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American Morning
IMF Chief Charged with Sexual Assault; Shuttle Endeavour Launch; Santana Blasts New Immigration Law; High School Senior Got Reprieved; Southern States Continue To Prepare For Flooding Along the Mississippi; Education Becoming Increasingly Important For Job Acquisition; Is College Worth the Money?; Final Countdown for "Endeavour"
Aired May 16, 2011 - 07:59 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ALI VELSHI, CNN ANCHOR: The man in charge of the world's money, arrested and charged with sexual assault.
I'm Ali Velshi.
The IMF in turmoil as Dominique Strauss-Kahn prepares to be arraigned in a New York courtroom this morning.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: A final mission into the final frontier.
I'm Christine Romans.
Space Shuttle Endeavour lifts off for the last time ever on this AMERICAN MORNING.
VELSHI: Good morning. It is Monday, May the 18th. A lot of news for you this morning, but first we start with some breaking news out of London.
ROMANS: That's right. A security alert issued after metropolitan police say they received a bomb threat believed to be linked to IRA militants. Police say they received the threat last night with no specific location or time. We'll continue to follow this developing news out of London for you throughout the hour.
VELSHI: And now to our main story, the stunning arrest of the man who is in charge of the world's money. Dominique Strauss-Kahn is scheduled to be arraigned this morning in New York. He's charged with trying to rape a maid in an upscale Manhattan hotel.
ROMANS: Strauss-Kahn is accused of emerging from the bathroom in this hotel suite naked and then dragging a 32-year-old housekeeper into the bedroom of this $3,000 a night suite and attacking her there. He was pulled off a Paris-bound plane just moments before it took from JFK airport on Saturday night.
Richard Roth joins us with the latest developments -- Richard.
RICHARD ROTH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Thank you. It was one of those developments you look at your BlackBerry on Saturday and --
(CROSSTALK)
ROMANS: You just can't believe it.
ROTH: -- like what?
A court appearance is expected later today for Strauss-Kahn. The New York City police say one of the world's most powerful men attempted to rape and sexually assaulted a 32-year-old hotel maid on Saturday. The police say it happened at the Hotel Sofitel, in a luxury suite in Times Square.
Police say the 62-year-old Strauss-Kahn, naked, chased the main, who had entered a series of rooms to clean, unaware the head of the IMF was still there. He chased her, say police. She fought him off. On the first attempt, and then he attacked her, according to police, in the bathroom. Strauss-Kahn, who had faced tales of bad behavior with women before, nothing like this, publicly, rushed to JFK Airport where he was calmly pulled out of the first class section on an Air France jet bound for Paris.
Strauss-Kahn, Sunday, agreed to physical and forensic examinations. Authorities await those tests which delayed Sunday night's arraignment.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Our client willingly consented to a scientific and forensic examination tonight.
REPORTER: I don't hear what you're saying, sir.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Our client consented to an examination tonight at the request of the government. That's being done in light of the hour. We've agreed to postpone the arrangement until tomorrow morning and we expect to be here in court with him tomorrow.
REPORTER: How is your client doing?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's tired, but he's fine. Thank you very much.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROTH: A source told CNN the alleged sex victim picks Strauss- Kahn out of a lineup. He has no diplomatic immunity. His attorneys say their client is innocent of the charges.
VELSHI: And this arraignment delayed because they had some negotiation where he agreed to this forensic testing. But as things stand now, we expect an arraignment this morning and then -- do we know what?
ROTH: We don't really know. I mean, there was debate between his attorneys and the attorney of New York about bail. Maybe it was set too low. I'm sure there's heavy negotiation going on. You've seen those "Law and Order" episodes.
VELSHI: Right.
ROTH: It seems like everyone can guess what might be happening right now.
ROMANS: So, then we asked Sunny Hostin, who actually is a former prosecutor so she could clarify, like, what could be happening next. And she said that clearly, if they have not revoked his passport, they will revoke his passport. That he is a flight risk, according to Sunny Hostin, because they pulled him off an international flight in the first place.
ROTH: Well, they don't want like a Roman Polanski thing where he -- the director left town and never came back despite charges out West.
ROMANS: All right. So, more details emerging at every minute. We'll continue to follow it.
Thanks so much, Richard Roth.
VELSHI: Thanks, Richard
ROMANS: And it's concerns about the global economy that are weighing down stocks across the board. Markets are down in Europe and Asia. Here in the U.S., futures are in negative territory this morning after the Dow closed down about 100 points on Friday. NASDAQ and S&P 500 were also lower.
And, of course, it's interesting -- there are big debt negotiations going on.
VELSHI: Right, in Brussels.
ROMANS: In Europe right now. Dominique Strauss-Khan was supposed to be there sort of leading these negotiations. He's a lynch pin in the global economy quite frankly and troubles its had. So, this is a story with huge economic -- global economic implications.
VELSHI: And Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi is now wanted for war crimes. An arrest warrant is issued today from the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Allegations include the killing of unarmed protesters and airstrikes against civilians. Libya's deputy foreign minister tells CNN the government is simply going to ignore those warrants.
ROMANS: Three of the reactor cores at the Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan have now melted down. And that's going to make it more difficult for the plant's operator to safely shut down this facility and stop a massive radioactive release. The Tokyo Electric Power Company had hoped to get this plant under control by the end of this year.
Last week, they acknowledged a meltdown had taken place in reactor number one. And with this latest confirmation of no more core meltdowns, that plan is now likely to be completely overhauled. Expectation is changing there, not changing in a good way.
VELSHI: Right now, nine flood gates on the Morganza Spillway in Louisiana are open, and that is sending a massive rush of water away from the cities of Baton Rouge and New Orleans and on a long, destructive path towards smaller communities. Evacuations have been ordered in towns along the Mississippi River. Some homes could be under 15 feet of water.
ROMANS: And that means alligators are no match for the Mighty Mississippi. They're being sent down river in all of this massive flooding. Wildlife experts are warning people in Louisiana's flood zone: hey, stay away from the edge of the river and avoid these possible close encounters with displaced alligators.
VELSHI: It's an incredible extreme weather video coming out of Florida. Listen to this.
(VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: Rain coming sideways, straight line winds bending and breaking those palm trees. This is in the middle of an intense thunderstorm that formed over Florida yesterday. Several inches of rain flooded some streets. At least one funnel cloud was reported.
ROMANS: And also a strange weather category -- a very close call r for dozens of fifth graders at a graduation party in Tucson, Arizona, this weekend.
(VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: This is what's called a dust devil. Powerful winds, you know, forming this funnel, lifting a blowup bouncing castle right off the ground, wrapping it around a light pole at one point. Wow. Several children suffered minor injuries from flying debris, but, you know, this could have been a lot worse because parents were alert. They saw this dust devil developing. They pulled the kids out of the castle just in time.
VELSHI: Wow.
All right. Let's take a look at the weather is going to be across the country today. Rob Marciano is in the weather center in Atlanta.
Good morning, Rob.
ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Good morning, guys.
Yes, stay away from dust devils. You know, you get kind of drawn into it. You're like, it's just cool. This is harmless. But some can be pretty powerful, as you saw.
Hey, guys, I want to remind everybody that, you know, we have the flooding going on in the Mississippi. And we concentrate on Mississippi itself and Louisiana. But we are still flood warning all the way up through the Ohio and upper Mississippi. So, a lot of water is still yet to be drained.
Vicksburg is going to be under the gun here for the next several days. Hopefully, those levees will hold, and then, of course, down river on Atchafalaya.
All right. We got some rainfall that's going to cause flooding, I think, across the Northeast. It doesn't look very impressive here on the radar right now. But going forward, I think the radar is going to fill in just a little bit. And this will get a little bit more impressive unfortunately.
Low pressure that's not going to move a whole lot here over the next couple of days, will continue to spin. It's going to be a cool one and it will create instability. But on the front side of it, it will be warm enough to pick up a decent amount of moisture from the Atlantic.
And we could see several inches of rainfall in some of the populated cities, including New York. But you get more rain up across, say, Burlington, Vermont, where they don't need it anymore, Lake Champlain flooding there. That's not good news that they want to hear.
Fifty-four degrees for the high temperature in Chicago. It's going to be cool out west as well; 61 degrees in Illinois (ph). That is cool but dry. All the wet weather for the next several days will be across the Northeast.
Christine, Ali, back up to you.
VELSHI: All right. Thanks very much. We'll check in with you in a little while.
ROMANS: OK. Less than an hour, historic moment for NASA and triumphant one for the mission commander and his wife. Commander Mark Kelly is set to lead space shuttle Endeavour into space for the very last time. There to watch the launch, of course, Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords -- another milestone in her remarkable recovery from an assassination attempt.
VELSHI: John Zarrella live at the Kennedy Space Center for the final countdown.
John, earlier, you told us there was a potential small problem with one of the shuttle. Something going on on the shuttle. What's the update on that?
JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, they had a tile that was right near the hatch where the astronauts enter the vehicle and that had a scrape on it, about an inch-long scrape. They were able to go ahead and smooth that out, fix that, so that's not an issue. We didn't think it would be, but you just never know.
And so, that's clear. Everything else is clear. The astronauts got on board Endeavour, finished getting onboard little over an hour ago and the hatch was close. Now, they're going through some of the final checkout procedures as the clock winds down to this launch -- and as you mentioned, less than an hour.
Of course, they were up early this morning. And over in the operations and checkout building where they had breakfast. And after the breakfast, they started the suit-up process. Putting on those flight suits that they'll wear down the ascent into orbit, which takes eight and a half to nine minutes after liftoff, before they actually reach orbit.
And then the traditional walk out. They come down the elevators and out of the operations and checkout building, where they are greeted by hundreds of NASA employees, you know, all cheering them on, and then make their way, then, of course, out to the launch pad. And as we said, they are all on board now.
As you're mentioning, Gabrielle Giffords, here -- she's going to be about 300 yards away from us over at the launch control complex. She and other families of the other astronauts will be on top of that building to watch the lift off.
You know, what's interesting is and I asked other veteran reporters here if they had seen this, they had not either. But NASA has put a curtain literally around an entire section of that area, that observation area on top of the building there, presumably so that no one with long lenses can get shots of those people up there watching and certainly not get any pictures of Gabby Giffords.
So, again, counting it down. And about 40, 50 minutes now to launch.
VELSHI: It's going to be exciting. We're going to watch it with you, John. We'll come to you in about 40 minutes exactly, unless you have other news to report prior to that. And then, we're going to watch down -- the count sequence will be underway.
This is the final launch of the shuttle Endeavour scheduled to launch at about 8:56 a.m. Our coverage will start at 8:50.
ROMANS: And John's going to take us right through it. So, it should be -- it should be a lot of fun.
The 2012 race is wide open and it is on. Ed Rollins, Republican strategist, served under Republican presidents, he's going to join us live to tell us about the field, next.
VELSHI: He's got some interesting ideas about what is likely to happen and who can actually win, in the Republican field at least.
After a three week outage, by the way, one of the long down times for a major corporate network ever caused by hackers, Sony's PlayStation network is creeping back online this morning. Sony is trying to apologize with some gifts. We'll tell you about that.
ROMANS: And a really heartwarming story. Walking proof that dreams can come true. A paraplegic student at Berkeley walks across the stage to get his diploma with the help of an exoskeleton. I mean, the crowd went wild. It was really an amazing story. We're going to bring that to you.
Eleven minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: All right. Washington, D.C., mostly cloudy right now and 63 degrees. Thunderstorms are going to be expected a little later on, and 74 degrees.
ROMANS: All right. A potential front-runner is out of the 2012 race. Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee -- he made his decision official over the weekend. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MIKE HUCKABEE (R), FORMER ARKANSAS GOVERNOR: All the factors say go; but my heart says no. And that's the decision that I have made. And in it, I finally found some resolution.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: Huckabee was putting up some pretty big numbers in early primary states and in the South. So, where do those votes go now and where does his support go?
Let's ask our good friend Ed Rollins. He's CNN senior political analyst, Governor Huckabee's former campaign manager back in 2008.
Did you think this was the decision that was going to come?
ED ROLLINS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: I thought about two weeks ago. I worked with him the last six months, trying to put a campaign together. And there was always kind of a hesitancy, and I think to a certain extent -- Mike's a friend, and he's extraordinary human being. He's going to be a grandfather in a month.
ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Yes.
ROLLINS: So, a lot of thing is going on in his life, and he's not someone who basically everyday gets up and says (INAUDIBLE) United States, which is a bit part of it.
ROMANS: Where does his support go?
ROLLINS: I think it gets split. I don't think it's Romney, although, Romney certainly becomes the front-runner today and has a good opportunity to go back to Iowa now which he was going to skip. I think Congresswoman Bachmann picks up some of it as the religious right. Governor Pawlenty picks up some of it. I think if two governors that aren't there yet, Mitch Daniels and Governor Huntsman --
VELSHI: Right.
ROLLINS: If they get it, they're kind of new faces, gives them some opportunities particularly in South Carolina now.
ROMANS: I was looking at the sound -- sign of the time that so many of these people have TV shows or TV appearances. Donald Trump, too, where you're like watching television to find out, not from the news, but from them themselves on their shows.
ROLLINS: Huckabee made his career last time. We didn't have money. It was about him being on television, about him basically doing interviews and becoming a very appealing candidate, which he was, in addition to that religious base that he had. So, he did have a very significant candidacy.
VELSHI: Let's just break this down. In the latest poll, that Pew Research Poll taken about the GOP potential presidential candidates among evangelical Christians, Huckabee had the highest numbers at 29 percent. Palin came at 16 and then Romney. Now, you've got evangelicals, you've got other conservative Christians, and then, you've got conservative -- fiscal conservative Republicans. Break the field down.
ROLLINS: Well, you need to attempt to appeal to all of them.
VELSHI: Right.
ROLLINS: Romney's the establishment candidate this time. He sort of has the role of McCain had four years ago. And he's got money and resources and good people, and he's an attractive candidate, although, he does have to get over the health care debate. The others are all sort of unknown other than the big names.
The Gingrichs and what have you who have a lot of stuff they have to overcome. They're good candidates, though, at the end of the day. It's the most wide open fields probably in my lifetime, and I'm 68 years old. So, I've been doing this for four decades, and I've never seen one --
ROMANS: I saw a poll that said evangelical men were more like lay (ph) to be swayed toward Gingrich than evangelical women --
ROLLINS: Well, I think, I think there's -- you know, I think multiple marriages are something you have to overcome. He's making a good start with that. He's in a good marriage today. He's become a Catholic. Catholics are important in Iowa (ph). That's really we didn't talk about. So, I would just say it's a wide open race.
We'll have three or four very serious candidates. Someone comes out on Iowa, someone comes out on New Hampshire, someone comes out on South Carolina, if it's all the same person, then they pretty much go on with a chaser.
VELSHI: It looked obvious a year ago that health care was going to be the thing that was -- that's going to be central to this debate. You said Mitt Romney has to overcome his health care issues. Listen to what Newt Gingrich had to say about health care.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) NEWT GINGRICH, FORMER SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: I think that that is too big a jump. I think what you want to have is a system where people voluntarily migrate to better outcomes, better solutions, better options, not one where you suddenly impose. I don't want to -- I'm against Obamacare, which is imposing radical change, and I will be against a conservative imposing radical change.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: Somebody opposing radical, but he actually feels that everybody has to pay into health care, otherwise, it won't work.
ROLLINS: Medicare doesn't work, and health care, obviously, didn't reduce the cost of the president's program. I think the key thing is that Ryan Bill was an interesting proposal. It's not going anywhere at the end of the day other than passing the house. I think each candidate was trying to find their own economic and their own Medicare program. Medicare voters are very important to us.
VELSHI: Sure.
ROLLINS: That over 65 votes (ph) is a critical vote made a big difference in 2010 election.
ROMANS: All right. Ed Rollins, always nice to see you right early in the morning. Thanks, Ed.
ROLLINS: Thank you very much.
VELSHI: All right. We're less than one month away from the first presidential primary debate in New Hampshire. CNN is going to host it live Monday night, June 9th - I'm sorry -- June 13th from Saint Anselm College.
ROMANS: All right. Grammy winner, Carlos Santana, takes the mic before an Atlanta Braves game, and he slams Arizona and Georgia for their immigration laws. Wait till you see how the crowd reacted. We got an update.
VELSHI: And Apple sets a Guinness World Record for -- I'll tell you on the other side.
(LAUGHTER)
VELSHI: It's 19 minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: It's 23 minutes after the hour. "Minding Your Business" this morning. For many of you, it's about to get more expensive to use a toll road. According to "USA Today," toll agencies in 31 states have already or plan to increase tolls. They say it's needed to make up for budget cuts and declining gas revenue.
Sony flips the switch on its Playstation network. The system is now back online in a number of states here in the United States after last month's hacker attack. To make up for the network going dark, Sony says it will offer customers free games and free service.
Apple setting a new Guinness World Records. The iPhone 4 was named the fastest selling portable gaming system beating out Sony's PSP and Nintendo's DS. Apple's app store also named most popular application marketplace.
The number of teens unable to find a job this summer because of the economy may hit a record. According to a new study, just one in fourteens will find work. That will be the lowest percentage of working teens since World War II.
A majority of college grads, though, say getting their diploma was a good investment. According to a research study by the Pew Research Center, grads say they earn about $20,000 more per year because of their degree. A figure that closely resembles what the government found.
We want to know what you think about that. Is college worth the money? E-mail us @CNN.com/AM. Give us a tweet @CNNAM or tell us on facebook.com/americanmorning -- having trouble getting it out this morning. We're going to read through some of those a little later in the show. AMERICAN MORNING is back after the break after I get a new mouth.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROMANS: Good morning. It's cloudy, 56, thunderstorms and 52.
VELSHI: That's our weather. That's our kind of weather.
ROMANS: I know. We're showing you Atlanta for a reason here.
VELSHI: Because Carlos Santana, who you're listening to. Grammy award-winning guitarist, Carlos Santana, started up before yesterday's Atlanta Braves civil rights game at Turner Field. The legendary rock star he was on hand to receive major league baseball's beacon of change award, but he used the occasion to blast new immigration laws.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CARLOS SANTANA, GRAMMY AWARD-WINNING GUITARIST: I'd like to say very clearly, I am here to represent the immigrants and to the people in Arizona and Atlanta, Georgia. And Atlanta, you should be ashamed of yourselves. Peace, we love you. God bless you.
(APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: Santana called on all Latino immigrant workers to stage a two-week boycott. He says everyone would then realize who's really running the economy.
ROMANS: And some of the people in the crowd were cheering, clapping, and some of the people were like, what? What?
VELSHI: He didn't --
ROMANS: It didn't quite resonate with the people --
(CROSSTALK)
VELSHI: I think he actually said there, so it seems a little short-hand.
ROMANS: Venue was interesting. All right. Hope he didn't return his tux because a Connecticut high school senior has gotten a reprieve. We told you about this kid. The school's expected to reverse its decision and allow James Tate to go to the prom. He was suspended after he plastered his prom proposal in big letters on the side of the high school. Well, the school caved after tens of thousands of people rallied behind him on Facebook.
VELSHI: There is the -- that's what he posed to there -- I think he's going with the woman he asked to go.
OK. This was a walk to remember. Austin Whitney, a student at the University of California Berkeley, was paralyzed from a waste down in a 2007 drunk driving accident. With the help of an exoskeleton built by Berkeley's own robotics and human engineering team, he's able to walk across the stage with the rest of his classmates.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Austin has always wanted his accident to have meaning, and this, today, really, culminated and giving meaning to, I think, hundreds of thousands of people around the world.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I knew when I stood up here, in front of all these people today, that it would be different, and it truly was.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: That's incredible. Austin's exoskeleton is still being developed. It can't be bought yet, but it is likely to help thousands of people walk again, and fairly soon, actually. It's developing and in trials. It's developing quite rapidly.
ROMANS: And how awesome that it's his classmates and engineers at that school that are doing this and want to help --
VELSHI: That's a real, real amazing.
ROMANS: That's a very great story.
All right. Top stories. The man in charge of the world's money is expected to face arraignment today on attempted rape charges. IMF chief, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, was yanked from a plane just before take off in JFK Airport on Saturday. He is accused of sexually assaulting a hotel maid. He's denying these charges.
Developing out of London, a security alert issued after Metropolitan police say they received a bomb threat linked to IRA militants. Police say they received the threat last night with no specific location or time.
French investigators say they have opened the black boxes from air France flight 447. This information is intact. They were recovered from the bottom of the ocean nearly two years after the plane went down in June, 2009, killing all 228 people on board. This was a mystery, a plane that dropped from the sky with no trace. It is every passenger's worst nightmare.
VELSHI: Space shuttle Endeavour lifts off in less than half an hour. You can watch it here live on CNN's "American Morning." Launch time, 8:56 a.m. eastern. We'll go into coverage of it at 8:50 a.m. eastern. John Zarrella will be there and Sanjay will be available to talk with us about Gabrielle Giffords, who is also attending.
ROMANS: Rushing water from the Morganza spillway turning low lying communities in Louisiana being turned to ghost towns. Orders were issued after engineers opened the gates. The idea is to save New Orleans and Baton Rouge from catastrophic flooding.
VELSHI: Ed Lavandera is in one of those communities. Ed, what's the situation there? People are not happy in those places that got flooded to save bigger cities.
ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, there's just simply a somber mood going up and down the river. The river has started to go up, but exactly how bad this flooding will be is really been kind of hard to gauge and people don't know what to expect. They've been told to expect anywhere between five and 15 feet. It's expected to up and into the tributaries. They're facing back water flooding. This neighborhood could soon be sitting in as much as 15 feet of water.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LAVANDERA: This neighborhood in Krotz Springs could soon be sitting in as much as 15 feet of water.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We tried to move al the furniture yesterday.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's going to be bad.
LAVANDERA: Jake Nolan knows it's time to get his family out.
JAKE NOLAN, KROTZ SPRINGS, LOUISIANA RESIDENT: We just moved everything in here. And now we're in the process of taking everything back out and bringing it to my other sister's.
LAVANDERA (on camera): You have no choice?
NOLAN: I have no choice. I mean if not I'm going to lose everything.
LAVANDERA: But Nolan and his wife have a bigger problem.
NOLAN: Today's her fourth birthday.
LAVANDERA: Little Mya doesn't have a birthday cake, and she's afraid of the floodwaters.
NOLAN: She can't swim and hears the stories of everyone, the water rising, so she's scared she won't make it out.
LAVANDERA: Since the opening of the Morganza spillway, the massive rush of water is now taking a long, destructive path down the river basin away from the Mississippi river. In Saint Landry parish about 750 people in 240 homes were told to evacuation. Eight years ago Connie Boudieu (ph) moved on to the banks of three mile lake, her slice of heaven.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is where I have home, family, kids come in, grandkids spend time, jet ski, four wheeling. This is my home.
LAVANDERA: She's packing it up including her iguana. She's been told to expect ten feet of water and it could take a month or even longer to dry out.
LAVANDERA (on camera): What's the mood now that so many are packing up?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's bad. It's sad. And depressing.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): After days of warning it's now the last chance to get out of the water's way. Brett isn't messing around. He's moving his entire trailer to higher ground.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Never seen it like this before in my life. It's crazy, unreal.
LAVANDERA: But Eddie won't let the flood get him down. He looks forward to fishing here again with his boys.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are fortunate we have what we have and we have an opportunity to get out. Material things we can replace. Our family and what we believe in daily is just -- can't put prices on that.
LAVANDERA (on camera): Did you put up this sign?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I put it up. I'm proud of that sign, because it's just what we say. We will be back.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LAVANDERA: And those mandatory evacuation orders were put upstream from where we are in St. Landry Parish in Butte Larose. The parish president tells me the mandatory evacuation order will be put in place at the end of the week.
Here in Butte Larose, we've set up a camera on the rooftop and we're going to be streaming that picture and over the coming days, we hope to provide a constant picture for you when these waters start to rise. ROMANS: Ed, thanks so much and what a great idea. Watch that yourself and see this sort of slow motion rise of the water. Thanks, Wd.
VELSHI: Public schools, a lot of them are ending vocational training. Are we preparing kids for the real life working world while more jobs need college educations? We actually still need a lot of vocational workers. How do you train kids for vocational work without setting them off a college track? We're going to discuss that with Steve Perry on the other side.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROMANS: Welcome back to the most news in the morning. Lawmakers across the country looking at a new way to keep kids in school. Drop out and lose your driver's license. So far 21 states have laws linking driving proliferation ledges, but only some require that a child be in school at the time he or she gets that license.
VELSHI: That one makes me scratch my head.
This week CNN is taking an in-depth look at America's job hunt. President Obama has stressed there's a clear link between education and jobs. And in just a few hours, he's going to deliver the commencement speech at Booker T. Washington high school in Memphis, Tennessee, a school that not only offers AP courses, but vocational training as well.
Joining me from Hartford, Connecticut is CNN education contributor Steve Perry. Steve, this is a big deal, vocational training. Let's talk about this. Back in 1950, only 20 percent of the jobs in the United States require an education. Only 20 percent were thought of as skilled jobs. Now, that's up to 65 percent and only 15 percent of our jobs require no particular skill or training. But we still have to fill those jobs. Are we doing a good job of vocational training in this country?
STEVE PERRY, CNN EDUCATION CONTRIBUTOR: You can prepare children for both. When we're talking about college ready, we're seeing a 12th grader should be able to read, write and compete as a 12 grader. Two cities that I think represent this best is Pittsburgh and Baltimore. These are two cities built on industry. And now industry is gone. What's left are the two biggest employers, University of Pittsburgh medical center, high-tech, high industry and Johns Hopkins down in Baltimore. They are the wave of the future.
When Secretary Duncan says there are two million unskilled jobs, I'm preparing my kids for where the jobs are because the economy's not going in the other direction. It's going in the direction of the greater impact of technology.
VELSHI: In many cases, these jobs have been looking at as fallbacks from not succeeding in a college ready environment. How do you deal with the fact there are going to be so people who want to be directed to toward some of these vocational jobs without putting them off track if that's something they want to do later on? PERRY: Too often we've used the vocational track if you don't want to go to college. But if you've tried to open the hood of a car and look inside, you need to be a bright person. You need to be able to use computers and technology. You need to be able to write down reports.
There's not a single part of the economy that I'm finding that people are comfortable with people coming in unskilled. In fact, taking it one step further, when we realized the impact of education on our economy, we begin to see children perform better in so many parts of life, the more education they have.
So when we see them having higher self-esteem and lower out of wed birthrates and lower incarceration rates, education is not something we use in order to get a job. It's a way in which we make ourselves better and healthier.
VELSHI: Steve, what do you say to a student graduating right now who maybe isn't getting into college or going where they want to go? What's their best preparation?
PERRY: Things get complicated because there are very few jobs. The place many people who are unskilled used to go, which is city and federal governments to work in some of the jobs programs that came out of the Great Society -- I'm sorry, the Second World War, we know those jobs, the government isn't hiring. In fact, the government's laying off and the only people the government is hiring, are who? Highly skilled, highly-educated people. Kids, Go to school.
VELSHI: If you want to be in a vocation which some may want to be, you still have got to get the same education as if you're heading towards college.
PERRY: I don't care if you're a carpenter or a bricklayer or if you want to be a surgeon. You're going to be a parent. As a parent, we want you to be educated. We want you to help your children them to feel comfortable and help them with homework.
Don't just think about education as what you're doing today to get you a job. That's where you're wrong. That's the vocation experience into the practical. Education is for the whole mind, body and spirit. See education as a valuable experience unto itself even if it doesn't lead to a job, it will lead to a better life.
VELSHI: Steve, thanks so much. Steve Perry, CNN's education contributor and a founder of the Capital Prep Magnet School.
It is 44 minutes after the hour. We're just minutes away from watching the space shuttle Endeavour take off. Stay with us.
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ROMANS: A lot going on this morning. Here's what you need to know to start your day.
Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi wanted for war crimes this morning. An arrest warrant issued today from the International Criminal Court in the Hague. Allegations include the killing of unarmed protesters and air strikes against civilians.
New this hour, a security alert in central London. Metropolitan police say they received a bomb threat possibly from Irish militants.
The head of the International Monetary Fund denies accusations that he tried to rape a maid at a Manhattan hotel. Dominique Strauss- Kahn faces arraignment this morning in New York. He was pulled off a Paris-bound jet Saturday and charged with sexual assault.
Markets open in 45 minutes. Right now the Dow, NASDAQ and S&P futures are all down. Weighing on the markets, the U.S. is expected to reach its $14.3 trillion debt ceiling today. That's the amount it's legally allowed to borrow.
Low-lying Cajun country under assault from a wall of water. Hundreds of people this morning, living in harm's way have been told to get out of the way. The gates of Louisiana's Morganza Spillway were opened for the first time in nearly 40 years to protect New Orleans and Baton Rouge from a flooding disaster.
And space shuttle "Endeavour", blasting off on its final mission just minutes from now. The weather looks good. Commander Mark Kelly is in the cockpit. His wife Congresswoman, Gabrielle Giffords is there to watch. Don't miss the final countdown live right here on CNN's AMERICAN MORNING. They've just been given the go everybody.
You're caught up on this day's headlines. AMERICAN MORNING is back right after the break.
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VELSHI: We had a lot of responses to our question of the day this morning.
ROMANS: I know.
VELSHI: Is college worth the money? Let's bring you some of your own thoughts that you've given us.
ROMANS: Yes, Brian over on Facebook said that "This is a question that should not even be asked. It is absolutely worth it. I fear for young people who do not get to college. As a matter of fact, I feel it's so worth it, the worth is so great that I'm currently attending grad school to complete my MBA."
VELSHI: Good for you Brian.
I've got one on Twitter that says, "I left high school in tenth grade, worked a string of useless jobs. Taught myself to program computers and I now make $85,000 a year." That might be the one exception though because --
(CROSSTALK)
ROMANS: Yes.
VELSHI: -- that's an area in great demand that you can actually to some degree teach yourself.
ROMANS: But you should have a degree but not be in an area of great demand and you can be in a lot of trouble.
VELSHI: That's right.
ROMANS: Paul said, "It's probably worth it, but at some point colleges need to look hard at why tuitions are where they are, especially those colleges with endowments that seem to exist only for the purpose of increasing in value.
VELSHI: College affordability has been a big area of concern for you this morning.
ROMANS: Yes.
VELSHI: Tony writes on our CNN AM blog, "I have two degrees and I have been looking for a job for two years with no luck. I went back to school for a third degree --
(CROSSTALK)
ROMANS: Wow.
VELSHI: -- thinking this would help along with working two unpaid internships and still nothing. Where did they get me, I'm still looking, now with three degrees. Any ideas?" I'm Curious, Tony. Write back to us and tell us what your degrees are in?
(CROSSTALK)
ROMANS: What are those degrees?
VELSHI: Because we certainly know that your chances of being unemployed are substantially lower with -- with one degree let alone three.
ROMANS: Yes.
VELSHI: I -- I'm wondering what you're studying.
ROMANS: Yes. All right, we're going to be back in just a minute because it's -- it's almost, it's t minus -- well, just a few minutes. "Endeavour" ready to launch. We have live coverage of the lift off. You're looking at live pictures right now. We're going to have the live coverage of the lift off, next.
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VELSHI: I'm -- I'm very excited about this.
ROMANS: I know, you're about to watch history unfold folks --
VELSHI: Yes.
ROMANS: -- in Florida this morning so sit back because space shuttle "Endeavour's" final launch into space is moments away. It's scheduled to take place just minutes from now at 8:56 Eastern Time.
VELSHI: That's four -- four minutes from now. It's also, another dramatic chapter in the story of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords who is there to watch her husband lead the mission just months after her brush with death.
CNN's John Zarrella is live at Kennedy's Space Center where the final countdown -- you can hear it.
ROMANS: Yes.
VELSHI: It's underway, they're doing all these last minute checks. It looks like this could actually happen, John.
JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right, Ali. There's no question about it. We're under four minutes now when "Endeavour" finally lifts off and finishes this mission, a 115 million miles it would have flown on 25 flights, 139 different astronauts will have flown onboard and of course, I have Mike Good with me.
You've been flying "Endeavour" twice on Atlantis.
MIKE GOOD, NASA ASTRONAUT: That's right.
ZARRELLA: Mike flew the last couple of servicing missions back in '09. Mike is going to be here with me on commentary and of course, Sanjay Gupta is there in Atlanta and of course, Sanjay, you know, Gabby Giffords is only going to be a few hundred yards from me on top on the launch complex with the other astronauts' families watching this.
I imagine it's going to be a tremendous thrill for her and incredibly lucky that she's able to be here. Right, Sanjay?
SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: No question, I mean, she's medically stable and a lot of people obviously this is the few months after this tragic injury where she was shot in the head. She -- you know, this is part of -- I thought it was interesting John, part of her rehab, that she can leave her -- her hospital in Houston and go here to Florida. All of the steps required for her to do that in terms of navigating steps, getting to this particular location. She's with her mother, who's also a nurse and I guess some of the other spouses of the astronauts.
So it's a small group of people we're hearing inside this room, but yes, it is pretty remarkable. And I think even before the last launch, John, which as you know, was -- was scrubbed, it was sort of a decision made just a few days before that whether she could go at all. So doctors weighing the risk and benefits but in the end, as you know, coming down on the side of her going and it sounds like she's doing well down there. ZARRELLA: Yes, no question about it. I'm sure if it hadn't gone so well on the first time around, that -- that they would not have allowed her to come back. I know Sanjay, still very -- a lot of difficulty with speech yet and a lot of rehab ahead -- ahead for her.
I want to bring in Mike Good now. Now, Mike we're under two minutes. You know, less than two minutes now, 1:54. And you were saying these last few minutes are compressed. They just go by don't they?
GOOD: Absolutely, I'm nervous just sitting here.
ZARRELLA: You were telling me what -- it's the second best seat in the house we have.
GOOD: That's right. It's great to be here with you, but there's only one place I'd rather be.
ZARRELLA: Let me ask you what -- what's going through your minds now when you're in there this last minute and a half or so?
GOOD: Oh it's a -- it's totally focused on going and you're ready to get into space. It's only eight and a half minutes until you're going to be floating in space for the next two weeks.
ZARRELLA: When you get that adrenaline rush, don't you right now -- I mean is the heart pumping? Are you like, ok, we're really going?
GOOD: Absolutely. This is like our Super Bowl, you know. You're anxious, you're trained, you're ready to go. You put the time in and now it's time to run out there on the field and play the game.
ZARRELLA: You know, and in your case, you did something like two years of training for the Hubble service mission. So a lot of time goes into that.
GOOD: Right.
ZARRELLA: We're looking at under a minute now to go before the liftoff and you know, we're going to take one -- this is an interesting crew.
You have Drew Feustel, who learned auto mechanics at a young age. You've got Chamitoff, who was a magician and, you know, he's done a lot of that. And of course, you know, the commander on board and the story he has.
GOOD: Right.
ZARRELLA: We're going to listen in now, about 30 seconds before the liftoff of "Endeavour", the second to final flight in the space shuttle program's history.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 25. 20.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Firing chain is armed. Pressure water system is armed. Start. 8, 7, 6, 4, 3, 2 -- zero and liftoff for the final launch of "Endeavour". Expanding our knowledge, expending our lives in space.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: "Endeavour" --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Roger, "Endeavour".
GOOD: Houston is now controlling. "Endeavour" beginning to roll over on to its back. The roll program at the ready as "Endeavour" begins its heads down position on course for a 51.6 degree, 136 by 36 statue mile orbit.
Three engines now throttling down as "Endeavour" passes through the area of maximum dynamic pressure on the vehicle in the lower atmosphere. Approaching one minute into the flight.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: "Endeavour", go and throttle up.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Roger, go and throttle up.
Good: "Endeavour's" three main engines now back at full throttle. All three engines in good shape. "Endeavour's" already traveling 1,300 miles per hour at an altitude of 11 miles down range from the Kennedy Space Center. Now 12 miles.
At liftoff, "Endeavour" fully fueled. Weighed 4.5 million pounds; it's already lost half that weight in propellant now. Burned that weight. Next event is burn out and separation of the twin solid rocket boosters. That upcoming here shortly at the 2-minute, 3-second point. Those boosters are burning 11,000 pounds of fuel per second. Standing by for separation of the solid rocket boosters.
Onboard guidance system has done its job of settling out any dispersion introduced at booster separation. The orbiter is now traveling 3,200 miles per hour, down range 50 miles, altitude, 37 miles. All systems in good shape. Good hydraulics system, auxiliary powering in and fuel cells. The fuel cells providing electrical power to all of the systems.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Two engine down.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Roger, two engine down.
GOOD: "Endeavour" can reach a site in the event of a single engine failure, however, all three are in good shape. Space shuttle "Endeavour" sailing into fair winds on its final historic voyage.
This view looking down the external fuel tank. The orbiter there on the top as "Endeavour" continues to power its way into orbit, traveling 4,000 miles per hour, down range 90 miles, altitude 50 miles. Three minutes, 15 seconds into the flight.
All three main engines still looking in good shape. Hydraulic systems and electrical systems on board the orbiter.
