so you know exactly what you're choosing... and in schools, replacing full-calorie soft drinks with lower-calorie options. with more choices and fewer calories, america's beverage companies are delivering. on our broadcast tonight, clean sweep. a huge night for rick santorum across three states, and a very bad night for mitt romney. this gop race is changing again. inside syria. we are there on the ground tonight as the crackdown escalates and the whole world is watching. getting through airport security. it's about to get a lot easier for a lot more travelers. the intern. more from meredith vieira's exclusive interview with a woman who's written an explosive book about her illicit relationship with president kennedy and the summer job that changed her life. and the supper club. the women who found a startlingly simple recipe for making a difference. "nightly news" begins now. captions paid for by nbc-universal television

good evening. as one veteran of republican politics put it last night, the romney bandwagon just rolled into a ditch. to view last night's results as just a story about a stumble by the gop front-runner would be a mistake. it was an extraordinary night for rick santorum, though he doesn't come out of it with any more delegates yet. he pulled off a hat trick winning primaries and caucuses in three states, stitching together a victory map that includes iowa and exceeds the number of romney wins. at least for now, this race has changed yet again after what's being called today rick santorum's breakout moment. we begin on the trail tonight with nbc's kelly o'donnell in allen, texas. good evening. >> reporter: good evening, brian. rick santorum will be dropping by this meeting of tea party activists in texas tonight.

few could have imagined he would be riding so high sweeping colorado, minnesota, missouri, after that iowa win you mentioned and santorum with four victories to romney's three. making another shake-up in this wild primary season. a victorious rick santorum began his day surrounded by the prayers of a texas congregation. >> we pray you direct rick's steps as he campaigns for president. >> reporter: santorum is in his comfort zone taking on social issues and talking about faith. success is the new territory. >> one of the great gifts i had in my political career is no one ever thinks i could ever win anything. >> reporter: short on the typical necessities, money and campaign organization, santorum rebuffed presumptions that mitt romney is the republican's inevitable nominee. >> i don't stand here to claim to be the conservative

alternative to mitt romney. i stand here to be the conservative alternative to barack obama. >> reporter: santorum's blue collar roots appear to prompt a new personal story from the uber wealthy mitt romney, who referred to his auto executive father's early days as a carpenter's apprentice. >> he could take a handful of nails, stick them in his mouth and spit them out pointing and forward. >> reporter: santorum's moment had the benefit of good political timing. santorum, who is catholic, has been hammering the white house over the rule that requires some religious-based employers to provide coverage for birth control, despite fierce objections from the catholic church. >> this administration, as you can tell from my reaction, has been hostile to people of faith, particularly christians and specifically catholics. >> reporter: while many republicans, including mitt romney, demand the rule be reversed, today the white house hit romney over similar

requirements in his state's health insurance. >> former governor of massachusetts is an odd messenger on this. >> mr. carney needs to check his history. >> reporter: landing in atlanta, romney fought back. >> in the working on our health care plan, i worked very hard to get the legislature to remove all of the mandated coverages, including contraceptives. >> reporter: now, with romney taking fire from all sides, he has a new attack against santorum tonight, pairing him with gingrich calling them republicans who act like democrats. going after their records on earmarks and spending while in congress. if you're wondering about gingrich, he's campaigning in ohio and his dismal performance didn't get much attention, overshadowed by santorum's success. >> kelly o'donnell in allen, texas. waiting for last night's big victor tonight. thanks. where does this lead us now? that question goes to our political director and chief white house correspondent chuck todd in our d.c. newsroom. every analyst i spoke to, listened to or read today said the same thing.

mitt romney has a big problem. if you're running his campaign, what do you do now? >> reporter: he's got a message problem. that's the problem. it's with conservatives. it's been this issue for nine months. i can tell you this. they are in a bit of a regrouping phase. they know they need to improve their messaging, if you will, to use campaign lingo to the base conservatives. remember who showed up to those caucuses. these are the true hardcore activists of the parties. the ones that make the phone calls, will knock on doors and they showed up and didn't vote for mitt romney. expect him to do a little regrouping. he's not going to go as negative on santorum and gingrich as he has previously during other setbacks, but try to refine his own economic message. he set a big speech later this month in michigan at home of the detroit lions. a big new economic speech. we can expect to hear bolder plans from him that appeal to the tea party wing of the party. as for the calendar, rick santorum will plant his flag this month in michigan.

newt gingrich will camp out heavily in ohio. super tuesday in ohio will be the next place where we see all three candidates try to compete in the same state. >> chuck todd from our d.c. newsroom. thanks. from domestic politics overseas to syria, where president assad's forces unleashed the heaviest shelling yet on towns and neighborhoods held by the opposition forces who want him out. reports say as many as 50 more people died overnight. the rest of the world, while watching, seems helpless to stop it. nbc's ayman mohyeldin has our report. >> reporter: daybreak in homs. shattered by explosions. five days of relentless indiscriminate shelling. no one is safe, not even children. this boy says he was shot by a sniper.

doctors unable to tend to the wounded as the war rages on all around them. "we are treating patients in their homes. what can we do," this doctor cried. on the street, more pleas for help. >> where is the u.n.? where is humanity? where is america? are we animals here? >> reporter: in the face of global inaction, syrian military has gone on the offensive across the country, snipers taking positions on roof tops. a poorly-equipped band of military defectors known as the free syrian army is fighting back, claiming to have captured these government soldiers. for many, life has become a humanitarian disaster, say activists. long lines for food, dwindling supplies of medicine and food in the harshness of winter. yet the people are undeterred, despite the danger, protests continue across the country, while homs, city under siege, braces for what could be a full-on invasion. ayman mohyeldin, nbc news.

not many journalists able to get into syria since the uprising started. bill neely, veteran correspondent for our british broadcasting partners itn has gotten in and is on the ground in damascus tonight. i know when journalists are able to operate there, they are accompanied. what have you been able to see and what can you describe tonight? >> reporter: brian, as you can see here in damascus, lights are on. it all seems perfectly normal. there is certainly no shelling. in homs, as you've seen, it is very, very different indeed. there have been another day of bombardment there. president assad is over in his residence there. 24 hours ago he promised toned the killing. he didn't say how he would do that and it seems he is determined to end it by killing

anyone who takes up the gun against him. clearly diplomacy isn't doing anything and diplomacy doesn't seem to be working. the air is filled with recriminations and with the cries of people from homs. one man told me today, one activist said, at the beginning in places like homs, we tried to use social media, but all that's showing is our suffering. we hope the arab league would help, but they didn't. we hoped the u.n. would help, but they haven't. now we're on our own. he said 6,000 people have died. to stop now would be to dishonor their sacrifice. we're not going to stop. >> bill neely in damascus. bill, we are curious to see the reporting you're allowed to do while there. back in this country now, the era of shoes off and belts off travel may be coming to an end for more of the most frequent fliers at more of the nation's busiest and biggest airports, including some of the airports where the 9/11 attacks were launched in the first place. nbc's tom costello is at reagan national airport with us tonight

with more details on this. tom, good evening. >> reporter: hi, brian. this is really an expansion of an existing tsa program in which elite frequent fliers, specifically on american and delta, give their information to the tsa in advance, and that allows them expedited travel through the security lanes at just seven airports. what we can tell you, they are now looking at expanding that, specifically by year's end united as well as alaska and us airways will join in at least 28 of the nation's busiest airports, and as you mentioned, some of them where 9/11 hijackers originated, and they will also be in this program. passengers who opt in and are selected for precheck on that flight by the tsa may be directed then to a special screening lane. >> they will undergo expedited screening. this could include no longer having to remove shoes, laptops, jackets or belts. >> reporter: as we mentioned, a

total of 28 airports by the end of the year, a full list of all those airports on our website, but brian, again, this is an expansion of the tsa's precheck program. it has been for elite program travelers, now it's going to be everybody. >> tom costello, thanks. as we continue this evening, the never-before-told story of an affair between president kennedy and a 19-year-old intern at the white house. tonight, more from meredith vieira's exclusive interview. meredith will be with us to answer some of the questions it's already raising. later, a simple idea around the dinner table making a difference.

a woman has written a book out this week that unveils an affair from 50 years ago with president john f. kennedy. the woman is 69 now, a grandmother. and in the story as told by her, she was 19 then, a college intern when this happened in the kennedy white house and elsewhere. the full story and interview

airs tonight on "rock center." it has already generated a lot of attention. meredith vieira is here with a preview. welcome. >> reporter: thanks very much, brian. mimi alford was just 19 years old when she went to work as an intern in the white house press office. a summer job that would change her life. she has written a book about her experiences there, including an 18-month secret affair with president john f. kennedy. >> i had to write this book. >> reporter: why did you have to? >> why did i have to? it started out feeling that i couldn't leave this story as a paragraph, this experience i had as a paragraph in somebody else's book. so i really wanted to take one control of it myself. >> reporter: alford says her secret began in the summer of 1962, when she started what she says was an 18-month affair with president john f. kennedy. >> i was sort of swept into this web, the handsome president, his charisma, his magnetism.

>> reporter: after losing her virginity to president kennedy on her fourth day on the job, she says they began an affair, spending evenings together in the private residence as often as twice a week. >> reporter: you're 19, he's 45. what did you talk about? >> we didn't have a lot of time to talk. he was president. what we talked about was not world affairs. the president was very boyish and playful with me. >> reporter: sometimes mimi would even travel with the president, flying on the support plane in her role as press office intern. on one occasion, she attended a lavish party for the president at bing crosby's house. on most, her job was to remain holed up in the hotel, waiting for the president to summon her. that's where you started something you called the waiting game. >> i did, yeah. waiting in the hotel room. >> reporter: did you feel at all, you know, like i'm being used here? it's almost like you were a call girl to him. >> but i never felt that.

now looking back, i can see it's not a good place for a 19-year-old to be, in a relationship that's so imbalanced and with such a powerful person, and an older man and at their beck and call. i see how sad it was. but that's not how i felt at the time. >> reporter: can you give me an example that would say to me, this is more than just being a mistress? >> just the way he was. the way he smiled with me. i feel that he did. i feel that he actually cared about me. >> meredith is back here in the the studio with us. as you well know, based only on the snippets people have seen, we've already received a lot of response, a lot of e-mails. people with the upbringing sounds like a lot of us with the picture of john f. kennedy in the house when we were kids, wondering, why do this now? why tell her story now? >> reporter: people need to realize she did not reveal her secret initially.

she was outed by historian robert dalleck. who wrote about her in his biography of jfk that generated a firestorm. the press caught on to it. her name was revealed. that's when she issued a written statement and disappeared. in the years that followed, she saw her story being reduced to paragraphs in other people's books and decided she wanted to claim it as her own. also, she wanted to unburden herself of this secret that she had kept for so long because it was, in her estimation, really destroying her life and her relationships with men moving forward. for her this book was a catharsis. >> i'm glad you'll be with us tonight to talk more about this as questions arise. >> reporter: there will be a lot of them. >> there will be. thank you, meredith, for being with us. there will be much more tonight on "rock center" at 9:00/8:00 central. when we come back after the break, is your doctor giving you the whole story? >> what we are able to see from up there.

we've been showing you a lot of the insanely spectacular northern lights this winter, the nighttime light show from europe to new england to the upper plains to canada, a result of that intense solar activity. now we know what it looks like above thanks to our friends on the international space station. while the video is accelerated, it takes 90 minutes to orbit the earth. at one point, clearly flying right over detroit and chicago, and along the way enjoying the view so few of us will ever get to see in our lifetime. fellow space geeks can see a ton more on our website. they are spectacular. the nasa family, in fact, is dealing with bad news today. word of the death overnight of janice voss, a veteran astronaut who flew five shuttle missions, one of six women to fly at least five times on the shuttle, a proud product of purdue and m.i.t. she logged over 49 days in

space, 18 million miles traveled, circled the earth 779 times. she lost her battle with cancer at the age of 55. it's official. the job approval rating of congress is at an all-time low of 10%. americans have never held their elective representatives in lower regard than they do right now. 10% number is the lowest in the history of the gallup polling organization. may be a harbinger of big changes coming in november. here is a sign of our real estate times and the economy in general. if you know the atlanta skyline, you know the bank of america tower at over 1,000 feet tall. it's been auctioned off on the courthouse steps just like a used farm tractor. winning bid $235 million, more than half what the former owners paid for it back in '06. it reminded some folks today of the sale of the washington, d.c. headquarters of the national mortgage bankers association a couple of years back. also a sale that brought in about half what the owners paid. what does it all tell us about

the real estate market? the inventer of the atomic fire ball has died. more than that, nello ferraro was the founder of chicago's ferraro pan candy company. brought us lemon heads, red hots and the fake boston baked beans. his son said he came up with the idea for atomic fire balls while serving in the u.s. army war crimes tribunal in post war japan. he was 93 years old. what does this tell you about your family doctor? a new survey shows more than half of all doctors admit they haven't told patients the whole truth when discussing a prognosis. instead, making things seem a little bit bigger than they know them to be. the author of this survey a harvard researcher doesn't think doctors are trying to be dishonest at all, but trying to give people hope. unless your physician is one of those give it to me straight types, be sure to ask your doc if it's okay to make plans for the weekend. up next tonight, changing the world one meal at a time.

time for our making a difference report. here is the question tonight. what if you could help make the world better just by having dinner with your friends? that is the very simple idea

behind the nationwide organization of women in this country helping women and girls half a world away. the story from nbc's kristen dahlgren. >> reporter: it's girls night out in san jose, california. good food. giggles. some glasses of wine, but this ladies' night isn't this these women as much as these. a group of girls in guatemala living in extreme poverty. >> basically, a group of people get together to share a meal and learn about a grassroots nonprofit organization. >> reporter: dining for women started small, almost a decade ago. >> i invited 20 of my friends for dinner and we raised over $700 and we started meeting every month. >> reporter: there are now 8,000 members in more than 38 states. the women figured you would spend a lot for a spread like this in a restaurant. it's not required, but most make a donation, whatever they think

they would spend for a night out. >> the average donation nationwide is about $33. so it's not a lot, but when everybody does that, it turns into $42,000. >> reporter: every month, they send that money to a new charity. they helped hundreds of girls escape sex slavery in nepal, save lives with sterile birth kits in tibet, support an embroidery business in afghanistan and sponsored a girls school in kenya. they transformed the lives of up to 500,000 women and girls, and in empowering them, they do the same for themselves. >> i learn a lot. i learn an incredible amount. it expands my life. that's the thing. >> reporter: pot luck with a purpose. >> together we continue to make a difference with each meal we as a group of friends share. >> reporter: a simple meal making a significant impact. kristen dahlgren, nbc news, san jose, california. that's our broadcast on a wednesday night. thank you for being here with

us. i'm brian williams. of course, we hope to see you right back here tonight for "rock center" at 9:00/8:00 central in our new time slot. tomorrow night for another edition of "nightly news." good night. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com this is the location we're starting in. castro valley. police are on the scene of an officer-involved shooting. see it live from chopper right now. that shooting first reported around 5:00 this afternoon near center street and grove way. see the police cars along that area. it's right near 580. this is what we know so far. one suspect has been shot. an officer has been injured. of