By Brian Williams, Anchor and managing editor

Leroy Sievers has died.  Casual television viewers will never know how many of the moments of our lives -- how many of the news events on this planet -- were brought into our homes by Leroy.  He was a veteran producer for ABC News -- and he was simply thrilling, bordering on intoxicating -- to be around.  At 6-foot-5 inches, he always seemed like a giant.  It was fitting, then, that he was also a giant of our industry, and of his craft.

NPR listeners know that Leroy chronicled his own battle with cancer, as he did on his blog, displaying an incredible selflessness and strength of character.  While others who were close, and dear friends are better equipped to talk about his life, I will always remember him from the invasion of Iraq.  I saw him in the desert in Kuwait -- he was the largest person on the battlefield, and he was a civilian, in cargo shorts and a T-shirt.  He was embedded with Ted Koppel and riding along with the Third Infantry Division.  I had gone to their outpost, near the border with Iraq, to visit our late colleague David Bloom, and to wish them all luck prior to the invasion.

Days later, having successfully made it to Baghdad, I saw Leroy at the airport. We had arrived in the dark of night and slept a few fitful hours on a cement floor, while the booms, pops and flashes of warfare went on outside our busted-out window.  I knew Leroy was running on less that we were, and yet he was like a good gunnery sergeant -- getting his team up and ready for action.

In his love of news, and his love of those in uniform, he yielded to no one. He was as brave facing death as the fighting men and women he revered.  While you can read more about his resume, his foray into the Ivy League, his CBS News pedigree, his belly laugh and his wife Laurie, a member of our NBC News family, our thoughts tonight are rightfully with all of those Leroy leaves behind.  He leaves us all better off for having known him, and having known true bravery in the name of Leroy Sievers.

By Brian Williams, Anchor and managing editor

Your NBC team in Beijing paused long enough this evening (daytime U.S. time) to celebrate a round number landmark birthday for Al Roker.  The number is north of 40 and south of 60, but of course I'm not at liberty to disclose it. The party was at an undisclosed location in Beijing.  There were no injuries or arrests, which, in my book, is the definition of a successful gathering.

Back to business: On tonight's broadcast, we'll have more on that insane finish in the pool last night -- Rowdy Gaines (who will be with us tonight) says the Omega timing people actually think it's possible it came down to the amount of pressure Phelps put on the touch-pad at the finish -- an incredible quirk of science and timing. We'll also preview tonight's event. We've got politics, a tropical storm, the conflict in Georgia, and more on how timing and computing...and the spectacular television pictures come to be.

 

By Brian Williams, Anchor and managing editor

While I was working on the other side of the world, my wife and son were in upstate New York touring colleges. Their plans called for them to fly from Syracuse back to JFK on Jet Blue yesterday afternoon. Then weather moved into the New York area, forcing a "ground stop" -- a fancy term for "nobody in, nobody out." All three major New York-area airports were a disaster -- and so began an 8-hour odyssey for them in Syracuse.

The biggest problem wasn't the fact that they boarded their Jet Blue flight at least once before being told to get off the plane and go back to the terminal. The problem was: the television sets in the airport were tuned (more like hard-wired) to the CNN Airport Network. Nothing against my friends at CNN, mind you (I've spent many an hour in many a lounge watching the CNN Airport Network) but: the Olympics are on. Phelps was swimming. Women's Gymnastics. Costas. Rowdy. Bella. America.

My wife apparently appealed to the airport management (in the most polite way) and was turned down at every turn in her quest to have just one television set tuned to the Games. The only other television, in the airport bar, was apparently not up to the task. Telephone calls were made to city officials. The crowd of viewers who wanted to see the Olympics was peaceful and civil, but growing and insistent. There was no effort to light torches, pillage or scare the good townspeople of Syracuse -- but it was close. The answer to the telephone inquiries came back saying the "Syracuse Commissioner" (is that the same as "Theodoric of York" or the "Chancellor of the Exchequer?") had turned down the outlandish and highly unusual request to change the channel, saying the city had a binding contract with CNN.

I'm proud to say that this is where the story took a turn. My 17-year-old son, showing the resourcefulness of an infantryman, literally used chewing gum to affix a coaxial cable to a t.v. monitor they discovered in a children's play area in the airport lounge. It was a vintage color t.v., and it was a scratchy local cable signal, but slowly a crowd formed to watch the Olympics. My family had skirted the law. Risking certain arrest as dissidents, they watched Phelps swim. They watched gymnastics. They boarded and were able to watch the Olympics on NBC on board Jet Blue all the way home to New York. The Syracuse Airport, combined with Mother Nature, tried to defeat them. They won. Way to go, honey. Good job, son.

We hope to see you from Beijing for tonight's broadcast. If you're in an airport and can't seem to see our broadcast, I hear chewing gum and cable might work.

By Ian Williams, NBC News correspondent 

Mianzhu, Sichuan--I sat with Alex Qiang in a sunny square in his home town of Nanjing, a few days before the Olympics.

Wearing a cloth cap and ponytail, the twenty seven year old was cradling an iced coffee, and looked every bit a child of the new China.

His resume also looked the part, having studied urban planning in the Netherlands and worked in Hong Kong, with an apartment in the sought-after Mid-Levels area of Hong Kong Island.

But he told me he'd now quit the Hong Kong job, and had been visiting his old professors at the architecture department of Nanjing University to persuade them to get involved in re-building in the Sichuan earthquake zone, to which he was preparing to return.

"I am going to go back and see what else I can do to help. I'm keeping in touch with all the guys down there, all the volunteers," he told me.

Alex was one of any army of young volunteers who'd flocked to Sichuan soon after the May 12th quake struck, and he was part of a group I'd followed for Nightly News.

His generation, often called the Ba-Ling-Hou (the after 1980s generation), are frequently ridiculed by older Chinese. They are the one-child generation, born under China's one-child policy, often spoiled by their parents and sometimes called the "Little Emperors."

"People consider this generation to be self-centered, westernized and lacking a sense of responsibility," according to Fang Ning of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

I'd first met Alex in a small village near Mianzhu in Sichuan. There wasn't much of the village left standing, and Alex was one of a group of young volunteers who had gathered in the village. They lived in tents, and helped distribute basic supplies to the quake survivors. Others played with the children, trying to raise their spirits.

Along with Alex, I'd met Woo Jian Xia, also twenty-seven, and a marketing executive with a big property company in the southern boomtown of Shenzhen. He fiddled with his iPhone, as he told me he'd persuaded his employer to allow him a month's leave to come to Sichuan. He said he felt he needed to come.

"Young people are really standing up now," he told me.

"I just feel I had to come," Alex had said at the time. "I think the earthquake is not only a tragedy, but an opportunity for us to grow up."

That was echoed by Ling Yenmei, a teacher from Xian. She's told her parents she was going on a business trip because she thought they would be frightened if she'd said she was going to the quake zone. Now, she told me, they were proud of her.

"I've seen so may things I've never seen in my 26 years of life," she said as she danced in a circle with children under the shade of the trees.

The Chinese media estimated that a quarter of a million volunteers, most of them youngsters, travelled to the quake zone in the days after the disaster struck, many with only the vaguest idea of how they would help - or even where they'd go.

As a generation they have grasped the new economic and social freedoms in China. Many have made a conscious decision to steer away from politics, having seen what happened to their parents, many of whom couldn't even go to school during the cultural revolution. To many, the crushing of the Tiananmen Square protests was another lesson - to keep their heads down and make money.

But they do seem to have found a voice and mission in the rubble of the quake, for many it was a sort of coming of age, tinged with nationalist sentiment.

The bigger question is what difference this explosion of youth activism might make for China. NGOs, who played a role in organizing some of the volunteers, told me the authorities were ambivalent when they first arrived in Sichuan. The Chinese government has a deeply ingrained suspicion of non-government organizations, but seems to have quickly decided the needs were so big, any help should be allowed.

"They opened the door a little," one NGO organizer told me, "and we all barged through. It is difficult to see how they close it again."

That may be optimistic, Much of the openness that followed the quake, particularly towards the media, and has now gone -- particularly when it comes to awkward questions about the state of school buildings, so many of which collapsed during the quake.

Jian Xia is now back in Shenzhen, where he has persuaded his employer to sponsor a school and a hospital as part of the rebuilding effort. The last time I saw Yenmei, she was still working with the kids; and of course Alex is plotting his own return trip.

"Openness is good," Alex told me. "The 1980s generation wants to see more openness -- and this was a good chance for us and the government to think about this."

 

By Brian Williams, Anchor and managing editor

For all the blessings we have to count (being here to witness these games, having occasional access to tickets and history-making feats of athleticism), the one thing we miss all too often is NBC primetime coverage. Due to logistics, electronics and timing, we often have to find out results and story lines from the folks back home.

Last night, I was fortunate enough to see the swimming events -- followed by a classic Beijing downpour that soaked us to the skin during a run of 200 yards. We had some ferocious thunderstorms last evening -- light rain during the middle-of-the-night walk to work -- but we're hoping for a good day ahead.

The often-mentioned air pollution has mostly manifested itself in a constant state of eye irritation, and the occasional rain does clean the air and increase visibility between showers.

On a one-to-one level, the Chinese people have been wonderful; kind and accomodating and hard-working. I do not know of a single negative encounter with a single member of our traveling party on this trip. Two of our staffers had an interesting outing to a local restaurant last night -- a menu featuring donkey meat (in a pot), braised bullfrog, hog hoof, and turtle. Our pals went with the Kung Pao chicken.

By Brian Williams, Anchor and managing editor

Our trip has become a merged version of "Lost In Translation" and "Groundhog Day."

We talked about it as we walked to work in the 2a.m. (local time) darkness today in a spitting rain.

We were all feeling pretty fortunate to be here last night, when the boss sent out an email inviting several of us to the swimming event. The ride over to swimming in the mini-van should probably be a television show of its own. Picture this: me, Matt Lauer, Meredith Vieira, Ann Curry, Al Roker -- all in one vehicle en route to the venue, and then at the venue. It was a blast, and it was truly an honor to be there for another piece of Olympic history, as Michael Phelps became the most highly-decorated athlete of all time.

I later went shopping with Al Roker -- which could easilly be the pilot for a 13-week sitcom.

We are working on several stories that I hope you will find interesting. We're starting the writing, and pushing through to airtime.

I just had a cup of newsroom coffee that brought back memories of the firehouse. I don't trust coffee I can't chew. Onward.

By John Rutherford, Producer, NBC News, Washington

Bart Young was only 8 years old when his father's reconnaissance plane was shot down over Laos in 1972.

"One day my mom called my two sisters and me in, sat us down on the bed and told us she had been notified that his plane had been shot down and he was missing in action," Bart, now 44, said in an interview.

U.S. Air Force Maj. Barclay Young's AC-130A Spectre gunship had been hit by a Soviet surface-to-air missile and crashed while on an armed reconnaissance mission over southern Laos on March 29, 1972. Rescue efforts were called off after several days because of heavy Communist activity in the area.

"Over the years I got letters in the mail all the time letting me know anytime the Air Force had reports from villagers or anything that pertained at all to the plane crash," Bart said.

But he was taken completely by surprise when the Air Force notified him in March that his father's remains had been recovered and identified.

"I had no expectation that anything like that was coming," he said.

The remains of 13 of the 14 crew members aboard the AC-130A had been excavated from the crash site and identified at the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command's Central Identification Laboratory in Hawaii.

The lab has the remains of possibly 1,465 individuals and identifies about 100 of them a year. Roughly 40 percent of the remains are from Vietnam and 40 percent from Korea. About 20 percent are from World War II. There are even a few from such disparate conflicts as the Cold War and the Civil War.

"Every case is so incredibly different," U.S. Air Force Capt. Mary Olsen of the Pentagon's POW/Missing Personnel Office said. "Sometimes it takes weeks, and other times it takes years."

In Maj. Young's case, his remains were recovered between 2005 and 2006 and identified through dental records and a DNA sample provided by his sister in 1995.

"It's nice to know that something's still being done to try to identify people after all these years," Bart said.

Bart has mixed emotions about the final resolution of his father's fate.

"After all these years, it's nice to put closure to it," he said. "But at the same time, I always had that little glimmer of hope that he'd still be alive."

Maj. Young's remains were buried last Thursday at Arlington National Cemetery. As an Air Force band played "The Lord is My Shepherd," an airman bearing a black and white POW/MIA flag led several dozen mourners to the brief graveside service in section 64 of the cemetery.

A memorial headstone erected after Maj. Young's status was changed in 1979 from missing in action to presumed killed in action was placed in the bottom of his grave and replaced by a new one.

Photo caption: Barclay Young (family photo)

Click here to view tributes to the 328 service members killed this year in Iraq and Afghanistan, including the following 11 casualties from last week:

1. Army Sgt. Jaime Gonzalez Jr., 40, of Austin, Texas.

2. Army Spc. Ronald Schmidt, 18, of Newton, Kan.

3. Army Sgt. Gary Henry, 34, of Indianapolis, Ind.

4. Army Spc. Jonathan Menke, 22, of Madison, Ind.

5. Marine Capt. Garrett Lawton, 31, of Charleston, W.Va.

6. Army Pvt. Timothy Hutton, 21, of Dillon, Mont.

7. Army Sgt. Errol James, 29, of St. Croix, Virgin Islands.

8. Army Master Sgt. Danny Maybin, 47, of Columbia, S.C.

9. Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Anthony Carbullido, 25, of Agat, Guam.

10. Army Sgt. Jose Ulloa, 23, of New York City.

11. Marine Cpl. Adam McKiski, 21, of Cherry Valley, 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

Watching interviews with the athletes during the Olympic coverage last night -- especially the swimmers -- I found them so incredibly impressive. While anyone willing to work that hard toward a single goal is to be admired, I found them all especially gracious, incredibly thankful and emotional. They truly carried themselves in keeping with the spirit of these Games, and represented the best of the Olympic ideal. It hasn't always been the case. It seems to be the norm at these Games so far.

It turns out the Forbidden City isn't at all. We had a great (but hot) walk through the entire distance of it yesterday.

We've run across a wonderful story that we will package together on videotape to show you: it's the story of a young Chinese college student who works in the NBC Olympic ticket office. It turns out she learned English in school by listening to tapes of NBC Nightly News. I went to go meet her two days ago, and she just could not be nicer. She's an accomplished musician who will soon be coming to the United States to attend college. She is from the earthquake zone, and nevertheless was thoughtful enough to bring me a gift from home. It was a wonderful kind of "reunion" which apparently, for her, matched a face with the voice. We can't wait to bring you her story.

Since I haven't done music in a while: the top songs on this trip (and since everyone in our open workspace is sadly forced to listen to my music over my iPod speakers) are, in order, "Dreamin' Of You" the new Dylan single; "Vul'indela" by the late great Brenda Fassie; "Ooh Ahh" by Grits; and a holdover fave from the Afghanistan trip, the fantastic "Buildings and Mountains" by Republic Tigers. I apologize to all Beijing-based co-workers who do not share my enthusiasm for these particular gems.

That's it from the night shift in China. We hope you can join us for tonight's broadcast.

By Brian Williams, Anchor and managing editor

So tonight from Tiananmen Square I opened the broadcast by saying, in part, "as far as we can tell and as far looking back this is the first live network evening newscast to originate from here since 1987, the last time NBC Nightly News broadcast from here."

It was wrong. It wasn't the most momentous mistake we've ever made, but wrong is wrong. We were alerted to our error the moment we got off the air -- by a posting (relayed to us from New York) on a website that covers our industry, saying Dan Rather had broadcast live from the Square for a portion of the CBS Evening News on May 20 of 1989 -- right before their plug was pulled and they were forced to finish broadcasting from another nearby location. Tom Brokaw, here with us, remembered it that way too with the prompting that the posting provided.

I knew there was only one man to call to confirm, for good, whether or not we screwed up: Lane Venardos, a legendary producer, now retired and (here's a reason to hate an otherwise loveable man) living in Maui. Lane had a number of big jobs at CBS News, but was Executive Producer of the their special reports unit at the time of Tiananmen Square. Because I last worked at CBS before joining NBC, I've known Lane for years -- make that decades -- (his daughter Kelly is a Nightly News producer) and I worked with him in Berlin the night the wall fell, among other times and places. Full disclosure: he's one of the funniest people I've ever known, and I love the guy. Sometimes love helps bad news go down easier. Not today.

Lane answered his cellphone (for all I know, he was at the beach) and while I stood in Tiananmen Square, I asked him if the web report was true, meaning we'd been wrong. He confirmed that we had indeed screwed up. He joked that from his home in Hawaii, he had 5 hours to wait until he saw our mistake air -- and since that thought (a mistake being repeated as the time zones head west) was too much to bear, we did another live feed, correcting our error. My apologies to Dan and Lane (who got a hearty chuckle out of this -- he's also a veteran hearty chuckler) and to the members of my former team. My thanks to whoever posted the correction, calling us out on what we got wrong. My current team is awfully proud of what we pulled off tonight -- something of a technical marvel...even if my own memory is not!

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to see the Forbidden City.

Most of us continue to operate (if not fully function) on a U.S. clock, 12 hours opposite of local time.  It means going down for the night at the height of the afternoon, and waking up in the middle of the night.  Luckily, I've done my share of shift work in my life (I think just about everyone has worked the night shift at one time or another) and I'm sustained by the hope that I won't suffer as badly from jet lag once I'm home.  You can't help but feel robbed, however, because of the daylight (and the sights that come with it) that you're not allowed to enjoy in this fascinating place.  Seeing my friend Matt Lauer last night (or was it this morning? It was morning somewhere...) I was reminded that the Today Show staff works a "traditional" work day here -- they prepare during daylight hours, then go on the air starting at 7pm local time each evening.

Today's post will be brief as I'm writing a rather long piece for tonight's broadcast and compiling tapes to go with it.  It's about the "charm offensive" here in China to welcome the visiting guests.  The headline in tonight's broadcast is in large part the broadcast itself: this hasn't been done (a live network evening newscast) from Tiananmen Square since 1987, when Tom Brokaw anchored the last one.  He will be with us on the air from the Square tonight.  It is the largest open urban space of its kind in any city in the world, and it is nothing short of breathtaking.  As they say: you really feel like you're in China.  The same cannot be said of sitting in the hotel room, reading TIME magazine and watching CNBC on the hotel cable system.

How about that relay race last night?

We'll see you tonight.

By Brian Williams, Anchor and managing editor

I was the lucky recipient of a ticket to this weekend's swimming event, and so, with two American presidents present, I was able to watch Michael Phelps shatter the world record and win the gold medal. 

It was an absolute treat, and I felt so fortunate to be there.  We sat with some wonderful folks in the stands -- and had the pleasure of sitting two rows behind former Australian Prime Minister John Howard and his family -- who were joined by a rabid Australian cheering section. It's axiomatic at Olympic games: everyone loves the Australians... they are so much fun, so full of life, such great boosters for their team -- and they sing their anthem louder than those from any other nation. 

The Aussies had a great outing and may well have launched a new global star when Stephanie Rice won her 400M event and revealed her beautiful smile on the medal stand, later wrapping herself in the flag of her nation during the required victory lap of the venue.  Later (when the boss offered me a ticket) I was able to attend the U.S.-China basketball game, which truly had the air of a global event.  It's raining non-stop here, and we're hoping it will clear both the air over Beijing and the atmosphere -- perhaps clearing the way for blue skies.  During the hours when we're in the workspace, we're glued to television coverage of the war in Georgia. We're all horrified by the civilian loss of life and the rapid and violent escalation.  Right now I'm sewing a button onto a blazer, signaling the end of the glamorous portion of my day.  Yesterday, I was able to greatly improve life at the hotel room and at our workspace by scoring a pair of iPod speakers at the Apple Store in Beijing.  An experience in itself.  We're about to buckle down and get to the writing for tonight. 

An early reminder: Monday's broadcast will be a rare one: a remote from Tiananmen Square.  We're excited about bringing it to you, as we are tonight's broadcast.

By Brian Williams, Anchor and managing editor

The flame in the cauldron snaps and dances in the nighttime air as it curls above the Bird's Nest stadium — visible, depending on air quality, for either a city block or several of them. The buzz surrounding Michael Phelps — deafening before the start of the games —has gotten even louder.  The murder of a visiting American is getting a lot of attention as well. The heat (combined with the humidity) is positively withering, but the teeming crowds here in Beijing are in fine spirits and there is a palpable wave of excitement as these games get underway. President Bush obviously had a grand old time for himself today.

In the meantime, the world has a new war.  A violent, dangerous, awful, and (so far) little war. The first pictures are both scary and devastating.  Soviet fighters and bombers releasing their loads, bombed-out buildings in small towns that look like Cherbourg in France during the height of World War II.  As with all the conflicts in that part of the world, this one is emotional and complicated, and could burst wide open with the tiniest spark.  We're putting together an extensive package of coverage tonight.

We'll also remember Bernie Mac.  As a fan of the "Oceans" films, I loved his work in Ocean's Eleven, Twelve and Thirteen.  He was a gifted entertainer and we'll miss him.

We'll look for you from Beijing tonight.

By Brian Williams, Anchor and managing editor

I was on standby at the Broadcast Center during the Opening Ceremonies (which U.S. audiences will see tonight on NBC) so while I could not attend, I watched it all.

There was an interesting juxtaposition when the coverage got underway this morning. We here are able to see a satellite feed of WNBC-TV programming in New York, where this morning on local news, just before the Opening Ceremonies, the lead story was about an overpass that was hit by a truck and collapsed onto the roadway on the Major Deegan Expressway back home in New York. Traffic during the morning commute was tied up for miles. The heavy construction effort to lift up the wreckage (say nothing of repair and replacement) hadn't yet begun. It looked like a collapse of the aging New York City infrastructure, and it was jarring to go from that image to this city's gleaming, high-tech public "coming out", the unveiling of Beijing for the world.

What you won't see on tonight's opening ceremonies is the Chinese equivalent of the Major Deegan Expressway. This is a nation (home to fully one-fifth of humanity) with so many challenges and so much grinding poverty and struggle.

What you WILL see tonight is nothing short of spectacular. As one Old China Hand put it earlier today: China today took a leap ahead of several centuries, and this may well be the opening of the China Century. For now, it's a ceremony, an extraordinary TV show in an extraordinary place. So we'll light the flame, start the Games, and continue covering the story. We hope to see you from Beijing tonight (and all weekend, I might add, and into next week) for all the day's news.

By Mara Schiavocampo, Nightly News digital correspondent

I can't tell you anything specific about the Olympic Opening Ceremony, because they haven't aired yet in the US. But I can tell you this: they're spectacular. This is my first Olympics, so one might assume that I'm just easy to please. But I overheard some of my veteran colleagues talking about how the ceremonies were among the best they've seen. It's really a fantastic show.

I watched it along with the locals here in Beijing, those who couldn't get into the stadium, but celebrated wildly nonetheless. The Olympic spirit really is alive and well here. People were in such a good mood all night, watching the ceremonies, smiling, drinking, laughing and taking pictures of fireworks with the enthusiasm of children. And there was lots of good-natured ribbing between people from different countries in the streets. So if you can catch the ceremonies tonight you definitely should. They might just put you in a festive mood.

video:In the streets of China, a celebration 

By Ian Williams, NBC News Correspondent

Qian Li looked a little nervous as she walked arm in arm with her groom, passed a long row of fish tanks and into the packed restaurant. Her friends and family clapped and cheered, shouting encouragement and wishing them a life of love and happiness.

It was a few hours before the opening of the Olympic games, in the southern suburbs of Beijing, and the smiles on their faces suggested the happy couple was pretty confident of good fortune. After all, it was the eighth of the eighth of the eighth, and they had deliberately chosen the date.

Banquet halls across Beijing have been booked for months; more than 16,000 couples in Beijing alone tied the knot Friday, some simply because it was the Olympics; most because the number eight is regarded as a lucky number, a number they associate with wealth and prosperity. And 08-08-08 comes around only once every hundred years.

"It's great to have all the numbers linked together," Qian Li told me. "We will have a happy life."

We'd travelled from the reception to a central Beijing maternity hospital, where doctors told us they were expected up to sixty deliveries Friday, up from 35 this time last year. Chinese press photographers crowded around one of the early deliveries as he was pushed with his sleeping mother across the maternity ward (rather appropriately, on the eighth floor).

"Of course they all want a lucky baby," one doctor told us.

There were big lines at post offices in the capital today, for 08-08-08 stamps, and from jewelry to car number plates, there's been a rush for the number eight.

China has been following the numbers for centuries; it's deeply ingrained in Chinese culture. Officially the communists don't believe in religion or "superstition", and tried hard to outlaw both; in practice they're thriving. One recent survey of government officials in southern china found that more half of them believed in some form of mysticism.

It's all meant a boom in business for fortune tellers. We'd visited Master Jiang Nan, as he was laying out the destiny of a young woman, hanging on his every word. He told me that most of his clients are young. He told the woman she should keep some fish and turtles at home, but not to lose track of the numbers.

"the numbers mean everything," he told her. The number four is to be avoided because in Chinese it sounds like "death", and seven is little better because it sounds like "gone". None is more auspicious than the number eight, which in Chinese is "ba", and sounds like "fa" (prosperity).

That so many young people are following the numbers is sometimes attributed to China's spiritual vacuum, so many people looking for something to cling to in times of rapid and often painful change; in truth numerology has deep historical roots in China.

Nobody knows that better that Raymond Lo, possibly China's foremost expert in destiny and Feng Shui, the ancient Chinese system of arranging objects. I met him at a tea shop in Hong Kong, where he told me that many factors from Chinese astrology contributed towards good fortune.

"The number eight is dominant during the current twenty years," he said. "That means it is now the most significant number, but sometimes it may be positive or negative."

And the number eight is not having a great year.

There were crippling snow storms on the 25th of January this year, and the figure in that date - 1 + 2 + 5 - add up to eight. It's the same story for the Tibet riots which began on March 14th. The figures in the date add up (3+1+4), and the May 12 quake in Sichuan (5+1+2).

Figures that have shaken some bloggers here, but certainly didn't prevent today's rush to the alter in Beijing, where today at least was about the magical, Olympian number Eight.

By Brian Williams, Anchor and managing editor

We're tough on the airlines around here, as you may know, but we had a rare treat en route here: a commercial airline experience that was absolutely excellent in every way. We flew from LaGuardia to Dulles to catch a direct United flight to Beijing, and I can't remember when I had such a pleasurable flight or met quite so many nice people.

Beginning with the United ground staff at Dulles, and continuing on board with the best bunch of veteran flight attendants I've met in years, it started off our trip to Beijing in spectacular fashion.

The airport here in Beijing is a sight to behold, as is much of downtown Beijing. It hasn't been that long since Nixon's visit to this country, and I remember so well being glued to the coverage of the American President's trip--to Peking. So many things were changing, and there was so much we didn't know then.

Today, it is oppressively hot, and all of our people on the ground say the air quality is worse today than at any other time recently. You can feel it on your skin, you can feel it in your eyes. Our workspace is across from the "bird's nest" stadium, which all but dissapears into--the air.

What to CALL the air is the stuff of much debate here. I note the head of the IOC is calling it "fog" -- it looks more like "smog" -- and they are hoping it will lift in time for the Games to begin. We're being struck by all the things that would stand out to any American visitor: the number of Lexus automobiles on the highway from the airport, the trees that were planted (for miles and miles) as you enter the city to help with the air quality, the signage and public architecture, the state of technology in general.

We will be living on the New York clock (we have no choice) and soon the sun will be rising, marking the start of Friday in Beijing -- which means the Opening Ceremony.

While we were at baggage claim, our BlackBerrys started buzzing with the news of Brett Favre's trade to the New York Jets. The news spread among the Americans in the airport like wildfire. I still can't believe it. Luckily, in today's China, I can go back to my hotel room tonight and watch ESPN for details.

We're soldiering through jet lag and pushing through to air time. We hope you can join us for our first evening in Beijing.

By Jim Miklaszewski, NBC News Pentagon correspondent

This week's conviction of Salim Hamdan and relatively minor charges  and  the light sentence he got from the military jury first appeared to be a huge setback for the Bush administration's military tribunals. But administration and Pentagon officials are quietly celebrating the results as if it were some stay of execution for the military tribunal process.

Hamdan, who insists he was only Osama Bin Laden's driver, was captured in the opening days of the war in Afghanstan with two shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles in his car. After wringing all the information they could get from Hamdan on al Qaeda and Bin Laden through coercive interrogations, the military shipped him off to Guatnanamo Bay. And for the first time in nearly 7 years in U.S. captivity, things appeared to be turning his way.

In the first U.S. war crimes trial since World War II, the 6-member military jury convicted Hamdan on five counts of providing "material support for terrorism," but rejected the prosecution's attempts to tie him directly to the 9/11 attacks on the U.S. Hamdan was found not guilty on two counts of conspiracy with al Qaeda to launch terrorist attacks. But it got even better.

During the sentencing hearing, the tribunal judge, Navy Captain Keith J. Allred refused prosecutor's attempts to introduce the 9/11 attacks as a factor in sentencing. Capt. Allred also called Hamdan a "small player" and ruled that Hamdan would be sentenced on only one of the five counts on which he was convicted, because he said they were pretty much the same charge, which he characterized as "driving Mr. Bin Laden around Afghanistan."

Although Hamdan faced a possible life sentence, the military jury gave him only five-and-a-half years. Since Capt. Allred had already given Hamdan credit for 61 months of time already served in captivity, he will serve only 5 months of the sentence.

Does that mean that at the end of his sentence Hamdan will be given a new suit and a free ticket home? Not exactly. The U.S. will still hold Hamdan as an "enemy combatant," and it will then be up to a Pentagon review board to determine if Hamdan is no longer a threat and can be freed. According to one Pentagon official, "He (Hamdan) won't be going anywhere anytime soon."

What was the White House reaction to all this? "We're pleased that Salim Hamdan received a fair trial" according to a White House statement. But administration critics ask "What fair trial?"

Despite the outcome in Hamdan's case, legal critics and human rights advocates still argue the Pentagon's military tribunal system is fatally flawed and stacks the deck against defendants by denying them many of their basic legal rights. In Hamdan's case for example, defense attorneys weren't permitted to see the stacks of prosecution evidence against their client until the night before trial, because it was classified. In some cases a defendant may never see all the government's evidence against him.

Bush administration and Pentagon officials are unfazed. After all, they got a guilty verdict, and a seemingly, exceedingly fair trial. But that's not all. This week's results appear to throw the courtroom doors wide open for a series of military tribunals against al Qaeda terrorists, much bigger than Hamdan.That includes the self confessed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammad and others charged with conspiracy and murder in connection with the terrorist attacks on the U.S.   Those who lost loved ones on 9/11 have to be thinking, "It's about time."

In fact, Military prosecutors are pushing for their trials to begin within a month. Defense attorneys say they've never gone to a capital murder trial on such short notice, and accuse the administration of "rushing to judgement" to give President Bush a "9/11 conviction before he leaves office."

It's difficult to imagine that the administration and Pentagon could have scripted the outcome of the Hamdan trial any better to their apparent advantage. According to one Pentagon official, "We certainly didn't plan it that way, but we'll take it."

By Mara Schiavocampo, Nightly News digital correspondent

Wednesday morning I boarded a flight to Beijing for the Olympic Games. The plane was full of others heading to China for the same reason; passengers included athletes, family members and journalists. People were excited, as though the flight was headed to a big party (which in a lot of ways, it was). The flight attendants waved American flags and led the plane in a round of applause for the athletes. My seat mate, a first time Track & Field Olympian told me about how going to the Olympics was always a dream, but one she never thought would come true. The Olympic spirit was alive and well on that flight.

While on board I thought about all of the other planes, coming from other countries, full of people from other nations just as excited about the possibilities in front of them. The opening ceremonies will be held Friday, and then the competitions start, with dreams fulfilled and crushed. But right now, this city - and the world - are living high on anticipation, just like my fellow passengers on the flight to Beijing.

By Tiki Barber, NBC News correspondent

Imagine being told by your peers that you are crazy because you've fallen on the ground and gone into an uncontrollable epileptic seizure that you don't remember. 

Confusion, embarrassment, shame, self-consciousness, and isolation are just a few of the feelings that kids with epilepsy experience on a daily basis.

Thank goodness there are people in the world like Sandy Weinstein, and her all- volunteer staff of counselors, doctors and nurses. They know that all kids need a place where they can feel "normal". 

At Camp Great Rock, for one week each summer, children that suffer from epilepsy don't have to feel a stigma.

As Sandy puts it: "They're the insiders. Those without epilepsy are the outsiders."

As Sandy's husband, Steve, a neurologist and chief M.D. for Camp Great Rock puts it: Kids who suffer from epilepsy are just like any other kids; the only difference is that once in a while their brains "short-circuit."

The doctors and counselors engage the kids in frank discussions during support group time about epilepsy.  There is no sugar-coating here.

And it's important to note: when you're having a seizure, you don't exactly "feel" it. 

And for many of these kids-- it's the first time they witness a seizure because they can't see their own.

Dr. Steve uses seizures as "teachable moments" so that the kids develop an understanding of their epilepsy.

With understanding comes an end to the confusion, and embarrassment, and shame, and self-consciousness, and most importantly, that sense of being alone. 

And that's what makes this camp different from the 25 others across the U.S. that serve kids with this condition.

Sandy keeps track of the kids who attend her camps and found that there was concrete improvement in their adaptive coping skills.  What does that mean, exactly?  It means that when one kid asks another why her eyes are fluttering, she says without hesitation:  "…they are part of my seizures."  She has taken control of her condition. That is powerful.

There are no excuses at Camp Great Rock.

Camp Great Rock was an amazing place for me to visit, partly because I have the opportunity to tell this amazing story but also because of my personal connection with this seizure disorder.  My twin brother and I suffered from febrile seizures when we were younger. 

Science wasn't as attuned to the particulars of the condition at the time, so there were a lot of perceived limitations put on my life and on my brothers.

I eventually grew out of the seizures and so did my brother. 

Howeever, with the birth of my first son, I was put in the same situation that my mother was… he too suffers from febrile seizures. Seizures are generally a body's response to some other underlying condition and as doctors have told me, are not overly dangerous when treated.

But there is one thing medicine can't address: you never get used to seeing them. 

So, when I see programs like this that truly empower kids who would otherwise be on the wrong side of advantage, I can't help but to be moved. And I can't help but be inspired by others' willingness to make a difference in this world. 

Sandy Weinstein does this in abundance, for not only does she run Camp Great Rock, but also Camp Connect for children with Tourettes Syndrome, New Friends Camp for children with neurofibromatosis, Camp Super Campers for children with Sickle Cell Anemia, and ASD Camp for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder. 

She has great vision -- and big dreams -- for the future of her camps.  A permanent site for the camps is her number one priority -- because then she's wouldn't have to turn any of these kids down.  After you meet them, you can see why.

My hat and my heart go out to her and all of her amazing kids.

Learn more by clicking here.

By John Rutherford, Producer, NBC News, Washington

Alton Knappenberger, a "one-man army" who was awarded the Medal of Honor for his heroics during World War II, was buried last Thursday at Arlington National Cemetery.

Knappenberger died June 9 at the age of 84 in Pottstown, Pa. He had suffered five heart attacks over the past 30 years.

Army Pfc. Knappenberger was only 19 when he received the military's highest honor for single-handedly holding off a German counterattack near Cisterna di Littoria, Italy, on Feb. 1, 1944.

"Under tank and artillery shellfire, with shells bursting within 15 yards of him, he held his precarious position and fired at all enemy infantrymen which he could locate," his Medal of Honor citation read.

When the smoke cleared, 60 Germans lay dead. Knappenberger's only injury was a blister on his heel.

"A one-man army, that's what you are," a general barked at him after the battle. "A blasted one-man army."

Knappenberger was a fearless fighter but an errant soldier. Accompanied by an escort, he was brought back to the States for a meeting at the Pentagon with the Army brass.

"I gave him the slip and took off," Knappenberger told the Allentown Morning Call in 2004. "I just wanted to go home."

He returned home to Pennsylvania and married his 16-year-old girlfriend. The next day he skipped a VFW parade in his honor, but the local VFW commander wasn't annoyed.

"Shucks, the boy's just married," he said. "Who's to blame him if he likes his bride's company better than ours?"

Knappenberger's wandering ways continued when he received the Italian War Cross for his role in the liberation of Rome.

"The place was alive with gold braid, but there was no Knappie," Collier's magazine wrote in 1945. "His three-man bodyguard finally located his temporary snoozing place, yanked him out, slicked him up and presented him."

Knappenberger spent the rest of his life much the same way, avoiding the limelight for actions he never considered particularly courageous.

"I just did what I had to do," he said four years ago. "You go in there and just try to get them guys before they get you."

Knappenberger's burial was as low-key as his life. A horse-drawn caisson, a three-round rifle salute and the playing of "Taps" by an Army bugler on an overcast summer afternoon.

Photo courtesy of the Allentown Morning Call.

Click here to view tributes to the 317 service members killed this year in Iraq and Afghanistan, including the following 14 casualties over the last two weeks:

1. Army 1st Lt. Nick Dewhirst, 25, of Onalaska, Wis.

2. Marine Pfc. Ivan Wilson, 22, of Clearlake, Calif.

3. Marine Staff Sgt. Faoa Apineru, 31, of Yorba Linda, Calif.

4. Army Spc. Seteria Brown, 22, of Aliceville, Ala.

5. Army Sgt. James McHale, 31, of Fairfield, Mont.

6. Army Spc. Andre Mitchell, 25, of Elmont, N.Y.

7. Army Pfc. David Badie, 23, of Rockford, Ill.

8. Army 2nd Lt. Michael Girdano, 23, of Apollo, Pa.

9. Army Spc. William Mulvihill, 20, of Leavenworth, Kan.

10. Army Pvt. Jair De Jesus Garcia, 29, of Chatsworth, Calif.

11. Army Sgt. Ryan Baumann, 24, of Great Mills, Md.

12. Army Spc. Kevin Dickson, 21, of Steelville, Mo.

13. Army Pfc. Jennifer Cole, 34, of American Canyon, Calif.

14. Army Sgt. Brian Miller, 37, of Pendleton, Ind.

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

I spent the day recovering from something of a train wreck of an outing last night -- I made a ton of mistakes during the broadcast (calling the Tropical Storm Eduardo and not Eduard, putting Basra 3 miles from Baghdad and not 300 -- and of course I KNEW BETTER than to make such sloppy errors) which I can only chalk up to a lack of concentration -- and way too much going on during the 23.5 hours when we're not actually on the air each day.

As a practical matter, while most of our broadcasts go smoothly, I hate the rocky ones. While we fixed all flubs for subsequent feeds, the first one always feels awful once it's out there beyond retrieval.

We're in the final hours before our departure for China, which means tonight I empty the suitcase I had packed for Iran, and Berlin before that.

Earlier today, Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric and I taped an appearance on Larry King Live for this evening. We had a great time and I recommend it -- it's all for a good cause: our combined efforts in fighting cancer -- the live 3-network special from Los Angeles on September 5th. It seems so far away now -- it will arrive, given our travel schedule in the interim, with a gallop.

Off to concentrate (for a change) on tonight's broadcast. Thank you for joining us.

By Robert Bazell, NBC News Chief science correspondent

Very few topics in medicine create more emotional debate and confusion than prostate cancer. 

The latest position statement from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force that men aged 75 and above need not be tested for the disease is the latest shot in an ongoing war among many factions who hold various positions on this disease. The task force, set up by Congress to try to set standards of care for American medicine, has said there is not enough evidence to say one way or another whether men under aged 75 should be tested.

 

By Brian Williams, Anchor and managing editor

I'm watching the incoming reports from China with the curiosity of an Olympic visitor...which makes sense, I guess. As I mentioned last week, there will be very few "normal" weeks over the next month or so, and this week is no exception: we leave in a few days to make Beijing our home for awhile, as the world's attention is focused on the games in China.

We've been sorting through the day's news -- from Morgan Freeman's accident (and we're all hoping and praying for his full recovery), to the discomfort and danger in Texas, to the sudden drop in the oil market this morning, to the new consumer spending number.

We'll have all of it for you tonight, as we begin another week. Thank you for being with us.

By Lester Holt, NBC News anchor

Hello from Beijing, a city obviously anxious to "let the games begin."  There are few if any signs of last minute preparations. As one Beijing resident told me, the country is like someone who has packed for a big trip a month early, and is now impatiently waiting around and eager to get going.
 
Back at home the big stories we will be reporting on the newscast tonight include the blistering heat wave gripping parts of the country, and fascinating new information about the scientific smoking gun that investigators believed help cinch their case against the suspect in the 2001 anthrax attacks. 
 
Here in China, it is hard to believe it was less than 3 months ago that a catastrophic earthquake struck the Sichuan region killing nearly 70,000 people and leaving thousands still missing. Today the Olympic torch run passed through the quake zone on its way to the games in Beijing. On our program tonight correspondent Ian Williams returns to the hard hit city of Hanwang, where he saw first hand how the government is managing to re-located over 3,000,000 people who lost their homes in the quake.  
 
Thanks for clicking on. We'll look for you later on NBC Nightly News.