on the broadcast tonight, civil war in syria as the fighting continues. hillary clinton has a blunt message for an old enemy. the sandusky trial in the interview from our rock center broadcast that was center stage today. plus new allegations of threats against victims to keep them silent. risky business. the nation's biggest banker called on the carpet by congress apologizes again for huge losses at his firm. tonight we learn some executives may pay it back. breaking news about an american champion. serious new doping charges against lance armstrong. also tonight the sleeping pill that if approved could be the one a lot of sleepless americans have been waiting for. the one a lot of sleepless americans have been waiting for. "nightly news" begins now.

captions paid for by nbc-universal television >> announcer: from nbc news world headquarters this is "nbc nightly news" with brian williams. good evening, our lead story tonight sounds like a throw-back to the height of the cold war era. tonight the united states and russia are at odds over what is now being called a civil war in syria. u.s. secretary of state hillary clinton is calling out russia publicly for sending attack helicopters to syria, just like the helicopters they have been using to crush the rebellion and kill civilians from above. this fighting has been going on for 15 months. it's been brutal. it's estimated as many as 14,000 people have been killed and there are real questions about how this ends. our chief foreign affairs correspondent, andrea mitchell, in our d.c. newsroom starts us off tonight. andrea, good evening. >> reporter: good evening. that battle in syria is fought in a diplomatic showdown between the united states and russia. it does feel like a return to the cold war, only days before president obama is having his first summit with president putin.

the blood shed is unrelenting. the u.n. now calls it a civil war. even u.n. monitors are under attack. massacres of civilians by government tanks and artillery and government-backed thugs. reports of children tortured and used as human shields. now a war of words between u.s. and russia, syria's longtime military supplier. secretary of state accusing syria again today accusing the assad regime of contributing to the violence by sending the assad machine attack helicopters. >> they continue to deliver. we believe that the situation is spiraling towards civil war. it's now time for everyone in the international community, including russia, and all security council members to speak to assad with a unified voice and insist the violence stop. >> reporter: russia's foreign

minister denied it and countered the u.s. was arming rebels, a charge that was immediately shot down. >> i would emphasize the united states has provided no military support to the syrian opposition, none. >> reporter: all this comes just days before a critical meeting between president obama and president putin of russia and a summit in mexico next week. >> we are not going to accept russia continuing to send arms to syria. there will be grave consequences to our relationship if they continue that. >> today france called for a no-fly zone over syria. the strategy nato used to topple gadhafi in libya. mitt romney says the u.s. should arm the rebels. but today former secretary of state colin powell argued the u.s. should not get in the middle of syria's civil war. >> if you take out this government as we learned in afghanistan and iraq, you now become responsible for the country. i don't think that should be our responsibility. >> brian, late today russia backed off of the charge that the u.s. was arming the syrian rebels saying its foreign

minister was somehow mistranslated. those russian helicopters remain a serious contentious issue and a potential game changer for president assad who is continuing efforts to crush the opposition. >> andrea mitchell starting us off from our washington bureau tonight. andrea, thanks. now we turn to pennsylvania where the prosecution continues to make its case against former penn state tant football coach jerry sandusky. today as sandusky sat at the defense table, prosecutors used his own words from our own rock center broadcast. as always, a caution here on the rough content. our report tonight from nbc's john yang. >> reporter: for the first time the jury that will decide jerry sandusky's fate heard from the defendant himself. prosecutors played an excerpt from the interview bob costas conducted with the sandusky at rock center just nine days after sandusky was first arrested.

sandusky, who pleaded not guilty to 52 charges of child sexual abuse, sat motionless in court as the interview was played. >> are you sexually attracted to young boys, to underage boys? >> am i sexually attracted to underage boys? >> yes. >> sexually attracted -- i enjoy young people. i love to be around them. i -- but no, i'm not sexually attracted to young boys. >> more emotional testimony from sandusky's alleged second mile charity victims today. the young man known in court documents as victim five broke down crying as he told of how sandusky exposed himself in the sauna and touched him sexually in penn state's locker room shower. the witness said he walked away and sandusky never spoke to him again. victim seven testified that sandusky would wrap his arms around him in the shower and touch him inappropriately. but he said he did his best to avoid those situations. eventually he testified sandusky's invitations to penn

state football games and other events stopped. i was very confused by it, he said. i thought i did something wrong and was very, very upset about it. victim ten said sandusky threatened if he revealed what sandusky had done to him, i would never see my family again. and that the defendant later apologized, said he didn't mean it and that he loved me. victims rights advocate say testifying about abuse can be as traumatic as the incident itself. >> to expose your life secret to a room full of strangers is such a tall order. i think any prosecutor would want the jury to understand what a monumental act of bravery that is for a sexual assault survivor to do. prosecutors will present three more alleged victims in this case before wrapping up their arguments. this will come as soon as the end of this week, and then the defense will take over. brian. >> john yang at the courthouse in pennsylvania. john, thanks. in north carolina tonight john edwards is now officially

clear. federal prosecutors dropped all remaining campaign finance corruption charges against him. late last month after nine days of deliberations, you'll recall a jury found him not guilty on one count. a mistrial was declared on five others. tonight in a statement edwards' lawyer said, quote, we are very glad after living under this cloud for over three years, john and his family can have their lives back and enjoy the peace they deserve. lance armstrong is in the news again tonight. once again it's over the issue of these doping allegations that have dogged him for years. this time, despite all his claims of innocence, it's the u.s. anti-doping agency bringing formal charges against him. nbc's anne thompson is here with us on this still developing story tonight. anne. >> reporter: brian, these charges do not carry criminal penalties but they could cost lance armstrong his seven tour de france titles. "the washington post" got the

original charging letter, and it reports allegations in 2009 and 2010 blood samples from lance armstrong were consistent with the performance enhancing drug epo and blood transfusion. armstrong has never failed a drug test in his 25 year athletic career. earlier this year the justice department ended a two-year investigation of its own into armstrong without filing any charges. armstrong is now retired from cycling. he is a triathlete and quickly becoming a top performer in that sport, winning the iron man in hawaii less than two weeks ago. armstrong is now banned from such competitions as a result of these charges brought against him and five other people. armstrong calls the charges baseless and accuses the agency of pursuing a vendetta against him, motivated he says by testimony bought and paid for by promises of anonymity and immunity. he has ten days to respond to these charges, brian. >> hear a lot more about this in

days to come. anne thompson, thank you as always. now to wildfires out west. thousands of firefighters are battling 18 separate major fires in nine separate states tonight. in colorado they are making progress against that stubborn fire that blanketed skies with smoke from denver to wyoming. in new mexico, they are still struggling with a massive fire that is destroying a lot of homes in its wake. our report tonight from nbc's miguel almaguer. >> reporter: in lincoln county, new mexico, the damage is extensive. at least 224 homes destroyed. small foothill communities like the town of alto, once dotted with manicured homes, now looks like a moonscape. fire ripped across 37,000 acres here. >> at one point i did see the ball of flame. i just can imagine what these firefighters go through. >> reporter: nearly 1,000 firefighters are on the front lines and 200,000 national

guardsmen at war with flames playing hopscotch through pine trees and destroying homes. airplanes like this d.c. 10 were brought in to help. tonight in colorado, a better look at the damage. at least 100 structures destroyed. >> when i drove out of there, i resolved not to look back. i just didn't want to see it because i thought it would be too painful. >> at an emergency shelter. >> brand-new baby, born on fire day. >> volunteers brought hay to feed ranch animals. some evacuees living in shelters next to livestock. >> lots of people live in places where people don't help each other out like they do here. so i'm just overwhelmed. >> this community grateful despite what the fire has taken from them. miguel almaguer, nbc news, bellvue, colorado. on capitol hill today the man roundly considered the nation's most powerful banker,

the ceo of jpmorgan chase, jamie dimon, took questions from the senate banking committee about his bank's outsized trading losses disclosed last month. a lot of the back and forth focused on the notion of any institution that's too big to fail, and persistent worries that giant wall street banks are still taking reckless risks that will somehow end up in the lap of taxpayers. nbc's kelly o'donnell was there and is with us from the hill tonight. kelly, good evening. >> reporter: good evening, brian. any time someone from wall street is saying i'm sorry, that stirs up a lot of dread around here about the risk to taxpayers that new mistakes might trigger some future bailout. when the bank with the best reputation for managing its own risk runs into trouble, congress asked the man in charge to come here and explain. long considered the rock star of wall street -- >> jamie dimon is a crook -- >> today jamie dimon, the ceo of the country's largest bank was jeered by protesters. dimon came to deliver a high-profile apology.

>> we made a mistake. i'm absolutely responsible. the buck stops with me. >> reporter: in april jpmorgan chase lost at least $2 billion and counting of its own money using a complex strategy of trades that were meant to protect the firm's overall financial strength but did just the opposite, exposing the bank and its shareholders to steep losses. >> something obviously went very wrong. >> we feel terrible. but no client, customer or taxpayer money was impacted by this event. >> reporter: dimon has been criticized for how he initially minimized the failures as a tempest in a teapot. >> when i made that statement, i was dead wrong. >> reporter: today dimon said he had been given bad information by his senior staff. his typical charisma and confidence unfazed today.

this was not a hot seat grilling. but some democrats did get under dimon's skin. >> this is not your hearing. i'm asking you to respond to questions. >> reporter: many democrats want new restrictions on commercial banks for making certain high-risk investments. >> i think the question that bothers most people is what's to stop this from happening again. >> we have to get rid of anything that looks like too big to fail. we have to allow our big institutions to fail. it's part of the health of the system. >> andrew sorkin from cnbc and "new york times" wrote the book "too big to fail" about the financial meltdown. >> the big question now is what happens to reform as a result of this and whether things get a lot tighter. >> reporter: senators did not hammer dimon for details about the failed trade and how much jpmorgan has actually lost. he insists talking about those specifics could lead to more losses. following his testimony, cnbc pressed him on that point. >> some estimates say the loss could total $5 billion. >> i've consistently told you i'm not going to tell you.

on july 13th, we'll tell the shareholders what it was in the quarter. >> reporter: dimon said salaries at jpmorgan chase, including his own, could be cut back when the company finishes its own investigation. brian. kelly o'donnell from washington tonight. kelly, thanks. still ahead for us as we continue along the way. if it becomes a reality, it could be a kind of holy grail in the search for a good night's sleep that a lot of overmedicated americans are looking for. later making a difference through the lens for kids fighting for their lives. in health news tonight, what

could be a turning point for the millions of americans who need help sleeping. this actually started with research into dogs. if approved, the treatment they are talking about here for humans could be what a lot of people have went robert bazell has our report. >> reporter: some 60 million americans suffer from some kind of insomnia.

>> it's very frustrating. >> reporter: she's among them. she hasn't had more than a couple hours of sleep a night in years. >> i would try a new medication. i would try a new kind of pillow. i would try a new kind of bed. i would try anything in order to get to sleep. >> reporter: help may come from an unlikely source. a dog named bear who falls asleep when he tries to eat. rusty, a dachshund, he runs full bore when deep sleep suddenly strikes. both these dogs have narcolepsy, a condition that also affects humans. studies of narc lepro studies of dogs at stanford led to a discovery of the brain system that controls when we wake and sleep. >> this is incredibly important, really a medical breakthrough in sleep medicine. because forever we've been treating patients with insomnia with medicines that put people to sleep, where in fact with this particular medication we're blocking wakefulness. >> all previous sleeping pills

including ambien sonata and lunesta affect the entire central nervous system. the newer drugs affect a smaller area of the brain discovered in dogs that induces sleep. results presented today with more than 2,000 people, merck, the manufacturer, found that the new drug, suvorexant, made people fall asleep 40% faster and sleep 40% longer than placebo. so far the experiments have shown that the new sleeping pill is safe, makes people less drowsy than the older sleep medications. the results will go to the fda for possible approval in months. doctors say if it is approved, it will still take wider use to see if it's truly free of side effects. if it does prove safe in the long run, it will be because man's best friend offered a big clue to help a sleepless nation. robert bazell, nbc new york. up next, the death of a wise guy known around the world.

just so we all agree here, it's never good to glorify a mobster. but if you're a fan of the genre, it's okay to love "goodfellas." which brings us to the news overnight of the death of henry hill, the former member of the lucchese crime family superbly played by ray liotta in the scorsese masterpiece. based on a book by pelleggi. hill was a wise guy who fell in with the mob at a young age and made his bones, as mo green would say, at the air france heist at kennedy airport in the '60s and then a decade later hit lufthansa for millions. when the feds arrested him for drug trafficking, he ratted out his associates. dozens went to prison. hill ended up in the witness protection program. after a troubled life, henry hill is dead at the age of 69. we've been covering the japanese tsunami debris washing up along the coast, and we'll continue to because there's a

lot more of it out there. tonight for the first time, some of it has been sent back. three balls and a buoy that had identifying markings on them were found by americans who looked up the owners in japan. and channeling the spirit of tom hanks, fedex stepped up and took it from there flying the lost items back across the pacific. >> and there's this. on an average weekend in newport, oregon, they usually have about 400 cars parked there so people can use the beach. this week they have counted 11,000 cars, because so many people are curious to see their big piece of tsunami, the giant floatable dock that floated all the way across the pacific and now is lodged on their beach. up next here tonight, giving kids with a tough fight on their hands something better to focus on.

finally tonight a little boy whose fight inspired his parents to make a difference for other kids who have a real eye for things that really matter in this life. our report from chris jansing. >> reporter: this 12-year-old is a pint-sized paparazzi stalking the perfect picture.

for a while at least, he's a photographer and not that other thing that's dominated his life recently, a kid with cancer. do you remember when you first were told you had cancer? >> yeah, it was kind of devastating. then i just started coping with it. >> he coped with the help of shutter bug. it's part of the pablo foundation founded by the parents of pablo castelaz who had cancer, too. >> pablo is and was a very, very special child. he loved life. >> pablo loved to take pictures. here he was taking a beautiful photo of his mom. while the foundation's mission is to raise money for research, its heart is shutter bug. >> in this room, cancer has no place. the work they put out is astonishing. >> reporter: so good that once a year they get their own exhibit. their work side by side with the pros.

the show is also a chance for these kids who have gotten so much from the program to give back. prints of their photos sold for $50 each. that money buys cameras and equipment for other kids who will be in the program in the future. lane was excited but worried no one would buy his photo, a stunning image of his dad. >> are you a little nervous? >> perhaps. maybe. >> reporter: no worries. this year's exhibit raised $50,000. and for parents, the value of what's done here is beyond measure. >> he's happy and getting healthier. it's the most amazing feeling ever. >> reporter: quite a legacy for pablo, who never saw his seventh birthday. >> i think about pablo every second of every day. >> reporter: but whose short life inspired his parents to do so much good. chris jansing, nbc news, los angeles. >> that's our broadcast on a wednesday night. thank you for being here with us. i'm brian williams. as always, we hope to see you right back here tomorrow evening. right back here tomorrow evening. good night.

-- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com right now at 6:00, high-tech peeping, a home filled with hidden cameras and a tech consultant now facing the prospect of life in prison. and new surveillance catches an arsonist in the act. and a question about just how many workers were laid off. good evening, thank you for joining us. a disturbing discovery, a family uncovers hidden cameras inside of their san jose rental. it led to the arrest