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 afternoon.
Coming up tonight on NBC Nightly news, we'll have coverage of the continuing heat wave in the west. The video we've seen from bank thermometers looks like they're displaying NBA scores. Lots of triple digits, and not a drop of rain to cool things down. As these things go the risk of heat-related deaths and wildfires increases each day. NBC's Charles Hadlock is on the top of that for us today.
Jim Maceda will explore a new twist to the violence in Iraq, where 8 American soldiers have died over the last few days, and over 100 civilians were killed today in a car bombing north of Iraq. There is good news in that the troop surge is working to stem the violence in Baghdad, but the bad news is, insurgents are stepping-up their attacks outside the capital as demonstrated by today's attack in Tuz Khormato.
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Link to thisI've only been in a prison a handful of times and in the past, it has always made me nervous. This visit was no different at first. However, it was obvious within minutes that these inmates were different. Our NBC team of correspondent Don Teague, camera man Mike Heimbuch, and sound technician Dana Marxen spent an afternoon profiling a new prison program in Texas. The inmates were intelligent,
respectful, and hungry for someone to care about their desire to be better citizens when they got out.
Tonight's "Making a Difference" segment features a woman who left what some people call the good life: a job on Wall Street and making six figures before she was even 30 years old. But for Catherine Rohr,
something was missing. Catherine went on an overseas mission trip and when she returned felt empty doing the daily million-dollar deals. She knew she needed to make a career change, but would've never guessed she'd end up in of all places ... a Texas prison.
Discuss (22 comments) Email this | Link to thisGood afternoon, I hope you are having a good Friday.
On Nightly News tonight we'll be reporting on an American connection to at least two of the suspects in the Glasgow terror bombing attempt. We now know the suspects made inquiries within the last year to a group that helps foreign physicians come to the United States to practice medicine. Our senior investigative correspondent Lisa Meyers will have that, plus new video of one of the suspects being wrestled away from the burning car in the immediate aftermath of the Scotland attack.
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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.
JAMES P. FLEMING
First Lieutenant, U.S. Air Force 20th Special Operations Squadron
James Fleming never had any doubt that he would follow in the footsteps of his father, a career Air Force pilot. After graduating from Washington State University, he was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Air Force. Following flight school, he became a UH-1F (Huey) helicopter pilot with the Air Force 20th Special Operations Squadron. In 1968, he was living in the jungle of Vietnam and flying Special Forces teams on long-range reconnaissance patrols deep into enemy territory. On November 26, his five-ship Green Hornet flight—two Huey gunships and three lightly armed Huey slicks—heard over the radio that one of the Special Forces patrols it had inserted earlier was being overrun by a large group of North Vietnamese. The Green Hornets went to get them.
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NBC's Anne Thompson previews some of the stories we're working on for tonight's broadcast, which will be anchored by Lester Holt.
Click here or on the image to watch.
Discuss (0 comments) Email this | Link to thisEditor's note: Washington Producer John Rutherford posts a weekly blog on burials of service members at Arlington National Cemetery. Since there were no public burials this past week, we are posting the burial of a highly decorated Green Beret on May 31, right after Memorial Day.
Headstone by headstone, row by row, Section 60 at Arlington National Cemetery is slowly filling with the casualties from Iraq.
Umbrell, Colby. Pursel, Michael. Murphy, Christopher. On May 31 it was Conner, Bradly. Number 341.
Sgt. Maj. Bradly Conner, 41, a highly decorated Green Beret on this fourth tour in Iraq, was killed May 9 by a roadside bomb. As an Army band played "America the Beautiful" in the distance, he was buried at Arlington Cemetery.
Conner's widow, Cynthia, and their three children, Aaron, 14, Katie, 12, and Rachel, 6, were among the many tearful mourners.
Photo courtesy USASOC News Service
Discuss (5 comments) Email this | Link to thisNBC News Pentagon Producer Courtney Kube recently wrote about a Marine she met who has seen more than his fair share of death and trauma in Iraq, but he's alive to talk about it. Read her entry, "One Very Courageous Marine" in our sister blog allDAY.
Discuss (0 comments) Email this | Link to thisGood afternoon. Brian is enjoying the rest of the week off, and I'll be in the anchor chair this evening.
Tonight on Nightly News we are going to drill down beyond the latest airline flight delay statistics. By themselves they are bad -- the worst in 13 years. But those numbers only tell part of the story. The Department of Transportation only tracks the on-time performance for flights, not for passengers. A flight delayed two-hours is bad enough, but if as a result you miss your connecting flight, your actual delay can be several hours if not a couple of days. Our aviation correspondent Tom Costello is going to try and put it all in perspective, and help us understand what we're all really up against this summer when we head to the airport.
Discuss (10 comments) Email this | Link to this Brian is on vacation and Lester Holt will be anchoring tonight's broadcast, but NBC's Tom Costello takes over vlog duty today, previewing some of the stories we're working on for tonight's broadcast.
Click here or on the image 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.
MICHAEL J. FITZMAURICE
Specialist fourth Class, U.S. Army Troop D, 2nd Squadron, 17th Cavalry, 101st Airborne Division
In the spring of 1971, the 2nd Squadron of the 17th Cavalry was guarding the airstrip at Khe Sanh
in South Vietnam for American planes flying missions into Laos. At about 2:00 a.m. on March 23, Michael Fitzmaurice—at twenty-one one of the older men in his unit—had just returned from guard duty to his bunker living quarters. The North Vietnamese had been intermittently mortaring American positions during the day, but the night seemed calm. Suddenly, the shells started coming in again.
Discuss (4 comments) Email this | Link to this 'Nightly News' Director Brett Holey offers a behind-the-scenes, off-hours glimpse of the construction of our new studio here at 30 Rock. It's a little holiday treat from us to you. Happy Independence Day.
Click here or on the image to watch.
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Wednesday's broadcast will take place as usual with Lester Holt substituting for Brian, but the blog will take a pseudo-hiatus this Independence Day.
Our one post -- the Early Nightly -- by director Brett Holey will offer you a down-time tour of the construction zone of our new broadcast studio. And, of course, you should feel free to peruse some of the previous postings you might have missed, including our continuing recognition of the living Medal of Honor recipients.
So, until tomorrow, all of us here at NBC Nightly News wish you a happy, safe and festive Independence Day.
Discuss (2 comments) Email this | Link to thisThe London/Glasgow investigation and the Libby commutation aftermath continue to dominate our news, and we have our best correspondents on both stories. We'll have reporting from our London team, and a special look by Andrea Mitchell tonight at this President's legacy.
Discuss (12 comments) Email this | Link to this Brian previews some of the stories we're working on for tonight's broadcast.
Click here or on the image 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.
BERNARD F. FISHER
Major, U.S. Air Force 1st Air Commandos
After serving briefly in the Navy at the end of World War II, Bernard Fisher spent 1947 to 1950 in the Air National Guard, then joined ROTC while he was a college student in Utah. Commissioned a second lieutenant in the Air Force in 1951, he served as a jet fighter pilot in the Air Defense Command until 1965, when he volunteered to serve in Vietnam.
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For the president's traveling press corps, the story Monday was supposed to be the complex U.S.-Russia relations with the visit of President Vladimir Putin to the Bush family compound.
But a news jolt snapped me back to the Libby case.
When the president learned that a court refused to let former
Cheney advisor, Lewis "Scooter" Libby remain free during his appeal, Mr. Bush was with Putin.
Discuss (3 comments) Email this | Link to thisThe headline worked until I realized that whoever speculated on the radio this morning that President Bush would take President Putin fishing for Blues was totally wrong. I saw the pool video feed come into the building this morning, and I noticed 41's boat "Fidelity III" was idling just off the rocks at Walker's Point in Kennebunkport, Me. That can usually only mean one thing, as veterans of New England salt water fishing well know: striped bass. Apparently, Putin caught the only striper (a helluva fish -- an estimated 30-incher), which led someone at our editorial meeting to speculate that KGB divers actually hooked it for him under the boat. It was worth watching the video this morning just to see the clothing of the participants: the president in a blue jacket with "43" emblazoned on the front, and Putin wearing what you'd expect the former head of the KGB to wear fishing: a kind of action-figure outfit, later shown to be a rather form-fitting, short-sleeve shirt under a windbreaker. In truth, the two men have some very serious business to transact during their 13th meeting, and we'll report on that tonight.
Discuss (17 comments) Email this | Link to thisCan you imagine your child saying "Mommy, I wish I had cancer?” Believe it or not, that is what Tommy Watson once said to his mother Dianne. When she asked him why, her son said, “because then at least there would be a chance I could be normal.”
She told me that story as we were sitting at a picnic table outside the new Walgreen's distribution Center in Anderson, S.C., and I was dumbfounded. But it was also the moment I fully understood the magnitude of the story I was covering that day.
Discuss (15 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.
JOHN W. FINN
Aviation Ordnance Chief, U.S. Navy
John Finn dropped out of school after the seventh grade and worked at various jobs until a few days before his seventeenth birthday, when he joined the Navy. It was 1926, and the world seemed permanently at peace, without even a rumor of war. What Finn wanted was to travel. Over the next few years, he got his wish, serving on a variety of ships that took him up through the Panama Canal and six hundred miles up the Yangtze River.
Discuss (5 comments) Email this | Link to thisBrian admits in today's vlog he was tempted not to come to the office because it's just so beautiful outside, but the news of the day made that impossible (as it does most days for Brian). Here he previews some of the reasons he's not relaxing poolside.
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Discuss (1 comments) Email this | Link to thisEditor's Note: Today we are sad to announce the passing of one of the 110 living recipients of the Medal of Honor, U.S. Navy Commanding Officer Eugene B. Fluckey. Mr. Fluckey was to be honored in this space on Friday, July 6. He passed away on Thursday, June 28. He lived in Annapolis, Md., and is survived by his wife Margaret and family. Here, we pay special recognition to Mr. Stuckey and his service to the United States.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.
EUGENE B. FLUCKEY
Commander, U.S. Navy Commanding Officer, USS Barb
As one of the most successful U.S. submarine commanders in World War II, Eugene Fluckey would
be called “Lucky” to rhyme with his last name. But his naval career hardly began with good fortune: On the day he graduated from the Naval Academy in 1935, his parents were involved in a car crash on their way to the ceremonies. His mother was killed and his father was left an invalid.
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