Jump to December 2010 archive page: 1 2 3

  • Remember this name: Aloe Blacc

    I ran into Questlove today—the insanely talented and incredibly kind drummer/largest man with the Roots, the "house band" on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. While it’s still hard to get used to having these world-class musicians here in our building every day, when I see any of the Roots it’s difficult not to discuss our shared love of music. 

    Today we talked about Duffy (with whom they have just collaborated, Joanna Newsom, and Cee Lo Green.  And then I asked them about a current favorite of mine: Aloe Blacc.  He's an enormously talented musician who is out with a great new collection of songs. Changing genres since the start of his career, he has made some very basic, retro-sounding music with a great sound and great attention to detail. If you have time for just one, "Green Lights" by Aloe Blacc is a very nice sampler. Questlove said he was coming on the show next week—as my friends at Fallon are fans as well. We'll do some more music shortly—there's a lot to write about—the next time I get time!

    In the meantime: We hope you will join us tonight.

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  • Ambassador Richard Holbrooke

    ARMIN WEIGEL / AFP - Getty Images file

    Richard Holbrooke, US Special Representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan takes part in a discussion on International security with German Defence Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg (not in picture) hosted by the newspaper

    
    Brian Williams writes

    Everything you have read about him today is true. I knew Richard Holbrooke for years—knew him pretty well, though not as well as some. I flew to Bosnia with him, shared meals with him—always in my role as a journalist—spoke with him on the phone, introduced him at a charity dinner or two, and saw him at Council on Foreign Relations events. My heart goes out to his wife Kati, his children and stepchildren. The Government and foreign service ranks are full of his protégés, and it’s indisputable that he left his mark on the modern world. In a way, he was an anachronism during a time of great change: He was an old-school "career diplomat" in every way. While every inch a Democrat in mindset and party preference, he was also a Kissinger protégé who had a robust view of American power and goodwill and moral force. The word that keeps occurring to me is “relentless.”  Richard Holbrooke was simply relentless. As we will say on the air tonight, his death means there is no one even remotely like him in American diplomacy.

    We hope you can join us for tonight's broadcast.

  • Gems from Geminid meteor shower

    David Harvey

    The Geminid meteor shower was in full swing when this image was taken from Arizona's Kitt Peak National Observatory.

    Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News writes

    This week's Geminid meteor shower, one of the year's best sky shows, has been living up to expectations — as demonstrated by the photos you've sent in. We asked you to share your Geminid gems with Nightly News, and we're posting a sampling of your submissions right here. You can still send your photos to us here, and we'll add a selection to the gallery.

    One of the choicest gems was sent in by David Harvey, who works at Kitt Peak National Observatory near Tucson, Ariz. "It was a great shower," Harvey told me today. "We're having a warm spell here in Arizona, and it was perfectly clear."

    Harvey got the picture you see above by setting up his camera at the observatory and taking a series of time exposures over the course of the night. "I would see dozens of meteors ... well over a hundred an hour," Harvey said.

    That fits right in with other reports about the Geminids: Chris Peterson of Colorado's Cloudbait Observatory said on the Meteorobs mailing list that "this year's shower was very impressive, reaching a peak visual rate of about 120 meteors per hour." The International Meteor Organization recorded rates of 80 or more meteors per hour leading up to last night's expected peak.

    Matt Freechack

    Matt Freechack created this picture by pointing his camera north from Lake Odessa, Mich., for a 13-minute exposure. The curved arcs are star trails, and the straight lines are meteor streaks.

    Two other Geminid pictures were sent in by Matt Freechack. The first is the result of a 13-minute camera exposure, looking north from Lake Odessa, Mich., at 3:20 a.m. today. "If you look closely, you can see 18 meteor trails," he wrote. But to look that closely, you'll have to peer at this enlarged view.

    Freechack's last meteor of the night shows up at upper right in this snapshot, taken just before 7 a.m. looking south from Grand Rapids, Mich.

    For other pictures from last night's Geminids, check out this roundup from Space.com, this collection at SpaceWeather.com, and this beaut from Photoblog.

    Want to see the meteors for yourself? Even though the peak has passed, you can still spot some gems tonight. The best time for viewing comes after midnight, when the world is turning directly into the stream of cosmic grit left behind by Phaeton, a highly unorthodox asteroid. Try to find a vantage point far from city lights, where skies are clear and you have a nice, wide view of the night sky. Although the Geminids appear to emanate from the constellation Gemini, they can flash in any area of the sky.

    Be sure to bundle up and get comfortable — for example, in a lounge chair or winter sleeping bag. And give your eyes at least 15 minutes to adjust to the darkness. If you want to take pictures, here's some advice from SpaceWeather.com.

    You're not likely to see more than 100 meteors per hour tonight. In fact, Harvey isn't even going to try repeating his photographic feat. "Looks like the weather might be changing here," he told me, "and the peak is fairly steep. Tonight probably won't get more than 30 to 40 an hour."

    But maybe you'll get lucky tonight. If you capture a gem of Geminid on camera, please share it with us.

    Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page or following @b0yle on Twitter.

  • Jamie Kraft named Senior Broadcast Producer

    New York, NY – December 14, 2010 – America’s number-one evening newscast, “NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams,” will expand its senior leadership team, executive producer Bob Epstein announced today.  Jamie Kraft will join the “Nightly News” team as Senior Broadcast Producer.   Kraft, who most recently served as Executive Producer of CNN’s “American Morning,” will primarily oversee day of air production. 

    Senior Broadcast Producer Aurelia Percy Grayson will add to her responsibilities future planning and production.  Andrew Franklin will be promoted to Senior Producer of Foreign Coverage.  Franklin most recently served as Special Projects Producer for the show, and is a thirty-five year veteran of NBC News.  

    “This hire and these moves are all about us expanding and improving upon Nightly News’ position of strength,” said Epstein.  “Jamie’s tremendous experience and skills covering breaking news and working in live television are the perfect complement to the talented staff at ‘Nightly News.’ I am thrilled to have him join this team."

    “These announcements symbolize this news division’s investment in the ‘Nightly News’ franchise,” said Alex Wallace, SVP of NBC News.  “Nightly News is as strong as it has ever been and that’s a testament to its talented team, on-air and off, to its leadership and to Brian Williams.”

    These hires and promotions will enhance “Nightly News'” mission of growth and evolution of the show and its brand.  “Nightly News” is the dominant evening news program. As of Dec. 5th, "Nightly" is averaging 8.5 million viewers for the fourth quarter of 2010, topping ABC's 7.4 million average and CBS' 5.7 million average. “Nightly” has won for 64 consecutive weeks, and in 111 of the past 112 weeks in total viewers.

    Kraft has served as executive producer at "American Morning" for two years.  Prior to that he was a senior producer for three years at "Anderson Cooper 360."  Kraft went to CNN from CBS News where he worked for more than thirteen years on "60 Minutes," "CBS Evening News," "48 Hours" and "Street Stories."
     
    While at CBS Kraft won a Gracie award, three Emmy awards and a New York Press Club award.  While at CNN, Kraft was part of the coverage teams that earned two George Foster Peabody awards for its Katrina reporting and the 2008 Presidential Campaigns and Debates, plus an Edward R. Murrow Award for the Lebanon/Israeli conflict and two Emmy awards for "Anderson Cooper 360." "American Morning" also received a Daytime Emmy nomination for Best Morning Show while Kraft was Executive Producer.
     
    Kraft earned his bachelor's degree in journalism and economics from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. He resides in New Jersey with his wife and four children, and coaches three of his children's soccer teams.
     

  • Raising the roof in the Twin Cities

    Brian Williams writes

    Weather intersected with news and sports over the weekend, when we awoke to news that the Metrodome had collapsed in Minneapolis. The people of Minnesota fully deserve their title as some of the nicest people on earth.  As NFL fans go (while we may differ and we all support our own teams: go Giants!) Vikings fans are intensely loyal. What has happened to their arena is such a shame, really for that whole city and state.  Let's hope they apply some of that famous Minnesota spirit and raise the roof into some sort of durable, lasting shape. 

    The weather is making news all over the country.  Here's a map of snow cover over the Continental U.S.—it’s really quite extraordinary.  As I write this it’s one degree in Chicago, and 13 in Atlanta, where pipes are freezing and so are people.

    It’s part of our coverage tonight—we hope you can join us as we begin a new week.

  • A picture's worth 1,000 ice cubes

    Brian Williams writes

    PLEASE NOTE: THIS PHOTO REFERS TO THE NBC COMMISARY ICE MACHINE, NOT THE NETWORK AS A WHOLE.

    Repeating: The network is healthy. We're all at work, content and successful. The ice machine in our 7th floor commissary broke today, a veteran compressor having breathed its last and formed its last cube. The fast-acting staff instantly placed a bin of fresh ice and a scoop on the counter, so ice service for our ice-needing staff members was not interrupted.

    On another subject: If you love your Grandfather, Minnesota, campfires, boats or Dwight D. Eisenhower—or if you have any interest in the "military industrial complex," read this wonderful piece of writing, posted today by The New Yorker. And Friday means the latest piece by Peggy Noonan in the Journal.

    There. You ought to be set for the weekend.

    Have a great weekend, and we hope you'll join us tonight.

  • The prince and the protesters

    Brian Williams writes

    As you may know by now, protesters in London attacked the Rolls Royce carrying Prince Charles and Camilla today while they were en route to the theatre. While this sort of thing would not happen here (given how our Secret Service operates and how our Presidents travel), and while there will be investigations, recriminations and changes in his security procedures...the photos are striking. I actually discussed personal security with both the Prince and Camilla during my time recently in the U.K. They are both openly put off by how intense and claustrophobic the security here makes them feel, as they are officially “protectees” of the Secret Service when they are on U.S. soil. They live different lives in a different country and are unelected.  But we've not heard the end of this incident, to say nothing of the rage on the part of students and other citizens that led to the attack on their car.  We'll have the story for you when we see you tonight.

     

     

  • Thinking back on two who have departed

    Photo by Subrata De

    Photo by Subrata De

    If you saw our broadcast last night, and our remembrance of Elizabeth Edwards, then you saw snippets of an interview I conducted at her home in Chapel Hill, where she died just yesterday. The interview was in conjunction with her book, and our day together was quite personal in tone, as she knew I had lost my only sister after a six-year battle with breast cancer. Senior Producer Subrata De took photos that day (some featuring the Edwards' new puppy, Bella, who managed to discover some mud outside and share it with us inside), which I've posted here.

    And here in New York today, we are remembering where we all were 30 years ago tonight, when we heard the news of John Lennon's death. I was living in Northern Virginia as a young Washingtonian. A friend of mine was a young physician working a night shift in the Emergency Room in Manhattan. He remembers another doctor, pointing through an open examining room door to a man's body covered on a gurney. "You know who that is?" the other doctor asked. "That's John Lennon." My wife remembers doing a load of laundry when she heard the news. I have another friend who ran out his door to the Dakota and joined in the tears and song. I remember being outraged. I remember wondering who would want to do that to him. I got angry all over again when I heard the non-stop John Lennon music on a New York radio station today. What a colossal waste.

    Onward. We hope you can join us for the broadcast tonight.

  • Remembering Elizabeth Edwards

    Photo by Subrata De

    Edwards endured public life full of personal struggle
    Elizabeth Edwards, who died Tuesday after losing a six-year battle with breast cancer, said she hoped to be remembered not for the hardships she endured, but for who she was and how she lived. NBC's Kelly O'Donnell looks back at the private struggles of a very public life.

    In this 2006 interview, Brian Williams spoke candidly with Elizabeth Edwards about her battle with cancer, the death of her teenage son, and her best-selling book.

    The family is asking that donations be made to the Wade Edwards Foundation, which benefits the Wade Edwards Learning Lab. Wade Edwards was Edwards' teenaged son who died in a car accident in 1996. http://www.wade.org/wef.htm

  • Telling the whole truth

    Brian Williams is on jury duty and won't be posting today. He says he's actually been selected to sit in a civil trial jury pool, but doubts he will survive the first round of voir dire jury selection--but he's being a good citizen, he assures us. He is "hoping and praying" to be at work in time for the broadcast tonight.

  • Complete this sentence: 'Kansas____'

    Some of us have friends who are conversationally equipped with autocomplete—you're in the middle of a sentence, you pause for half a second, and they finish the sentence or word for you. It can be as annoying as the Google version of autocomplete can be instructive or comical. With thanks to the folks at Very Small Array and Gothamist, today's presentation is fascinating. It’s the results of Google auto-fill when users typed in JUST a State name, during the period 5:45-6:10pm on December 3rd of this year. While it’s admittedly instantly skewed by the calendar (football season, as you'll see, looms large), I’s interesting to see what people were searching for on that day, at that time. For example, let's hope my home State isn't most closely identified with "New Jersey Transit." I hope you had a good weekend, and we can't wait for you to join us tonight.

  • A woman warrior

    By NBC News producer Stephanie Himango

    She is a mother and a wife.

    She is also a soldier who recently arrived in Afghanistan as part of a year-long deployment of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 34th Infantry Division.

    Captain Jodi Marti is commander of E Company, 334th Brigade Support Battalion of the Iowa National Guard.

    As a female company commander attached to an infantry battalion, Marti is in a unique position. The role of her company involves supporting the infantry in maintenance, distribution and logistics issues, but it can also serve in another unique way.

    Some of the soldiers in her company are females who have been trained and organized into Female Engagement Teams, or FET. The aim of FET teams is to engage the women of Afghanistan in what is both a humanitarian and counterinsurgency (COIN) mission.

    Cultural consultant Frishta Suha explains why FET teams are needed: "Afghan females are not free to engage with other males that aren't related to them," she said. So that means the female soldiers' male counterparts are not allowed to communicate with Afghan women.

    Still relatively new, FET teams have been used in both Iraq and Afghanistan by other branches of the military, and now National Guard teams are being trained.

    Related images: All-female U.S. Marine team in Afghanistan

    "In the last eight or nine years we've been missing out on pretty much 50 percent of the population," Marti explained, referring to the women of Afghanistan.

    "I think they have their pulse on the village. They know who is there. They know who is new," she said. "They know what the village needs. If there are people sick, they know that."

    It's a human connection and community awareness that Marti views as tangible and relatable.

    "I don't think it's any different than here in America where women get together and they talk about their families, and they talk about their community and how they would like to better those things," she said.

    While the FET teams are not on patrol with infantry battalions at all times, they are ready.

    "All they need to do is contact me and I'll push one of my female engagement teams out to them," Marti said. And the importance of the FET role is not viewed lightly. "Female engagement teams are imperative to the COIN mission," said Marti.

    "We can talk to everybody in Afghanistan," she explained, including male soldiers, the Afghan National Army, the Afghan National Police, male elders, children and finally Afghan females.

    "I'm very honored to serve my country, but I'm also honored to be able to help and serve the people of Afghanistan."

  • In the company of heroes

    Lester Holt/NBC News

    Volunteers carry an injured soldier aboard an Air Force C-17 at Bagram Air Field.

    Lester Holt writes

    I arrived back in New York from my recent 10 day assignment in Afghanistan via Germany. It was a connecting flight I won't ever forget. The plane was an Air Force C-17 and on board were 17 seriously injured soldiers, sailors and marines who were en route to the Landsthul Medical Center near Frankfurt, Germany. I got to speak to several of the wounded warriors and all of them told similar stories of being struck by improvised explosive devices, more commonly referred to as IEDs.

    The flight I was on is a regularly scheduled medivac flight. Business has been that brisk. At Bagram Air Field, volunteers from around the base began appearing shortly before flight time to help carry them to buses and onto the plane. There is never a shortage of help, I was told. Aboard the 8 hour flight they were tended to by a remarkable and dedicated team of nurses and medical personnel. They consider it the highest honor to work these flights and care for the wounded warriors. The injured troops I met were around the same ages as my two sons. The line between journalist and dad becomes blurred at a moment like that. I could only imagine what their folks were going through and I made a point of asking each of them: did you call your parents to let them know you are okay and in good hands?  I later learned the medical staff insists they call home if they are able. Many families are eager to make the trip to Germany to see their sons or daughters, but are discouraged by hospital staff since most of the wounded will be on their way to the U.S. within a day or two.

    I'll have a lot more on my sobering journey out of the war zone on tonight's edition of NBC Nightly News. I hope you can join us.

  • The genesis of tonight's Making a Difference

    One of the questions we reporters often get is where we get our story ideas. One of our biggest goals is to get them from viewers so please keep those emails coming. But for tonight's report on a New York firefighter who is also a marriage and family therapist I have to make a bit of a disclosure.

    Margot Weinshel is a couples and individual therapist in New York who is also my wife. One night over dinner she mentioned she was taking a course in a style of treatment called Emotionally Focused Therapy. Her instructor, and the leading expert in the field in the New York area, she told me, is an active duty lieutenant with the Fire Department of New York. Whoa! I said there is a story in this, and indeed after I talked to Lt. George Faller I found out . He started his training as a therapist because he was thinking about a second career -- never thinking he would treat firefighters' families. His wife Kathy, already on her path to a degree in psychology when they met, played a gigantic role in his decision to plan for the future. 9/11 instantly changed his decision about treating fellow firefighters and their families. Suddenly he was doing two jobs

    Covering the FDNY is always a pleasure. Lt. Faller's company ladder 38 is on Belmont Avenue in the Bronx (the storied home of Dion and the Belmonts). And the men on Faller's truck invited producer Amy Perrette, cameraman Callen Griffith and sound operator Joseph Jackson and me to lunch. Firefighters are notoriously great cooks. And this unit is right next to Arthur Avenue, an old Italian neighborhood, with fabulous food stores so the meal was especially fine.

    The most critical point George Fallers made is that when it comes to helping others, his relationships in the firehouse taught him far more than even his extensive academic training

  • Weight Loss Surgery

    The Lap Band (which is a copyrighted brand) is one of two similar, surgical methods of restricting food intake by putting a ring around the stomach. There are other surgical options including gastric bypass. Here is a guide to various weight loss surgeries from the National Institutes of Health. You can read specifically about Lap Band on the company's website. Allergan, which also makes the drug Botox wants to lower the weight requirements for people to get the surgery. Currently people must have a Body-Mass Index -- BMI of 40 or more -- or 35 if they have serious weight-related problems such as diabetes. To compute BMI you can use this online calculator. The company wants to lower both requirements by five units. On Friday December 3, a panel of experts convened by the FDA will hear the company's arguments

  • This is what life in New York feels like

    We have something very cool today, thanks to our friends upstairs at WNBC-TV, who had brains enough to set up an HD time-lapse camera that recorded the arrival/decoration/lighting of the 30 Rock Christmas Tree. This is a great piece of videotape (note how far away the crowd had to be, per the NYPD, in the wake of the Portland, OR bombing attempt) and shows the work that goes into this event every year. It’s strikingly different from the first tree, erected to cheer the workers building this complex during The Depression (it was farther from this building, closer to St. Patrick's Cathedral), and every year it becomes a bigger event. Gawker, please post this. To the rest of you: We hope you can join us tonight.

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

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