he is charged with trying to rape a maid in an upscale manhattan hotel. >> strauss-kahn is accused of emerging from a bathroom naked, then dragging the 32-year-old housekeeper into the bedroom of his $3,000 a night suite and attacking her. >> before his arrest strauss-kahn was considered a front runner to become france's next president. richard roth is tracking the latest developments. strauss-kahn was supposed to be arraigned last night. why was that delayed? >> this was like a night court version. they are doing forensic tests and apparently reportedly some delays in figuring out a bail deal as this financial big wig was sitting, cooling his heels in a new york special victims unit precinct house. this is a bombshell of a story. this man, who leads the international monetary fund, based in washington, but a french citizen, walked by new york city police there, this is astounding to see, at an unbelievable weekend news development. he is accused of sexual assault on a maid at a midtown times square new york hotel. last evening, his attorney explained to reporters outside the courthouse just what was happening with this client. >> our client willingly concepted to a scientific and forensic examination tonight. >> can't hear what you're saying, sir. >> 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 arraignment tomorrow morning and expect to be in court with him tomorrow. >> how is your client doing? >> he's tired but he's fine. thank you very much. >> strauss-kahn is expected to be arraigned at a new york court in downtown manhattan later this morning. he was widely believed to be a potential next french president. >> right. >> and, of course, he had been dogged by accusations of some types of misbehavior with women before. he had apologized for an incident with an underling at an international conference a few years ago. he is known as dsk, in france, and in financial circles. they're scrambling at the imf to replace him temporarily. >> he is a key figure in the last couple years, the sovereign debt crisis in europe, all of europe's debt problems, dominique strauss-kahn is at the center. he's supposed to be in brussels giving a keynote and help to figure out with european leaders the way forward for europe's economy. this is a shocking, shocking development around the world. >> i mean, he is a king pin for helping out in emergency situations. you've got greece, portugal, ireland, you name it he's been involved in it coming to the rescue with millions of dollars of money. >> and this is a man now instead who's being picked out of a lineup in svu court in manhattan. it's an amazing turn of events. richard roth, thank you so much. let's talk more about who dominique strauss-kahn is. the head of the international monetary fund known by dsk. born in france, named the managing director of the international monetary fund in 2007. christine, you know, 2007 is before the financial crisis hit. he received praise during the financial crisis. as you just mentioned with richard, overseeing the bailouts of greece and ireland, but during that time, strauss-kahn was investigated as richard alluded to, for having a consensual affair with a female employee. he apologized for that. strauss-kahn is a member of the socialist party in france. over the year he's been appointed to political positions including finance minister back in 1997. he was instrumental in helping france switch from the frank to the euro. prior to this weekend's incident strauss-kahn was considered a top candidate for the president of france in the elections next year. richard was talking about that. a french opinion poll published on sunday taken before the scandal broke showed him in first place among six hypothetical candidates including the current president sarkozy. strauss-kahn is married to an american french journalist ann sinclair. she issued a statement defending her husband. bottom of the hour we are going live to paris, cnn jim bittermann has the reaction to the news of strauss-kahn's arrest and impact kite have on the global economy. concerns about the global economy weighing around stocks down around across the board around the world. markets are down in europe and asia and here in the u.s., futures are lower after the dow closed down more than 100 points on friday. the nasdaq and s&p 500 are also lower. new this morning, an arrest warrant expected today for libyan dictator moammar gadhafi. the international criminal court in the hague is charging gadhafi and two others from his regime with crimes against humidity itty. allegations include the killing of unarmed protesters and air strikes against civilians. libya's deputy foreign minister tells cnn the government is going to ignore the warrants. bloodshed along israel's borders as pro-palestinian protester mashgz the anniversary of the jewish state. dozens more killed, hundreds more wounded as demonstrators clashed with israeli forces. israel says its troops were defending its borders while syria and lebanon criticized what they call israeli attacks. senator john kerry this morning says it's a critical moment in relations between the u.s. and pakistan following the death of bin laden. kerry arriving in islamabad overnight after a visit to afghanistan says there's a strong message for pakistani leaders, do more to root out insurgents in pakistan or face losing vital u.s. aid. and the wife of ousted egyptian president hosni mubarak is set to undergo open heart surgery. officials say susan mubarak suffered a heart attack after learning she was being detained in a corruption investigation. she's in intensive care at a hospital in egypt. she and her husband are expected of abusing their positions to enrich themselves. back here the sudden death of pro hockey player derrick booguard remains a mystery. the 28-year-old's family has donated his brain to boston university where researchers are discussing the concussion injuries. he was found dead in his apartment in minneapolis on friday. the medical examiner waiting for toxicology test results to determine the cause of death. a space shuttle "endeavour" ready to go for its last ever liftoff less than three hours from right now. the weather looks good. the electrical problem that delayed this launch two weeks ago has been fixed. congresswoman gabrielle giffords, wife of mark kelly, will be among the 500,000 people watching in person when "endeavour" blasts off at 8:56 eastern. >> it will be the last time and i wish we were there to see it. john zarrella on top of this. >> live in a couple hours. >> sanjay gupta will be following how gabby giffords is doing. we'll be on top of that story for you. eight minutes after the hour. a quick check of this morning's weather headlines. rob marciano is in the extreme weather center in atlanta for us this morning. hi, rob. >> good morning, guys. let's talk shuttle launch, pretty good chance. 68 degrees the temperature. a chance of seeing sh showers but i believe most will hold off to the afternoon. 70 or 80% go due to launch, better than average. we have rain across parts of the northeast and this is going to add to the troubles for flooding across northern new england. look for the rain to pretty much begin to fill in and intensify, not just today, but really through the rest of the week. and that's going to be the main concern i think is the potential for seeing heavy rain from the mid-atlantic towards new england. daytime highs today will be around 68 degrees there in new york city. so above average. here are the latest forecasts for the cresting river situation. the number in the middle is the date that we expect the rest and the number on the right is the feet above flood stage. natchez, vicksburg above flood stage and in baton rouge and new orleans seeing a little bit of alleviation due to the opening of that spillway. that causes more troubles downstream. we'll be checking in with our live reporters throughout the morning and back out there tomorrow. more weather in ability a half hour. back up to new york. >> we'll check in with you in a little while. a college diploma, is it the ticket the to good life. according to a study by the pew research center a majority of college grads say getting their diploma was a good investment. grads say they earn about 20,000 more dollars a year because of their degree a figure that closely resembles what the government found. but the study also found that 75% of americans think college is no longer affordable. >> two major questions. in addition to how much extra you earn in this economy it's about being employable. lot easier with a college degree. we'll talk more about that. we want to know what you think about it. is college worth it. e-mail us at cnn.com/am. give us a tweet @cnnam or christine romans or ali velshi. we'll read your thoughts later in the show. more about the louisiana spillway and some of the tough choices they're having to make as they open the morganza spillway to open one to save others. ed lavandera is live with amazing and dramatic pictures. >> while it may seem obvious to some people, a lot not happy about that. what happens to celebrity apprentice if donald trump were to run for president? >> pictures any parent who has had a kid in a bouncesy house, a dirt devil, picks up this bounsy house at a children's party and tosses it into the air. what happened and how amazing there were no injuries. right after the break. ♪ [ male announcer ] in 2011, at&t is at work, building up our wireless network all across america. we're adding new cell sites... increasing network capacity, and investing billions of dollars to improve your wireless network experience. from a single phone call to the most advanced data download, we're covering more people in more places than ever before in an effort to give you the best network possible. 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most prescribed e.d. treatment is right for you. personal pricing now on brakes. tell us what you want to pay. we do our best to make that work. deal! my money. my choice. my meineke. one by one they're opening the flood gates in louisiana. the army corps of engineers letting water from the mississippi river pour through something called the morganza spillway. they're protecting two major cities, baton rouge and new orleans from severe flooding. >> you see what they're doing, opening it up so the river rather than forcing down to those places, ends up spilling out into other land but that means other communities downstream are directly in the path of those floodwaters. thousands of evacuations have been ordered right now. cnn's ed lavandera is in one of those communities that's on the run. he's live in boot la rose, louisiana. ed? >> good morning, ali. as you mentioned this is one of those towns that will be initially affected by the floodwaters restricted from the mississippi river into the river basin through that morganza spillway. they had opened up four bays over the weekend, late yesterday they opened up five more. there are nine of those flood gates opened up at the morganza spillway now. that means a lot more water will be flowing down this river. it's a very slow process, kind of pain staking for the people who live ins they communities. yesterday in saint landry's parish north of where we are, there were mandatory evacuation orders issued out to several hundred residents who lived in these low-lying areas. the problem is, this river goes downstream, it backs up all these other creeks and tributaries and causes the water to swell up and a lot of these communities and that will be the problem here for weeks. we spoke to some of these residents who were evacuating yesterday for the most part, they're taking it all in stride, but they know it's a long waiting game here. this process could take a month to dry out. >> 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. >> did you put up this sign? >> yeah. i put it up. i'm proud of that sign. we will be back. >> reporter: and ali, what these residents are being told they should plan on probably staying away up to a month and communities like bute la rose where we are, they've been told to expect as much as 15 feet of water which would put so many of these homes under water. just upstream close to where that gentleman is living they've been told in some of those areas to expect between five and ten, other places 15 feet of water as well. so a very dramatic few days here for a lot of these people who are up against the clock, taking out what they can and salvaging what they can because in the next 24, 48 hours, they're really going to see that water slowly start to creep up and they're being told they need to get out. ali? >> ed, how can they afford this? people must be really worried about whether they can rebuild and what kind of insurance they have. i mean this is a big financial strain on these families. >> there's no question. the insurance is a big deal. you talk to a mix of people, some have insurance, others don't. but the other weird thing about this, life kind of goes on. it's not like every area of these communities is being flooded, so a lot of these people have to deal with this and continue going to work. so what we found here in the last few days is that there's so many of these people relying on family and friends, packing up what they can, sticking it in moving vans and going over to a friend's house and parking it in the yard for as long as it takes for them to go back in their home. you see a lot of that here in these areas. you only have to drive a couple miles to get to dry land. you're leaning on friends and family to get you through this. >> we'll stay in touch with you during the course of the morning. later we will speaks to the president of the parish. create na, gustav, ike, the oil spill. one level it's tough and on the other level these are in of the hardiest people i've met. >> one hit after another. thanks. we want to take a closer look at what's happened since the flood gates were opened in louisiana and what's expected in the coming days. on saturday, at 3:00 p.m. eastern time, the army corps of engineers opened the morganza spillway. the waters rising to interstate 10 which cuts through the spillway. now by 3:00 p.m. today, 48 hours later, the communities of krots springs and bute her rose expect to be hit by the water. parts of crotz were evacuated yesterday. in butte larose, there are 800 homes in the flood path. flooding will spread through tuesday 72 hours after the flood gates opened. wednesday the waters will reach morgue city, louisiana, where residents have been creating temporary barriers to protect their homes. the water expanding west by thursday afternoon. then for the next few days after that, the swollen mississippi continues its slow crawl spreading to the east hitting huma, louisiana. >> we'll continue to follow that story. president obama is going to be in memphis this morning to deliver the commencement speech at a high school. the school is booker t. washington high. it won the president's race to the top competition. president obama will meet with first responders and families affected along the mississippi river and hundreds of memphis residents were forced into shelters when the river crested at an all it time high. >> the high school went from 50% graduation rate to the 80s. >> a new era in chicago. rahm emanuel, the president's former chief of staff will be sworn in today as chicago' mayor. the first transition of power in 22 years in the windy city. vice president biden is expected to be on hand for it. imagine those two off the cuff talking in front of the cameras. a lot of work on emanuel's desk. he's inheriting a $587 million budget gap. >> 22 years for this daily, almost half a century with a daly in charge of chicago. the heart says no, that's what republican mike huckabee said over the weekend about why he has chosen to stay out of the 2012 presidential race. some polls had him leading the pack among the likely gop conit tenders, especially in southern states. so who is he supporting instead? he says anyone but president obama. >> mitt romney is the nominee for our party i will support him because i believe that mitt romney would be a better president to the united states than barack obama on any day. i believe donald trump would be better for america than barack obama because he understands business. >> talking about donald trump, nbc is renewing "celebrity apprentice" with or without donald trump. the network says the show will remain in the prime time lineup even if the donald decides to run for president. the head of nbc's entertainment division insisting someone else will sit at the head of the board room table. he has not given hint to who that might be. >> you couldn't have trump sitting there doing both jobs. the other thing for the republicans who have lucrative tv contracts if they decide to run for president they have to change -- >> it changed the world. >> we told you about this a few moments ago. a fifth grade graduation party in tucson, arizona, this weekend. powerful winds from a dust devil, i don't know if you've been in a dust devil in the american southwest, they're scary and quick, swept away this bounsy castp. several children got hit with minor debris. this could be worse. several parents got the kids out of the castle just in time. look at that. >> that's incredible. >> wow. >> wrapping around a pole. wow. good for them. for those of you who have been following the sony playstation network outage it is coming back on-line. you'll have to download something and it's about a week before it's fully on-line. we'll tell you about that when we come back. >> gamers and play station users have been plaining for weeks now. >> we call it affectionately in the middle of the night the pretzel. this is princess beatrice, what she wore, it's about a $3,000 philip treacy hat, got her press, put it up for auction. how much it's up for now. >> we're coming back in a minute. it's 22 minutes after the hour. [ male announcer ] fastidious librarian emily skinner had a place for everything, and everything had its place. each day was fueled by thorough preparation for events yet to come, whether that be next tuesday's bridge club or the precisely organized retirement that lay ahead. well somewhere along the way, something quite extraordinary happened. emily went right on living. longer than any person has ever lived. oddly enough, she took it right in stride. because, you see, with the help of her raymond james financial advisor, she had planned for every eventuality... which meant, despite her years, she continued to have the means to live on however she saw