By Rohit Kachroo, Correspondent, NBC News

First came the sound of gunshots late at night.

Then, a few hours later, a carcass was found -- his bloodied face and mutilated body shielded by the long grass. 

Before long, the stench of death was rising from what was now a crime scene.

The rangers at Lewa Wildlife Conservancy seemed almost unmoved. But they have seen it, heard it and smelled it too many times before.

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Once again, this 60,000-acre park -- home to one in eight of Kenya’s rhinos -- has been struck by an armed gang.

Despite the helicopters, the dog handlers, the electric fencing and the hiring of a former British Army captain as chief executive, Lewa has struggled with the poachers, losing six rhinos over a four-week period earlier this year.

It is a problem for parks across Africa, where some populations of rhino and elephant face extinction within decades. Gruesome killings, like the slaughter of a family of 12 elephants in Kenya’s Tsavo National Park last January, have caused shock but brought no solutions.

At least Lewa has a powerful supporter. This is where Prince William spent much of his gap year.  It is where he proposed to Kate Middleton in 2010. And it is here that he found another love: the precious species that are under threat from the trade in ivory and rhino horn.

On Tuesday, William will challenge African "producer" countries and Asian "consumer" countries to end the slaughter. But what is the chance of a real solution?

The words of a prince will mean little to the paupers who stalk the parks of Africa in search of a rhino horn which may be worth 30,000 pounds – more than its weight in gold. 

Perhaps stiffer sentences in African countries will make a difference -- but campaigners say that some are resisting pressure to punish those involved in the trade.

Then there's the question of how the meeting dignitaries can succeed in choking demand in the Far East, where others have failed before -- and where horns and tusks are said to have medicinal value.

Campaigners welcome the fact that the issue is being talked about at all -- and they accept that solutions will take time.

But for the majestic creatures that roam Lewa, there may be little of that.  

By Ron Mott, Correspondent, NBC News

WASHINGTON – Their similarities are striking, but teenagers Robin Jeter, 18, and Jordan Dickerson, 17, grew up quite differently in the nation’s capital.

They’re smart, pretty and fashion-forward. Both teens are also athletically inclined and have double jointed thumbs they can contort onto the palms of their hands.

But Robin, a senior at Friendship Collegiate Academy in northeast Washington, D.C., grew up in foster care, moving from one home to another until stability finally came her way.

“I only grew up with my one brother, that's all I’d known,” she said.

A few miles away, Jordan, a junior at Woodrow Wilson High School in the Northwest section of the city, was raised as an adopted only child, something her mom never hid.

“Her telling me I was adopted really wasn't that big of a deal,” Jordan said. “I just wanted to know more about it, I was really curious ... She told me that there was a possibility that I did have a sister, but you know, the information wasn't crystal clear.”

What’s clear is that these two young women met under remarkable circumstances in perhaps the most unlikely of places.

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'She looked just like you!'

In January, at an indoor high school track meet, one of Jordan’s teammates was watching a girls’ race, cheering enthusiastically.

“I said, ‘Go Jordan, Go Jordan!’" William Carson recalled.

That is, until he realized he was rooting for an opponent. When she crossed the finish line, William realized it wasn’t Jordan after all.

“Jordan was up like 10 feet away from me [in the bleachers]. She was looking at me, like, ‘Who is he talking to?’ And I was like, ‘She looked just like you!’”

The momentary confusion was soon cleared up by another student, Laniyyah Elam, who’d attended elementary school with Robin but was now a schoolmate of Jordan’s at Woodrow Wilson High School.

“I know that girl!” she said. “Her name is Robin Jeter.”

Jordan started to cry. She knew her birth name was also Jeter.

“I escorted her off to the bathroom,” Laniyyah said. “I asked her what was going on, and she told me that that was her sister, because she knew the last name. And I was, like, ‘Oh, wow. Do you want me to introduce you to her?’ Later on, after the meet was over, I told Robin to come up and they met each other.”

Separated by a few miles and 17 long years, the sisters awkwardly began what quickly developed into a comfortable, familiar, strong relationship -- with nary a trace of a sibling rivalry forming.

“I couldn't even say anything,” Robin said of the initial face-to-face conversation at the track meet.

“The only thing I could say was, ‘You know, we look a lot alike,’” Jordan countered.

After several months of getting to know one another—spending many weekends together and, soon, prom night—the sisters look as though they were never apart. They often finish one another’s sentences. Robin lovingly shoos away a fly from her sister’s hair. And in those moments, when they’re in each other’s company, physical contact seems irresistible, as if to suggest they fear ever losing grip on their suddenly discovered treasure.

By Mary Murray, Senior Producer, NBC News

LOS ANGELES -- There are only about 100 people in the U.S. like 7-year-old Jonah Pournazarian.

He suffers from a rare genetic and incurable disease called Glycogen Storage Disease Type 1B. Up until the 80s, most kids with his condition didn't survive past the age of two.

But his best buddy, Dylan Siegel, wanted his friend to get better, so he wrote a book hoping to raise one million dollars to find a cure.

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It took him an hour to write and illustrate the pages of "Chocolate Bar," an expression the boys use to describe something great, fantastic, or awesome.

He then nagged his parents to find a publisher. David and Debra Siegel, who live in Los Angeles, Calif., turned to a local printer for help.

"We had 200 copies to sell at a school fair," said Debra Siegel. "We were hoping that we could sell all the books we had printed.  We didn't want to get stuck with these books."

In a couple of hours, the boys sold every copy and had collected $6,000.

"Lo and behold, we had to do a second printing," said David Siegel, who then set up a Facebook page, and eventually a website. "People started to hear about this beautiful little book and wanted to help, be a part of Dylan's Magic."

GSD is a metabolic disorder that affects the liver.

"The only thing keeping my son alive is cornstarch," explained his mother, Lora Pournazarian, as she mixed a precise dose of cornstarch and water. She administers this mixture through a feeding tube around the clock to keep Jonah's blood sugar levels even. 

Jonah is permitted to eat other foods, but sweets, fruits and dairy can only be had in strict moderation. 

"He can have a bite of an apple.  Nothing will happen to him.  He can have a slice of pizza if he wants to, and it's okay," said Lora. "You know, his main food is bread.  If he eats, bread with butter.  And plain pasta."

Despite the work involved in being constant caregivers, Jonah's father Rabin Pournazarian said he's grown to appreciate life more since Jonah was born.

"I understand how fragile life is. I understand how difficult it is, at the end of the day, to have a child with special needs.  I understand what a blessing it is to have a child with special needs," he said. "Unfortunately, I've become a little bit more impatient, and -- just life is more stressful now than it was before.  But that's okay, it's just -- it's different.  But different isn't bad."

The Pournazarians have two other children, Rachel, 9, and Eli, Jonah's twin brother, who both say they're proud of Dylan for everything he's done to help their brother Jonah.

"It's really amazing to me that a boy his age can make this happen," Rachel said.  

An "astounding" book

Professor Dr. David Weinstein, director of the Glycogen Storage Disease Program at the University of Florida, is working on finding a cure through gene therapy. Because it is so rare, he said, "We're just in the infancy of really trying to treat this."

Funding research for what Weinstein describes as an "orphan disease," something rare that affects a small population, has been challenging.

"It's too small for the NIH [National Institutes of Health] to care about, too small to have a foundation," Weinstein said.

Until "Chocolate Bar," he added, "we had no place to turn.”

Like other adults, Weinstein was skeptical that Dylan's book would help his efforts.

"I thought it was wonderful that Dylan wanted to help Jonah," said Weinstein, but at the time he doubted the book would make any real difference.

Now, he calls Chocolate Bar "astounding."

"To think that a 7-year-old boy could write a book that could raise more money than all the medical foundations combined! This book is going to allow us to build research teams so that we can really work toward improving the lives of these children," he said.

And why not? To Dylan and Jonah, friendship is that simple.

"Dylan wrote the book to help me," said Jonah.

"I want Jonah to feel better," said Dylan.

The boys say they've been best buddies for "years." The two first started playing together in nursery school, when they were three. These days, they are inseparable.

"We're not really good friends," said Jonah. "We're really, really good friends."

Correcting him, Dylan replied, "No, we're not really, really good friends. We're really, really, really, really, really good friends."

Clearly, the best of friends.

Satellite imagery can serve as a time machine, revealing dramatic change in just a few seconds — but can you imagine documenting almost three decades' worth of all that change, across most of our planet's land mass? A team of imaging experts, computer scientists and journalists did. Now they've unveiled the result: a global database of zoomable, animated satellite views known as Timelapse.

"We believe this is the most comprehensive picture of our changing planet ever made available to the public," Rebecca Moore, engineering manager for Google Earth Engine and Earth outreach, said Thursday in Google's blog announcement of the Timelapse project.

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Moore said the project began in 2009, when Google started working with the U.S. Geological Society to make its archive of Landsat imagery available online. The team sifted through more than 2 million satellite images, adding up to 909 terabytes of data, and selected cloudless, high-quality views for every year since 1984.

Carnegie Mellon University's CREATE Lab smoothed the views into seamless animations, and Time magazine built it all into a presentation that supplements the time-lapse animations with commentaries on climate change, urban growth and the other trends that are transforming the planet.

"I've been chiseling away at this project over the last 11 months, and am in awe of the folks who helped this come together in ways I could never have conceived on my own. Some very bright minds figured out how to make the biggest video frames ever constructed, equivalent to 900,000 HD TVs next to one another," Jonathan Woods, the Time project's executive producer (and a former colleague at msnbc.com), said in an email.

Google Earth is also hosting the Timelapse zoomable map. "Much like the iconic image of Earth from the Apollo 17 mission — which had a profound effect on many of us — this time-lapse map is not only fascinating to explore, but we also hope it can inform the global community's thinking about how we live on our planet and the policies that will guide us in the future," Moore said.

When it comes to telling the story of our changing planet, one time-lapse animation is worth a thousand words. But there's more to tell. Find out more about the trends illustrated in the seven animated images you see here:

Columbia Glacier: Alaska's retreating ice reveals how climate change is changing Earth's surface.

Dubai coastal expansion: New islands are sprouting along Dubai's coastline as part of a $14 billion land reclamation effort, arguably the largest project of its kind.

Irrigation in Saudi Arabia: Agriculture amid the deserts of Arabia? It's a growing concern, thanks to huge irrigation projects that take advantage of underground rivers and lakes. The water won't last, though: Hydrologists estimate that it'll be economical to pump water for only about 50 years. 

Lake Urmia drying up: Iran's great salt lake is not as great as it was, and the reason for that is in dispute. The Iranian government blames climate change and drought, while critics blame the dams that have been built around the lake.

Brazilian Amazon deforestation: Satellite imagery documents the loss of Amazonian forest land in Brazil due to road-building, logging and agricultural clearing.

Las Vegas urban growth: What sprawls in Vegas doesn't stay in Vegas. Landsat pictures reveal how urban development has spread out around Nevada's biggest city over the decades.

Wyoming coal mining: The Black Thunder mine in Wyoming's Powder River Basin ranks as the largest single coal mining complex in the world, according to Arch Coal, its operator. Satellite imagery shows how the mine has spread out over the decades.

More time-lapse videos:

• One World Trade Center rises
• Shuttle Endeavour traverses L.A.
• Time-lapse gallery from Photoblog

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Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the NBC News Science Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with NBCNews.com's stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

After an eight-month deployment, the USS John C. Stennis headed home from the Persian Gulf where it played a vital role providing air support to troops in Afghanistan.

But on its way back it had another mission -- to pick up family and friends in Hawaii so they could experience life aboard the Stennis.

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The "Tiger Cruise" is the Navy's special take on bringing your loved one to work. 

More than 1100 family members and friends gathered to join the crew for a six-day cruise. The 'Tigers' are any friend or family member of the sailor, with the exception of spouses or significant others, invited to experience life, and sailors' duties, out at sea.

All the sights and sounds that accompany the sailors' work on board made memories that will last these families a lifetime. 

 

By Mark Potter, Correspondent, NBC News

TUCSON, ARIZ. – On a helicopter inspection tour above the rugged mountains and vast desert in southern Arizona, Commander Jeffrey Self of U.S. Customs and Border Protection reflected on how much security has improved along the U.S.-Mexican border during his long career.

"After the vehicle barriers were built, and with the checkpoints going up, we're experiencing zero [undocumented immigrant] drive-throughs in an area where we were having 30, 40, 50 in a 24-hour period," he said, pointing to miles of vehicle barriers placed in the desert along the frontier.

U.S. Border Patrol has greatly reduced the number of cars and trucks loaded with people and drugs driving across the desert from Mexico into the United States. That, Self explained, has freed agents to focus their attention on immigrant and drug smugglers who walk across the border.  In the meantime, he added, authorities have also greatly reduced the number of hiking trails used by smugglers.

"In Arizona we have been very successful in increasing border security," Self said. "Over the course of many years now we've been resourced with tactical infrastructure, technology and personnel and they've been employed in a fashion that's gotten us greater results."

While conceding there are still many areas where drug and immigrant smugglers cross illegally into the U.S. -- often on private ranch land -- Self argued the threat has decreased dramatically and will continue to do so.

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As the national debate over comprehensive immigration reform plays out, the question looms: just how secure is the U.S. border with Mexico? The answer appears to be mixed, with definite improvements nationwide and a downward trend in illegal immigration in most places – especially in the cities. But there are some areas, in rural Arizona and Texas, where residents insist the border is neither secure nor safe.

Gary Thrasher, a veterinarian and rancher in southern Arizona near Bisbee, says the rural border area where he works is actually less safe now than it was years ago, because of an increase in the number of armed drug and immigrant smugglers.

When the federal government increased security in the border cities, he said, it had the negative effect of forcing the smugglers to move to the large rural areas.

"The border statistically is securer than ever.  That means nothing,” he said.  “That's like saying we fixed this whole bucket, except for this hole down here.  You know it's still not going to hold water."

U.S. officials: look to the numbers 

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano frequently travels to the Southwest border and has made appearances before Congress where she has touted the recent improvements in border security and argued for passage of a comprehensive immigration bill.

"Fewer people are trying to emigrate illegally into this country than in four decades,” she testified before a U.S. Senate committee earlier this year. “What I know is that apprehensions are low, because attempts are low. Drug seizures, contraband seizures, all the numbers that need to be up are up."

In the year 2000, agents along the length of the Southwest border reported detaining 1,643,679 immigrants for allegedly entering the country without proper documentation.  Twelve years later, in 2012, that number had plummeted to 356,873, a decrease of 78 percent.

"San Diego and the Mexican border used to be the most lawless, violent places across the face of the earth with thousands of cross-border migrants on a given day,” said retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey, the former head of the Office of National Drug Control Policy. “We put in triple fencing and adequate Border Patrol and Coast Guard and it stopped."

Ranchers: rural border areas not secure

Critics of the administration's position on border security, however, say that while the overall apprehension numbers are down, they don't fully reflect the reality in areas where smugglers and immigrants still routinely make the illegal crossing into the United States from Mexico.

On a small ranch near the border in southwestern Arizona, a mother of several children spoke under the condition of anonymity.  She fears what she described as an increase in drug and immigrant smugglers crossing her land by day and night.

"You're still having to pack a gun everywhere with you and make sure your kids can't go outside to play unless you are watching them." she said.  "The border is not secure. The Border Patrol doesn't have a very strong presence out here."

Texas police: a rise in immigrant smuggling

In the small town of San Juan, Texas, a few miles north of the Mexican border, Police Chief Juan Gonzalez toured some of the human stash houses his officers recently uncovered. They had been used to hide immigrants from all over the world who were smuggled across the border into the United States.

Gonzalez says his department has never dealt with as many undocumented immigrants as it encounters now. 

"In the past three years we've seen an increase.  And it's not a steady increase, it's a massive increase," he said.  "Too many people are getting through.  We've got too many holes in the border and we don't have enough manpower to make sure we secure the border."

About 75 miles north of the border, in Falfurrias, Texas, Benny Martinez, the chief deputy of the Brooks County Sheriff's Office, says his area is also deeply affected by a recent rise in illegal immigration. 

“The trending is going up,” he said.  “It hasn’t gone down at all, not here.”

Last year, officials and ranchers there found the bodies of 129 immigrants who died in the harsh terrain, presumably after crossing the border illegally.  Dozens are still unidentified and are buried in a local cemetery.  Some of the metal markers on the graves read, "Unknown Female" and "Unknown Remains."  One says, simply, "Bones."

Martinez does not believe the U.S.-Mexican border is at all secure in South Texas, given the rise in illegal immigration in Brooks County. 

"It's steady and I don't think it's going to go down, it's not going to happen anytime soon," he said.

PHOTOS: Border patrol faces surge in rural Texas border crossings

Ranchers like Linda Vickers, who lives just north of a Border Patrol highway checkpoint near Falfurrias, said she regularly sees, and often photographs, illegal immigrants cutting across her land as they try to evade the agents. 

“I’m seeing groups of 10, groups of 20 and I’m seeing them more often,” she said.

When asked about Obama administration claims that the border is more secure now, Vickers said that while it appears to be true elsewhere in the country, it’s not the case where she lives. 

“In the state of Texas, in the Rio Grande Valley, the border is not secure and I don’t think you’ll find a person, a real person, to say it’s secure,” she said.

Border patrol: South Texas a problem area

In South Texas, in the Rio Grande Valley sector, immigrant apprehensions rose 65 percent from the years 2011 to 2012 -- from 59,243 to 97,762, according to U.S. Border Patrol -- bucking the national trend of falling immigration numbers. 

This year, statistics reveal the Rio Grande Valley apprehension numbers have climbed even further, rising 55 percent compared to this time in 2012. 

Federal agents believe it reflects a recent increase in people fleeing the poverty, drug gangs and violence in Central America.

Privately, some agents say that, despite their great success in making more apprehensions, thousands of immigrants crossing the border illegally in South Texas still slip past them.

A majority of people involved in the security debate agree that most of the U.S. cities along the border are now much safer than they used to be and have much lower crime rates, thanks to high fences, increased monitoring technology and thousands of Border Patrol and other federal agents deployed there.  

But McCaffrey says U.S. officials need to do more for the rural areas.

“You have to give the Border Patrol and Customs and Border Protection the dollars and the technology to protect the American frontier,” he said.  “We’ve got to do it.  We owe it to the American people.”

This story was originally published on Thu May 2, 2013 11:29 AM EDT

By Katy Tur, Correspondent, NBC News

ROXBURY, Mass. — The community of Roxbury had high hopes for its newest public school back in 2003. There were art studios, a dance room, even a theater equipped with cushy seating.

A pilot school for grades K-8, Orchard Gardens was built on grand expectations.

But the dream of a school founded in the arts, a school that would give back to the community as it bettered its children, never materialized.

Instead, the dance studio was used for storage and the orchestra's instruments were locked up and barely touched. 

The school was plagued by violence and disorder from the start, and by 2010 it was rank in the bottom five of all public schools in the state of Massachusetts.

That was when Andrew Bott — the sixth principal in seven years — showed up, and everything started to change.

“We got rid of the security guards,” said Bott, who reinvested all the money used for security infrastructure into the arts.

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Orchard Gardens a one-time 'career killer'

In a school notorious for its lack of discipline, where backpacks were prohibited for fear the students would use them to carry weapons, Bott’s bold decision to replace the security guards with art teachers was met with skepticism by those who also questioned why he would choose to lead the troubled school.  

“A lot of my colleagues really questioned the decision,” he said.  “A lot of people actually would say to me, ‘You realize that Orchard Gardens is a career killer? You know, you don't want to go to Orchard Gardens.’”

Share your Big Idea with NBC Nightly News! Your ideas may be featured online -- or on our broadcast.

But now, three years later, the school is almost unrecognizable. Brightly colored paintings, essays of achievement, and motivational posters line the halls. The dance studio has been resurrected, along with the band room, and an artists’ studio.

The end result? Orchard Gardens has one of the fastest student improvement rates statewide. And the students — once described as loud and unruly, have found their focus.

“We have our occasional, typical adolescent ... problems,” Bott said.  “But nothing that is out of the normal for any school.”

The school is far from perfect. Test scores are better, but still below average in many areas. Bott says they’re “far from done, but definitely on the right path.”

The students, he says, are evidence of that.

‘I can really have a future in this’

Eighth grader Keyvaughn Little said he’s come out of his shell since the school’s turnaround.

“I've been more open, and I've expressed myself more than I would have before the arts have came.”

His grades have improved, too. Keyvaughn says it’s because of the teachers — and new confidence stemming from art class.  

“There's no one particular way of doing something,” he said. “And art helps you like see that. So if you take that with you, and bring it on, it will actually help you see that in academics or anything else, there's not one specific way you have to do something.”

Keyvaughn has now been accepted to the competitive Boston Arts Academy, the city’s only public high school specializing in visual and performing arts.  

“All of the extra classes and the extra focus on it and the extra attention make you think that, ‘Hey, oh my gosh, I can really have a future in this, I don't have to go to a regular high school — I can go to art school,'” he said.

Chris Plunkett, who has taught visual arts at Orchard Gardens for the past three years, said the classes help develop trust between the faculty and students. During one particularly memorable project, he asked his eighth graders to write a memoir about a life experience and what they learned from it and then create a self-portrait.

“I couldn't believe how honest and candid they were, and how much I learned about them,” Plunkett said.  “I mean it was really, it was one of the most incredible things I've seen in eighth graders.”

Noting that kids need more than test prep, he added, it may have seemed “a little crazy” to get rid of the security guards to hire art teachers but “I definitely feel it was the right move in the end.”