Opting Out of Body Scans; Latest Travel Info; Thank Your TSA Agent
T.J. HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR: All right. We got to take a look at some "Odds & Ends" here. All right. The second one you're really going to get a kick out of, I was kind of smiling and you'll see why when I show you the second one. The first one here, I'm going to show you an album. Take a look at this album here behind me. It's the last thing John Lennon ever signed, and it was on the day he was murdered. A closer picture of the autograph here now. Well, who did he sign that to? Mark David Chapman. That's the guy who shot and killed him a little while later. That album was just sold. The price, $850,000. Now to the other odds and ends I want to share with you here. TSA-proof underwear. Take a look at what you're seeing here. And maybe not the most stylish of things, but a Las Vegas man has designed underwear that uses strategically placed radiation-shielding fig leaves to cover your private parts. Now, you've seen TSA privacy controversies all over the news lately, so here is one way for possibly the travelers to fight back. And with that, let's head on to the top of the hour, shall we? Hello to you all. I am T.J. Holmes, in today for my good friend Ali Velshi. Let me tell you what we've got "On the Rundown" this next hour. Millions of Americans hitting the roads and skies, trying to reach their holiday destination. We're going to see what's going to be messing with your travel plans. It could be the weather. Could it be that planned protest of airport security measures? How is all that going to affect your commute? We're checking in all over the country. Also, those flaring tensions on the Korean Peninsula right now after the North and South pretty much came to blows. We're following the developments as the U.S. prepares for planned war games. Also, toddlers and television. What should they be watching? Should they be watching things that entertain them? Should they be watching things that teach them? Well, it's not as simple having one way or the other. A little of both is what they actually need. We're going to be finding out all about it in today's "Chalk Talk" But let's get back to what is the busiest -- could be the busiest travel day of the year. Maybe it will. Maybe it won't. No matter what, it is going to be busy. And it's not going to be easy for a lot of folks out there. Millions of people are starting to clog the roads, starting to clog the airports right now. They're trying to get to that turkey dinner tomorrow. We here at CNN, we are watching all the pressure points all over the country to see where the tie-ups are, the slowdowns are, see if those opt-outs are actually affecting you. Also keeping a close eye on the weather. Now, back to this opt-out, supposedly flyers who object to TSA body scan machines will opt for the much more time-consuming pat- downs. The idea here is to show some kind of protest and essentially slow down the airport on one of the busiest days of the year. But so far what we're seeing, not a lot of people are opting out, and it's not really slowing things down. So maybe not having the desired effect that some of those critics and protesters wanted it to have. To give you a big picture of what's happening today though, 42.2 million people are expected to travel at least 50 miles away from their own homes, heading to dinner somewhere. Almost everybody, though, is going to be driving. We get these forecasts from AAA. They say 94 percent of that 42- plus million are going to be driving. Just four percent are going to be flying. Still, that's almost 1.5 million people who will be flying out there. It doesn't sounds like the big chunk of us are going to be flying, of course, just four percent. But take a look at the picture. This is always an interesting one to show, this Flight Tracker map of planes that are in the sky right now. Pretty crowded out there, but you always have to keep in mind, it's a big sky and there should be plenty of space out there right now. Two at the top we want to turn to right now. We want to turn to CNN's Ted Rowlands. He is one of our many correspondents who have been traveling today to see what it's like. And we're looking behind you. It doesn't look too busy. I shouldn't let that fool me though, should I?</s>TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: No. Oh, yes, it doesn't look busy at all. There's nobody behind me. People come and go here. We're at one of the ticket counters. The security checkpoints have had a pretty steady flow of people. We started our day in Los Angeles. A lot of folks there. Early this morning, we were going through security at the different terminals at LAX, and what we found, talking to the TSA and talking to passengers, that there was really no evidence at all, T.J., to this opt-out. There were no delays caused by people saying, I don't want the full-body scanner, I want to be frisked, or I want a pat-down, and I want to do that just to make everybody mad so I could prove a point. No evidence of that at all. We arrived at San Francisco this morning as well, and we spent a lot of time watching people get patted down, if you will. And we talked to a lot of people with different opinions as to what they thought of the pat-downs. We heard people say, hey, it's all part of it, it's no big deal. We heard some other people that legitimately did say that they were upset by the fact that the TSA was doing this. They felt as though they were violated. Here's a sample of some of those different opinions.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I had no problem with that. But once they started -- you know, they had come to the pat-down, and they're feeling all up inside you, and groping it, I just totally didn't like it. I totally -- I feel violated.</s>ROWLANDS: What's your take on this whole controversy over the pat-down and the body scanners?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't have any problem with profiling. I mean, I don't exactly look like a threat, first of all. But I think the body scanner is probably the way to go.</s>ROWLANDS: It is amazing, actually, T.J. A lot of people have said to us that they wished that the TSA would profile more, make eye contact, and don't give a pat-down to an 87-year-old guy in a wheelchair. That really has been the recurring theme that we've heard. One of the things we should also point out with this whole opt- out, it really doesn't make much sense, because most airports don't have scanner-only checkpoints. So you have the magnetometers, the regular x-ray machines, then these scanners, and then the pat-downs. If you don't want to go through that scanner, you can just go through the old-fashioned x-ray machines and you don't have to deal with it at all. So that's what we really have seen at both LAX and San Francisco today and, quite frankly, around the country, no evidence that this opt-out has taken hold.</s>HOLMES: Well, we're glad it's not disrupting things, at least on this day. I know a lot of other people are -- other ways to protest. And I'm sure we'll be hearing protests down the road. Ted, good to see you, as always. Glad you didn't have too many issues as you travel today. Well, a California man is being held on $5 million bail, accused of turning his home into a bomb factory. An investigation found three types of explosives, including PETN. That may sound familiar. That's the same stuff that was used by the shoe bomber and also the underwear bomber. It's the focus of today's "Sound Effect."</s>JAN CALDWELL, SAN DIEGO COUNTY SHERIFF'S DEPT.: It's very sensitive, very powerful, and very dangerous. We have found in excess of nine pounds of this material, and that's significant.</s>HOLMES: It's significant, and it is actually the biggest find of its kind ever in one location in the U.S. George Jacovac (ph) is an unemployed computer consultant and naturalized citizen from Serbia. He had been flying under the radar until his gardener was actually hurt in an explosion at the home last week. The suspect has now pleaded not guilty to more than two dozen explosive charges, as well as two counts of bank robbery. Let's turn to some other stories now we're keeping a close eye on. A family tragedy playing out in a Michigan courtroom. Taking the stand in a preliminary hearing, the survivor of a brutal stabbing attack that was two weeks ago. Mara Skinner calmly described how she and her husband woke up to a nightmare.</s>MARA SKINNER, SUFFERED 26 STAB WOUNDS: The next thing that I remember is my husband shouting for me. He shouted, "Hon! Hon!" And at that same moment that he was shouting my name, I felt blunt forces to the back of my -- to my back and to my head.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you see the person that was attacking you?</s>SKINNER: No.</s>HOLMES: Now, her husband, Paul, he died from his wounds. Their 17-year-old daughter accused of setting this whole thing in motion because her parents disapproved of her boyfriend. Now she, the boyfriend and another teenager being held without bond until trial. Also, police are again facing off against student protesters in cities across Britain. Some rowdy crowds in London. They tried to push past police lines in the latest round of demonstrations against college tuition hikes. To help battle this budget deficit, the government there plans to lift the current cap on tuition, which is about $5,000 a year, to as much as $14,000 a year. Also right now, much of the world still in shock over the deadly artillery duel between North and South Korea. Now U.S. warships are heading into those troubled waters, and shell-shocked civilians getting out of there. You'll see it all when we get back.