that way a few months. the change is in honor of the 50th anniversary of the hope diamond's donation to twith the smithsonian. officials say it's never brought them anything but good luck. on our broadcast tonight, what a sight here in new york today, led by president obama offering a big challenge to an audience, including some interesting characters. the red storm that took place that had some wondering if their city was on fire. keep the change. big banks agreed to back down on the hefty overdraft fees we exposed. but, is it too little, too late? the sting. the young vid avenger behind the spoof that blew theid off

the a.c.o.r.n. organizatn and hohe got his start in pictures. "nightly news" beginnow. good evening. president obama wanted to sound different today and he did. no u.s. president has ven quite the speech he did before the u.n. general assembly here in new york. it can be said no one looked out on an audience quite so unusual. it's where we begin tonight with nbcs andrea mitt el across town tonight. good evening. reporter: good evening, brian. it was the president's first speech and marked a stark departure from theolicies of george w. bush. reaching out to new friends and old foes. pridenobama was welcomed to

the world stage, along with gallery of long time internationapeople. libya's moammar gadhafi, for the first time in four years. hugo chavez. present obama'message was the u.s. is noonger going it alone. but, his challenge to critics was blunt. >> those who useto cstis america for acting alone can now stand by and wait for america to solve the world's problems alone. >>eporter: ahmadinejad looked bored. the president was cheered for his decision to cse guantanamo and stop abusive interrogations. >> i prohibited the use of torture by the united states of amica. >> reporter: he showed his impatience. warned north koreand iran against escalating the num lar arms raid. >> they must be held accountable. >> reporter: m obama and his team made a quick exit ming on

to a series of events, steering clear of the next speaker. >> leader of the revolution, president of the african union, king of kings of theraditional kings of africa. >> reporter: he raged on for 95 minutes, a jump lf handwritten notes, waving a copy of the u.n. charter, thepretending to rip it up. >> translator: it ould not be the security counsel, it should be the charity counsel. >> reporter: he only hadraise for obama calling him our son. >> repter: we are happy if obama can stay forever as president of america. >> reporter: he made no mention of bbing. the assassination of president kennedy. >> translator: we want to know who kied him. somebody by the name of lee harvey, then another, jack ruby killed lee harvey, why did he kill h? >> reporter: mystifying thu.n. and the white house.

>> if i had to explain mr. gadhafi, i might be busy for the bett part of the afternoon. >> reporter: tonight, iran's president is hosting for u.n. delegates. he vowed to continue negotiations with iran on the nuclear issue and picked up the possibility of important support fo the firstime from russia to consider sanctioning iran, if ey do not comply. >> andrea, thanks. we have seenhis kind of circus atmosphere inside the u.n., the fact is, the stakes are high our chief white house correspondent, political director, chuck todd here in new york while the president is in new york. chuck, for awhile, it looked like the bar scene in "star wars" except the stakes are so high. while the president spoke, you know, he's got other issues simming. take them one at a time.

afghanistan and health car >>et's start with afghanistan. it's been a public debate. a couple veteran watchers of the military told me, not since vietnam he we seen this public debate between the white house and the pentagon. the white house says this is what president obama campaigned on. he was going to have ro bust debates. this is what he likes. nobody likes it to be this public. you have general mckris toll and general petraeus in charge of strategy. doing a speech at the press club. we are hearing all about this. in the actual policy, the white house remis us, general mckrystol wrote it. >> it's the first time we have heard . >> their aument is going to be this. things have changed. the election, if we don't have a stable partner, weave to have a better strategy. >> where is health care? >> we know this, the real senate majority leader is olympia snowe. she wants more information from

the congressional buet office. it mns we will not see a health care bill until, at the soest,ext tuesday. the white house was hoping to get it torrow. >> a lot of the bill being tinkered for one republican senator from maine. part of my interview with gordon brown about his time with esidt obama in the states and this recent strain or the release of the man who brought down pan am 103 over scottland. we turn ton unlievable sight today. yoare about to see why some people itially thought their city was on fire. it was not fire, but something very unusual is going on in sydney, australia. ian williams repts. >> reporter: australians we thisorning to an apock liptic vision. swept in from the outback.

the upper house a smudge. the harbor brie all but disappeared. this is what it ually looks like. the storms seen in this satellite photo blowing 5 million tons of dust over much of atralia's eastern coast. flights were diverted. urgent health warnings as they went o the charts. emergency services treated a flood of patients. >> it's been unbelievable from nearly the crack of dawn, have had joggers come in, fit young n and women who have had re trouble breathing. >> reporter: sydney had seen nothing like it in 70 years. >> i thought the city was on fire. >> i'm 72 years old and have never seen it before. >> reporter: an intense low pressure system swept in from central australia. winds whipped up dust from the worst drought on record. drought on record.

>> because it cked up vast quanties of topsoil that got pushed along the coast. >> reporter: by this afternoon, the dust over sydney was beginning to clear. thsun struggng to breakthrough. the storm powering north toward the city of brisban. in southern california, state of emergency now in ventura county after a wildfire that's burned almost 16,000 acres. of course, as always, the dry, windy weather is making the job of fighting the fire tougher. hard to tell but the flood waters in partsf the south are ceding. the toll is growing. now, nine dehs reported in northern georgia. the cost of property dam over $250 billion. ny of the buildings hit are not insured. federal reserve is keeping the key interest ratat zero while painting an upbe picture of the economy.

anowledgent they are winding down their purchases of treasuries and mortgage debt seemed to spook the stock rket. the dow went up more than points to down more than 80 points at e closing bell. all of that in the course of one day's trading. we reported in the past couple weeks about a practice that rakes in a lot of money for banks,itting custome with huge overdraft fees for purchaseas small as a cup of coffee. threof the biggest banks announced they are changing lici policies. our report from lisa mrs >> repter: in a major reversal bank of america ys beginning next month, it will allow customers to opt out of overdraft protection. that means, if there's no money in the account, the transaction will be declined. now, the transactions are paid for a fee of $35 each. the bank also will no longer

charge fees on very small overdrafts and limit theaximum overdraft fe peray for a st of $140, down from $350 now. the change comes in response by an uproar of consurs. some vented on youtube. [ inaudible ] >> yes, i deserve two, two overdraft fees, but six? come on. >> reporter: wells fargo announced changes similar to ba of america. jp morgan chase generas more fees. consumer groups say all are welcome changes, b not nearly enough. >> overdraft fees are one of the most abusive practices in the marketplace. >> there are things consumers can do to avoid over draft fees. watch your account balance

closely and try tmaintain a cushion. if your bank won't let you opt out of overdraft protection, shop around. bank of america says it's making the changes now to provide immediate help to customers wh repeatedly overdraft nar aaccoun aaccounts. banks hope to quell demand for a crackdown by congress. lisa myers, nbc news, washington. a lot more to tell you about when we continue on a wednesday night, including portions ofy interview wi the prime minister of great britain. how special is that special relationship these days? great britain. how speal i that special relaonship these days?

inining r. progresso. your chicken tuscany says it has fiber in it. p. four tasty new soups with 28% of your daily fiber. but i like this chicken tuscany. i like it too. but it has fiber iit. that's right. fir? yeah. but i like it. (announcer) progresso. you gotta taste this soup. your p.a.d. isn't just poor circulation in your legs using you pai ok-what is it? dad, it more than doubles your risk of aeart attack or stroke. i can't keep anything from you. you better read about plavix. if you have p.a.d., plavix can help protect you from a heart attack or soke. plavix helps keep blood platelets from sticking together and forming clots- the cause of most heart attacks and strokes. dad don't put this off. p.a.d. more than doubles your risk of a heart attack stroke. promise me y'll talk with your doctor about plavix? i'll do it. i promise. (announcer) if you have a stomach ulcer or other condition that causes bleeding, you should not use plavix. taking plavix alone or with some other medicines

including aspirin may increase bleeding risk. tell your doctor before planning surgery or taking aspirin or othe medicines with plavix, especially if you've had a stroke. someedicines that are used to treat heartburn or stomach ulcers, like prilosec, may affect how plavix works so tell your dtor if you are taking other medicines. if fever, unexplained weakness or confusion develops, tell your doctor promptly. these may be signs of ttp, a rare, but potentially life-threating ndition, reported sometimes less than 2 weeks after starting plavix. other rare but serious side effects may occur. we're back now. as we mention wd

we're back now. as we mentioned, with a poron of my interview with british prime minister, gordon brown, here in new york. for that matter, we'll see him tomorrow at the g-20 in pittsburgh. we sat down to talk not far from where high level meetings were taking place. the first thing i asked about were reports he was being snubbed, somehow, by president obamover the conoversial release of the lockerbie bomber. >> i met president obama last night and we had a long talk about some of the big issues affecting us. i have been meeting him in pittsburgh on a one-to-one meeting. of course, we are meeting all e time. the special relationship and the relationship betwe britain and america is strong and continues to strengthen. >> relationships soured after the release of the lockerbie bomb. you said you didn't want to see the man die in pson, but found his welcome home --

>> my thoughts were for the relatives who died. i don't forget the day the lockbie bombing happened or forget the sufferings of the famies that have gone through years of pain and years of anguish. it's regarded by us as personal responsible for the crime. his sentence has not been commuted. he's been let out by the scottish authorities because they believe he will die withi three months. i understand the reaction to that. i can also understood understand people's feelings about britain as a result of that. is w an legal grounds by the scottish administration. weould not have done anything about it. >> the problem is, some of your citizens will forever believe, and a fair number of americans, that it was the result of a deal d the deal h to do with oil. >> there was no deal. i can give you absolute

unconditional assurance there was no deal on o or anything else. there was no double aling or conspiracy or no prior agreement or anything. i think we have to p this in one perspective. over the last ten years, we have seen libya try to move to a better position in the international community by renouncing nuclear weans. at the same time, renounci any rule in international terrorism. we have to hold libya to the promises. these are the issues, see kcuri issues i will contin to raise with libya. no deals, no back room stitch up of any sort and i do assure the american people weould never put them in that positn. >> let's talk about afghanista in the iraq war, the brits got a violent, long slog in afghanistabritisforces have been concentrated in helman

province, a long, violent slog. you have suffered 217 losses there. will we see a substantial dramatic reduction in forces, a reorganization on the british side of this fight? >> let me say, first of al we have a duty, all of us to prevent terrorism returning to the streets of new york or returning to the streets of london. the second thing is the way forward in afghanistan, even after the disputes othe election is very clear to me. it's got to be a policy of the afghan people, the army, the police taking responsibility for eir own affairs. we are prepared and always have been to put the troops necsary to make sure the training and what we call mentoring of the afghan forces lds to an army of 135,000. our strategy is ghanization, it's the afghan people taking control of their own affairs that's the way forward for afghanistan. that's the key to a safer

britain and safer america. >> part of our conversation earlier today here in w york with gordon brown. it's all on our website at nightly.msnbc.com. still ahead, as our broadcast continues tonight, you perhaps saw the spoof on camera, it deliver add punch. it got a.c.o.r. in trouble. now, we learn more about who he is and what he's doing behind the camera. t he's doing behind the camera. - three, two, one. ( beeping, whirring ) ♪ - baking complete! - ( bell dings ) cheez-it®! where do you come up ith this stuff? hi, dad! lots and lots of cheese baked into little, little bites. cheez-it®. the big cheese. cook delicious dinneeese bakand save money, little bites. with campbe's soups. go to campbellskitchens.co for a valuable coupon and hundreds of mouthwatering, family pleasing dinner ideas.

♪ so many, many reasons ♪ ♪ it's so m'm! m'm! good! ♪ what? where? don't freak. it's gone. how? who did it? i did. with one of these. this is a mouse trap? yeah. it's a new kind of mouse trap from ortho. homeefense max. it's guaranteed toill the mouse. you just push down this little lever right here... ...and it does the rest. nothing to see. nothing to touch. you just throw it away. mess. no drama. we could do without drama. excuse me? (man) ortho home dense max. (woman) defend what's yours. door ss i have to lower my cholesterol. (announcer) trying to lower your cholesterol can be a challenge.

but with e he of honey nut cheerio swt taste, it's a non-challenge. get your free sample online at non-challenge.com get your free sample online so, what's the problem? these are hot. we'r shipping 'em everywhere. but we can't predict our shipping costs. dallas. detroit. different rates. well with us, it's the me flat rate. same flat rate. boston. boise? same flat rate. alabama. alaska? with priority mail flat rate boxes from the postal service. if it fits, it ships anywhere in the country for low flat rate. dude's good. dude's real good. dudes. priority mail flat rate boxes only from the postal service. a simpler way to ship. ep it performing at its best with benefiber. the clear, tasteless fiber that helps restore your natural digestive balance. while helpi rid your body of toxins. that's the beauty of benefiber so it's a typical morning when suddenly you see built fd tough trucks! the ground starts rumblin' like u just struck oil, and you know what? you did hit pay-dirt cause it's ford truck month. an' leading this herd is the ford f-150.

it's not just a truck it's an f-150. and with greatower comes great fuel economy. no wonder it was named 2009 motor trend truck of the year. now get 0 percent apr for 60 months or 45 ndred cash back on an 09 f-150. and ford credit is on boar to help with the financing. it's truck month! only at your local fd dealer. tonight, an nbc news exclusive. in his first broadcast network news interew, the young man behi the camera-like spoof that's caused so much backlash against the group, a.c.o.r.n., he tells his story.

they filed a lawsuit over the hidden camera video that got two employees fired and touched off a big ternal investigation. mara has the story. >> reporter: this is how most of the world was introduced to james o'keefe. as a young video producer dressed like a pimp. the community advocacy group. they were targeted by president obama's opponents last year. this is how i met him, as a soft spoken self-scribed racal dealing with a lot of attention that's caught m completely by surprise. did youxpect all these repo cushions when you started? >> no. >> reporter: posing as a pump and prostitute, he and a fend caught a.o.r.n. employees appearing toive advisen tax

evasion, human smuggling and prostitution. >> if you are just taking money from underage prostutes, that doesn't sound good. >> reporter: they spent about $1300 to fund their trip. he won't say how many offices they visited. do you consider yourself a conservative? >> i consider myself a progressive radical. i don't want to conserve anything. >> reporter: how do you define yourself? as ajournalist, activist? >> i don't have a business card. i'm too busy doing what i do. i let other people frame it the way theyant. >> it's a controversial style he's been honing since college days at rutgers universi. he started with pranks like mplaining about lucky charms being served in the dining hall. >> wre not all short. we have oudifference in height and we are stereo typical. >> reporter: moved on to more outrageous political affairs like calling planned penthood to see if they would accept donations to see if they would abort black babies >> there's too many black pele

in ohio. i'm trying to my part. >> okay, whatever. >> reporter: he's started thinking about his next project. >> i hope to do moref these types ofhings and expo more corruption and do more investigating,bsolutely. i would love to be able to do it. it would be a privilege. >> rorter: his hope, this introduction to the public is the beginng of a long relationship. when we come back, a big milestone in the life of bruce springsteen. can you blame the rest of us for thinking we're not that young anymore? springsteen. can youlame the rest of us for thinking we're not that young anymore? the one thing about smoking - is it dominates your life, and it dominated mine. and the sad thing about it ishat you ca always use an excuse if cigarettes don't kill me, oh well - sothing else will. but,ou can't use that as an excuse. i honestly loved smoking, and i honestly didn't think i uld ever quit.

it was very interesting that you could smoke onthe first week. chantix gave me at extra he that i needed to g through a tough time. (announcer) chant is a non-nicotine pill. in studies, 44% of chantix users were quit during weeks 9 to 12 of treatment, compared to 18% n sugar pill. it is proven to ruce t urge to smoke. i did have an unopen pack of cigarettes in my purse and then i think i opened my purse and realized it was still the. and i said, "what the heck, i don't need these..." ...i said, you know, "bye, i don't need you anymore, you're not my crutch, i don't need a crutch." (announcer) talk your doctor about chantix and a support plan that's right for you. some people have had changes in behior, hostility, agitation, depressed mood anduicidal thoughts or actions while taking or after stping chantix. if you notice agitation, hostility, depression or changes in behavior, thinking or mood that are not typical for you, or if you develop suicidal thoughts or actions,

stop taking chantix and call your docor right away. talk to your doctor about any history of depression or other mental health problems, which can get worse while taking chantix. some people can have allergic or serious skin reactions to chantix, some of which can be life threatening. if you notice swelling of face, mouth, throat or a rash stop taking chantix and see your doctor right away. tell your doctor which medicines you are taking as they may wo differently when you quit smoking. chant dosing may be different if you have kidney problems. the mo common side effect is usea. patients also reported trouble sleeping a vivid, unusual or strange dreams. until you know how chantix may affect you, use caution when driving or operating machinery. chtix should not be taken with other quit smoking products. as non-smoker it's wonderful. the best thing that ever happened. the best thing i have er done besides my husband, and dogs, and family. with the chantix and with the support stem, it worked. it worked for me.

(announcer) talk to your doctor to find out if prescription chantix is right for you. a couple > a couple things here before we go tonight. first an example of why timing is everything in life. at fire station 99 in l.a., a group of firefighters just finish added a refresher course on how to deler a baby when a couple on the way to the hoital, can you guess the rest? pulled into the driveway, they were having a baby. the team swung into action. delivered a healthy baby girl. second child for the couple. everybodis fine. all the guys on the shift insist

the baby has eht new uncles. while moamr gadhafi was talking at the u.n. today, live coverage on three cable networks, just pick your spelling. the of them, for the record, the accepted spelling that nbc uses is khaddafy. finally, tonight, this was a big day in my home state because my number o cizen turned 60 today. how's that for a marker of time? bruce ringsteen is 60 today. the he's an acti 60,orking his way through a nine month, 60 city world tour. he sold 1.5 million tickets so far. he played for over three hours this past weekend in chicago. let's not forget, he's the head of a huge organization, what he calls the heart stopping, pants

dropping, house rocking, booty quauking, love making e-street band. happy bihday, boss. that's our broadcast this wednesday night. thank you for being with us. i'm briawillms. we hope to see you back here tomorrow evening. good night. ♪