Video summary:

In this video, Michelle Obama talks about her speech on the opening night of the Democratic National Convention and her role in the campaign to elect her husband, Barrack Obama, as president.

In her speech, Michelle Obama introduced her family history and highlighted how her and Barack's values are similar to that of the average American.

Michelle Obama had faced criticism during the Democratic primary for saying that this was the first time she had been proud of her country, and many political observers saw the speech as an effort to "re-introduce" her family and portray it as mainstream and normal.

Columnists Mark Shields and David Brooks briefly discuss Michelle Obama with Jim Lehrer after the interview

Select quotes:

"This is politics. And I've always felt that, when people hear my story and they hear the truth of my story, then they'll understand who I am. You know, I try not the lose sleep over how Barack's opponents have mischaracterized who I am." - Michelle Obama

"Hillary Clinton has been nothing but supportive. She has been personally supportive to me. I've talked to her one-on-one. She's given me advice how to maneuver this process with the girls. She called to congratulate me on my speech. She's been on the stump asking her funders to move, really pushing them to move. And she's been in some major swing states campaigning very hard on behalf of Barack. That's a fact." - Michelle Obama

"[Barack Obama] is less concerned about trying to tear down his opponent and more concerned about laying out and having a real conversation about the issues that people are facing on the ground." - Michelle Obama

Video summary:

This video follows Laura Tyson, a chief economist under President Clinton, now advising Senator Obama, as she walks around a Denver neighborhood with Economics Reporter Paul Solman.

They visit a house that is in foreclosure and then sit at the kitchen table with a middle class couple who are scared by the rapidly rising prices of gas, food and necessities.

(The NewsHour will do a similar report next week at the Republican Convention.)

Tyson touts Barack Obama’s economic policies, including middle class tax cuts and investments in education and alternative energy. She argues that a near decade of regulatory neglect and tax cuts for the wealthy have done real damage.

Video summary:

In this video, three historians discuss how the Democratic Party has evolved into what it is today.

As the party prepares to nominate Barack Obama as the first major party black candidate, the historians explain how the oldest political party in the nation has come a long way toward accepting civil rights and racial diversity since the 1930s, when Franklin Roosevelt refused to support anti-lynching legislation.

Historian Richard Norton Smith states that the party was divided on foreign policy during the Vietnam War, but now, while racially and demographically diverse, the Democrats are basically on the same page when it comes to ideology.

Select quotes:

"Roosevelt would not even support an anti-lynching bill; 1936, when Roosevelt was re-nominated, there was an African-American preacher who gave a prayer at the convention. Southern senators walked out. They thought this was outrageous that you would have an African-American on the podium." - Michael Beschloss, presidential historian

"By 1984, Jesse Jackson delivers his very famous rainbow address, telling the party that diversity is actually its strength rather than a weakness." - Peniel Joseph, Brandeis University

"I mean, the last 40 years, frankly, since Richard Nixon's election in 1968, broadly speaking, have been a period, a conservative period in American politics. We've had two Democratic presidents, both southerners, relatively speaking conservatives." - Richard Norton Smith, George Mason University

"In a way, Obama has written himself that people see him as a Rorschach, and they read whatever they want into him. So people who are liberals see Obama as a liberal in the party. Conservatives in the party actually say, "Obama's on my side." People who are moderates or centrists actually say, 'Obama's my guy.'" - Peniel Joseph, Brandeis University

Video Summary:

In this video, NewsHour political analysts David Brooks of The New York Times and Mark Shields, a syndicated political columnist, discuss what Barack Obama needs to do at the Denver convention and review the recent political ad wars.

The first 4 minutes is spent on the vice presidential nomination, so you might want to skip to 4:30 in the time code when they start talking about Obama’s challenges, and the recent round of negative ads following John McCain’s gaff of not remembering how many houses he owns.

Convincing Hillary Clinton supporters to align with Obama will be a major challenge, Shields predicts, as will showing Obama’s “log cabin” background and his rise to political stardom from a multi-cultural and humble upbringing.

Select Quotes:

“What Obama offers is tomorrow versus yesterday. And it seems to me he’s got to re-establish that theme. And the theme is: We’re in a global world. We’re in a multicultural world. The frameworks of the old world don’t apply. I am the new framework.” - David Brooks, New York Times Columnist

“We’ve elected plenty of rich guys to the White House, and some have been good and some have been bad. The people in the upper middle class are perpetually thinking people in the middle class are really angry at people in the super upper class. They’re not. And they don’t mind richness. And I don’t think they’re going to think John McCain is a rich, decadent guy.” - David Brooks, New York Times Columnist

In this video, the two major party candidates for president, Senators Barack Obama and John McCain give speeches at stops along the campaign trail; Senator Obama in Virginia, and Senator McCain in New Mexico.

The two candidates outline what they think matters most to voters. Barack Obama highlights the problems in the economy that make life hard for many Americans. John McCain speaks about leadership in Iraq.

Both candidates urge voters to decide who can be the better president for the next four years.

Select quotes:

"People aren't sure whether that essential part of the American dream, the idea that if we work hard and we sacrifice the next generation's going to be a little bit better off than we were, people aren't sure whether that still holds true." Barack Obama

"I'm going to end this war, and I'm going to bring them home, and they'll come home with honor in victory, leaving Iraq secured as a democratic ally in the Arab heartland. That's what I'm going to do." John McCain

QUOTES

"Well, it's weird that we've lost a whole century. I think most Americans would be hard-pressed to think of one thing that happened on this continent in the 1500s. Perhaps the lost colony of Roanoke, that might resonate, Virginia Dare. And apart from that, I think it's a blank." - Tony Horwitz, author

"A lot of visitors think that Columbus sailed here, dropped off the Pilgrims, and sailed home. And that's really all they know. At first, this amused me, but then again, when I started to scan my own brain for what I knew, I realized there was nothing there, either. And I decided to try and fill that void." - Tony Horwitz

"There are just incredible adventures, and also the drama of first contact. This is an experience we simply can't have today, no matter how far we travel. And in these early Spanish and French and other accounts, you get a sense of kind of the wonder of what happens when societies that have never encountered each other before collide on a beach in North Carolina or the desert of New Mexico." - Tony Horwitz

In this video report, NewsHour correspondent Spencer Michels looks into how large businesses are producing new "green" household goods, catering to a new demand for environmentally-friendly products.

Michels talks to representatives from cleaning product company Clorox, which is trying to remake its "un-green" image by introducing a new brand of plant-based and environmentally friendly cleaning products.

The report also highlights how difficult it is for consumers to determine if cleaning spray or insulation is actually environmentally friendly, and Michels talks to some experts that question the validity of the claims made by some of the products.

QUOTES

"Green Works' cleaning products, made from coconuts, lemon, and corn ethanol, marked a big step for Clorox, it's first new brand in 20 years. Its traditional bleach made of sodium hypochlorite was regarded by some as anything but green, although the company defends it." - Spencer Michels, NewsHour correspondent

"As the government's understanding, they're going to have to start making some strict guidelines as to what you can call green, what you can call sustainable. But that's going to be a long and very political battle before we come to some agreement." - Andrew Hargadon, University of California, Davis

"There's money to be made in marketing your product as environmental, but that doesn't necessarily mean that everybody is using legitimate language or legitimate information to do that. And that's why third-party certification has become so important and, in fact, is an ever-increasing business across the board." - Chet Chaffee, Scientific Certification Systems

In this video discussion, University of Chicago scientist Paul Sereno tells the NewsHour's Jeffrey Brown about how his team, looking for dinosaur bones in Niger, Africa, found two populations of humans in a burial ground; the bodies are 6,000 to 9,500 years old.

Sereno and his team found hundreds of bodies, which allowed them to compare height, health and stature of the various early humans. The find yielded two different types of humans, and Sereno explains via differences in two sample skulls he brings to the interview.

The find is also important because it is connected to climate change science: the Sahara desert where the bodies were found used to have vegetation, hippos, elephants and huge fish, but is now a very dry part of the world.

QUOTES

"Well, the surprise is that we get much more of the picture when you find hundreds of burials. You get entire bodies. You get stature. You get health. You really get a look at the lifestyle of these people. You get to understand what they were eating, what they're hunting." - Paul Sereno, University of Chicago

"Where these people came from, ultimately, and where they became the Tenerians, that's for future research. We're really interested, because the Sahara is inhabited today by some very interesting nomads. And we're wondering, ultimately, are we looking at the roots of that population?" -Paul Sereno

"I mean, basically, we want to know how the recent populations -- everybody wants to know how the recent populations relate to these ancient populations. Are we looking at the roots of the people who are living there today, the Egyptians, the Berbers, the Tuaregs?" - Paul Sereno

Cyber attacks are the topic of this video, which serves as an explainer of how technology can be used to target an opponent's websites or online resources.

While Georgia and Russia have clashed over two separatist provinces, tensions have also played out online. Georgia's internet was crippled by hackers, who flooded the Georgian president's website with requests, shutting it down for days.

Georgian government Web sites were also defaced with anti-Georgian and pro-Russian images.

An Internet security specialist explains how the hackers accomplished this, and how security investigators try to fight back and shut hackers down.

SELECTED QUOTES:

"In mid-July, as there were some increased tensions between Russia and Georgia over these regions under dispute, we began seeing an attack commanded to a large botnet that was directed to flood the Georgian president's Web site with requests to load the page repeatedly as fast as possible."- Jose Nazario, Arbor Networks

"It does not require specialized hardware or specialized -- or uncommonly specialized software and tools. And it doesn't require much sophistication on the part of the user."- Jose Nazario, Arbor Networks

"This is, unfortunately, a very common occurrence…and the size of those attacks has increased." - Jose Nazario, Arbor Networks

In this video discussion, the NewsHour's Jeffrey Brown talks with Wall Street Journal reporter Matthew Futterman about how NBC has changed its strategy for covering the 2008 Beijing Olympics and how that's impacted how Americans watch the games.

Futterman tells Brown that for these Olympics, NBC is providing more live and online coverage than for any previous Olympics. According to Futterman, in some past Olympics NBC was reluctant to use all of its cable channels to broadcast footage from Olympics in a far away place.

The change is especially evident online, where viewers can use the NBC Olympics Web site to watch events that were ignored in the past. Futterman says that the availability of Web video of the games, as well as prime time coverage of events not available online, is driving a large viewing audience to the games.

QUOTES
"Along with the athletic competition and the focus on a changing China, the Beijing games present a prime laboratory to examine new media technology and viewing habits ... NBC, which paid nearly a billion dollars for the rights to these games, is broadcasting 24 hours a day on its networks." - Jeffrey Brown, the NewsHour

"In 2000 in Sydney, the joke was that, you know, it looked like Bob Costas was being held hostage in a room somewhere in Sydney because he was presenting an entirely tape-delayed Olympics. And that's just not the case here." - Matthew Futterman, the Wall Street Journal

"The fact that you can go to the Internet and watch highlights from this morning's soccer game with U.S. women, it's going to put the Olympics in your mind throughout the day." - Matthew Futterman, the Wall Street Journal

You can choose to watch the 3 minute background report about the attacks, or the entire video, which runs 14 minutes and includes a discussion with Ari Shapiro, who covered the story for National Public Radio, and Leonard Cole, a professor who wrote a book about the investigation called "The Anthrax Letters: A Medical Detective Story."

Anthrax, a bacteria that can kill people who inhale certain forms of it, was mailed from a mailbox in Princeton, N.J., just weeks after the attacks of September 11th, with the nation on edge about terrorism. Letters, some containing the phrase "Death to America," arrived at the Sun Newspaper, a Florida-based tabloid, as well as the offices of then-Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle and Vermont Democrat Patrick Leahy in the Hart Senate Office Building, which was closed for months before it was deemed safe.

CBS, ABC and NBC News, also received letters and assistants to then-anchormen Tom Brokaw and Dan Rather contracted the less serious, skin-based form of the infection, called cutaneous anthrax.

The video reminds us of a period of time when Americans were scared of their mail and feared attacks of all kinds. The case remained unsolved for seven years.

SELECT QUOTES

"Our biggest problem is fear. And we understand, and have talked about among ourselves, that those who are most afraid are in the most danger." - Dan Rather, Former Host, CBS Evening News

"To be able to work with anthrax, you should not have a history of homicidal threats and actions. And so one big question that we're looking at now and going forward is, how did the system fail to catch this?" - Ari Shapiro, NPR News

"The FBI always gets their man. It may take them seven years, he may be dead, and they may get the wrong man first, but eventually they get their man." - Ari Shapiro, NPR News

Cameras recorded important figures, like Martin Luther King Jr., and important moments, like Ralph Abernathy taking the first desegregated bus ride in Montgomery, Alabama, young men and women picketing a North Carolina courthouse in 1961, and protesters being attacked by police dogs in Birmingham in 1963.

Curators also uncovered unseen works, like a sequence of photos of the firebombing of a bus bearing "Freedom Riders" in Anniston, Ala., in 1961.

There are also modern works that represent the civil rights struggle in a new way.

The video enables students to make connections between the past and the present, and debate how the images and symbols of the civil rights movement have changed over time.

SELECT QUOTES:
"The power of those photographs, with the fire hoses, the dogs jumping on young people because they were demonstrating, the police with their billy clubs, all of those influenced me to go to Mississippi, when I had just two weeks earlier declined to participate." - Doris Derby, Photographer

"This is sort of like a give-and-take, that you kind of remember where you're coming from, but also have the hope of moving forward." - Nadine Robinson, Artist

Rapid Chinese industrialization and proximity to a desert makes Beijing a smog sink, and the presence of a fog of pollutants in the city could make competition difficult for some of the world’s top athletes.

Reporter Betty Ann Bowser talks to an atmospheric chemist who explains why Beijing has such epic smog problem and to an Olympic cyclist and an Olympic physiologist who describe how athletes are preparing for an environment where a “blue sky day” is still very smoggy.

QUOTES
“This slide shows what a blue-sky day can be like in Beijing. If you look carefully down here… You can see the shadows of the trees, and that qualifies it as a blue sky day. Obviously, there’s no blue sky around… blue-sky days do not automatically mean deep blue skies that we in the West are accustomed to.” - Kenneth Rahn, University of Rhode Island atmospheric chemist

“It’s like — it’s a weird bronchial spasm thing that I was getting — whenever you tried to take enough breath to give your muscles that fuel of oxygen they need, your bronchioles just start spasming and you just like physically can’t do it.” - Adam Craig, USA Cyclist, on racing in Beijing pollution

“You get chronic bronchitis, asthma, aggravation of asthma, scarring of the lung. And, interestingly enough, not only is the lung affected, but those same pollutants, when they deposit in these areas and cause those responses like inflammation, also get in the bloodstream.” - Dr. David Christiani, Harvard University

VIDEO SUMMARY:

This video report gives a tour of the exhibits and green building design of the new California Academy of Sciences museum in San Francisco.

The museum includes a simulated four-story high rain forest, coral reef, and exhibits for penguins and insects. The building uses energy efficient technology, including a living green roof to keep the building cool and recycled blue jeans as insulation in the walls.

The goal of the new museum is to use creative and realistic exhbits to engage visitors and make them passionate about the natural world.

QUOTES:
"We're using science to grow the coral. We're using chemistry. We're using biology... And then we're using art when we present it to the public." Bart Shepherd, Aquatic Biologist, California Academy of Sciences

"Fundamentally, what we want to do is convince people of our passion for the natural world and get people to share our passion for that little ant, that bird flying in the rain forest, that shark swimming in the lagoon."- Chris Andrews, Aquarium Director, California Academy of Sciences

"Ants are wonderful, and they're really important in the ecosystem. In fact, if you tried to remove all of the insects like an ant from a forest, the forest would collapse."- Brian Fisher, Entomologist, California Academy of Sciences

In this video report and discussion, the NewsHour's Judy Woodruff explains a recent campaign controversy surrounding one of Republican presidential candidate John McCain's attack ads, which claims that rival and Democratic nominee Barack Obama did not visit wounded soldiers because he could not take cameras and members of the press.

Obama did cancel a trip to see wounded troops in Germany, but he said it was because he was not allowed to bring any of his campaign staff.

After a short report on the details of the dispute, Woodruff discusses the ad controversy with Dan Balz of the Washington Post and FactCheck.org's Brooks Jackson.

QUOTES:

"Sometimes campaigns put out what's basically a video press release and not expecting a lot of people to see it, but expecting reporters to talk about it, as we're doing here, and run it for free on national television and get their point out that way." -Brooks Jackson, FactCheck.org

"He made time to go to the gym, but cancelled a visit with wounded troops. Seems the Pentagon wouldn't allow him to bring cameras. John McCain is always there for our troops. McCain, country first." - Television announcer, McCain advertisement

"There's a problem, however, with the suggestion that Obama cancelled his visit with wounded troops because the press could not come: It's not true." - Judy Woodruff

"It is clear that the Pentagon did not say to Senator Obama that he was not allowed to come visit the troops, the wounded servicemen and women, that he was welcome to come as a U.S. senator but that he could not come with a campaign aide." - Dan Balz, The Washington Post