he joins us next. good night! on our broadcast tonight, hard sell. after a big reversal by the president, the white house now going all out to convince congress to authorize a strike on syria. also, an nbc news exclusive, national security adviser susan rice tonight on what the president would do if congress says no. fighting alzheimer's, maria shriver reporting this evening on how they're preparing aarmy of doctors to take on the coming expected onslaught of new patients. and how she did it. 64-year-old diana nyad inspiring millions, making history. but it took more than sheer grit to get her there. "nightly news" begins now.

good evening. a lot of americans headed off for their labor day holiday weekend, believing the united states was about to launch a military strike against syria. tonight, however, and for the time being, those plans are still in place, but on hold until both houses of congress have their say. this is an unusual circumstance we're in, an american president drawing the line at the use of chemical weapons. telling the enemy what he plans to do, before then postponing those plans. and today, trying to make sure none of this intensity gets lost or wears off. secretary of state john kerry said, not acting would turn all of us americans into spectators of slaughter. it's where we begin our broadcast tonight. in a moment, we'll hear from the president's national security adviser. but first, our chief foreign affairs correspondent andrea mitchell in our d.c. newsroom with the stakes and the status of this debate. andrea, good evening. >> good evening, brian.

tonight the senate is trying to narrow the president's broad request for permission to use military force. while asking the obama war cabinet whether a limited air strike would make the situation better or worse. the president promised congressional leaders he's not asking for a blank check. >> it is limited, it does not involve boots on the ground. this is not iraq. and this is not afghanistan. >> reporter: he won the support of rival house leaders. >> i'm going to support the president's call for action. i believe my colleagues should support this call for action. >> it is really something that, from a humanitarian standpoint cannot be ignored or else we cannot say never again. >> reporter: but when john kerry got to the senate committee he used to chair, it was a different story. after a hug from john mccain and a shout out to his wife teresa, appearing for the first time since a serious illness, a withering attack. >> you tell the enemy you're going to attack them, they're obviously going to disburse and try to make it harder.

>> reporter: critics hit kerry from all sides. >> if this was an attack against any american interest this would be a no brainer for me. but i'm reluctant at this point. >> i would ask you to confront the greater reality of what happens if you don't -- if we don't do something. >> yes, this is a horrible incident where thousands of people died. but before this incident, one thun,000 people had died. >> we don't want another war. >> reporter: anti-war protesters were a reminder of the mistakes made in iraq. >> we are especially sensitive, chuck and i, to never again asking any member of congress to take a vote on faulty intelligence. those scenes of human chaos and desperation were not contrived. they were real. no one could contrive such a scene. >> reporter: but when kerry briefly suggested u.s. forces might go in to secure chemical weapons if syria imploded, he was forced to beat a hasty retreat. >> i don't think there are any of us that are willing to

support the possibility of having combat boots on the ground. >> i don't want anything coming out of this hearing that leaves any door open to any possibility. so let's shut that door now as tight as we can. >> i think the last 50 years of secretaries of defense would say -- >> senator, people are asked -- do you want to go -- the president is not asking you to go to war. he's not asking you to declare war. he's not asking you to send one american troop to war. >> reporter: the secretary of state would not say what the president would do if congress votes it down. the white house would have plenty of legal precedent to act on its own, congressional leaders are warning the president, don't even try it. brian? >> and we're heading for several days of this yet. andrea mitchell starting us off in d.c. and in the meantime, syria has become something of a humanitarian catastrophe. there's a continuing flood of people desperate to get out of there. the u.n. said today two million people have now fled from syria into neighboring countries at a rate of just about 5,000 people every day.

almost half a million of the refugees have gone to turkey, where the refugee camps are now overflowing. our chief foreign correspondent richard engel has our report from turkey tonight. >> reporter: syrian refugees today, carrying everything they could, escaping the war. they walked out, limped out, and were wheeled out at the official border crossing from syria to turkey. 17-year-old maran left with her parents. she hasn't been to school in a year. >> we are hoping for help from the united states, from any country. >> reporter: the u.n. says more than two million refugees have fled syria, there are many more than that. no one is counting these men who walked through a hole in a fence. "we took a tractor over a muddy road to the river and found a modern-day underground railroad into turkey. a metal raft pulled hand over hand by a rope. the river is the border here.

and the little raft shuttles back and forth day and night. maher came across to scout out a home for his family. "many of the buildings in my village have been destroyed", he says. most of the people have been killed by the regime. 350 refugees moved into in public park. they had to, the government camps are full. here there's no water, no toilets, no services of any kind. no treatment for 4-month-old boy, born his parents say with a hole in his heart. no treatment for 1-year-old walid wounded by shrapnel. abdullah hamadi took us inside his homemade tent. he was a cotton farmer. now he's homeless. his daughter lost an earring crossing the river in that tub. she's just three, sick with dysentery. >> we want america to attack today, not tomorrow.

nobody is helping. we have no help left, but for america," he says. >> reporter: these refugees are putting so much hope in the united states, not because it's the only country that can help, but they see russia against them, the syrian government bombing them. and europe and the arab world just talking. at a nearby mosque, about 300 syrians packed into the courtyard. their hope is that if the u.s. attacks, president assad will fall, maybe. but they don't have much else to hope for. richard engel, nbc news, turkey. >> now, with that as the background, a short time ago we spoke exclusively with susan rice, the white house national security adviser. she's been an integral part of the formation of this syria policy. tonight she flies with the president to the g-20 summit. tonight she joined us from washington prior to the departure. here now, part of our conversation. ambassador, first off, what happens, given this current

policy, if you lose the vote in congress? what does the president do then? >> well, brian, we have no expectation of losing the vote in congress. we are quite confident and indeed today. we've had a series of very constructive bipartisan meetings that the president led, with the leadership of the house and senate. and the leadership of the major national security committees, a number of key leaders have come out of those discussions, making plain their support for this, on a bipartisan basis. >> ambassador rice, can you blame the americans? and i'm hearing from a lot of veterans this same question. who wonder, since when did we start announcing our intentions to the enemy. potentially giving the enemy time to prepare? >> we have not announced our intentions to the enemy. in fact, the united states has been making clear for years that it is unacceptable to use chemical weapons. when president obama made the statement last summer, he was speaking on behalf of the american people and the congress, which had ratified the chemical weapons convention, and on behalf of the international

community, where 185 nations have made plain that the use of chemical weapons is absolutely unacceptable. >> ambassador rice, the estimates are 100,000, maybe 110,000 people have died in this civil war thus far. do you draw that bright a distinction between the death by an incendiary bomb in a school, a death by machine gun fire, and a death by chemical weapons that appears to be the administration's bright line on this? >> brian, all of this is horrific, and all of us as human beings feel terrible when we see the extraordinary loss of life that has occurred in syria. when chemical weapons that can kill with indiscriminate abandon people who are innocent, are employed in conflict, it is of a greater magnitude. because if terrorists get ahold of those weapons, if other dictators get ahold of those

weapons, they can be used on massive scale. >> finally, ambassador rice, recent history has taught us that military action could in this case make things worse? >> it's always a risk that military action can evolve in a complicated way, we think that's a very limited risk in this case. in the first instance, assad and his backers in iran and hezbollah do not have any interest in seeing this escalate. they know that the united states will stand up for our own national security, our own defense. and that of our partners and friends in the region. it's not in their interest to escalate, and i don't think they would do so. we also have to ask, brian, what if we don't act? what message does that send to those who would use violence against us or others with impunity. what can we say to the civilians who have been gassed, who will likely be gassed again and again if aed so concludes that he can get away with this? >> ambassador susan rice,

national security adviser at the white house, thank you very much for being with us tonight. >> thank you, brian. >> there is more of our conversation with ambassador rice. we have put it on our website tonight. that's nbcnightlynews.com. now to the drama that this country -- millions of people across this country watched play out this past weekend. a dream, really that was 35 years in the making, finally came true for 64-year-old diana nyad, who completed a swim over 100 miles from cuba to key west, florida. she said afterward her message was never give up. she also called her solo swim a team effort. more on that tonight from our chief medical editor, dr. nancy snyderman. >> yeah! >> reporter: a triumphant diana nyad, appeared astonishingly energized just one day after completing a 110-mile swim in just under 53 hours. sunburned and swollen, the

64-year-old seemed barely phased by her historic accomplishment. instead, thanking her team for getting her through. >> this isn't my victory, it's our victory. i wanted to swim this endeavor, not to just be the athletic record. i wanted it to be a lesson to my life that says be fully engaged. be so awake and alert and alive, every minute of every waking day. >> reporter: here's how she powered through, 51 strokes a minute. she dodged threats from jellyfish and sharks, but could not escape the relentless waves, swallowing so much sea water, she was vomiting continuously. her team did its best to nourish her with water, electrolytes, peanut butter, honey, and even chocolate. she separated her mind from her body by singing songs, janis

joplin and neil young and counted in french, spanish and german. and when she finally made it, she was in remarkably good condition. she lost about six pounds. she had only minor injuries, a few cuts on her tongue from a face mask. nyad was hospitalized for just one hour. all vital signs were normal. and her first meal on dry land, a chocolate dairy queen blizzard. >> individual arms. >> reporter: today across the country and at the pool in pasadena where she trained, people celebrated the meaning of nyad's accomplishment. dreams do not have to disappear with age. >> you're never too old. i'm 74 years old, and i'm enjoying every minute of it. keep going. keep going. go until you can't go no more. >> athletic endeavor aside, this was about grit. and a reminder to all of us, brian, there is no shelf life for dreams. >> go until you can't go no more. >> absolutely.

>> dr. nancy snyderman, good to see you. >> you bet. still ahead for us tonight. the alzheimer's crisis in this country. an nbc news special report from maria shriver. the new way doctors are gearing up to treat an exploding number of people living with the disease. and later, why radiation is back in the news, specifically the desperate measures at fukushima, a new idea in order to protect the ocean waters from contamination.

tonight we are presenting a special report on a special challenge facing upwards of 15 million american families and that's alzheimer's. an estimated 5.5 million americans are living with it right now. that could triple by the middle of this century. all this week, nbc news is reporting on the latest advances in slowing down, perhaps perhaps eventually curing alzheimer's. maria shriver is here with us in our studio tonight, covering the what we're calling sadly the age of alzheimer's. maria, good evening.

>> it is exactly that, brian. the country needs thousands of doctors who understand what it is like to suffer from this disease. so we visited one innovative program where medical students learn from the people who are actually living with alzheimer's. >> i'm assuming you want cheerios? >> i want cheerios. >> okay. >> reporter: five years ago, everyday life changed for anne when she was diagnosed with alzheimer's at the age of 61. >> cheerios. >> oh, pardon me. >> reporter: anne has trouble with judging distances, navigating stairs, and reading small type. so her husband, bob, reads the crossword puzzle clues out loud. >> a tissue softener. blank, l, blank, blank. >> l, o. >> reporter: anne and others are changing the face of alzheimer's. a former biology teacher, she joined the buddy program at northwestern university in

chicago that pairs alzheimer's patients with first year medical students. but here the patients teach the students. >> i saw that it was really a wonderful way to help humanize patients with alzheimer's disease. >> as physicians, and even as medical students, we don't have that much time in the room with patients. it's a very short encounter. >> reporter: but in the program, they can meet for hours at a time, allowing lee to learn from an early diagnosed person. and people like anne aren't called patients; they're called mentors. >> anne is incredible, the courage that she has to take the time to want to teach me about this so i can help future patients. >> oh, look. >> reporter: the buddies are asked to avoid clinical settings for a year. anne and lee love to visit places like the lincoln park zoo. the strolls became an opportunity to learn how the disease plays out on a daily basis. >> there are things that are going into my head, i want to talk about that, and then whoops, where did they go? where are they?

when i want them back. >> is this something you think should be required for every medical student? >> i know that it was really beneficial to me. >> the whole idea is that we need other images of this disease. >> i could get depressed but i'm not going to let myself. here it is, how can we make the best of it? >> yeah. >> reporter: well, even though their year together has just ended, lee and anne predicted that they will stay in touch for a really long time. and other other medical schools, including boston university, dartmouth and washington university have similar programs. and a number of others have expressed interest. so brian, this idea is spreading across the country. and just in time. >> what a great idea, great woman, great story. maria, thank you. >> thank you, brian. >> we want to let you know, maria will have more on all of this tomorrow morning on "today." tonight, for us, we'll take a break. when we come back in a moment, big trouble in london where they didn't mean to harness the power of mother nature.

let's catch up on some other news tonight. nelson mandela was released from the hospital over the weekend. he's now at home, though he's receiving hospital quality care there. by the way, he was in the hospital for nearly three months. dennis rodman is back in north korea, a nonofficial visit, he says, to see his friend, the dictator, kim jong-un. he says his five-day visit is part of that so-called basketball diplomacy tour. big news out west, the opening of the new bay bridge between san francisco and oakland, 24 years, $6 billion in the making. the span is part old and new. part temporary and part permanent. it replaces the portion damaged by the big loma prieta quake in '89. this one's designed to survive an even bigger one. concerns are growing tonight especially out west about the continuing radiation threat from the crippled fukushima nuclear plant in japan. and there's this. the japanese government said today it will spend almost a half a billion dollars, much of it to build a giant wall of ice underground to try to stop the

flow of radioactive water leaking into the ocean. finally, a new coming to the london skyline is causing a big problem. it's a shiny new 37 story tower in the financial district. that can apparently do to cars parked below what a magnifying glass can do a bug if you're a kid. the mirrored building focuses such intense heat, it melted parts of a car parked beneath it. for now, scaffolding will keep cars out of the intense beam of concentrated sunlight. another break for us. when we come back, what was that light in the sky this weekend in the american southwest.

finally, back here tonight, while a lot of americans spent this labor day weekend at the beach, at the lake, stuck on the interstate or bbq'ing in the backyard, there was something of a bbq saturday night in the blackrock desert of nevada. they burned a tall wooden man, marking the end of the burning man festival. the annual week-long communal celebration of just about everything. this year it drew just under 70,000 free spirits in the dusty, scorching heat.

though the retired four-star general wesley clark was reportedly spotted in the crowd this year, along with some other celebs, and that has led to fears it's going too mainstream. either way, this much can be said. if you know somebody who went missing for a while and just returned to work today, tanned and rested, there's a good chance they're just back from burning man. and oh, how i wish that was my excuse. as you may know, a month ago at this very moment i was in the recovery room after getting my knee replaced. and i have now been cleared back to active duty, with some limitations. during my four weeks of rehab, i heard from a lot of you, a lot of my fellow knee recipients. and it cheered me up and cheered me on greatly. it also helped to be able to watch lester holt in this very chair every night. and i am in his debt. now he is taking the well-deserved break as we begin a new month and a busy season. and so that is nightly news for this post labor day tuesday, september 3rd.

i'm brian williams. thank you for being here with us. we hope to see you right back here tomorrow night. good night. nbc bay area news starts now. good evening. and thanks for joining us. we begin with a nbc bay area exclusive. we're getting information about a party at the home of 49er player smith. it happened in the east san jose foothills. chief investigative reporter joining us. >> a june 2012 party, we got the lawsuit. it was filed late this

afternoon. ina/; that seven page lawsuit, are learning much more about the party and the shooting. it also names former 49er, delaney walker. smith and his friends charged $10 per person to enter the party and the event ended in gunfire. >> reporter: this was one of the shooting victims. the lawsuit names smith and walker. it claimed they repeatedly and illegally fired weapons on the night. june 2012 party. it says they consumed significant quantities of alcohol and were legally intoxicated. it also says the two knew the hand guns were illegally possessed. the lawsuit claims smith and walker appeared on the balcony of smith's home in an apparent effort to end the party. they fired shots into the air. it goes on to say walker then made his way to the driveway