We are following developments in Iran today... where the Iranian government is detaining those 15 British sailors and marines.  There are reports that Iran may consider putting them on trial.  NBC's Stephanie Gosk will have the latest from London.

The pet food recall is growing... another brand of dog food has been added to the list.  NBC's John Larson has that story.

CNBC's Scott Cohn reports on America's new cash crop... corn.

In Nicaragua tonight... the story of an American convicted of rape and murder.  NBC's Kerry Sanders reports on why the case may not be clear-cut.

NBC's Janet Shamlian tells us about a troubled housing market… some homes going for less than the cost of a car… and they're still not selling.

And they're calling it the Arabic version of American Idol... tonight NBC's Tom Aspell tells us how one woman from Iraq... who won the competition... is bringing people together in Iraq.

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

In our interconnected world, we cannot expect what some are calling a "hostage crisis" involving Iran and the U.K. to enter its eighth day and not affect the global oil market. Tonight the domestic consumer impact will be among our top stories.  We'll also update today's findings on pet food, the allegations about Rudy Giuliani, and an examination of the mega-business strategy being pursued by Starbucks. We'll hear from the CEO.

DON'T LOOK NOW (ACTUALLY, PLEASE DO...)
The other story I'd call to your attention is a collaborative effort to bring us up to date on the startling situation in Russia. Veteran Correspondent Jim Maceda along with Nightly News producer Clare Duffy (who has lived there, studied the culture and speaks the language) have returned from Russia with some great reporting on Putin's rule, the economy and more. Jim has already filed a vlog in this space and there is a huge package of Web material that will be at Nightly.MSNBC.com when we hit air. Our operating theory is that Russia has been off the American radar -- and while we've been looking elsewhere and fighting dual wars, Putin has consolidated power and transformed many aspects of the country. Tonight we're airing a fascinating and important piece of work.

THE REACTION
The e-mails that this network has received since the segment last night with Anne Thompson have been overwhelming. Talk about touching a nerve. You will see more of Anne tonight, and here's a hint: Friday nights are reserved for our Making a Difference segment.

THE GOODBYE
We'll also take a moment tonight to mark the retirement of a veteran. Jim Cummins is one of the people our viewers think of as part of the "faces of NBC News." He's the definition of a field correspondent -- he has covered every story more than once, and has been the central man in our Dallas bureau for as long as I can remember. As I said on our inter-office conference call this morning, he has taught a slew of rookies around here, both in terms of direct mentoring and indirect osmosis. He has been a staple and unshakable presence on network television news, and we will always consider ourselves members of Jim's home team.

THE LINKS
Until I figure out a way to make these a permanent feature, please remember our favorites here: Michael Yon's blog from Iraq, the best explainer I've encountered on that same subject (with thanks to ARMY magazine) and the book/DVD MEDAL OF HONOR, which is filled with such amazing and compelling stories and text... the proceeds from which go to such a good cause.

Have a good weekend and please join us for the Friday edition of NBC Nightly News.

NBC's Jim Maceda was in Russia recently -- his report on the trip will air tonight, offering a glimpse into what life has become under the country's leader Vladimir Putin. Here, Jim vlogs about how the "new" Russia compares to the old, and how life has changed since he was last there.Watch the vlog

Brian makes a confession in today's vlog and also details some of the stories we're working on for tonight's broadcast.Click here to watch the vlog

We have a number of different options for the top of the broadcast tonight. Today was a travel day, back from Washington after the Correspondents' Dinner. I arrived back in New York and had to immediately take part in a film shoot in Times Square for an NBC project. Then it was off to the pre-editorial meeting... followed by the actual editorial meeting. Among the stories afoot tonight: a big credit scam story, the Gonzales story on the Hill (briefly interrupted today), the fallout from the speech by the Saudi King, and the Iran drama -- which seemed to ratchet up today despite calls last night for cooler heads to prevail. Among the more interesting print stories of the day was an A-section piece in this morning's Washington Post about the new (and sadly fatal) targeting of the Green Zone in Baghdad. The rockets and mortars over there are so random -- and life in the Green Zone can give all inhabitants a false sense of security -- and the combination can be awful.  All it takes is one insurgent with a fast car, decent aim and a small, portable rocket launcher to turn a corner of the Green Zone into a battlefield.

I wanted to draw special attention to a segment we're planning for tonight: Anne Thompson, who went public in this space about her successful battle with breast cancer, will talk about it tonight on Nightly News. As familiar as she is to all of you, she's a member of our family -- and those of us who were aware of what was happening watched her face up to this challenge with the courage of an infantryman. I look forward to having Anne on tonight.

I hope you can join us for the Thursday edition of our broadcast.

NBC's Pete Williams offers a rundown of some of the stories we're working on for tonight's broadcast, including a piece from Robert Bazell that touches on some of the reporting he did in Iraq. That reporting will be highlighted in his documentary "Wounds of War," airing tonight at 11 ET on MSNBC TV. You can read Robert's preview of the documentary here.Click here to watch the vlog

We are in Washington tonight because of this evening's annual Correspondents' Dinner. I fully suspect this evening will have a somber cast to it because of the news yesterday concerning Tony Snow. This city, where I've spent something like a third of my adult life and all of my college years, is a very small town -- a Company town, at that. The Company is government, and so tonight's odd mix of government and media will bring 2,000 people under the blue-tinted "Star Trek" ceiling of the Washington Hilton Ballroom -- all of whom play some role in the Company. Tony would normally be on the dais, looking up at his boss during his remarks. There will be an empty seat, figuratively at least, on that dais tonight.  Our thoughts and prayers are with Tony, his wife and his three girls.

ABOUT TONIGHT
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I just interviewed Sheryl Crow, who was in town today to testify on the Hill about breast cancer. The MRI development is just the latest piece in this ongoing "national conversation" about breast cancer of late, prompted by the very public battles being fought by some public figures.

We'll also update the Iran and Iraq situations tonight. The political fight between the President and Democrats on the Hill intensified today. The President enters into this veto battle without his usual spokesman... and another first today: the Speaker of the House told the President of the United States to "calm down." David Gregory (who I just called at the White House to thank him for letting me borrow his office to write this) will wrap it all together for us tonight.

We're still moving pieces around and working on the timing (an effort that continues up to airtime and while we're on the air), due to a common problem around here: more news than time to tell it.

CELEBRITIES
At last night's annual New York dinner of the Congressional Medal of Honor Society at the New York Stock Exchange on Wall Street, there were celebrities all over the room, though not the kind you'd find in US Magazine. At one table was the pilot of Super Six-Five, one of the choppers in Black Hawk Down. There was the newest recipient of the Medal of Honor, Vietnam Huey pilot Bruce Crandall, played by Greg Kinnear in "We Were Soldiers."                
                     
Scattered around the room were 31 of the 111 living recipients. John Finn spoke about the morning of the Pearl Harbor attack. John's 97 now, and the oldest living recipient -- old enough to remember traveling by ox cart from his birthplace of Los Angeles to a family farm his father had purchased along the California coast. The family later ditched the cart for a Model T. Walt Ehlers, who still wears the pain on his face of the loss of his brother during the war, spoke about getting his men off the beach, alive, on D-Day. You'll get to know Walt as one of the central characters of Ken Burns' towering new film "The War" in September on PBS. The noted financier and public servant (and Higgins Boat driver on D-Day) John Whitehead was there last night to be honored, as was the brave Iraqi Mohammed Odeh al-Rehaief, who rose to prominence for reporting the location of Jessica Lynch to American forces. There was a lot of gold braid in that room last night -- a lot of medals -- and a scattered few aging businessmen wearing tiny colored lapel tabs indicating, to those conversant in the meaning of the various color combinations, an extraordinary decoration they'd received for an extraordinary act of heroism... in a jungle, on a beach, in a forest or foxhole, years ago, when they were young. We talked about Iraq, and generals we knew, and about the rocket that landed in the Green Zone yesterday. It was the largest single collection of brave men in the city of New York last night. Again:  not a celebrity among them in terms of "US" -- just in terms of valor, duty, honor and battlefield exploits. Most share a hard-earned hatred of warfare, and a kind of modesty that is hard to explain. Whenever I think I'm having a bad day, I think of any one of 111 guys.                           

One more time:  please read their stories. The book chronicling their exploits helps pay for their care. Close to 40,000 copies of the book are now in American schools -- and it's about to become part of the city-wide curriculum in Erie, Pa.

We hope you can join us tonight from Washington.

Photo caption: Brian and Sheryl Crow pose for a snapshot, post-interview. Photo by NBC's Antoine Sanfuentes.

Brian is in Washington today, so NBC's Robert Bazell takes over vlog duties, previewing some of the stories we're working on for tonight's broadcast.Click here to watch the vlog

I have just come from a board meeting in a stiflingly hot meeting room inside a Midtown Manhattan Hotel. It might as well be a summer day in New York. Now, two hours from air, I begin the re-immersion into the broadcast I last checked in on more than two hours ago.

The public discussion of cancer now includes another public figure. When Tony Snow's deputy told the press corps about the result of her boss's surgery yesterday, she broke into tears. The President said today he is praying for his friend and press secretary now that Tony Snow's cancer has returned. We are all thinking of Tony and want him to be strong. David Gregory will cover this story for us tonight. Tony Snow would be the first person to remind us (as would Elizabeth Edwards) that the story here is one of chronic disease, and the Americans living with cancer on an almost routine, daily basis. The story is this disease... and its steady march and high cost.

The Iran situation is heating up -- and if anything this story was covered as LESS than what it is today. These naval exercises by the U.S. (coming while the Brits are being held) are NOT the routine type we are used to. Blair of Britain today warned of a "new phase" of this if his troopers are not released. The Americans have a huge hand in anything happening in those waters and in that region, and this story ratcheted up in importance as the day went on.

We have excellent reporting tonight on matters of transportation, the military, identity theft, marriage and China -- to name just a few.

And since I've received a lot of inquiries about the Medal of Honor, please allow me to suggest a book. Here is the link, and it includes a DVD. I have given away a slew of them as gifts (the proceeds are used to care for the health and well-being of Medal of Honor recipients, among the topics just covered at our board meeting), and I promise the stories in the book, and on the DVD, will remain with you always. As one recipient put it just today, "it's about honoring the people who found it within themselves -- the potential within all of us." In each case, someone is alive because of the sacrifice and bravery of the recipient. The book will make it easy to understand why these men have come to mean so much to me, and why it's an honor to work with them and for them.
                        
Onward. We have a broadcast to do, and we hope you will join us for Nightly News tonight.

In today's vlog, Brian reflects on Tony Snow's difficult announcement that his cancer has returned. Brian also reviews last night's first broadcast in high definition, and talks about a story that didn't air, but did make yesterday's Daily Nightly pages -- you can check it out here.Click here to watch the vlog

Tonight's broadcast has health news of interest to millions of heart patients. We have an update on the Tillman case, and we will substantially advance the story involving Attorney General Gonzales.  We have a fine piece on global warming, an explainer of today's child care story in the news, and an unusual look at the war in Iraq.  We also have a look at this day in the life of Elizabeth Edwards, on the campaign trail after being in the news these past several days following the announcement of the return of her breast cancer.

This next item is related.  We are today, as members of the Nightly News family, prepared to share a bit of a "family secret" regarding one of our own.  My friend and colleague Anne Thompson has written something, which I post below with her permission, which has to do with the topic in the news these past few days.

Cancer isn't about dying, it is about living. I know, I've been living with cancer for the past year, and you've been watching me.A year ago, this month, March 31 to be exact, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. They labeled it stage 3 because of its size. It wasn't a lump, but rather like a piece of risotto -- elliptical in shape.The first pathologist recommended I go straight to mastectomy, but I wanted options.

I attacked my cancer like it was a story -- learning everything I could, finding the best experts, and most importantly finding options. The tests showed I won the cancer trifecta: surgery, chemotherapy and radiation. The only choice I had was what order in which to have them. Determined to save my breast, I chose to have chemotherapy first, surgery, then radiation.

Work was also part of the cure. It gave me purpose. It made me feel normal. 30 Rock became my cancer-free zone. I didn't tell many people because I was scared. I didn't know what was going to happen. I had lost control. I didn't know what the future held. In truth, I didn't know if I had a future.

Chemo took my long blonde hair. I replaced it with two wigs, nicknamed "mata hari" after the glamorous World War I spy. Chemo took my eyebrows. I replaced them with wax and powder. Then it took my eyelashes, so I wore false ones. But what it couldn't take -- what cancer couldn't take -- was my desire to report. Or my desire to live.

Chemo also took all the cancer. My hair, as you can see has come back, and my desire to report is as strong as ever.

You can live with cancer --  millions do. Quiet battles that never make headlines, but are remarkable nonetheless. It is a battle you cannot fight alone. My sister Mary was my rock. My brother, Bill, my bald buddy. He shaved his head. My brother, Jim, my comic relief. My mum was determined to be the mother of the year, but couldn't stop herself from doing a little reconnaissance at Bloomingdale's as I slept through one of my chemo treatments.

And I have remarkable friends, many of whom work on this broadcast. They sat through chemo, wig appointments, any number of tests, and kept me laughing.

I am told I am cancer free, but I don't think you ever really are. The fear is always there, but it is not nearly as strong as the desire to live.   

A POSTSCRIPT...
There are few words to add to the above example of the humanity and courage of our friend Annie.  She has been a marvel to watch.  We were as impressed with her strength during the worst times as we are elated now with her best-possible bill of health.  It is a joy to be able to publish her story here.  It's wonderful to have her as a colleague.  We will see Anne tonight from the Everglades in Florida.

THE LOST AIRMAN
This week here in New York, all of the living Medal of Honor recipients who are able to make the trip are here in the city for a semi-annual meeting.  I'm honored to be able to emcee their dinner, but the gathering comes on the heels of an awful loss.  As the New York Times chronicled today, Medal of Honor Recipient Jay Zeamer died last Thursday. Captain Zeamer was a B-17 pilot in the Pacific Campaign.  In October of 1942, a shell burst inside his aircraft, and he was wounded in all four extremities with shrapnel...one of his legs was broken.  He kept flying, stayed at the controls, shot down several Japanese planes, evaded several others, and landed his aircraft safely.  He was one of the greatest members of the Greatest Generation, and he will be missed.  His death leaves us with 111 living recipients.

MORE DETAILS...
If you have HDTV, you'll notice the broadcast has a few more details tonight, visually, that is.  This is our HD debut tonight, and as I said Friday evening: for those without HD, we should look the same.  I don't quite know of anything to do differently, so here goes nothing.

ABOUT TOMORROW
I have a board meeting of the Medal of Honor Society that will be in progress during the time I would normally post.  Tomorrow's post will be brief if I can muster one at all.  Apologies, but duty calls.

We hope you can join us for tonight's broadcast of NBC Nightly News.

MIAMI -- They're some of the most powerful pictures of war, taken not by professional cameramen, but by soldiers themselves. There's no way to track the number of video and still cameras attached to helmets, rifles, inside Humvees or on Stryker turrets. What is clear: storytelling is no longer just a journalist's domain. Soldiers and Marines are telling their stories to a worldwide audience. Some of the videos on YouTube have been viewed by more than 200,000 people. On Doonesbury's "The Sandbox," a popular blog among members of the military, videos from those fighting in Afghanistan are now drawing an audience.

Some of the pictures are raw, ugly, and hard to stomach. Other videos are silly diversions from war: a look at the comic relief from so much intensity. Interestingly, while there are complaints that the media doesn't tell enough of the "good news" from Iraq, I found few soldiers or marines telling that story themselves. These videos appear to be the ongoing evolution of journalism in the Internet age. Military home videos are a subset of the growing so-called "citizen journalism."A captain I spoke with at U.S. Central Command in Tampa called these "the new social fabric."

VIDEO: Click here or on the image above to watch raw video shot by a U.S. soldier in Iraq.

Some of the posted clips are simple, like "A Sniper's Story." It's still photos taken by a sniper, set to music from the movie "The Gladiator." The sniper asked we not reveal his name, but he wants us to see the war he's seen: positions often miles from insurgents, a lonely existence behind walls or hidden by rubble.

Film producer Chuck Lacy told me, "the genie is out of the bottle." He looked at hundreds of hours of videotape taken by more than a dozen members of the New Hampshire National Guard during their one-year deployment. The tape was turned into an award winning film "The War Tapes."

VIDEO: Click here or on the image to watch a preview of the film "The War Tapes."

I've personally been in and out of Iraq for a total of about six months over the last four years. My first trip was as an embedded journalist with the 2nd Battalion, 8th Marines. I remember meeting a Marine back then, Lance Cpl. Johnny Zonnefeld, who was going to put a camera on his helmet and record the war. It never quite worked out in those early days of war. It was too complicated to roll a camera and fight. But as Marines and soldiers have gotten into the routine of battle, so too have many gotten into the routine of recording their experiences and then uploading them for all to see.

Tonight on the broadcast we'll take a look at this unique perspective of the war, as told by those fighting it.

This evening, we broaden our horizons, literally. Tonight's 'Nightly News' will be the first national evening newscast available in true, 16:9 wide screen, high definition.

So, what does that mean to you? If you own an HD set and are hooked up for HD reception you should see a picture as clear and crisp as we see in the Nightly control room. You should hear music and audio from the program in a fuller, richer way than you have heard it before. But, truth be told, tonight's broadcast will not be revolutionary. In fact if you're watching on your standard-definition television you should notice an improved picture, a few new graphics, and little else. What tonight's broadcast will be is a big step down a path of continuous evolution that will bring major changes to Nightly News in the weeks and months ahead.

I'll explain why I qualify things by saying "should" later, but first, a glimpse at a few of the changes you can expect in the future. 

High Definition Newsgathering
NBC News field gear is gradually being upgraded to HD. As our camera crews and edit rooms are upgraded you will begin seeing reports from our correspondents with clearer, more detailed video.

John Williams has you Surrounded
Tonight we also begin broadcasting in 5.1 Surround Sound. In preparation for our move to HD, John Williams rerecorded NBC News' classic theme music "The Mission."  It was recorded with an all-star, 99-piece orchestra on the same sound stage used for the Wizard of Oz and dozens of other classic films. It was masterfully mixed in 5.1 surround. Tonight you will hear an improvement, an interim step, but soon we will be able to blast you with the full production. I was in the room with the orchestra for some of the recording session. It was the most exhilarating musical experience of my life. Hearing "The Mission" in surround sound brings a lot of that experience back. (You can watch a video of Williams conducting the full piece -- albeit NOT in surround sound -- here).

New Digs
We can't reveal all of our plans for competitive reasons, but suffice it to say that we are exploring new ways and new venues for the presentation of the broadcast. HD and 16:9 change present some great challenges and opportunities.

Space Exploration
The move to 16:9 HD provides intriguing spaces on the edge of the screen that will be new to most viewers. We're looking at ways to use that space in news programming. (Don't worry, it wont say, "Eat at Joe's.")

Now, earlier I said you "should see" improvements instead of "will see" because, if you are like my friends and family there is a 50-50 shot that you went out, bought a fancy TV, brought it home and plugged it into the same cable or antenna you'd had before . You probably believe that the slight improvement you saw is true High Definition. It's probably not. I'm sorry that I can't make house calls like I do to my techno-challenged friends, but there are a lot good resources on the Web to help you understand HD and your connection better. I think one of the best is CNET's "HDTV World."
It is also important to note that most cable and satellite providers and even local stations air HDTV programming on a separate channel from the normal signal. Your station or cable/satellite company probably has this information on their Web site or will be glad to help you find it. (In the increasingly competitive landscape of television and video, even my personal nemesis Cablevision has become somewhat customer service oriented.)

Tonight is an important step and another first as we continue to grow and change "Nightly News." You can now find Brian and Nightly broadcast in SD and HD; online in streaming video on the Netcast or as an audio or video podcast. You can see us live and complete or condensed and delayed on your cell phone through "NBC Mobile" and "NBC News 2 Go". We're seen by audiences in over a hundred countries through CNBC's international networks and alliances, and you could even catch us if you happen to drop in on the International Space Station. 

I hope you'll tune in and as always, send us your feedback, let us know how we're doing.

It's not exactly Fibber McGee's closet, but Brian's office is piling up. In today's vlog he offers an explanation on why, and previews what tonight's broadcast could look like.Click here to watch the vlog

Purple Heart medals in an early stage waiting for enamelingdetail work, the purple heart, and George Washington's head. Photo by Bethany J. Thomas

factory that manufactures the Purple Heart. Inside the Graco Awards plant, we found many employees just like Janette Harper - patriotic and very proud of what they do.

Janette is the supervisor of what they call "the cavern." It's the place where all the enamaling and soldering is done for the medals. It's nicknamed for being a quiet oasis found through several doors among the loud machinery in the rest of the plant. Once inside, you'll find women bent over magnifying glasses enamaling by hand medals created at the plant.  Janette is also the mother of two sons in the military.  One of her sons has actually received several Navy awards she made and Janette said that made the job all the more special.

The Purple Heart is one of 5,000 medals, including the Congressional Medal of Honor and the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, the plant is contracted to produce. We asked to see a Medal of Honor, but learned that medal was highly protected by the government.  Whenever the Texas plant has a contract for a Medal of Honor, they are required to send any of the leftover scrap parts back to the military.  They are not allowed to even display a sample medal along with the hundreds of other medals on the wall in their front office.

We also learned that demand for the Purple Heart is up -- but it's not necessarily due to all of the wounded in the current combat zone.  Many older veterans have shown a new sense of pride in their old honor.  Especially given today's patriotic mood compared to the early return days of Vietnam. Back then, many either lost of simply threw away the medals as they didn't mean a lot to them at the time.  Now, veterans and family members are clamoring to hold the Purple Hearts in their hands again.

We are following the latest developments in Iran tonight. As the U.N. Security Council decides whether or not to place new sanctions on Iran, British officials are demanding that Iran release 15 British Marines and sailors who were captured by the Iranians this week. NBC's Rehema Ellis is following that story.

Also, there's new information on how the U.S. Army handled Pat Tillman's death. He's the pro football player turned soldier who was killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan. A new report says nine officers including four generals could be held accountable for mistakes that were made following Tillman's death. NBC's John Yang reports.

We'll also discuss the latest development in the controversy surrounding Attorney General Alberto Gonzales with NBC's Political Director Chuck Todd.

On Friday, 13 tornadoes ripped through Texas and New Mexico Friday injuring 16 people and causing some serious damage. Gadi Schwartz of NBC affiliate KOB in Albuquerque, N.M., is following the story for us.

Elizabeth Edwards was out on the campaign trail with her husband and presidential candidate John Edwards Saturday, just two days after she announced that her cancer has returned. NBC's Jennifer London has that story.

NBC's Ian Williams has a candid look at the people of Iran tonight, and NBC's Lisa Myers tells us about a new investigation that has found that some doctors and other medical providers who owe more than $1 billion dollars in back taxes are still collecting money from medicare.

Plus NBC's Don Teague reports on the factory that makes Purple Heart medals that are awarded to service members wounded in combat.

It's all coming up tonight. We'll see you then.

Far from today's vote in Congress and far from the counter-event at the White House, dismounted foot patrols continue their work at this hour, in and around Baghdad. They are being carried out by members of the military who have been trained to carry out the mission -- and who force themselves to keep their heads in the game even if there's talk back home about a change in that mission. It's what they have to do. Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., said today, "we're going to bring those troops home." The president later said, while not in so many words: no you're not. The fight goes on. On two fronts. We'll cover both tonight.

In a package of coverage we are calling "The Day After," we'll look at the reaction to the Elizabeth Edwards announcement, and the personal and political impact.

We have two high-interest features tonight: one involving Tom Brokaw and the other Making a Difference -- our popular Friday night series.

It's always interesting -- sometimes terrifying -- when news stories follow you home from a job in the news business. Like this week, when we realized we might have been feeding our beloved 13-year-old dog Lucy some of the tainted food going around. We were briefly worried, and watched her sleeping and drinking habits closely. I'm happy to report she's fine, but it's the same fear being felt in households across the country. We'll take another look at this story tonight, as investigators zero in on a cause and lessons are perhaps learned about prevention and checking.

For sentimental reasons, I want to show the de-commissioning of Big John tonight. The aircraft carrier John F. Kennedy has seen a lot of history (first dedicated by Caroline Kennedy), and thousands of sea-miles and deck launches and landings later, the great, hulking piece of "floating diplomacy" is coming home for good. I think we owe it to its namesake and to all those who have served on board, along with their families -- to take a moment tonight to mark a passage in U.S. naval history.

It's also interesting to work in the same building as Conan O'Brien, because on days like today I get the chance to make a good-faith attempt at ruining my career... by appearing, as I agreed to, in a sketch with him for his show tonight.

One more reminder on two links of importance: the military blog by Michael Yon, the Special Forces veteran who is writing such amazing material as a unilateral embed with U.S. forces in Iraq, and the extraordinary article from ARMY magazine that explains so much about the Iraq war and psyche -- it's the fine work of a veteran of that war and arena -- and I've been happy to see so many readers agree that this should be REQUIRED READING on the part of all who shape policy there.

In the meantime, back to the day job: with a detour to a farewell gathering for our outgoing political director Elizabeth Wilner, I'm off to the newsroom to write. We hope you will join us for the Friday edition of Nightly News. Have a good weekend, and we'll look for you right back here on Monday night -- or whatever that guy says on the TV.

Today's vlog isn't about the news of the day, but about the way information is delivered in this Internet age -- specifically, through online encyclopedia "Wikipedia" -- which Brian finds less than accurate on a very personal level.Click here to watch the vlog Click for related story on Wikipedia | See Brian's Wikipedia entry

The little girl, maybe 6 years old, was shoeless in the scorching sand.  I looked closely at her feet, struck by how old they appeared, wrinkled and calloused gray, and it occurred to me, she's probably never worn a pair of shoes. 

I saw her near Nyala, in Sudan's Darfur region, in a camp for displaced people called al-Salam, Arabic for peace, it is a place surrounded by war.
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Now, 700 camps like this one dot Darfur, and the majority of the people in them are children. Glimpsing a brand new baby in one camp, when the wind caught the fabric of her mother’s headdress, I wondered how one keeps a child alive in this hell.

The feet of children -- old and worn by the sands of Darfur.
Photo by NBC News

For more than three years, Darfur has been tortured by a war started when the government included Arab militias into its police and armed forces while trying to put down a rebellion amongst its black tribes.  Hard to control, these militias are blamed for a kind of terror the U.S. has called genocide and the International Criminal Court calls crimes against humanity. 

The ethnic Arab tribes were historically slave traders in this region, but in the years since, they have intermarried and lived so closely with ethnic black tribes that it is sometimes difficult to tell the two groups apart. 

Called to arms, the ethnic Arab nomads were already motivated to push into new territories. The Sahara desert is moving south, perhaps because of global warming, drying up lands they once used to feed their herds. 

Video: Ann Curry travels to Darfur

When the history of Darfur's tragedy is written, the outside world may see it as a firestorm sparked by politics, fanned by a thirst for resources on a tinder of long-forgotten ethnic tensions.

Like most wars, this one too has lost meaning and clarity as the violence spirals. Now, the government is fighting several rebel groups and appears to have lost control of some of the Arab militiamen within its ranks. There are even reports of Arabs attacking Arabs and blacks attacking blacks. 

Stuck in the middle of this horror is Darfur's future -- these children who, along with their parents, are experiencing a kind of suffering that traumatizes.

They are the first to draw near to you, an alien with your clean clothes and Thuraya satellite phone.

Looking at them standing there, dirty and hungry, their clothes in tatters, you wonder what hope there is for them and for the future of Darfur. Then you realize, they are looking at you for something to make them smile. And so you try and BOOM! You discover that even in hell, a child can laugh.

One of the children Ann Curry met in a camp outside
Nyala in the Darfur region of Sudan.
Photo by: NBC News

If you haven't seen it, you should watch it. If your family hasn't yet been touched by cancer, it will. If you're looking for a way to deal with cancer in a forthright way and with great grace, this -- according to the majority of those I've sampled who watched it happen -- was it. (Click to watch 20 minute video.)

Today John and Elizabeth Edwards stepped before the media in the very same Chapel Hill courtyard that once served as the backdrop for their wedding reception. Moments earlier, and for some time in advance, the Web site Politico.com was reporting that Edwards was ending or suspending his campaign for office because his wife's cancer had made a comeback. As I later said on the air: only one of those two stories turned out to be right. Elizabeth Edwards went to the doctor to investigate a pain in her ribcage. They discovered a spot of metastasized breast cancer on the other side of her ribcage.

The news conference that followed was extraordinary for its directness. While they spoke of having overcome "struggles in the past" (the loss of a son, surviving breast cancer initially back in 2004), John and Elizabeth Edwards made it clear, "the campaign goes on." Mrs. Edwards, standing in the sun and calling on reporters by name, was herself sunny and composed -- showing different sides of who she is at different times -- the attorney side of her character, the spouse, the mother of four children.

While I note that the cable wags are already debating this -- the effect on the campaign, the seriousness with which the Edwardses pursue their politics, how fortunate she is to have the best possible care, even painful discussions of her prognosis -- her own physician, Dr. Lisa Carey of UNC, gave an equally interesting news conference after the couple had exited. Answering mostly respectful questions (the only real clunker was, "And...like...how many scares has she had?"), she methodically went through the known and unknown. She at one point answered, "Yes, it is involving other bones, possibly other organs..." while calling the cancer "largely confined." All those assembled agreed that it was "no longer curable but completely treatable..." as a live television audience of cancer survivors -- in various stages of living with the disease and the threat of its return -- no doubt watched while nodding in a kind of mutual understanding.

We'll devote a good bit of the top of the broadcast to this story tonight. We'll also check in with Ann Curry covering Darfur, Mike Taibbi on some young men preparing to ship to Iraq, and the controversey over Wikipedia, the world's largest not-entirely-exact online "encyclopedia."

Great thanks to those of you who read yesterday's link to the "Seven Pillars" article -- especially those who shared with others and posted a comment here. And wasn't Richard Engel's documentary extraordinary?

We hope you'll join us for tonight's broadcast of Nightly News.

With Ann's remarkable interview with President al-Bashir still reverberating around diplomatic and relief aid circles, there is one part that hit home more than anything else.

I was reading the interview transcript and watching the tape late Monday night going over new excerpts we could put in the Today Show spot on Tuesday. On a personal note, it was nothing short of amazing to see Ann and her team there up close next to a man we had spent so much time psychoanalyzing and studying from afar. How could he let this happen in his country? Was he complicit?

The team had struggled as a group on what would be appropriate in the interview. She had maps, video and stills of the people she had met in her reporting of the atrocities. What could stop the interview? What could actually be brought into Khartoum without causing problems for the team on the ground?

Needless to say, there was lots of the interview to pick from. This is a man who had been endlessly elusive to formal television interviews and Ann ended up talking with him for almost two hours. I thought I had a good sense of it all -- the intelligence relationship with the us, the denial of the burning of villages, his view of the rape women. But then I stopped at one part of the tape and saw Ann pull a picture out.

Ann Curry: I met some Darfurian children, and one of them, actually, they all drew the same picture. This boy drew a picture of those people who attacked his village.  And you can see, they're heavily armed.  And there are planes -- and that kind of-- it was a child's drawing, I understand.  It's his memory of the day that ruined his life.

This was one of the boys she had highlighted on Nightly News in November, this was a powerful picture taken by field producer Antoine Sanfuentes that had caused all our hearts to break back home. This was the picture that ended up revealing an answer not one of us on the team ever expected to hear.

al-Bashir: I know what's happening in Darfur, in all it's details, more than you. And I'm sorry for the -- I feel for these children of Darfur more than you, because it's my responsibility -- not just in front of the people, and the electorate, like in your country, but it's my responsibility before God. I would be held accountable before God for anything that happens to any individual citizens in Sudan.

His answer blew me away. al-Bashir feels accountable to God. Although the violence and displacement continues and he blames the rebels pretty much entirely for the chaos, I couldn't help but think: that's just about as close to an apology as the people of Darfur will ever get.

Brian talks about today's emotional announcement from presidential candidate John Edwards and his wife Elizabeth that her cancer has returned.Click here to watch the vlog

Several of you commented in this blog on our coverage Wednesday of workplace raids to round up illegal immigrants. Rather than address those messages, I'd prefer to share with you some of my experiences in covering this story.

While so much has been reported about immigration in this country, and we might think we understand the issues, I realized as I was working on this story that the immigration problem is so big and so complicated -- and so emotional -- it defies anyones ability to tell it all in a single story.

All we can give you is a snapshot of the problem in a 22-minute broadcast  But, it's the complexity of the issue that explains in some measure why there's been no reasonable immigration reform.

Some might think "Why the difficulty, after all? We have immigration laws, some people have violated them so kick them out."

But it's in no way near that simple. We're talking about 12 million illegal immigrants in this country. And even though there's been a 750 percent increase over the past four years in the number of workplace arrests, immigration authorities say there are about 500,000 immigrants who've been processed in the courts and ordered out of the country. But rather than detain these people until they are deported, illegal immigrants have often been let go for a variety of reasons, sometimes on an honor system, and they simply disappear.

So now, all the money and manpower that went into investigations, arrests, and processing has been for naught. What sense does that make?

Meanwhile, the level of outrage over the arrests climbs to a fever pitch.  Politicians and community service agency officials have been furious that raids even happen at all, claiming they're unfair and put families at risk of being separated and that's a risk, they say, which goes against American ideals.

Immigrant advocates argue that so many people, while here illegally, are not underground, and are not hardened criminals,  but instead are out in plain sight, often working in well-established American companies doing America's work.

That certainly was what I found while reporting on what happened in the raid on the leather goods plant in Massachusetts that has an $82 million federal contract to make backpacks for the military. Most of those arrested appeared to be just hard working people trying to make a better life for themselves and their families.  Of course, the problem is that without proper documents, even being here is illegal. 

The raid happened because someone tipped off ICE that illegal immigrants were working at the plant. Why did it take a tip to trigger an investigation? This is a company that had a federal contract after all, yet the owners are charged with knowingly hiring illegal immigrants. What does that say about the level of confidence the plant owners had and passed on to their workers that the government didn't care or didn't have the ability to keep watch over who was working in the plant?

For me, talking to people involved in the raids brought home the reality in a very human way that the current laws are woefully complicated and ineffective in stopping people from entering and working in this country illegally. No matter what you think about how, or if, the laws should be reformed, it's clear Congress needs to engage in a serious debate and come up with a more effective policy.  What exists now just doesn't work.

Capt. Pancho Perez-Cruz took a moment to reflect for us. In a few minutes he would take off for Iraq by way of Kuwait, at age 30 already a veteran tank company commander with two tours under his belt. "Last night I was thinking," he said, "what would I say to my guys? Should we do a prayer, or not?" He said he knew many of his soldiers were nervous, and that he knew from experience what that feeling was like, especially for the rookies. "It's fear of the unknown, but it's all right to have that: that means you're living. That means you're alive."

They did the prayer. "We come to you today, Lord, a little nervous, a little scared," Pancho's first lieutenant intoned. "Lord, look afer our families, and give us the strength we need to do our jobs. Keep us all safe so we can all come home, amen." Pancho spoke to his men, huddled close around him. "Keep your head in the game, stay together, stay tight, and we'll be all right. Hoo-ahh?" As one they answered, "Hoo-ahh!"

For hours before those moments, we'd watched Pancho's soldiers and the hundreds of other soldiers from the 3rd Brigade of the 3rd Infantry Division as they struggled with the task of saying goodbye to their loved ones. Spouses and kids and rucksacks and gear gathered out front of the company barracks  at Fort Benning, Ga. Some of the family tableaus we observed were so intimate, so personal, I felt vaguely self-conscious that we were there with our cameras to record those scenes. One small vingnette: in a group of children playing tag in the sun, an 8-year old girl named McKenzie Scurria suddenly walked away from the game and sat on her haunches against the wall, sobbing steadily. She kept repeating, through her tears, "I don't want my Daddy to leave... I don't want my Daddy to leave." Her Daddy, Sgt. Anthony Scurria, was leaving for his third tour, so McKenzie knew what she and her mom and two sisters were in for. Another little girl came over to McKenzie and yanked at her ballcap playfully. "You just have to have confidence," she recited brightly, "that he's gonna come back... soon!" McKenzie looked at her friend, her tears still flowing, unable to nod or even force a smile. A few minutes later she walked over to her dad, who pulled her and her sisters and their mom into a big group hug, all of them holding onto each other as hard as they could.

Two of the other characters we've been following in our "On the Line" series also had a tough time separating from their families. Twenty-one-year-old Spc. Juan Delgado, a Columbian-born immigrant from Miami, had turned his attention back to the soldiers and the war he'd already spent one year fighting, even as his fiance, Estefania Lopez, tried to extend her last moments with him. But in his mind, he was already gone. "The people you go to war with," he told us, "you're never going to forget them. They'll be your friends forever, you know? I'm Spanish, one of my best friend's a redneck, another's a black guy... but it's not about a race difference. We're just buddies." For long stretches, waiting to go off with his buddies, we watched Juan fiddling with his gear or talking with one cluster of buddies or another, Estefania standing off in the distance, waiting for him to come back to her. Later she would e-mail me, asking if I knew of a way she could find a job in Iraq, or a position as a volunteer, any way at all, so she could stay close to Juan.

Pvt. Josh James of San Jose struggled just as much saying goodbye to his wife Kaylee and son Lucas. Only 19, Josh had told us he was a high school dropout who'd joined the Army to find himself, and that while he knew he'd likely find himself in Iraq at some point he didn't think it would happen this quickly. "It's a totally mental change," he's said of his role as a soldier heading off to war. "You know, you go from being one person to being another person, instantaneously." He'd told us since we met him in early February that the prospect of going to war... especially this war... was a source of constant fear, but that he was dealing with it. Now, on the day he was leaving, what was he thinking? "I've been training to do this... drill after drill, and over and over and over again. I'm ready, you know? It's my time to kill." Still, just a half hour earlier when he'd pulled away from a tearful Kaylee, he'd had to repeat a mantra to himself to get through that moment. "It was pretty much: 'Just keep going, don't look back, it's not goodbye, I'm only going to be gone a little while.'"

Now we're going too, and for our NBC team --producer John Zito and our camera crew Bill Angellucci and Stan Ouse -- it will in fact be just a little while. An embed of just a few weeks with the soldiers we've been following, and their unit. We'll see and hear what they see and hear, share their experiences of a war now in its fifth year, and we'll see how their families back home are coping. Josh and Juan may post their own dispatches in this blog, perhaps with photos or video or Webcam interviews. We believe the soldiers and their families -- the only Americans directly impacted by the war -- can be the best war reporters.

Packing my own gear yesterday, I recalled something Pancho said in his first interview with us six weeks ago at the National Training Center in Fort Irwin, Calif. I'd asked him about the politics surrounding the debate about the war, and while he'd conceded he sometimes had spirited discussions about it, even with his father-in-law who had serious questions about the way the war's been going now, those discussions had no impact on his role as a leader of soldiers in combat. "You don't fight for anything that's grandiose," he'd said, "you know, philosophical things. You fight for your brothers, for the guy standing next to you. That's what we do."

Next week, we'll be among the guys standing next to Pancho. Couldn't be in better hands.

Editor's note: You can find all our "On the Line" reports here, along with the rest of the broadcast's ongoing coverage of the war in Iraq.

Below this paragraph is a link to an article by a Lt. Col. in the U.S. Army Reserve and a veteran of the Iraq war. It's from ARMY magazine, published by the Association of the United States Army, and it may be the best-written article on Iraq and the Iraqi people I've read since the war began. I ask that you save the link, put it aside, find the time to read it, and share it with anyone you know who has an opinion about this war. Many of the people whose opinions I respect in this area (including several people I discussed it with while in Iraq two weeks ago), feel that this article should be required reading throughout both the government and military. Many more wish the seven central points in the article were better understood by American decision-makers years ago. I'd love to hear from those of you who take the time to read it.

The Modern Seven Pillars of Iraq

ABOUT TONIGHT...
The President had hardly finished laying down the line last night when the Democrats laid down their own. And the tough question that John Harwood of CNBC asked rhetorically last weekend on Nightly News continues to haunt some Dems: Have they found it easier, in effect, to investigate than to legislate? The questions for the Reps include: Has the White House opened the door already, only to then make a too-Shermanesque statement? Meaning: e-mails have been released and deals have been proffered on the Hill.  Our folks will talk about all of it tonight. At this hour, the Wall Street numbers are making news -- Al Gore was on the Hill today (interesting moment between Senators Boxer and Inhofe) and our series on immigration will continue. If we can overcome some technical transmission bugs, we will hear from Ann Curry tonight. She is covering the crisis in Darfur.

Tonight Richard Engel will join us to preview his documentary. I hope you saw his superb appearance with Jay Leno last night (on what I called the "TODAY" show in my earlier vlog today -- I was only off by 15 hours or so), and I certainly hope you see his MSNBC broadcast tonight or during one of its subsequent airings.

In the meantime, we hope you can join us for the Wednesday edition of Nightly News.