The Daily Nightly began on May 31, 2005. As Brian wrote in his first post it aims to provide a narrative of the broadcast day and a window into the editorial process at NBC Nightly News. Brian weighs in every weekday and NBC News correspondents and producers post regularly.
Brian Williams became the seventh anchor and managing editor in the history of NBC Nightly News on December 2, 2004. Read his full biography.
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Good day from New York. We're still several hours away from a west coast-only edition of Nightly News (due to coverage of the US Open Golf tournament), but already we have a lot on our plate. Jim Maceda will wrap-up the day in Iraq where the military has revealed it recently raided an apparent Al Qaeda safe house where IDs belonging to those two captured American servicemen have been found. He'll also be reporting on a major offensive against Al Qaeda currently underway, and US Defense Secretary Robert Gates' meetings with military commanders in Baghdad.
Things are still shaking themselves out in the Palestinian territories with Hamas gunman consolidating power in Gaza, and Fatah flexing its muscle on the West Bank. Tom Aspell is working that story for us.
We'll also have a follow-up from North Carolina where Duke Lacrosse prosecutor Mike Nifong announced yesterday he would step down from his job. Today a disciplinary panel ruled Nifong broke several rules of professional conduct. Ron Mott will be along to tell us where all this may lead.
Thanks for checking-in, and enjoy the rest of your day.
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Link to thisGood afternoon from New York. Brian has the day off and so I'll be anchoring the broadcast tonight.
Here in the newsroom we've just watched embattled Durham, N.C., District Attorney Mike Nifong -- the man who pressed the rape case against those Duke lacrosse players -- offer an apology and announce his intention to resign his office. Nifong today faced a Bar Association disciplinary panel today over his handling of the case. Today's hearing included tearful testimony by Reade Seligmann, one of the players who was once charged with the rape of an exotic dancer. The case was ultimately dropped against all of the accused players, and so today it was Nifong on the hot seat. A seat apparently hot enough to force this afternoon's announcement. Ron Mott is covering today's surprise development for us.
Discuss (4 comments) Email this | Link to thisThe arrests this week of key operatives of an Indonesian terrorist group is significant, says a senior U.S. counterterrorism official, but neither of the men were responsible for the deadliest terrorist attack in Indonesia, the December 2002 bombing of a Bali nightclub that killed 202 people, including five Americans.
The two -- Abu Dujana and Zarkasih -- were grabbed this week and identified as the leader and military commander of Jemaah Islamiyah, the Indonesian terrorist group blamed for the Bali bombing. However, the official said the U.S. does not believe the two men were part of the planning or execution of the attack.
"It's a serious setback," said the official. "I can tell you we're happy they're off the street. It's a significant event."
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Army Sgt. Charles Wyckoff, who was buried today at Arlington National Cemetery, always managed to stay out of trouble growing up in Chula Vista, Calif.
"He was the good one," his aunt, Tina Perez, told the San Diego Union-Tribune. "All of our nephews were in prison. He never got into gangs, he never got into drugs."
Wyckoff was also the first member of his family to graduate from college. He earned a degree in aeronautical science from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Arizona.
"He was a winner in our family," his aunt told the Union-Tribune.
Caption: Sgt. Charles E. Wyckoff poses before the U.S. flag in this photo courtesy of the 82nd Airborne Division.
Discuss (10 comments) Email this | Link to thisTom Costello previews some of the stories we're working on for tonight's broadcast, which will be anchored by Lester Holt.
Click here to watch.
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Every weekday for 110 straight days we will feature a different living recipient of the Medal of Honor. These are the men who have received their nation's highest military honor. Brian is a board member of the Congressional Medal of Honor Foundation. The words and photos are courtesy of Artisan Books, publishers of "Medal of Honor: Portraits of Valor Beyond the Call of Duty by Peter Collier with photographs by Nick Del Calzo.
EDWARD C. DAHLGREN
SERGEANT, U.S. ARMY 3rd Platoon, Company E, 2nd Battalion, 142nd Infantry, 36th Infantry Division
Edward Dahlgren’s family emigrated from Sweden and became potato farmers in Maine. Dahlgren grew up speaking Swedish at home and attended a one-room schoolhouse. He left high school after his junior year to work on a potato farm near his home. Agriculture was always his first love, but because he wanted to help the war effort, in 1942 he took a job in a Massachusetts machine shop doing defense-related work. He was drafted into the Army early in 1943.
Discuss (1 comments) Email this | Link to thisIf they call Tom Hanks in for help, we'll know this is a serious problem on board the space station. So far, it seems to be a data issue with some complications. We have Tom Costello on the case, and he'll report for us.
From Gaza, today's headline appears to be this: the standing government appears split in two, and it looks like a militant Islamist state will take up residence next to America's most important ally in the Middle East. We're on the story, as we are other disparate topics like immigration, breakfast cereals for children and hidden, residential pot farms in California.
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Brian previews some of the stories we're working on for tonight's broadcast, including trouble with the space station.
Click here or on the image to watch.
Discuss (1 comments) Email this | Link to thisNBC's Roger O'Neil will report tonight the story of a pro golfer helping disabled vets -- it's part of our "What Works" series.
The golfer featured tonight is part of a partnership program established by the PGA of America, Disabled Sports USA and the Department of Defense for severely wounded veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan. The PGA has coordinated a team of six PGA Professionals per city, who will instruct wounded warriors at sites near the three primary military hospitals - Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C.; Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas; and Naval Medical Center San Diego in San Diego, Calif.
The program is a nationwide initiative involving both active duty and retired members of the Armed Forces who were severely wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Learn more about the program and find pro golfers instructing the disabled in your area.
Watch Roger O'Neils report from 'Nightly News'
Discuss (3 comments) Email this | Link to thisEvery weekday for 110 straight days we will feature a different living recipient of the Medal of Honor. These are the men who have received their nation's highest military honor. Brian is a board member of the Congressional Medal of Honor Foundation. The words and photos are courtesy of Artisan Books, publishers of "Medal of Honor: Portraits of Valor Beyond the Call of Duty by Peter Collier with photographs by Nick Del Calzo.
FRANCIS S. CURREY
Private First Class, U.S. Army Company K, 120th Infantry, 30th Infantry Division
An orphan who had grown up in a foster home in upstate New York, Francis Currey enlisted in the Army in the summer of 1943, one week after he graduated from high school. Though he completed the Officer Candidate School course, his superior officers decided he was “too immature” to receive a commission.
Discuss (2 comments) Email this | Link to thisIf you think a thunderstorm ruined our plans to anchor from an outdoor location last night (the 67th floor of 30 Rock), you would be only partially correct. At 6:15 p.m., the FDNY responded to a report of persons trapped in an elevator here. They promptly froze all the elevators in the building -- so we couldn't have gone to the roof if we'd wanted. We instead chose a small studio close to our newsroom, and after much scrambling and hard work, we got a broadcast on the air. As it happened, a downpour arrived before the half-hour was over. Had we made it outside, that storm would have ultimately driven us back inside.
Tonight our plans are more modest. We plan to do the broadcast indoors, from our usual studio. That should work.
Discuss (10 comments) Email this | Link to thisNBC's Jim Miklaszewski is at the Pentagon where he previews some of the stories we're working on for tonight's broadcast.
Click here to watch.
Discuss (0 comments) Email this | Link to thisEvery weekday for 110 straight days we will feature a different living recipient of the Medal of Honor. These are the men who have received their nation's highest military honor. Brian is a board member of the Congressional Medal of Honor Foundation. The words and photos are courtesy of Artisan Books, publishers of "Medal of Honor: Portraits of Valor Beyond the Call of Duty by Peter Collier with photographs by Nick Del Calzo.
CHARLES H. COOLIDGE
Technical Sergeant, U.S. Army Company M, 141st Infantry, 36th Infantry Division
The bloodiest combat Charles Coolidge experienced was in 1943, after he went ashore at Salerno. Coolidge’s unit went up the boot of Italy and crossed the Rapido River to engage the Germans at Montecassino. There were surreal moments as well as violent ones: capturing sheep from the countryside and forcing them at bayonet point to cross enemy minefields. In all, the fighting was brutal and the American losses heavy, far worse than anything Coolidge would encounter later on.
Discuss (2 comments) Email this | Link to thisWe had elaborate plans for tonight's broadcast. The idea was this: since we originate from this spectacular building (30 Rock) each night, why not take to the roof and highlight the City of New York, our headquarters most nights of the week? That was until a line of "popcorn" thunderstorms (so named by meteorologists because they can pop up and explode out of nowhere given the right atmospheric conditions...like today) rolled through the New York area during our afternoon editorial meeting. Our weather, usually west to east, is today northeast to southwest. Flight delays at JFK are now officially posted at four hours, LaGuardia and Newark slightly less. Radar has been of no use because where there are no storms now -- there will be intense storms in 30 minutes. We're going to make a NASA-like "go/no go" decision in the next few minutes...this will be fun.
To go with our coverage package tonight on New York, Rehema Ellis has a great piece on an educational success story [editor's note: you can read a blog from the principal below], and we spent the morning with the mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg. He takes the subway to work most mornings, and so did we.
Brian and Mayor Michael Bloomberg on the 4 train Tuesday morning.
Photo credit: Office of the Mayor
In other news tonight, there's the fight to save an immigration deal, the so-called "honor killing" in London, the new data on an aging American generation, the first FDA-approved over-the-counter diet drug (there are complications) and what we're calling "watchgate"...did wildly enthusiastic Albanians steal the President's watch, or did he remove it for safekeeping? It was actually a topic at the White House briefing today.
Please take time to read today's Medal of Honor recipient biography. We are watching the skies and talking to the WNBC-TV forecast center here in New York. We'll have a fine broadcast either way...indoors or out! We hope you can join us for the Tuesday edition of Nightly News tonight.
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In part two of our trans-global trip with the secretary of defense [video link], we leave the genteel trappings of the Shangri-La Conference in Singapore.
We're heading to Afghanistan, where Gates reviews an Afghan commando unit, then meets with President Hamid Karzai. After a brief visit to the capital of Kyrgyzstan, we overnight in Paris on the eve of the secretary's speech at a D-Day ceremony in Normandy, France.
Discuss (7 comments) Email this | Link to thisEditor's note: NBC's Rehema Ellis will report tonight on an innovative approach to learning at Harlem Village Academies in New York, a network of inner-city college-prep schools for children from low-income communities. Math test scores released Tuesday show that 7th and 8th graders at Harlem Village Academies rank No. 1 among all charter schools and open enrollment schools in the city. Here, Leadership Village Academy principal Laurie Warner writes about her experience with the program.
I never dreamed I would be a teacher, never mind a principal. After I graduated from the University of Rhode Island in 1998 I traveled for a bit through Europe and then did social work in low-socioeconomic-status areas of Central Falls and Pawtucket. It amazed me seeing how different teachers and schools made a wide range of impact on my clients. When I finished my year with this program I decided to apply to Teach For America because I knew I had the dedication, drive and passion to teach students who were slipping two and three years below grade level.
Discuss (5 comments) Email this | Link to thisEvery weekday for 110 straight days we will feature a different living recipient of the Medal of Honor. These are the men who have received their nation's highest military honor. Brian is a board member of the Congressional Medal of Honor Foundation. The words and photos are courtesy of Artisan Books, publishers of "Medal of Honor: Portraits of Valor Beyond the Call of Duty by Peter Collier with photographs by Nick Del Calzo.
MIKE COLALILLO
Private First Class, U.S. Army Company C, 398th Infantry, 100th Infantry Division
Mike Colalillo, one of nine children, was born shortly after his parents emigrated from Italy. He grew up in a tough neighborhood in Duluth, Minnesota, and left high school without graduating. Drafted in 1944, he was an eighteen-year-old private when he landed with the 100th Army Infantry Division at Marseille that October. His unit was engaged in constant combat over the next few months as it pushed up through central France and into Germany. Through the heartbreak of losing his comrades killed in the fighting, Colalillo hung on to memories of the rare funny moments as well: stealing chickens from a rundown farm, smoking cigars from a captured cigar factory.
Discuss (7 comments) Email this | Link to thisHi. A lot of chatter on the blogs today about the court ruling on detainees, the Gonzales no-confidence vote in the Senate yesterday, more chaos in the Middle East and fresh political polling that has Fred Thompson up and Congress down.
ThinkProgress has several links analyzing yesterday's federal appeals court ruling that the Bush administration cannot legally detain a U.S. resident it believes is an al Qaeda sleeper agent without charging him.
Discuss (0 comments) Email this | Link to thisNBC's John Larson reported on Sunday's broadcast about children in Uganda, displaced by war and so terrified of being kidnapped or killed they walked miles every night to sleep in the safety of larger towns. Their story has been captured by a group of young filmmakers who are taking some interesting steps toward helping them. Here, John talks about in a video blog what it was like to meet the filmmakers.
Watch the vlog
Watch John's report from Sunday
Find out how you can help
Discuss (3 comments) Email this | Link to this Brian previews some of the stories we're working on for tonight's broadcast, which will come from the "Top of the Rock."
Click here or on the image to watch.
Discuss (1 comments) Email this | Link to thisI'll get to the title reference after this: between meetings, I've been allowed to break away and give you a short rundown of our plans for the evening, which will be a mixture of the following: autism, terrorism, Alzheimer's, the environment, aviation and more.
And we might just mention the end of the line for the Sopranos. While I get the fact that it's not for everyone, for those of us who love the show, it's been quite the time. The much-hashed-out ending did what it was meant to do: I have a very good friend who flatly assumed the sudden ending to represent the end of Tony's life. Others who watched assumed life goes on for Tony -- as a mobster under constant threat of indictment, as a husband, father, businessman, patient and sociopath. We now know The Man In The Member's Only Jacket is the owner of a pizza restaurant in Bucks County, Penn. who came here from Italy in 1976. I thought I examined the show in detail in my other day job -- but today there are all kinds of deconstructions on the Web -- proving again that this has been much more than just a television show for those of us who love it ... and will miss it.
Please make time to take a look at today's featured Medal of Honor recipient.
I hope you can join us tonight for the Monday edition of NBC Nightly News.
Discuss (7 comments) Email this | Link to thisEvery weekday for 110 straight days we will feature a different living recipient of the Medal of Honor. These are the men who have received their nation's highest military honor. Brian is a board member of the Congressional Medal of Honor Foundation. The words and photos are courtesy of Artisan Books, publishers of "Medal of Honor: Portraits of Valor Beyond the Call of Duty by Peter Collier with photographs by Nick Del Calzo.
WILLIAM R. CHARETTE
Hospital Corpsman third Class, U.S. Navy Attached to Company F, 2nd Battalion, Panmunjom, Korea, 1953 -- Sole Surviving Corpsman 7th Marines, 1st Marine Division
William Charette’s parents died when he was four, and he was raised by an uncle. After high school, he took a job on a Lake Michigan ferryboat, which led him to join the Navy. There was a shortage of medical corpsmen, so he volunteered. He worked in a Navy hospital for a year, then volunteered again, this time as a medic with the Marine Corps. He was assigned to a rifle company in the Seventh Marines in Korea. In the spring of 1953, Navy Corpsman Charette’s Marine unit was in an area near Panmunjom between North and South Korea, guarding the route to the South Korean capital of Seoul.
Discuss (1 comments) Email this | Link to thisCNBC's Phil LeBeau will report on tonight's broadcast about a new effort at McDonald's to convince moms that the company's food is a good choice for their families. Check out a preview on CNBC's Web site.
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"Doomsday planes," C-17s, helos, motorcades, Afghan commando squads... it's the stuff of Tom Clancy novels. It's also how an NBC News team spent a week traveling with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. Producer Courtney Kube, soundman Johnnie Roth, and I circumnavigated the globe from May 30th-June 6th, filing dispatches from far-flung places like Hawaii, Singapore, Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan and France. We were the U.S. television pool team on the trip, which means we had the responsibility of covering the secretary for all five of the major networks.
Discuss (30 comments) Email this | Link to this Brian previews some of the stories we're working on for tonight's broadcast, but first, reviews a certain final episode of a certain television series.
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Discuss (2 comments) Email this | Link to this"The Sopranos" television series is officially over and Brian has his say about the last episode on Slate.com:
"Holsten's is a local institution on Broad Street in Bloomfield, N.J. It's the kind of place with a ceramic tile facade, and where they still make their own candy and ice cream. When my father worked in Bloomfield, my mother and I used to meet him occasionally after work there. It's filled with regular customers who know the menu, and the place, by heart. It's a classic, family-style throwback. It is as good as any other place for it all to end."
Read the complete Slate article
MSNBC TV's Willie Geist riffs on the final episode
Video: On the set of "The Sopranos":
Brian talking with Edie Falco | Brian talking with David Chase
Photos: On the set of "The Sopranos"
Discuss (30 comments) Email this | Link to thisAll of us can occasionally benefit from a change of scenery. Perhaps no one more than President Bush. Battered by low approval numbers at home, and a Democratic Senate with which he rarely sees eye to eye, he had to be looking particularly forward to at least one stop on his current European tour. The video out of Albania today says it all. The President was literally swept into the arms of crowds who lined the streets of Tirana eager to greet the American president as a hero. The Reuters wire service described it as an "ecstatic rock-star reception." Remarking on Albania's communist past, the president called Albania a society that had "known tyranny" and overcame it. Our Kelly O' Donnell is traveling with the president and will have a full report on his welcome, and what he said there about independence for Kosovo.
John Yang will report on the tough week facing the president when he returns to Washington, including a no-confidence vote Senate Democrats plan to hold regarding Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, as well as Mr. Bush's visit to Capitol Hill to try and persuade Republican senators to get the derailed immigration bill back on the tracks.
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