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U.S., Iraqi Forces Crackdown on Tal Afar; Possible Clues Found to Aruba Disappearance; Michael Jackson Deliberations Enter Second Day

Aired June 07, 2005 - 13:00   ET

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

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


KYRA PHILLIPS, CO-HOST: Explosive attacks in northern Iraq. It's a story you'll see only on CNN. This hour, we talk live with the lieutenant leading the Tal Afar takedown.
TONY HARRIS, CO-HOST: Got toxic milk? The report on a possible terror target the government does not want released.

TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Santa Maria, California, where the jury in the Michael Jackson case continues to deliberate. The very latest coming up.

PHILLIPS: A self-described big, fat Greek doctor sheds hundreds of pounds with diet, exercise and Major League Baseball.

From the CNN Center in Atlanta, I'm Kyra Phillips.

O'BRIEN: And I'm Tony Harris in for Miles O'Brien. CNN's LIVE FROM starts right now.

PHILLIPS: Target, Tal Afar. An Iraqi city not far from the Syrian border is the latest to witness an onslaught of U.S. and Iraqi troops on the hunt for insurgents. You'll see it up close, only on CNN, from embedded correspondent Jane Arraf.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JANE ARRAF, CNN CORRESPONDENT: U.S. and Iraqi troops at dawn, tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles, rolled into the troubled city of Tal Afar. That city is about 60 kilometers, 40 miles, from the Syrian border. And military officials say it has become an insurgent stronghold, the scene of frequent attacks against Iraqi police, against tribes there, against U.S. soldiers.

And this morning's operation, meant to show the presence of the Iraqi military, as well as U.S. forces in the region. They rolled into those streets, very narrow streets, the worst kind of urban warfare. And as they came in, gunfire rang around them.

Scattered gunfire as the hours went on, as well as a couple of mortar rounds that fell. One U.S. soldier killed. Three suspected insurgents killed, as well, when they returned fire.

The U.S. military says that they have detained 28 suspected insurgents, most of them on their target list. All of this in an effort to bolster the Iraqi Army in that neighborhood, in that city, and to disrupt the operations of insurgents.

Jane Arraf, CNN, reporting from near Tal Afar, Iraq.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARRIS: And leading the Tal Afar takedown is Lt. Col. Christopher Hickey of the 2nd Squadron, 3rd U.S. Armored Cav. He joins us live from the war zone, where it is just after 9 p.m.

Colonel, good to see you. Thanks for talking to us.

COL. CHRISTOPHER HICKEY, U.S. ARMY: Thank you very much.

HARRIS: Could you give us an update on the operation as it stands right now, please?

HICKEY: Today, we conducted precision raids in the Sirius (ph) district in downtown Tal Afar. As you said in your report, we captured over 20 of our targets. And we did it in such a way that we didn't have -- we had very little collateral damage in the city.

So overall, we consider the operation a good success between the Iraqi Army and U.S. forces.

HARRIS: How is that cooperation working, going so far with the Iraqi Army?

HICKEY: The Iraqi Army's proven to be a very courageous fighters. They're very disciplined. Every day, I have the Iraqi brigade commander with me in my Bradley, conducting operations. He was with me throughout the battle today. So I think it's working superbly.

Today, most of our targets were identified by the Iraqi Army, not U.S. soldiers. They told us -- they were able to identify the targets.

HARRIS: And Colonel, who are these targets that you're talking about? Are they foreign fighters? Are they in from across the border there, in Syria? Are they locals? Who are these targets?

HICKEY: To date, most of the targets that we had today were mainly Iraqis, whether they were former regime elements, ex- Ba'athists. I did not see any foreign fighters today that we captured.

HARRIS: And is part of the goal of this operation to close off that border with Syria to foreign fighters?

HICKEY: Exactly. Tal Afar is considered one of the way points into Mosul and the rest of Iraq. So, as you said, we want to close this way point to the terrorists coming in from Syria.

HARRIS: OK, Colonel Hickey, we appreciate you taking the time. Thanks for talking to us.

HICKEY: Thank you very much.

PHILLIPS: Too few leads, too little evidence, too many possibilities. Two former hotel security guards. And still no Natalee Holloway.

We're 8 1/2 days into that missing student mystery in Aruba, one day before local prosecutors will have to justify holding two men who allegedly figured into it in some way.

CNN's Karl Penhaul is keeping his ear to the ground.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KARL PENHAUL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Hundreds of government workers joined the hunt for Natalee Holloway Monday afternoon on the wind-swept eastern tip of Aruba. They were backed by Dutch marines and Aruba's search and rescue team.

A senior police official has told me this morning that two items of interest were found. They're now the subject of intense police scrutiny. The first item found was a pair of ladies sunglasses. He declined to specify the make.

The second item was a man's white shirt stained with blood and bearing the logo of a local security firm. He didn't specify the name of the security firm, but he said that it was not the same security firm that the two men arrested over the weekend worked for.

That said, he did say the two suspects now in police custody were subcontractors and that they may have worked for other security companies in the past.

On the subject of those two suspects, the police have said that they will not appear in court as earlier expected today. They will now come before a court tomorrow. At that stage, judges and prosecutors will have to decide whether to continue to detain them for a further eight days, while the investigations proceed.

Karl Penhaul, CNN, Palm Beach, Aruba.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARRIS: It is a different kind of waiting in Santa Maria. But there, too, a life is on the line. It's Michael Jackson's. And it remains in the hands of a jury deciding whether or not he molested a young male cancer patient and conspired to imprison the boy's family.

CNN's Ted Rowlands has the latest on the second full day of deliberations -- Ted.

ROWLANDS: Tony, jurors arrived here at about 8:30 this morning to begin that second full day of deliberations. They come in vans. They park at an offsite location and they're brought in together in two separate vans.

Yesterday, they asked a question of the judge, about an hour into deliberations. We don't know what that question is, but they did ask something. We haven't heard anything out of the jury room, at least official since then.

So they've had now the better part of a full day -- well, they had the full day yesterday, two hours Friday. And then a short period of time today, about an hour and a half. Who knows how long this is going to take? Michael Jackson is awaiting to find out his fate.

We do know the foreperson, it is the foreman, the 63-year-old retired Latino male is the foreperson. He's a retired high school counselor. His wife is an accountant. He fancies himself a Western artist in ironwork. Said it was a hobby and he's been able to make some money off it.

He says the media goes too far, but he also watches CNN. So I don't know what to take from that.

Michael Jackson is with his family at Neverland, according to a spokesperson. He will have one hour, once this jury makes a decision, to make it to the courthouse. The judge does not want to prolong the announcement of the verdict, because of security concerns. They don't want a lot of fans to come to the courthouse.

That said, there are dozens and dozens of fans that have just camped out here at the courthouse during deliberations, so there will be a large crowd. And it is suspected, once word of a verdict comes down, more and more fans will gravitate toward the courthouse.

Security, very high here. Everybody waiting for this jury's decision as to Michael Jackson's fate -- Tony.

HARRIS: Hey, Ted, quickly, what do we mean when we say a full day of deliberations? How many hours are we talking about, with breaks and lunch and everything else?

ROWLANDS: Well, they work on kind a strange schedule. It's the Melville schedule, Judge Melville. And this is what the whole court -- the whole trial has been: 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 Pacific time. They don't have a lunch, though. They have four short 10- to 15-minute breaks throughout.

That said, the judge has given them leeway. If they want a longer break, they want to go longer, they can. Thus far, though, they have stuck to that schedule.

HARRIS: Ted Rowlands, following the Jackson deliberations in Santa Maria, California. Ted, we appreciate it. Thank you.

PHILLIPS: The verdict is almost in on Janice Rogers Brown with a vote last hour to end a U.S. Senate filibuster. Another of President Bush's most controversial judicial nominees is practically, finally, assured of confirmation.

CNN's Ed Henry is on the Hill -- Ed.

ED HENRY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good afternoon, Kyra. That's right, a political victory for President Bush, Janice Rogers Brown moving one step closer to confirmation. As you just mentioned, as the Senate just...

PHILLIPS: OK. A new one now?

HENRY: ... ended a filibuster on Janice Rogers Brown, one of the president's most hotly contested judicial nominees. That moves her one step closer to the powerful U.S. circuit court of appeals for the District of Columbia. That's one step below the U.S. Supreme Court.

There were 65 votes in favor of Janice Rogers Brown. That's five votes more than needed to break off a filibuster. There were only 32 votes against her.

Now, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist had hoped to then move as quickly as about 2 p.m. Eastern Standard Time to an actual up or down vote on confirmation for Janice Rogers Brown, but we're now told by Senator Frist that Democrats are going to use all the debate time that has been allotted them. That will carry over into tomorrow. So now basically, a confirmation vote on Janice Rogers Brown has been put back to about 5 p.m. on Wednesday.

Then Senator Frist hopes, after that vote tomorrow, to move to yet another nominee, William Pryor, another appellate court nominee of the president who has been hotly contested. There will be a procedural vote on Pryor tomorrow evening. Then they would hope to move to confirmation vote shortly thereafter.

Bottom line here, there is some progress, finally, on President Bush's judges, both Janice Rogers Brown and William Pryor, who's expected to get that vote tomorrow. They were two of the judges involved in that big filibuster deal where 14 moderates in the Senate basically paved the way for this, in addition to Priscilla Owen, who as you know was confirmed last month.

And finally, another big, hotly contested nomination, John Bolton, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. The Republicans lost a test vote on him last month. They now -- Senator Frist is saying he does not yet have the votes to bring that back up. So they're still waiting to get the president's man at the U.N. -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: All right. Ed Henry on the Hill, thanks, Ed.

HARRIS: Well, it is not spilled milk the Bush administration is complaining about to the National Academy of Sciences; it's spilled beans about milk.

Specifically, a research paper written by a Stanford University professor on the purported dangers of bioterror attacks on his U.S. milk supply. The paper surfaced briefly on a web site before the feds sought to cork it on the grounds it could educate evildoers.

We'll get to the bottom of the milk threat at the bottom of the hour with CNN security analyst Richard Falkenrath. PHILLIPS: Millions of Americans are currently at financial risk, thanks to lost or stolen personal information. The latest potential victims include nearly four million Citifinancial customers whose data were lost in transit.

Someone's loss is always someone else's gain. CNN senior correspondent Allan Chernoff has more on the booming business in identity protection -- Allan.

ALLAN CHERNOFF, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Kyra, well, these four million customers of Citifinancial certainly do confront the possibility of I.D. theft over here. And the best way that they can protect themselves is really through a credit watch, a credit monitoring.

This is offered by the three big credit agencies. They are Equifax, Experian, and Transunion. They offer this service, and it's quite popular. They won't tell us exactly how many customers they have. But they charge as much as $99 a year for this service.

And over here at CNN, which is part of Time Warner, we're actually quite familiar with it, because personal data of employees of Time Warner actually was lost in transit to storage. And as a result, employees here actually do have the service.

Only last weekend, I received an e-mail saying "no news is good news," meaning no one over the past month had tried to establish a new credit card account in my name or take out a loan in my name, and hopefully that's going to continue. So that's a way to monitor.

Another way that people can protect themselves, insurance. This is a big, growing industry right now. The major insurance companies are offering I.D. theft insurance. But it will protect you in terms of the costs of fixing your credit record, but not losses from I.D. theft.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE LESTER, ST. PAUL TRAVELERS: The coverage does not reimburse you for the money that someone stole. If someone charges several thousand dollars on a credit card, we will not pay that money back, simply because there is no reason for us to do that. The credit card company will take care of those charges for you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHERNOFF: St. Paul Travelers has two million customers for that insurance. So as you can see, it certainly is getting popular and more popular as the weeks go by and we hear more cases like this.

But the people affected in this Citifinancial case may not need that type of insurance. And here's why. The fact is that I.D. theft primarily is a low-tech crime.

A recent survey found that, in fact, most people who knew, who figured out exactly how they had personal data stolen, they figured out actually it was taken by either a lost/stolen wallet, 29 percent; a transaction, meaning handing a credit card over to somebody; or even a friend, relative, and acquaintance, 11 percent. This data from Javelin Strategy and Research, a study done for the Better Business Bureau.

As you can see, high-tech I.D. theft still relatively rare. Computer virus or a hacker, two percent. And e-mails, fraudulent e- mails, two percent.

So, Kyra, hopefully none of these customers of Citifinancial are going to actually become victims of I.D. theft.

PHILLIPS: Allan, just real quickly, how much is this I.D. theft insurance? Is it expensive?

CHERNOFF: It's usually about $25 added onto your homeowner's policy. So not all that expensive. Stand alone, it can be as much as $125. It's relatively -- relatively cheap to have, but, still, some consumer advocates say it's not something that everybody needs to run out and get.

PHILLIPS: All right. Allan Chernoff, thanks.

HARRIS: One man's trash is another man's treasure.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KEITH OPPENHEIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Look what we have here.

PERRY MYERS, PRIVATE DETECTIVE: Illinois driver's license.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARRIS: OK, get ready. CNN goes Dumpster diving with a pro. Wait until you hear what we can find out about you from your garbage.

And later, who's the smartest of these two high-profile Yale grads? You might be surprised who it is. We've got the report card. We'll see who makes the grade. That's later on LIVE FROM.

ANNOUNCER: You're watching LIVE FROM on CNN, the most trusted name in news.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: More now on identity theft and something else to worry about. It's not just banks and credit card companies that can put you at risk by losing your data. You may be vulnerable thanks to places you haven't even thought about.

CNN's Keith Oppenheim is talking trash in Chicago.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This year, nearly 10 million families could have their most valuable possessions stolen... OPPENHEIM (voice-over): A seemingly nice guy strolls to a curbside garbage can, warning about the danger of identity thieves.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Pay stubs. In today's world...

OPPENHEIM: But in this TV ad for Fellowes shredders, the twist is the nice guy is really the bad guy who takes the trash and ultimately, his neighbor's identity.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, Tom.

OPPENHEIM: That got us thinking. If we hit the streets of Chicago at 4 a.m., before the garbage trucked arrived, how much personal data could we actually find?

Harry Meyers is a private detective in Chicago, an expert on identity theft. He took us to places in the city to collect garbage that he thought would contain critical information.

(on camera) What you're doing here is not illegal, right?

MYERS: No, it's not illegal.

OPPENHEIM (voice-over): As in most of the United States, as long as the person collecting trash is on public property, which we were, garbage is for the taking.

MYERS: This looks like it came from an area we'd be interested in.

OPPENHEIM: Myers took us to public alleys, where we had access to Dumpsters for medical offices, car dealerships and private homes. At one residence...

MYERS: We've got someone's bank account number.

OPPENHEIM: We immediately spotted a credit notice, complete with an individual's name, date of birth and Social Security number, the building blocks of getting a credit card in someone else's name.

In about two hours, Myers selected about a dozen bags of refuse. We brought them to his offices, where we sorted and sifted, looking for information an identity thief would want. It didn't take long.

(on camera) Look what we have here.

MYERS: And Illinois driver's license.

OPPENHEIM: What can somebody do with that copy of someone's license like that?

MYERS: Well, create a new identity.

Social Security number on this piece of paper, the credit report on here. I do not see a date of birth yet. Got an income. OPPENHEIM (voice-over): In all, we came across 15 documents with 19 names. Some had Social Security numbers. Others had dates of birth. Two of them had both. Myers believes all of them could have been converted into stolen identities.

One name came from residential trash. The rest came from medical offices and car dealerships. The lessons?

MYERS: One is that businesses that take your credit information are not guarding it and protecting it the way they should.

OPPENHEIM: So identity theft can still happen, even if you shred all your documents and you take care of your personal life well?

MYERS: Correct, yes, because it's not always in your hands.

OPPENHEIM: And because of that, Myers' advice is to check your credit, least once a year, and to shred personal documents into finer pieces that can't be pieced together. For the record, that's exactly what we did with all the sensitive documents we found in the garbage.

Keith Oppenheim, CNN, Chicago.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS (voice-over): Next on LIVE FROM, is the nation's milk supply a target for terror? The research paper the federal government doesn't want you to see.

Later on LIVE FROM...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She basically was able to get my whole life, not only my personal life, but my professional life with just one thing.

PHILLIPS: Guarding the one thing identity thieves want. What you can learn from this woman's painful experience.

Also ahead, miracle meeting. He's a Vietnam veteran. She, an Army nurse in Iraq. A chance encounter that revealed their connection to each other through a dying lieutenant in Iraq.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARRIS: Well, a big announcement from a big company. General Motors says it is planning to cut 25,000 jobs and shut down more plants and assembly lines. Susan Lisovicz has the details live from the New York Stock Exchange.

(STOCK REPORT)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com


Aired June 7, 2005 - 13:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CO-HOST: Explosive attacks in northern Iraq. It's a story you'll see only on CNN. This hour, we talk live with the lieutenant leading the Tal Afar takedown.
TONY HARRIS, CO-HOST: Got toxic milk? The report on a possible terror target the government does not want released.

TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Santa Maria, California, where the jury in the Michael Jackson case continues to deliberate. The very latest coming up.

PHILLIPS: A self-described big, fat Greek doctor sheds hundreds of pounds with diet, exercise and Major League Baseball.

From the CNN Center in Atlanta, I'm Kyra Phillips.

O'BRIEN: And I'm Tony Harris in for Miles O'Brien. CNN's LIVE FROM starts right now.

PHILLIPS: Target, Tal Afar. An Iraqi city not far from the Syrian border is the latest to witness an onslaught of U.S. and Iraqi troops on the hunt for insurgents. You'll see it up close, only on CNN, from embedded correspondent Jane Arraf.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JANE ARRAF, CNN CORRESPONDENT: U.S. and Iraqi troops at dawn, tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles, rolled into the troubled city of Tal Afar. That city is about 60 kilometers, 40 miles, from the Syrian border. And military officials say it has become an insurgent stronghold, the scene of frequent attacks against Iraqi police, against tribes there, against U.S. soldiers.

And this morning's operation, meant to show the presence of the Iraqi military, as well as U.S. forces in the region. They rolled into those streets, very narrow streets, the worst kind of urban warfare. And as they came in, gunfire rang around them.

Scattered gunfire as the hours went on, as well as a couple of mortar rounds that fell. One U.S. soldier killed. Three suspected insurgents killed, as well, when they returned fire.

The U.S. military says that they have detained 28 suspected insurgents, most of them on their target list. All of this in an effort to bolster the Iraqi Army in that neighborhood, in that city, and to disrupt the operations of insurgents.

Jane Arraf, CNN, reporting from near Tal Afar, Iraq.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARRIS: And leading the Tal Afar takedown is Lt. Col. Christopher Hickey of the 2nd Squadron, 3rd U.S. Armored Cav. He joins us live from the war zone, where it is just after 9 p.m.

Colonel, good to see you. Thanks for talking to us.

COL. CHRISTOPHER HICKEY, U.S. ARMY: Thank you very much.

HARRIS: Could you give us an update on the operation as it stands right now, please?

HICKEY: Today, we conducted precision raids in the Sirius (ph) district in downtown Tal Afar. As you said in your report, we captured over 20 of our targets. And we did it in such a way that we didn't have -- we had very little collateral damage in the city.

So overall, we consider the operation a good success between the Iraqi Army and U.S. forces.

HARRIS: How is that cooperation working, going so far with the Iraqi Army?

HICKEY: The Iraqi Army's proven to be a very courageous fighters. They're very disciplined. Every day, I have the Iraqi brigade commander with me in my Bradley, conducting operations. He was with me throughout the battle today. So I think it's working superbly.

Today, most of our targets were identified by the Iraqi Army, not U.S. soldiers. They told us -- they were able to identify the targets.

HARRIS: And Colonel, who are these targets that you're talking about? Are they foreign fighters? Are they in from across the border there, in Syria? Are they locals? Who are these targets?

HICKEY: To date, most of the targets that we had today were mainly Iraqis, whether they were former regime elements, ex- Ba'athists. I did not see any foreign fighters today that we captured.

HARRIS: And is part of the goal of this operation to close off that border with Syria to foreign fighters?

HICKEY: Exactly. Tal Afar is considered one of the way points into Mosul and the rest of Iraq. So, as you said, we want to close this way point to the terrorists coming in from Syria.

HARRIS: OK, Colonel Hickey, we appreciate you taking the time. Thanks for talking to us.

HICKEY: Thank you very much.

PHILLIPS: Too few leads, too little evidence, too many possibilities. Two former hotel security guards. And still no Natalee Holloway.

We're 8 1/2 days into that missing student mystery in Aruba, one day before local prosecutors will have to justify holding two men who allegedly figured into it in some way.

CNN's Karl Penhaul is keeping his ear to the ground.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KARL PENHAUL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Hundreds of government workers joined the hunt for Natalee Holloway Monday afternoon on the wind-swept eastern tip of Aruba. They were backed by Dutch marines and Aruba's search and rescue team.

A senior police official has told me this morning that two items of interest were found. They're now the subject of intense police scrutiny. The first item found was a pair of ladies sunglasses. He declined to specify the make.

The second item was a man's white shirt stained with blood and bearing the logo of a local security firm. He didn't specify the name of the security firm, but he said that it was not the same security firm that the two men arrested over the weekend worked for.

That said, he did say the two suspects now in police custody were subcontractors and that they may have worked for other security companies in the past.

On the subject of those two suspects, the police have said that they will not appear in court as earlier expected today. They will now come before a court tomorrow. At that stage, judges and prosecutors will have to decide whether to continue to detain them for a further eight days, while the investigations proceed.

Karl Penhaul, CNN, Palm Beach, Aruba.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARRIS: It is a different kind of waiting in Santa Maria. But there, too, a life is on the line. It's Michael Jackson's. And it remains in the hands of a jury deciding whether or not he molested a young male cancer patient and conspired to imprison the boy's family.

CNN's Ted Rowlands has the latest on the second full day of deliberations -- Ted.

ROWLANDS: Tony, jurors arrived here at about 8:30 this morning to begin that second full day of deliberations. They come in vans. They park at an offsite location and they're brought in together in two separate vans.

Yesterday, they asked a question of the judge, about an hour into deliberations. We don't know what that question is, but they did ask something. We haven't heard anything out of the jury room, at least official since then.

So they've had now the better part of a full day -- well, they had the full day yesterday, two hours Friday. And then a short period of time today, about an hour and a half. Who knows how long this is going to take? Michael Jackson is awaiting to find out his fate.

We do know the foreperson, it is the foreman, the 63-year-old retired Latino male is the foreperson. He's a retired high school counselor. His wife is an accountant. He fancies himself a Western artist in ironwork. Said it was a hobby and he's been able to make some money off it.

He says the media goes too far, but he also watches CNN. So I don't know what to take from that.

Michael Jackson is with his family at Neverland, according to a spokesperson. He will have one hour, once this jury makes a decision, to make it to the courthouse. The judge does not want to prolong the announcement of the verdict, because of security concerns. They don't want a lot of fans to come to the courthouse.

That said, there are dozens and dozens of fans that have just camped out here at the courthouse during deliberations, so there will be a large crowd. And it is suspected, once word of a verdict comes down, more and more fans will gravitate toward the courthouse.

Security, very high here. Everybody waiting for this jury's decision as to Michael Jackson's fate -- Tony.

HARRIS: Hey, Ted, quickly, what do we mean when we say a full day of deliberations? How many hours are we talking about, with breaks and lunch and everything else?

ROWLANDS: Well, they work on kind a strange schedule. It's the Melville schedule, Judge Melville. And this is what the whole court -- the whole trial has been: 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 Pacific time. They don't have a lunch, though. They have four short 10- to 15-minute breaks throughout.

That said, the judge has given them leeway. If they want a longer break, they want to go longer, they can. Thus far, though, they have stuck to that schedule.

HARRIS: Ted Rowlands, following the Jackson deliberations in Santa Maria, California. Ted, we appreciate it. Thank you.

PHILLIPS: The verdict is almost in on Janice Rogers Brown with a vote last hour to end a U.S. Senate filibuster. Another of President Bush's most controversial judicial nominees is practically, finally, assured of confirmation.

CNN's Ed Henry is on the Hill -- Ed.

ED HENRY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good afternoon, Kyra. That's right, a political victory for President Bush, Janice Rogers Brown moving one step closer to confirmation. As you just mentioned, as the Senate just...

PHILLIPS: OK. A new one now?

HENRY: ... ended a filibuster on Janice Rogers Brown, one of the president's most hotly contested judicial nominees. That moves her one step closer to the powerful U.S. circuit court of appeals for the District of Columbia. That's one step below the U.S. Supreme Court.

There were 65 votes in favor of Janice Rogers Brown. That's five votes more than needed to break off a filibuster. There were only 32 votes against her.

Now, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist had hoped to then move as quickly as about 2 p.m. Eastern Standard Time to an actual up or down vote on confirmation for Janice Rogers Brown, but we're now told by Senator Frist that Democrats are going to use all the debate time that has been allotted them. That will carry over into tomorrow. So now basically, a confirmation vote on Janice Rogers Brown has been put back to about 5 p.m. on Wednesday.

Then Senator Frist hopes, after that vote tomorrow, to move to yet another nominee, William Pryor, another appellate court nominee of the president who has been hotly contested. There will be a procedural vote on Pryor tomorrow evening. Then they would hope to move to confirmation vote shortly thereafter.

Bottom line here, there is some progress, finally, on President Bush's judges, both Janice Rogers Brown and William Pryor, who's expected to get that vote tomorrow. They were two of the judges involved in that big filibuster deal where 14 moderates in the Senate basically paved the way for this, in addition to Priscilla Owen, who as you know was confirmed last month.

And finally, another big, hotly contested nomination, John Bolton, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. The Republicans lost a test vote on him last month. They now -- Senator Frist is saying he does not yet have the votes to bring that back up. So they're still waiting to get the president's man at the U.N. -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: All right. Ed Henry on the Hill, thanks, Ed.

HARRIS: Well, it is not spilled milk the Bush administration is complaining about to the National Academy of Sciences; it's spilled beans about milk.

Specifically, a research paper written by a Stanford University professor on the purported dangers of bioterror attacks on his U.S. milk supply. The paper surfaced briefly on a web site before the feds sought to cork it on the grounds it could educate evildoers.

We'll get to the bottom of the milk threat at the bottom of the hour with CNN security analyst Richard Falkenrath. PHILLIPS: Millions of Americans are currently at financial risk, thanks to lost or stolen personal information. The latest potential victims include nearly four million Citifinancial customers whose data were lost in transit.

Someone's loss is always someone else's gain. CNN senior correspondent Allan Chernoff has more on the booming business in identity protection -- Allan.

ALLAN CHERNOFF, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Kyra, well, these four million customers of Citifinancial certainly do confront the possibility of I.D. theft over here. And the best way that they can protect themselves is really through a credit watch, a credit monitoring.

This is offered by the three big credit agencies. They are Equifax, Experian, and Transunion. They offer this service, and it's quite popular. They won't tell us exactly how many customers they have. But they charge as much as $99 a year for this service.

And over here at CNN, which is part of Time Warner, we're actually quite familiar with it, because personal data of employees of Time Warner actually was lost in transit to storage. And as a result, employees here actually do have the service.

Only last weekend, I received an e-mail saying "no news is good news," meaning no one over the past month had tried to establish a new credit card account in my name or take out a loan in my name, and hopefully that's going to continue. So that's a way to monitor.

Another way that people can protect themselves, insurance. This is a big, growing industry right now. The major insurance companies are offering I.D. theft insurance. But it will protect you in terms of the costs of fixing your credit record, but not losses from I.D. theft.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE LESTER, ST. PAUL TRAVELERS: The coverage does not reimburse you for the money that someone stole. If someone charges several thousand dollars on a credit card, we will not pay that money back, simply because there is no reason for us to do that. The credit card company will take care of those charges for you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHERNOFF: St. Paul Travelers has two million customers for that insurance. So as you can see, it certainly is getting popular and more popular as the weeks go by and we hear more cases like this.

But the people affected in this Citifinancial case may not need that type of insurance. And here's why. The fact is that I.D. theft primarily is a low-tech crime.

A recent survey found that, in fact, most people who knew, who figured out exactly how they had personal data stolen, they figured out actually it was taken by either a lost/stolen wallet, 29 percent; a transaction, meaning handing a credit card over to somebody; or even a friend, relative, and acquaintance, 11 percent. This data from Javelin Strategy and Research, a study done for the Better Business Bureau.

As you can see, high-tech I.D. theft still relatively rare. Computer virus or a hacker, two percent. And e-mails, fraudulent e- mails, two percent.

So, Kyra, hopefully none of these customers of Citifinancial are going to actually become victims of I.D. theft.

PHILLIPS: Allan, just real quickly, how much is this I.D. theft insurance? Is it expensive?

CHERNOFF: It's usually about $25 added onto your homeowner's policy. So not all that expensive. Stand alone, it can be as much as $125. It's relatively -- relatively cheap to have, but, still, some consumer advocates say it's not something that everybody needs to run out and get.

PHILLIPS: All right. Allan Chernoff, thanks.

HARRIS: One man's trash is another man's treasure.

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KEITH OPPENHEIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Look what we have here.

PERRY MYERS, PRIVATE DETECTIVE: Illinois driver's license.

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HARRIS: OK, get ready. CNN goes Dumpster diving with a pro. Wait until you hear what we can find out about you from your garbage.

And later, who's the smartest of these two high-profile Yale grads? You might be surprised who it is. We've got the report card. We'll see who makes the grade. That's later on LIVE FROM.

ANNOUNCER: You're watching LIVE FROM on CNN, the most trusted name in news.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: More now on identity theft and something else to worry about. It's not just banks and credit card companies that can put you at risk by losing your data. You may be vulnerable thanks to places you haven't even thought about.

CNN's Keith Oppenheim is talking trash in Chicago.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This year, nearly 10 million families could have their most valuable possessions stolen... OPPENHEIM (voice-over): A seemingly nice guy strolls to a curbside garbage can, warning about the danger of identity thieves.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Pay stubs. In today's world...

OPPENHEIM: But in this TV ad for Fellowes shredders, the twist is the nice guy is really the bad guy who takes the trash and ultimately, his neighbor's identity.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, Tom.

OPPENHEIM: That got us thinking. If we hit the streets of Chicago at 4 a.m., before the garbage trucked arrived, how much personal data could we actually find?

Harry Meyers is a private detective in Chicago, an expert on identity theft. He took us to places in the city to collect garbage that he thought would contain critical information.

(on camera) What you're doing here is not illegal, right?

MYERS: No, it's not illegal.

OPPENHEIM (voice-over): As in most of the United States, as long as the person collecting trash is on public property, which we were, garbage is for the taking.

MYERS: This looks like it came from an area we'd be interested in.

OPPENHEIM: Myers took us to public alleys, where we had access to Dumpsters for medical offices, car dealerships and private homes. At one residence...

MYERS: We've got someone's bank account number.

OPPENHEIM: We immediately spotted a credit notice, complete with an individual's name, date of birth and Social Security number, the building blocks of getting a credit card in someone else's name.

In about two hours, Myers selected about a dozen bags of refuse. We brought them to his offices, where we sorted and sifted, looking for information an identity thief would want. It didn't take long.

(on camera) Look what we have here.

MYERS: And Illinois driver's license.

OPPENHEIM: What can somebody do with that copy of someone's license like that?

MYERS: Well, create a new identity.

Social Security number on this piece of paper, the credit report on here. I do not see a date of birth yet. Got an income. OPPENHEIM (voice-over): In all, we came across 15 documents with 19 names. Some had Social Security numbers. Others had dates of birth. Two of them had both. Myers believes all of them could have been converted into stolen identities.

One name came from residential trash. The rest came from medical offices and car dealerships. The lessons?

MYERS: One is that businesses that take your credit information are not guarding it and protecting it the way they should.

OPPENHEIM: So identity theft can still happen, even if you shred all your documents and you take care of your personal life well?

MYERS: Correct, yes, because it's not always in your hands.

OPPENHEIM: And because of that, Myers' advice is to check your credit, least once a year, and to shred personal documents into finer pieces that can't be pieced together. For the record, that's exactly what we did with all the sensitive documents we found in the garbage.

Keith Oppenheim, CNN, Chicago.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS (voice-over): Next on LIVE FROM, is the nation's milk supply a target for terror? The research paper the federal government doesn't want you to see.

Later on LIVE FROM...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She basically was able to get my whole life, not only my personal life, but my professional life with just one thing.

PHILLIPS: Guarding the one thing identity thieves want. What you can learn from this woman's painful experience.

Also ahead, miracle meeting. He's a Vietnam veteran. She, an Army nurse in Iraq. A chance encounter that revealed their connection to each other through a dying lieutenant in Iraq.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARRIS: Well, a big announcement from a big company. General Motors says it is planning to cut 25,000 jobs and shut down more plants and assembly lines. Susan Lisovicz has the details live from the New York Stock Exchange.

(STOCK REPORT)

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