on the broadcast tonight, hitting home. markets in turmoil, jobs scarce and the president's taking heat for being on vacation. to the rescue. in the midst of unimaginable disaster, a mother, a daughter and a chain of helping hands that got them both out alive. man's best friend. dogs help us in so many ways already, and now a new question, could dogs really help detect cancer? and a star is born. 75 years old today, a big birthday for a screen giant.

good evening. republican or democrat, when you're president of the united states, there's never really a perfect time to go on vacation and republican or democrat, in the modern era, the presidency goes on vacation right along with you. right now a lot of republicans are feasting on the democratic president who just now arrived on vacation in martha's vineyard, massachusetts. the timing isn't good, here's what the markets did today. the dow down over 400 points. now look at these pictures, from today, at a job fair in atlanta. it's a powerful visual. this has become the summer of our discontent between unemployment and the loss of the nation's credit rating. while the president's promising the work begins anew when he gets back into town and congress comes off their summer break, it's not enough for those in the vice of a bad economy. kristen welker traveling with the president has just arrived in marva's vineyard, kristen,

good evening. >> reporter: good evening, brian. well, president obama may be vacationing here, but white house officials insist he is also working hard on a jobs plan, still with jittery markets and an unemployment rate above 9%, criticism is coming in from all sides. president obama touched down on the sunny island of martha's vineyard to start a 10-day family vacation. this in a summer that cast a cloud over his presidency. according to the latest gallup poll, only 26% of americans approve of the president's handling of the economy. >> i just want to get a job so i can support my family. help some of my family members out. >> i'm a single mother trying to support me and my son. and it's very hard finding a job. >> reporter: the frustration is fanning out everywhere, including at a huge jobs fair in atlanta today where lines snaked around the building for hours. >> but i do need a job, bad. >> reporter: the event sponsored by the congressional black caucus drew thousands, the african-american community has been hit hard by this recession, with a jobless rate hovering around 16%. >> while the president is on e

vacation, he's still working. what the people want to see, they want to see the fight. >> reporter: now some are saying this is a bad time for the president to be taking a little r & r, the republican national committee created this website where voters can send snarky online postcards mocking the president's vacation plans. >> while bashing any person that makes over $50,000 a year, he's going to head off to martha's vineyard, a place that i have never been to and i think most americans have never been to. >> reporter: administration officials are pushing back. >> there's no such thing as a presidential vacation. the presidency travels with you. >> reporter: it's not the first time the president has taken heat for taking a vacation. george w. bush just criticized at staying at his crawford ranch days after hurricane katrina hit. in 1995, president clinton took a poll about where he should vacation, and decided to go to jackson hole, wyoming instead of his usual spot, martha's vineyard. proof appearances are important, especially right now. >> there's going to be some images of him on the golf course and him at the beach. but i think the problem the white house has is to try to be

sort of candid about what he's doing, but not lead people to believe that he's sort of goofing off when the country is suffering. >> reporter: now just tonight white house officials added that the president is a husband and a father and they don't expect the american people to begrudge him some time with his family. brian? >> kristen welker covering the president on martha's vineyard. kristen, thanks. and now we turn to wall street and that hammering we mentioned today on the stock market. this week started out so well and today it all went south in a hurry. cnbc's maria bartiromo at the nyse, what happened today? >> brian you said it, no august slowdown here on wall street. sharp selloff. basically there's a new realization, new worries emerging that we could see the economy heading into recession yet again. we had negative economic data out today on jobs, joblessness continues to persist and we had

very negative data on manufacturing. all on top of that, the european debt crisis worsening. there are new worries that the european banks will have to raise capital. and now everyone's worrying that the u.s. banks are exposed to the debt crisis going on in europe. all together, it created massive selling, one issue for this market, no long-term commitments, brian, just a week ago, we were talking about a big rally on wall street, people are looking at this market and using it as a trader rather than an investment for the long-term. >> all right, it was indeed a dark thursday. maria bartiromo from cnbc. and then there's the story of the company we found, in this current economic climate, with so many people out there looking for jobs, this company has a lot of jobs but no one to fill them. and it's something called the skills gap that's being blamed for it. we get the story tonight from nbc's lisa myers. >> reporter: even with 14 million americans out of work, the industrial giant siemens is having so much trouble finding qualified workers that for the

first time, it's had to fire recruiters. ceo eric spiegel argues that unemployment remains painfully high not solely because of a lack of jobs. >> there are jobs out there, it's just that we don't have people who have some of the skills that are required. >> reporter: it's known as the skills gap, the gap between the skills required for available jobs and the talent pool. siemens alone has more than 3,400 jobs open in the u.s. engineers, sales, production, that includes hundreds of jobs here in charlotte, north carolina making turbines and generators. >> the key things that we're looking for are folks that have mechanical aptitude and math skills to be able to learn how to do programming for the automated equipment that we use. >> reporter: siemens puts applicants for jobs here through a battery of tests, reading, math, mechanical aptitude.

only 10% pass and are deemed to have enough skills to be trained for these jobs. it's a nationwide problem, a recent manpower survey found that 52% of employers are having trouble filling key jobs. in west virginia, an ibm hydro, an environmental cleanup company desperately needs certified drivers to drive heavy equipment. workers with construction experience and safety training. larry dawson says a lack of qualified workers is hurting his ability to expand. >> you can buy all the equipment in the world, but you still have to have the trained employees to operate that equipment. >> what's the answer? experts say more math and science at all levels of education. and the right training to match workers with the jobs that are out there now. a mismatch that hurts both employers and workers hungry to find jobs. lisa myers, nbc news, charlotte, north carolina. overseas now there is late breaking news tonight about the civil war in libya, specifically

word that moammar gadhafi may be preparing to flee as the rebels close in on his territory. we have two reports on this tonight. first to nbc's jim miklaszewski at the pentagon where he has learned some exclusive information on this. jim, good evening. >> reporter: goong, brian. u.s. officials tell nbc news and intelligence reports indicate that libyan leader moammar gadhafi is in the process of making plans to evacuate both himself and his family from libya and one official suggested that could happen within a matter of days. the reports also indicate that gadhafi would go to tunisia, where he may be granted exile. and earlier this week, defense secretary leon panetta said, i think the sense is that gadhafi's days are numbered. but to be clear, brian, there's

no guarantee that the unpredictable gadhafi would actually make good on any plans and actually leave libya, but u.s. officials are the most optimistic yet that the five-month military standoff between nato forces and moammar gadhafi may soon be coming to an end. >> jim miklaszewski from the pentagon tonight. and from there we now go to libya, our chief foreign correspondent richard engel has just arrived there for us. richard, you heard jim use the critical word, unpredictable, gadhafi is famous for that. what will you look for and will there, could there be any signs on the ground that this kind of movement is coming? >> reporter: well, brian, after months of deadlock, we are definitely seeing signs that things are developing very quickly. rebel forces have managed to surround and cut off the city of tripoli, there is intermittent power in the city, people are starting to leave tripoli, on our way in from tunisia, there were many cars going in the opposite direction, families from tripoli leaving the country itself. the rebels' strategy at this stage appears to be to try and strangle the capital city

cutting it off from supplies and fuel in particular hoping that will trigger a collapse. >> richard engel who has arrived in libya, jim miklaszewski before that at the pentagon, thanks to you both. now to another active front in that region, syria and the embattled leader there, after months of a brutal crackdown, for the first time today president obama explicitly called for president assaad to step aside and he described the last several months as ferocious brutally against the syrian people. a lot of people are asking why specifically right now? we get the story from our chief foreign affairs correspondent andrea mitchell. >> reporter: the violence has been relentless for five months, captured here by social media. mr. obama called it a sustained onslaught, including the imprisonment, torture and slaughter of the syrian people. >> assaad is standing in their way.

for the sake of the syrian people, the time has come for him to step aside. >> reporter: the u.s. estimates at least 2,000 may have died. what the united nations human rights commission today called possible crimes against humanity, including summary executions. also today the president imposed new sanctions, largely against syria's oil industry. but syria exports very little oil and almost none to the u.s. the white house acknowledges assaad will not go easily. >> there's not going to be an orderly transition in damascus, there's going to be a violent transition. sooner or later, hopefully the syrian military will break apart. that could mean civil war. >> reporter: and officials say the white house fears assaad, if attacked would use his known arsenal of chemical weapons. with so much evidence of slaughter, why has it taken so long to call for assaad to go? aides say the president needed to enlist european allies, and the real game changer, saudi's king abdullah who met withes a

sat earlier this week. asked the fbi to investigate with syrian diplomats are harassing syrian americans and are retaliating against their families in syria. still the administration is rejecting republican demands that the u.s. ambassador to syria, robert ford, be brought home. they argued the american ambassador is the best link to the dissidents and the only way to know the real extent of the crackdown. andrea mitchell, nbc news, washington. back here in this country, an incredible story of heroism is emerging tonight after that awful accident at the indiana state fair when a powerful wind gust ahead of a thunderstorm blew over a concert stage killing five, injuring dozens more people. turns out in the middle of that panic was a 3-year-old girl who had been injured. he was there with her mother.

both are alive tonight thanks to a human chain of helping hands. our story from nbc's kevin tibbles. >> reporter: on that day at the indiana state fair, just before the sugarland concert was about to begin, sudden high winds lifted and then collapsed the stage. >> you just saw the stage swaying. so i grabbed maggie and i just said, run. >> maggie is 3-year-old maggie mullen, attending the fair with her mom, two sisters and grandma. she was wearing her new tutu for the occasion. maggie was crushed, bleeding and trapped in the rubble. but there were some guardian angels in that crowd too. lots of them. >> never in your wildest lifetime thought that something like this could happen. >> reporter: what happened next accidentally caught on cell phone video by david wood who forgot to turn it off as he tried to save the girl.

several panicked concertgoers struggled to free her. a nurse, a state trooper, a county sheriff, a firefighter, a nursing student, a doctor, and david wood, a machinist who used his shirt for the tourniquet. all stabilized maggie's bleeding arm, freed her from the rubble and rushed her to the hospital. where maggie's chief concern was saving her ruined tutu. >> there's not enough words to express my gratitude, i mean those people went above and beyond. >> maggie's mom suffered a broken leg, maggie's arm is now in a cast, but she's home from the hospital and new friends and so far at least, two new tutus. kevin tibbles, nbc news, chicago.

>> incredible story. up next here as "nightly news" continues on a thursday night. good dogs may be even better than we first thought. do they actually have the power and the senses to perhaps detect cancer in human beings?

back now as promised with some intriguing health news involving dogs who just might be able, on top of all their other talents to help save lives by detecting a deadly form of cancer.

sounds hard to believe, but a new study has the evidence as we hear from our chief medical editor dr. nancy snyderman. >> reporter: these are the new faces in the war on cancer. they have skills no scientist in the world can match. like all dogs, their ability to smell is 100,000 times more powerful than a human. but these dogs have been trained to detect if someone has cancer just by sniffing. detecting patients with ovarian cancer. in a study published today the german medical journal, the focus was lung cancer. where trained dogs used their innate ability to smell to detect people suffering from the disease. >> the dogs in this case are actually smarter than we are, we can't figure out exactly what they're smelling, but the cancer is making something that the dogs are able to pick up. >> reporter: that something is a biomarker. a special protein specific to lung cancer. the researchers took test tubes stuffed with special cotton. and had patients blow into them. the cotton absorbed compounds

suspended in the breath. the dogs were trained to lie down next to test tubes they detected came from patients with cancer. >> this is in fact very good science and it takes a concept that's been around for a number of years, refines it and makes it into something that is believable and scientifically sound. >> reporter: doctors still cannot isolate these compounds in the lab, but some dogs seem to be able to smell them. there are also documented reports of dogs who detect malignant melanoma, breast cancers and evyoung cancer and diabetics. the reason lung cancer is a killer is that it's hard to detect in early stages. man's best friend may also be a doctor's latest tool to help find the cancer early. and the hope is if you find it early, you get better treatment. >> full disclosure, i'm a dog person, that's my bias. >> ditto. >> but if they can anticipate seizures, they're used routinely for that.

why not? >> aneurisms, diabeteses, these animals have skills that i think science has to finally give even more respect to. >> fascinating stuff, nancy, thanks. >> you bet, brian.

here is an item we hope will restore your faith in human kind. the national police agency in japan says the japanese people have found and returned $48 million in cash following the quake and the tsunami in japan. if true and we believe it to be its evidence of a startlingly honest society. a lot of the money's been in safes or inside wallets or in some cases it was found as bundles of cash. remember, a lot of fishing villages were destroyed. the fishing industry is largely a cash business. police say 85% of the money has been returned to its rightful owners. call it a case of basketball diplomacy gone bad. the georgetown hoyas on a preseason tour of china got into a bench clearing bottle throwing brawl during a hard fought game in beijing. georgetown coach john thompson iii pulled his players off the court with 9:32 left. the score was tied.

georgetown is supposed to play in shanghai next, but it's not clear if that game's going to happen now. adding to the embarrassment, joe biden had just arrived on a vice presidential goodwill tour of china this week. earlier this week we cited a study saying that television viewing can shorten your life, now it turns out if you're single, you've apparently really got trouble. researchers from the university of kentucky analyzed nearly 100 studies. they say the answer is clear, single men and women are at risk of dying earlier than those who are married. seems kind of harsh. a new poll is out of the most popular and trusted entertainment personalities. the people who would make you buy something, in other words, if they endorsed a product. betty white came in first with a hugely favorable rating, followed by denzel washington. and sandra bullock, clint eastwood, and tom hanks also made the list. least popular figures include

paris hilton and charlie sheen. when we come back here tonight, a hollywood legend that hits the kind of milestone that makes people wonder where the time has gone.

finally here tonight, for people of a certain age, and let's just say it here, mostly for women of a certain age, here's a reminder that time indeed is passing quickly. today is robert redford's 75th birthday. in honor of the big day, life.com released these never before seen photos from a 1970 cover story. and beginning with this bathrobe, while i don't know robert redford, for his sake, let's just remember these are period photos, 1970s, people actually looked this way, people wore so-called bell bottoms, they were early examples of skinny jeans. and you used to be able to openly tow children behind snowmobiles without safely concerns. other note photos show redford

literally taking a cat nap and hailing a cab in new york like midnight cowboy. you can see more of them on the website life.com. and because time marches by so quickly, that is our broadcast on a thursday night. thank you for being here with us. i'm brian williams, hope see you back here tomorrow evening, good back here tomorrow evening, good night. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com right now at 6:00, this undercover video, an example of the new gold rush on the streets of the bay area. the record price for gold leads to a surge in crime. after six years, a bay area park with a toxic past prepares to reopen. and that dramatic standoff at a north bay ho tell comes to an end. the news at 6:00 starts right now. good evening, everyone.