mayor, corey booker speaking out about the bain private equity debate. hear what he had to say about his critics and the president. and a major slide in facebook's stock. a big deal, and a big drop. details, straight ahead. good morning, everyone and welcome to early start. i'm ashley banfield. >> and i'm zoraida sambolin. up first, boldly going where no private spacecraft has gone before. >> zero and launch of the spacex falcon 9 rocket as nasa turns to the private secretary tore resupply the international space station. >> what a sight, huh? it happened not too long ago, a rocket built by the commercial space flight company, spacex blasted off an hour ago from cape canaveral, launched the unmanned dragon capsule to the international space station. the world's first commercial space station supply flight. nasa hanging its hopes on the mission now that the retired space shuttles are museum exhibits. john zerella is live in miami. i was watching you as it went into space. no glitches this time, right? >> reporter: no glitches, this is huge. you cannot understate how important this launch is. it paves the way for a whole new era in space flight. the white house releasing a statement saying it represents the potential for new era in american space flight. only four nations in the world have the capability and have ever actually rendezvoused and docked with the international space station. what spacex is attempting to do is to do pretty much just that. to send a spacecraft to the international space station and rendezvous, not dock in this case, but berth. the station's robotic arm will reach out, grab spacex's dragon capsule and pull it into the station. i talked with the ceo and founder of spacex about three weeks ago, and this is not just a test flight, his dragon capsule is actually carrying supplies. >> so we're going to be carrying about half a ton of supplies, it's going to be mostly, it will in fact almost entirely be supplies that are valuable once they're received at the space station. but it's okay if they get lost on the way there. so if the mission doesn't succeed, it's a small loss. >> so you know, they're taking dry goods, they've got a computer on board. and elon told me, he thinks they're taking some underwear, you know, those packages. i'm not kidding, it's the truth. you need them up there. just like you need a beer. >> i suppose so. so what happens next? are they thinking about taking humans up into space? >> that would be the next step for these commercial companies and spacex is vying along with four or five other companies to get the nasa contract to take humans. spacex has the contract, along with orbital, to take supplies. but there are four or five companies vying to take humans. nasa is going to pick one or two probably this summer, so spacex is in the mix for that as well. next step is the cruise stage with the dragon capsule and the next step will be the rendezvous and hopefully the birthing with the iss. >> how long does that take in. >> reporter: a couple of days. by tomorrow they'll have rendezvoused and will check out the systems, they'll have dragon do a fly-under of the international space station. if all of the systems check out, all of the software is working, then the following day they will go ahead and attempt the actual derthing. so we should know by thursday, friday, at the latest, if this all works. >> this is very exciting, we're so happy to have you there, john. >> reporter: sure. coming up at 5:20 eastern, we'll talk to the head of nasa, administrator charles bolden, about why there is such an historic day for space flight. a brand new poll showing president obama and mitt romney in a dead heat over who can fix the economy. overall, the president leads romney by just three percentage points in a new "washington post"/abc news poll. on issue number one, the voters, they're pretty knotted up at 47%. more than half of those asked said the economy is the number one issue going into the election. newark, new jersey mayor, corey booker, obama supporter and rising star in the democratic party is mad this morning and firing back after an ad from the mitt romney campaign used his own words against him. when he described as nauseating the obama campaign's attacks on mitt romney, the businessman. he went on msnbc last night and said -- the gop crossed the line. >> i am upset, i've been taken out of context, i've been used to support a cynicism. if there's any honor in what they're saying, in itny would have said you know like obama did, the citizens united decision is going to hurt our democracy. the negativity on our side, has got to stop. if he wanted to stand with me, he would say, i stand with corey booker, let's stop the super pac money, let's stop the negative campaigning and let's talk about the issues. >> president obama doubled database on the attacks by the romney camp. >> bain capital said the marian plant was a challenging situation in a business that was performing well overall, growing revenues and adding jobs, our control of ampad ended in 1996. fully four years before it encountered financial difficulties, due to overwhelming pressure from big box retailers, declines in paper demand and intense foreign price pressures. despite political attacks that emphasize a few companies that have struggled, the facts are that during bain capital's ownership, revenues grew in 80% of the more than 300 companies in which we have invested. a deadly tornado ripped through joplin, missouri, a year ago, killing 161 people and destroying 8,000 homes and businesses. president obama traveled to joplin, yesterday, to speak to the graduating class at joplin high school. he called students and their town, an inspiration, and reminded them that they are tough enough to overcome any obstacle. >> yes, you will encounter obstacles along the way. i guarantee you you will face setbacks and you will face disappointments. but you're from joplin, and you're from america and no matter how tough times get, you'll always be tougher. >> volunteers from all over the country are headed to joplin, this morning, to help with continued rebuilding efforts there. eight people were shot during an altercation that followed last night's nba playoff game in oklahoma city. police say one victim is now in critical condition. seven others suffered wounds that were nonlife-threatening. it happened around 11:35 central time. about two blocks from chesapeake energy arena. as crowds were leaving the lakers/thunder game. oklahoma city police say several people have been questioned, but so far, no arrests. a government task force says the tests to screen for prostate cancer is bad medicine. a panel of health experts is recommending that men no longer get the routine psa tests. the reason? they say the tests are not reliable. that they give false positive results 80% of the time and may lead to treatments that do nor harm than good. many urologists are insisting that those tests save lives of the prostate cancer is the second deadliest cancer among men behind only lung cancer. federal agents again under investigation. it's a sex scandal. a congressional source tells cnn three drug enforcement agents are accused of hiring prostitutes in cartagena, colombia. the course says it's a separate incident from the one involving military and secret service agents. even though it took place at the same time, in the same city, ahead of president obama's trip to a summit there. the america's top diplomat in kabul will be stepping down. administration officials say ryan crocker is the ambassador to afghanistan. is expected to leave his post sometime this summer. crocker took over last july. reality replacing the hype. facebook reeling after shares sank 11% in the first day of trading bout the full support of the company's underwrites. now $4 below the initial public offering. even if you didn't buy a single share, facebook still may be costing you. so make sure you check your 401(k). and that's why they say when all those executives are billion-dollar portfolios, it's just on paper. it can go that fast. ten minutes past 5:00. 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the wig and the sunglasses come off. >> that was a brave and dumb move. >> he probably said if it wasn't for the pesky teenagers who caught him. christine romans, thank you. the struggle to contain wildfires in arizona has been one heck of a problem this season and it's not getting any better these days. rob marciano is with us live. i've been reporting on this for the better of six days, i didn't think it would take that long to get the fires under control. >> usually they get a break, weatherwise, but this fire hasn't. more winds and heat will be building. video out of arizona north of phoenix, the gladiator fire. like ashley said, we've been reporting on this for a week now. still only 19% contained. they've got over 1100 personnel on this thing. working it. about an hour north of phoenix, tourist mining town, all sorts of assets in there trying to control this thing. weather is not going to cooperate. the last two days it's been a little bit better, but still only 19% containment. the heat is a factor, 108 to 112 for this area, including extreme parts of southern california. the winds going to kick up today and tomorrow. we're looking at extreme fire danger over the next 48 hours. off to the east coast, we've got a front that's not going to be moving very much. over the next couple of days. you'll see the threat for showers. you saw it yesterday. new york, some light rain right now, the i-95 corridor towards boston. these will linger on and off. temperatures hold in the 70s. a quick note on what was tropical storm alberto, now just a depression. we knew it wouldn't do a whole lot. we're watching something in the eastern pacific, which could become a hurricane in the next day. guys, back up to you. >> thank you, rob. 16 minutes past the hour. time for your early reads, is america's love affair with the automobile officially over? >> no. >> the "washington post" reporting americans are not only driving less, ashley but fewer are buying cars at all. a quarter of adults in washington, d.c. don't each have a scar. while high gas prices and unemployment are partly to blame, new social technology has created a world, people can connect with friends and family without leaving the house. fewer young people are bothering to get a driver's license, instead they're moving to cities with strong public transportation and the services like the zip car and the apps like bike share have introduced new ways for people to get around without having to own a car. >> something tells me there's some ferraris for sale in palo alto, and a lot of people snapping them up. but after the price drop, maybe not so much. speaking of cars and maybe not getting in your car, it turns out traffic congestion is easing up in a lot of american cities. according to a new report out in "u.s.a. today." congestion dropped 30% just between 2010 and 2011 in 100 of america's largest cities. the plunge no surprise, has a lot to do with higher gas prices and our economy that was somewhat sluggish. the recovery has been slow and that's reflected your gas pedal. the cities with the biggest drops in gridlock, minneapolis, akron and honolulu. the cities that saw the biggest increase in traffic congestion, were tampa, miami, houston. those are the cities that also saw the biggest increases in job growth. so folks who got the job -- >> correlation there. >> had to get to work somehow. an historic day in space flight. the first commercial spacecraft is headed to the international space station right now. we're going to talk live one-on-one to the head of nasa after this quick break. 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