April 2008 - Posts
By Jeannie Ohm, Alicia Jennings and John Yang, NBC News
The Mexican government has apologized for an embarrassing incident this week involving a member of President Felipe Calderón's communications office and several White House BlackBerries.
The leaders of Mexico and Canada were in New Orleans earlier this week with President Bush for the North American Leaders' Summit. After a high-level meeting between the Mexican and U.S. delegations, White House staffers noticed their BlackBerries were missing. Per protocol, they had left the devices on a table outside the meeting room.
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By John Rutherford, NBC News Producer
WASHINGTON – "The Iraqi army, most of them are doing a good job, most of them are doing what they need to do," an American soldier said Wednesday after receiving a Purple Heart at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
Pfc. Stephen Riddle, 24, of Dover, Del., was one of two Purple Heart recipients expressing optimism about the progress of the Iraqi army, despite recent reports of Iraqi soldiers laying down their arms and refusing to fight.
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| Getty Images |
| Spc. Gage Skrdla (left) gets help straightening his Combat Infantryman Badge as Pfc. Stephen Riddle (right) looks on after a ceremony in which the two soldiers received Purple Hearts. |
"We take a lot of them out with us on patrol, so they're well on their way to becoming soldiers, and we train them every chance we get," said Riddle, who was shot in the arm by a sniper on Feb. 14 in Taji, Iraq.
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By Don Teague, NBC News Correspondent
Three weeks into covering the polygamous ranch raid story, I keep hearing from colleagues throughout NBC News who want to know more about how members of the sect live.
Much of what is interesting about their lives simply won’t fit into a two-minute television news story because the legal battle, charges and counter charges crowd out what many might consider intriguing information.
I spent several hours earlier this week speaking with parents at the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints ranch in Texas. It was my third long day on the ranch.
Here are some of the things members of the sect told me about life on the YFZ Ranch – which stands for Yearn For Zion – in Eldorado, Texas:
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NBC launched its "Mean Green" satellite transmission vehicle on Earth Day, allowing the network to broadcast live television in an eco-friendly way. NBC New' Kevin Corke gives a video tour of the satellite truck and explains how it works from Pennsylvania.
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By John Rutherford, NBC News Producer
WASHINGTON -- I'm up at 4:30 this morning to make sure I get to Nationals Park before the Secret Service closes the security magnetometers at 8:15 a.m. for the papal Mass.
The Green Line Metro train is packed with happy, smiling faces – a rare sight at 6 o'clock in the morning. One of those smiles belongs to 14-year-old Emma Rebura of Kensington, Md., who's on her way to the Mass with her mother.
"It's just such a blessing to be able to see our pope from Rome, to celebrate the Mass with him," Emma tells me. "It's a memory I'll keep forever."
Arriving at the stadium, I breeze through the security mags and am inside by 6:15 a.m., with two hours to spare. I decide to check out one of the souvenir stands. Pope t-shirts go for $20, "Beautiful Matted Art" for $10 and rosary rings for $5. I buy my sister-in-law a pope coffee mug for $10.
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By Don Teague, NBC News Correspondent
SAN ANGELO, Texas – For nearly two weeks, journalists covering the removal of children from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints compound, known as the YFZ Ranch, have had access to just one side of the story.
During the initial raid, the men who live on the ranch weren’t allowed to leave, and the women who had been removed with their children were sequestered away in shelters.
That gave state officials the advantage of presenting their allegations of physical and sexual abuse of children on the ranch to the public with little chance for rebuttal except through church lawyers.
Well, the situation changed dramatically last night, when Texas Child Protective Services and police officers separated dozens of mothers from their children, keeping custody of the children and sending the women back to the ranch. (Some may have chosen to go to a battered women’s shelter, according to a CPS official.)
Immediately after the women went home, I received a call on my cell phone from a spokesman for the family.
"They’re all back at the ranch," he told me. "They want to talk."
"When?" I asked.
"As soon as you can get here," he said.
So I dropped everything, and rushed to the ranch, along with more than a dozen other reporters who had received a similar call.
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By Tom Junod, NBC News Producer
NEW ORLEANS, La. – New Orleans may be a city vulnerable to flooding, as Hurricane Katrina and the ensuing levee failures proved, but the Mississippi River isn't likely to be the cause. That's because there's an elaborate series of features and structures that protect the city.
One of the most important is the Bonnet Carré Spillway, about 28 miles upriver from New Orleans. When the river starts running high and fast, as it is now, the Army Corps of Engineers can open up the spillway gates before things get too dicey downstream.
A portion of the river’s flow is diverted down a six-mile channel and into Lake Pontchartrain, where it eventually flows out into the Gulf of Mexico. The spillway can siphon off up to 1,870,000 gallons of water per second. It’s like a big valve releasing built-up pressure.
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| Tom Junod / NBC News |
| The Bonnet Carré Spillway, about 28 miles upriver from New Orleans, is opened to prevent flooding. |
The spillway hasn't been used often. This is just the ninth time since 1937 that it’s been opened, and the first time in 11 years.
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By Don Teague, NBC News Correspondent
SAN ANGELO, Texas – It’s understandable that the people of San Angelo and Eldorado, Texas, would be a bit shell-shocked today. They’ve been rocked by revelations of alleged child sex and polygamy next door, invaded by hundreds of journalists for nearly a week, and now pummeled by Mother Nature.
As a reporter, I’ve seen my share of human tragedy and natural disasters. They take an emotional toll, even for someone who knows exactly what to expect.
And, deep down, I expected a tornado to hit here last night.
What convinced me was a conversation with a lifelong San Angelo resident who approached me after seeing a report about the investigation at the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints compound.
"You know that’s terrible business," he said, "but San Angelo is still the safest place in America."
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By Chris Jansing, NBC News Correspondent
SAN FRANCISCO – There's an uncharacteristic tension today in this usually laid back city.
Before dawn, demonstrators started gathering at the end point of the city’s Olympic torch relay; so did a large number of supporters of Beijing’s Olympic Games.
For all the protesters, there are many here who are just as upset that politics is being mixed with sports and that the demonstrations are spoiling what they hoped would be a celebration of their Chinese ethnic roots and the Olympic spirit.
At first glance, the scene appears festive. There are lots of American and Chinese flags, Olympic banners, and families with young children vying for a prime spot to watch the historic event.
But once you talk to people you hear the intensity of emotion on both sides and even concern among spectators who wonder if there will be trouble along the way.
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By Peter Alexander, NBC News Correspondent
SAN FRANCISCO – Only hours before the scheduled start of today's Olympic torch relay here along the San Francisco waterfront, there's an unusual uncertainty.
With ugly confrontations in Europe serving as evidence the torch has become a target, police have ramped up security for the flame's only North American stop.
At least one runner has dropped out of the day's events over security concerns. Seventy-nine other runners are set to take their turn with the torch relay today, but even now, one runner told me, they don't know exactly where, when and for how long their individual leg will last.
City officials say the six-mile route is "dynamic" and could change even as the race is underway. Police have been preparing for the two-and-a-half hour ceremony for nine months, but clearly everything could change in a minute.
By Don Teague, NBC News Correspondent
SAN ANGELO, Texas – It may be some time before authorities here in West Texas fully untangle the web of secrecy surrounding the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints compound near Eldorado. For journalists, specifics about the investigation are hard to come by, because a district judge has imposed a gag order on police who are searching the compound again today.
What we do know is that authorities are concerned about possible sexual abuse of children, specifically teenage girls. They received a call from a 16-year-old girl last week, who told them she had been forced to marry a 50-year-old man at the age of 15, and gave birth to his child eight months ago.
On the strength of that complaint, police and Child Protective Services served the compound a search warrant, removed 220 women and children, and have taken legal custody of at least 18 children.
Residents of the small town of Eldorado, and nearby San Angelo, have expressed concern for years about the women and children living at the compound. Warren Jeff's, who built the compound, is currently serving time in an Arizona prison. The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, headed by Jeffs after his father's death in 2002, broke away from the Mormon church after the latter disavowed polygamy more than a century ago.
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By John Rutherford, NBC News producer
WASHINGTON – We'll probably never know what really happened to Air Force Maj. Perry Jefferson and Army 1st Lt. Arthur Ecklund.
On April 3, 1969, Jefferson, 37, of Denver, Colo., and Ecklund, 24, of Galesburg, Ill., took off in a single-engine O-1G Bird Dog aircraft for a reconnaissance flight over the mountains of South Vietnam. They were never seen again.
An extensive air search turned up no evidence of a crash and no sign of the men, except for a faint emergency beeper signal for several seconds. Jefferson and Ecklund were listed as missing in action despite reports of two men fitting their descriptions being held captive by the Communist Vietcong.
For 15 years, their disappearance remained a mystery. Then, in 1984, a former member of the South Vietnamese Air Force turned over to a U.S. official in the Philippines a human jaw bone he said belonged to one of two pilots whose aircraft was shot down. The jaw bone turned out to be Ecklund's.
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By Don Teague, NBC News Correspondent
DALLAS – I drink a lot of Starbucks. By my calculations, I average at least ten trips a week to Starbucks, where I order either:
A: A triple grande latte (if I feel thin)
Or
B: A venti Americano with room for half-n-half (if I feel like I actually look)
Without Starbucks, I fear, I might actually die.
It’s not just about caffeine addiction. I think a big part of it is that having a 20-something with dreadlocks call me "dude" and ask how my day is going makes me feel young. Maybe not cool…but not like the 42-year-old dad I am, trying to figure out how to pay for two kids to go to college.
I’m not someone who typically goes out of my way to protect the environment, but for some reason a seemingly minor practice at my beloved Starbucks really bugs me.
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