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A HOLE IN THE ROOF

Katrina is still a fresh memory -- and so it's difficult to watch some of the scenes from the flooding in Texas without thinking back to the helicopter rescues in Louisiana and Mississippi almost two years ago.  Holes cut into rooftops show where the families escaped to the relative safety of the hot shingles, where they now wait and signal for help.  One mother used a black plastic tarp in the midday heat to shield her two small children from the sun.  Tonight Don Teague will cover the story for us; he's on the ground in Texas.

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The Israelis are here! The Israelis are here!

Security around the White House is always ramped up a notch or two or three whenever the prime minister of Israel comes to town, and such was the case today at the White House. At 2:50 this afternoon a secret service uniformed officer came to our temporary office at 12 Jackson Place and told us we had to evacuate. And, is often the case, they didn't tell us why, except they were examining a suspicious vehicle. So we put everything down, quickly strode down two flights of stairs and out in the 90 degree plus heat. Downtown traffic around the White house ground to a halt, and muttering members of the White House press corps tried to get some information to no avail for more than an hour and 25 minutes. Only then did we got a call back from the Secret Service with an explanation. The suspicious vehicle was a mini-van belonging to none other than the Israeli delegation. As it turned to enter the White House complex a bomb sniffing dog "hit" on it. Nobody is saying why, but the probable explanation is that at one point the van carried something that probably that contained chemical used in explosives. The "incident" was over at 4:15. Traffic returned to normal and we trudged back to our workspace.

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Passenger rights

Suppose you're a passenger in a car when the police pull it over to question the driver. Are you, as a passenger, free to go? Or are you seized by the police, just like the driver? The answer to that question determines whether you, the passenger, can challenge the constitutionality of the stop, because the Fourth Amendment bans "unreasonable searches and seizures."

Today, a unanimous Supreme Court said the answer is, yes, passengers are seized when the police pull over a car and driver. 

"A traffic stop necessarily curtails the travel a passenger has chosen just as much as it halts the driver," wrote Justice David Souter for the court. "A sensible person would not expect a police officer to allow people to come and go freely from the physical focal point of the investigation into faulty behavior or wrongdoing."

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Keeping the Faith

I had not been to Salt Lake City in many years. The last visit I recall took me right through town on the way to the ski resorts. So I was quite eager to head out there for a story about the Mormon faith and Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's run for the white house. And, the fact that polls show a significant number of people say they wouldn't vote for him because of his religion. To be honest, I really didn't know what Mormonism is all about. I'm no theologian, nor expert now. But accept it or reject it, I've come to believe in my travels around the world that it's important and fascinating to learn what people of other cultures and faiths think.

Representatives of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints invited us to meet Jorge Becerra and his family who live in Sandy, Utah. It's a pristine looking, suburban place, with clean streets, shiny cars, framed as you would a scene on a postcard by Utah's still slightly snow-capped mountains. Everything seemed so nice, orderly, spartan. I was envious of the lush lawns and well manicured gardens. We're having trouble getting our grass to grow.

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Medal of honor: Michael J. Daly

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.

MICHAEL J. DALY
First Lieutenant, U.S. Army  Company A, 15th Infantry, 3rd Infantry Division

Michael Daly entered West Point in 1942, buthe left after one year to enlist as a private in the infantry. He trained in England and waded ashore on Omaha Beach on D-Day with the 1st Infantry Division, known as “the Big Red One.” After moving through France and into Germany, Daly was wounded near Aachen; he recuperated in England, then returned to action assigned to the 3rd Infantry Division and was given a battlefield commission as a second lieutenant.

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Father's Day

To all the dads out there I hope you are having a good father's day.  I got a few hours off after the TODAY show this morning and was able to go out to brunch with my wife and 17-year-old son.  The older one, studying in Europe this summer gave me a call this afternoon to wish me a happy father's day.  He's been away at college now for two-years but I'm still not quite used to having him away.  It's nice we take this special day to show gratitude to our dads, but I owe a debt of thanks to my two sons for continuing to allow me to be a big part of their lives. As I noted earlier in allDay, the todayshow.com blog, as far as I'm concerned, any day I'm with them or sharing a moment with them is father's day.

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