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Early Nightly is up

Brian anchors the broadcast tonight from New York, but he was in Washington this morning for a briefing with senior administration officials about President Bush's speech tonight on Iraq. Before jumping back on his favorite shuttle flight, he delivered today's vlog from the White House north lawn.

Click here or on the image to watch.

Brian also spoke briefly with Chief White House Correspondent David Gregory during MSNBC-TV's all day political coverage. You can watch that by clicking here.

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Capitol Hill smokeout

Editor's note: Mike took you inside the smoke-filled Speakers' lobby in a post on June 27, 2006, which as he updates below, is history after less than a week of the 110th Congress.

New Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi has announced that smoking will no longer be permitted in the Speakers' Lobby, the anteroom of the House chamber that had previously served as a smoking sanctuary for members of Congress. The move comes 10 days after a smoking ban went into effect in Washington, D.C., bars and restaurants, and years after smoking was banned in executive branch buildings all over town.

Members will still be permitted to light up in their private offices, however.

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Bush's big speech

NBC News has confirmed the following about the president's address from various senior administration officials:

Where: The White House Library, not the Map Room as previously printed on a White House schedule.

Length: Aides say the run-throughs clock the speech at about 23 minutes. Advisors say they know they have to be "reasonable" and keep it under a half hour. They say there will be some poetic language, but mostly complex explanation of the plan and the circumstances that led to this point.

Key points: Advisors say the big news of the speech has largely all been reported now. The president will ask for roughly 20,000 additional troops. Most to Baghdad. About 4,000 to the west in Anbar Province. The president will speak about goals for Iraqis to take over operational security control by November. Advisors say "that's something Maliki wants."

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Nonstop news

To illustrate how much we have to impart during our allotted half hour tonight, here is a glimpse of just the non-first-block items vying for time in the broadcast: An update on the condition of Senator Johnson, new climate figures and findings, the Malibu fires, Mark McGwire (and Cal Ripken), a possible New Orleans curfew, the death of a prominent animator, the bottom falling out of the oil market, and Steve Jobs' latest invention that is supposed to combine and condense all our electronic needs (and presumably all of our food, water and breathable oxygen) into a very expensive Altoids box.

At the top of the broadcast tonight (as of the end of our editorial meeting a few minutes ago), will be some combination of the following: Timeline predictions on an influx of U.S. soldiers and Marines, along with a preview of other points in the President's speech, the violence today on an awful stretch of Haifa Street in Baghdad (where every day is a bad day), and the ongoing Special Forces air strikes in Somalia. The last item has more impact when put differently: Over the last 24 hours, the United States' war on terrorism has opened up an "African front." The operation used one of the most deadly and impressive aircraft in our arsenal... one I've flown on... the AC-130 "Spectre" gunship. It is old and slow by modern aviation standards (it is propeller-driven) but then again, speed and appearances aren't important. It is the aviation equivalent of a battlefield full of weapons -- and in some cases, before those in the target zone hear the prop noise, a number of fierce and lethal weapons have already hit them. It has the fighting force of several platoons arrayed at various "stations" along the fuselage and under the wings.  You don't want to find yourself on the business end of one of these. For all its size and power, it is also capable of landing on a relatively short landing strip. Considering this mission didn't officially exist 20 hours ago, information (after-action and continuing action) has been hard to come by, but we'll report what we know.

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Early Nightly is up

Brian begins today's vlog with a recap of what happened after the first feed of Monday's broadcast. Click here for the latest on the U.S. airstrikes in Somalia and here for the latest on the wildfires in Malibu, Calif.

You can watch the full vlog by clicking here or on the image.

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Running on fumes

What a day here in New York. The city was invaded by pungent natural gas fumes just after 9 a.m. this morning. NBC management put out a memo to all 30 Rock employees urging us to close our windows and telling us the vents to the outside air had been closed. In a city still understandably raw and jittery after 9/11, this was a big event -- some very smart and normally level-headed people found themselves battling more than a hint of fright and foreboding. It was hard not to, it was a strange occurrence. The incident also launched a strange kind of civic/media war between municipalities -- with New York saying the gas was coming from New Jersey (my home state doesn't enjoy the best aromatic reputation, as you know, so we're an easy target) and Jersey City officials blaming it on a gas leak in Manhattan. The spokeswoman for the Jersey City mayor aggressively took to the airwaves this morning, in what made for a fun kind of aside when it became a redundancy feast for the ears. She used phrases like "O.E.M. Office" (the "O" in O.E.M. stands for "Office") and "heating or HVAC" (ditto here -- the "H" in "HVAC" stands for "heating") in her attempt to calm the public and explain why it couldn't possibly be coming from Jersey. It was great listening for those of us monitoring developments on radio. Actually, with winds out of the west at 7 mph with gusts to 20, it made a lot of sense that it was NOT originating in, and lingering over Manhattan island. But the air has been cleared, as they say.

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City under siege?

It's been a difficult weekend for my family and for many other families in New Orleans. The so-called crime wave that hit the city during the start of this new year has been unsettling. As of Monday, there have been at least nine people killed in the last eight days. Correspondent Martin Savidge wrote a compelling story on the issue for Nightly News on Friday. But the problem has become personal for me, as it has for others who live here.

This weekend, Mayor Ray Nagin put it best when he said in a hastily called news conference that even one murder is too many. For a good number in this city, the one murder too many was the brutal slaying last week of Helen Hill. Hill was a talented, award-winning filmmaker. Her husband, Paul Gailiunas, is a doctor who dedicated his time to serving the poor. Together they moved back to this city after Katrina destroyed their home to raise their 2-year old son, and be a part of the city's recovery. Many people become a part of the city's rebuilding effort just by deciding to live here. According to the Times-Picayune, Helen and her husband were different. They collected food for homeless people, served indigent patients and in ways big and small served as an example to their community of what it means to help rebuild. 

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Early Nightly is up

Why are birds dying in Austin, Texas? And what's that smell in Manhattan?

Those are two of the mysterious questions the broadcast will try to answer tonight. Also, more reporting on the effects of global warming, which so many of you commented about on Friday.

Brian shares more in today's vlog. Click here or on the image to watch. (Note: Some of you may experience difficulty trying to view the video. We're aware of the problem and working to fix it ASAP.)

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Sunday's Rundown

We want to remind our viewers on the west coast that our Sunday "Nightly News" broadcast, which has been pre-empted or moved to an earlier time because of NBC's Sunday Night Football over the past few months... returns tonight.  We're back on at our regular time in the Pacific and Mountain Time zones and we hope you will tune-in tonight.

This has been a busy weekend.  We continue to follow the developments in Iraq tonight... as the President prepares to address the nation this week.  After almost 4 years of fighting, the President's new plan is likely to spark a debate on Capitol Hill and across the country.  Will the U.S. put more troops on the ground... and will it make a difference?  NBC's Kevin Corke will have the latest from the White House.  NBC's Jim Maceda reports from Baghdad.

We have been following the avalanche in Colorado that closed a major highway this weekend.  The road is now open... following the 3rd major snowstorm in 3 weeks.  NBC's Don Teague will have that story.

Also, NBC’s chief medical editor Dr. Nancy Snyderman joins us tonight to report on what could be a major breakthrough in stem cell research.  Researchers have discovered stem cells in the amniotic fluid of pregnant women.  It may mean that doctors will be able to extract stem cells without ever harming the fetus.

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