Iraq reached a terrible new milestone today... one of the deadliest single bomb attacks since the beginning of the war.  A suicide bomber driving a truck with more than a ton of explosives detonated his cargo in the middle of a crowded Baghdad market.  One wire service reports at least 135 Iraqis killed.... 300 injured.  The pictures of the victims flooding into a hospital were horrible.  As we have said before, this is another example of the conflict that has grown into a bloody civil war.  It is another example of the chaos that reigns in Baghdad... another sad example of the carnage.  NBC's Jane Arraf will have the latest from Baghdad tonight.

Also... NBC's John Yang will give us the view from the White House as President Bush makes the case for sending more troops to Iraq.

We are also following the situation in Florida after tornadoes killed at least 20 people early Friday morning.  NBC's Kerry Sanders reports... and NBC's Lester Holt has the story of one woman who moved away from New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina... and ended up in central Florida... once again the victim of mother nature.

NBC's Tom Costello tells us how the global call for urgent measure to stem global warming... is translating into action on the home front.

NBC's Michael Okwu reports on the controversy surrounding a new mandate in Texas to give young girls a cancer vaccine to prevent a common sexually transmitted virus.

And from Fort Campbell, Kentucky the story of Ms. Vicki... a military counselor who dishes out do's and don'ts on everything from parenting and etiquette, to dealing with deployments and depression.  NBC's Ron Mott will have that story.

It's all coming up tonight.  We hope you'll join us.

What happened in Florida while most of America slept was a tragedy. A meteorological monster rolled through Central Florida overnight, and in the perverse way of these giant storms, chose to touch down in some spots while skipping over others. It made the difference between living and dying, and between standing structures and spots where the Earth was swept clean.

During the preparation for a network special report today, I made a decision that was rooted in my experience as a rookie reporter in Kansas. While living in tornado alley, I saw a lot of twisters. Up close. Some in the daylight, and at least one adjacent to where I was driving in Neosho, Mo., in the dark of night... illuminated only by arcing wires and the occasional flash of lightning. But there's an odd rule that governs the coverage of tornadoes: they're not to be called tornadoes by the news media until the National Weather Service declares them as such.  It's a technicality, and a maddening one to be sure. Any storm veteran knows the damage that circular winds leave behind as opposed to flat, straight winds. When you see a twister churning through town, and later arrive in that town to find 150 witnesses and victims, it makes little sense not to label what just happened a "tornado."

And so, invoking Kansas rules, today at a few minutes before 2 p.m. Eastern time, our viewers heard that what happened in Florida was the result of "at least one tornado."  It's a risk I was willing to take. Our hearts go out to the people who survived, and our coverage teams are in position and ready to tell the story. What happened last night makes its own strong case to buy a NOAA Weather Radio, no matter where you live, with an alert function (especially in towns without sirens) that is triggered when a warning is issued. When we left this building last night, only a "watch" had been posted, covering a finite area, until 10 p.m. last night. I was moved by something to check on the progress of the weather system all night long (last night I wrote of the 20-degree temperature disparity on either side of the violent front) and we now know what happened.

Elsewhere in the news, of all things: climate change. We'll have our own report on the long-awaited report just out today. We'll cover war spending, the intelligence estimate for Iraq, we'll have our Friday night "Making a Difference" segment -- and we'll try to end on a light note.  It has to do with a television alternative to the hype of the Super Bowl. I'll say.

Next week, after our Monday broadcast from New York, we'll be heading back to New Orleans for our Tuesday coverage -- to check back in on the recovery and key-in on specific aspects of it.

We hope you can join us for our Friday Night broadcast, and have a great weekend.

So we're in the middle of our morning briefing known as a "gaggle" when there's an abrupt interruption. "We have to evacuate," is the word. A dog has tested positive on a vehicle not far from our temporary quarters just off the White House grounds. So we quickly exit and huddle in the cold in front of the New Executive Office Building. Ever since the "real deal," when we were moved on 9/11, there's more seriousness given to these events. There was the usual banter and camaraderie outside, but still in the pit of your stomach you never know. This time maybe it was some residue left in a or a dog having a bad day, but for 40 minutes, we didn't know for sure -- until the "all clear."

That's how it is these days.

A strange three-week controversy over the remarks of the Pentagon's top official responsible for overseeing the detainees at Guantanamo Bay has ended with his resignation, the Pentagon revealed today.  The saga began when he provoked an outcry in the legal community by publicly questioning the decisions of U.S. law firms to defend some of the detainees.

On Jan. 11, the official, Charles "Cully" Stimson, gave an interview to a Washington, D.C., radio station in his capacity as the Defense Department's Deputy Assistant Secretary for Detainee Affairs. "It's shocking," he said, to find out which law firms are representing detainees. 

After naming 13 of them, including some of the nation's largest and most prominent, he said "when corporate CEOs see that those firms are representing the very terrorists who hit their bottom line back in 2001, those CEOs are going to make those law firms choose between representing terrorists or representing reputable firms."

As it happened, several of those big companies did just the opposite, rallying to the support of the law firms. One was GE, the parent company of NBC, which said it had no intention of "discriminating against law firms that represent us on the basis of the pro bono, charitable, or public service that the lawyers in those firms choose to engage in."

Stimson's remarks also prodded a former top justice department official in the Bush administration, Ted Olson, to join with a liberal law professor in co-writing an article for Legal Times critical of Stimson's remarks. The ethos of the legal profession, they said, "is built on the idea that lawyers will represent both the popular and the unpopular, so that everyone has access to justice."

Stimson issued an apology, but the damage had already been done.  The San Francisco Bar Association sought an ethics investigation. Law professors condemned his comments, and the Bush administration distanced itself from his remarks.

Brian anchors the broadcast this Friday night from New York.

Click here or on the image for his daily preview of the stories we're working on at this hour.

Editor's note: Kevin introduces you to rancher Bill Brooks on tonight's broadcast. He filed this blog post to supplement his on-air report, which will be available as text and video at Nightly.MSNBC.com at 7:30 p.m. ET.

On the Colorado plains the wind bites so cold it reaches right through your winter gear and rips your lungs out. They say they haven't seen a winter like this out here forever, and with back-to-back blizzards much of the state continues to dig its way out. Four feet of snow has fallen in some places, along with several inches of ice. The January winds managed to create drifts 10-12 feet high.

Buried under the weight of winter is much of Colorado's beef industry, and dead, frozen cattle dot what otherwise is a barren, white landscape. Newly minted Colorado Governor Bill Ritter even told us he's heard from ranchers that some herds sought shelter in canyons that were 50 feet deep, only to be completely buried in the snow and suffocate. It's estimated more than 10,000 head have already perished, and the price of beef is expected to rise as a result.

What's perhaps doubly sad for ranchers this time of year is that the calving season is underway, and many are losing the bulk of their newborns.

Bill Brooks' family has raised cattle in Colorado for nearly 100 years... four generations still work the farm. They've already lost 25 of 35 calves to the cold. 

"If they were born in the snow, we'd try to pick them up to keep them warm," he says, "but if we're not here... they don't make it."

Many ranchers are either a) out of hay,  b) have cattle still lost or stranded in the snow, c) facing financial ruin or d) all of the above.

Still, as only someone involved in agriculture can be, Brooks remains stoic.

"I saw a sign somewhere that said 'I'm an optimist. An optimist is someone who thinks things can't get any worse than they are right now.'"

And spring is still two months down the road.

There's an old adage in the news business: if you televise a story on Restless Legs Syndrome, everyone with Restless Legs Syndrome will e-mail you the next day. Just kidding about the whole "adage" thing, but there really ought to be one after today. We commissioned last night's story, as we explained on the air, when the commercials started running advertising a medication to treat it. Back then we were flooded with questions about what "it" was -- now we know 1) what it is, 2) what to take for it, 3) who has it (including loved ones who we didn't know had it) and 4) we don't have to do that story again for a while. The entire episode proved a thesis of the piece: having a medication on the market, with an advertising campaign, gave the condition a "name" for many of those who either thought it was just them, or never complained about it, or both. Since then we've all learned about all kinds of people with the condition.

Two young guys in Boston got a little frisky with the media today, which caused MSNBC's Susan Filan to say just now on the air, "unfortunately being a jerk isn't a crime." The two guys would be well advised not to get frisky before any Boston judges... even though, as our own Pete Williams blogs below, a lot of legal experts are now wondering if any charges will stick against them. While this day after brought a lot of second-guessing that officials in Boston panicked, that's not quite fair. It's so easy to say now that what was discovered yesterday (containing lights, circuitry, batteries and electrical tape) should have been instantly recognized as a promotion for the Cartoon Network. It's all a part of post-9/11 syndrome.

There's rough and dangerous weather today down south. There is a 20-degree difference in temperature on either side of a line which is marked by deeply embedded storm cells -- many of them massive enough to force the diversion of airliners, some of them rough enough to produce tornadoes.

Back up to the top of the broadcast today: What a tense moment when Sen. John McCain took on Gen. George Casey. Today we saw the problem with President Bush's stated policy of relying on the judgment of his "generals in the field." Those generals are then held accountable for their judgments. While all good generals are, of course, willing to be judged on that basis, Casey said so explicitly today. He got knocked around by Sen. Graham as well during hearings to consider Casey for Army Chief of Staff... Gen. Marshall's old job (among other notables). We'll also cover the various Iraq War resolutions.

Also in the broadcast tonight: news from the Rockies, and news from Italy. We'll explain.  President Clinton lost his stepfather, Al Gore was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, and the mayor of San Francisco confesses. Today's New York Daily News headline called Joe Biden "SENATOR STUPID." Unusual news day... but then again, these are unusual times.

We hope you can join us for our Thursday night broadcast.

As authorities in Boston look into whether they can file criminal charges against the company behind the cartoon ad campaign -- or sue it for damages -- the initial criminal case against the two men charged with planting the Boston signs will not be easy for the state to pursue in court.

Peter Berdovsky and Sean Stevens were charged today with disorderly conduct, a misdemeanor, and a more serious charge -- planting a hoax device. Prosecutors will have a hard time making that one stick.

The law has two main elements. First, a hoax device is defined as an object "that would cause a person reasonably to believe" it's something harmful, like a bomb. Assuming the state can get past that hurdle, there's a bigger obstacle: the law also requires that the device be placed "with the intent to cause anxiety, unrest, fear, or personal discomfort." Prosecutors said nothing during this morning's court hearing that would indicate they have any evidence of that.

The judge was puzzled by that, too. "Isn't that a key element of this particular charge?" he asked this morning. "And didn't you just tell me that the intent was to be able to advertise for a marketing purpose?"

The prosecutor answered that the intent was to get attention, "which they got by causing fear and unrest." But the state will have to prove the two men intended to cause that fear, which may be a tall order.

Covering the President of the United States is a high-profile, coveted job at every news organization. But as NBC News cameraman Jim Long shows you in this vlog, it's not exactly gourmet meals aboard Air Force One.

Click here or on the image to watch Jim's vlog, shot on Jan. 25 during President Bush's trip to Kansas City.

We flew in to Germany this morning on the C-17 that regularly shuttles the U.S. wounded from the battlefields of Iraq to the Army's regional medical center here in Landstuhl. Injured soldiers rest in gurneys stacked two or three high while teams of doctors, nurses and respiratory therapists offer care at 37,000 feet as good as most hospital intensive care units. It is quite a sight. The cargo bay of the huge jet is configured so that the medical teams can care for someone on a ventilator, give continuous oxygen, monitor vital signs and intervene when necessary. Last night as the plane hit choppy air, some of the wounded who were conscious groaned loudly in pain. The nurse gave them additional sedating drugs. A man with intestinal damage was continuing to bleed internally, so he got a blood transfusion in the sky.

To lessen the chance of a strike from a rocket, the plane takes off in the dark from Balad Air Base  with no lights on. It accelerates far faster than a commercial airliner, slamming inexperienced passengers in seats along the side against one another. All passengers are instructed to wear body armor for the take off. It is one last reminder of the dangers of Iraq. For me, after spending seven hours next to all those injured soldiers, no reminder is needed.

Later today we caught up with some of the wounded whose care we are following from the outlying hospitals in Iraq all here to Germany and then on to treatment in the U.S. The 21-year-old I described yesterday is doing fine. His face looks awful, but he will heal. There are many others who will not do so well, despite the efforts of the best-ever military medicine.

Whatever you thought of her politics – or, perhaps more accurately put, whatever you thought of what she thought of politics – you had to appreciate the truly unique voice that was Molly Ivins. Not since Will Rogers or Mark Twain has an American writer or political observer offered such wry and poignant observation (and often rebuke) of our politicians and political system.

That voice was one of the things I admired so much about Molly when I was in journalism school. It wasn't long after I first started reading her columns that I had the chance to meet her. Molly was in Michigan speaking at a local university, and I was working for the local paper at my very first job out of school. My managing editor had taken the opportunity to set up an informal get-together with Molly and our staff at the local bar -- a regular haunt of many of the paper's reporters and editors.

I couldn't have been happier. At that point in my career, it felt like the equivalent of being invited into a smoky back room in Washington where political wheeling and dealing was taking place. Molly seemed right at home – she loved a cold drink, and even more so, an audience.

One story I remember in particular was about her move to New York to attend Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism, about how she had a dog named -- in the crudest possible manner -- after fecal material, how the dog got away as she was moving into her new apartment, and how she ran through the streets of Manhattan chasing after the dog and screaming its name – while mothers covered their children's ears and random strangers wondered who was the crazy girl with the funny accent and Tourette's syndrome who'd just moved into the neighborhood.

I didn't see Molly again until I moved back to Austin, Texas, several years later. By this point, she'd already been through chemo for her first bout with breast cancer, but that didn't stop a tradition she'd started years before – Final Fridays. These were regular get-togethers at Molly's house, more salon than party, where heated political debates were no more common than poetry readings or musical jam sessions. 

Of course, Molly seemed her stout and boisterous self even though her wavy, salt-and-pepper hair was now just a cap of short, silvery ringlets. I couldn't help but note the uncanny resemblance she now had to her newer canine companion -- the more genteelly named standard poodle, Athena.

While she wrote occasionally about her cancer, it was never a topic of conversation for Final Friday. It simply wasn't something she wanted to talk about. Final Friday was for remembering what was good and interesting and smart and fun.

I moved away from Austin a few years later and, on a return visit in 2003, I asked a friend if Final Friday was still taking place. Of course it was. When I arrived that night, the walkway up to the house was dark, but the porch light was on. Attached to the door was a note. Final Fridays had been canceled indefinitely. I didn't know at that point that the cancer had returned for the third time.

Last September, Molly was quoted as saying "I'm sorry to say (cancer) can kill you, but it doesn't make you a better person." Well, that's probably true. Cancer probably doesn't make people better at being people, but somehow, it always seems to end up taking the very best ones.