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Military to Troops: Get Help for PTSD; Supreme Court to Examine Civil Commitment for Sex Offenders; NBC to Shake up Late-Night Schedule

Aired January 11, 2010 - 13:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: It is go time. Pushing forward with the next hour of CNN NEWSROOM with Kyra Phillips.

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Picking up where you left off, pal. Thank you, Tony.

We are pushing forward, talking about the scanner that sees all, or almost all, but who sees the scans? Do they really go away? Troublesome questions from eye-opening TSA documents.

A controversial comment, a partisan uproar, a Senate majority leader under fire. We've been here before. What will Harry Reid say now?

And Pakistani children taught to kill. The story is chilling, the back story amazing. Tactics of the Taliban as only CNN can cover.

We begin this hour now with conflict and casualties but not the ones we usually hear about. All too often, these wounds and war wounds are unseen, ignored till they kill.

I want you to see this number. As of early December, at least 349 U.S. members had taken their own lives in 2009. That's more than were killed in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan combined that year. The Pentagon and V.A. are holding a week long suicide prevention conference in Washington now.

The secretary of Veterans Affairs spoke this morning. Eric Shinseki says the losses are grim, but the victories are inspiring.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ERIC SHINSEKI, SECRETARY OF VETERANS AFFAIRS: There's an established protocol at every hospital for a heart-attack victim who comes through the doors. There's an established protocol for what you do from the moment that person walks through the door.

Why shouldn't potential suicide victims be similarly provided systemic and consistent portals for help?

Now the creator for these two forward-leaning initiatives this year, Dr. Jan Kemp (ph), is the brain behind these two initiatives. We all owe you a vote of thanks. But the people that owe you the biggest vote of thanks are the 5,600 or so folks who called in. There are many, many more who called in, but there are 56 -- nearly 5,600 of them who were in crisis thinking about suicide, and interventions occurred. And they're still with us today.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: From Shinseki to his troops, they're breaking tradition and sharing gut-wrenching stories.

Staff Sergeant Meg Krause is one of them. Two tours of duty in Iraq as a medic treating the wounded. But when she came home, she realized she was the one needing to heal. It took a bottle of wine a night just to get to sleep, and then a harsh reality check.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STAFF SGT. MEG KRAUSE, U.S. ARMY: My psychological health, I didn't think it was an issue when I came home, but one of my soldiers actually said...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think you might be suffering from PTSD.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I came back from Iraq and I had PTSD, too. You have to talk about it, because if you hold it in, your life just gets miserable.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Since Sgt. Krause has returned from seeking treatment, she's back to the way she was when I first got in the unit.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: As you can see by that PSA, Sergeant Krause is now turning our trauma and treatment into a mission. She joins me live from Washington.

Great to see you.

KRAUSE: Hi, Kyra, how are you?

PHILLIP: I'll tell you, listening to your story, I've got to tell you, it -- I think it moved all of us on a different level, because this is something that we have been covering for months and months. And just to see what you went through, how you dealt -- dealt with it, and what you're doing now really wants to help us push forward on this issue.

Point blank when someone comes up to you and says, who's a true friend, "I think you've got a problem, you've got to act," and you did. But was it that easy? Did you act that quickly?

KRAUSE: I did not act as quickly as I should have, to be honest, Kyra. I did a lot of time saying, "Oh, I don't have time for this. I can't handle this right now. I'll be just fine. I don't need this help. I can deal with this on my own."

And instead I ended up going further and further down a path I didn't want to be down. And when I finally accepted the fact that I needed help and I reached out and I got the help and I talked to the V.A. and I talked to my unit instead of -- instead of being outcast, I got support and ended up in a much better position now than I ever was a year and a half ago when I started struggling.

PHILLIPS: And -- and I've heard your story, Meg, time and time again. Tell me what it was that finally made you realize, "OK, I've got PTSD. I've got a drinking problem. I've got to get a grip, and I've got to do something now." What was it that caused a click?

KRAUSE: You know, I had a lot of people talking to me and suggesting that I get help and suggesting that I see people. But it wasn't until I ended up face down in a pig pen in the middle of Pennsylvania, not really sure what I was going to do next with my life, that I realized, maybe -- maybe I need to go into the V.A. and be seen. And get the help that I needed.

So that was the night that I finally called for help and had friends take me to the hospital and I said, "I need to talk to somebody."

PHILLIPS: Had you received training on PTSD, any warning signs that you should look for, if indeed this were to happen, and then what you should do next? Was that a part of your training up to heading to the battlefield?

KRAUSE: It was. Prior to going, once I returned, even as a medic, some of the training that we get in our technical school shows us the signs and symptoms of depression, posttraumatic stress disorder.

There's a lot of things going on right now alerting soldiers to signs, symptoms, reactions, what you're going to see. And I knew all of them. It wasn't that I didn't know what to look for or that I didn't see them. It was that I was -- I was choosing to ignore them in myself.

PHILLIPS: And Meg, there's still this stigma. I mean, I hear it time and time again: "I can't say anything. I can't take this on. I can't admit to my superiors that I have an issue." I hear it among the men and the women. So, what do you suggest needs to be done to wipe out that stigma?

KRAUSE: I think that sending soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, service members across the board, and their NCOs in leadership to the Real Warriors Web site will show them that stigma is in their head.

You're not going to lose your security clearance. I retained mine through the entire process. You're not going to have a problem with your career. You're not going to have a problem with your career. I got promoted the day I came to my superiors and said, "I have a problem. I need to talk to somebody."

Instead, you're going to end up getting more respect from your unit, peers, subordinates, everybody, because you've come out and sought help, and you're addressing the issues, than you are if you continue to hide from the issues and not face that mission head-on. PHILLIPS: I'll tell you what: I sure respect you. All of us here do. Meg Krause, thanks so much for your time.

KRAUSE: Thank you.

PHILLIPS: To find out more about the Real Warriors program that you heard meg mention, we have a link to it on our blog. That's at CNN.com/Kyra.

Racist? Racially insensitive or much ado about nothing? How would you describe the Senate majority leader's comments in a new book? He's eating his words right now. Critics say that's not enough.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: You've heard of Pandora's box. Well, today Pandora's book comes out.

"Game Change" is about the 2008 election. Open it up, and a blurb quoting Harry Reid flies out. Reid, talking about then- candidate Barack Obama, saying his light skin and lack of, quote, "Negro dialect" would serve him well.

Reid's apologized. The president and Congressional Black Caucus have accepted. But the head of the RNC says double standards, anyone? Here's Michael Steele, and after him, Al Sharpton.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL STEELE, CHAIR, RNC: When Democrats get caught saying racist things, you know, an apology is enough. If that had been Mitch McConnell saying that about an African-American candidate for president of the United States, trust me: this chairman and the DNC would be screaming for his head, very much as they were with Trent Lott.

AL SHARPTON, CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVIST: I think that it would be wrong to impose on the majority leader of the Senate anything we did didn't impose on others who said things last year that were even morally racially offensive.

Because as I read his statement, he was talking of why he felt some Americans would vote for then-Senator Obama. Others that made statements were directly attacking Senator Obama in some racial terms.

So I think that it is something that I did not agree with, but I think we've got to be consistent in our reaction.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: Steele and Republican Senator John Cornyn want Reid to step down as majority leader. We're expecting to hear more from Senator Reid this afternoon.

Next hour, we have a panel of diverse opinions looking at what Reid said. Maybe there's a teachable moment in there somewhere.

Early morning for supporters of same-sex marriage in San Francisco and for the U.S. Supreme Court, too. Hours before a landmark trial in a San Francisco courtroom, the highest court in the land blocked a video feed that the trial judge approved.

This is a federal trial, where cameras normally are off limits. It's also the first federal trial on the constitutionality of measures like California's Proposition 8. As you may know, Prop 9 makes same- sex marriage illegal in the nation's most populous state.

If this fight sounds familiar, it is. In May of 2008, California's Supreme Court ruled same-sex marriage legal. Six months later, after a stormy campaign, California voters passed Prop 8, same- sex marriage was banned. And in May of '09, the state Supreme Court upheld Prop 8, but it did allow 18,000 same-sex marriages performed before the ban to stand.

Finally a footnote. The same sex couples who are leading the federal challenge to Prop 8 are represented by David Boies and Ted Olson. You may remember those names from a flap little arising from the 2000 presidential election. It's in the books under Bush v. Gore.

Olson represented George Bush, Boies Al Gore.

Here's a question for the Supreme Court. Should sex offenders serve overtime after their prison time is done? One victim doesn't think the ankle monitor is quite enough.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Sexually-explicit visual material involving minors. You can't do that in Virginia. Got a guy named Kris Allen (ph) in big trouble. He digitally pasted girls' faces on the bodies of adults in sexual situations. That won him a conviction for distributing child porn.

Allen's been fighting it. He claims the law is too broad, and Big Foot's free speech. The case now before the Supreme Court.

So what do you do with sex offenders once they serve their time? Send justice into overtime? At least one victim doesn't think they should be turned loose once their sentences are up. At least one perpetrator says, "Hey, I served my time. Let me get on with my life." The Supreme Court weighing both sides.

More now from CNN's Kate Bolduan.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): January, 1973. Thirteen-year-old Martin Andrews abducted off a Virginia street.

MARTIN ANDREWS, VICTIM: He looked at me, said, "I've got bad news for you. You've just been kidnapped."

BOLDUAN: He was sexually assaulted by a pedophile on parole for two similar attacks, then left for dead.

ANDREWS: And I was buried out in the middle of nowhere. You know, with a chain around my ankle. I was going nowhere. I was going to die there.

BOLDUAN: Almost 30 years later, when Andrews found out his attacker was getting out of prison, he made it his mission to stop him.

ANDREWS: It was incredibly frightening to me, because I lived and continue to live every day what he did to me. And I don't want another child to have to go through that.

BOLDUAN: Andrews got Virginia lawmakers to enforce what's called a civil commitment law. It lets the government keep sexual offenders who've served their prison time locked in treatment centers indefinitely.

(on camera) So essentially, you think there are some who are too dangerous to be out?

ANDREWS: To be released. You're exactly right. They are too dangerous to walk our streets.

BOLDUAN (voice-over): Supporters say it's the only foolproof way to keep sexual offenders from striking again, but critics say there's little evidence treatment works to justify taking away their freedom.

This man is a convicted sexual offender. Seen here with his attorney, he asked not to be identified by name. Days before getting out of prison, a judge ordered him into civil commitment.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is double jeopardy. You're not able to leave on your own free will. You're locked up 24/7. It's no different than -- than being in jail or in prison.

BOLDUAN: One of the few ever released from civil commitment, he says he now lives a quiet life, albeit under constant surveillance.

(on camera) Some people when they see this story, they'll say, it doesn't matter. A sexual offender is too dangerous and should be locked up forever. Are they wrong?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Many of them are wrong. That is a misconception, that all sex offenders are going to repeat, and all sex offenders should be locked away for the rest of our -- their life.

BOLDUAN: Twelve years ago, the Supreme Court said state civil commitment laws are constitutional if the goal is treatment, not punishment.

Now the court will decide if this can apply to federal prisoners, raising questions of whether civil commitment should be allowed at all.

(voice-over) About 20 states allow civil commitment for sexual offenders. An estimated 4,000 are being held. The reality? There's a human cost on both sides.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I had served my time for what I did. And I didn't feel like that I should be incarcerated again.

ANDREWS: It's not the best tool. I mean, it is -- it is the only tool that we have that is 100 percent effective.

BOLDUAN (on camera): But opponents argue it's a dangerous, slippery slope to allow the government to hold people indefinitely. A case that's both sensitive and emotionally charged.

Kate Bolduan, CNN, at the Supreme Court.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Top stories now.

Former NBA star Jayson Williams looking at a minimum of 18 months behind bars. He pleaded guilty today in New Jersey to a reduced charge in the shooting death of his limo driver more than seven years ago.

Williams was facing a reckless manslaughter trial but pleaded to aggravated assault instead. Just last week, he was arrested for alleged drunken driving after crashing his car.

Scott Roeder's murder trial delayed. Roeder doesn't deny shooting late-term abortion provider George Tiller last May at a Kansas church. But now prosecutors are challenging a ruling that allows him to build a voluntary manslaughter defense. Jury selection is now set for Wednesday.

Richard Heene, father of Balloon Boy and mother of a hoax taken nationwide, began serving his 90-day sentence today for influencing a public servant. You'll recall, Heene claimed his little boy was adrift in a homemade balloon. The cops soon determined the story was a ploy for public attention.

It's cold. I know, that's not a news flash. But guess what: it's going to stay this way. Six more weeks of winter, and then some.

And my favorite story of the day: aviator, pioneer Amelia Earhart set so many firsts it's mind boggling. Well, here's one of them. Seventy-five years ago today, Earhart began an 18-hour trip from Hawaii to California, making her the first woman to fly solo across the Pacific. Weather was rough, Earhart resolute.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Six more weeks of winter? We wish. This cold isn't going to snap anytime soon, is it, Chad?

(WEATHER REPORT)

PHILLIPS: All right, Chad. We'll keep talking.

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: All right.

PHILLIPS: The face of late night is changing once again. Literally. Last year, NBC gave Conan O'Brien "The Tonight Show" and moved Jay Leno up to primetime. But now the peacock network says it's going back to basics at 10 p.m. That means Jay is out and pricey dramas back in.

Susan Lisovicz at the New York Stock Exchange with the details.

So Susan, there were rumors that a change was coming, because the ratings just weren't there, right?

SUSAN LISOVICZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's exactly right, Kyra, because this is a business. So it's less about Jay and Conan. It's more about dollars and cents.

The ratings stink for Jay's new time slot, and the ratings for Conan stink in his new time slot. We have the numbers from Nielsen. "The Tonight Show" with Conan, about half what they were a year earlier with Jay. And Jay, look at his problems. The 10 p.m. hour, they're down about 25 percent from a year earlier, when NBC was running shows like "Law & Order" and "E.R."

NBC assumed viewers would just follow the talent. Wrong.

NBC also thought putting talk would be so much smarter than drama in that hour, because it's so much cheaper. But that's precisely what's beating it at that hour. Think about, you know, dramas like "CSI: Miami," "CSI: New York," "Private practice."

NBC, Kyra, was already in fourth place in primetime. On paper maybe, a smart move. But NBC affiliates are howling, because they have a much weaker lead-in to the 11 p.m. news, and an insurrection was afoot.

PHILLIPS: All right. Well, let's talk about the affiliates. Because we know that they have a lot of sway over the network, because that provides a lot more to the viewer than they probably realize.

LISOVICZ: That's exactly right. I mean, if you are a TV network, great, you put out this programming. Great, but you need it to be distributed. That's where the affiliates come in. There are more than 200 NBC affiliates.

We talked to some of them. The general manager of WBAL in Baltimore, for instance, he told us, Kyra, that the hour before his news at 11 has dropped 30 to 40 percent.

And that's pretty much what we're -- you know, what's happening nationally. It lost its No. 1 status in late local news in October for the first time in about five years, and he blames the lead-in.

Interestingly enough, reruns of "Law & Order" were doing better than Jay's new show. And, of course, the late local news is very important for the affiliates, because the ratings determine ad dollars, how much they make. So you know, keep in mind, NBC was still making money on the 10 p.m. show. It still is making money because it's so cheap. But if you don't have the affiliates on board, then you don't really have a network.

By the way, Kyra, these -- these changes take effect after the winter Olympics next month. And then I guess the next question we'll revisit is whether "The Tonight Show" will still be called "The Tonight Show" if it's on past midnight. Maybe later -- "The Later Tonight Show."

PHILLIPS: "The Late Late-Night Show."

LISOVICZ: Yes.

All right. We'll follow it. Thanks, Susan.

LISOVICZ: You're welcome.

PHILLIPS: Airport body scanners: an invasion of your privacy or something that just might save your life? And by the way, are those revealing scans really deleted right after they're taken?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Two fathers and their alleged terrorist sons. This man's son is accused of trying to blow up a Northwest Airlines plane on Christmas day. Now members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee would like to talk to him. They've invited him to Capitol Hill. And so far no response.

You'll recall dad warned U.S. embassy officials in Nigeria about his son's extremist views weeks before that failed attack on Christmas day. His son, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, has pleaded not guilty.

This man's son is accused of being a member of Al Qaeda and hiding out in the mountains of Yemen. In an exclusive interview with CNN, the father denies allegations that his son met with Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab in Yemen before the Christmas-Day bombing attempt.

But a U.S. security source tells CNN Washington it has independent intelligence verifying that claim. The source also says there's no doubt the son, American-born cleric Anwar Al-Awaki, is one of the top five or six al Qaeda operatives and recruiters in Yemen.

The heart of this problem, is it Yemen? In some ways, yes. That's the view of General David Petraeus in an interview with our Christiane Amanpour. But the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan says there are no plans to put American troops in Yemen, at least for now. Instead the U.S. will more than double its security aid to more than $150 million.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, HOST, "AMANPOUR": Do you think there needs to be a systemic change to issues such as Yemen which is so obvious that many people say that the grinding poverty is such a recruiting tool?

GEN. DAVID PETRAEUS, U.S. CENTRAL COMMANDER: I think that's right. I think, really, that we have arrived at that conclusion. I think we recognize that these are not short-term problems. These aren't campaigns where you muster a force, take the hill and go home to a victory parade. These are endeavors that have to be comprehensive in nature and they have to be enduring in their time frame.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: Now, Petraeus just back from Yemen says the foreign minister minced no words telling him Yemen does not want troops in U.S. country. And Petreaus says that's just what the Obama administration wanted to hear.

Would full-body scanners have stopped the accused bomber from getting on that U.S. plane? That's the driving question from Capitol Hill to Main Street right now. Supporters say if you want to stop the bad guys, then use them. Critics say the scanners are way too revealing. So, our CNN's Jeanne Meserve takes a closer look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN HOMELAND SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The images produced by whole-body scanners don't leave much to the imagination. But the Transportation Security Administration has said repeatedly, even on its own Web site, your privacy will be protected.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The system has no way to save, transmit or print the image.

MESERVE: A 2008 press release says the machines have zero storage capability, but a TSA document written just three months earlier, spelling out requirements for potential manufacturers, said the machines had to have the capability to capture images of non- passengers for training and evaluation purposes. The procurement document was recently retained by EPIC, the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

MARC ROTENBERG, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, EPIC: We think it's obvious the machines are designed to store and record images.

MESERVE: The TSA's been lying?

ROTENBERG: Yes. I would use a more polite word if I could, but it would be less accurate.

MESERVE: The document specifies that to protect privacy during passenger screening, there will be no storage or exporting of images, but EPIC fears that the ability to save images during the test mode leaves open the potential for abuse by insiders and outsiders.

The document says the machines must have hard drives for storage and USB ports and Ethernet connectivity that could allow downloading of images. An unspecified number of users, including TSA headquarters, maintenance contractors and so-called super users have the ability to export raw image test data and can also change the ten privacy settings built into the machines.

ROTENBERG: I don't think the TSA has been forthcoming with the American public about the true capability of these devices.

MESERVE: TSA officials tell CNN, yes, the machines can retain and export images when they are at TSA testing facilities. But it says those functions are disabled by the manufacturer and machines are delivered to the airports without the capability to store, print or transmit images. The TSA says there is no way for someone in the airport environment to put the machine into the test mode or change the privacy filters.

The TSA says all images are deleted from the system after they're reviewed by a remotely-located operator, and it says the machines are not networked and cannot be hacked.

But EPIC isn't satisfied, it wants to see the documents that prove these steps are being taken, that they're effective, and that privacy is fully and completely protected. Until those questions are answered, EPIC says the deployment of the machines should be halted.

Jeanne Meserve, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: And if you ever had a migraine, you know turning off all the lights helps. Now doctors think they know why. Don't worry. We won't keep you in the dark for long.

And on this date, more than four decades ago, the surgeon general made it official. Issuing the first government warning that smoking cigs may be dangerous to your help. Seems we've heard that quite a bit over the last 40-some years.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Any of the nation's 30 million migraine suffers will tell you, when one hits you, turn off the lights. Light can make them more painful even for blind patients. Now scientists think they know why. Our senior medical correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen, is here. Elizabeth, do I even say this, don't keep us in the dark.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Kyra, I'm going to answer that pun with another pun. Migraine sufferers have known for a long time that light can aggravate their makes. Now scientists say it is not all in their heads, or, actually maybe it is all in their heads.

What they've done is made brain images. Take a look at this one over here, of folks who were exposed to migraines plus light. So, what they found here is that there were certain neurons that were actually activated when migraine suffers were exposed to light. You can see them here, here and here. And I want to you keep an eye on this one. This pathway here is activated. And that's a very important thing -- it would be good if I could spell. But there we go. That pathway there is activated. But what they found is when folks had a migraine but were not exposed to light, that that same pathway was not activated. It was just kind of dead, so to speak.

So that activated pathway of neurons was really problematic for these migraine suffers. This pathway right here really seemed to lead to an aggravation of the migraines. Kyra.

PHILLIPS: All right. So could this new research lead to a cure?

COHEN: You know, they're hoping with this knowledge, that they will learn how to make medicines that could sort of deactivate that pathway, so to speak. That's not going to happen for a long time. So this is years and years in the making.

PHILLIPS: All right. So in the meantime, how do people cope?

COHEN: Right. There are some coping mechanisms for people with migraines. Let's take a look at that.

What patients ought to do right now if they have migraines is first of all, well, turn out the lights as we've learned just now. Also, take your migraine medications. Hot or cold therapy. And Kyra, what that means is you use a heating pad or a cold pack on your head and neck. People find that helps, as well.

This last one is sort of counterintuitive. You're not supposed to drink caffeine sort of long-term every day if you're prone to migraines, but if you feel one coming on, a little bit of caffeine might go a long way to helping temper that migraine and maybe it won't come on with such a vengeance.

PHILLIPS: All right. Call me crazy; I have a friend that says black licorice takes care of hers. Have you heard that before?

COHEN: My goodness, I haven't! Maybe there's caffeine in black licorice. Who knows?

PHILLIPS: All right. Do your research. Let me know. Maybe she just likes black licorice. Thanks, Elizabeth.

Any diehard smoker will tell you giving up cigarettes is torture. Well, a member of a prominent royal family used to get on the defense about that to get cleared of torture charges.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Checking top stories now.

A wake scheduled today for the vice president's mother in Wilmington, Delaware. Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, are expected to attend. Jean Biden died Friday at 92. She suffered a broken hip in a fall nearly a year ago. A private funeral is scheduled for tomorrow. Florida farmers have another night of waiting and worrying about a hard freeze. They say last night's record cold did substantial damage to the state's multibillion-dollar citrus crop. Farmers in the north fear they'll see even more damage tonight when the sun goes down tonight and the temps drop to the teens.

The Supreme Court dealt a blow to YouTube today, blocking the online video site from posting video of the federal trial contesting California's gay marriage ban. Justices say YouTube can not show any video of the proceedings before Wednesday at the earliest. The court is weighing whether cameras in the court could affect witness testimony.

A horrific crime caught on tape. But even after jurors watched nearly three hours of video that showed an Afghan grain dealer being tortured, they acquitted the defendant. A member of the royal family in the United Arab Emirates -- and you won't believe his defense. Our Stan Grant has been following the case.

STAN GRANT, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: This is always been a very complicated and murky story that goes to the very heart of the royal family here in Abu Dhabi. Sheikh al Nayhan is the son of the founder of the UAE, Sheikh Zayed (ph). His brothers include the crown prince and the president of the UED.

Sheikh Issa had been charged with rape, endangering life and causing bodily harm. The charges arose from a videotape showing the sheikh torturing and beating an Afghan grain dealer. Now, the dealer had allegedly overcharged the sheikh in a business deal.

On the videotape, the sheikh is seen beating the grain dealer with a plank of wood with protruding nails. He strikes the grain dealer with an electric cattle product, at one point sets fire to the man's genitals, drives over him repeatedly in a car, and pours salt into his wounds.

The videotape had been released by a former business associate of the sheikh. Now, during the trial, the sheikh claimed that he was suffering the adverse effects of medication to give up smoking. Medical witnesses were called who testified that the medication caused aggressive behavior. Five other co-defendants in this case have been found guilty of various charges. Sheikh Issa, though, is a free man. He has been cleared of all charges.

Stan Grant, CNN, Abu Dhabi.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: You can afford to plant a little more ivy. Turns out one of its alums is really, really grateful. The sum total of his donation, well, it's a bit odd. But Yale will take it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Well, to the admissions person at Yale who decided to let Lee Zhang enroll, good call. Mr. Zhang is from China. He graduated from the Yale School of Management in 2002. And apparently had a really good experience. He's pledged to give the school $8,888,888. Seems like a random sum on the surface but no. The number eight in Chinese culture is like our seven -- lucky.

Oh, and get this. Zhang is being called a traitor and a double crossing B-word in China. Critics are asking why he didn't write a nice check to the Chinese school.

And from good fortune to bad, drinking a margarita generally won't kill you unless it's that special mix made with anti-freeze. Yep. A New York woman is accused of pouring the highly toxic stuff into the margarita mix. Her boyfriend drank it, he died a few days later. She claims the boyfriend abused her, and she only meant to make him sick, not kill him.

We're pushing forward now. Harry Reid says I'm sorry. President Obama says I accept. But if you think that's ending the wrangling over Reid's reported comments, wait till our next hour. We're going to talk about it, and you're going to be part of the conversation.

Plus, just last week, we reported about a dozen or so killings this year in Juarez, Mexico. It's a few days later and we're forced to add an 's' to the word dozens.

Maybe the worst kind of child abuse. And we're talking about how the Pakistani Taliban recruit kids into becoming suicide bombers. CNN International's Michael Holmes has our BackStory today.

You and I were talking about it earlier. Pretty amazing what we saw within this BackStory that we don't always see...

MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. We will show you about that school. We'll get to that, and do this in two parts. What I love about you guys you're running this story that's really a six-minuter, which is a long time on television. Our story was like a two-minuter.

What we saw when we got the rushes, the raw material, was all these beautiful pictures of their journey in helicopters over the roads. Amazing stuff with a lot of what we call "nat sound," natural sound. So, we thought, well, we're going to put it together and see how long it is and we're going to run it, and we did on back story last week on CNN International.

But you guys saw it, you liked it. So we're going to run it for you now. This is the first part of this story and this is our and Chris Jackson, the shooter, actually getting to the story. It's got a lot of nat sound in it. So, if you don't hear anything for a while, relax, enjoy the ride.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(SOUNDS OF AIRPLANES)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We had to take out a portion of the road.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So this entire road was lined with I.E.Ds.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All the potholes in the road were all I.E.Ds.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And these homes all had ammunition stored in them?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, all of them. Show you some of them (INAUDIBLE). Most of it when they left they connected it to I.E.Ds.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Of course.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When we entered, it blew up. So we had to be careful and we had neutralize the I.E.Ds, burn them, destroy them. And, of course, seize whatever was leftover.

This is the dividing line between north Waziristan and south Waziristan. And miscreants established footholds on the hills and in this built-up area in front of us. And they had not crossed over into the north. So, that is why they were so close to us. It happened over a number of years that they established and gradually came forward.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You were telling me they had positions on the hills right in front of us.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. Where you see the white tent that was their position which we neutralized on the right. Over there, our soldiers (INAUIDIBLE) are sitting there. From that mountain you see over there, that one, the greenish one which has a rock face on our side.

ARWA DAMON, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: What you have here is a fully entrenched tribal and feudal culture. So, every home has been built up like a mini fortress. You have gun positions cut into the walls.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All this area was held by them and up to this village which we crossed we faced stiff resistance. It was only after we crossed this -- this was the third line. Then the resistance melted away. Even on this line, on that hilltop we had casualties...

DAMON: So the lines of defense were going across the hilltops.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: We'll have the conclusion after the break. Right?

HOLMES: Yes, we will.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Continuing today's BackStory now with more on the Pakistani Taliban and the brainwashing of children to become suicide bombers via their fake paradise. Michael Holmes again with the BackStory.

HOLMES: I love this one. You saw before the break, you're very young, but our younger days of doing this...

PHILLIPS: We're the same age, by the way.

HOLMES: We would use a lot of natural sound in stories to add to the texture, give context to the story and put people there a lot more. With this one, we used a lot of natural sound.

PHILLIPS: No track. No reporters.

HOLMES: Right.

PHILLIPS: Explaining it to the viewers.

HOLMES: We saw the journey of our Chris Jackson with a journey to the target place which we'll see now. It's essentially a school that a the Pakistani military calls a fake heaven where children are taught to be suicide bombers with the promise of all sorts of heavenly rewards. Check that out.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAMON: The military now calls this the fake paradise because of these four rooms. It is here where the main indoctrination took place.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Various scenes of heaven. These were the indoctrination rooms.

LT. COL. YUSUF, PAKISTANI ARMY: When we got to this compound, it was shocking for us. Because we knew there was some sort of training facility here, but the type of training facility which is here, and the infrastructure, the pictures, which we later came to know through the literature present here. That the sort of indoctrination being give to the students here for getting their suicide training was shocking for us.

DAMON: The children in this part of Pakistan come from abject poverty. They don't have things like televisions. They are not exposed to the outside world. So for them, this really does symbolize paradise.

The home depicted here, similar to the homes in this area meant to invoke memories of where they come from, but set in this beautiful, bright green setting. Again, we have the river of prosperity and written across here, "long live the Taliban of the mountains."

So, this is the Pakistani base here in the middle of the tribal areas right between north and south Wazeristan. It was actually built by the Brits in the 1920s, and it does have a British feel to it. This is my first trip here with the Pakistani military, and I think the main thing I have come away with is a heightened appreciation as to just how difficult it is to navigate this terrain. It so is brutal out there. Also a greater awareness as to how entrenched the Taliban were in this area. And an understanding as to how it was possible that the base is here and less than 10, 15 minutes away were the Taliban strongholds.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HOLMES: Again, something different there which is what we do on BackStory, which is what we try to show you what you don't normally see. And as I said before, our story was two-and-a-half minutes. You got six minutes here, and I think you got more of a feel of the journey.

PHILLIPS: And you know, it's interesting. We always hear about the pressure on Pakistan to root out al Qaeda. The fact that Pakistan is hiding Osama bin Laden, that there are all these training centers for al Qaeda. You're seeing it right there -- you're seeing right there where the kids learn to be suicide bombers.