>> the teams are expected to formally present their ideas later on tonight. i assume they have some financial constraints on what they can present, because you could do grand things. yes. "nbc nightly news" is next. more local news at 6:00. storm threat. a tornado's direct hit brings devastation as extreme weather bears down on much of the country. under attack. gadhafi's brutal show of force against rebels on the outskirts of tripoli. captured. the search for a notorious predator that lasted more than a decade may finally be over. and culture clash. the oscar winner and her real-life role that sparked a the oscar winner and her real-life role that sparked a new debate over family values. captions paid for by nbc-universal television

good evening, everyone. this has been a day of heavy flood-producing rains and even damaging tornadoes from a storm system covering easternhird of the country and beyond. some 26 states, over 100 million americans have been in the path of this system which has triggered flood watches and warnings from parts of missouri all the way to vermont. while in the south, thunderstorms have unleashed tornadoes near the town of rayne, southwestern, louisiana. including one that's left at least one person dead. the weather channel's julie martin is covering it all for us tonight. >> reporter: at least three tornados ripped through an area 50 miles west of baton rouge, louisiana, saturday morning, injuring 12 and killing one. 60 homes were destroyed. in crowley, three high school students suffered minor injuries at a waffle house when a window was blown out by the tornado. but the most serious damage was in rayne.

>> down the street over there, there's a house that has something that went through the roof it looks like. and o'reilly's, their roof is almost completely gone. the windows are shattered. >> they suffered extensive damage to the northern part of their town. >> reporter: police evacuated thousands due to ruptured gas pipes. >> there's a number of houses and businesses that are downed and/or damaged. >> reporter: tornado watches were in effect in louisiana, mississippi and alabama throughout much of the afternoon. in new orleans, two inches of rain fell in just one hour, forcing the cancellations of some mardi gras festivities. in the midwest, more rain. in ohio, residents were cleaning up from flooding earlier in the week. today, more flooding. >> we're really hopeful it won't reach the full peak of what we had earlier this week. but we do expect some re-flooding to occur as the river drains. >> reporter: in russell's point, water was again threatening to enter homes. >> this is really coming up fast now. >> reporter: in nearby lakeview,

jodi hill is searching for shelter for her elderly mother who lost her house and most of her belongings due to flooding. >> she had to get out about >> she had to get out about 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning, she took what she could take, everything else stayed behind and got damaged. >> reporter: the national weather service has just told us they have confirmed that tornado in louisiana was an ef-2, pretty powerful tornado striking louisiana today. now, all of this comes on the heels of a very rough winter for many. and if the forecast holds out, this current pattern continues, many of those same people could be in for an equally rough and wet spring. lester? >> julie martin in ohio for us. thanks. this weather system promises more big headaches heading into tomorrow. samantha mohr is in atlanta to lay it out for us. >> i tell you what, lester, it's going to be a stormy night across much of the deep south, as this low pressure system moves to the east. we do have that tornado watch in place until 10:00, for parts of alabama and florida.

you can see the line of severe thunderstorms working their way in as we speak. so the areas that will be under the gun tonight, in the red zone mobile, pensacola, tallahassee. be on the lookout for damaging winds, large hail. even an isolated tornado is a possibility. in the red zone tomorrow, from tampa, orlando, jacksonville, on up into charlotte, charleston, you have the threat for severe weather as well. a slow moving system means flooding rain, up to four inches of rain in some locations. heavy snow here and some locals, northern new england, we're talking a heavy, wet snow. we could be digging out for a few days, feet of snow is possible here. lester? >> samantha mohr, thank you. days after president obama said moammar gadhafi must leave libya, the dictator is digging in and stepping up his attacks against rebel forces with a barrage of tank fire in the city of zawiya, a city on the doorstep of tripoli. that's where richard engel is tonight. >> reporter: the libyan

government claims to have liberated the town of zawiyah from rebel control. but zawiya today looks more under siege than free. as we tried to drive the 30 miles from tripoli to zawiya, we found the road lined with armored vehicles and checkpoints. we've just been stopped at another checkpoint. and we're told that all the roads leading into zawiya have been blocked. security forces turn journalists away. they told us zawiya was so calm, there was no pint for reporters to go there. but video insize the town shows evidence of major battles under way for the past two days. armored vehicles destroyed, buildings burned and rebels in the streets. look at what gadhafi has done, said this man. he thinks he's the king of kings, but he is the butcher of his people. the rebels even showed prisoners from gadhafi's forces they claim to have captured. the death toll remains unclear

in zawiya, but could be in the dozens. gadhafi's forces appear to have regained momentum in this conflict. they've consolidated control here in central tripoli, launched a deadly assault on zawiya, and officials say the next target is the rebel-helld d city. the libyan government says attacking zawiyah is part of its own war on terrorism. today it distributed ariel footage claiming to show al qaeda militants in zawiyah. but there was nothing in the video to substantiate the claim, just aerial shots. but while the government is on the offensive around tripoli, rebels in the east are also making gains. today they captured the town of ras lanouf. it's a key oil producing region. the rebels went straight to one of gadhafi's homes and ransacked it. the rebels even claimed to have shot down at least one plane, their first in this 18-day conflict.

but they still have 400 more miles of desert to cross before reaching tripoli. despite what must be obvious to the rest of the world, the libyan government is continuing to deny, lester, that this rebellion is serious or even really taking place. as we were on the outskirts of zawiya today, we could hear artillery fire, see military vehicles going into the town. yet soldiers told us that everything in zawiya was quiet and peaceful, it clearly wasn't the case. >> richard engel in tripoli for us tonight. richard, thank you. ass as the civil war rages in libya, turns of thousands are fleeing. it's an exodus that brings them to a refugee camp on the border with tunisia. this is what the area looked like in 2009, a barren stretch of desert. today it is teaming with tents and people with no place to go. nbc's anne thompson is there. >> reporter: this is the midway point between despair and hope.

a transent camp for refugees from libya. speaking different languages. many of their stories are similar to halaw from bangladesh. he didn't get paid for three months in libya, and when he reached the border, the libyan military took everything he had. >> they took everything. >> reporter: the refugees, mostly men, wait in long, dusty lines, for food. up to an hour and a half to use a satellite phone. the shower is a hose and large buckets in a dirt hole. still, this man from ghana says he's in a better place than his colleagues left in libya. >> i don't know what happen to them next. every day there is different problem, every day. >> reporter: we're about three miles from the libyan border, this is the oldest and the biggest of the camps. today there are about 25,000 people here, and increasingly there are signs that their stays

are going to last longer than just a few days. bulldozers today cleared more land for tents that sleep ten people each. busloads of bangladeshis arrived this morning. their passports carried by this tunisian military officials. how long will it be before -- >> there's no news. no news. don't know when they will go back home. >> reporter: u.s. military planes brought in aid and today took 312 refugees home to egypt. volunteers say much more is needed. >> people are taking from themselves now and giving to these people, but it's not enough. we need more help. >> reporter: help they all need. >> we want to go home, we want to return to our country. how can we get our country? please help us. >> reporter: to complete their journey away from war. anne thompson, nbc news at the tunisian/libyan border. >> in egypt, the regime change hasn't stopped the violent protests, in alexandria,

demonstrators stormed the state security building in an effort to keep files allegedly detailing corruption from being destroyed. and in the west african nation of ivory coast, a deadly end to a peaceful protest against the country's president. government troops opened fire in the group, killing at least six women. back in this country, police believe they captured an elusive predator. the attacks sudden and violent began in 1997. a suspect is in jail and a discarded cigarette may have finally solved the case. nbc's richard lu ireports. >> reporter: police arrested 39-year-old aaron thomas in new haven, connecticut, friday afternoon after a tip linked him to 17 rapes and sexual assaults beginning in 1987. >> it's right over there in the apartments where he raped her at. >> reporter: most of the attacks were in the washington, d.c., area and then spread into new england. the suspect became known as the east coast rapist. after 14 years of scouring crime scenes, police had little evidence. victims' accounts led to these sketches and reports that he had

a low voice and chipped tooth. in that time, a six-inch knife was the only object police were able to recover. hungry for new leads, police put up electronic billboards in new states, up and down 95, directing people to a web site that resulted in terns of thousands of tips, one of which pointed to aaron thomas. police tracked their suspect to a connecticut courthouse where he was facing unrelated charges. during his lunch break when thomas tossed a cigarette butt, detectives got the break they have been waiting for. it was right out of a scene from "law & order." >> your son smokes? >> no. i do. >> thank you. >> the lab pulled mark duffy's dna off the cigarette. it's going to take at least a week to run it for a match to our suspect. >> reporter: but in this case, analyzing the saliva on the cigarette butt took only a day. >> dna was collected and

subsequently mapped by the connecticut state forensic sciences lab confirming that thomas was the east coast rapist. >> that's when we all learned that we had these connecting cases through dna. >> reporter: new haven police $1 million bail, he faces multiple charges including rape and sexual assault and is due in court on monday. richard lui, nbc news, new york. when nbc nightly news continues this saturday, america at the crossroads, from college campuses to the office. it's not what's missing, it's who's missing. later, making a difference, how one artist who sees a big picture is making kids' dreams come true.

all this wiek in our special series "america at a crossroads," we've been looking at how changes at home and across the world are affecting our economy. last night we told you about growing opportunities for women. tonight we want to look at the flip side of that success. the sizeable and growing number of men who show finow find them ill-prepared for the workplace. chelsea barely notices it anymore, but go to almost any college campus in america today, and you'll notice something missing. >> all of my neighbors are girls, all of them are students and girls. getting on a bus, you're surrounded by girls. >> reporter: where did all the men go? once the vast majority, they now make up just 40% of the nation's college students. that can make women at schools like the university of georgia sometimes feel like they go to an all-girls college.

do you feel the gender imbalance here? >> i definitely feel the gender imbalance here. walking down the street, you see all kinds of girls, but guys are kind of rare. >> reporter: and it's not just college. women dominate high school honor rolls and make up more than 70% of class valedictorians. where are the men going? chelsea's high school classmate justin romero operates his own bread delivery route. he dropped out of college after one semester. ironically, to make sure he had work in a tough job market. >> it just wasn't for me. the classes that -- they were good classes, i just didn't see any reason to be there. >> reporter: experts used to explain away the college gender imbalance by noting that men had plenty of high paying job opportunities available to them in manufacturing and construction. but then came the last recession. the numbers are staggering. 78% of the jobs lost since 2007 were held by men, leaving one out of every five working age men out of work.

>> i don't think the old jobs for men are coming back. and it means we have to figure out how to make schools where we can make boys ready for the jobs that are going to be there for them. that's going to take a different kind of education than what we've been doing. >> in the last ten years, 2 million more women graduated from college than men in the u.s. an achievement gap that's having profound consequences on the economy. >> in order to be competitive over the next decade, you'd like to have our share of young adults with degrees going up, not down. we need more young men to get degrees. >> reporter: in the nation's elementary schools, where boys first start to fall behind. there's a growing sense that many boys need a more hands-on approach. >> by school age, three quarters of the boys in the class are more physically active, more developmentally immature and more impulsive than girls of the same age. boys tendon average to not like to sit quietly with a page of

writing in front of them. >> how do you erase the "y"? >> reporter: because girls develop verbal skills sooner, some schools are experimenting with single sex classrooms. others like hack bsberry hill outside denver have come up with a new take, the three rs. you could call it reading, writing and recess. jumping jacks and stretching exercises break up reading lessons and combat boys' short attention spans. and video game-obsessed boys can do their writing lessons with the help of specialized computer programs. >> we can't make excuses for our boys. they can write, they can read, we need to figure out how to reach them. >> among the fastest growing jobs of the next decade, only two, janitorial work and computer engineering, are expected to be dominated by men. it's worth noting, however, that a white house study out this week found women still earn less than their male counterparts. up next here tonight, a debate over family values, starring natalie portman.

and then re-creating the famous scene from the movie "up."

she won the oscar for "black swan" but natalie portman is now making news for what she calls her greatest roll, one taking place off-screen and one that's put her in the middle of a firestorm over family values, thanks to former and perhaps future presidential candidate mike huckabee. nbc's john harwood reports. >> reporter: natalie portman won an oscar for best actress.

but she's being called a bad example by an unexpected critic, former arkansas governor mike huckabee. >> one of the things that's troubling is that people see a natalie portman or some other hollywood starlet who boasts, hey, look, we're having children, we're not married but we're having these children and they're doing just fine. >> reporter: his remarks set off a firestorm online. some wondering why huckabee hadn't singled out bristol palin's unwed motherhood. in fact, two years ago, he called it shameful for the media to criticize palin saying, we saw a mother who gave her unconditional love to her daughter. that embodies what christianity means. we all mess up. the issue is how we respond to it. huckabee's latest comments stirred memories of dan quayle and his attack on tv's fictional character murphy brown. >> i know it's not fashionable to talk about moral values, but we need to do it. >> reporter: today huckabee

defended his remarks about portman as a caution for less affluent women. >> when you have unwed mothers, you have a high propensity toward lack of education, lack of ability to get a job, and their children are going to live their entire lives in poverty. >> reporter: white house strategists consider huckabee a strong potential rival. he leads the latest nbc news/wall street journal poll of republican presidential candidates. but the poll also shows primary voters want to hear about economic rather than social issues. >> he's trying to get headlines, you know, be provocative, and it's not exactly consummate all the time with being a serious presidential pro speblgt. >> reporter: political aides say huckabee is still considering whether to trade life as a well-paid media celebrity for the grind of another campaign. a choice that would bring new new pressure to choose caution over controversy. john harwood, nbc news, washington. you don't need 3-d glasses for this amazing feat we're about to show you.

from "up" comes the real thing. a team of scientists, engineers and pilots used 300 colored helium balloons to lift a house over the skies of southern california. the house is 16x16 soared to 10,000 feet. the video from the national geographic channel's upcoming series, how hard can it be. we're back with our "making a difference" report after this.

in tonight's "making a difference," inspiring success by unleashing the creative spirit. one extraordinary woman is making it happen in chicago.

as nbc's john yang shows us, she's using art to empower others. >> reporter: the roots of the little black pearl workshop reached back to monica haslett's experience as a young artist in alabama. >> it started out, i think, as kind of my own personal therapy, but it ended up being a very inspiring experience. >> reporter: she studied painting at a birmingham high school for the arts. but when she entered the working world, she didn't think she could turn her passion into a career. >> learned about the masters, but there were very few people that looked like me. >> reporter: so after establishing herself in the corporate world, hazlett started this after-school haven with classes in pottery, painting, and filmmaking. >> little black pearl is a result of my own need to ensure that children see people that

look like them that are successful as artists. >> reporter: it's gone from a weekend project in her basement to a full-time job in a custom built 40,000 square foot center. did you have any idea you'd end up in a beautiful facility like this? >> i'm still in awe and i realize that it's so much bigger than me. >> reporter: haslett credits her mother, a librarian, for supporting her dreams. >> she celebrated my accomplishments, but she always encouraged me to keep moving. that's an amazing thing for anybody to offer to another person. >> reporter: now she's passing that along. crystal jackson, a former little black pearl student, who's now a college film major, has returned as a teacher. >> it really has made an awesome difference. it's helped mold me as a person. >> reporter: that's music to

haslett's ears. >> i have been rewarded in ways that i can't describe. >> reporter: as she helps young people see the big picture. john yang, nbc news, chicago. that's "nbc nightly news" for this saturday. i'm lester holt, reporting from new york, i'll see you tomorrow morning on "today," then right back here tomorrow evening. morning on "today," then right back here tomorrow evening. good night. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com good evening. i'm diane dwyer. tens of thousands of same-sex couples in california stand to cash in, thanks to a