here's nbc's anne thompson. ♪ >> reporter: from the funeral, the cry "sainthood now" is one miracle awayrom being answered. this may, the church will beatify the man who redefined the papacy in the modern age. working to topple communism. traveling the world, reaching out to other faiths. a media superstar, now on his way to becoming a saint at a record pace. >> he made christianity interesting in a world that thought that christianity was fading to the margins of history. >> reporter: to achieve sainthd, two miracs must be attributed to the person. today, pope benedict xvi decreed the first, the cure of a french nun's parkinson's disease. she says that happened after she prayed to john paul, who also suffered from the ailment. yet during john paul's 27-year papacy, catholics in the u.s. and europe drifted away in droves. many liberal catholics felt shut out. critics charge he failed to grasp the enormity of the priest sex abuse crisis. >> he was very slow in responding to that, very slow in believing the accusations or understanding how extensive this problem was. but when someone is ma

the story tonight from nbc news correspondent, anne thompson. >> reporter: sue says she doesn't knowny other way. she's a volunteer firefighter and a volunteer fund-raiser for breast cancer. co-founding mush for a cure in the minnesota tundra town of grand moret, population 1300. when she tried to trademark mush for a cure, she ran into an unexpected foe. susan g. komen for the cure. >> we're all supposed to be fighting against breast cancer and here another breast cancer fund-raising organization is going to oppose something that would cost us all money that we want to give to the cause. >> we've asked them to consider changing the name because millions of people around the country associate for the cure programs with breast cancer and with komen. >> reporter: komen's aggressive defense of its for the cure trademark is making headlines and drawing the ire of race for the cure runner steven colbert on his show. >> these charities aren't the only ones riding in the komen foundations cure tales. i'm looking at you, doctors. >> reporter: government records show since 1996, komen has rev

>> anne thompson with what is a breaking environmental story tonight here in washington. anne, thanks. >>> a big mystery in the natural world has shifted overseas. more dead birds have turned up. this time in sweden, just days after thousands of birds fell from the sky in this country. first in arkansas, then in louisiana. the birds found in sweden, about 50 of them so far, are called jack dawes. one news website points out in both the arkansas and sweden cases, there were fireworks before the birds were found. others, however, don't buy that theory at all. in both cases, we're told the weather was humid and cold. experts here and overseas are still working, trying to nail down what's at the root of this mystery that so many people are talking about. >>> the explosive growth of china as a world player and a world power now apparently includes the development of a stealth fighter. aviation blogs have been covering it closely and publishing pictures, though they've all been blocked from the web in china itself. it's a single pilot twin engine prototype, apparently in the pre

anne thompson has more. >> reporter: from john paul ii's funeral.ries -- is one year away from being answered. this year the church with -- traveling the world, reaching out to other faiths. a media superstar, now on his way to becoming a saint at a record pace. >> he made christianity interesting in a world that thought that christianity was fading into the margins of history. >> reporter: to achieve saint hood, two miracles must be attributed to the person. the cure of a french none's parkinson's disease. she says it happened after she prayed to john paul who also suffered from the ailment. yet during john paul's 27-year papacy, catholic twisted away from the church in droves. >> he was very slow in responding to that, very slow in believing the accusations or understanding how extensive this problem was, but when someone is made a saint, we're not saying that all those things were good or done right. >> the church really changed under his influence. i think we became more confident. we became bolder, i think more public. >> reporter: inspiration

we have got anne thompson who has been covering the story since it began joining us now from washington, d.c. hey, anne, good morning. >> reporter: good morning, ann. the presidential commission says a series of mistakes and oversights led to the disaster, mistakes that it says can be traced back to what it called a failure of industry management. in fact, the commission says better management by bp, transocean, and halliburton, the companies involved in drilling that well could have almost certainly prevented the accidents that killed 11 workers. it goes on to say there must be significant safety improvements by both the industry and government regulators or such a disaster could happen again. in response to the report, bp says it is working on improving it's deep water drilling, and transocean and halliburton insist they were acting at the direction of bp. ann? >> all right, anne thompson this morning, thank you again for your report thong story. >>> new surveillance video from wilmington, delaware, shows former pentagon official john wheeler wandering and confused just hours before h