Mayor's Race in New Orleans
CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Good morning, everyone. I'm meteorologist Chad Myers. Severe weather now moving through Houston. Significant wind and hail around the area. Now, really, the worst of it moving into League City. We'll have details on the rest of the country coming up.</s>ALINA CHO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Alina Cho in Durham, North Carolina, where we have new information in the Duke rape investigation. We now know what police were looking for and what they found in the dorm room of one of the suspects.</s>TARA BROWN, KODE CORRESPONDENT: I'm Tara Brown in Riverton, Kansas, where students were caught planning a Columbine style attack. Details coming up.</s>BETTY NGUYEN, CNN ANCHOR: The mayor's race in New Orleans. With just one day to go until most people vote, the outcome is anyone's guess. We're live in New Orleans.</s>JOHN ROBERTS, SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Need a better job? We'll tell you which careers are the best bets for a better life.</s>NGUYEN: Happy birthday to you. Queen Elizabeth does her annual birthday walkabout. She doesn't seem to be slowing down, either, on her 80th birthday. Doesn't she look great? More on this ahead on this</s>AMERICAN MORNING. ROBERTS: And what a lovely hat she was wearing, as well.</s>NGUYEN: I know.</s>ROBERTS: Yes. Good morning. Welcome to AMERICAN MORNING. I'm John Roberts in Washington in for Miles O'Brien today, who's a little bit under the weather.</s>NGUYEN: A little under the weather. A Friday under the weather. Soledad is out, too. Hmmm, seeing a pattern here, don't you, John?</s>ROBERTS: Yes. I'll tell you, speaking of weather, we had the slightest sliver of sunshine here in Washington this morning...</s>NGUYEN: You can see a little bit behind you.</s>ROBERTS: ... as dawn broke, but the weather is going downhill quickly.</s>NGUYEN: Oh, no. Just in time for the weekend. Well, good morning, everybody. Happy Friday. I'm Betty Nguyen in New York, filling in for Soledad this week. We begin this hour with some dangerous weather. Speaking of weather, in parts of Texas and the South, severe weather expert Chad Myers is at the Center down in Atlanta to talk about this -- we see the map, we see the colors and we also heard you talk about grapefruit sized hail.</s>MYERS: Yes, that was in San Marcos, which was between Austin and San Antonio. Four inch hail yesterday at the Tanger Outlet. There's a bit outlet mall there. Four inch hail just smashed windows out of all of those cars that were in the parking lot, actually even went through a few of the aluminum roofs that keep that Tanger Outlet Mall all waterproofed. It wasn't waterproof yesterday. Here's the weather now. From Houston, a big line of severe weather right on just about to get to Galveston. So in Galveston you still have a few minutes to prepare for this. But, boy, this rain just went right through -- the storms went right through Houston, right now into Baytown. There's League City getting really hammered with lightning. Seven thousand lightning strikes in one hour with this line as it moved through Houston. Things are going to get better for you in Houston, especially from the west side of the city eastward. But here you go, this is still going to charge across the lake and even in toward Port Arthur and Beaumont later on this morning.</s>NGUYEN: Well, we are watching some other developments, as well, today in the rape investigation at Duke University. Police have searched the dorm room of one of the two suspects. AMERICAN MORNING'S Alina Cho is live in Durham, North Carolina. She joins us now with the latest -- good morning, Alina.</s>CHO: Betty, good morning to you. The grand jury will be back here in a little more than a week and could hear more evidence in the case. And there is new information this morning about exactly what police were looking for when they searched the dorm room of one of the suspects.</s>CHO (voice-over): Just hours after suspects Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann arrived at a Durham jail in handcuffs, police were searching Finnerty's dorm room on the Duke campus. A copy of the search warrant reveals officers were looking for photos or videos of the lacrosse party, clothing worn on the night of the alleged attack, even a white high-heeled shoe the accuser says she lost when she left the house. What they seized, a news article and an envelope addressed to Finnerty from his girlfriend in Boston. It's not known how these items might be connected to the case. Defense attorneys say Finnerty and Seligmann are innocent and were not at the off campus home at the time of the alleged rape. A potential key witness, cab driver Moez Mostafa, who now says he made not one, but two trips to the home in the early morning hours of March 14th. His first trip, he says, was to pick up Reade Seligmann. Less than an hour later, around five minutes after 1:00 a.m. Mostafa says he was back to transport four other players. When he arrived...</s>MOEZ MOSTAFA, CAB DRIVER: I saw a bunch of people outside the house on the right side, on the left side.</s>CHO: Mostafa says he noticed what he called "some kind of trouble" and overheard one of the players talking about either the accuser or her friend.</s>MOSTAFA: But he, one guy, he said she's just a stripper.</s>CHO: News of the alleged rape has not stopped thousands of Duke alumni from returning to their alma mater. It's reunion weekend. Bucky Fox went to Duke Law School. He's here for his 40th reunion and says he's not worried about how all of this will affect the university's reputation.</s>BUCKY FOX, DUKE ALUMNUS: I still get calls from parents and friends who want their kids to go to Duke and they want to know if I can help them in that process. So, that tells me that there are still an awful lot of kids who'd love to come to Duke.</s>NGUYEN: Alina, let's not forget that there was another exotic dancer at that same party. What is her side of the story?</s>CHO: Well, Betty, a source close to the case tells us that that second exotic dancer initially believed that the accuser was not telling the truth, but that now she believes the suspects are guilty. Defense attorneys say she is flip-flopping her story in order to get favorable treatment in another unrelated criminal case -- Betty.</s>NGUYEN: Interesting. Calc in Durham, North Carolina, following all of this from the beginning. Thank you, Alina -- John.</s>ROBERTS: Thanks, Betty. Five Kansas teens arrested in an alleged plot to attack their high school. Police say they cracked the case when one of the suspects mentioned the attack on a popular chat site, MySpace.com. All five are expected in court as early as today. For more on this story, we're joined by Tara Brown of affiliate KODE in Riverton, Kansas -- Tara, are things at the school getting back to normal this morning?</s>BROWN: You know, the sleepy town of Riverton, it seems like all is going just as normal. Teachers are arriving. Students are entering the school behind me. But will all the students show up today? That is -- remains to be seen, really. I spoke to a few parents last night who really were quite concerned not only with their kids arriving today, but staying in this school, considering actually changing schools. A lot of fear really has been placed in parents and they're concerned about their children. I do have an update for you, though. We do have word that this all really started on Monday. We -- we received reports that rumors were actually going around the school. Before anyone even found out about it, the kids seemed to know what was going on. Tuesday, then, parents got wind of it and it wasn't until Wednesday, actually, that authorities took action. It actually started Tuesday. A threat had been posted on the popular Web site MySpace. Officials say the students made a hit list, including numerous names of classmates and staff. The Web site also made reference to Adolph Hitler and how this shooting would honor him on his birthday.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I know that some of them were very racial and they just had a lot of hate for certain people.</s>DANIEL KOUCKY, STUDENT: I guess that if there were two people that were going to bring to school -- a gun to school, they might make my list.</s>BROWN: And now just to bring you up to date, five arrests have been made. Of course, five teenage boys, two aged 16, two 17 and one adult age 18. Now, a hearing is scheduled to take place some time today. And, of course, we will bring you the news as soon as we get it -- John.</s>ROBERTS: Terry, any idea what charges officials might be seeking against them?</s>BROWN: We do not have that information as of yet, no.</s>ROBERTS: All right, thanks. Tara Brown from affiliate KODE reporting from Riverton, Kansas. We'll have more on this case in just a few minutes' time and hopefully get some kind of an idea of what charges they'll face we will talk live with the Kansas attorney general -- Betty.</s>NGUYEN: Happening in America right now, a string of attacks in Las Vegas. Check out this new surveillance tape. Two people injured in Saturday's attack. Look there in the little white circle. Police say this mob at a Las Vegas Wal-Mart may be linked to other attacks. Well, one of them is this disturbing beating of a security officer at the MGM Grand Casino. We first saw this police tape earlier this week. Remember that? One person was arrested but is now out on bond. A police officer is attacked and it is caught on his dashboard camera. Look at this. It happened in McKinney, Texas. The man attacking the officer is an escaped convict from Colorado. Ouch! The officer called for help on his radio while being beaten on the head. A person down the street ran to help the officer and the two eventually got the suspect under control. Well, a terrible spill in Kentucky at a horse race there. Race favorite -- look at that -- Up an Octave, rolled over, crushing the jockey beneath him. Amazingly, John Velazquez is expected to be OK to ride in next month's Kentucky Derby. But Up an Octave, the horse, it broke its leg and was euthanized on the track -- John.</s>ROBERTS: Oh, what a terrible crash.</s>NGUYEN: I know.</s>ROBERTS: And the poor horse. Still to come, we're going to have more on that alleged plot to shoot up a Kansas high school. Just ahead for you, we're going to ask the Kansas attorney general what kind of charges the teen suspects could be facing.</s>NGUYEN: We will also go live to New Orleans for a preview of tomorrow's mayoral election. Will Mayor Ray Nagin get to stay in office?</s>ROBERTS: Plus, thinking about a new career? We've got "Money" magazine's list of the best jobs in America. That's all ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.