thomas edison to put more than $10 million of his own money into electric vehicles. after world war ii there was a brief bullets in japan where they're building electric cars because consumer automobiles have been basically banned by the occupying allied forces and electric cars were kind of a loophole. so toyota had the division that serve to electric cars and reselling them. people were using them instead of traditional vehicles. but -- >> and cheap gasoline. >> and cheap gasoline to the third was in the 1970s after the oil shock with the price spikes in gasoline to the was a lot of interest both from a policy level but also among some private sector are aucklanders in building a new generation of electric cars. >> when you read the language from the time it sounds like language from five years ago. and then the three and a half. >> and the other is in the 1990s with california's first i would say extended electric car program. and the current generation of electric vehicles really started in japan intel pashtun in 2006 spend what would you say is different? >> the

thomas edison after she saw the murals in here and they have one of those and it is the den in their house in new jersey. i'm going to walk you into the center of this space. this is a very ceremonial place. this is the area that would have been closed off for presidents have to private entertainment to be able to meet with dignitaries to, to be able to socialize. tiffany, the glass artist, worked with carrere and hastings and he's credited with some of the interior design including this room. if you are familiar with his father, charles lewis tiffany, the jewelry designer, you'll recognize the color trademark in 1945 that is the centerpiece of our ceiling in this room. we are in the college dining hall which was built as the dining hall. it is also considered one of the 150 greatest rooms in the united states by architectural historians and had celebratory events and activities since the hotel opened in 1888 and also the place where our students these days get as much as they want to eat three times a day and they refer to it as hogwarts. very popular architecturally. the 79 tiffany

it had electricity by thomas edison. by 1909, it had a power plant that lets over 18,000 lightbulbs. people would write postcards about how many lights they had in their hotel room. they piped water out of the ground and ran it through four fountains to take out the minerals, and from there, pumped water into each of three cisterns and the towers. from there, that ran the hydraulics for the otis elevators. modern conveniences. we are in the rotunda or lobby of the former hotel ponce de leon. this was the centerpiece of the building when you first locked in. it is very strong and masculine. this is where men guests would come in and check in. this is also where you get the first impression of the hotel. it is the wow factor. the building has eight greek ladies that are carved, and they are supporting the building. through them is run steel pipes all the way up to the dome. this is a building that is unreinforced poured concrete with the exception of a couple places, and this is it. that is what supports the building five

the chess team from thomas edison charter school in wilmington is heading to ken can't for the nationaludents at the inner city school say playing chess helps them improve their grades and gives them a positive outlet. the school would like to send 20 students to the national championship but they have not raised enough money. >> i want to go because it is a great feeling when you win and it's a great feeling. >> many of these students are straight a students. they also love to compete. they're great athletes but they also love to compete with their minds. >> thomas edison charter won the national competition last year so they would like to go back and defend their title. they still need to raise though a the least $5,000. if you would like to help them out, you can call the school directly. >> ♪♪ music: etta james "at last" (plays throughout) ♪♪ sometimes, at last doesn't happen at first. ♪♪ ♪♪ your dad just kissed my mom. ♪♪ turning two worlds into one takes love. ♪♪ helping protect that world takes state farm. >> a news room in taiwan felt the news. signs and lights shook as a 6.2 ma

billions of dollars to update a system so old some of it is based on technology dating back to thomas edison. lester? >> all right chris jansing, thanks very much. we'll stay in washington now. late developments in a cyber hacking at the white house that we first told you about last october. andrea mitchell is monitoring this from our d.c. newsroom. what are you learning? >> reporter: tonight u.s. officials tell me it was russia that hacked the white house last year gaining access to an unclassified computer system that contained the president's private unpublished schedule. at the time vladimir putin, of course, was in a tense showdown with the white house over ukraine. when nbc news first reported last october that the white house had been hacked we also reported it looked suspiciously like russia was the perpetrator. tonight officials tell nbc news said that a subsequent investigation proved it was russia. they got into white house computers through a vulnerability in the statehouse computer network. tonight the pentagon says no classified information was breached. >>> another major entry

. >> reporter: students on the the the team at thomas edison charter are the first national chess champions in delaware, this week, they aim to be the first to win back to back. >> chess teaches kid a critical think problem solve great equalizer. >> reporter: the principal thomas el has been sculpting hundreds of young mind with one game since the mid 90's most minorities from poor single family homes in the town that often feels forgotten. el says on checkered black and white board that means nothing. >> ninety plus percent of our students, live at or below poverty level but we truly believe that where you are from does not determine where you are going. >> reporter: kid practice four to six hours, four days a week, it is discipline and structure. not only using to win major tournaments but to incorporate that in their daily lives. twelve year-old chess champion mark tony says the game gives him charity. >> chess teaches you the the need to see beyond, you need to see all opportunities, to think, a couple of moves ahead. >> reporter: these children inside of them have something that, they

billions of dollars to update a system so old, some of it is based on technology dating back to thomas edison. >> chris jan sing thanks. let's stay in washington for a moment. a cyber hacking at the white house we first told you about last october. andrea mitchell is monitoring this from our d.c. newsroom. what have i learned? >> u.s. officials learned it was white house that hacked the white house last year. it contained the president's private unpublished schedule. putin was in an intense showdown with the white house over we reported it looked suspiciously like russia was the perpetrator. a subsequent investigation proved it was russia. launching that attack. they say russia got into the white house computers through vulnerabilities of the state department's computer networks. they said no classified information was breached. >>> wild weather is lighting up the radar tonight. severe storms pushing across the country, dumping hail. a dangerous multi-state outbreak in the forecast over the next 48 hours. nbc meteorologist dylan drier has our report. >> reporter: across the st. louis area tod

thomas edison third grade his education.avid: i didn't know that. >> and people who have moved mankind forward. leonardo da vinci was an illegitimate child here was pretty much ignored throughout life. steve jobs i don't believe graduated from college. these are people that shook the earth, that changed the lives of every man, woman and child. some of the smartest people i know are people that have never been to college. it's what we lack as common sense. david: yeah, common sense. a college degree does not guarantee common sense. isn't it fair to say that a college degree is not going to hurt and you good to have in your back pocket even if you don't use what your degree is for? >> it makes you smarter or literate person, geographies or nationalities or customs, traveling, you are sophisticated in a lot of ways. but again, my definition of a complete person is also somebody who knows how to fix the rolling screen door or change the tire on the car. david: somebody like cliff claven from "cheers." >> no, he couldn't do that.

david: think about wright brother, thomas edison had to try many times before they get it right. >> thisntry was built on failure. elon musk is tough guy to bet against. he is innovative. i think stick with it. i think worth every dime. at end of the day it is terrific and it will work out. david: gary, will he make it? >> probably. i love the guy. i have a big problem. why are we subsidizing him $278 million for his rockets? why are we subsidizing $500 million for tesla? he is very good at getting a lot of government money. i wish i was that good. david: let me ask you a final question, gary, does his business model rely on federal subsidies or could it survive without a lot of it? >> i think a lot of it does. now that he is a multibillionaire he has bucks to keep going. he will be successful whatever he puts in space. sometimes failure is food. you learn from it big time. david: gary, peter, todd, thank you very much. liz? liz: they may look like perfect snack but those kind bars which are popular are not healthy. according to the fda, some kind bars don't meet federal standards for ha

we have a series coming up called thomas edison's secret lab about teaching kids science through entertainmenty: i know some of these programs are broadcast in classrooms because there is a big educational component. how big of a market are we talking about? andy: the two to 11-year-old market is about 35 million kids in the united states. the under two-year-old market i'm not sure how many that is. betty: 35 million, that is very sizable. the secret millionaires club that you have with warren buffett, i know it started off as a show but you are now going into products. you're launching in september? andy: the products will be out in september. everything we do starts with entertainment. the entertainment promote the brand and creates awareness. back beyond digital platforms broadcast platforms, games, any number of ways. the awareness stimulates the appetite for the products. the products can be books, music, video games, figures -- betty: how involved is buffet in the products? andy: we propose doing something that promoted financial literacy for kids. he saw it as a valuable, if i can say l

thomas edison state college in new jersey. i did my whole college degree by correspondence and finish what i was 30 which i mentioned earlier. if it hadn't been for that competition i would've gone to college. i simply would've been foreclosed on the opportunity. i had a deep personal reason for a different path that will exert downward pressure on the tuition rate for traditional college students as well. >> host: potty mouth into questions. i was surprised to see mr. burks challenge the orthodoxy of the influence of politics. what should be done to address the oversized influence of money? >> guest: i am not as worried as a lot of people are about what money is doing in politics. i want a lot of transparency. i want people to know what is going on and i want less of the weird regulations that help certain people but don't help others. i think there is a lot to be said for free speech have manifested the way repay for politics but we should actually understand who is paying for what. in the political process we can get with m

anytime you have reports saying parts of the system date back to thomas edison. >> right, hello!> whoa! that's a problem. >> but looking with our bridges and everything else infrastructure's not something america -- american lawmakers want to spend money to upgrade. >> it's know asexy thing. >> until tragedies happen and that -- you don't want that. so whether or not they'll take billions of dollars to fix this until something bad happens, i think really it's the issue and it's not one i think that captures the public's attention maybe until everybody can't use the internet. >> virginia senator tim kaine said this is a wake-up call. you've got to -- it's time to get -- unions want construction businesses want construction rates are low, this is the perfect time to pass an all-encompassing infrastructure bill. how much that message gets through congress where there's a move to cut costs especially on the republican side. republicans are getting concerned, too. this may have been enough of publicity, and we may be reaching critical mass where they have to do something or we'll real

thomas edison said that high schools would become obsolete because we would just show students movies a long time ago, and he turned out not to be right about that. but i believe fundamentally that this time is different. i think the kinds of information -- the information technology environment we're many now is very, very different than when the best we could do was have college on the radio or college over cable television, that the nature of interactivity, that the computational power, that the9mr ability to create authentic human communities in a combination of a virtual space and a real space is much much, much different than it used to be. so we both have the opportunity to create learning environments that are actually substantially better than some of the learning environments that students experience now and i'll sort of pause for a moment and urge everyone as we talk about the nature of learning to keep in mind the large distinction between the consensus view of what the best learning environment is and what the learning environment that most college students actually exper

you have a quote from thomas edison who said "the secret to success is failing a thousand times." >>deals and we win a lot of deals. it took me a while to realize it's really just understanding that picking yourself up and not even -- the word fail injury so negative but you know it's part of being successful. i think all auk saysful people know failing is important. i like the naysayers, people saying no to me. i see that almost like a road map to where i should go and in big conference rooms when we're discussing new buildings, if everyone's agreeing i almost start to think i'm going to go the other direction. >> there's a song that kate sings in the backseat of the car everyday now -- >> not about the pony? >> no not about the magical pony. it's "don't believe me just watch." and that's basically what you're saying. what's the hottest neighborhood in new york? >> so many. lower east side is really hot. >> i've been hearing about the lower east side for a while. this has been a ten-year promise. is the lower east side really starting to take off? >> how do you define hot. as an age