Ebbers Sentencing; Return of the Shuttle
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: As well as we look forward to the shuttle launch, weather permitting. Once again, 3:51 p.m. Eastern Time, join us for a special at 3:00 Eastern. For now, let's send it over to Daryn Kagan at the CNN Center in Atlanta. Hello, Daryn.</s>DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Miles, you're not going far. You're going to be back with us in just a couple of minutes.</s>O'BRIEN: OK. I'll stay right here.</s>KAGAN: OK. Don't go very far. We'll see you in just a minute. Meanwhile, let's take a look at what's happening "Now in the News." President Bush right now meeting at the White House with his cabinet and typically, at some point, reporters get a chance to ask a few questions. One sure to get asked, is about the probe into who leaked a CIA operative's identity and if Mr. Bush's top political adviser, Karl Rove, is to blame. We'll have much more on this story later in the program. A reporter connected to the CIA leak story, Matthew Cooper of "Time" magazine, is right now appearing before a federal grand jury. A recently disclosed internal "Time" magazine e-mail indicates that Mr. Bush's political adviser, Karl Rove, was Cooper's source. But some Republicans say Rove is the victim of a partisan attack. The crew of the space shuttle Discovery is ready for its mission. The Discovery is set to blast off from Kennedy Space Center later today. It's going to be the first mission for the shuttle program in more than two years since the Columbia disaster in 2003. We'll have live coverage from the site of the launch in just a few minutes with Miles O'Brien. Bernie Ebbers not in the best mood this morning, shoving that photograph. He's given up almost all of his money and this morning he'll find out if he must give up the rest of his life as well. The former CEO appears before a judge in New York this hour for sentencing in the WorldCom collapse. And should a communist government be allowed to run an American company? This hour a House panel is looking into the national security issues of such a deal. A Chinese state-owned oil firm has made an $18.5 billion bid for Unocal. The Chinese offer for the oil company exceeds one made by Chevron. Good morning to you on this Wednesday morning. I'm Daryn Kagan. It is the day of reckoning in the latest high profile white collar criminal case. We're talking about former WorldCom Chief Bernie Ebbers. He faces life in prison when he is sentenced this morning. Our Senior Correspondent Allan Chernoff is outside the federal courthouse where things already got a little bit bumpy and pushy this morning. Good morning, Allan.</s>ALLAN CHERNOFF, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely, Daryn. Bernie Ebbers got his aggression out this morning. He arrived at the federal courthouse right behind me at about 8:30 in the morning. A group of photographers ran over to take a picture of Mr. Ebbers walking into the courthouse and with both hands he shoved one of the photographers down very aggressively. This is certainly not the Bernie Ebbers that our producer, Winnie Dunbar, encountered Monday afternoon on a flight into New York during a flight in coach. Mr. Ebbers was very friendly, jovial, with an unlit cigar in his mouth during the entire flight. Now Mr. Ebbers does face a theoretical maximum here of 85 years in prison. His attorneys plan to argue this morning for leniency, saying that Mr. Ebbers is a kind man, a charitable man, somebody who has a heart condition and should not have to serve so much time in prison. The story of Bernie Ebbers really is a rags to riches tale that will now end in prison.</s>CHERNOFF, (voice over): Bernie Ebbers arriving in New York for his sentencing told CNN, it's bizarre facing prison. But on camera, he wouldn't talk.</s>BERNIE EBBERS, WORLDCOM: No, I really can't.</s>CHERNOFF: Back when Ebbers was running WorldCom, he had plenty to say.</s>EBBERS: I'm so proud to be standing here today with this group of esteemed entrepreneurs. Hell, I didn't write this</s>CHERNOFF: Ebbers, a former high school basketball coach, transformed a small telephone company in Mississippi into the second largest telecom provider in the world. In 1999, Ebbers was worth nearly $1.5 billion according to "Forbes" magazine, mostly in real estate and WorldCom stock. Still at WorldCom, Ebbers was a penny pincher, even eliminating free coffee to save money. A jury convicted Ebbers of trying to prop up WorldCom's stock through an $11 billion accounting fraud. The big in corporate history. Tens of thousands of WorldCom investors saw their stock holdings collapse. Hardest hit were employees like Stephen Teel. He had nearly $1 million worth of company stock in his retirement fund. Virtually all of it lost.</s>STEPHEN TEEL, EX-WORLDCOM EMPLOYEE: I believed them, unfortunately for me. All of my retirement was in my 401(k). I felt let down, obviously. I felt lied to. Ebbers and his crew were telling the world things that were not true, misled the world. But personally, he misled the employees and the investors.</s>CHERNOFF: Instead of early retirement, Mr. Teel and his wife intend to work for many years as Bernie Ebbers sits in prison. Daryn.</s>KAGAN: Allan Chernoff live in New York City. We will be back to you. Back to Allan and also when the sentencing is complete, we'll also talk with former U.S. Attorney Kendall Coffey (ph). Now we want to go to Kennedy Space Center where a historic return to space stands at about T minus six hours and counting. A live picture there from the launch pad. It's now parked at Launch Pad 39- B. NASA's space shuttle Discovery ready for blastoff just hours from now. Tell those clouds to go away. It will be first mission for the shuttle program in more than two years since the Columbia disaster. Back to February 2003, all seven astronauts aboard the Columbia were killed during reentry from space. NASA blamed the disaster on a piece of foam from the external fuel tank hitting the shuttle's wings during liftoff. Today's launch was cleared after NASA performed a repair job to replace some damaged thermal tiles. For more on that and today's launch, let's turn to our space correspondent and AMERICAN MORNING host, Miles O'Brien. He's live from the site of the launch. Miles, good morning.</s>O'BRIEN: Good morning, Daryn. Yes, the hope is that the weather holds. And, yes, there are pretty tight constraints on the weather for a shuttle launch, even more so this go round because there's a lot of tracking cameras, which I'll tell you about in a few moments, that are here to sort of check out the shuttle as it rides uphill, as they say, and looks for any debris strikes which caused, of course, Columbia to have its disaster 16 days after launch. Joining me now is Jim Reilly. He is a two-time astronaut, three- time spacewalker. He's going to be flying in another year. And, Jim, I just want to orient our viewers a little bit as to where we are in the world. Let's take a satellite image, if we could for just a moment, with our key hole satellite imagery and zoom down on the spot in the planet where we are. This is right down to the east coast of Florida, midway up, Cape Canaveral. The Kennedy Space Center is where we are. And as you zoom in and see the location, some people asked me the other day, what -- why they chose Florida for the launches? And part of the reason is, the launches go off to the east and it's safer that way to send those launches over water, right?</s>JAMES F. REILLY II, NASA ASTRONAUT: That's correct. And one of them is, the closer you are to the Equator, the more umph you get off the rotational speed of the earth, which makes it easier to get to orbit. So that's why we picked it so far south.</s>O'BRIEN: All right. So you get a little kick from the earth, which amounts to, what, about . . .</s>REILLY: Hopefully 1,000 miles an hour.</s>O'BRIEN: A thousand miles an hour. It doesn't feel like we're spinning at 1,000 miles an hour but we are, aren't we. Let's take a look at some live pictures at the launch pad right now and I want to talk a little bit, if we could, about what's going on with the weather. Those clouds look a little bit ominous there. The concern is, of course, thunderstorms within 35 miles, depending on which direction you're talking about, 20 miles on the other side. But there's also some concern, because of the additional tracking cameras that have been installed here, that the cloud layer has to be not so thick so as to obscure their view.</s>REILLY: Right. And that's really a function of how much coverage can you have. And that's what they'll be evacuating today. We've got cameras that are as far south as 40 miles away. And, of course, we've got cameras all around the pad. The whole idea is to get an end to end record of the launch because this is really a test flight looking at the redesign of the tank and looking for shed debris. So they'll be evaluating that coverage.</s>O'BRIEN: Let's talk about the crew for a moment. They've had their breakfast. They're getting ready for their weather briefing. The suit up is all underway. It's a very -- very much a ritual. Up to including a card game that the commander has to lose before every flight. Do you know the tradition on that at all?</s>REILLY: That goes way back. And nobody's going to break that tradition. So the commander's got to lose before they leave to go to the pad and they'll try to make sure that they lose before noon when they have to man up the</s>O'BRIEN: Deal them an unstacked deck, if you will. All right. And as far as nerves, do you think it's a nervous time or them or just a focused time?</s>REILLY: Pretty much focused. You know, at least my experience was. I was really focused on the first one, particularly, and the second one not quite as much. I was a little more relaxed. But not really nervous, and that was surprising. And I wasn't nervous at all. And I don't think they will be either.</s>O'BRIEN: We have some animation which shows what happens when a space shuttle goes into orbit. A so-called nominal launch sequence. Let's take a look at that. And if we can walk us through it. Acceleration is pretty quick. Of course, the orbiter with fueled up weigh more than 6 million pounds on the launch pad. Zero to 100 in about eight seconds, zero to about, I guess, more than 1,000 in about a minute, right. What's going on right now?</s>REILLY: Right about now at a minute were going supersonic. And we'll continue accelerating until we get two minutes on the solid rocket boosters. And then we'll shed the boosters. So at about 150,000 feet and doing about five times the speed of sound. And then we'll ride the three main engines for the next six-and-a-half minutes until we get orbital velocity of 17,500 miles an hour, which will take us to about 800 miles downrange and about 122 miles straight up, and that will be right offshore New York.</s>O'BRIEN: That's some right, isn't it? That's quite a kick.</s>REILLY: It's quite a ride.</s>O'BRIEN: All right, Jim Reilly, stay with us all day and stay with us at home, if you will, as we continue our coverage of Discovery. The launch anticipated, weather permitting, in less than six hours now. Daryn.</s>KAGAN: And, Miles, we're getting somewhat close to the end of an era. The shuttle only supposed to be around, what, like five more years?</s>O'BRIEN: Yes, 2010 is the date they're going to retire the fleet. This is an outgrowth of Columbia, of course. A lot of questioning about what's next for NASA. And the president has told NASA to come up with a new plan and a new vehicle and a new destination. And the hope is right around the same time, if they're lucky, they'll have a new vehicle which might start taking people like Jim Reilly, if he stays in shape, to the moon and then possibly his kids or my kids to Mars some day. Daryn.</s>KAGAN: Or maybe you could even bum a ride, Miles, if you have enough</s>O'BRIEN: I've got to stay healthy, don't I? All right. I'm going to avoid the fatty foods.</s>KAGAN: Good idea for many reason. Thank you. Well, NASA hopes the weather is going to hold for today's planned launch. Forecasters say there's a 40 percent chance of bad weather. Let's check in with CNN Meteorologist Rob Marciano. He's watching conditions from the weather center.</s>KAGAN: Of course, we're going to provide coverage of Discovery's return to flight. Our space correspondent and AMERICAN MORNING host, Miles O'Brien, anchors our one-hour special beginning at 3:00 p.m. Eastern. Still to come in CNN LIVE TODAY, more raids on homes in Northern London. A look at the arrests and the investigation into last week's terrorist attacks in England. Plus, play time near a curbside garbage can turns scary for a little boy. His narrow escape is coming up. And later, check the label and be careful what is in the bottle. A look at what went wrong when a toddler gets the wrong prescription.