By Janet Shamlian, NBC News Correspondent
NEW ORLEANS -- I was in the middle of Bourbon street in the French quarter when the Saints won the Super Bowl.
Fans draped in black and gold suddenly poured out of hotels and restaurants and bars and into the streets for a party that -- even in city that prides itself on good times -- has no comparison. It's a celebration that that will certainly last for days.
Was Drew Brees amazing? Of course. Did the team shut down the Colts in the second half? Certainly. For the people of New Orleans, was this game only about football? Absolutely not.
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Janet Shamlian / NBC News |
New Orleans Saints fans celebrate in the French Quarter in New Orleans, La. The Saints defeated the Indianapolis Colts 31-17 in Super Bowl XLIV. |
Yes, the whole "New Orleans needs this" story line has been played out, but that doesn't make it any less true. I saw that firsthand. This is a city celebration. There are plenty of out of town visitors. But for the most part, the people on my floor in my hotel live only a few miles away. But they wouldn't, they couldn't be anywhere else for the game. They booked rooms in the French Quarter to participate and celebrate alongside their friends and neighbors. Together. In public. Just as they have faced the last four-plus years in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
The Lombardi trophy and the Saints are headed home to the Big Easy, in a day that has become a moment in time for everyone who loves New Orleans.
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By Chris Jansing, NBC News Correspondent
CORONADO, Calif. -- The world looks very different from forty feet up, hanging onto a rope wall. My advice? Don’t look down.
A lot of phenomenally fit people, including world-famous athletes and Olympians, have frozen at the top of the wall, which is part of the legendary obstacle course on the Navy SEAL base here in Coronado. Who knew that vertigo routinely kicks in at forty feet without a safety net?
SEALs have a reputation as the fittest and most fearless of the military’s special forces. Their legend grew even more after SEAL sharpshooters -- firing from a heaving ship at dusk -- killed three Somali pirates and freed Captain Richard Phillips after his ship had been hijacked in the Indian Ocean last year.
When I traveled to Coronado the day after the operation against the pirates, the SEALs’ reactions were consistently matter-of-fact. “It’s what we’re trained to do,” was a typical response.
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By Petra Cahill, msnbc.com
NEW YORK – Guy Francois’ eyes welled up with tears as he spoke about his three children in Port au Prince, the Haitian capital devastated by a huge earthquake.
"No contact at all. Nobody. I can’t get in touch with nobody," said the 55-year-old cab driver. "I’ve been crying since last night. I don’t know what happened. I don’t know what’s going on with my kids."
In the wake of the poverty-struck Caribbean nation’s worst earthquake in over 200 years, residents of New York’s "Little Haiti" community are grimly holding out hope and praying for their loved ones. But with virtually all communication lines down, most can do nothing but bide their time and wait for news.
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| Jessica Rinaldi / Reuters |
| A woman is comforted as she prays for the victims of an earthquake that hit Haiti at St. Jerome's Church in the East Flatbush section of Brooklyn, New York on Wednesday. |
Francois, who has lived in the United States for 23 years, said his children in Haiti are 29, 27 and 15 years old. Despite his best efforts, he has not been able to contact any of them.
It was a story shared by many others of Haitian descent in Brooklyn’s Flatbush neighborhood. Besides watching television in an effort to glean information about family and friends based on locales indentified in news reports, they had almost no information about the fate of their loved ones.
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By Moritz Loew, Senior Director, Field Sales Ops, msnbc.com
NEWARK, N.J. -- I boarded United Airlines Flight 634 yesterday morning and quickly used up three of my presumed nine lives. I was flying back from the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas via a layover at O’Hare.
What started out a very mellow red-eye flight home after a long, but very productive week turned out to have a very interesting ending when the right-side wheels failed to deploy on our Airbus 319 when attempting to land at Newark.
What happened? Still not sure why.
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Editor's Note: Watch Mark Potter's related NBC Nightly News report below.
By Mark Potter, Correspondent, NBC News
MIAMI—In an out-of-the way warehouse district in southwest Miami-Dade county, FBI agent Brian Waterman and Julie Rivera, an agent with the Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General, approached a tiny medical supply company that they suspected was nothing more than a front for Medicare fraud.
After knocking on the door, calling the office number and peering through the mail slot, they found no one inside the 250-square-foot facility, which had only a desk and a few medical supplies on shelves along the wall. "The equipment on the wall certainly wouldn't justify one percent of what's billed to Medicare," said Waterman.
According to the agents, the office space was used by two separate owners to justify fraudulent claims to Medicare for equipment never delivered to actual patients. The last owner, Waterman said, was the most aggressive. "This company billed for $1.4 million. We have no indication whatsoever that any of those claims were legitimate claims."
The agents said it's a scenario they see all the time and insisted the Medicare theft problem isn't getting any better. "It's huge, it's huge, it's like an epidemic," said Rivera. "They're just bleeding the system and as long as Medicare keeps paying out the money they're just going to keep committing the fraud." CONTINUED >>
By Kerry Sanders, NBC News Correspondent
MIAMI – After 27 years as a news reporter, the single most memorable person I have met was not a president, a deposed leader or a movie star.
Kim Peek, the man who inspired the title character in the Oscar-winning movie "Rain Man," remains the most interesting and confounding individual I ever reported on.
When I heard he passed away earlier this week, I was both sad and relieved. Mostly, I was relieved for his aging father, Fran Peek.
Kim, was a "mega-savant" who was considered a genius in 15 different subjects, from history and literatures to music and dates. But, even though he knew so much, he could not take care of himself.
His father, a single care-giver, worried nine years ago when we profiled Kim for the Today Show, who would be there after he was gone? Who would take care of Kim?
Kim’s passing answers a father’s fears.
I can still hear Kim saying "I just did it Kerry!" And the larger than life, gentle soul, telling me he thought I was special. But clearly, he was the one who was special beyond words.
When I occasionally give speeches about being a reporter, I still show this report.
It is the single most captivating and memorable story I'v eever worked on because we still don't have the answers.
Do we all have Kim’s abilities? If so, why can’t we tap them?
Watch this story and share it with your relatives and friends and, like me, I think you will be touched by one of the most unique souls who ever lived among us.
Click below to watch the Today Show story that originally aired on Dec. 26, 2000.
By Geoff Tofield, NBC News Deputy Director of International News
One day in early 2000, my wife returned from her job at Palmetto High School in Miami raving about an appearance earlier that day in the school library. A man named Kim Peek had demonstrated his astonishing memory for a group of students.
My wife's message that day was simple: "You have got to see this to believe it. You should do a story on this guy!" Correspondent Kerry Sanders and I pitched the story (I was Kerry's producer at the time). We did the story and it remains the most memorable profile either of us ever reported and produced.
Kim's appearance in Miami was one of hundreds that he made, all in the company of and arranged by his father Fran Peek (at no charge, except to cover expenses). They crisscrossed the country to celebrate Fran's message that was personified by his son: "We are all unique."
His son Kim could not tie his own shoes or shave. But if you threw a date at Kim – say May 17, 1951 – he could tell you it was a Thursday (I had to look it up). He could also tell you something about what happened that day, because he read almanacs – and he remembered almost every word.
He was called an "autistic savant" by many; but the riddle of his amazing memory was never really solved. Was his stupefying recall tied to any of his disabilities? We all have memories, but how was he able to plow through a mountain of data – and then retain virtually all of it?
Kim's passing is bittersweet. His father, now in his 80s, worried over who would take care of Kim when Fran was no longer there. While mourning Kim, Fran can take some comfort knowing Kim will not be alone. I suspect his spirit, having devoured every scrap of knowledge he could find on earth, is already streaking through space. Must be lots more to learn out there.
By Stephanie Himango, NBC News Producer
CHICAGO -- It's not easy to imagine a better messenger of compassion than a pup named Rudolph. Especially when the recipients of the message are elementary-age children. They're young enough to respond to floppy ears and a soft coat, and old enough to understand the life lessons they are receiving.
Rudolph is not an ordinary dog, and Marcia Fishman knew this when she decided to take him in. She already had one dachshund, named Gunther, and wanted another one. That's when an online search led Marcia to a small fawn-colored dachshund she would call Rudolph.
Not only was his coloring a result of over-breeding, so too were his inability to see or hear. Marcia's favorite hobby is training dogs, but this would present a unique challenge -- how to care for a dog that is blind and deaf? She decided to find out.
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By Mike Taibbi, NBC News Correspondent
I’m a golfer, and I can’t tell you how many times in the last dozen years or so I’ve thought or said – after another Sunday display of otherworldly golfing genius by the guy in the red shirt – "Man oh man, what I wouldn’t give to be Tiger Woods for a week…"
Well, not this week. Not any week. Not anymore.
I’m old enough to have had an AARP card for awhile and as far back as my teenage years I’ve been a reporter. That means I’m cynical, in the way of the old Chicago City News Service axiom, "if your mother says she loves you – check it out."
But I was never cynical about Woods, not from the first articles I read and fist pumps I saw as he burned his way through six junior and amateur championships; not through his "Are you ready, world?" explosion onto the professional golf tour; not through his temper tantrums and his other displays of alpha dog arrogance.
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By Mark Potter, NBC News Correspondent
MIAMI – Twenty years ago, when she was just 17, high school student Katie Christie formed a young people's musical theater group here to promote cultural and political harmony.
Today the group, known as Voices United, still thrives. Its goal is still the same and Katie – now the mother of a teenage girl who's a current cast member – is still the organization’s director. More than 1,000 alumni of her troupe are scattered around the country.
"I think what you get in the program are the foundations for success for a full life," said Sal Richardson, an attorney, former Voices United cast member and vice chairman of its board of directors. "What you see immediately in kids is an increase in their confidence, an increase in their self-awareness, an increase in their self-respect and an increase in respect for others."
This year, another group of 90 children, ages six to 18, from 45 different South Florida schools worked together on weekends to write, rehearse and present their own stage production to enthusiastic audiences. Some of the students also recorded a CD of their own songs at a professional studio. For next year, there are plans to make a film. And they just launched a new Voices United Web site for the group.
Because Voices United is a non-profit group funded by donations and grants, raising money is always a challenge. Some of the students wanted to go to Japan to perform with children there. So they started collected pennies which attracted donors and eventually brought in $10,000, enough to finance the trip. "I love them, they're my kids," said Katie. "I really just believe this is what I'm meant to do."
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| Raul Hernandez / NBC News |
| Members of Voices United practice their dance moves. |
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