Preview -- World News Tonight 08/03/01

Aug. 3 -- Peter Jennings is on the road today. Elizabeth Vargas anchors the broadcast and senior producer Tom Nagorski has our preview.

Good Afternoon.

We are watching a tropical storm that's gaining strength, threatening to become a hurricane, and worrying people on the various shores of the Gulf of Mexico. Tropical Storm Barry has already drenched parts of Florida with more than a foot of rain. Ron Claiborne has been tracking the storm from Florida; we'll have a report from him tonight.

Also tonight, the news from the Labor Department about the nation's job outlook — and with it, a visit to the company town that's living an epidemic of layoffs. Our business correspondent is Betsy Stark.

President Bush spent this Friday cheering his recent successes, accepting the gift of a bicycle from Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong, and heading to Texas for a month. White House correspondent Terry Moran tackles a somewhat sticky question: Should the nation's chief executive take such a long vacation? (There are few precedents in U.S. history.)

In the other news tonight, a Boy Scout camp is shut down because of bear attacks, a Fulbright scholar wins his freedom from a Russian jail, and the most reclusive leader in the world has made it to Moscow after nine days on an armored train.

Then we'll investigate the multimillion-dollar hotel that's being called a money pit — and that's been funded entirely by workers' pension money. It's a colossal building, a 444-foot-tall castle in the sand on the East Coast of Florida. The anticipated price tag: $800 million. Our investigative correspondent Brian Ross will have that story.

And finally tonight, showing our age. And theirs. When we asked Dan Harris (one of our youngest correspondents) to look into a story about Messrs. Dylan, Starr, Tyler and other 50- and 60-somethings who are still "on tour," several of us felt the need to add our two cents. As in, "Well, Dan, you'll have to use the old Jethro Tull song — '"Too Old To Rock And Roll, Too Young To Die" — and "Since you interviewed Ian Hunter, you'll want to remind people that his greatest hit was 'All The Young Dudes'" (from his Mott the Hoople days, of course). Not to mention "When I'm 64." Anyway, young or old, you'll enjoy the time Dan spends tonight with Hunter, Ringo, and the others.