By Lester Holt, NBC News anchor The number of fires now burning in California has dropped to fewer than 400.  That's the good news.  The bad news is that the two biggest, the Big Sur Basin fire and the Gap fire in southern California, are still out of control.  Our Peter Alexander is on the scene at the Gap fire, near Santa Barbara, and will report tonight that any progress during th...

By Lester Holt, NBC News anchor Brian is off today, enjoying the holiday, so I'll be holding down the fort tonight.On the program this evening, we will cover the death of a remarkable and controversial figure in American politics. Former North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms died early this morning. As a staunch conservative, he was often at the forefront of hot button social debates, including c...

By Lester Holt, NBC News anchor Brian is off and so I'll be in the anchor chair tonight.It's been said before that if you're the one out of work the unemployment rate is 100%. The government posted its unemployment numbers for last month today and they won't come as a surprise to those out there pounding the pavement for a job and coming up empty. 438,000 jobs have been lost this year as May's high...

By Brian Williams, Anchor and managing editor I just watched General Motors stock close below $10 a share for the first time in decades. I remember how my grandfather left a few shares of GM to a member of my family when I was young -- those stock certificates were tantamount to owning a small piece of the United States. Insofar as there's a bellwether of the U.S. economy (at least a far-reaching s...

By John Rutherford, Producer, NBC News, Washington John McCain and Ralph Bisz were Navy fighter pilots flying A-4E Skyhawks off the decks of the USS Oriskany about the same time in 1967.McCain, of course, was shot down over North Vietnam, spent 5 1/2 years as a prisoner of war, and is today the presumptive Republican nominee for president. Bisz was shot down the month before McCain arrived on the O...