on our broadcast here tonight, armed and dangerous. american drones armed with hellfire missiles now patrolling the skies over baghdad with those isis militants at the edge of the city. state of emergency in the flood zone with cities overrun by water, no relief in sight. now the threat of tornadoes on top of all the rest. is it the future of medicine? it was science fiction not long ago. now it's real and controversial and saving lives. meredith vieira here to tell us about it. and thinking big. the teenager now the talk of the town with people asking who that is on the side of the building. "nightly news" begins now. good evening.

as militants get closer to baghdad, the u.s. has put armed drones in the skies over baghdad, presumably in case it comes to that. they will be prepared to use them against these isis militants who have picked up american-made weapons on their way from syria through iraq and are driving some american-made vehicles in their armed assault on the population centers along the way. this is an escalation for the united states which has pledged no combat troops even while it strengthens the number of military advisers now operating on the ground. in short, the situation in iraq remains a mess tonight as it has been on and off for a decade. we start with our chief foreign correspondent, richard engel, who is back in baghdad. richard, good evening. >> reporter: good evening, brian. it feels like we have been here before. once again, i'm on a baghdad rooftop, a curfew is in place. and now armed american drones and planes are above.

they're not authorized to fire on militants unless to directly protect american advisers who are here. but i can tell you the iraqi military and the iraqi government which are struggling in their fight against the militants would like to see these american weapons put to use. u.s. drones like this one are now over iraq armed with hellfire missiles. so are fa-18 fighter jets, also armed. so far they are not authorized to fire on isis militants who are carving out their own state in iraq and syria with suicide bombings, captured american weapons, and a campaign of terror. they executed almost 200 iraqi soldiers earlier this month in tikrit, according to human rights watch. and it could be just the beginning. the isis leader has in the past promised attacks against the

u.s. even bigger than those of his hero, osama bin laden. but isis may be overreaching, creating more enemies than it can handle. washington opposes isis by supporting the iraqi government and moderate syrian rebels. iran has its own front against isis made up of the syrian government, hezbollah, and shiite militias. an unlikely alliance. in baghdad, there's tension. isis militants are on the edge of the city. the military says it has captured two sleeper cells and believes there are more. baghdad has been exceptionally calm since these troubles began. in fact, quieter than usual. it could be because of the roughly 100,000 soldiers and police the government has deployed here in the capital, or it's just the calm before the storm. at the shabandr cafe, an old baghdad haunt, we found only one

customer, engineer ahmed redda. like many iraqis, he's lost confidence in prime minister malaki. >> the strength of isis comes from the weakness of government. >> reporter: baghdad is on edge trying to keep out a terrorist group bent on creating its own state in the heart of the middle east. now that the armed drones and planes are here, brian, there will be a lot of pressure to use them. iraqi military generals and the american military advisers are now working in the same control rooms shoulder to shoulder. and if there is a problem that the iraqis can't deal with, they can just look over to their american counterparts and say, we need your help, and you have the tools in place to help us. and the americans will have to say yes or no. >> richard engel, in baghdad covering another conflict. thanks for starting us off from there tonight. late word from the white house. a new report prepared for the president about the scandal at the v.a., and it's scathing. it says the entire veterans health care system needs to be restructured. an earlier audit found the agency manipulated records to

falsify patient wait times at its hospitals. today's report says the agency scheduling system is arbitrary and a corrosive culture pervades the entire v.a. now to the horrendous and rare late june flooding we're witnessing in the american midwest, getting worse with cities and towns overrun by water. now a state of emergency declared for the city of st. paul, minnesota, with no relief in sight. nbc's katy tur is there for us tonight. good evening. >> reporter: good evening, brian. the river crested yesterday. so far, it has dropped two inches. as you see behind me, still at major flood level. this as people around here and across the country are bracing for even more extreme weather. in minnesota, more water than the rivers and lakes can handle. a lot of them overflowing their banks today. the mississippi river in st. paul crested at 20.13 feet. the high waters forced gus

gespardo to cancel all of his boat tours during the busiest stretch of the season. >> we have kids relying on a job and paycheck so they can pay to go to school. a great group of kids. >> reporter: the business has already lost over $125,000, and he could dip deeper in the red as the river is expected to stay at major flood stage through the 4th of july or longer, prompting the national weather service to issue flood warnings and watches from montana to illinois. flooding also hit alaska's denali national park stranding more than 100 people at a local lodge. a viewer shot this video of one creek overflowing into another. the powerful currents wiping out everything in its path. extreme summer storms also slammed southeast texas where a tornado tore through galveston damaging several homes and destroying this r.v. >> it was right there, and it was -- i mean, there was stuff

flying all through the air. it -- it had me scared. >> reporter: it was a twister like this one caught on camera in pilger, nebraska, last week. >> oh, my god! >> reporter: the massive ef-4 tornado whipped up debris and destroyed 75% of the town. and there's more to come. >> some of these areas that have already had severe weather and extreme rainfall will have it again. in some cases, two or three days. nebraska, iowa, into wisconsin, into minnesota. we will see more flooding problems into this weekend in addition to our severe weather threat. >> reporter: and just in the last few hours, there was a confirmed tornado that touched down about 80 miles to the east of us in wisconsin. now as for the damage here and how much money it's going to cost, the st. paul mayor says he expects it to be about $2 million. brian? >> katy tu arer, st. paul, minnesota, tonight. thanks. we're going to linger for a moment in the midwest. tonight a lot of people in the state of oklahoma are demanding answers about a huge spike in the number of earthquakes there.

100 so far this year in a state not previously known for earthquakes. people want to know if fracking is to blame. we get our report tonight from nbc's janet shamlian just outside oklahoma city in edmond, oklahoma. oh, god. >> reporter: small earthquakes are jolting oklahoma in unprecedented numbers. >> are we having an earthquake right now -- >> we are definitely having an earthquake, george. >> reporter: oklahoma used to average about two each year. in 2014, more than 230 tremblers have been recorded. >> what's happening is frightening. >> reporter: a standing room only crowd near oklahoma city last night. more than 500 anxious residents looking for answers. >> we don't want to lose our homes. we don't want our houseses to be crumpled one at a time. >> reporter: many are convinced the tremors are the result of oil and hydraulic gas fracking. specifically the manner in which wastewater is disposed and stored. fracking is when millions of

gallons of pressurized water mixed with chemicals is injected into wells underground, fracturing the shale bedrock and releasing oil and natural gas. often the wastewater is pumped into injection wells with such tremendous pressure it could possibly cause underground faults to slip, triggering an earthquake. the industry says there's no definitive link. >> ultimately it takes time, and it takes data, and it takes scientists to figure this out. >> reporter: some scientists see few other explanations. >> it's possible that it's just an anomaly, although my understanding is that no such anomaly to this extent, this many earthquakes over this short a period of time has been recorded in the past. >> reporter: charlotte copeland has lived here 20 years. for the first 15, she never felt an earthquake. this year, she's counted 30. >> very frightening. the house shakes. the things rattle. >> there it is. >> reporter: in the heart of tornado alley, copeland bought earthquake insurance.

>> frequency-wise, it's much more on our mind and of a concern than tornadoes are. >> reporter: residents don't know whether small quakes might lead to something bigger. without answers, they're uneasy living on shaky ground. janet shamlian, nbc news, edmond, oklahoma. in politics tonight, we have a rare look behind the scenes at the inner workings of the white house with one of the president's closest advisers. the much-talked about, much-written about senior white house aide, valerie jarrett, came with the president from chicago. as you're about to see, she holds a special seat of power not far from his. here is nbc's cynthia mcfadden. every morning the president's briefing book is on the desk, so i pick that up. >> reporter: her office in the west wing is prime real estate. the very one where karl rove once sat, and prior to that hillary clinton. it has been said that karl rove was george bush's brain and that you're barack obama's spine. >> i think the president has a

pretty sturdy spine all on his own. >> reporter: we were given rare access to valerie jarrett this week, both at the white house summit on working families and a full day inside the west wing to probe her influence and the administration's priorities. so the president came in to office with an astounding approval rating, and it's now down to 41%. what happened? >> look, we're going through some tough times. i'll tell you something that i learned very early in the first campaign is that you just can't look at the daily polls. my goodness, if we listened to the polls, he would have abandoned the race in the middle of the primary session. >> reporter: is it harder to govern than you thought it would be? >> oh, much more so. i think one miscalculation that i made is i did not fully appreciate that the republicans in congress were going to just say no to everything. >> hello, everybody. >> reporter: her critics say because of her personal decades' long friendship with the obamas --

>> good to have you. >> thank you. >> reporter: -- she disrupts decisionmaking at the white house by weighing in on any topic of her choosing. >> absolutely not true at all. i will tell you, everybody knows that we're friends. do you go home and talk to your friends about work? no. we talk about our children. we talk about movies and television shows. we talk about what friends talk about. and i think it's very important for me to be a part of a team, and it would not serve the team well, it wouldn't serve the president well if i went around that process. >> reporter: brian, this is just a little taste of a very interesting day with valerie jarrett. we also talked about the future and whether she might run for office herself. and her very strong view on whether the first lady will. >> all right. thank you, cynthia. we should say we'll have a lot more of this sunday morning on "meet the press." cynthia mcfadden, thanks as always. we'll take a break. still ahead tonight, what many say is the future of medicine. the amazing new way doctors are working to save lives, controversial to some. meredith vieira joins us next. and later an unusual sight

out on the track. the american champion getting a lot of attention tonight.

we are back now, as promised, with a report about what could be the next big breakthrough in medicine. it's part of an emerging field that uses a patient's new cells to grow tissues, even organs, in a lab, tailor made to repair diseased parts, eliminating the need for donor organs. nbc's meredith vieira is back with us tonight with the story. >> thank you, brian. it sounds like the stuff of science fiction, and it is still experimental and controversial. there is one pioneering doctor pushing the envelope, turning science fiction into reality. his name is paulo macchiarini, an italian surgeon and scientist who takes on the cases that nobody else will. >> he was the only man in the world that could fix our daughter. >> you see a patient that will die very, very soon.

as a human and as a doctor, are we allowed to say no? i don't think. >> reporter: his patients are desperate with diseases that can't be treated or cured. like this pigtailed toddler, hannah warren, unable to breathe on her own, was kept alive only by this tube. >> that tube has saved her life. but it's also made her a prisoner of the hospital. >> reporter: for macchiarini, it all began in 2008. >> there is news tonight in the world of science and medicine -- >> reporter: in a first-of-its-kind transplant, he made this spanish mother a new windpipe using a donor trachea that was stripped of its cells and then replaced with stem cells taken from her own bone marrow. with her own cells, two of the major problems linked to organ donation, the risk of rejection and the need to stay on powerful anti-rejection drugs, were eliminated. >> it's a major achievement in the history of medicine. >> reporter: then in 2010, he teamed up with a group of

british doctors to do one of his experimental transplants on a child. 10-year-old kieran finn lynch, born with a windpipe not even .1-inch wide. had you heard of stem cell therapies before? >> never. no. >> never. >> reporter: four years later, kieran is a healthy teenager who dreams of someday being a rock star. you love the drums. >> i do, yeah. >> reporter: you do see yourself one day as a drummer? >> i do. >> reporter: you do? it was kieran's case that led hannah's family to dr. macchiarini. no child with her disorder has ever lived past the age of 6. he was the only man in the world who might be able to give her a chance. but it involved something even more radical than he had tried before. he would make hannah a completely artificial trachea in the lab out of stem cells and plastic. >> there was no other alternative really. so we went with it and ran with it and said, "okay, let's do it." >> reporter: eight patients worldwide have received the artificial tracheas, but not all

have survived, making the transplants highly controversial. many doctors say eventually this approach could save billions of people with an injured or diseased organ. brian? >> this was science fiction just years ago. we wanted to let our viewers know, you can see more about this pioneering medicine, these patients willing to take chances to get this groundbreaking science off the ground, in meredith's two-hour special report, that's tonight at 8:00, 7:00 central. thanks for visiting us. always a pleasure. we are back in a moment with the big news tonight for millions who are living with diabetes.

there is medical news tonight that will be of big interest for millions of americans living with diabetes. late today, the fda approved an inhalable diabetes medication. will be marketed under the name afrezza. a fast-acting form of insulin. starts as a powder. it's meant to be taken before meals to help patients control

their blood sugar levels. because this word broke right before airtime, we've put all the information we have on it on our website tonight, nbcnews.com. a very emotional moment during last night's nba draft. it involved isaiah austin, the center from baylor, who would have gone first round had he not recently been diagnosed with marfan's syndrome, a genetic disorder which will end his competitive basketball career. the nba commissioner interrupted the draft to single out austin and make him an honorary draft pick on behalf of the league. [ applause ] >> so it gives me great pleasure to say that with the next pick in the 2014 nba draft, the nba selects isaiah austin from baylor university. [ applause ] >> austin's disorder was discovered at the nba combine, the pre-draft physical and athletic testing. marfan's syndrome affects the

connective tissue and can be life threatening. you don't see this every day. alysia montano, the five-time national champion in the 800 meters, not letting a little thing like beg 34 weeks pregnant get many the way of her running in her event. she's 28, she was a star at cal. she never led this race. and, in fact, settled into a kind of leisurely pace at just over eight months pregnant. a lot of people commenting on this today. they should know not only did doctors permit her to run, they encouraged it. as she put it, exercise during pregnancy is good for mother and baby, and that includes all the things she usually does including the 800 meters. when we come back, the creative young minds being touted as the next big thing.

our final story here tonight is about a group of creative young minds getting a whole lot of attention for their talent. just teenagers, they're now following in the footsteps of some household names. we get their story from nbc's harry smith. haven't we seen this smile before? >> reporter: art history at edward r. murrow high school in new york city.

the subject today, "the mona lisa." for centuries, the world has wondered what is she thinking. but we were wondering if the next leonardo da vinci might be that kid with his hand up. >> i think his work is phenomenal. i would have him photograph my family. i would have him photograph anybody. >> reporter: meet steven paul. the 17-year-old with prematurely graying hair has a knack with a camera. nina atoll is his classmate and muse. >> she's just herself, and i really like that. ♪ >> reporter: steven was one of the winners at this year's scholastic art and writing awards at carnegie hall. it's like being declared a high school all-american for creativity. >> i can't believe they gave us the opportunity, especially to be surrounded by such famous clients like past winners. i mean -- it's breathtaking. >> reporter: past winners like robert redford, stephen king, and lena dunham from "girls" on hbo. >> i think that i may be the voice of my generation. >> reporter: some of the student art gets put on display like the

pratt manhattan gallery. while that is impressive, the folks at colossal media had a different idea for steven's photograph. imagine seeing your picture reproduced on the side of a building four stories high. >> i don't have any words. i don't think i can describe the feeling. it's so much better close up than far away because i can see every detail. and i can see each detail in the photograph itself. >> reporter: tourists and locals stop to take photos. it's a heady experience for a high school senior. >> i'm excited, but i'm like what do i do now, this can't be it. i don't want to peak now. i -- i have so much more to do. >> reporter: as people stop to look, they wonder who is the girl and what is she thinking. she's kind of "the mona lisa" of williamsburg. >> i know. i just said that a few minutes ago. >> reporter: whatever she's thinking, nina's not telling, which gives this work of art some mystery. enough, we think, to make da vinci smile. harry smith, nbc news, brooklyn. and that's our broadcast for

a friday night and for this week. thank you for being here with us. i'm brian williams. lester holt will be here with you this weekend. we, of course, hope to see you right back here on monday night. in the meantime, have a good weekend. good night. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com right now at 6:00, the battle over benefits and bunch the biggest cities. and good evening, i'm janelle wang in for rajna mathai. san jose police and fire unions have finally reached a deal or have they? an emergency closed door session

was called today. we have a story only you will see here on nbc bay area. >> reporter: the city council wrapped up that closed session just a short while ago after being hastily called by that city council. this letter we obtained advised both sides had reached a deal until the city council presumably said no. this is a letter obtained by nbc bay area. it's signed by the police and fire union president. and it suggests they had reached a deal with the city manager on the fix to measure b that would have in essence ended litigation on the pension reform initiative. the letter suggests the city council shot down a presumed deal agreed to by their city manager. the day the council called an emergency closed session meeting. the police union president says