of the Joplin tornado:

    • Catholic Charities of Southern Missouri has established a Joplin Relief Fund
    • The Don Lansaw Memorial Fund for the family of Don Lansaw, featured in Wednesday's Nightly News report,  is accepting donations through the U.S. Bank, 121 W. Broadway Street, Webb City MO 64870 or call (417) 673-2484.
    • Team Rubicon, featured in Ron Mott's Making a Difference report, accepts donations. Contact them at http://teamrubiconusa.org/
    • Southside Baptist Church, featured in Tuesday's Nightly News report, is accepting donations. Contact Pastor Phillip Owens at 216 W. Briar Brook Lane, Carl Junction, Missouri 64834
    • The American Red Cross has set up a page for Missouri tornado and flood relief.
    • The Joplin Red Cross could use some donations. You can contact it at (417) 624-4411 or info@redcross-ozarks.org in order to find out what supplies are most necessary.
    • The Missouri SEMA has set up a donation page.
    • A list of major non-profits that operate regularly in Missouri can be found on the National Donations Management Network website. You can also call (800) 427-4626 for further information.
    • The Missouri Interfaith Disaster Response Organization is taking donations for longterm recovery efforts.
    • The Community Blood Center of the Ozarks is in need of blood — particularly type O. A list of donation sites can be found here.

    Volunteering

    • 211 Missouri is helping organize volunteers in the affected areas. More information can be found by calling (800) 427-462.
    • Nurses or doctors looking to help can call (417) 832-9500 for the Greater Ozarks chapter of the Red Cross.
    • Health professionals can register to volunteer through the Show-Me Response website.  

    Animal rescue

    • For those in the Joplin area: Emergency Pet Center of the Four States at 7th & Illinois near the Sonic is OPEN and accepting found/injured animals. Its phones are down at this time.
    • The "Animals Lost & Found from the Joplin, Mo tornado" Facebook page is tracking lost and found pets.

    Safety Information

    • The National Americorp Volunteers are setting up a national hotline for residents to call to check on loved ones. The number is (417) 659-5464 and should be active later today.
    • The American Red Cross has set up a site on which you can check in, report on the safety of others, or look for information on loved ones.
    • The "Joplin people accounted for after the storm" Facebook page is helping people track loved ones who fell out of touch during the storm.
    • The Joplin, Mo. Tornado Survivors Facebook page is also helping people track down lost loved ones.
    • The St. John's Health System has been updating its Facebook page regularly with information relevant to the aftermath of the storm.

    Other efforts

    Some words of caution

    While giving is good and your intentions are great, be aware that there are individuals who might attempt to take advantage of your kindness. Read up on the charities or organizations to which you are donating funds or supplies. You can use sites such as Charity Navigator — a service run by a non-profit organization that has information on more than 5,000 charities and evaluates the groups' financial health — to confirm that everything's on the up and up. 

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Tornado rips through Joplin, MO killing at least 89

    What we're following: 

    - Tornado rips through Joplin, Missouri killing at least 89.  Brian Williams reports live from the scene tonight.

    - President Obama in Ireland today, start of a six-day European tour

    - Europe on alert for Icelandic volcano ash cloud

    And did you see...

    - Life-sized tiger stuffed animal causes huge scare in Britain

    - Minister who predicted the world would end this past Saturday not seen since

    - Princess Beatrice's hat sells for over $130,000

     

     

     

  • West Coast swing

    Brian Williams writes

    I'm in Los Angeles tonight for the broadcast from our NBC News Bureau. Later tonight I will moderate a panel as part of our Education Nation initiative—specifically, tonight is about jobs and the gap between what our schools are offering and what the job market demands.  

    A quick shout-out to a hard-working man: last night due to highway flooding in New York, I almost missed my flight to LA.  I was met, while running into JFK, by a nice man with American Airlines named Barry. He assured me that everything would be okay if I kept up with him and did what he said.  It was like a scene from a movie.  More accurately, it became an American Airlines commercial.  There was a big question as to whether my bag would make the flight.  Once we learned we were delayed, he came back on the plane three times to update me.  He went all the way back to baggage claim, walked onto the tarmac, asked the ramp workers about my bag.  It was the kind of thing that ONLY happens in airline commercials -- and I didn't really expect to see my bag until the first flight from New York this morning.  But there it was on the carousel last night, 5am Eastern Time, 2am local -- when we weary travellers stood with our carts and our cellphones, squinting at our watches and trying to do the math.  While this is in no way an endorsement of one airline over another, this is just to say: Thanks to Barry at American Airlines at JFK.  Making a transcontinental flight in the pouring rain after the broadcast was stressful enough.  He did everything he could to make the experience better.

    We hope you can join us from Los Angeles tonight.

  • Little Monster update

    Brian Williams writes

    I just went down to visit the Gaga fans...on the sidewalk, in the pouring rain. I brought them some cupcakes. They are hanging in there. It looks like FEMA has visited—they are under blue tarps, the rain water flowing in torrents along the 49th Street curb no more than 2 feet from where they are living. We shot some videotape of the visit—our local station, WNBC-TV sent a camera crew out to visit them as well—and there's been a lot of Twitter traffic about them. All I know is, they deserve dry clothes and good stand-by seats for the big show on Saturday night. Camping out on Tuesday for a Saturday event?  That's dedication.

    Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

  • Muslim women dispel stereotypes

    By Shannon Urtnowski, Associate Producer

    Growing up is hard enough for women, but in the post-9/11 era we live in today, Arab American girls have the added challenge of defending their faith at a time when anti-Muslim stereotyping is so high.  Confronting this issue that is rarely addressed, a workshop "Free to be Me: Empowering Women and Girls" broke down the barriers over the weekend--and the workshop's organizers were gracious enough to invite me to spend the day with them for a deeper look.

    HEART Women & Girls and the Ehsan Center, two organizations that work closely with Muslim communities in different parts of the country, hosted the all-day seminar in Southern California to tackle three topics that Muslim women face daily: self-esteem, media literacy, and health and wellness. This was the first event of its kind on the West Coast. Through self-defense training and interactive group discussion, the women learned tools to help "redefine ourselves," as one mother put it.

    Grandmothers, daughters and sisters alike were in attendance. Amid all the positive feedback I received from these women, mothers seemed most enthusiastic about what an event like "Free to be Me" will mean for the Muslim women of tomorrow. While also enjoying the day's festivities, they said the true joy for them was watching their daughters become empowered. According to HEART, the three issues that Muslim girls struggle with most today are self-esteem and the hijab, bullying, and Islamophobia. Mothers want their daughters to grow to be confident and strong, no matter what religion they practice, and that begins with combatting these issues--not only for themselves, but for future generations.

    To hear from the women of "Free to be Me" in their own words, watch the below video.

     

    Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

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