All Blog Posts from Couric & Co.

When Sesame Street first premiered, 40 years ago today, its make-believe neighborhood was pretty rough around the edges.

The buildings were dingy. Trash cans lined the street. And Cookie Monster not only gobbled fistfuls of cookies but occasionally smoked a pipe.

Now the set's been spruced up. Cookie Monster calls cookies a "sometime" food. And the mood is decidedly more Elmo than Oscar the Grouch.

The show has changed so much that DVDs of the early episodes now carry a warning that they might not be suitable for today's kids.

Yet despite its new image, the show's themes of tolerance and learning persist. In the Middle East, a version broadcast in Hebrew and Arabic brought peaceful giggles in the 1990s. In South Africa, an HIV-positive Muppet helped de-stigmatize the disease.

Sesame Street has always been ahead of its time. It's a window into the world of children, a place where everything's A-okay, and has been for 40 years.

So Happy Anniversary Sesame Street!

That's a page from my notebook.

I'm Katie Couric, CBS News.

Kelly Wallace is a CBS News Correspondent based in New York.

Ask almost anyone about “The Wizard of Oz” and they immediately recount their favorite scene or the first time they watched it during childhood. I remember seeing the movie year after year with my mom and my two sisters in Brooklyn, New York, always eagerly anticipating my favorite scene when Dorothy clicks the heels of her fabulous ruby red slippers and says, “There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home.”

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Some of the nation's biggest banks are back in the black, and as President Obama stated today they have you to thank.

It was, after all, billions of dollars in taxpayer money that kept them afloat.

Today, as the financial community marks the one-year anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the President delivered a stern message about learning from mistakes.

While it's good for the economy to have those banks making money again - it can't happen in the same risky ways that got them into trouble in the first place. Consumers, Mr. Obama said, need protection and he's advocating a new agency to regulate financial products so you don't get burned next time.

Experts say it'll face a tough road in Congress, but didn't lax regulations get us into this mess in the first place?

For now, those financial institutions can express their gratitude to the American people by not letting history repeat itself.

That's a page from my notebook.

I'm Katie Couric, CBS News.

Katie Couric is on assignment. I’m Seth Doane.

It's been four years since Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans and parts of Mississippi - killing 16 hundred people and causing more than 40 billion dollars worth of damage.

Homes and lives were washed away and the nation watched in helpless horror as faces soaked in tears and flood waters pleaded for rescue.

Still today, 62-thousand homes and buildings remain uninhabitable and vacant, and 17-hundred families are living in temporary housing. Though the waters have receded, many residents have yet to land on solid ground.

But there is some good news to share.

New Orleans, as President Obama stated this weekend, is the fastest growing city in America. Nearly three quarters of its pre-Katrina population has returned, and the unemployment rate is about 2 points below the national average.

The voyage to recovery has been long and hard for the city known as the Big Easy, but there are signs of hope on horizon.

I'm Seth Doane, CBS News.

He was called "the boy in the window."

10 years ago today, Patrick Ireland dangled from a window at Columbine High School, bloody and fighting for survival. It's an indelible image ... from a horrific day.

No one who endured the shootings will ever forget them, nor will they forget the 13 members of their community who died.

But a lot can change in 10 years.

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It began five years ago tonight, and some of our correspondents who've been embedded in Iraq have shared their experiences – and unique viewpoints on this war – in Reporters Notebooks. A sampling and links:

From CBS News Capitol Hill correspondent Chip Reid:

Exactly five years ago I was with the Third Batallion, Fifth Marines, waiting for the order to cross what they called the Line Of Departure-a pass they'd cut through the giant sandberm that ran along the Iraq/Kuwait border. I was squeezed into the back of an Amphibious Assault Vehicle-an engineering marvel that was built for beach assaults but had no trouble making it all the way to Baghdad, and beyond. We were part of a convoy that stretched as far as I could see forward and back. Amazingly, many of the 19 or so Marines who were squeezed into a space built for about 10, slept. They were smart enough to know they'd need their rest. I was not. I stood and watched through an open hatch as we blasted through the LOD and roared across the Iraqi desert – with no idea of what to expect.

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On the fifth anniversary of the start of the Iraq War, Larry Doyle, the Baghdad bureau chief for CBS News, submitted this inside look at what it takes to cover this war. And he should know: Larry's been producing our coverage of conflicts and wars for four decades. Yes, you read that correctly: four decades. So, read on, and enjoy this photo our foreign desk dug up of Larry working with Lara Logan in Camp Victory, Baghdad.

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When American troops crossed the sandy berms marking the border of Kuwait and Iraq, I was afraid, anxious and frightened.

Frightened, even though I was a good 50 miles away in a swank Kuwait City hotel suite (that doubled as a CBS News office) surrounded by solid walls, with good communications and room service. A dozen or so CBS colleagues were out there in the dark, inhospitable desert, some hearing angry gunfire for the first time and virtually cut off from the world. They were the “embeds," the pentagon’s journalist front line. I had seen combat, reported on wars, and knew they were in the middle of a life-changing and life-threatening event.

I thought about Iraqi friends who, even farther north, were also terrified, crouched and bundled under beds, cars, and shelters as “shock and awe” rained down … and changed their lives.

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As America marks the beginning of the fifth year of the Iraq war, many at CBS News and CBSNews.com are pausing to look back -- and look forward. You'll find some interesting coverage around this site, from the United States and Iraq and all points in between.

A couple noteworthy items:

National Security correspondent David Martin puts the war in a military context:

Coming up on the 4th anniversary of the war in Iraq, it no longer seems worth the effort to argue about who made what mistakes. The relevant question now is the one General David Petraeus asked in the opening days of the invasion – "tell me how this ends."

It is one of history's minor ironies that as the new commander in Iraq, Petraeus is now in charge of answering his own question. He is pursuing a classic counterinsurgency strategy – a surge of troops to protect the citizens of Baghdfad from violence and buy time for the Iraqi government to get its act together. But as both U.S. intelligence and the Pentagon now acknowledge, this is not a classic insurgency.

Meantime, his frequent collaborator, producer Mary Walsh remembers the early days of covering the war:

Just after the city fell David Martin and I toured Baghdad neighborhoods with Col. Ted Spain, who was basically the chief of police at the time. He had 900 American MPs for a city of 5.5 million. Was that enough? "I would like to have more, Spain said. "I would always like to have more."

As I look to the future in Iraq, I can't help looking back. I think of Col. Spain that day in May 2003 surrounded by young Iraqi men. "We hate you Americans," they bluntly told him. They also told him they had no work and if he could help get them jobs the sting of defeat would not be so bad.

There's more, much more, both sobering and insightful. This is a good time to think of where we've been. And wonder about where we may be headed.