By Sandra Lilley, NBC News Producer
NEW YORK – Ingrid Hong, a petite insurance agent with two grown children, rose early Wednesday morning and left her Queens, New York residence with a placard – and a mission: "We encourage people to get peace by meditation and no killing – but mainly, we urge people to keep a vegetarian diet."
Hong was among hundreds who braved the crowds and the police barricades to come to Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, across from the United Nations, on Wednesday to try to compete for attention with the headline-generating protests associated with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi.
She is part of a group called "The Supreme Master Ching Hai International Association," which advocates what they consider a simple solution to combat global warming. "According to a U.N. report," Hong explained, "livestock farming contributes more greenhouse gases than the energy sectors…We want the government to encourage organic farming."
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| Michael Nagle / EPA |
| Demonstrators protest against Iran in Dag Hammarskjold Plaza across from the United Nations headquarters on Wednesday. |
Hong and others in her group occupied a prominent position next to a police barricade at the entrance to the plaza. Amid somber and occasionally graphic posters of wounded and dead Iranian protesters, the vegan group’s placards, "Be Veg, Go Green, Save the Planet," seemed to inspire many walkers to stop and chat. "You go!" shouted a well-dressed middle-aged woman. "I’m a vegan myself! Way to go!"
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By Sandra Lilley, NBC News Producer
NEW YORK – Yussif Ali did not mind waking up at 2 a.m. this morning to come from his native Boston to Dag Hammarskold Plaza, next to the United Nations, to support a world leader he respects.
"I set aside two doctor appointments today to come see [Moammar] Gadhafi’s first time visiting the United States. To me, he’s a hero," the union carpenter said.
While many Americans associate Gadhafi with the terrorist bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988, (Libya formally admitted responsibility for the attack in 2003), Ali and hundreds of others who gathered across the street from the U.N. on Wednesday have a very different view of the Libyan leader.
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| Bebeto Matthews / AP |
| Supporters of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi watch a broadcast of his address to the United Nations General Assembly at Dag Hammarskold Plaza in New York on Wednesday. |
"I’m a black American and taking lives of innocent people is wrong and unforgiveable and I see no excuses," said Ali, who has been a member of The Nation of Islam for more than 25 years. "But I don’t believe Col. Gadhafi gave anyone a direct order. You have a lot of radical people you can’t control."
An imposing phalanx of hundreds of Nation of Islam supporters dressed in dark suits flanked the walkway that led to a podium at the end of the plaza. A large JumboTron television had been set up to allow those assembled to watch Gadhafi’s speech to the U.N. General Assembly.
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By Jeff Rossen, NBC News Correspondent
BEDFORD, N.Y. – "What is that terrorist doing here anyway," one Bedford resident said to us, referring to Moammar Gadhafi, the Libyan leader who erected a tent in this ritzy town.
We're about an hour north of New York City where Gadhafi pitched a tent on Donald Trump's property. Yes, Trump lives here – so does Martha Stewart (told ya it's ritzy).
Turns out, Gadhafi prefers tents to hotels. Apparently he hates riding in elevators, ruling out many of the city's high-rise hotels. So, he sets up tents wherever he goes. He did so in Paris and Rome, and tried to pitch one in Central Park. But the city denied his request. So he tried to pitch one in Englewood, N.J. The neighbors and even the governor pitched a fit. No go there either.
So, the Libyan government apparently made a deal with the Trump Organization to allow Gadhafi to set up his famous tent on the Trump estate in Bedford. The Trump Organization denied that they knowingly rented the property to the man President Ronald Reagan famously called "the mad dog of the Middle East." Rather, it said part of the estate, "was leased on a short-term basis to Middle Eastern partners, who may or may not have a relationship to Mr. Gadhafi."
Either way, there is no "Welcome" mat here. One Bedford neighbor just told me, "He's a criminal. He’s a terrorist. He needs to go back where he belongs. We don't want him here."
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By Ron Allen, NBC News Correspondent
NEW YORK – It’s been a very difficult day covering the 9/11 anniversary events.
We have been positioned on the tenth floor balcony of an office building across the street from ground zero. It’s a very good vantage point to see the World Trade Center site, but today it has been a very hard place to broadcast from. Mother Nature bestowed a wet, rainy day on New York City for this somber day.
The winds have been gusting all morning. Rain has been falling and blowing sideways. Tents are useless – a couple of them blew dangerously over the balcony to the street below. But it’s the best place to see ground zero in its entirety.
I've been up on this balcony every few years since the Sept. 11 attacks. I was living in London when the attacks happened and suddenly found myself on my way to Pakistan and Afghanistan for several months. After several years of reporting from overseas, I returned to New York.
I can see the progress at ground zero. And I can also see the overwhelming amount of work left to rebuild.
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By Kerry Sanders, NBC News Correspondent
SARASOTA BAY, Fla. – Off of Florida’s Gulf Coast, lives perhaps the most unusual wild dolphin: "Beggar."
It’s a nickname earned years ago when this highly intelligent bottle-nosed dolphin learned there’s more than one way to satiate his appetite.
Beggar, you see, has turned the tables and trained humans.
They come almost every day and fall into his trap.
This aging dolphin listens for the propeller of an engine, swims up alongside a boat, rolls to his side, and with his etched smile, appears to stare right into the eyes of those on board. And so the seduction begins.
Beggar wants food.
Routinely, excited kids and adults succumb to his charm, reach into a cooler, and pull out something to eat.
And that’s the problem say federal authorities.
Feeding human food to a dolphin can be dangerous, mostly to the dolphin.
"He's gotten chips, sandwiches, pickles, sardines, beer," said Randall Wells, a biologist with the Sarasota Dolphin Research Program.
Human food can make a dolphin ill. "It might even kill him," said Wells.
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The Bureau of Land Management's roundup of Pryor Mountain's wild mustang herd began on Thursday. NBC News' Kerry Sanders reports on the heated debate over the roundup of the wild horses from Britton Springs, Wy.
By Petra Cahill, msnbc.com
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management will round up about 190 wild horses in the Pryor Mountains along the Montana-Wyoming state line on Thursday – much to the chagrin of horse advocates.
A federal judge rejected a request by two Colorado-based advocacy groups, the Cloud Foundation and Front Range Equine Rescue, to halt the action.
The wild horse advocacy groups argued that gathering the herd could end up ruining one of the most genetically pure herds of Spanish colonial horses in the country.
But the Bureau of Land Management, which operates the 38,000-acre Pryor Mountain Wild Horse Range, says there are too many horses on the range. The agency’s Web site says that it is necessary gather the herd of wild horses and reduce their numbers in order to "achieve a thriving natural ecological balance" in the Pryor range.
The roundup had been delayed while U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan considered an injunction, but he denied the request Wednesday.
The Pryor Mountain Wild Horse Range was created in 1968 to protect an icon of the American West – the wild mustang.
But while the herd has grown to approximately 190 horses, the Bureau of Land Management says that the ideal number of horses for the range is about 120. The BLM has culled the herd before, in 1997, 2001 and 2003.
The horse advocacy groups opposed the roundup this year because they say the action is "unprecedented in size and scope."
The BLM will use a helicopter and wranglers on horseback to drive the horses into corrals Thursday. They plan to capture the range’s entire population, with 70 adult horses and their foals to be put up for adoption and sale on Sept. 26.
The remaining 120 horses would be returned to the range and freed after some of the mares are given a contraceptive vaccine.
Watch the video link above to see NBC News’ Charles Hadlock report on a recent prayer vigil and group ride held by advocates from the Cloud Foundation for the mustangs in the Pryor Mountain range.
And see NBC News’ Kerry Sanders report on the roundup of wild mustangs on the Today Show on Friday morning.
Click here for more information about how to adopt one of the horses.
By George Lewis, NBC News Correspondent
ANTIOCH, Calif. – This unincorporated corner of Antioch, California, zip code 94509, has 101 registered sex offenders, if you check California's "Megan's Law" database.
Phillip Garrido, suspected of kidnapping, raping and imprisoning Jaycee Lee Dugard, is one of them. Kids in the neighborhood nicknamed him "Creepy Phil" because of his strange behavior.
Garrido and his wife Nancy have pleaded not guilty to 29 criminal charges, including forcible abduction, rape and unlawful imprisonment. They are being held without bail at the El Dorado County Jail in Placerville, Calif., in the county where Dugard was abducted in 1991.
In 1977, Garrido was convicted of kidnapping and raping a woman in Reno, Nevada. He got out on parole eleven years later. In court documents from his trial, Garrido is quoted at length about his sexual attraction to children, something he blamed on heavy drug use when he was a young man.
A neighbor, Betty Unpingco, remembers a few years ago when Garrido helped set up stereo speakers for her son's high school graduation party. He kept lingering around the party, looking at the teenagers in a strange way, Unpingco recalled.
"Somebody informed us that he was down the street," Unpingco said, "and he was motioning for young girls to come over and talk to him."
That's when Unpingco told her children to be careful about "Creepy Phil."
And then, she discovered his name on the database of sex offenders.
"We instituted the buddy system after that," Unpingco said, meaning that her children were told not to go outside the house alone, always with at least one sibling.
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By Mike Taibbi, NBC News Correspondent
BOSTON – After Ted Kennedy was elected for the first time, at age 30, his home state sent him back to the Senate eight times, all but once by unassailable margins.
Here in Massachusetts, people understood him and wanted him on their side – and it wasn't just because of his the name.
It was the accent that was as much Boston as Brahmin. It was his collection of imperfections and failings trumped most of the time by his stubbornness, real passion and just plain will.
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| Darren Mccollester / Getty Images |
| Gail Steinbring, left, and Gini Guertin read a special edition Boston Globe dedicated to U.S. Senator Edward M. Kennedy outside the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum on Thursday in Boston, Massachusetts. |
And there was something else about him that made him an untouchable here: He came from a patrician family that often, as an entity, angered people but he was the one that plain people seemed to be able – and eager – to relate to.
There are a lot of stories about his "everyman" qualities being told around Hyannis, where he was often just another guy in the produce aisle. But he carried that accessibility everywhere.
Jimmy Sullivan, the co-manager and bartender at the Union Oyster House, a landmark restaurant in the center of Boston, explained how Kennedy exuded those qualities whenever he came in over the years – often by himself.
"You sit at the Oyster Bar and you can't help but be a regular guy," said Sullivan. "You're sitting face to face and back to back with all the regular people. He used to come in all the time…For a guy who came from wealth, he had a genuine soft spot for the working guy."
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By John Baiata, NBC News’ Senior Editor
RINGWOOD, N.J. – Is eating your vegetables actually…cool? Kids and vegetables have historically gotten along about as well as dogs and mail carriers. I vividly recall many evenings locked in staring contests with a plate of peas or creamed spinach. Vegetables were the enemy. And no doubt similar battles still play out in many household dining rooms.
But the proliferation of farmer’s markets and locally grown produce is doing wonders for the vegetables’ image amongst the 12 and under crowd. (Fruits, not nearly as hard a sell for kids, are doing quite nicely too.)
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| John Baiata / NBC News |
| Shoppers check out the bounty of fresh fruits and vegetables at the Ringwood Farmer's Market on a recent Saturday. |
And while today’s parents more than ever are foregoing processed foods in favor of fresh produce, it may be the kids who are increasingly driving the bus (or the tractor?) on the issue. A new generation of locavores, people who try to eat only locally grown food, is being bred. And they’re hungry.
According to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), there are now approximately 4,800 farmer’s markets in the country. Ringwood Farmer’s Market, in the exurbs of New Jersey, is one of the many seasonal markets included in that figure, and a Saturday staple for many nearby residents.
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