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Iraq Bombings Target Shiite Muslims; Former WorldCom CEO to Face Multiple Charges, CFO Pleads Guilty; Who Will Win Super Tuesday?; Rebel Haiti Leader Takes Control of Armed Forces

Aired March 02, 2004 - 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.


MILES O'BRIEN, ANCHOR: I'm Miles O'Brien. We'll also have lake- breaking development in the Scott Peterson case.
KYRA PHILLIPS, ANCHOR: I'm Kyra Phillips. It's Super Tuesday, March 2. CNN's LIVE FROM starts right now.

O'BRIEN: One of the holiest days of the year for Iraqi Shiites, the bloodiest since the end of major combat.

A hundred and forty-three people are dead after a coordinated series of suicide attacks, mortar blasts and roadside explosions in Baghdad and the holy city of Karbala, some 50 miles away. The targets, religious pilgrims.

We get the latest from Baghdad bureau chief Jane Arraf -- Jane.

JANE ARRAF, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Miles, that death toll continues to arrive, as people with horrific injuries succumb to their wounds.

Now, this after what we now know are coordinated suicide attacks, three of them alone in Baghdad. And in Baghdad, they were set off in one of the holiest sites in the world for Shiah Muslims, the Kadayima Mosque, where wave upon wave of people were coming to commemorate a celebration that they had not been able to publicly commemorate for three decades.

It was the holiest of days, the most horrific of attacks.

As we went into the mosque after the explosion there was blood on the marble floor, remains of people who have been killed and injured in the attacks, including women and children, and the -- the mosque cleric in tears.

Outside, people were incredibly and understandably enraged. And as U.S. soldiers approached to try to help, they had to retreat after people started picking up stones to throw at them.

They picked up stones, as well, against the Iraqi police and Iraqi police forces, all of them, they said, failed to protect them.

The U.S. soldiers withdrew. The spokesman for the military here, Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt says this was the work of a group that clearly knew what it was doing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BRIG. GEN. MARK KIMMITT, U.S. ARMY: This was a very sophisticated attack. Very well coordinated. It was timed to take into account two significant events.

The fact that the plan for signing the transitional administrative law and Ashura happening at the same time certainly gave them the ability to find that spectacular type of event that we've talked about so many times.

But this was not a pickup team. This was not an organization that just started. This -- this clearly shows signs of a well- coordinated organization, with some level of sophistication.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ARRAF: Iraq's governing council declared three days of official mourning. Religious leaders are appealing for unity and for calm -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: All right. CNN's Jane Arraf reporting to us live from Baghdad.

Let's go live now to Washington. The attorney general, John Ashcroft, is holding a news conference. I'm sorry, that's in New York.

Let's listen.

JOHN ASHCROFT, ATTORNEY GENERAL: ... in the Southern district of New York unsealed a three-count, 30-page indictment of Bernard J. Ebbers and Scott D. Sullivan.

The defendants are charged with conspiracy to commit securities fraud, securities fraud, and false filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The indictment alleges that, beginning in or about September, through -- September 2000, through 2002, June of 2002, Bernard J. Ebbers and Scott D. Sullivan and their co-conspirators engaged in an illegal scheme to deceive members of the investing public, WorldCom shareholders, professional securities analysts and the Securities and Exchange Commission and others, concerning WorldCom's true operating performance and true financial results.

During the period covered by the indictment, Bernard J. Ebbers served as president, chief executive officer, and a director of WorldCom.

Also during the period covered by the indictment, Scott D. Sullivan served in various capacities, including chief financial officer, treasurer, and secretary of WorldCom.

Today, in federal court here in Manhattan, Scott Sullivan pleaded guilty to participating from September 2000 through June 2002 in the illegal scheme with other former WorldCom incorporated officers and employees. Mr. Sullivan pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit securities fraud, guilty to securities fraud, and guilty to filing false -- to false filing, pardon me, with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Scott Sullivan faces a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison. Scott Sullivan has agreed to cooperate.

As part of his duties as president, CEO, and a director, Bernard Ebbers signed the annual reports on form 10-K filed with the SEC. As part of his duties at WorldCom, Sullivan directed the preparation and signed the annual reports on form 10-K and the quarterly reports on form 10-Q, filed with the SEC.

It is alleged that in or about September 2000, Ebbers, Sullivan and their co-conspirators knew that WorldCom's true operating performance and financial results were in decline and had fallen materially below analysts' expectations.

It is alleged that Ebbers nevertheless insisted that WorldCom report financial results publicly that met analysts' expectations.

As a result, it is alleged that, rather than disclose WorldCom's true condition, and suffer the ensuing decline in the price of WorldCom's common stock, Sullivan, with Ebbers' approval, directed co- conspirators to make false and fraudulent adjustments to WorldCom's books and records.

From this point on, Ebbers, Sullivan, and their co-conspirators allegedly disguised true operating performance and financial results until some time in or about June of 2002.

As the truth about WorldCom's operative performance and financial results begin to be revealed, the price of WorldCom's common stock plummeted, causing billions of dollars in shareholder value to decline.

It is alleged that Ebbers, Sullivan, and their co-conspirators knew this scheme to defraud would present a materially false picture of WorldCom.

Among the alleged adjustments to financial statements resulting in fraud were the following: Ebbers and Sullivan directed members of WorldCom's revenue accounting department to book entries that increased revenue.

With Ebbers' knowledge and approval, Sullivan directed members of WorldCom's general accounting department to book entries that reduced liability accounts without support documentation or proper business rationality.

With Ebbers' knowledge and approval, Sullivan directed member of WorldCom's general accounting department to transfer expenses from line-cost accounts to capital expenditure accounts, without business justification or supporting documentation.

The results of these and other alleged efforts to defraud were as follows: falsely inflated earnings per share; falsely inflated earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization; falsely inflated net income; falsely inflated revenue growth; and falsely inflated analyst and investor expectation.

America's strength depends on the integrity of the Marketplace. A belief in the free flow of information that is reliable depends on the transparency of financial dealings, and it depends on the accountability of corporate officials.

It is the honor, the duty, and the responsibility of the United States Department of Justice to ensure that no one stands above the law, regardless of power, position, or privilege. The rule of law and the people's trust depend on swift, sure justice in the prosecution of crimes that manipulate or contaminate competition or deceive the public.

Since its creation in July 2002, the president's corporate fraud task force has worked diligently to restore integrity to the Marketplace. Today, we add to the task force's impressive accomplishments with these particular events today.

The accomplishments are impressive. Over 650 violators have been charged in the past two years. Over 250 have already been convicted. I want, today, to commend the corporate fraud task force on which acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern district of New York, David Kelly, serves.

PHILLIPS: Attorney General John Ashcroft announcing the filing of criminal charges against former WorldCom chief executive Bernard Ebbers.

You'll remember that Mr. Ebbers resigned from WorldCom back in April of 2002. This was well after the stock price had begun a steady decline and soon after questions began to swirl about the company's finances.

It did file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in July after admitting to a number of fraud accounts that eventually amounted to $11 billion in fraud.

That company has said that it hopes to emerge from bankruptcy court proceedings later this year. As you know, WorldCom now doing business under the name MCI Group. It is the nation's second largest long distance carrier after AT&T.

We'll continue to follow up on that story.

Now moving on to ten states, 1,100 delegates, four contenders and one burning question: can John Edwards survive Super Tuesday?

The strongest competition for the race is undisputed frontrunner. He's pinning his hopes on Georgia, New York, and Minnesota, though he vows to carry on win or lose.

John Kerry is leading in every poll, while insisting, as he always does, that he doesn't trust the polls. The Super Tuesday lineup includes the states I just mentioned, along with California, Ohio, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut and Vermont.

Even if Kerry wins every one of those delegates, he won't be over the top, just very, very close. Going into the polls with 768 of the 2162 delegates needed to nominate. Edwards has 220; former candidate Howard Dean, 174; Al Sharpton, 16; Dennis Kucinich, 9.

MILES: Well, let's not count out Kucinich. This could be his night. Maybe he'll go over the top.

To bat that around and some more serious issues, we have the "CROSSFIRE" gang in the house with us. This is very exciting.

Paul Begala, Tucker Carlson, good to see you Guys. Glad you're off the bus. You look good. You look tan, rested ready and all that stuff.

PAUL BEGALA, "CROSSFIRE" CO-HOST: We pushed the bus...

MILES: Yes, pushed the bus right in here, and you feel good.

Let's go back to that map for just a second and look at the delegate count, first of all.

I'm curious. I always want to know what political pros, such as yourselves, look for on the night of an important election. Which states will we be watching? What are the most important battlegrounds?

Paul, you first.

BEGALA: Well, first, Georgia, because Senator Edwards is from the South. The only primary he's won so far is South Carolina. That -- He has a chance, think, to win in Georgia. Not a great chance. But a chance.

But he's going to have to win some place where they don't say "ya'll" and think Billy Ray Cyrus is a real star. You know, he's got to win somewhere outside of...

O'BRIEN: There are places where they don't think...

TUCKER CARLSON, "CROSSFIRE" CO-HOST: Apparently, he's not in all across the country.

O'BRIEN: I had no idea. This is news.

And now, is it 86 electorate votes, winner take all, in Georgia? Is that how it works?

BEGALA: It's proportional.

O'BRIEN: It's proportional. OK.

Tucker, what are you going to be watching for tonight?

CARLSON: Sadly, only Georgia. I do think that. I'm not even sure it's about anything. I mean, it's hard to imagine a scenario in which Edwards becomes a nominee at this point.

I hate to say that as someone who supports the idea of a contested primary lasting, you know, into June. But it's hard to see how that happens. And really, the only question is Georgia. And if he wins it, maybe it will be another week he'll be in the race.

O'BRIEN: Essentially, this is not good for business, is it, when it's over this early?

CARLSON: It's terrible.

BEGALA: No, there's lots more for us to chew on.

O'BRIEN: Yes, I'm sure. We'll come up with something, won't we?

Let's talk about Edwards' tactics here for just a moment. Very late in the game, it was no more Mr. Nice Guy. And I have to wonder why then. You could ask, why not Mr. Nice Guy any more? But why so late in the game, Paul?

BEGALA: He had to do something to try to keep it going. I have to say, I thought the attacks were kind of puny. Or I should say they were gracious even.

O'BRIEN: We didn't hear voodoo economics or anything like that.

BEGALA: No. Not the sort of things that President Bush Sr. said against Ronald Reagan. Not the sort of things that Bill Clinton and Paul Tsongas were saying about each other back when I worked for Clinton.

It's been very, very mild. The problem is, though, Edwards made a pledge in Iowa, in fact, with Tucker and me, who's sitting on this...

O'BRIEN: Right with you Guys.

BEGALA: And he said, "I'm not going to criticize my opponents at all for the rest of the campaign."

O'BRIEN: Did you believe him?

BEGALA: Yes. And he kind of almost kept it. I mean, he...

O'BRIEN: I mean, but wait a minute. Saying it to you Guys is like going to political confession. This is binding, right?

CARLSON: Are you kidding? This is like a cable affidavit.

O'BRIEN: So he had to stick with it.

CARLSON: No, look, I think -- I mean, from our point of view it looks insane. Why, you're losing. It's your last debate, why do you go negative...

O'BRIEN: Stay high road, right?

CARLSON: Exactly. Why wreck our chances of being picked as vice president?

He probably doesn't see it that way. Candidates don't have perspective on themselves. From our point of view, it's over for John Edwards. Not from John Edwards' point of view.

I've been with a lot of candidates who have no hope: Alan Keyes. Interviewed Alan Keyes in the middle of 2000. He really thought he was going to win. No kidding.

O'BRIEN: This brings us back to Kucinich. This is it.

CARLSON: He's already over the top in some deeper sense.

O'BRIEN: That's a whole other subject.

All right. So is -- inside the Democratic Party is there going to be a lot of pressure? I mean, John Kerry's going to make his own decision, clearly. But is there going to be a lot of pressure on him to choose Edwards? Because that fits so nicely in the Southern strategy.

BEGALA: It fit in the South. It also fits stylistically. I mean, John Edwards is a remarkably talented candidate on the stump. He's helped himself enormously.

He began his presidential race, and everybody said, well, he's kind of a lightweight, doesn't have the policy depth. He has performed so well and run such a good, positive campaign that a lot of delegates have fallen in love with him as a second choice.

The problem is, I think he's starting to get under John Kerry's skin. I don't think he attacks him much, Miles. But I think -- I know he's annoying John Kerry. And so they may just not have a personal chemistry.

O'BRIEN: Well, but does that really matter? What do you think? Personal chemistry?

CARLSON: Well, I do think it matters. I think there's a larger problem.

A, it's not clear that Edwards can reel in the South for Kerry anyway. B, I think the stylistic questions count against Edwards. He's so charismatic that to put him against Kerry doesn't make Kerry look good.

It's like a 40-year-old mother of three hiring J. Lo as the babysitter. You don't necessarily want to do that. You don't look that great by comparison.

O'BRIEN: So maybe Bill Richardson is the choice. Who knows, you know?

CARLSON: Who's charming, who's actually got a pretty impressive diplomatic career behind him. Everyone likes him.

BEGALA: The Guy speaks Spanish.

By the way, shouldn't neglect Dick Gephardt.

O'BRIEN: Interesting.

BEGALA: A lot of class.

O'BRIEN: Brings that Midwest bloc, which is where we might see some key battles in the general election.

BEGALA: And in Iowa when we go to his rallies -- In fact, Johnny Apple, "The New York Times," says, "This look like something out of the 1950s." And he meant it as a compliment because it was middle aged white Guys at a Democratic rally.

I mean, that doesn't happen -- outside of the gay community -- doesn't happen very often in my party. We have a room full of middle aged white Guys cheering for a Democrat.

O'BRIEN: They being Democrats, right?

BEGALA: He could reach those Guys, right.

CARLSON: That would be the campaign of yesterday. If you get Fritz Mondale as the campaign manager, it would be perfect. I hope he does pick Dick Gephardt.

O'BRIEN: Quickly, who do Republicans wish Kerry would choose, then? Perniciously?

CARLSON: Maxine Waters. I mean, she's smart. She has a good message. She's perfect.

O'BRIEN: What about Aristide, is he -- He's available.

All right, gentlemen, thank you very much. Going to work on that citizenship issue. We'll take care of it, though.

Don't forget there are 10 states that weighing in from coast to coast. CNN will be live with all the results. These Guys will be hanging around all night. They're jacking themselves up on coffee right now, as a matter of fact.

Wolf Blitzer and Larry King will lead our special prime-time coverage. And all of the results start rolling in at 7 p.m. Eastern. CNN is the only place to watch it -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Well, some of the -- that's all right. Some of the biggest names in baseball is what we're talking about, reportedly named in a steroid scandal. We'll knock that story home for you later on LIVE FROM. And an amazing reunion: a mom finds her daughter six years after the baby was declared dead in a house fire. It's an incredible story. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Former leader Jean-Bertrand Aristide continues to insist that the U.S. forced him out of Haiti, a claim that the Bush administration continues to reject.

Meanwhile, the situation in Haiti remains volatile. Just a short time ago, rebel leader Guy Phillipe declared that he is in charge of the country's armed forces.

CNN's Lucia Newman joins us now live from Port-au-Prince. She actually had an interview with him -- Lucia.

LUCIA NEWMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Kyra.

Well, if anyone had any doubts about the intentions of Haiti's rebel army now that President Aristide is gone, they're all -- whose forces control...

PHILLIPS: We're having some technical problems with our videophone there via Port-au-Prince. We'll try to get Lucia -- OK, we're going to try and get -- work on that technical situation.

Meanwhile, I mentioned she did have an interview with Guy Phillipe. We're going to show you a bit of that interview right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GUY PHILIPPE, REBEL LEADER: I want to examine -- they're well arranged. And now we're having a problem with the high chief in the police force because, you know, Aristide named him. And they don't know anything about police, about security. They just ousted guys.

So we have a base of the police with us -- almost 90 percent of the police is with us now, and working together and try to -- to take the right decision.

NEWMAN: But who is in control? There has to be a chief. There has to be a reign of command, as you know.

PHILIPPE: From today, I'll be.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: Once again, our Lucia Newman there, with a one-on-one interview with Guy Phillipe, the rebel leader that has now declared that he is in charge of Haiti's armed forces, just one of the opposition leaders trying -- or moving towards new government there in Haiti.

We'll try and check in with Lucia Newman later in the hour -- Miles. O'BRIEN: Will the sexual history of Kobe Bryant's accuser be part of his future defense? As a judge decides, we'll debate the impact it could have on his trial.

And Disney's family feud gets gritty. A bold move for a showdown over the entertainment empire.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(STOCK REPORT)

PHILLIPS: Straight ahead, an alleged victim's sexual past revealed. It's the key legal issue holding up attorneys in the Kobe Bryant case. We'll talk about it. We'll debate it.

Also, tough times on campus. New details this afternoon on the troubles surrounding the University of Colorado football program.

And late night for laughs for California governors past and present. Details straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: Key development in the Scott Peterson murder trial. Let's go live now to CNN's Rusty Dornin in Redwood City, California, for the latest.

Hello, Rusty.

RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Miles, a judge has made a decision on two key pieces of evidence in this case, the wiretapping and the dog tracking.

Let's start off with the dog tracking. Defense attorney general Mark Geragos wanted all the evidence thrown out. He claimed it was utter nonsense that these dogs could actually trail the scent of Laci Peterson in and around Modesto.

They tried to show that they had followed in a car, which had never done before, the scent of Laci Peterson out to Highway 580.

The judge decided that that was correct, that they could not use the evidence in and around Modesto. But he did decide that the dog trailing evidence at the Berkeley Marina could be admitted as evidence.

Now, this is important because one of the dogs three -- five days after -- excuse me, four days after Laci Peterson disappeared, was taken out to the Berkeley Marina. Remember, this was where Scott Peterson said he went fishing the day she disappeared.

Was taken out to the marina and picked out a scent that he obtained from a pair of sunglasses belonging to Laci Peterson, walked out to the edge of the pier and stopped and gave his handler what they call an end of the trail sign. The judge felt this was significant enough and was believable enough. That it will be admitted in evidence, and it will be up to the jury to decide whether or not they believe it.

The other evidence that Geragos was fighting to have thrown out were some 3,000 wiretap calls. Included in that were 176 calls with Scott Peterson to his attorney, then, Kirk McAllister.

The judge said the court listened to those recordings that investigators turned out. There was a minimal amount of time that they listened to those conversations, so it was of minimum consequence. He decided not to throw those out.

Mark Geragos was arguing there was no necessity in the first place for investigators to have been wiretapping Scott Peterson's telephones.

So the judge is allowing the wiretap evidence in. He is not allowing the dog tracking, except for what the dog did track to the Berkeley Marina, which could be very significant -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: Rusty Dornin in Redwood City, thank you very much.

NBA star Kobe Bryant back in court today. But the same can't be said about his accuser. A judge has delayed testimony from the woman who says the NBA star raped her.

CNN's Gary Tuchman takes a look behind the reason -- behind the move and the possible ramifications.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): About 12 hours after he played in a basketball game in New Jersey, Kobe Bryant arrived at court in Colorado to begin a two-day pretrial hearing where he had expected to face his accuser in court for the first time.

The woman, allegedly sexually assaulted at a Colorado hotel, had been scheduled to testify Tuesday about defense allegations she had, quote, multiple acts of sex in the days prior to being with Bryant and more sex within 15 hours afterwards.

But the judge has delayed the testimony until later this month, saying he needs more time to decide what kind of questioning will be allowed.

CRAIG SILVERMAN, COLORADO ATTORNEY: The most damaging evidence against Kobe Bryant is this industry to the young lady's posterior forchette.

The prosecution is claiming Kobe Bryant caused that injury. Team Kobe is arguing no, that was caused by somebody else prior or aggravated by somebody subsequent.

TUCHMAN: Judge Terry Ruckriegle will rule some time following the woman's closed-door testimony if details of her sexual history are relevant.

CYNTHIA STONE, COLORADO COALITION AGAINST SEXUAL ASSAULT: Just because a judge lets it be in the courtroom or makes it admissible in the courtroom also does not mean it is true.

TUCHMAN: On Monday, Bryant's attorneys resumed his effort to get a secret police recording with the Laker guard thrown out, because he wasn't read his Miranda rights.

Prosecutors say the procedure was unnecessary because Bryant wasn't arrest or in custody. Bryant's attorneys say he felt like he was in custody.

The judge could issue that decision anytime.

(on camera) The alleged victim is from here in Eagle, but we've learned through court testimony she's temporarily moved out of state and that Kobe Bryant's attorneys are paying to fly her back home to testify.

Gary Tuchman, CNN, Eagle, Colorado.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Now Colorado has one of the most stringent rape shield laws on the books and encourages the protection of victims' rights. What could this mean for the Kobe Bryant case?

Joining us from Seattle, trial attorney Karen Russell. And from Boston, former federal prosecutor Wendy Murphy.

Ladies, great to see you.

WENDY MURPHY, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: Great to be here.

PHILLIPS: What's being talked about a lot right now is the issue of this alleged victim having sex, allegedly, 15 hours after the alleged rape.

Should this be relevant? Should this be used? Karen?

KAREN RUSSELL, TRIAL ATTORNEY: Absolutely. I mean this goes -- I can't imagine I've heard of another case where a rape victim had sex with somebody else -- and she's alleging that Kobe Bryant violently raped her.

And the fact she had sex afterwards and allegedly had sex with two prosecution witnesses and showed up for a rape exam with someone else's DNA in her shorts is really troubling.

And this goes to the core of Kobe's defense. He's saying -- They're saying you caused these injuries, and Kobe's saying it could have been the guy before or after me who caused these injuries.

PHILLIPS: Wendy, a bit of an interesting twist. What do you think? Karen raises an interesting question. If, indeed, she was raped, would you have sex 15 hours after that?

MURPHY: You know, it's a very strange idea to have sex after you're raped. And there is absolutely no evidence that she had sex after this rape.

And I think we have to be very clear about this. It is widely reported that this claim is false, that...

RUSSELL: It's also been widely reported...

MURPHY: I didn't interrupt you, now let me finish, please.

RUSSELL: OK.

MURPHY: It is widely reported that it is false, that she went home, woke up, told her parents and went to the police.

Now what I want to know if in fact it comes out that this is false, how are we going to repair this woman's dignity? How are we going to give back to her the dignity she's entitled to, and how are we going to repair the damage to the jury pool that is hearing this nonsense?

You know, her blood -- let's be very clear about this -- her blood from her vaginal injuries was found on Kobe Bryant's T-shirt. If he wants to argue someone else caused that, let a jury with common sense hear that claim. They're going to laugh about it. It makes no sense.

RUSSELL: They're going to laugh about it because the blood was so minor that the eight detectives who illegally obtained that evidence weren't able to see the speck of blood until the Colorado Bureau of Investigation found it for them later.

MURPHY: Because it was on the inside of his T-shirt and they weren't looking at his belly.

RUSSELL: It's because it was so minimal. And the fact is, if we're try to get to the truth in this matter...

MURPHY: Minimal.

PHILLIPS: Karen, you said that there was no DNA match that was made to Kobe.

RUSSELL: Yes, exactly. So you know, I want to know why, Wendy, her vaginal swabs don't have Kobe's DNA and have, you know, other people's DNA, if...

MURPHY: Look, you know, I don't want to be rude to the viewers and talk about what likely happened, but I'll tell you this.

There is no reason to question why Kobe's DNA might not have been here because he agreed and told police and told everybody that he had sexual intercourse with this woman. Where he ejaculated may well be an interesting thing we're going to hear about in the trial. But the fact that there was no semen from him in her body is irrelevant.

Frankly, so is it irrelevant that she had...

RUSSELL: ... semen in her body...

MURPHY: What happened on the night in question is the only issue. You want to judge her harshly because she had sex with someone else two days earlier?

RUSSELL: I don't want to judge her...

(CROSSTALK)

RUSSELL: I don't want Kobe to go to jail based on this crazy story of a rape victim who said that she, you know, had...

MURPHY: Kobe is the only person we know for sure who lied in this case. He lied to the police. Let's talk about that for a change.

RUSSELL: How about the fact that she shows up with someone else's pubic hair on the body? What kind of lie is that?

MURPHY: You have no idea whose pubic hair that is? That could be her pubic hair.

PHILLIPS: These questions...

(CROSSTALK)

MURPHY: You have no idea...

PHILLIPS: Ladies, ladies...

MURPHY: ... whose pubic hair that is, and you shouldn't speculate...

PHILLIPS: Look, you can tell this is a hot button issue. That is for sure.

RUSSELL: Pamela Mackey said a good faith basis for everything that she's alleged, and this has been borne out.

MURPHY: Pamela Mackey has lied to the public and tainted the jury pool.

(CROSSTALK)

PHILLIPS: Ladies, let me ask you a question -- Wendy, Karen -- I need a referee with you two...

MURPHY: You should be ashamed. You give defense attorneys a bad name. PHILLIPS: Karen, Wendy. Let's -- All right. Let's just say, let's just say there is a sexual history here. She's had multiple partners, this alleged victim. OK. And she's agreed to sex before.

But let's say this one time, though, she did not. Aren't we -- Is this all getting overshadowed, the issue of rape?

MURPHY: Yes, and that's exactly the point of the defense dumping this stuff into the court of public opinion.

They don't want us focusing on what we know the victim said happened, that he grabbed her by the neck, bent her over a chair, raped her from behind, caused vaginal bleeding and tearing...

RUSSELL: Where is there evidence?

MURPHY: ... tossed her away like a piece of trash. If we're talking about her underwear and her sex life, we're not talk about the crime now, are we? And that's good for the defense, bad for justice, bad for women.

RUSSELL: Wendy, we want the truth. And we want to get rid of this myth that women don't lie about rape. And I just don't understand why, despite this woman's crazy story, everyone continues to just overlook all the inconsistencies of her lies...

MURPHY: Crazy story?

PHILLIPS: Let's talk about...

RUSSELL: Absolutely.

MURPHY: ... the rape advocates. Karen, you bring up an interesting point about the rape advocates. Is this doing more harm than good?

RUSSELL: I think aggressively pursuing -- this case should never have been brought. And by aggressively pursuing it, yes, it is undermining...

PHILLIPS: Why? Why, you think she's becoming a poster child?

RUSSELL: They're trying to make her the poster child. Unfortunately, she's not worthy of that status.

PHILLIPS: Wendy...

MURPHY: I'll tell you something...

RUSSELL: ... deterred other women in Colorado from coming forward and making allegations.

MURPHY: I'll tell you something. If it bears out, which is probably true, that this woman had sex two or three days earlier, consensually with a boyfriend and that should be, and is, irrelevant, and everything else that she said is true. And all this nonsense from Pamela Mackey is both false and/or irrelevant, I want to know who is going to punish Pamela Mackey for the harm she did, not only to this victim but to all women who are now going to worry if they report crime that the defense attorney is going to lie about their sex life, trash them on national television, discourage them from participating fully in the criminal justice system.

PHILLIPS: Karen?

RUSSELL: Wendy, do you know...

PHILLIPS: What do you think? Karen, what do you think about this judge? You think he's fair-minded? Do you think she's going to be put on the stand? Do you think there are going to be some pretty direct questions?

RUSSELL: Absolutely. I think this judge is fair-minded and I think the jury certainly should know if this woman slept with the prosecution witnesses and has someone else's DNA in her shorts, that Kobe may not be cause of these minimal injuries.

So I absolutely have faith in the people of Colorado, that they can look at the evidence here fairly and exonerate Kobe Bryant.

PHILLIPS: Final thought.

MURPHY: ... look at the evidence fairly and easily find him guilty.

You know, I've prosecuted hundreds of sex crimes cases. I have never had a case with such serious vaginal injuries. Karen wants to say they're not that serious; it's only a minimal amount of bleeding. Look, that area of the body is tough to tear. It takes a lot of force...

RUSSELL: When you have three guys in three days, you're bound to get a little bit of wear and tear...

MURPHY: ... body. That's evidence of violence, non-consent, and a jury will find him guilty.

PHILLIPS: OK, we've got to leave it there. I am curious, though. Here we are, three women, you two, you know, with a background in law. Does this case affect you more then any other case, just real quickly, Karen. I'm just curious?

RUSSELL: Well, I just -- I feel that it's doing a disservice to women because a -- they're trying to perpetuate this myth and political agenda that women don't lie about rape. And I think we should rally be more concerned with the truth here.

PHILLIPS: Wendy, quickly.

MURPHY: False allegations are no more common in rape cases than any other kind of crime. What I worry about is the most vulnerable among us. And you know, prostitutes get raped all the time. Nobody cares. Nobody brings those cases forward, because they're afraid that this is going to happen to them.

We have to stop that. We have to treat all citizens as if, no matter who they are, no matter what their lot in life, no one deserves to be raped.

PHILLIPS: Windy Murphy, Karen Russell, great debate. Appreciate your time very much.

MURPHY: Thank you.

PHILLIPS: We're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: Three big names in major league baseball linked to steroid use in a report by the "San Francisco Chronicle."

The paper says they received steroids from a lab implicated in an illegal distribution ring. The report quotes information given to federal prosecutors.

We have an update on the story now from Ray D'Alessio of CNN sports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RAY D'ALESSIO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Who was using steroids? That's what everyone wants to know after five to seven percent of major league players tested positive for steroid use last year. The players' names were kept con confidential.

DUSTY BAKER, CUBS MANAGER: It's like who's in the five to seven percent? And people are looking, like -- it's like McCarthyism or something. They're look to see who -- who looks like a communist. Correct?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

BAKER: You know? I mean, I'll probably get in trouble for that, too, but that's how I equate it. You know, he lost weight, he gained weight. I don't know.

D'ALESSIO: Speculation was further fueled after an article in Tuesday's "San Francisco Chronicle" reported that Giants' outfielder Barry Bonds and the Yankees' Jason Giambi and Gary Sheffield were among a half dozen players to receive illegal, performance-enhancing drugs.

The three players were among more than two dozen high-profile athletes to testify in front before a grand jury investigating a company that allegedly was the source of steroids provided to professional athletes.

Now, Bonds' personal trainer, Greg Anderson, was one of the four people indicted on conspiracy charges. Anderson later admitted he gave steroids to several baseball players, but his lawyer maintains Bonds was not one of them.

Bonds, Sheffield and Giambi have denied using steroids, but the accusations still fly.

Colorado Rockies pitcher Turk Wendell was the first player to openly accuse Bonds of steroid use.

Quote, "If my personal trainer, me, Turk Wendell, got indicted for that, there's no one in the world who wouldn't think that I wasn't taking steroids. What, because he's Barry Bonds no one's going to say that? I mean, obviously he did it," end quote.

Here's Bonds' response.

BARRY BONDS, GIANTS PLAYER: I have a lot of respect for Turk Wendell. I have a lot of respect for every baseball player in this game.

You know, just to disrespect other people like that or talk through the media, I think that's chicken (expletive deleted). You know, you got something to say, you come to my face and say it, and then we'll deal with each other. But don't be a (expletive deleted) and got talk to the media like, you know, you're some tough guy.

D'ALESSIO: Baseball has started another round of steroid testing for this season. In accordance with the agreement between players and major league baseball, a first positive test will result in a player getting treatment.

For CNN sports, I'm Ray D'Alessio.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: Up in arms over Wal-mart. The discount chain is facing some stiff opposition to its expansion films. We'll have details coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(STOCK REPORT)

O'BRIEN: From trading barbs to trading quips, the current and former governors of California dropped in on "The Tonight Show" with Jay Leno, Gray Davis helping Arnold Schwarzenegger push his $15 billion bond proposal.

And they also took a little bit of time to push each other's buttons.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) GRAY DAVIS, FORMER CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR: I talked to Arnold a little bit about some of the state problems, but he's helped me a lot with acting, particularly with my pronunciation.

JAY LENO, "TONIGHT SHOW" HOST: Really?

GOV. ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER, CALIFORNIA: I knew there would be a joke. A bang. OK, go ahead guys, have a good time.

LENO: I heard you talking. You foolishly say California, which of course is ridiculous.

DAVIS: And I didn't know how to say it...

SCHWARZENEGGER: What?

That's actually the right way to pronounce it. In Spanish, it's California, not in California.

LENO: You're not in -- oh, I guess you are. I'm sorry.

DAVIS: I used to think I knew how to say "I'll be back." Now I know it's "I'll be back."

LENO: And the big issue here in California is this gay marriage thing. What's your position on this? How do you deal with this? What do you do here? Seriously.

SCHWARZENEGGER: Are you try to...

LENO: No, no, no, I'm not trying to ask you.

SCHWARZENEGGER: Be honest, Jay.

LENO: No, no, no, I'm serious.

SCHWARZENEGGER: You can admit it.

LENO: It's a big issue. All right, I admit it. I'm in love with you. All right, fine.

SCHWARZENEGGER: Finally good.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: OK.

PHILLIPS: Now that's a lead.

O'BRIEN: Yes. Yes, that was a lead.

PHILLIPS: Jay Leno and Arnold Schwarzenegger in love.

O'BRIEN: It also wasn't very funny, was it? Gray Davis, I guess he doesn't have a day job so he doesn't have to worry about it.

PHILLIPS: I think it was fun.

O'BRIEN: But if he had one, he shouldn't quit it.

OK. Let's move on, shall we?

PHILLIPS; We're talking about some momentous on Mars.

O'BRIEN: Let's do that. That's much more exciting. Coming up in just a few moments, NASA is making an announcement about a discovery that has scientists, and me, really excited.

Let's just say -- here's a hint for you. See this scene here, this animation? Four billion years ago, the humidity was substantially higher here.

PHILLIPS: Oh, boy.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: A momentous Mars discovery excites scientists on earth. We expect a live announcement from NASA any moment now. Kyra can hardly wait.

PHILLIPS; Terror attacks shatter holy celebrations in Iraq. Dozens of people are killed, hundreds more injured.

O'BRIEN: Secretly taped phone calls. Secret no more. A new development in the Scott Peterson murder trial to tell you about.

BOB FRANKEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Bob Franken in Annapolis, Maryland. Super Tuesday, will it be for John Kerry and John Edwards a super wipeout or a super surprise?

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

O'BRIEN: And I'm Miles O'Brien. This hour, CNN's LIVE FROM starts right now.

Up first this hour, opportunity knocks and pokes and drills and finds water or at least ancient signs of it, perhaps four billion years too late to see the water.

A starry-eyed batch of NASA scientists will tell the universe what their newest Martian rover has discovered about the Red Planet momentarily. The news conference is beginning as we speak. As soon as they get through the introductions we will bring it to you.

But, in essence, they're saying that the Opportunity rover which landed in a place called the Meridiani Planum has found telltale clues that it was once submerged with water.

Take a look at some of these images, as we look at the animation of how it was doing its work. These are the real life rocks on Mars. This is an outcropping which has been of great significance and interest to the scientists. Look down here in this location here. See that round sort of hole there. That is caused by the drilling action which is used by the scientific arm to come up with a conclusion. Let's listen to Ed Weiler who is in charge of science for NASA.

ED WEILER, NASA ASSOC. ADMINISTRATOR: ... at Mars the previous year, Mars '98. At that press conference we told you about our ambitious science dreams for these rovers and the aggressive schedule that it would have to meet to succeed.

Well, I woke up this morning and, believe it or not and realized that NASA, its international partners in Germany and our partners in the science community have really turned those dreams into a reality.

You are about to hear that Opportunity has landed in an area of Mars where liquid water once drenched the surface; moreover, this area would have been a good habitable environment for some period of time.

Our ultimate quest at Mars is to answer the age old question was there life, is there life on Mars? Today's results are a giant leap toward achieving that long term goal.

With me today are Dr. Steve Squyres who is the principal investigator the Mars Science Exploration Rover Team. He's from Cornell University. To his left is Dr. John Grotzinger who is a co- investigator on the rovers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

To my immediate right is Dr. Ben Clark, also a co-I on the rovers from Lockheed Martin. To my left is doctor -- a little excited today. To my left is Dr. Joy Crisp who is our project scientist from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. And, on my far left is Dr. James Garvin, our NASA lead scientist for the Mars Exploration Program at NASA headquarters.

I'd like to recognize in the front row on my left Dr. Gustar Klingelhoffer (ph) from the University of Mainz (ph) and Dr. Ralph Gellert (ph) from the Max Planck Institute in Germany, both of whom are seated here. These scientists provided two of the essential instruments whose measurements have allowed us to produce the results you're about to hear about.

And, one last thought. As you're about to see, these results from Mars are already laying the foundation for the new vision of robotic and human exploration of the solar system and beyond that was announced by our president from this very stage just six weeks ago.

So, Steve, tell us about what you found.

STEVE SQUYRES, CHIEF MISSION SCIENTIST: Okay, Ed. Well thanks. Ever since Opportunity touched down on Meridiani Planum the night of January 24th and we first opened our eyes and took a look around and we saw this marvelous outcrop of layered bedrock literally right in front of us, we've been trying to puzzle out what this outcrop has been trying to tell us. For the last two weeks we've been attacking this outcrop literally with everything we have. Every single piece of our payload has been brought to bear on this and I'm particularly glad that my two colleagues from Germany, my friends Gustar and Ralph are here today, because their instruments in particular played a very essential role in helping us to puzzle this out.

Over the last couple of weeks the puzzle pieces have been falling into place and the last puzzle piece fell into place a few days ago and, as Ed said, we have concluded that the rocks here were once soaked in liquid water.

Now, I want to draw an important distinction. There are two puzzles that we've been working on and we've got the answer to one of them. The other one we're still working on.

One question is were these wonderful layered rocks actually laid down in liquid water? We don't have an answer for that one yet. We're working on it. We're making some headway. John's going to talk about this a little bit more. We got some tantalizing clues in that direction. We may have something for you in another week to two weeks.

But the second question is were these rocks acted upon? Were they altered by liquid water and the answer to that we believe definitively is yes. We have four different pieces of evidence that have led us to that conclusion and I will go through them in order.

The first one has to do with these little spherical objects, a few millimeters in size. We've been calling them spherals. Actually within the team we've nicknamed them blueberries because if you look at them they like blueberries in a muffin are embedded in this rock and weathering out of it. They are little tough round things inside the rock.

We've looked at three different ideas for what they might be. Initially, we thought they might be what geologists call lapilli (ph). Lapilli are essentially little volcanic hailstones that form when you have an eruption of volcanic ash and they coagulate and fall out, so that was one possibility.

Another possibility was that these were droplets of volcanic glass or droplets formed by an impact. If you have a very energetic event that sprays liquid rock up into the air and it freezes and falls out you can make little round objects that way.

We've looked at these things very carefully now. We have looked at them with our color camera. We have looked at lots of them with our microscope. We have sliced through them and looked at them in cross-section. We've looked at their shapes, the way that they're related to the rock around them.

And, as John will describe in more detail, all those clues together have led us to the conclusion that these are probably what geologists call concretions. Concretions form when there's liquid water in a rock. It's got stuff dissolved in it and then it begins to precipitate out. It begins to solidify from solution and, as it does so, it grows around a nucleation point and as a cementing agent it starts to fill in the pores in the rock and it grows to make a small spherical object. We believe that these are what we are seeing here. If so, it's pointing toward water. That's the first piece of evidence.

The second piece of evidence is that when we looked at this rock close-up we found out that in some places it has shot through with some very weird looking holes. Again, John will show you the pictures in more detail.

These holes are not round. They're tabular in shape. Where they intersect the surface they are long and thin. They're typically maybe a centimeter long, maybe a millimeter or two wide. They're shot all through the rock at all kinds of crazy angles.

It's as if a bunch of objects sort of the size and shape of pennies were once embedded in the rock and then went away. Now the best way we have of explaining this, these are actually familiar forms from certain kinds of rocks on earth.

What happens is when crystals grow within rocks, if you have water in solution and crystals precipitate from that if the crystals are tabular, if they're flat in form, as they grow either by pushing the rock aside or simply by replacing the rock that's there you can get these little tabular crystals within the rock and then either the water chemistry changes and they dissolve away or they're eroded away and you leave little tabular holes, these tabular voids behind.

And so these things we think are probably the molds of crystals that were once there that were precipitated from water.

The next piece of evidence that we have comes from our alpha particle x-ray spectrometer and that's an instrument that measures how much of each chemical element is found in this rock. And what we found when we first looked at this rock is that it looked like it had an awful lot of sulfur in it, way more sulfur than has ever been found in any Martian rock.

Now when we first did this we looked at the outside of the rock and when you look at the outside of the rock with this instrument, you can't be certain what you're seeing. You might be seeing a coating on the outside because the instrument can't see very deep into the rock.

But we brought with us a grinding tool, a device called the RAT, the rock abrasion tool, and it can grind away and we've used it to grind away two, three, four millimeters from the outer surface of this rock and then we put our instrument in there and we found even more sulfur.

We found an enormous quantity of sulfur in this rock, too much to explain by any other mechanism we believe than this water being full of sulfate salts and we'll talk in more detail about it. Ben Clark will be talking about that but that's a telltale sign we believe of... O'BRIEN: We have been listening to Steve Squyres of Cornell University. He's the principal investigator on both the Opportunity and Spirit rovers, which have been on Mars now for, well since the early part of January in the case of Spirit, the latter part of January in the case of Opportunity but with a very significant scientific conclusion that the location where Opportunity landed, a crater basin which is located near the equator of Mars, at one time was completely submerged by water and, as the scientist put it there, was for a decent period of time a good habitable environment.

This is a big step on the quest for determining if there ever was, in fact, life on Mars or could there be somewhere beneath the surface there life that currently exists on the Red Planet.

Nevertheless, we're going to continue to listen to that briefing, obviously a lot of technicalities there we need to sort through. We'll do our best to translate it for you and we'll hear from some of the experts for their analysis and reaction to this significant finding in just a few moments.

Let's shift gears and talk politics.

PHILLIPS: Senators John Kerry and John Edwards both looking for a super showing today in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. A total of ten states are holding contests.

CNN National Correspondent Bob Franken keeping tabs on all the candidates.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BOB FRANKEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): He's the frontrunner, the favorite once again, so pity John Kerry.

SEN. JOHN KERRY (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I need your help.

FRANKEN: Kerry needs all the help he can get if he wants to avoid another night of winning but not winning big enough.

SEN. JOHN EDWARDS (D-NC), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I plan to be in this until I drop out.

FRANKEN: John Edwards still gets to play by the better than expected rules, in fact he's already released a schedule for visiting Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas, the southern states that hold their elections the week after Super Tuesday, of course, reality might intrude sooner or later.

EDWARDS: Of course, of course. At some point I got to start getting more delegates or I'm not going to be the nominee.

FRANKEN: Super Tuesday accounts for 1,151 delegates. Kerry already has a wide lead and he's campaigning as if he is the nominee and he heaps his scorn on the general election opposition. KERRY: If he came here I think he could straighten out his fuzzy math because the numbers don't add up. He's not multiplying the jobs. He's trying to divide America and so I think our solution we ought to subtract George Bush from the political equation of the United States.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FRANKEN: Well, Senator John Kerry and Senator John Edwards decided to do something a bit unusual during their campaign season. They came back to the U.S. Senate to participate in the vote over gun control legislation. That's out of the way.

Kerry is going to stay in Washington to see if he gets the blowout he wants tonight. Edwards is on his way to Georgia. He wants to see if he has enough of a good night to make credible his plan to continue the campaign -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Bob, John Kerry talking about the numbers adding up, what about the dollars adding up? Doesn't he need like $8 million to $10 million in the next month to keep this going?

FRANKEN: He does and that's one of the considerations. It's one of those things as long as you got money you may as well use it. But there will be pressure, growing pressure from Democratic officials saying that the party has to get its act together.

If there is no credible reason to go forward that pressure is going to really intensify but, as we found out, John Edwards has the ability to pull out surprises.

PHILLIPS: All right. Bob Franken always full of surprises but today staying very serious for us. Good, we got a smile. Bob Franken, thank you.

Now as ten states weigh in coast-to-coast, CNN will be live with results and what they mean all night long. Prime time coverage kicks off with Wolf Blitzer and Larry King as the first results start coming in at 7:00 p.m. Eastern, more live analysis at midnight, followed by a Super Tuesday wrap up on a special edition of "NEWSNIGHT" with Aaron Brown.

O'BRIEN: Police are searching for a kidnapping suspect after a mother discovers that her daughter, who was declared dead, is very much alive. It is a true story with more plot twists than you could ever make up.

And, a tax deduction for reducing the -- reducing, I should say. The IRS wants you to beef up your bottom line for watching your waistline and we'll connect those dots for you.

And, a town with a 'tude voters in one Vermont town decide whether they want to be in New Hampshire, confused? Well we'll sort that one out as well. That's what we're here for to sort it all out. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) PHILLIPS: In that blast off Virginia that caused a tanker to sink attention now turns to finding the cause of the explosion. Yesterday, the Coast Guard suspended further efforts to find 18 men from the Philippines still listed as missing. The tanker was carrying industrial ethanol when it exploded Sunday night and before it sank someone managed to send this call for help.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Bow Mariner, we are on fire. Mayday, mayday, mayday, this is Bow Mariner we are on fire. We are on fire.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: Wow, pretty dramatic pictures and sound. Authorities say they still have not determined whether the voice you heard is one of the six men who survived and were rescued in a life raft Saturday.

O'BRIEN: News across America now, the woman accusing Kobe Bryant of sexual assault won't be in court today as was expected. The judge delayed her appearance while he figures out how far defense attorneys can go with their questioning. The defense wants to use the woman's sexual history as evidence.

Prosecutors say it's irrelevant in the case.

Also in Colorado, an independent committee begins its investigation into whether the University of Colorado used sex and alcohol to recruit athletes. Several women say they were raped during a party attended by football players and recruits in 2001.

And Major Leaguers Barry Bonds, Jason Giambi and Gary Sheffield are in the spotlight today. "The San Francisco Chronicle" reporting the athletes are among several pros to receive illegal performance enhancing drugs from the Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative. The lab is implicated in a steroid distribution ring. Bonds, Giambi and Sheffield all have denied using the steroids.

PHILLIPS: Believe what you will about a mother's instincts. A Philadelphia woman never felt that her baby daughter was dead, despite police telling her the infant perished in a fire. Now after a bizarre turn of events she was right.

What gave the case away? Walt Hunter with CNN affiliate KYW says it was a little girl's dimple.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WALT HUNTER, KYW CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): DNA tests now reveal the flames that tore through this home in December, 1997 didn't kill 10-day-old Delamar Vera. Instead, she was allegedly kidnapped by 41-year-old Carolyn Correa who is accused of lighting the fire hoping to make everyone believe the baby was dead then slipping the infant out through an open back window.

CAPT. JOHN DARBY, PHILADELPHIA POLICE SPECIAL VICTIMS UNIT: They put their hearts and souls into this investigation, I will tell you.

HUNTER: For more than six years, Delamar's mother despite being told that her baby had died that night refused to totally believe it.

ANGEL CRUZ, STATE REPRESENTATIVE: She kept saying something is missing in this picture. I think that my baby is still alive.

HUNTER: And so it was inside this home at a January 24th birthday party that Delamar's mother saw Correa with a 6-year-old little girl, a girl she instinctively knew was her daughter.

CRUZ: Motherly instinct, without getting DNA nothing. She sees the child, says this is my child.

HUNTER: The kidnapping suspect, sources say, is already a convicted arsonist who allegedly got a phony birth certificate three weeks after the fire for Delamar claiming the baby had been born at home but DNA now shows the baby, who everyone thought died in this home that December night is, in fact, Delamar and a reunion is now being planned.

CRUZ: The mother is overwhelmed. She's scared. She's full of different emotions. Me, it just gives me goose bumps.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Well, police have issued an arrest warrant for Carolyn Correa. The child's real mother knew it would take more than her instincts to get her daughter so at the party she pretended the girl had gum in her hair and removed a few strains for DNA testing.

O'BRIEN: Wow, good for her.

PHILLIPS: Pretty smart.

O'BRIEN: A little Sherlock Holmes there.

PHILLIPS: Pretty smart.

O'BRIEN: Good for her.

Is America's oldest teenager being a hypocrite?

PHILLIPS: Just ahead on LIVE FROM, TV host and producer Dick Clark facing an age discrimination lawsuit from an employee only two years younger than he.

O'BRIEN: And he's 98, isn't he?

And this could be the key to staying younger, an ancient practice with a new twist. It's called power yoga.

CARLOS WATSON, CNN POLITCAL ANALYST: I'm Carlos Watson. We'll power past Super Tuesday and show you the five things you'll need to watch for on Wednesday and beyond.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: In New York, Martha Stewart's defense has its turn at closing arguments in her trial. Attorney Robert Morvillo told jurors if Stewart and broker Peter Bacanovic conspired to lie about selling her ImClone stock they would have gotten their story straight. Stewart and Bacanovic did not testify at the trial. Jurors are expected to begin deciding the case tomorrow.

Former WorldCom Chief Executive Bernie Ebbers has been hit with criminal charges related to the huge accounting scandal that rocked that telecom company.

(MARKET UPDATE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: Welcome back. From the CNN Center, this is LIVE FROM... I'm Miles O'Brien.

PHILLIPS: And I'm Kyra Phillips. Here's what all new this half hour. Looking beyond Super Tuesday. What will President Bush unveil on Thursday? What to watch for as the race for the White House heats up.

O'BRIEN: Voting themselves off the island. A tiny town in Vermont would like to succeed.

PHILLIPS: And no more "Tears in Heaven" for Eric Clapton.

Now the headlines "At This Hour."

O'BRIEN: Horrific attacks during one of the holiest of days. The series of explosions in Iraq come as thousands of Shi'ite Muslims celebrated Ashura. At least 143 were killed, hundreds wounded. Iraqi authorities blame a Jordanian born radical, Abu Mousab al Zaqawi. Some citizens blame the U.S. for a lack of security.

I'm in charge, you're not. Haiti's rebel leader declares himself head of the armed forces. But U.S. officials say they don't recognize Guy Philippe as military chief. They're calling for rebels to lay down their arms and say the Haitian people will decide who is in charge.

The Senate has extended the ban on military type assault weapons for another ten years. It has also voted to close the so-called gun show loophole that allowed the purchase of guns without background checks. More amendment votes are expected later today.

And, evidence gathered by police wiretaps can be used in the Laci Peterson murder trial. The judge says investigators used proper procedure while monitoring some 3,000 phone calls Scott Peterson conducted after his pregnant wife disappeared.

PHILLIPS: After weeks of build-up, the big day is here. Super Tuesday. The ten-state super vote. What happens once all the ballots are counted and Super Tuesday is the ghost of elections past? What will dominate political headlines then?

CNN political analyst Carlos Watson has been gazing into his crystal ball. Here we go. We should have brought it with us.

WATSON: Right here. Would have been colorful.

PHILLIPS: We are colorful, aren't we? All right. Looking into that crystal ball, first, unemployment numbers.

WATSON: Unemployment numbers come out next week. I think that will be a big deal if..,

PHILLIPS: Why?

WATSON: Well, remember, the president has said he's going to create 2.6 million jobs this year. Then they backed off of it. If you don't see 200,000 jobs created or more, people will start to say the economy is not recovering.

And I think that bodes ill for the president. I think you can see his approval numbers go down. And again it makes Kerry look much stronger like he's the guy to create jobs and get the economy on the right track.

PHILLIPS: All right, from jobs to money, John Kerry, $8 million to $10 million he's got to come up with in the next month. Can he do it? Will he do it? How will he do it?

WATSON: Now we go to the flip side. The president has got over $100 million in the bank. He's going to launch a $5 million at least ad campaign, three-week ad campaign starting on Thursday all across the country on cable and different local markets, on network.

If at the end of those three weeks though the president's numbers haven't significantly improved, meaning instead of being at 50 percent approval, you need to see him at 53, 54. If that doesn't happen and if the gap right now that you see in theoretical match-ups between Kerry and Bush don't get better, boy, you got to be worried if you're the White House.

PHILLIPS: All right you talked about the big ad campaign. So I guess we should look forward toward those poll numbers and how people react to them.

WATSON: Exactly. And so I think it's going to be important to see how people react to them. And going back to what I said about Kerry as well, Kerry's got to raise the $8 to $10 million so that he can respond to the Bush ads.

So in order to raise that money, he'll look for a little bit of help. Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, even Howard Dean, I bet, will be the stars of some upcoming campaign fund raisers assuming that Super Tuesday is a super day for John Kerry and he wraps up the nomination.

PHILLIPS: You think those ads will get nasty or you think they'll be sort of patriotic type, pump up America? WATSON: This is politics, of course. It will be real nasty.

PHILLIPS: A little mud slinging here and there.

WATSON: We'll see some elbows backwards and forwards. The president said he's going to start out by giving an optimistic view of his agenda, what he's done both domestically and internationally.

I think very quickly, Kyra, very quickly, within two weeks you'll start seeing ads that look very different and they'll throw elbows in both directions. Democrats at Republicans, Republicans at Democrats.

PHILLIPS: All right, what about gay marriage?

WATSON: You know, I don't think that issue is going away. A lot of people think that that's an issue that's going to fade in the sunset. but I say post-Super Tuesday that issue's going to become hotter than ever.

You see another mayor, this time in New York instead of California, but both coasts now, who are offering marriage licenses. Although there's some debate, I think celebrities are going to become part of the story here.

Now we saw Rosie O'Donnell jump in and get married. But you know, stay tuned for a Guy Carson, "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy." Stay tuned for some "Sex in the City" folks who may step forward and make comments.

Stay tuned not only for those who are out and gay, but for those who are straight but who find this to be an issue that they find to be an important one either in favor of gay marriage or opposed to it. I think this is one that celebrities are going to be involved in and they're going to keep the issue alive.

PHILLIPS: And finally, the issue of foreign policy. You think that's going to change completely. Why?

WATSON: Well, you know what? Everyone, when you say foreign policy, Kyra, they think always about Iraq. But I think there are a couple other hot spots. Post-Super Tuesday, we're not only going to talk about Haiti, which right now is a very interesting and in some ways sad story unfolding there, we're going to talk about Pakistan. There's some very interesting things happening there. We'll talk about Libya, we'll talk about what's going on in Cuba.

And don't forget, there is still a European conversation to happen in terms of our relationship with Germany and France. I think there is a broader foreign policy conversation that will become part of a general election battle.

PHILLIPS: All right, Carlos Watson, thank you.

WATSON: My little crystal ball.

PHILLIPS: There it is. WATSON: Heard it here first.

PHILLIPS: OK, we'll look into it on a daily basis. Thanks, Carlos.

WATSON: Good to see you.

O'BRIEN: Couple of interesting side dishes being offered up on ballots around the country today. Georgia voters pick a state flag. The current red, white and blue flag that echoes the national flag of the confederacy or one created in 2001 to replace the controversial flag with the rebel stars and bars.

And residents in Killington, Vermont say crippling taxes led them to vote for succession. That's right, they would like to succeed from Vermont and they overwhelmingly endorsed a plan to become a part of New Hampshire, right next door. Vermont lawmakers have the final say. However, it appears unlikely they'll let the lucrative resort town get away.

Remember punch card ballots and hanging chads? Who wouldn't remember those? Unfortunately. Electronic voting machines promise to end that election nightmare. A lot of voters will be using them this year. But as CNN's Aaron Brown explains, computer voting is not a silver bullet.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AARON BROWN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Modern, computerized, paperless, and the target of a firestorm of complaints.

The problem is that voters simply cannot be certain that the software inside the machines has accurately recorded their vote, a programming error, a hacker attack, or a dishonest technician could affect dozens, perhaps thousands of votes. And without a paper trail, the only way to check it -- you guessed it -- is to ask the computer.

AVI RUBIN, JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY: One of things that I have noticed is that the more people know about computers and the deeper their knowledge and understanding of computer security, the more opposed they are to voting machines that don't have a voter-verifiable paper trail.

BROWN: This summer, the software for the Diebold voting machines that Maryland will use was found on the Internet and given to Rubin and other security experts. They found it filled with sloppy programming and security gaps.

Maryland claims to have fixed those holes. And then the state went a step further, giving former NSA code cracker Michael Wertheimer and his team of security pros a chance to attack the entire system, not just the terminals, but the central computers as well.

MICHAEL WERTHEIMER, DIRECTOR, RABA TECHNOLOGIES: We were able to exploit many, many security flaws and completely change the election at the state level, which means changing the database, changing the votes, pretty much having full control of the election.

BROWN: More security has since been added, but election officials and industry representatives say that keeping an election honest depends on more than software.

LINDA LAMONE, ADMINISTRATOR, MARYLAND BOARD OF ELECTIONS: I have got a great staff and a great group of people out in the counties, all of whom are dedicated to making sure nothing like that happens. If it does, the person that does it is going to jail.

REP. RUSH HOLT (D), NEW JERSEY: Some elections officials have said to me, but we've been using these electronic machines for several years now and we have never had a problem, to which I say, how do you know?

BROWN: Congressman Holt is sponsoring a bill in Congress that would require more stringent standards. He says it's a question of trust, but trust is getting harder to find.

And it didn't help that Diebold's CEO, Walden O'Dell, sent out a fund-raising letter, saying he was committed to deliver -- quote -- "electoral votes" to the president, nor that California officials found that uncertified software and unapproved machines had been widely used in the recall election for governor. Ironically, the worst that could happen might well be that nothing will happen.

WERTHEIMER: I'm worried that complacency is going to set in. And come November, the attackers will have done their reconnaissance. They will have a better idea. And if we don't continue to improve the security, change the software, make it a better system, we're asking for trouble.

Aaron Brown, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: As ten states weigh in coast to coast, CNN will be live with results and what they mean all night long. Wolf Blitzer is dominating the evening, as always. He will lead our special prime time coverage. "LARRY KING LIVE" also in the mix, of course.

And the results start rolling in at 7:00 p.m. Eastern time. We're told to watch Georgia very carefully. That's your viewers' guide right there.

Our Super Tuesday live wrap-up continues as the results come in. We'll continue all the way through with a special edition of "NEWSNIGHT" at 1:00 a.m. on the East Coast, other times elsewhere.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: There is some scientific proof today from NASA's Opportunity rover on the surface of the Red Planet that the place where it happens to be roving about right now at one time was certainly rather wet, and quite likely rather warm -- although we don't know that for sure just yet. Nevertheless, a habitable place for life. Of course, we're four billion years too late to see it in person. Nevertheless, if you're a scientist and your goal is to find out the question of life on Mars, one way or another, this is a big day.

Joining us on the line is somebody who has walked us through all of these Mars missions to date, Matt Golombek who is a scientist at Jet Propulsion Lab. And who I should tell folks was one of the key people deciding where to land these rovers. I suspect he's floating a few inches above the ground there at JPL. Right, Matt?

MATT GOLOMBEK, ROVER MISSION SCIENTIST: Yes, I'd say we hit the jackpot.

O'BRIEN: You hit pay dirt, quite literally.

GOLOMBEK: That's right.

O'BRIEN: All right, first of all, I want to remind people where we are. I have a big panoramic shot of the site which shows these rock outcroppings not in any close-up detail. When you landed here, I just want to remind people, Matt, what kind after hole in one this was to go as many millions of miles as did you and land in this wonderful spot.

GOLOMBEK: Yes. We just bounced into this 20 meter diameter crater that has roughly half of its rim there exposing these wondrous outcrops.

O'BRIEN: The outcrops are a big deal because basically it's rocks that are there in place telling their story essentially.

GOLOMBEK: Pretty much. They've been jostled around by the impact, of course. So they're not perfectly in place. But they contain enough of the stratigraphy, the little layers and so on, to really begin to investigate the mesoscopic features that really help tell us what it is.

O'BRIEN: Mesoscopic. I love it when you talk that way. Remind us what it is.

GOLOMBEK: Just outcrop scale. Meters to ten meters. And we're seeing extremely fine-layered rocks. And when we looked at it with the microscopic image...

O'BRIEN: And we're on that one now. We're on the Guadelupe (ph) image right now.

GOLOMBEK: ... you see these little spheres that are poking out of the rocks. So they formed in the rock and you can see they're just kind of hanging on. They're more resistant than the other parts of the rock.

And you see these little gashes, these straight-line holes where it looks like minerals once were. And we believe those minerals were a sulfate mineral called gypsum that's required to form in liquid water, has to evaporate out from that water.

And the very fine layers. You can see these layers going horizontally across the picture there and how they come right up to the edge of the spheres and stop.

O'BRIEN: I see that.

GOLOMBEK: That implies that those spheres are not deposited in the rock, they're in fact growing out of the rock. They're making a harder sphereal and growing of the stuff that the rock is made of.

O'BRIEN: So just to translate that, that means it's probably not cause bid any sort of volcanic activity?

GOLOMBEK: That's right. It's a concretion, something that grew in the rocks. Now you have whatever laid down the rock is probably water that produces these layers. So there is water once. You have to grow these tabular minerals. That's water a second time. You've got dissolve those minerals out. That's water a third time. Then you have to grow these concretions. That's water a fourth time.

O'BRIEN: So I'd say the humidity is rising significantly.

Let's look at another image here. This is a close-up from the El Capitan rock. This shows what is called cross-bedding. Let's walk people through that.

GOLOMBEK: You see those tabular holes where we think gypsum used to be located. When you look closer, you see these round parcels that are a fraction after millimeter in size. And they're arrayed in sort of semi-horizontal fashion.

And if you look closely, by lining those arrays of those parcels up you see that those lines intersect each other as if it were like a little tabular sort of a festoon, something where one set of layers hits another set.

And that's typically called cross-bedding and it typically forms when it's deposited either by water or wind.

O'BRIEN: Water or wind. Therefore, once again, you start stacking this all up. Are you left -- scientists hesitate to do this, but is this conclusive, smoking-gun proof there was once water there four billion years ago?

GOLOMBEK: It's pretty darn strong. I think we have a few more experiments to do on the outcrop to be sure that these cross-beds were produced in water. I'm fairly confident that's the case. But just to nail that one down.

And then I don't know how any other way you could produce this rock without precipitating it from liquid water because of the high sulfur content. And then dissolving all these things in and out of it. So yes, this is very, very strong evidence.

O'BRIEN: The next step is, maybe we'll see a microscopic fossil of fish on the next round. Who knows. Matt is not ready to go that far.

Matt, always a pleasure having you drop by and explain what's complicated stuff to us. Congratulations to you and the team.

GOLOMBEK: Thank you. My pleasure.

O'BRIEN: Kyra.

PHILLIPS: We're just getting in to CNN and we have confirmed it that the Cincinnati Reds part owner, Marge Schott, has passed away. You know, she is, of course, a number of times been in the news more recently for some anti-Semitic remarks. Bit of a controversial character needless to say.

She won a World Series as owner of the Cincinnati Reds. But was repeatedly suspended for her offensive remarks. We are told, though, now that she has died. A hospital spokesperson confirming that she did pass away today.

Marge Schott at the age of 75. We'll bring you more, of course, on her life and legacy as we get more information.

O'BRIEN: Dick Clark hasn't aged a day since "American Bandstand," right? He's being sued, ironically, for age discrimination.

PHILLIPS: And you won't want to hear this anymore. Eric Clapton says it's time to put this song behind him.

O'BRIEN: It's a sad song.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Checking entertainment headlines this Tuesday, March 2, Eric Clapton says his time for tears is over. He won't be performing "Tears in Heaven" and My "Father's Eyes" anymore. He wrote those songs while grieving over his son's death in 1991. Now he says his life is in a different place.

"NYPD Blues" bowing to the sex police? At least for an instant. A naughty one-nighter between two characters will be darkened in tonight's episode, but that's only for viewers in the Central and Mountain time zones. Everyone else will get a glimpse of the risque business.

Too old for Dick Clark? A 76-year-old man suing Clark's production company for age discrimination. He says he was humiliated by a letter from Clark saying he was too old to work for him. That man is just two years older than Clark.

(MARKET UPDATE)

PHILLIPS: All right. We did have some developing news this hour so we couldn't bring you the iron yoga story. Sorry about that. We'll have that for you tomorrow.

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





to Face Multiple Charges, CFO Pleads Guilty; Who Will Win Super Tuesday?; Rebel Haiti Leader Takes Control of Armed Forces>


Aired March 2, 2004 - 13:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, ANCHOR: I'm Miles O'Brien. We'll also have lake- breaking development in the Scott Peterson case.
KYRA PHILLIPS, ANCHOR: I'm Kyra Phillips. It's Super Tuesday, March 2. CNN's LIVE FROM starts right now.

O'BRIEN: One of the holiest days of the year for Iraqi Shiites, the bloodiest since the end of major combat.

A hundred and forty-three people are dead after a coordinated series of suicide attacks, mortar blasts and roadside explosions in Baghdad and the holy city of Karbala, some 50 miles away. The targets, religious pilgrims.

We get the latest from Baghdad bureau chief Jane Arraf -- Jane.

JANE ARRAF, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Miles, that death toll continues to arrive, as people with horrific injuries succumb to their wounds.

Now, this after what we now know are coordinated suicide attacks, three of them alone in Baghdad. And in Baghdad, they were set off in one of the holiest sites in the world for Shiah Muslims, the Kadayima Mosque, where wave upon wave of people were coming to commemorate a celebration that they had not been able to publicly commemorate for three decades.

It was the holiest of days, the most horrific of attacks.

As we went into the mosque after the explosion there was blood on the marble floor, remains of people who have been killed and injured in the attacks, including women and children, and the -- the mosque cleric in tears.

Outside, people were incredibly and understandably enraged. And as U.S. soldiers approached to try to help, they had to retreat after people started picking up stones to throw at them.

They picked up stones, as well, against the Iraqi police and Iraqi police forces, all of them, they said, failed to protect them.

The U.S. soldiers withdrew. The spokesman for the military here, Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt says this was the work of a group that clearly knew what it was doing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BRIG. GEN. MARK KIMMITT, U.S. ARMY: This was a very sophisticated attack. Very well coordinated. It was timed to take into account two significant events.

The fact that the plan for signing the transitional administrative law and Ashura happening at the same time certainly gave them the ability to find that spectacular type of event that we've talked about so many times.

But this was not a pickup team. This was not an organization that just started. This -- this clearly shows signs of a well- coordinated organization, with some level of sophistication.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ARRAF: Iraq's governing council declared three days of official mourning. Religious leaders are appealing for unity and for calm -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: All right. CNN's Jane Arraf reporting to us live from Baghdad.

Let's go live now to Washington. The attorney general, John Ashcroft, is holding a news conference. I'm sorry, that's in New York.

Let's listen.

JOHN ASHCROFT, ATTORNEY GENERAL: ... in the Southern district of New York unsealed a three-count, 30-page indictment of Bernard J. Ebbers and Scott D. Sullivan.

The defendants are charged with conspiracy to commit securities fraud, securities fraud, and false filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The indictment alleges that, beginning in or about September, through -- September 2000, through 2002, June of 2002, Bernard J. Ebbers and Scott D. Sullivan and their co-conspirators engaged in an illegal scheme to deceive members of the investing public, WorldCom shareholders, professional securities analysts and the Securities and Exchange Commission and others, concerning WorldCom's true operating performance and true financial results.

During the period covered by the indictment, Bernard J. Ebbers served as president, chief executive officer, and a director of WorldCom.

Also during the period covered by the indictment, Scott D. Sullivan served in various capacities, including chief financial officer, treasurer, and secretary of WorldCom.

Today, in federal court here in Manhattan, Scott Sullivan pleaded guilty to participating from September 2000 through June 2002 in the illegal scheme with other former WorldCom incorporated officers and employees. Mr. Sullivan pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit securities fraud, guilty to securities fraud, and guilty to filing false -- to false filing, pardon me, with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Scott Sullivan faces a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison. Scott Sullivan has agreed to cooperate.

As part of his duties as president, CEO, and a director, Bernard Ebbers signed the annual reports on form 10-K filed with the SEC. As part of his duties at WorldCom, Sullivan directed the preparation and signed the annual reports on form 10-K and the quarterly reports on form 10-Q, filed with the SEC.

It is alleged that in or about September 2000, Ebbers, Sullivan and their co-conspirators knew that WorldCom's true operating performance and financial results were in decline and had fallen materially below analysts' expectations.

It is alleged that Ebbers nevertheless insisted that WorldCom report financial results publicly that met analysts' expectations.

As a result, it is alleged that, rather than disclose WorldCom's true condition, and suffer the ensuing decline in the price of WorldCom's common stock, Sullivan, with Ebbers' approval, directed co- conspirators to make false and fraudulent adjustments to WorldCom's books and records.

From this point on, Ebbers, Sullivan, and their co-conspirators allegedly disguised true operating performance and financial results until some time in or about June of 2002.

As the truth about WorldCom's operative performance and financial results begin to be revealed, the price of WorldCom's common stock plummeted, causing billions of dollars in shareholder value to decline.

It is alleged that Ebbers, Sullivan, and their co-conspirators knew this scheme to defraud would present a materially false picture of WorldCom.

Among the alleged adjustments to financial statements resulting in fraud were the following: Ebbers and Sullivan directed members of WorldCom's revenue accounting department to book entries that increased revenue.

With Ebbers' knowledge and approval, Sullivan directed members of WorldCom's general accounting department to book entries that reduced liability accounts without support documentation or proper business rationality.

With Ebbers' knowledge and approval, Sullivan directed member of WorldCom's general accounting department to transfer expenses from line-cost accounts to capital expenditure accounts, without business justification or supporting documentation.

The results of these and other alleged efforts to defraud were as follows: falsely inflated earnings per share; falsely inflated earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization; falsely inflated net income; falsely inflated revenue growth; and falsely inflated analyst and investor expectation.

America's strength depends on the integrity of the Marketplace. A belief in the free flow of information that is reliable depends on the transparency of financial dealings, and it depends on the accountability of corporate officials.

It is the honor, the duty, and the responsibility of the United States Department of Justice to ensure that no one stands above the law, regardless of power, position, or privilege. The rule of law and the people's trust depend on swift, sure justice in the prosecution of crimes that manipulate or contaminate competition or deceive the public.

Since its creation in July 2002, the president's corporate fraud task force has worked diligently to restore integrity to the Marketplace. Today, we add to the task force's impressive accomplishments with these particular events today.

The accomplishments are impressive. Over 650 violators have been charged in the past two years. Over 250 have already been convicted. I want, today, to commend the corporate fraud task force on which acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern district of New York, David Kelly, serves.

PHILLIPS: Attorney General John Ashcroft announcing the filing of criminal charges against former WorldCom chief executive Bernard Ebbers.

You'll remember that Mr. Ebbers resigned from WorldCom back in April of 2002. This was well after the stock price had begun a steady decline and soon after questions began to swirl about the company's finances.

It did file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in July after admitting to a number of fraud accounts that eventually amounted to $11 billion in fraud.

That company has said that it hopes to emerge from bankruptcy court proceedings later this year. As you know, WorldCom now doing business under the name MCI Group. It is the nation's second largest long distance carrier after AT&T.

We'll continue to follow up on that story.

Now moving on to ten states, 1,100 delegates, four contenders and one burning question: can John Edwards survive Super Tuesday?

The strongest competition for the race is undisputed frontrunner. He's pinning his hopes on Georgia, New York, and Minnesota, though he vows to carry on win or lose.

John Kerry is leading in every poll, while insisting, as he always does, that he doesn't trust the polls. The Super Tuesday lineup includes the states I just mentioned, along with California, Ohio, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut and Vermont.

Even if Kerry wins every one of those delegates, he won't be over the top, just very, very close. Going into the polls with 768 of the 2162 delegates needed to nominate. Edwards has 220; former candidate Howard Dean, 174; Al Sharpton, 16; Dennis Kucinich, 9.

MILES: Well, let's not count out Kucinich. This could be his night. Maybe he'll go over the top.

To bat that around and some more serious issues, we have the "CROSSFIRE" gang in the house with us. This is very exciting.

Paul Begala, Tucker Carlson, good to see you Guys. Glad you're off the bus. You look good. You look tan, rested ready and all that stuff.

PAUL BEGALA, "CROSSFIRE" CO-HOST: We pushed the bus...

MILES: Yes, pushed the bus right in here, and you feel good.

Let's go back to that map for just a second and look at the delegate count, first of all.

I'm curious. I always want to know what political pros, such as yourselves, look for on the night of an important election. Which states will we be watching? What are the most important battlegrounds?

Paul, you first.

BEGALA: Well, first, Georgia, because Senator Edwards is from the South. The only primary he's won so far is South Carolina. That -- He has a chance, think, to win in Georgia. Not a great chance. But a chance.

But he's going to have to win some place where they don't say "ya'll" and think Billy Ray Cyrus is a real star. You know, he's got to win somewhere outside of...

O'BRIEN: There are places where they don't think...

TUCKER CARLSON, "CROSSFIRE" CO-HOST: Apparently, he's not in all across the country.

O'BRIEN: I had no idea. This is news.

And now, is it 86 electorate votes, winner take all, in Georgia? Is that how it works?

BEGALA: It's proportional.

O'BRIEN: It's proportional. OK.

Tucker, what are you going to be watching for tonight?

CARLSON: Sadly, only Georgia. I do think that. I'm not even sure it's about anything. I mean, it's hard to imagine a scenario in which Edwards becomes a nominee at this point.

I hate to say that as someone who supports the idea of a contested primary lasting, you know, into June. But it's hard to see how that happens. And really, the only question is Georgia. And if he wins it, maybe it will be another week he'll be in the race.

O'BRIEN: Essentially, this is not good for business, is it, when it's over this early?

CARLSON: It's terrible.

BEGALA: No, there's lots more for us to chew on.

O'BRIEN: Yes, I'm sure. We'll come up with something, won't we?

Let's talk about Edwards' tactics here for just a moment. Very late in the game, it was no more Mr. Nice Guy. And I have to wonder why then. You could ask, why not Mr. Nice Guy any more? But why so late in the game, Paul?

BEGALA: He had to do something to try to keep it going. I have to say, I thought the attacks were kind of puny. Or I should say they were gracious even.

O'BRIEN: We didn't hear voodoo economics or anything like that.

BEGALA: No. Not the sort of things that President Bush Sr. said against Ronald Reagan. Not the sort of things that Bill Clinton and Paul Tsongas were saying about each other back when I worked for Clinton.

It's been very, very mild. The problem is, though, Edwards made a pledge in Iowa, in fact, with Tucker and me, who's sitting on this...

O'BRIEN: Right with you Guys.

BEGALA: And he said, "I'm not going to criticize my opponents at all for the rest of the campaign."

O'BRIEN: Did you believe him?

BEGALA: Yes. And he kind of almost kept it. I mean, he...

O'BRIEN: I mean, but wait a minute. Saying it to you Guys is like going to political confession. This is binding, right?

CARLSON: Are you kidding? This is like a cable affidavit.

O'BRIEN: So he had to stick with it.

CARLSON: No, look, I think -- I mean, from our point of view it looks insane. Why, you're losing. It's your last debate, why do you go negative...

O'BRIEN: Stay high road, right?

CARLSON: Exactly. Why wreck our chances of being picked as vice president?

He probably doesn't see it that way. Candidates don't have perspective on themselves. From our point of view, it's over for John Edwards. Not from John Edwards' point of view.

I've been with a lot of candidates who have no hope: Alan Keyes. Interviewed Alan Keyes in the middle of 2000. He really thought he was going to win. No kidding.

O'BRIEN: This brings us back to Kucinich. This is it.

CARLSON: He's already over the top in some deeper sense.

O'BRIEN: That's a whole other subject.

All right. So is -- inside the Democratic Party is there going to be a lot of pressure? I mean, John Kerry's going to make his own decision, clearly. But is there going to be a lot of pressure on him to choose Edwards? Because that fits so nicely in the Southern strategy.

BEGALA: It fit in the South. It also fits stylistically. I mean, John Edwards is a remarkably talented candidate on the stump. He's helped himself enormously.

He began his presidential race, and everybody said, well, he's kind of a lightweight, doesn't have the policy depth. He has performed so well and run such a good, positive campaign that a lot of delegates have fallen in love with him as a second choice.

The problem is, I think he's starting to get under John Kerry's skin. I don't think he attacks him much, Miles. But I think -- I know he's annoying John Kerry. And so they may just not have a personal chemistry.

O'BRIEN: Well, but does that really matter? What do you think? Personal chemistry?

CARLSON: Well, I do think it matters. I think there's a larger problem.

A, it's not clear that Edwards can reel in the South for Kerry anyway. B, I think the stylistic questions count against Edwards. He's so charismatic that to put him against Kerry doesn't make Kerry look good.

It's like a 40-year-old mother of three hiring J. Lo as the babysitter. You don't necessarily want to do that. You don't look that great by comparison.

O'BRIEN: So maybe Bill Richardson is the choice. Who knows, you know?

CARLSON: Who's charming, who's actually got a pretty impressive diplomatic career behind him. Everyone likes him.

BEGALA: The Guy speaks Spanish.

By the way, shouldn't neglect Dick Gephardt.

O'BRIEN: Interesting.

BEGALA: A lot of class.

O'BRIEN: Brings that Midwest bloc, which is where we might see some key battles in the general election.

BEGALA: And in Iowa when we go to his rallies -- In fact, Johnny Apple, "The New York Times," says, "This look like something out of the 1950s." And he meant it as a compliment because it was middle aged white Guys at a Democratic rally.

I mean, that doesn't happen -- outside of the gay community -- doesn't happen very often in my party. We have a room full of middle aged white Guys cheering for a Democrat.

O'BRIEN: They being Democrats, right?

BEGALA: He could reach those Guys, right.

CARLSON: That would be the campaign of yesterday. If you get Fritz Mondale as the campaign manager, it would be perfect. I hope he does pick Dick Gephardt.

O'BRIEN: Quickly, who do Republicans wish Kerry would choose, then? Perniciously?

CARLSON: Maxine Waters. I mean, she's smart. She has a good message. She's perfect.

O'BRIEN: What about Aristide, is he -- He's available.

All right, gentlemen, thank you very much. Going to work on that citizenship issue. We'll take care of it, though.

Don't forget there are 10 states that weighing in from coast to coast. CNN will be live with all the results. These Guys will be hanging around all night. They're jacking themselves up on coffee right now, as a matter of fact.

Wolf Blitzer and Larry King will lead our special prime-time coverage. And all of the results start rolling in at 7 p.m. Eastern. CNN is the only place to watch it -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Well, some of the -- that's all right. Some of the biggest names in baseball is what we're talking about, reportedly named in a steroid scandal. We'll knock that story home for you later on LIVE FROM. And an amazing reunion: a mom finds her daughter six years after the baby was declared dead in a house fire. It's an incredible story. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Former leader Jean-Bertrand Aristide continues to insist that the U.S. forced him out of Haiti, a claim that the Bush administration continues to reject.

Meanwhile, the situation in Haiti remains volatile. Just a short time ago, rebel leader Guy Phillipe declared that he is in charge of the country's armed forces.

CNN's Lucia Newman joins us now live from Port-au-Prince. She actually had an interview with him -- Lucia.

LUCIA NEWMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Kyra.

Well, if anyone had any doubts about the intentions of Haiti's rebel army now that President Aristide is gone, they're all -- whose forces control...

PHILLIPS: We're having some technical problems with our videophone there via Port-au-Prince. We'll try to get Lucia -- OK, we're going to try and get -- work on that technical situation.

Meanwhile, I mentioned she did have an interview with Guy Phillipe. We're going to show you a bit of that interview right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GUY PHILIPPE, REBEL LEADER: I want to examine -- they're well arranged. And now we're having a problem with the high chief in the police force because, you know, Aristide named him. And they don't know anything about police, about security. They just ousted guys.

So we have a base of the police with us -- almost 90 percent of the police is with us now, and working together and try to -- to take the right decision.

NEWMAN: But who is in control? There has to be a chief. There has to be a reign of command, as you know.

PHILIPPE: From today, I'll be.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: Once again, our Lucia Newman there, with a one-on-one interview with Guy Phillipe, the rebel leader that has now declared that he is in charge of Haiti's armed forces, just one of the opposition leaders trying -- or moving towards new government there in Haiti.

We'll try and check in with Lucia Newman later in the hour -- Miles. O'BRIEN: Will the sexual history of Kobe Bryant's accuser be part of his future defense? As a judge decides, we'll debate the impact it could have on his trial.

And Disney's family feud gets gritty. A bold move for a showdown over the entertainment empire.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(STOCK REPORT)

PHILLIPS: Straight ahead, an alleged victim's sexual past revealed. It's the key legal issue holding up attorneys in the Kobe Bryant case. We'll talk about it. We'll debate it.

Also, tough times on campus. New details this afternoon on the troubles surrounding the University of Colorado football program.

And late night for laughs for California governors past and present. Details straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: Key development in the Scott Peterson murder trial. Let's go live now to CNN's Rusty Dornin in Redwood City, California, for the latest.

Hello, Rusty.

RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Miles, a judge has made a decision on two key pieces of evidence in this case, the wiretapping and the dog tracking.

Let's start off with the dog tracking. Defense attorney general Mark Geragos wanted all the evidence thrown out. He claimed it was utter nonsense that these dogs could actually trail the scent of Laci Peterson in and around Modesto.

They tried to show that they had followed in a car, which had never done before, the scent of Laci Peterson out to Highway 580.

The judge decided that that was correct, that they could not use the evidence in and around Modesto. But he did decide that the dog trailing evidence at the Berkeley Marina could be admitted as evidence.

Now, this is important because one of the dogs three -- five days after -- excuse me, four days after Laci Peterson disappeared, was taken out to the Berkeley Marina. Remember, this was where Scott Peterson said he went fishing the day she disappeared.

Was taken out to the marina and picked out a scent that he obtained from a pair of sunglasses belonging to Laci Peterson, walked out to the edge of the pier and stopped and gave his handler what they call an end of the trail sign. The judge felt this was significant enough and was believable enough. That it will be admitted in evidence, and it will be up to the jury to decide whether or not they believe it.

The other evidence that Geragos was fighting to have thrown out were some 3,000 wiretap calls. Included in that were 176 calls with Scott Peterson to his attorney, then, Kirk McAllister.

The judge said the court listened to those recordings that investigators turned out. There was a minimal amount of time that they listened to those conversations, so it was of minimum consequence. He decided not to throw those out.

Mark Geragos was arguing there was no necessity in the first place for investigators to have been wiretapping Scott Peterson's telephones.

So the judge is allowing the wiretap evidence in. He is not allowing the dog tracking, except for what the dog did track to the Berkeley Marina, which could be very significant -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: Rusty Dornin in Redwood City, thank you very much.

NBA star Kobe Bryant back in court today. But the same can't be said about his accuser. A judge has delayed testimony from the woman who says the NBA star raped her.

CNN's Gary Tuchman takes a look behind the reason -- behind the move and the possible ramifications.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): About 12 hours after he played in a basketball game in New Jersey, Kobe Bryant arrived at court in Colorado to begin a two-day pretrial hearing where he had expected to face his accuser in court for the first time.

The woman, allegedly sexually assaulted at a Colorado hotel, had been scheduled to testify Tuesday about defense allegations she had, quote, multiple acts of sex in the days prior to being with Bryant and more sex within 15 hours afterwards.

But the judge has delayed the testimony until later this month, saying he needs more time to decide what kind of questioning will be allowed.

CRAIG SILVERMAN, COLORADO ATTORNEY: The most damaging evidence against Kobe Bryant is this industry to the young lady's posterior forchette.

The prosecution is claiming Kobe Bryant caused that injury. Team Kobe is arguing no, that was caused by somebody else prior or aggravated by somebody subsequent.

TUCHMAN: Judge Terry Ruckriegle will rule some time following the woman's closed-door testimony if details of her sexual history are relevant.

CYNTHIA STONE, COLORADO COALITION AGAINST SEXUAL ASSAULT: Just because a judge lets it be in the courtroom or makes it admissible in the courtroom also does not mean it is true.

TUCHMAN: On Monday, Bryant's attorneys resumed his effort to get a secret police recording with the Laker guard thrown out, because he wasn't read his Miranda rights.

Prosecutors say the procedure was unnecessary because Bryant wasn't arrest or in custody. Bryant's attorneys say he felt like he was in custody.

The judge could issue that decision anytime.

(on camera) The alleged victim is from here in Eagle, but we've learned through court testimony she's temporarily moved out of state and that Kobe Bryant's attorneys are paying to fly her back home to testify.

Gary Tuchman, CNN, Eagle, Colorado.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Now Colorado has one of the most stringent rape shield laws on the books and encourages the protection of victims' rights. What could this mean for the Kobe Bryant case?

Joining us from Seattle, trial attorney Karen Russell. And from Boston, former federal prosecutor Wendy Murphy.

Ladies, great to see you.

WENDY MURPHY, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: Great to be here.

PHILLIPS: What's being talked about a lot right now is the issue of this alleged victim having sex, allegedly, 15 hours after the alleged rape.

Should this be relevant? Should this be used? Karen?

KAREN RUSSELL, TRIAL ATTORNEY: Absolutely. I mean this goes -- I can't imagine I've heard of another case where a rape victim had sex with somebody else -- and she's alleging that Kobe Bryant violently raped her.

And the fact she had sex afterwards and allegedly had sex with two prosecution witnesses and showed up for a rape exam with someone else's DNA in her shorts is really troubling.

And this goes to the core of Kobe's defense. He's saying -- They're saying you caused these injuries, and Kobe's saying it could have been the guy before or after me who caused these injuries.

PHILLIPS: Wendy, a bit of an interesting twist. What do you think? Karen raises an interesting question. If, indeed, she was raped, would you have sex 15 hours after that?

MURPHY: You know, it's a very strange idea to have sex after you're raped. And there is absolutely no evidence that she had sex after this rape.

And I think we have to be very clear about this. It is widely reported that this claim is false, that...

RUSSELL: It's also been widely reported...

MURPHY: I didn't interrupt you, now let me finish, please.

RUSSELL: OK.

MURPHY: It is widely reported that it is false, that she went home, woke up, told her parents and went to the police.

Now what I want to know if in fact it comes out that this is false, how are we going to repair this woman's dignity? How are we going to give back to her the dignity she's entitled to, and how are we going to repair the damage to the jury pool that is hearing this nonsense?

You know, her blood -- let's be very clear about this -- her blood from her vaginal injuries was found on Kobe Bryant's T-shirt. If he wants to argue someone else caused that, let a jury with common sense hear that claim. They're going to laugh about it. It makes no sense.

RUSSELL: They're going to laugh about it because the blood was so minor that the eight detectives who illegally obtained that evidence weren't able to see the speck of blood until the Colorado Bureau of Investigation found it for them later.

MURPHY: Because it was on the inside of his T-shirt and they weren't looking at his belly.

RUSSELL: It's because it was so minimal. And the fact is, if we're try to get to the truth in this matter...

MURPHY: Minimal.

PHILLIPS: Karen, you said that there was no DNA match that was made to Kobe.

RUSSELL: Yes, exactly. So you know, I want to know why, Wendy, her vaginal swabs don't have Kobe's DNA and have, you know, other people's DNA, if...

MURPHY: Look, you know, I don't want to be rude to the viewers and talk about what likely happened, but I'll tell you this.

There is no reason to question why Kobe's DNA might not have been here because he agreed and told police and told everybody that he had sexual intercourse with this woman. Where he ejaculated may well be an interesting thing we're going to hear about in the trial. But the fact that there was no semen from him in her body is irrelevant.

Frankly, so is it irrelevant that she had...

RUSSELL: ... semen in her body...

MURPHY: What happened on the night in question is the only issue. You want to judge her harshly because she had sex with someone else two days earlier?

RUSSELL: I don't want to judge her...

(CROSSTALK)

RUSSELL: I don't want Kobe to go to jail based on this crazy story of a rape victim who said that she, you know, had...

MURPHY: Kobe is the only person we know for sure who lied in this case. He lied to the police. Let's talk about that for a change.

RUSSELL: How about the fact that she shows up with someone else's pubic hair on the body? What kind of lie is that?

MURPHY: You have no idea whose pubic hair that is? That could be her pubic hair.

PHILLIPS: These questions...

(CROSSTALK)

MURPHY: You have no idea...

PHILLIPS: Ladies, ladies...

MURPHY: ... whose pubic hair that is, and you shouldn't speculate...

PHILLIPS: Look, you can tell this is a hot button issue. That is for sure.

RUSSELL: Pamela Mackey said a good faith basis for everything that she's alleged, and this has been borne out.

MURPHY: Pamela Mackey has lied to the public and tainted the jury pool.

(CROSSTALK)

PHILLIPS: Ladies, let me ask you a question -- Wendy, Karen -- I need a referee with you two...

MURPHY: You should be ashamed. You give defense attorneys a bad name. PHILLIPS: Karen, Wendy. Let's -- All right. Let's just say, let's just say there is a sexual history here. She's had multiple partners, this alleged victim. OK. And she's agreed to sex before.

But let's say this one time, though, she did not. Aren't we -- Is this all getting overshadowed, the issue of rape?

MURPHY: Yes, and that's exactly the point of the defense dumping this stuff into the court of public opinion.

They don't want us focusing on what we know the victim said happened, that he grabbed her by the neck, bent her over a chair, raped her from behind, caused vaginal bleeding and tearing...

RUSSELL: Where is there evidence?

MURPHY: ... tossed her away like a piece of trash. If we're talking about her underwear and her sex life, we're not talk about the crime now, are we? And that's good for the defense, bad for justice, bad for women.

RUSSELL: Wendy, we want the truth. And we want to get rid of this myth that women don't lie about rape. And I just don't understand why, despite this woman's crazy story, everyone continues to just overlook all the inconsistencies of her lies...

MURPHY: Crazy story?

PHILLIPS: Let's talk about...

RUSSELL: Absolutely.

MURPHY: ... the rape advocates. Karen, you bring up an interesting point about the rape advocates. Is this doing more harm than good?

RUSSELL: I think aggressively pursuing -- this case should never have been brought. And by aggressively pursuing it, yes, it is undermining...

PHILLIPS: Why? Why, you think she's becoming a poster child?

RUSSELL: They're trying to make her the poster child. Unfortunately, she's not worthy of that status.

PHILLIPS: Wendy...

MURPHY: I'll tell you something...

RUSSELL: ... deterred other women in Colorado from coming forward and making allegations.

MURPHY: I'll tell you something. If it bears out, which is probably true, that this woman had sex two or three days earlier, consensually with a boyfriend and that should be, and is, irrelevant, and everything else that she said is true. And all this nonsense from Pamela Mackey is both false and/or irrelevant, I want to know who is going to punish Pamela Mackey for the harm she did, not only to this victim but to all women who are now going to worry if they report crime that the defense attorney is going to lie about their sex life, trash them on national television, discourage them from participating fully in the criminal justice system.

PHILLIPS: Karen?

RUSSELL: Wendy, do you know...

PHILLIPS: What do you think? Karen, what do you think about this judge? You think he's fair-minded? Do you think she's going to be put on the stand? Do you think there are going to be some pretty direct questions?

RUSSELL: Absolutely. I think this judge is fair-minded and I think the jury certainly should know if this woman slept with the prosecution witnesses and has someone else's DNA in her shorts, that Kobe may not be cause of these minimal injuries.

So I absolutely have faith in the people of Colorado, that they can look at the evidence here fairly and exonerate Kobe Bryant.

PHILLIPS: Final thought.

MURPHY: ... look at the evidence fairly and easily find him guilty.

You know, I've prosecuted hundreds of sex crimes cases. I have never had a case with such serious vaginal injuries. Karen wants to say they're not that serious; it's only a minimal amount of bleeding. Look, that area of the body is tough to tear. It takes a lot of force...

RUSSELL: When you have three guys in three days, you're bound to get a little bit of wear and tear...

MURPHY: ... body. That's evidence of violence, non-consent, and a jury will find him guilty.

PHILLIPS: OK, we've got to leave it there. I am curious, though. Here we are, three women, you two, you know, with a background in law. Does this case affect you more then any other case, just real quickly, Karen. I'm just curious?

RUSSELL: Well, I just -- I feel that it's doing a disservice to women because a -- they're trying to perpetuate this myth and political agenda that women don't lie about rape. And I think we should rally be more concerned with the truth here.

PHILLIPS: Wendy, quickly.

MURPHY: False allegations are no more common in rape cases than any other kind of crime. What I worry about is the most vulnerable among us. And you know, prostitutes get raped all the time. Nobody cares. Nobody brings those cases forward, because they're afraid that this is going to happen to them.

We have to stop that. We have to treat all citizens as if, no matter who they are, no matter what their lot in life, no one deserves to be raped.

PHILLIPS: Windy Murphy, Karen Russell, great debate. Appreciate your time very much.

MURPHY: Thank you.

PHILLIPS: We're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: Three big names in major league baseball linked to steroid use in a report by the "San Francisco Chronicle."

The paper says they received steroids from a lab implicated in an illegal distribution ring. The report quotes information given to federal prosecutors.

We have an update on the story now from Ray D'Alessio of CNN sports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RAY D'ALESSIO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Who was using steroids? That's what everyone wants to know after five to seven percent of major league players tested positive for steroid use last year. The players' names were kept con confidential.

DUSTY BAKER, CUBS MANAGER: It's like who's in the five to seven percent? And people are looking, like -- it's like McCarthyism or something. They're look to see who -- who looks like a communist. Correct?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

BAKER: You know? I mean, I'll probably get in trouble for that, too, but that's how I equate it. You know, he lost weight, he gained weight. I don't know.

D'ALESSIO: Speculation was further fueled after an article in Tuesday's "San Francisco Chronicle" reported that Giants' outfielder Barry Bonds and the Yankees' Jason Giambi and Gary Sheffield were among a half dozen players to receive illegal, performance-enhancing drugs.

The three players were among more than two dozen high-profile athletes to testify in front before a grand jury investigating a company that allegedly was the source of steroids provided to professional athletes.

Now, Bonds' personal trainer, Greg Anderson, was one of the four people indicted on conspiracy charges. Anderson later admitted he gave steroids to several baseball players, but his lawyer maintains Bonds was not one of them.

Bonds, Sheffield and Giambi have denied using steroids, but the accusations still fly.

Colorado Rockies pitcher Turk Wendell was the first player to openly accuse Bonds of steroid use.

Quote, "If my personal trainer, me, Turk Wendell, got indicted for that, there's no one in the world who wouldn't think that I wasn't taking steroids. What, because he's Barry Bonds no one's going to say that? I mean, obviously he did it," end quote.

Here's Bonds' response.

BARRY BONDS, GIANTS PLAYER: I have a lot of respect for Turk Wendell. I have a lot of respect for every baseball player in this game.

You know, just to disrespect other people like that or talk through the media, I think that's chicken (expletive deleted). You know, you got something to say, you come to my face and say it, and then we'll deal with each other. But don't be a (expletive deleted) and got talk to the media like, you know, you're some tough guy.

D'ALESSIO: Baseball has started another round of steroid testing for this season. In accordance with the agreement between players and major league baseball, a first positive test will result in a player getting treatment.

For CNN sports, I'm Ray D'Alessio.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: Up in arms over Wal-mart. The discount chain is facing some stiff opposition to its expansion films. We'll have details coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(STOCK REPORT)

O'BRIEN: From trading barbs to trading quips, the current and former governors of California dropped in on "The Tonight Show" with Jay Leno, Gray Davis helping Arnold Schwarzenegger push his $15 billion bond proposal.

And they also took a little bit of time to push each other's buttons.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) GRAY DAVIS, FORMER CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR: I talked to Arnold a little bit about some of the state problems, but he's helped me a lot with acting, particularly with my pronunciation.

JAY LENO, "TONIGHT SHOW" HOST: Really?

GOV. ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER, CALIFORNIA: I knew there would be a joke. A bang. OK, go ahead guys, have a good time.

LENO: I heard you talking. You foolishly say California, which of course is ridiculous.

DAVIS: And I didn't know how to say it...

SCHWARZENEGGER: What?

That's actually the right way to pronounce it. In Spanish, it's California, not in California.

LENO: You're not in -- oh, I guess you are. I'm sorry.

DAVIS: I used to think I knew how to say "I'll be back." Now I know it's "I'll be back."

LENO: And the big issue here in California is this gay marriage thing. What's your position on this? How do you deal with this? What do you do here? Seriously.

SCHWARZENEGGER: Are you try to...

LENO: No, no, no, I'm not trying to ask you.

SCHWARZENEGGER: Be honest, Jay.

LENO: No, no, no, I'm serious.

SCHWARZENEGGER: You can admit it.

LENO: It's a big issue. All right, I admit it. I'm in love with you. All right, fine.

SCHWARZENEGGER: Finally good.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: OK.

PHILLIPS: Now that's a lead.

O'BRIEN: Yes. Yes, that was a lead.

PHILLIPS: Jay Leno and Arnold Schwarzenegger in love.

O'BRIEN: It also wasn't very funny, was it? Gray Davis, I guess he doesn't have a day job so he doesn't have to worry about it.

PHILLIPS: I think it was fun.

O'BRIEN: But if he had one, he shouldn't quit it.

OK. Let's move on, shall we?

PHILLIPS; We're talking about some momentous on Mars.

O'BRIEN: Let's do that. That's much more exciting. Coming up in just a few moments, NASA is making an announcement about a discovery that has scientists, and me, really excited.

Let's just say -- here's a hint for you. See this scene here, this animation? Four billion years ago, the humidity was substantially higher here.

PHILLIPS: Oh, boy.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: A momentous Mars discovery excites scientists on earth. We expect a live announcement from NASA any moment now. Kyra can hardly wait.

PHILLIPS; Terror attacks shatter holy celebrations in Iraq. Dozens of people are killed, hundreds more injured.

O'BRIEN: Secretly taped phone calls. Secret no more. A new development in the Scott Peterson murder trial to tell you about.

BOB FRANKEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Bob Franken in Annapolis, Maryland. Super Tuesday, will it be for John Kerry and John Edwards a super wipeout or a super surprise?

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

O'BRIEN: And I'm Miles O'Brien. This hour, CNN's LIVE FROM starts right now.

Up first this hour, opportunity knocks and pokes and drills and finds water or at least ancient signs of it, perhaps four billion years too late to see the water.

A starry-eyed batch of NASA scientists will tell the universe what their newest Martian rover has discovered about the Red Planet momentarily. The news conference is beginning as we speak. As soon as they get through the introductions we will bring it to you.

But, in essence, they're saying that the Opportunity rover which landed in a place called the Meridiani Planum has found telltale clues that it was once submerged with water.

Take a look at some of these images, as we look at the animation of how it was doing its work. These are the real life rocks on Mars. This is an outcropping which has been of great significance and interest to the scientists. Look down here in this location here. See that round sort of hole there. That is caused by the drilling action which is used by the scientific arm to come up with a conclusion. Let's listen to Ed Weiler who is in charge of science for NASA.

ED WEILER, NASA ASSOC. ADMINISTRATOR: ... at Mars the previous year, Mars '98. At that press conference we told you about our ambitious science dreams for these rovers and the aggressive schedule that it would have to meet to succeed.

Well, I woke up this morning and, believe it or not and realized that NASA, its international partners in Germany and our partners in the science community have really turned those dreams into a reality.

You are about to hear that Opportunity has landed in an area of Mars where liquid water once drenched the surface; moreover, this area would have been a good habitable environment for some period of time.

Our ultimate quest at Mars is to answer the age old question was there life, is there life on Mars? Today's results are a giant leap toward achieving that long term goal.

With me today are Dr. Steve Squyres who is the principal investigator the Mars Science Exploration Rover Team. He's from Cornell University. To his left is Dr. John Grotzinger who is a co- investigator on the rovers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

To my immediate right is Dr. Ben Clark, also a co-I on the rovers from Lockheed Martin. To my left is doctor -- a little excited today. To my left is Dr. Joy Crisp who is our project scientist from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. And, on my far left is Dr. James Garvin, our NASA lead scientist for the Mars Exploration Program at NASA headquarters.

I'd like to recognize in the front row on my left Dr. Gustar Klingelhoffer (ph) from the University of Mainz (ph) and Dr. Ralph Gellert (ph) from the Max Planck Institute in Germany, both of whom are seated here. These scientists provided two of the essential instruments whose measurements have allowed us to produce the results you're about to hear about.

And, one last thought. As you're about to see, these results from Mars are already laying the foundation for the new vision of robotic and human exploration of the solar system and beyond that was announced by our president from this very stage just six weeks ago.

So, Steve, tell us about what you found.

STEVE SQUYRES, CHIEF MISSION SCIENTIST: Okay, Ed. Well thanks. Ever since Opportunity touched down on Meridiani Planum the night of January 24th and we first opened our eyes and took a look around and we saw this marvelous outcrop of layered bedrock literally right in front of us, we've been trying to puzzle out what this outcrop has been trying to tell us. For the last two weeks we've been attacking this outcrop literally with everything we have. Every single piece of our payload has been brought to bear on this and I'm particularly glad that my two colleagues from Germany, my friends Gustar and Ralph are here today, because their instruments in particular played a very essential role in helping us to puzzle this out.

Over the last couple of weeks the puzzle pieces have been falling into place and the last puzzle piece fell into place a few days ago and, as Ed said, we have concluded that the rocks here were once soaked in liquid water.

Now, I want to draw an important distinction. There are two puzzles that we've been working on and we've got the answer to one of them. The other one we're still working on.

One question is were these wonderful layered rocks actually laid down in liquid water? We don't have an answer for that one yet. We're working on it. We're making some headway. John's going to talk about this a little bit more. We got some tantalizing clues in that direction. We may have something for you in another week to two weeks.

But the second question is were these rocks acted upon? Were they altered by liquid water and the answer to that we believe definitively is yes. We have four different pieces of evidence that have led us to that conclusion and I will go through them in order.

The first one has to do with these little spherical objects, a few millimeters in size. We've been calling them spherals. Actually within the team we've nicknamed them blueberries because if you look at them they like blueberries in a muffin are embedded in this rock and weathering out of it. They are little tough round things inside the rock.

We've looked at three different ideas for what they might be. Initially, we thought they might be what geologists call lapilli (ph). Lapilli are essentially little volcanic hailstones that form when you have an eruption of volcanic ash and they coagulate and fall out, so that was one possibility.

Another possibility was that these were droplets of volcanic glass or droplets formed by an impact. If you have a very energetic event that sprays liquid rock up into the air and it freezes and falls out you can make little round objects that way.

We've looked at these things very carefully now. We have looked at them with our color camera. We have looked at lots of them with our microscope. We have sliced through them and looked at them in cross-section. We've looked at their shapes, the way that they're related to the rock around them.

And, as John will describe in more detail, all those clues together have led us to the conclusion that these are probably what geologists call concretions. Concretions form when there's liquid water in a rock. It's got stuff dissolved in it and then it begins to precipitate out. It begins to solidify from solution and, as it does so, it grows around a nucleation point and as a cementing agent it starts to fill in the pores in the rock and it grows to make a small spherical object. We believe that these are what we are seeing here. If so, it's pointing toward water. That's the first piece of evidence.

The second piece of evidence is that when we looked at this rock close-up we found out that in some places it has shot through with some very weird looking holes. Again, John will show you the pictures in more detail.

These holes are not round. They're tabular in shape. Where they intersect the surface they are long and thin. They're typically maybe a centimeter long, maybe a millimeter or two wide. They're shot all through the rock at all kinds of crazy angles.

It's as if a bunch of objects sort of the size and shape of pennies were once embedded in the rock and then went away. Now the best way we have of explaining this, these are actually familiar forms from certain kinds of rocks on earth.

What happens is when crystals grow within rocks, if you have water in solution and crystals precipitate from that if the crystals are tabular, if they're flat in form, as they grow either by pushing the rock aside or simply by replacing the rock that's there you can get these little tabular crystals within the rock and then either the water chemistry changes and they dissolve away or they're eroded away and you leave little tabular holes, these tabular voids behind.

And so these things we think are probably the molds of crystals that were once there that were precipitated from water.

The next piece of evidence that we have comes from our alpha particle x-ray spectrometer and that's an instrument that measures how much of each chemical element is found in this rock. And what we found when we first looked at this rock is that it looked like it had an awful lot of sulfur in it, way more sulfur than has ever been found in any Martian rock.

Now when we first did this we looked at the outside of the rock and when you look at the outside of the rock with this instrument, you can't be certain what you're seeing. You might be seeing a coating on the outside because the instrument can't see very deep into the rock.

But we brought with us a grinding tool, a device called the RAT, the rock abrasion tool, and it can grind away and we've used it to grind away two, three, four millimeters from the outer surface of this rock and then we put our instrument in there and we found even more sulfur.

We found an enormous quantity of sulfur in this rock, too much to explain by any other mechanism we believe than this water being full of sulfate salts and we'll talk in more detail about it. Ben Clark will be talking about that but that's a telltale sign we believe of... O'BRIEN: We have been listening to Steve Squyres of Cornell University. He's the principal investigator on both the Opportunity and Spirit rovers, which have been on Mars now for, well since the early part of January in the case of Spirit, the latter part of January in the case of Opportunity but with a very significant scientific conclusion that the location where Opportunity landed, a crater basin which is located near the equator of Mars, at one time was completely submerged by water and, as the scientist put it there, was for a decent period of time a good habitable environment.

This is a big step on the quest for determining if there ever was, in fact, life on Mars or could there be somewhere beneath the surface there life that currently exists on the Red Planet.

Nevertheless, we're going to continue to listen to that briefing, obviously a lot of technicalities there we need to sort through. We'll do our best to translate it for you and we'll hear from some of the experts for their analysis and reaction to this significant finding in just a few moments.

Let's shift gears and talk politics.

PHILLIPS: Senators John Kerry and John Edwards both looking for a super showing today in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. A total of ten states are holding contests.

CNN National Correspondent Bob Franken keeping tabs on all the candidates.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BOB FRANKEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): He's the frontrunner, the favorite once again, so pity John Kerry.

SEN. JOHN KERRY (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I need your help.

FRANKEN: Kerry needs all the help he can get if he wants to avoid another night of winning but not winning big enough.

SEN. JOHN EDWARDS (D-NC), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I plan to be in this until I drop out.

FRANKEN: John Edwards still gets to play by the better than expected rules, in fact he's already released a schedule for visiting Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas, the southern states that hold their elections the week after Super Tuesday, of course, reality might intrude sooner or later.

EDWARDS: Of course, of course. At some point I got to start getting more delegates or I'm not going to be the nominee.

FRANKEN: Super Tuesday accounts for 1,151 delegates. Kerry already has a wide lead and he's campaigning as if he is the nominee and he heaps his scorn on the general election opposition. KERRY: If he came here I think he could straighten out his fuzzy math because the numbers don't add up. He's not multiplying the jobs. He's trying to divide America and so I think our solution we ought to subtract George Bush from the political equation of the United States.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FRANKEN: Well, Senator John Kerry and Senator John Edwards decided to do something a bit unusual during their campaign season. They came back to the U.S. Senate to participate in the vote over gun control legislation. That's out of the way.

Kerry is going to stay in Washington to see if he gets the blowout he wants tonight. Edwards is on his way to Georgia. He wants to see if he has enough of a good night to make credible his plan to continue the campaign -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Bob, John Kerry talking about the numbers adding up, what about the dollars adding up? Doesn't he need like $8 million to $10 million in the next month to keep this going?

FRANKEN: He does and that's one of the considerations. It's one of those things as long as you got money you may as well use it. But there will be pressure, growing pressure from Democratic officials saying that the party has to get its act together.

If there is no credible reason to go forward that pressure is going to really intensify but, as we found out, John Edwards has the ability to pull out surprises.

PHILLIPS: All right. Bob Franken always full of surprises but today staying very serious for us. Good, we got a smile. Bob Franken, thank you.

Now as ten states weigh in coast-to-coast, CNN will be live with results and what they mean all night long. Prime time coverage kicks off with Wolf Blitzer and Larry King as the first results start coming in at 7:00 p.m. Eastern, more live analysis at midnight, followed by a Super Tuesday wrap up on a special edition of "NEWSNIGHT" with Aaron Brown.

O'BRIEN: Police are searching for a kidnapping suspect after a mother discovers that her daughter, who was declared dead, is very much alive. It is a true story with more plot twists than you could ever make up.

And, a tax deduction for reducing the -- reducing, I should say. The IRS wants you to beef up your bottom line for watching your waistline and we'll connect those dots for you.

And, a town with a 'tude voters in one Vermont town decide whether they want to be in New Hampshire, confused? Well we'll sort that one out as well. That's what we're here for to sort it all out. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) PHILLIPS: In that blast off Virginia that caused a tanker to sink attention now turns to finding the cause of the explosion. Yesterday, the Coast Guard suspended further efforts to find 18 men from the Philippines still listed as missing. The tanker was carrying industrial ethanol when it exploded Sunday night and before it sank someone managed to send this call for help.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Bow Mariner, we are on fire. Mayday, mayday, mayday, this is Bow Mariner we are on fire. We are on fire.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: Wow, pretty dramatic pictures and sound. Authorities say they still have not determined whether the voice you heard is one of the six men who survived and were rescued in a life raft Saturday.

O'BRIEN: News across America now, the woman accusing Kobe Bryant of sexual assault won't be in court today as was expected. The judge delayed her appearance while he figures out how far defense attorneys can go with their questioning. The defense wants to use the woman's sexual history as evidence.

Prosecutors say it's irrelevant in the case.

Also in Colorado, an independent committee begins its investigation into whether the University of Colorado used sex and alcohol to recruit athletes. Several women say they were raped during a party attended by football players and recruits in 2001.

And Major Leaguers Barry Bonds, Jason Giambi and Gary Sheffield are in the spotlight today. "The San Francisco Chronicle" reporting the athletes are among several pros to receive illegal performance enhancing drugs from the Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative. The lab is implicated in a steroid distribution ring. Bonds, Giambi and Sheffield all have denied using the steroids.

PHILLIPS: Believe what you will about a mother's instincts. A Philadelphia woman never felt that her baby daughter was dead, despite police telling her the infant perished in a fire. Now after a bizarre turn of events she was right.

What gave the case away? Walt Hunter with CNN affiliate KYW says it was a little girl's dimple.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WALT HUNTER, KYW CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): DNA tests now reveal the flames that tore through this home in December, 1997 didn't kill 10-day-old Delamar Vera. Instead, she was allegedly kidnapped by 41-year-old Carolyn Correa who is accused of lighting the fire hoping to make everyone believe the baby was dead then slipping the infant out through an open back window.

CAPT. JOHN DARBY, PHILADELPHIA POLICE SPECIAL VICTIMS UNIT: They put their hearts and souls into this investigation, I will tell you.

HUNTER: For more than six years, Delamar's mother despite being told that her baby had died that night refused to totally believe it.

ANGEL CRUZ, STATE REPRESENTATIVE: She kept saying something is missing in this picture. I think that my baby is still alive.

HUNTER: And so it was inside this home at a January 24th birthday party that Delamar's mother saw Correa with a 6-year-old little girl, a girl she instinctively knew was her daughter.

CRUZ: Motherly instinct, without getting DNA nothing. She sees the child, says this is my child.

HUNTER: The kidnapping suspect, sources say, is already a convicted arsonist who allegedly got a phony birth certificate three weeks after the fire for Delamar claiming the baby had been born at home but DNA now shows the baby, who everyone thought died in this home that December night is, in fact, Delamar and a reunion is now being planned.

CRUZ: The mother is overwhelmed. She's scared. She's full of different emotions. Me, it just gives me goose bumps.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Well, police have issued an arrest warrant for Carolyn Correa. The child's real mother knew it would take more than her instincts to get her daughter so at the party she pretended the girl had gum in her hair and removed a few strains for DNA testing.

O'BRIEN: Wow, good for her.

PHILLIPS: Pretty smart.

O'BRIEN: A little Sherlock Holmes there.

PHILLIPS: Pretty smart.

O'BRIEN: Good for her.

Is America's oldest teenager being a hypocrite?

PHILLIPS: Just ahead on LIVE FROM, TV host and producer Dick Clark facing an age discrimination lawsuit from an employee only two years younger than he.

O'BRIEN: And he's 98, isn't he?

And this could be the key to staying younger, an ancient practice with a new twist. It's called power yoga.

CARLOS WATSON, CNN POLITCAL ANALYST: I'm Carlos Watson. We'll power past Super Tuesday and show you the five things you'll need to watch for on Wednesday and beyond.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: In New York, Martha Stewart's defense has its turn at closing arguments in her trial. Attorney Robert Morvillo told jurors if Stewart and broker Peter Bacanovic conspired to lie about selling her ImClone stock they would have gotten their story straight. Stewart and Bacanovic did not testify at the trial. Jurors are expected to begin deciding the case tomorrow.

Former WorldCom Chief Executive Bernie Ebbers has been hit with criminal charges related to the huge accounting scandal that rocked that telecom company.

(MARKET UPDATE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: Welcome back. From the CNN Center, this is LIVE FROM... I'm Miles O'Brien.

PHILLIPS: And I'm Kyra Phillips. Here's what all new this half hour. Looking beyond Super Tuesday. What will President Bush unveil on Thursday? What to watch for as the race for the White House heats up.

O'BRIEN: Voting themselves off the island. A tiny town in Vermont would like to succeed.

PHILLIPS: And no more "Tears in Heaven" for Eric Clapton.

Now the headlines "At This Hour."

O'BRIEN: Horrific attacks during one of the holiest of days. The series of explosions in Iraq come as thousands of Shi'ite Muslims celebrated Ashura. At least 143 were killed, hundreds wounded. Iraqi authorities blame a Jordanian born radical, Abu Mousab al Zaqawi. Some citizens blame the U.S. for a lack of security.

I'm in charge, you're not. Haiti's rebel leader declares himself head of the armed forces. But U.S. officials say they don't recognize Guy Philippe as military chief. They're calling for rebels to lay down their arms and say the Haitian people will decide who is in charge.

The Senate has extended the ban on military type assault weapons for another ten years. It has also voted to close the so-called gun show loophole that allowed the purchase of guns without background checks. More amendment votes are expected later today.

And, evidence gathered by police wiretaps can be used in the Laci Peterson murder trial. The judge says investigators used proper procedure while monitoring some 3,000 phone calls Scott Peterson conducted after his pregnant wife disappeared.

PHILLIPS: After weeks of build-up, the big day is here. Super Tuesday. The ten-state super vote. What happens once all the ballots are counted and Super Tuesday is the ghost of elections past? What will dominate political headlines then?

CNN political analyst Carlos Watson has been gazing into his crystal ball. Here we go. We should have brought it with us.

WATSON: Right here. Would have been colorful.

PHILLIPS: We are colorful, aren't we? All right. Looking into that crystal ball, first, unemployment numbers.

WATSON: Unemployment numbers come out next week. I think that will be a big deal if..,

PHILLIPS: Why?

WATSON: Well, remember, the president has said he's going to create 2.6 million jobs this year. Then they backed off of it. If you don't see 200,000 jobs created or more, people will start to say the economy is not recovering.

And I think that bodes ill for the president. I think you can see his approval numbers go down. And again it makes Kerry look much stronger like he's the guy to create jobs and get the economy on the right track.

PHILLIPS: All right, from jobs to money, John Kerry, $8 million to $10 million he's got to come up with in the next month. Can he do it? Will he do it? How will he do it?

WATSON: Now we go to the flip side. The president has got over $100 million in the bank. He's going to launch a $5 million at least ad campaign, three-week ad campaign starting on Thursday all across the country on cable and different local markets, on network.

If at the end of those three weeks though the president's numbers haven't significantly improved, meaning instead of being at 50 percent approval, you need to see him at 53, 54. If that doesn't happen and if the gap right now that you see in theoretical match-ups between Kerry and Bush don't get better, boy, you got to be worried if you're the White House.

PHILLIPS: All right you talked about the big ad campaign. So I guess we should look forward toward those poll numbers and how people react to them.

WATSON: Exactly. And so I think it's going to be important to see how people react to them. And going back to what I said about Kerry as well, Kerry's got to raise the $8 to $10 million so that he can respond to the Bush ads.

So in order to raise that money, he'll look for a little bit of help. Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, even Howard Dean, I bet, will be the stars of some upcoming campaign fund raisers assuming that Super Tuesday is a super day for John Kerry and he wraps up the nomination.

PHILLIPS: You think those ads will get nasty or you think they'll be sort of patriotic type, pump up America? WATSON: This is politics, of course. It will be real nasty.

PHILLIPS: A little mud slinging here and there.

WATSON: We'll see some elbows backwards and forwards. The president said he's going to start out by giving an optimistic view of his agenda, what he's done both domestically and internationally.

I think very quickly, Kyra, very quickly, within two weeks you'll start seeing ads that look very different and they'll throw elbows in both directions. Democrats at Republicans, Republicans at Democrats.

PHILLIPS: All right, what about gay marriage?

WATSON: You know, I don't think that issue is going away. A lot of people think that that's an issue that's going to fade in the sunset. but I say post-Super Tuesday that issue's going to become hotter than ever.

You see another mayor, this time in New York instead of California, but both coasts now, who are offering marriage licenses. Although there's some debate, I think celebrities are going to become part of the story here.

Now we saw Rosie O'Donnell jump in and get married. But you know, stay tuned for a Guy Carson, "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy." Stay tuned for some "Sex in the City" folks who may step forward and make comments.

Stay tuned not only for those who are out and gay, but for those who are straight but who find this to be an issue that they find to be an important one either in favor of gay marriage or opposed to it. I think this is one that celebrities are going to be involved in and they're going to keep the issue alive.

PHILLIPS: And finally, the issue of foreign policy. You think that's going to change completely. Why?

WATSON: Well, you know what? Everyone, when you say foreign policy, Kyra, they think always about Iraq. But I think there are a couple other hot spots. Post-Super Tuesday, we're not only going to talk about Haiti, which right now is a very interesting and in some ways sad story unfolding there, we're going to talk about Pakistan. There's some very interesting things happening there. We'll talk about Libya, we'll talk about what's going on in Cuba.

And don't forget, there is still a European conversation to happen in terms of our relationship with Germany and France. I think there is a broader foreign policy conversation that will become part of a general election battle.

PHILLIPS: All right, Carlos Watson, thank you.

WATSON: My little crystal ball.

PHILLIPS: There it is. WATSON: Heard it here first.

PHILLIPS: OK, we'll look into it on a daily basis. Thanks, Carlos.

WATSON: Good to see you.

O'BRIEN: Couple of interesting side dishes being offered up on ballots around the country today. Georgia voters pick a state flag. The current red, white and blue flag that echoes the national flag of the confederacy or one created in 2001 to replace the controversial flag with the rebel stars and bars.

And residents in Killington, Vermont say crippling taxes led them to vote for succession. That's right, they would like to succeed from Vermont and they overwhelmingly endorsed a plan to become a part of New Hampshire, right next door. Vermont lawmakers have the final say. However, it appears unlikely they'll let the lucrative resort town get away.

Remember punch card ballots and hanging chads? Who wouldn't remember those? Unfortunately. Electronic voting machines promise to end that election nightmare. A lot of voters will be using them this year. But as CNN's Aaron Brown explains, computer voting is not a silver bullet.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AARON BROWN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Modern, computerized, paperless, and the target of a firestorm of complaints.

The problem is that voters simply cannot be certain that the software inside the machines has accurately recorded their vote, a programming error, a hacker attack, or a dishonest technician could affect dozens, perhaps thousands of votes. And without a paper trail, the only way to check it -- you guessed it -- is to ask the computer.

AVI RUBIN, JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY: One of things that I have noticed is that the more people know about computers and the deeper their knowledge and understanding of computer security, the more opposed they are to voting machines that don't have a voter-verifiable paper trail.

BROWN: This summer, the software for the Diebold voting machines that Maryland will use was found on the Internet and given to Rubin and other security experts. They found it filled with sloppy programming and security gaps.

Maryland claims to have fixed those holes. And then the state went a step further, giving former NSA code cracker Michael Wertheimer and his team of security pros a chance to attack the entire system, not just the terminals, but the central computers as well.

MICHAEL WERTHEIMER, DIRECTOR, RABA TECHNOLOGIES: We were able to exploit many, many security flaws and completely change the election at the state level, which means changing the database, changing the votes, pretty much having full control of the election.

BROWN: More security has since been added, but election officials and industry representatives say that keeping an election honest depends on more than software.

LINDA LAMONE, ADMINISTRATOR, MARYLAND BOARD OF ELECTIONS: I have got a great staff and a great group of people out in the counties, all of whom are dedicated to making sure nothing like that happens. If it does, the person that does it is going to jail.

REP. RUSH HOLT (D), NEW JERSEY: Some elections officials have said to me, but we've been using these electronic machines for several years now and we have never had a problem, to which I say, how do you know?

BROWN: Congressman Holt is sponsoring a bill in Congress that would require more stringent standards. He says it's a question of trust, but trust is getting harder to find.

And it didn't help that Diebold's CEO, Walden O'Dell, sent out a fund-raising letter, saying he was committed to deliver -- quote -- "electoral votes" to the president, nor that California officials found that uncertified software and unapproved machines had been widely used in the recall election for governor. Ironically, the worst that could happen might well be that nothing will happen.

WERTHEIMER: I'm worried that complacency is going to set in. And come November, the attackers will have done their reconnaissance. They will have a better idea. And if we don't continue to improve the security, change the software, make it a better system, we're asking for trouble.

Aaron Brown, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: As ten states weigh in coast to coast, CNN will be live with results and what they mean all night long. Wolf Blitzer is dominating the evening, as always. He will lead our special prime time coverage. "LARRY KING LIVE" also in the mix, of course.

And the results start rolling in at 7:00 p.m. Eastern time. We're told to watch Georgia very carefully. That's your viewers' guide right there.

Our Super Tuesday live wrap-up continues as the results come in. We'll continue all the way through with a special edition of "NEWSNIGHT" at 1:00 a.m. on the East Coast, other times elsewhere.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: There is some scientific proof today from NASA's Opportunity rover on the surface of the Red Planet that the place where it happens to be roving about right now at one time was certainly rather wet, and quite likely rather warm -- although we don't know that for sure just yet. Nevertheless, a habitable place for life. Of course, we're four billion years too late to see it in person. Nevertheless, if you're a scientist and your goal is to find out the question of life on Mars, one way or another, this is a big day.

Joining us on the line is somebody who has walked us through all of these Mars missions to date, Matt Golombek who is a scientist at Jet Propulsion Lab. And who I should tell folks was one of the key people deciding where to land these rovers. I suspect he's floating a few inches above the ground there at JPL. Right, Matt?

MATT GOLOMBEK, ROVER MISSION SCIENTIST: Yes, I'd say we hit the jackpot.

O'BRIEN: You hit pay dirt, quite literally.

GOLOMBEK: That's right.

O'BRIEN: All right, first of all, I want to remind people where we are. I have a big panoramic shot of the site which shows these rock outcroppings not in any close-up detail. When you landed here, I just want to remind people, Matt, what kind after hole in one this was to go as many millions of miles as did you and land in this wonderful spot.

GOLOMBEK: Yes. We just bounced into this 20 meter diameter crater that has roughly half of its rim there exposing these wondrous outcrops.

O'BRIEN: The outcrops are a big deal because basically it's rocks that are there in place telling their story essentially.

GOLOMBEK: Pretty much. They've been jostled around by the impact, of course. So they're not perfectly in place. But they contain enough of the stratigraphy, the little layers and so on, to really begin to investigate the mesoscopic features that really help tell us what it is.

O'BRIEN: Mesoscopic. I love it when you talk that way. Remind us what it is.

GOLOMBEK: Just outcrop scale. Meters to ten meters. And we're seeing extremely fine-layered rocks. And when we looked at it with the microscopic image...

O'BRIEN: And we're on that one now. We're on the Guadelupe (ph) image right now.

GOLOMBEK: ... you see these little spheres that are poking out of the rocks. So they formed in the rock and you can see they're just kind of hanging on. They're more resistant than the other parts of the rock.

And you see these little gashes, these straight-line holes where it looks like minerals once were. And we believe those minerals were a sulfate mineral called gypsum that's required to form in liquid water, has to evaporate out from that water.

And the very fine layers. You can see these layers going horizontally across the picture there and how they come right up to the edge of the spheres and stop.

O'BRIEN: I see that.

GOLOMBEK: That implies that those spheres are not deposited in the rock, they're in fact growing out of the rock. They're making a harder sphereal and growing of the stuff that the rock is made of.

O'BRIEN: So just to translate that, that means it's probably not cause bid any sort of volcanic activity?

GOLOMBEK: That's right. It's a concretion, something that grew in the rocks. Now you have whatever laid down the rock is probably water that produces these layers. So there is water once. You have to grow these tabular minerals. That's water a second time. You've got dissolve those minerals out. That's water a third time. Then you have to grow these concretions. That's water a fourth time.

O'BRIEN: So I'd say the humidity is rising significantly.

Let's look at another image here. This is a close-up from the El Capitan rock. This shows what is called cross-bedding. Let's walk people through that.

GOLOMBEK: You see those tabular holes where we think gypsum used to be located. When you look closer, you see these round parcels that are a fraction after millimeter in size. And they're arrayed in sort of semi-horizontal fashion.

And if you look closely, by lining those arrays of those parcels up you see that those lines intersect each other as if it were like a little tabular sort of a festoon, something where one set of layers hits another set.

And that's typically called cross-bedding and it typically forms when it's deposited either by water or wind.

O'BRIEN: Water or wind. Therefore, once again, you start stacking this all up. Are you left -- scientists hesitate to do this, but is this conclusive, smoking-gun proof there was once water there four billion years ago?

GOLOMBEK: It's pretty darn strong. I think we have a few more experiments to do on the outcrop to be sure that these cross-beds were produced in water. I'm fairly confident that's the case. But just to nail that one down.

And then I don't know how any other way you could produce this rock without precipitating it from liquid water because of the high sulfur content. And then dissolving all these things in and out of it. So yes, this is very, very strong evidence.

O'BRIEN: The next step is, maybe we'll see a microscopic fossil of fish on the next round. Who knows. Matt is not ready to go that far.

Matt, always a pleasure having you drop by and explain what's complicated stuff to us. Congratulations to you and the team.

GOLOMBEK: Thank you. My pleasure.

O'BRIEN: Kyra.

PHILLIPS: We're just getting in to CNN and we have confirmed it that the Cincinnati Reds part owner, Marge Schott, has passed away. You know, she is, of course, a number of times been in the news more recently for some anti-Semitic remarks. Bit of a controversial character needless to say.

She won a World Series as owner of the Cincinnati Reds. But was repeatedly suspended for her offensive remarks. We are told, though, now that she has died. A hospital spokesperson confirming that she did pass away today.

Marge Schott at the age of 75. We'll bring you more, of course, on her life and legacy as we get more information.

O'BRIEN: Dick Clark hasn't aged a day since "American Bandstand," right? He's being sued, ironically, for age discrimination.

PHILLIPS: And you won't want to hear this anymore. Eric Clapton says it's time to put this song behind him.

O'BRIEN: It's a sad song.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Checking entertainment headlines this Tuesday, March 2, Eric Clapton says his time for tears is over. He won't be performing "Tears in Heaven" and My "Father's Eyes" anymore. He wrote those songs while grieving over his son's death in 1991. Now he says his life is in a different place.

"NYPD Blues" bowing to the sex police? At least for an instant. A naughty one-nighter between two characters will be darkened in tonight's episode, but that's only for viewers in the Central and Mountain time zones. Everyone else will get a glimpse of the risque business.

Too old for Dick Clark? A 76-year-old man suing Clark's production company for age discrimination. He says he was humiliated by a letter from Clark saying he was too old to work for him. That man is just two years older than Clark.

(MARKET UPDATE)

PHILLIPS: All right. We did have some developing news this hour so we couldn't bring you the iron yoga story. Sorry about that. We'll have that for you tomorrow.

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





to Face Multiple Charges, CFO Pleads Guilty; Who Will Win Super Tuesday?; Rebel Haiti Leader Takes Control of Armed Forces>