As scary and dramatic as this video is, hearing total strangers come together to comfort, care and save each other is remarkable. It’s dark because the electricity is out and the 20 or so in the group are huddled in the cooler of a Fastrip convenience store.

An F-4 tornado hit near my hometown on May 22, 2011. Joplin is about 45 miles south of my hometown. I spent many, many days and nights in the “big city” of Joplin as a child and am in awe of the devastation and loss of life.

Here’s a great link for the police scanner in Jasper County where Joplin is located.

More videos

It’s worth more than a look…proceeds of the digital download benefits the American Red Cross.

Oprah Winfrey’s big goodbye brought out the biggest stars in show business.

The crowd gave Winfrey a standing ovation when she first walked on the stage. Then the stars came out, with Winfrey’s producers making good on their promise of the biggest celebrities of movies, music and television.

Oprah wiped away tears as celebrity after celebrity surprised her during a farewell double-episode taping of “The Oprah Winfrey Show” that will precede her finale.

“Thank you is not enough, but thank you,” Winfrey told the crowd of 13,000 gathered at Chicago’s United Center on Tuesday night for “Surprise Oprah! A Farewell Spectacular.” ”For your love and your support, thank you.”

Beyonce sang her song “Run the World (Girls)” backed by dozens of dancers. Rascal Flatts performed too.

“Oprah Winfrey, because of you women everywhere have graduated to a new level of understanding of who we are, of what we are and most of all who we can be,” Beyonce said.

The stadium was decorated with pictures of Winfrey at seminal moments over the course of her talk show. Boxes of tissues were on scattered seats throughout the audience. Harpo Productions received more than 154,000 ticket requests for seats to Tuesday’s event. Tickets were free and distributed to fans through a lottery. Winfrey also received messages from some less-famous admirers. Female American soldiers gave a taped message from Iraq and three female fans from countries around the world came on stage.  The show was interspersed with clips of Winfrey’s fans and flashbacks of previous episodes. Fans started lining up outside hours before the taping started. Bessie Carroll, 70, of Chicago came to the show with her daughter. “I think we’ve gotten everything we could have and more than we should have from her,” Carroll said. “If she feels it’s time to go, we have to release her and let her enjoy her life.” Mashonda White, 41, an engineer from Aurora, called Winfrey an inspiration. “She’s a blueprint of what I would like to become,” White said. “She never takes anything negatively. She always makes it positive.” Celebrities such as Lisa Ling, Carson Kressley, Jessica Seinfeld, Ally Wentworth, Bob Greene and former Chicago Mayor Richard Daley sat in the audience. The content of the final episode of “The Oprah Winfrey Show” is still under wraps.

See more photos here.

I fiddled around on this last night after seeing the report on Rachel Maddow’s show.

While a few of the older audio cuts were a bit scratchy and hard to hear on my little netbook speakers. But to hear Caruso sing from an original recording or Teddy Roosevelt giving a speech is worth the ear strain.

The website is easy to navigate and choked full of stuff you’ll want to use for your website (you can embed the players!) or ringtones!

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

I was driving into work today listening to Sports 610 – I have grown to really like Vandermeer and Lopez in the morning. This morning during their slip sliding away segment John Lopez brought up this story about a cheerleader in Texas being FORCED to cheer for an athlete that had been convicted of assaulting her.

I was shocked at the reaction of the school and horrified that the young woman was given so little support by anyone on her squad or school. I had to share.

If someone assaulted you, would you want to then cheer for his performance on a basketball court? A 16-year-old Texas high school student sure didn’t.

High school football star Rakheem Bolton and two others were indicted for sexual assault of a child–identified only as H.S.–at a post-game party in 2008. According to H.S.–a fellow student and cheerleader at Silsbee High–Bolton, football player Christian Rountree and another juvenile male forced her into a room, locked the door, held her down and sexually assaulted her. When other party-goers tried to get into the room, two of the men fled through an open window, including Bolton, who left clothing behind. Bolton allegedly threatened to shoot the occupants of the house when the homeowner refused to return his clothes.

Need more shocking info?

Jeanne Moos gets the best assignments. Today she reported on “the photo” of the weekend.

No…not that one. THIS one…

See her video report

How much a relief it is to type those words in the post title.

We all recall the day some 10 years ago when his name became a household name to us all and the very name of evil in our world.

Last night I was in a studio at CBS radio not 20 feet from where I stood that Tuesday morning when – as ordered by OBL – the planes hit the World Trade Center towers.

I’m still unsure how I feel about the celebrations by Americans in the streets following the confirmation of OBL’s death. Perhaps another post at a later time…

I think we’ve all seen by now the President’s speech. I thought I would pass along this briefing by Secretary of State Clinton.