n-b-c's keir simmons reports from london. this morning president putin's athletes are facing world condemnation... with the rio olympics less than a year away... russia according to a report that reads like a cold war spy for state sanctioned doping. across the globe - athletes are outraged - american montano/ us olympic athlete :45-:56) 'it's about you putting out an ever get back those moments' russians mariya savinova and ekaterina poistogova took gold and bronze in that same race... but now - according to the report... they and 8 more athletes and coaches should be mayor... stunned... (sot/ borris johnson/ london mayor 1:06-1:12) there've been some very serious (s/ keir simmons/ nbc news/ 1:15-1:31) "now the russians have been told they have until thursday to respond, otherwise further investigating some of those people in this report, so this could yet lead to a criminal investigation. back to you." not the greatest games ever. there've been some very serious allegations made against the russian team' (--on cam--) (s/ ke

keir simmons is getting developments from the london newsroom. give us the latest. >> reporter: they say the death toll in paris could exceed 120, other reports put it higher. how many attacks have been carried out is confused. as many as six. heard four men fired into a restaurant more than a minute, then turning and walking away. the worst horror at the concert hall where 100 are dead after being taken hostage. five attackers were killed, others may still be on the loose. the french president was watching a soccer game when suicide bombers attacked nearby. he had to be rushed to safety. the president hollande telling his nation faced with terrorism, france must be strong, big, firm. the terrorists want to scare us, faced with fear, we are a nation who knows how to defend ourselves and he went on to say long live the republic. lester? >> keir simmons tonight, thank you. >>> we will be back on the air at 10:00 p.m. with a special edition of "dateline," terror in paris. we will have continuing coverage all through the night and live breaking news

let's go back to keir simmons monitoring developments from our london newsroom. keer, give us the latest? >> well, lester, tonight the death toll in paris could be as high as 60 people. how many attacks have been carried out is still confusing it. may be four, it may be five wife n. one case, we are hearing reports of four men fired into a restaurant for more than a minute and turning and walking away. and a hostage taking where 100 people were said to have been taken hostage. the french president saying an assault is underway. we are hearing from a french television network that the hostage taking is now over and routers is saying two attackers are dead. president hollande telling his nation tonight, france must be strong, big and firm. the terrorists want to scare us but faced with fear, we are a nation who knows how lester. >> keir simmons, thanks. and john kerry has replaced a statement saying the u.s. is account for u.s. citizens who may have site of the attacks. they are determining if any americans were involved. we'll have continuing coverage throughout t

lester. >> keir simmons, thanks.nd sect of state john kerry has replaced a statement saying the u.s. is making effort to account for u.s. citizens who may have been in paris in the site of the attacks. they are determining if any americans were involved. we'll have continuing coverage throughout the evening and on nbc news.com and live breaking news on msnbc. more tomorrow morning on today. i'm lester holt. for all us at nbc news, thank you for watching and good night. i'm >>> lights, camera, access. >> my name is william and i'm going to kill you. >> i almost died tonight. the harrowing words of pauley perrette.

before we leave you, we want to go back to keir simmons in london.nitoring all the latest developments coming in. keir, what do we know at this hour? >> as of tonight, the death toll in paris is at least 120 and some french media are putting it as high as 140. all of the shooters are now dead, according to the police. some may have been responsible for multiple attacks, maybe six or seven sites across the city. in one case, we're hearing reports of four men firing into a restaurant for more than a minute and then turning and walking away. in another case, two suicide bombers outside a stadium where a soccer match was underway, including the french president among the spectators there. 100 hostages have been killed in a concert hall where an american band was playing. reports say the attackers killed people one by one, even throwing grenades. french president hollande says paris must be strong, big and firm. the terrorists want to scare us but faced with fear, we are a nation who knows how to defend ourselves. they are talking tonight about this being

our keir simmons is in our london bureau now monitoring this. keir, what are you hearing? >> the picture we're getting is chaotic, likely because the scene on the ground across paris appears to be ayachtic, but what we are hearing from a french television network, that network, and this is unconfirmed, reporting that 18 people are dead. now we are hearing various reports, as you mentioned, of three different incidents. if i just go through them, that television network, again, is saying that there is a restaurant shootout. it is also reporting a bar explosion near the sports stadium. meanwhile, the afp is saying that hostages have been taken at a concert hall. so this is very, very early. we just began in the last hour to hear the initial reports of this, lester. i have seen video taken by someone on social media filming a french street in which you hear rounds ring out again and again, and what sounds like an explosion, and a man filming saying they are shooting again. there are people from the army and police here in paris, it's a shooting, again, a shooting, so it is di

. >> first, here's nbc's keir simmons. abdelhamid abaaoud is now believed to have been killed in those raids yesterday. he was 29 years old. he was the mastermind, the linchpin, whatever word you use, he's the man that french authorities believe was behind the attacks in paris, the massacre that killed 129 people. yesterday they raided that third floor apartment. two people were killed. a woman and a man. they were not able to identify the man because his body was so badly damaged by the fire fight so they had to use fingerprint identification to establish it it is a very, very important development. not least because the french believe that terror cell was planning another attack in paris and, at the same time, they will be stunned that he had managed to make his way here to the center of europe. prior to that, intelligent services believed he was with isis in syria and that he perhaps planned this plot from there instead it appears that he has managed to make his way right to this capital city of france and orchestrate t

nbc's keir simmons reports. >> reporter: vladimir putin welcoming the world to sochi for last year's winter olympics where russia won 33 medals, more than any other country. but today in sochi, he was scrambling to contain a doping scandal that could bar russian athleteu from next year's olympipi. >> we have identified possible criminal violations. >> reporter: accused of state-sponsored doping of the athletes at sochi and the 2012 london games, russia was at first defiant. but today putin acknowledged that russia has a problem. promising what he called the most open and professional cooperation with internional anti-doping structures thx week's damming report said agents off putin's security service, the former kgb, were present in a lab where athletes samples were tested. report said russian athletic officials going back to 2012 were guilty of deceit, corruption, collusion and zoying test results an sack tajjing the games. medals may now be withdrawn and reallocated, including to some americans. how the alleged cheating was allowed remains unanswered. police are investigating alleg

our keir simmons has more from belgium, a hot zone of police activity in the wake of the attacks here. >> reporter: four days after the paris massacre, the eighth suspect, salah abdeslam, is still being hunted by police. his brother mohammed today urged him to turn himself in. two days before the attacks, a neighbor spoke to salah and another brother, ibrahim, and said nothing seemed amiss. >> he was really calm. >> reporter: on friday, ibrahim blew himself up outside of the consul voltaire cafe in paris. his neighbor said he never showed any sign of religious fanaticism. >> no, never. >> reporter: he told us ibrahim owned his own cafe in brussels where drugs were sold. >> people stop the car here for two or three minutes, the time to buy. >> reporter: another woman confirmed the story. the police did nothing, she says. the killers who came from here are part of a shadowy underworld of fertile ground for isis recruiting. criminal gangs sell illegal weapons from here, the area of brussels. it is known that the man who attacked the paris magazine charlie hebdo bought their kalashnikovs

we return to keir simmons in paris. you are hearing more on this? what's the latest? >> reporter: well, that's right, alex. we're standing in the street, down the street from where that bataclan music theater is located down there. while the president of france has been speaking, so the news is just spreading here that he now says that he believes the responsibility for these terrible attacks lies with the islamic state, with isis. the stories that we have heard, alex, from inside that music hall are chilling. we hear about a number of shooters, shooting for 15 minutes. reloading three times. one woman describing hiding beneath a body that she was in a bathroom and that she was shot in the foot while they were attacking and that she heard these men talking about syria, that kind of account seems now to be confirmed by the french president saying that he believes that it is the responsibility of isis, that he believes these attacks were planned from outside the country, but aided by people inside this country. another description, alex, from this very street, a young m

keir simmons looks how they are falling under isis' spell. >> reporter: some friends said she was fun. others said she drank and took drugs, seen here in pictures from dailymail.com, a stark contrast with wednesday morning when hasna aitboulahcen's voice was heard in a barrage of bullets. seconds later, she became the first female suicide bomber in western europe. 10% of isis western recruits are female. this expert says they're lured with false promises. >> it's exactly the same process as those charming pimps. yeah, yeah, like a pimp who takes a girl, seduces her. >> reporter: once with islamic state, they must cover up and be accompanied by men. a girl can be married by the age of 9 in the manifesto. an isis all-women vigilante group. the rules also allow them to leave the home if they choose to wage jihad. online, isis women answer questions from potential recruits, like should i bring a hair dryer? >> we are seeing women acting as a mouthpiece to isis, reaching directly to other females. >> reporter: this 20-year-old went to join isis from birmingham, alabama, now urges attacks o

we have keir simmons standing by in brussels. richard, first to you. >> reporter: well, there's a new report from the associated press that french investigators are looking for multiple suspects, as many as two who may still be on the loose. they say according to the a.p. that one they believe was actively involved in the shooting. earlier today, french authorities found what they are describing as a safe house, hotel on the outskirts of city, a low budget apartment style hotel. a french newspaper released some images from inside that hotel. shaky cell phone camera. it showed syringes that may have been used to help assemble some of the suicide vests. it showed a room that was left in something of a hurry, left in disarray with a pizza box, food still on the table, mattresses tipped over on the floor. this is still very much an ongoing investigation. where we are right now is we are in front of the bataclan theater. this is of course where the most tragic part of the massacre took place, where people were inside with the gunmen,

nbc's keir simmons is monitoring everything from london. keir, what can you add?haotic picture right now. we are beginning to hear several different reports in paris, of gunfire, and maybe an explosion. i've just been watching one piece of video that one french man has shot while he was watching the scene. there's clearly gunfire on that video, on frequent occasions. he, at one point, says, they're shooting again. there are people from the army, police, here in paris, shooting again, and shooting. during that time there are regulaul regular rounds of gunfire heard in a street where you can see there are paramedics, police, various emergency vehicles. at one point as there is gunfire, the place seems to quiet down as if people hadn't realized that there was a shooter still there. and are quickly reapprised as the gunfire rings out. so it's a chaotic picture in paris tonight. >> we had a report, that we keep showing the stade de france, that one of the shootings was near the stadium. one of our nbc news people in paris is reporting it was not near the stadium, and t

keir simmons, london. >>> we're back in a moment with a sign of season here at 30 rock. tseason here at 30 rock. hseason here at 30 rock. eseason here at 30 rock. season here at 30 rock. >>> here is something we haven't seen in a long time. waterfalls flowing at yosemite national park. recent storms providing enough water to make them move again after drying up during this historic drought. >>> some amazing scenes to show you out of australia where the weather brought new meaning to the term cloudy day. look at the time lapse video showing a shelf cloud rolling toward the coast. you could see why some were calling it a cloud tsunami. just another day at the beach down-under. >>> and almost a beach day here in new york as temperatures hit the 70s on this friday in november which made it almost surreal to see the rockefeller center christmas tree going up outside of the studios. but there it was. a 78-foot high norway spruce that came from upstate new york. a reminder that christmas is just 49 days away. please don't throw anything at the tv. >>> when we come back, what is

keir simmons in paris, you have something new to report. >> reporter: yes. the president of france has been speaking and this is what i'm being told. he's saying and i'm going to look down and read so i get it right. from what i have been told he is saying he is now saying 127 people were killed, the president of france is saying the attacks were planned and organized from abroad with help from inside france. president hollande is describing these as an act of war, and i have not -- wasn't able to listen to his comments but what i am told is that the president of france says these attacks were committed by islamic state. that is what he has just told the french people in a statement, i believe he may still even be speaking now. >> keir, i was taking notes as well on what you were saying. planned and organized from abroad, but carried out conducted by whom? >> reporter: with help from inside france he is saying. so attacks were planned and organized from abroad with help from inside france. we know alex, that there have been and this is really worried the eur

keir simmons, london. >>> we're back in a moment with a sign of season here at 30 rock. if you suffer from a dry mouth, then you'll know how uncomfortable it can be. but did you know that the lack of saliva can also lead to tooth decay and bad breath? well, there is biotene, specially formulated with moisturizers and lubricants. biotene can provide soothing relief and it helps keep your mouth healthy too. biotene, for people who suffer from a dry mouth. if you have high blood pressure like i do, many cold medicines may raise your blood pressure. that's why there's coricidin hbp. it relieves cold symptoms without raising blood pressure. so look for powerful cold medicine with a heart. coricidin another day, and i'm still struggling with my diabetes. i do my best to manage. but it's hard to keep up with it. your body and your diabetes change over time. your treatment plan may too. know your options. once-daily toujeo is a long-acting insulin from the makers of lantus . it releases slowly to provide consistent insulin levels for a full 24 hours. toujeo also provides proven

we get details from keir simmons tonight. >> it is like a dream. girl may owe her short life to an exciting medical advance and to take a risk. >> we saw it as the only decision. >> layla was dying of leukemia. the moment the parents agreed to a treatment in a london hospital never used before. it seems to have kicked her cancer into remission. >> so far, so g. she is just well. >> the technique is called gene editing. the cells are removed and tweaked to recognize cancer and attack it. cells are returned to the patient, they act like guided missiles, targeting the leukemia. in laylas a case there was no need to find a match donor because the jenity ings could be modified. it is a technique doctors say could be used for other diseases. like breast and pancreatic cancer. >> if you know what to guide missiles for them too. and that is what they are trying to do. develop new targets for them to hit. >> some worry that scientists are playing god and more research is needed. >> it is only one patient and the duration of observation has been very short.

keir simmons, thanks for tracking in. >>> in mali, special forces arrested two more suspects in attack with the terror attack there on an american of owned hotel. that's in addition to the two attackers killed during the siege last friday. armed men held 170 people hostage and killed 20, including one american. a group linked to al qaeda claimed responsibility for that attack. >>> tonight, donald trump is taking a lot of heat for something he did at a rally in south carolina. the republican front runner appearing to make fun of a reporter's disability. but as hallie jackson reports, trump is the one who says he deserves an apology. >> reporter: donald trump under fire today for seeming to hock a mock a reporter's physical disability. >> i don't know what i said. i don't remember. >> reporter: the reporter, serge, works for the "new york times" and has a condition. trump was referring to a story written by him after september 11th, which said authorities detained and people who were allegedly seen attacks. >> the poor guy, you have to see him, i said. i don't remember. he's going, i don

keir simmons is there. >> reporter: more raids today and into brussels, in the hunt for europe's most wanted man, salah abdeslam, suspected of being part of the paris terror cell, perhaps planning to join the suicide attack, then backing out. today, a house was targeted. rented to one person, the owner said, but several mattresses were on the floor. there were police with machine guns and dogs, this witness said. salah was seen with another suspect, muhammad abrini, at a gas station prior to the attacks. elements of the investigation must remain confidential, to be sure they can stop the threat. in brussels, the government lowered the theft threat level. another attack no longer as big a concern. still a risk. envelopes of white powder were found at a mosque. the people who received this feared anthrax. a frightening few hours as 11 people underwent emergency treatment. the powder was flour. separately, two men were arrested at a mosque in germany, accused of planning still more attacks. over 1,000 raids have been carried out across europe. weapons and money seized. the mastermind of

lester. >> keir simmons, thanks. replaced a statement saying the u.s. is making effort to account for u.s. citizens who may have been in paris in the site of the attacks. they are determining if any americans were involved. we'll have continuing coverage throughout the evening and on nbc news.com and live breaking news on msnbc. more tomorrow morning i'mthe family of a man shot a killed on sunday says their final goodbyes. how they are remembering deshawn smith and their plea for justice. tomorrow the three democratic presidential candidates will face off right here in des moines. what iowans say they want to hear discussed during the second debate. new maps from the federal government show hundreds of metro homes are sitting on a flood plain. why the maps were redone and what it means for homeowners. good evening, i'm sonya heitshusen and i'm dan winters. thank you for joining us. we want to update you on the situation that is unfolding in paris, france this thank you for joining us. we want to update you on the situation that is unfolding in paris, fr

n-b-c's keir simmons reports from london. s/ alysia montano/ us olympic athlete :33- :44 s/ boris johnson/ london mayor 1:06- 1:12 s/ keir simmons/ nbc news/ london, england 1:15-1:31 this morning president putin's athletes are facing world condemnation... with the rio olympics less than a year away... russia may have no business competing on the world stage... declared the u-s anti doping agency. according to a report that reads like a cold war spy thriller...russian secret agents and a mysterious moscow laboratory were used for state sanctioned doping. across the globe - athletes are outraged - american alysia montano - who in 2012 finished fifth in the 800 meters. 'it's about you putting out an honest effort, honest time and energy, and emotion and being cheated out of it. you can't ever get back those moments' russians mariya savinova and ekaterina poistogova took gold and bronze in that same race... but now - according to the report... they and eight more athletes and coaches should be banned for life ... branding london

keir simmons is in brussels.ly o'donnell is at the white house where the french president will meet with president obama tomorrow. and pete williams is in washington, tracking how cities across this country are reacting in the wake of new threats. let's get right to the latest developments, the paris prosecutor confirms today that an explosive belt without a detonator, has been found in a paris suburb. it was apparently found in a trash bin. police also found a mobile phone. nbc news talked to an eyewitness, a student who lives in that area, where the belt was found. >> the mayor told us, yes, it was a belt, a bomb belt. and i said, okay, this is something very serious, and i was very shocked because as you can see, the street is very calm. it's just some people very calm. i said how can someone put a belt in my street? >> nbc's chris jansing joins me now from paris. chris, obviously, this is a scary development. what do we know about it right now? >> well, it's also a huge bit of luck here, steve. because you kn

guys. >> keir simmons, keir, thank you. >> let's turn to christopher dickey. he is editor of "the daily beast." chris, good morning. >> good morning, savannah. >> i know you love this city and if you could put it into perspective for people what the choice of targets means for the people? you talk about the stadium and cafes and concert hall. >> that is a good way to put it. it feels like very soft targets, savannah. if you look around paris on any given day. if you go to the eiffel tower and you pass a synagogue or jewish school, you will see soldiers in full battle dress defending those places. nobody defending a nightclub or cambodian restaurant. i still don't know how they carried out the attack on the stade de france, the stadium. they were picking soft targets where people went to enjoy themselves on a friday night. an the issue was to say to the french people, we will terrorize you anytime. >> chris, i remember running into you on the streets one time. you were so praising that city. what does this do to the psyche in the wake of "charlie hebdo" in janu