on the broadcast tonight, who's in charge? anger and despair in the gulf lead to new demands on bp and the federal government to stop the oil spill and clean it up. the most dangerous place in the world. nbc's richard engel shows us the clear and present danger. lapse in judgment. fergie the duchess of york caught on camera with a pile of cash selling access to prince andrew. tonight she has responded. and "making a difference." they don't call tennessee the volunteer state for nothing. they've got a big job. "nightly news" begins now. captions paid for by nbc-universal television

good evening. because the story out of the gulf of mexico has not changed in over a month and because there's oil spill into that water right now and every minute of every day, the anger and despair there are now taking a toll. now the oil is surging. miles up and into the marsh. more than 65 miles of some of the most beautiful coastline in the united states now affected. the damage spread across three states, louisiana, mississippi, alabama. the effort to stop it, clean it up is huge. 22,000 people are working on it just there in the spill zone. over three quarters of a million gallons of chemical dispersant have been poured into the gulf to try to break up the slick which is the size of delaware and rhode island combined. we have team coverage again starting with our chief

environmental affairs correspondent, anne thompson. >> reporter: the oil giant faces potential fines and perhaps a criminal investigation. while taking a public beating from residents fed up here and a very frustrated obama administration. this is the fight for louisiana's coast. black hawk helicopters build a sandbag defense on the channels on pelican island, one of the barrier islands weakened by eight decades of erosion, now under attack by oil. >> we are not standing on the sidelines and letting bp do what bp wants to do. the federal government has mounted the largest response in the history of this country. >> it is clear the defense of the shoreline has not been successful. i feel devastated by that, absolutely gutted. >> reporter: none of this impressed this oyster man. >> the sandbags are not enough.

it is like putting a band ate on a big cut. >> reporter: the big cut is the still spewing oil well at the bottom of the gulf. last friday mitch's oyster boat was a loud, messy, floating factory. today it is empty and still. we headed out to the leak site and found a toxic soup in the gulf of mexico. enormous rivers of oil and dispersant on the surface and underneath 16 miles from the coast. 26 miles out the gulf is a red sea, it is bleeding oil. we got within three miles of where the oil rig went down that started this disaster. this armada of ship' and rigs is what bp hopes will stop the leak this is the epicenter of the spill zone. from here bp will try the top kill technique, it will pump heavy mud through the blowout preventer to block the well.

this grass is home to key links in the gulf's food chain. what eats a sargaso shrimp or crab? >> pretty much all the bait fish. flying fish, the marlin, the dolphin, the tuna, the wahoo. >> reporter: they are the life blood of the ocean and this region. epa administrator lisa jackson came here to announce the epa is directed bp to significantly reduce the amount of dispersant they are using. >> anne thompson starting us off. thanks. 40 miles to the east of where anne is, grand isle, louisiana, where people would normally be flocking for the upcoming memorial day weekend. sadly that is not happening. michelle kaczynski is with us from there tonight. michelle, good evening. >> reporter: good evening,

brian. these beaches early devoid of life are splattered in chunks with heavy oil. the scenes of desperate attempts to stop it. in some places the only thing you see moving in that water are globs of oil, filthy booms snake and twist along the shoreline the national guard has had success building berms out of sand and rock. on one side it is a putrid mess, on the other side it is prist e pristine. the people say every wave brings a sense of exasperation. there are workers hired by bp cleaning the beaches. one man said he wishes bp could hand over money and resources and back off so it could be done more efficiently, brian. >> the frustration mounts even

though as people keep saying bp is responsible for this disaster, pressure is building nonetheless on the white house to get the government pieces moving, to do more to stop the leak, protect the shoreline from the fallout. our political director and chief white house correspondent chuck todd with us tonight with more on that. these growing calls for action now, chuck. >> reporter: that's right, brian. the growing frustration, oil coming ashore the white house on the defensive. their response a full e e show of government force. standing next to key obama administration officials the governor of louisiana made it clear, he is not satisfied with the government's response. >> every day this wall sits and waits for cleanup is every day our marsh dies. too often it is too little too late for the oil hitting our coast. >> reporter: at the white house the man heading up the disaster

acknowledged that. >> i have never dealt with a scenario like this. i have been dealing with oil spills for over 30 years. >> reporter: some in the government questioned whether bp is up to the task. >> do i have confidence they know what they are doing? no, not completely. >> reporter: admiral allen says the government does not have the resources or equipment to handle it on their own, they have no choice but to rely on bp. the president's senior adviser david axelrod also said the same thing. and bp is said to not have handled the cleanup. >> the last mile of retail, the sighting of the oil the boom that is where the formation has to be tightened up. >> reporter: the president tried to send words of comfort to those on the coast.

>> we are going to be tireless to support the community and everybody whose livelihood is in peril down in the region. >> reporter: the white house responded to the "new york times" article that oil permits have been issued despite a moratorium. the white house said there were two permits issued since the explosion and have since been yanked. this is an issue that will continue to pop up in political circles. >> thanks, chuck. we have more on this topic. the cost of extracting our energy from the ground. the explosion on that oil platform, let's not forget, took 11 lives. now we return to the story of the disaster that took the lives of 29 men at that coal mine in west virginia just seven weeks ago. it was the worst mining disaster in 40 years in this country. it's still too dangerous in that mine for investigators to get in there and look around. and today a congressional committee went to beckley, west virginia, and heard potentially

damaging testimony from miners about the working conditions there. our own tom costello was there as well. >> reporter: nearly two months since a massive explosion ripped through the upper big branch mine, congress came to hear firsthand from the families of the men who died. >> it should have been me under the ground instead of him. it shouldn't have been my grandson. he's just like a son to me. >> reporter: the mine operator, massey energy is under criminal investigation. in the months leading up to the disaster the mine racked up hundreds of safety violations. today for the first time, miners claim that massey employees above ground routinely tipped off managers inside the mine when federal safety inspectors arrived giving employees time to clean things up. >> the manager would go under ground and tell all the sections that they had an inspector on

the property. >> reporter: stanley stewart who escaped the blast said miners risk losing their jobs if they complained about safety. in your view was this a safe mine? >> no. no. no. i can't say it was a safe mine. >> reporter: just last week in washington the company's ceo insisted that despite an unusually high 53 deaths over ten years, massey's mines are safe. >> massey does not place profits over safety. >> reporter: back in west virginia the governor said the company's track record is hard to ignore. >> it was a time bomb waiting to happen. >> reporter: today massey was warned against retaliation. >> this is a formal congressional investigation and we're here to protect our witnesses. >> reporter: while the accident and criminal investigations have a long way to go, there is growing bipartisan support for strengthening the nation's mine safety and whil blower protection laws. tom costello, nbc news, beckley,

west virginia. in news from overseas the long running civil war in somalia heated up more today. a rebel group with ties to al qaeda says it intends to attack the presidential palace, home of the u.s.-backed government there. this comes after the group seized much of the capital city of mogadishu. somalia has been out of the news but everyone is about to learn all over again why many people call the horn of africa the most dangerous place in the world. richard engel is one of the few western journalists to report from there. tonight first of his two reports. >> reporter: after 19 years without a functioning government, somalia is in ruins. the 5,000 african peacekeepers here are overwhelmed. as we watched the peacekeepers set up a new base in what was once mogadishu's fipest hotel, the colonel says he needs

thousands of soldiers to fend off al qaeda militants. your biggest problem is lack of troops? >> yeah. yeah. >> reporter: washington won't likely be sending any troops. not again. in 1993 u.s. forces invaded to stop clan warfare. american helicopters were shot down, soldiers bodies dragged through the streets. the events retold in the film "black hawk down." since then somalia has degenerated into the world's worst failed state and an al qaeda safe haven. the u.s. is ramping up its involvement here again. the u.s. bankrolled the african peacekeepers are $180 million over the last two years and shipped the weak, often unpaid somali army 94 tons of weapons and ammunition last year. american weapons are now in action in somalia under the cover of darkness.

at night we've been hearing the unmistakable sound of american drones circles over mogadishu. they fly low and make passes every ten to 15 minutes. american drones searching because al qaeda's somali branch has attracted american citizens and for the first time ever american suicide bombers. 17 peacekeepers were killed when this headquarters was attacked by a suicide bomber last september, but what happened here has direct ties to the united states. militants identified the bomber as a somali american who had been living in seattle. u.s. counterterrorism tell nbc news 50 have come here to fight. some were recruited by this man. a 26-year-old from alabama named omar hamammi who uses internet videos and rap songs to attract fellow americans.

the foreign connection is a source of pride for a shabab commander we interviewed. al qaeda are our muslim brothers. we don't call them foreigners, he says. they're welcome here. the cia and fbi worry americans trained in sew ma somalia could to attack the u.s. >> capability to strike the united states and intent, they have talked about coming after us. >> reporter: as somalia becomes a spring board of al qaeda that the u.s. has once again been forced to confront. richard engel, nbc news, mogadishu. when "nightly news" continues in just a moment, fergie, the duchess of york caught on camera with a pile of cash selling access. the whole mess on videotape. later nashville got knocked down. it is taking a lot of people to get it back up. tonight they are "making a

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the undercover video is stunning. people can't stop watching it yet a lot of people watching it for the first time find it sad as well. the duchess of york sarah ferguson appearing to sell access to her former husband prince andrew, the son of the queen of england. the magnitude seemed to spread across the uk and the world. jim maceda has the tape and the story behind it. >> 500,000 pounds. >> reporter: there she was. sarah ferguson the duchess of york sitting in a hotel room in pile of a $40,000 and an open bottle of wine. this was a down payment to talk. the real prize would cost the foreign businessman with her more than $700,000. >> is that a deal?

>> yeah. >> reporter: with that she thought she had sealed the deal, access to her ex-husband for lots of cash. this was a set up by a british tabloid. the whole episode caught on tape. >> i couldn't believe what i was seeing. >> reporter: the video couldn't be more damaging to sarah ferguson or more embarrassing to the royal family who once again woke up to find fergie's indiscretions all over the news. like the topless duchess caught on the beach with her new boyfriend. this is much worse. >> this is a different level this is offering the queen's son for sale. >> reporter: those who know the duchess say she is millions of dollars in debt. her relatively small divorce settlement, $25,000 a year, covering the fraction of the cost of her semiroyal lifestyle. on sunday ferguson apologized saying i very deeply regret the situation and the embarrassment caused and claiming andrew new

nothing about the deal. fergie has bounced back from adversity before. this time royal watchers says she may have done more damage than even she can repair. when we come back, what the major airlines in this country have figured out now. it has to do with charging you more to fly. transform plain old ribs into these fall-off-the-bone honey bbq ribs. the secret's in the sauce, made with campbell's french onion soup. for these delicious ribs

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dorothy kamenshek has died. in life she inspired the character played by gena davis in at league of their own." she was the league's all-time best hitter. she was named one of "sports illustrated" best women athletes of the century. later in her life she worked as a physical therapist. she died at home in california. dottie kamenshek was 84 years old. the major air carriers will add what they are calling peak travel surcharges. it will cost you an extra $10 to $30 to fly on heavy traffic days. for a family of four that could add up to a whopping $240 round trip. the five major u.s. carriers have figured out a way to charge something extra every day of the summer except july 4th itself which is considered a light

travel day. you heard the music a moment ago. 20 years of "law & order" will come to a close on this network. the last episode that featured new york city so prominently aired 10:00, account central. maybe the most spun off show. one more spinoff "law & order los angeles" is taking its place this fall. when we come back here "making a difference" because that is what it takes to get nashville fully up and running. same water. only difference? this. miracle-gro potting mix. rich organic ingredients with miracle-gro plant food mixed right in. now it even feeds plants for 6 straight months. want this result? gotta start with this soil. new and improved miracle-gro potting mix. success starts with the soil.

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this crisis in the gulf of mexico has consumed a lot of the media attention and during this whole time the folks in nashville, tennessee, have been recovering from a disaster of their own. as we've been reporting the floods there three weeks ago killed 29 people and upended life in that great american city. but the work goes on. so many people making a difference, proving every day why they call tennessee the volunteer state. their story from nbc's ron mott. >> reporter: the flood was widespread, its damage more personal, invading one address

after another, destroying the sense of comfort that is home. now all across nashville the path to recovery is flooded with waves of people. people like jordan mcgowan, college student making 70-mile round trip journeys to volunteer in between classes and final exams. a regular presence on the dirty and sweaty front lines. >> not a second thought this is where i needed to be. this is where i needed to be. >> reporter: such generosity and sacrifice quickly rose to the surface even before the water reced receded. >> we are standing in an egyptian community that had very little contact with their neighbors in nashville. suddenly these people show up that are willing to do anything. >> it's hard but it is worth it helping other people. >> reporter: these high school students traded a leisure lyday in the park for something more

rough and tumble and meaningful. >> these people lost everything. this is the least we could do. >> reporter: this is largely the work of hands on nashville. 15,000 volunteers have signed up to clean up. there is no let up in the flow of helping hands. >> we are going to start the rebuilding process. that encourages volunteers to stay with us and to keep volunteering their time because they see progress along with us. >> reporter: progress tough for flooded out families to spot. >> if it wasn't for the volunteers we don't know what we would have done. >> reporter: families who know something special is happening. >> angels sent from heaven. >> reporter: ron mott, nbc news, nashville. keep going. we're cheering you on. that's our broadcast for this monday night. by the way, my first broadcast as the father of a college graduate. thank you for being with us. i'm brian williams. we sure hope to see you back

here tomorrow evening. good night. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com