anne thompson, nbc news, barataria bay, louisiana. >>> and that's our broadcast for this monday nightt off a new week. thank you for being here with us. i'm brian williams. we hope to see you right back here tomorrow evening. we hope to see you right back here tomorrow evening. good night. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com good evening everyone. thanks for joining us. i'm janelle wang in for jessica. >>> we're looking at shots, live pictures in san francisco. this is the bart protest. you might have heard a lot about this in the last few days. it was an organized protest after yesterday's cyber attacks to the bart website. the group anonymous planned the protest at 5:00. at 5:10 it started in ernest.

anne thompson, nbc news, new york. >> ever hear the expression, only in new york?our broadcast for this wednesday night. thank you for being here with us. i'm brian williams. we hope to see you right back here tomorrow evening. good night. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com >>> right now at 6:00, a rescue mission in the bay aft boat capsize. what we're learning about the men on board. >> downtown san low day restaurant is it violating the u.s. constitution? we'll take a look, only on nbc bay area coming up. >>> an east bay teenager accused of faking his own kidnapping. police are on his trail, after he pretended to be abducted. what they say his motivation was.

anne thompson, nbc news, virginia beach, virginia. >>> that's our broadcast for this monday night as we start off a new week. thank you for being here with us. i'm brian williams. we hope to see you right back here tomorrow evening. good night. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com >>> right now at 6:00, facebook and prisons. the new crackdown here in california. >> i'm scott budman, looking at what another round of stock market selling means for you and your business. >>> plus, we're following developing news in the east bay after a young child is caught in the crossfire. the news at 6:00, starts right now. >>> thank you so much for being with us.

anne thompson from there. anne, thanks. >>> and continuing now our survey of the damage, as you know, if you were watching any of the coverage, the jersey shore got chewed up, and then, as we've been saying, on into the inner suburbs and upstate. michelle franzen, you may have seen riding the storm out on the boardwalk of asbury park. she's since relocated to manville, new jersey. good evening. >> reporter: good evening, brian. residents are finally venturing out, and the water -- floodwaters are finally receding here in this small town. but not before, at its worst point, flooding a third of this town. record flooding here and all across the state, with the downed power lines and downed trees that are all leaving their mark. from above, you can see irene's destructive stamp across the garden state. >> it literally carved out the right shoulder -- >> reporter: a section of interstate 287 in northern new jersey washed away by the rising rockaway river. the roads were barely visible in parsippany, and flooded thi

anne thompson in a newly vibrant times square on the last sunday night of august 2011. anne, thanks. >>> now let's go down the atlantic coast. one of the first places to bear the early brunt of this storm. though in typical veteran north carolina hurricane style, along with our own kerry sanders, atlantic beach, north carolina, to be exact, kerry, good evening. >> reporter: good evening, brian. this is where hurricane irene made landfall. and despite the hurricane's fury, things are in remarkably good shape. still, hurricane irene, well, she left her mark. along the north carolina coast where irene hammered the coastline with pounding surf and wind, today was all about the clean-up. on atlantic beach, crews started early, putting sand back on the beach. hurricane irene took direct aim here. yet inside the beach front tackle box bar, it's hard to believe there ever was a category 1 hurricane. >> but we were just tickled to death that no water came in. we're just waiting for electricity so we can get back open. >> reporter: with 100 mile per hour gusts, trees are down, and

ann thompson, nbc news, virginia beach, virginia. >>> great story there. well, it's time to head back to our top story -- after yesterday's tumultuous day on wall street, we're going to take a look at where investors will start off the day today. the dow opens at 10,8 09 after sinking 634 points yesterday. the s&p lost a whopping 79 points. the nasdaq plunged 174. taking a a look at overseas trading this morning. in tokyo, the nikkei stumbled to 153-point loss. but in hong kong, the hang seng plunged 1,159. and of course, as reported earlier, america's financial downgrade hit wall street like a bomb yesterday. there were losses far greater than most had expected. stocks tumbled, despite moody's, standard and poor's rival, reaffirming its aaa rating on america. how hard and how fast was the selling? trading volume was the highest since september 2008. the fourth highest on record. at just under 18 billion shares. to put wall street's recent losses in perspective. consider in late july, the dow was flirting with the 13,000 mark. yesterday it fell below 11,00

the story tonight from nbc's anne thompson. >> reporter: in the criminal justice system, the people areour paws, these are their stories. elly is an unlikely fixture in seattle's king county courthouse. today, the lab works with the special assault unit, not to sniff out trouble, but to help those in it. just looking at these dogs, allows people to feel more of a sense of calm. >> reporter: especially young victims. prosecutor o'neil stevens says the dog helps children abused by a parent or authority figure find the courage to tell their stories. >> the presence of a dog during the course of a stressful trial can sometimes make the difference between a conviction and an acquittal. >> reporter: in at least ten states, dogs aid in investigative interviews or courtroom testimony. the newest is new york. rosy is new york's first dog to sit at a witness' feet. >> she'll know when you need her. she'll know, she'll come up and see you and she's very gentle. she'll never tell your secrets. >> rosy and other courthouse dogs are professionally trained, calm, quiet and reassuring when a victim is

anne thompson in east haven, connecticut.s still too soon to butt an accurate price tag on the damage caused by hurricane irene. new jersey governor chris christie sugged it could be tens of billions of dollars in new jersey alone. we're joined by bertha coombs. some have said this could be one of the most costly hurricanes in this country ever? >> it's too early to put an estimate on. some analysts say it's costly but at this point it doesn't look like it will rank among the top ten hurricanes. obviously the biggest being katrina at over $100 billion. and hurricane andrew back in 1992 in florida at $45 billion. this one is in the range of $7 billion in losses and less than half of that actually ensured. remember, you have the issues you're seeing there with the water. flooding is covered under separate insurance as opposed to wind damage. if you're a homeowner you know this is a big distinction when there's a hurricane in particular that's what's covered by the other insurers. the biggest damage of course, is where the storm

ann thompson joins us live from east haven, connecticut. anne?ll around me is damage from irene. a strip of beach where the local officials say some 40 houses were damaged. 25 of those homes have now been declared a complete loss. as you can see behind me, family members have now been allowed back into this area to salvage what they can and assess the damage for themselves. it is heart-breaking. this house over here has been declared a total loss. the front part, lower front part of the house was completely taken off by this storm. we have seen homes on this road that were taken off this foundation. it is an amazing amount of destruction for something that was less than a hurricane when it actually came ashore. veronica, as you were mentioning, in connecticut, statewide, the biggest problem is power outages. there are more than half million people in this state that are still without power. we are hearing from some residents that they have been told it could be two weeks, that's right, two weeks, before their power is turned back on. veronica? >>

nbc's ann thompson shows us how it works. >> in the criminal justice system the people are helped bypaws. these are their stories. ely is an unlikely fix amateur in seattle's king county courthouse. today the lab bra dor retriever works with the special assault unit. not to sniff out trouble, but help those in it. >> good girl. >> just looking at these dogs allows people to feel more of a sense of calm. >> especially young victims. prosecutor o'neill stevens says the dogs help children abused by a parent or authority figure find the courage to tell their stories. >> the presence of a dog during the course of a stressful trial can sometimes make the difference between a conviction and an acquittal. >> in at least ten states dogs now aid investigative interviews or courtroom testimony. the newest is new york. rosy is new york's first dog to sit at a witness's feet. >> she'll know when you need her. she'll know. she'll come up and see you that she's very gentle. she will never tell your secrets. >> rosy and other courthouse dogs are professionally trained to be calm, quiet and re-assuri

anne thompson, thanks very much. and folks, with generators, if you have them and you leave your house, just trust me on this, turn your generator off if you're going to leave your house. those things can be very, very dangerous. >>> all right. turning overseas to libya where fallen dictator moammar gadhafi isn't the only notorious name in the headlines. al megrahi is apparently in a coma this morning. his son tells nbc news his father's medicine has been looted. nbc's stephanie gosk is in libya's capital. this is somebody, a lot of people particularly in the new york/new jersey area. is his son saying he would not be in a coma if he could still get access to his medicine? >> reporter: that's a little unclear. in fact, his son's story is a little unclear and maybe doesn't stand up to what we've seen on today. we were outside the house today, there were no signs of looters. generally looters don't open up doorknobs and sort of walk in cleanly and walk out. there were no signs of looters in this neighborhood at all, wh

anne thompson joining us from east haven.n. >> reporter: hi, craig. 700,000 people here in connecticut are still without power. and they too could be without power for many days. including some of the residents here along cozy beach road in east haven. it is just a scene of absolute destruction. if you look down the beach here, you can see houses that have been moved off their foundation. some houses have toppled one another all because of the storm surge that came roaring in as irene hit connecticut yesterday. there was a deck where i'm standing. by sunday afternoon that deck is now in the yard of the house behind this one. there were french doors that opened up, glass french doors that opened up on to the deck. they're gone and above on the second floor it's been left with no visible means of support. we're not going to stand under there because we're all a little worried that it could come tumbling down. all in all some 40 home ace long cozy beach road have been damaged. 25 of those the mayor says are considered a complete

joining us from east haven, connecticut, anne thompson with a look at the damage there. hi, mika. i am on the beach here on cozy beach road in new haven. the storm surge came up, broke through the seawall and went in about 75 feet and damaged some 40 homes along this coast. 25 of those homes are said to be uninhabitable. the good news here is that no one died and no one was injured. why is that? the people here had plenty of warning. they were evacuated saturday and the storm came in sunday. at 10:00 this morning, they are going to come down here and hear from local officials and tell them what is going to happen next. the damage here is extensive. throughout the state of connecticut this morning, they are dealing with power outages. that's really the biggest problem in the aftermath of irene. three quarter million people are out of power here. >> it will be a long time before they are restored. >> reporter: it's going to take a lot of time. connecticut has a lot of trees. this storm brought down a lot of trees. many of the trees fell on power lines. there have been a lo