News & Sports

The FDA ordered the makers of Ambien and other sleeping medications to lower the dosage of the drugs for women, citing new evidence that show the drugs can stay in the bloodstream long enough and at high enough levels to make it difficult to drive or concentrate the following morning. Compounding the problem: women metabolize sleeping pills differently than men. NBC's Tom Costello reports. (Nightly News)

In Newton, Conn., and across the nation, flags were lowered in sorrow as the entire country plunged into an angry sadness over the shooting deaths at Sandy Elementary School that claimed the lives of 20 children. NBC's Hoda Kotb reports. (TODAY)

Workers begin the long process of easing the giant concrete-and-steel containment unit down into the Gulf of Mexico to cover the blown-out, leaking oil well. NBC's Anne Thompson reports.