By Mara Schiavocampo, NBC Nightly News digital correspondent

Last week I was in Haiti covering the aftermath of four fierce storms that slammed the island nation in less than a month. (You can view my first report be clicking on the photo below.) We were based in Gonaives, one of the hardest hit areas. By the time we got there it had been three weeks since the last storm, and people were still living on their roofs, their houses full of mud and water.

Those people were the "lucky" ones, as they still had a house to live on. Many more--tens of thousands--lost absolutely everything, and are living in shelters around the city. We met one woman in a shelter who was wearing a slip as a dress. She told me that her slip and underwear were all she had, and even those things had been donated.

Knee-high mud still covers much of the city. From the smell of the mud, it's likely mixed with sewage. Pools of fetid water, like little lakes, were scattered about. We had the luxury of having brought wading boots. Most of the locals walked around barefoot or wearing regular sneakers. Doctors Without Borders told me they're treating a lot of cuts and infections from people wading through mud barefoot.

As we were packing up to go, we decided to leave our water behind: two cases of half-liter bottles. We thought it would be wise to give them to a group of nuns who live and work in Gonaives, as they would know the best way to distribute them. As we carried the cases from the car to the nuns, a group formed nearby. They were asking for water. Then they were shouting for water. Then they started arguing with one another about who should get the water. One young man I had introduced myself to didn't speak English, but he remembered my name. He kept calling out to me over and over. We got the water to the nuns and they put the cases inside a building, to be distributed when things settled down. All of that commotion for about two cups of water, something that means so little to most of us in the U.S., some seven hundred miles away.

There are rarely light moments in such awful circumstances. But I saw a pig that briefly made me chuckle. He was rolling around in all the muck, happy as a pig in you-know-what. I remember thinking "that pig is the only one happy here."

                          

Editor's note: Click on the photo above to watch Mara's report from Sept. 26, "Little aid making it's way to storm-stricken Haiti." Watch NBC Nightly News tonight for our report about some of the volunteers who are there "Making a Difference."

By Brian Williams, Anchor and managing editor

These are the kinds of debates we have in our newsroom. Since every word we use has a specific meaning and can carry great weight, we, along with other news organizations, have been debating between the two. We've mostly settled on "bailout" -- even though it's as pejorative as "rescue" is positive. We've mixed it up a bit -- talked about it every day -- and we'll come up with something better if we land on it. We're still talking about last night's debate -- we'll cover it tonight with Andrea Mitchell. Have a good weekend and we'll see you here Monday night.

By Anthony Galloway, Producer, NBC News

After three hours of deliberations, we received word from the jury room. "Pizza and chicken wings," court information officer Michael Sommermayer said. Sitting under a tent outside the Clark County Regional Justice Center on a day like this, it was a morsel journalists could devour.

We are waiting on a verdict in the O.J. Simpson robbery and kidnapping trial taking place in Las Vegas. Until we get the big news, we'll settle for any news. This morning's news was what the jury would eat for lunch: Pizza and chicken wings.

What the jury probably doesn't know, as they debate whether or not to convict Mr. Simpson, is that across the street from the courthouse a barbeque is underway. This lunch is for the group of journalists that have covered this case since the alleged incident took place at the Palace Station hotel in September 2007.

The smell of barbeque led straight to the Court TV satellite truck, where the information officer and our Court TV colleagues readied chicken, brisket, corn on the cob, mac and cheese, potato salad and an array of desserts. Reporters gathered in the makeshift media village to eat and discuss the case. We speculated on how fast a verdict might come and which direction we thought the jury was leaning. We recalled other high-profile trials we had covered and questioned the common wisdom that juries like to reach verdicts on Fridays.

But Mr. Simpson is facing a dozen charges no jury would take lightly. They include robbery with a deadly weapon, assault with a deadly weapon and kidnapping with use of a deadly weapon. If he is found guilty of the latter, he could be sentenced to life in prison.

If convicted today, the verdict would mark a strange coincidence. It was thirteen years ago, on October 3, 1995, that Mr. Simpson was acquitted in Los Angeles after being charged with murdering his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her acquaintance, Ronald Goldman. The timing was not lost on the group of journalists waiting to learn Mr. Simpson's fate this time around.

As the jury ate their pizza and chicken wings, Judge Jackie Glass came outside to visit the journalists' barbeque. Using the same tone of voice she admonishes attorneys with in court, Ms. Glass told us she'd leave if we turned on our cameras. But her mere presence did confirm one thing: There was no verdict. Not yet. At least we have plenty of food to pass the time.

By Brian Williams, Anchor and managing editor

When I drove by the vacant slip on Manhattan's West Side today, there was a palpable air of anticipation -- and an undeniable police presence. It felt as if an important, beloved -- and still robust -- family member was on the mend and returning from the hospital. And indeed she has. The Intrepid is back where it belongs, 22-months after shoving off (quite literally, it turned out, as a sandbar of silt had formed beneath the keel over the years) for repairs and refurbishing in drydock. Intrepid (part of a large military history museum complex) has become a vital part of this city, and I recommend it to all visitors. The decks show the scars of the history the ship has seen, and there's always at least one man onboard who served on the great, storied carrier. I cannot wait to pay a return visit.

There is a temptation to express the anticipation (and yes, for junkies, the pure excitement) surrounding tonight's VP debate in sports or entertainment terms -- and while I'll resist that, it is a genuinely exciting evening, and a hugely important event in the process that culminates on election day. We'll be back on the air later tonight with live coverage of the debate beginning at 9pm Eastern time.

In the meantime, we hope you can join us for Nightly News tonight.

By John Rutherford, Producer, NBC News, Washington

Iraq and Afghanistan don't look very far apart on a map, but they appear worlds apart when it comes to the success of the U.S. war effort in those two countries.

Each month, I interview soldiers receiving Purple Hearts at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, and invariably they tell me the war is going well in Iraq and badly in Afghanistan. Last Friday was no exception.

"There was a lot of progress made in my area of East Baghdad east of Sadr City," Army Sgt. Brian Scott, 28, of Boston, Mass., told me. "It was going very well."

Scott, who was wounded Aug. 28 by a roadside bomb, worked with the Iraqi police forces.

"Progress has been made with the Iraqi police over time," he said. "I noticed it personally working with them and going on patrols with them and talking to the people that were feeling more comfortable coming and talking to the Iraqi police about regular crimes that happened in the streets and neighborhoods of their area."

Afghanistan is a different story, according to two soldiers who were wounded there.

"I think it's just gradually getting worse over time," said Army Staff Sgt. Tara Harrilson, 27, of Gaithersburg, Md., who was wounded three times in Afghanistan.

"We need more troops there," she said. "I mean, my common sense tells me that if every month for years you're losing more and more people or more and more are getting hurt, then something's not right and I would imagine that would be the number of soldiers you have there."

Army Cmd. Sgt. Maj. Michael Campbell, 41, of Keno, Ore., agreed with Harrilson about the need for more troops in Afghanistan. Campbell, who was wounded Aug. 18 by a roadside bomb, said the U.S. needs to take those additional troops and do in Afghanistan what it's been doing in Iraq.

"In Iraq, we took American forces and we actually cleared everything out and sustained some security, and then we trained the Iraqi forces to take over the security, and that's why we're successful in Iraq," he said. "In Afghanistan, we haven't taken the American forces and completely cleared it, built the security, built the national forces, and that's what we need to do."

Even if more troops are deployed to Afghanistan, Campbell said it's going to take awhile to turn the war around.

"It's probably going to take another five to 10 years to get it up to where it needs to be," he said. "That would be my guess."

Currently there are 140,000 U.S. troops in Iraq and 32,000 in Afghanistan. President Bush has announced plans to bring 8,000 troops home from Iraq and add 5,000 in Afghanistan.

(Photos by Louie Palu/ZUMA Press)

Click here to view tributes to the 401 service members killed this year in Iraq and Afghanistan, including the following five casualties from last week:

1. Army Sgt. Matthew Taylor, 25, of Charleston, S.C.

2. Army 1st Lt. Thomas Brown, 26, of Burke, Va.

3. Army Capt. Michael Medders, 25, of Avon Lake, Ohio.

4. Army Staff Sgt. Ronald Phillips Jr., 33, of Conway, S.C.

5. Army Pfc. Jamel Bryant, 22, of Belleville, Ill.

Washington Producer John Rutherford is a decorated Vietnam veteran. He also posts stories on the military at www.fieldnotes.msnbc.com (click on "John Rutherford" under "categories") and at http://john-rutherford.newsvine.com. The tribute gallery can be found at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22802019/.

By Brian Williams, Anchor and managing editor

After hearing the news today that Warren Buffett is now a $3 billion investor in our parent company, GE -- following his $5 billion to Goldman Sachs -- does this not make him our "central banker"? There were so many new financial developments today -- I'm in the midst of separating them out, between our lead story and several smaller, separate items (staggering auto sales figures from Ford...which especially hurt as a Ford owner) that will lead into a live interview with Michelle Cabrera. We'll try to explain as much of this as we can. In the meantime, the debate preps are just about finished heading into tomorrow night's widely-anticipated showdown in St. Louis. We have an important segment on breast cancer tonight, and a tip of the hat to Chicago.

We hope you can join us tonight.