ready for the storm. disaster response units from dallas are moving into the rio grande valley. they're setting up shop with plenty of supplies a few miles inland near the border with mexico. also texas is preparing for a possible hit by filling sandbags, getting out. governor rick perry issued a disaster proclamation in 19 counties. residents of south padre island are right in the storm's path, all being urged to evacuate. cnn's weather team is tracking alex following its most likely path and what it could mean for the oil spill in the gulf. let's bring in jacqui jeras in the hurricane headquarters this morning. good morning. >> good morning, guys. alex really intensified in the overnight hours and is now nearly a hurricane. maximum sustained winds 70 miles per hour. you have to have 74 for this to be a category 1. we think that will happen probably just within the next few hours. center of circulation right here. look at that big burst of intensification where we're getting heavy showers and thunderstorms associated with this. we're going to start to see some of these outer bands push their way toward northern mexico and into southern texas probably late today but we don't think texas will really feel the impact of the tropical storm-force winds or the stronger surf until some time tomorrow. here's that cone of uncertainty. you can see those warnings down into northern parts of mexico. many of the models bringing it more on a southerly track at this time but we still can't rule out this northerly track. if it does happen more northerly, this will not happen until late wednesday and into thursday. here you can see the oil spill. while it won't have a direct impact, it will have indirect effects by bringing in strong southeasterly to easterly winds and that is going to push that oil further inland than it has already moved, and also spread it slightly farther and off to the west. there are coastal flood warnings in effect across louisiana and mississippi coast because of that and they could see some tides one to two feet above what you normally would see today. tomorrow may be even two to four feet above that tide. >> that's crazy. we also broke some record here in new york. i think we hit 96 degrees at both airports. crazy yesterday. >> yes. we'll talk more about the rest of the nation's weather in about a half-hour from now. also developing this morning, a big day in the nation's capitol. the u.s. capitol building will be very, very packed today. there are senate hearings to confirm two major presidential nominations, appointments, if you will. first is general david petraeus, the president's choice to command troops in afghanistan. he'll be going before the armed services committee. meantime, supreme court nominee elena kagan will face tough questions from republican senators in day two of her judiciary committee. dana bash is following the kagan hearings in washington but barbara starr is live at the pentagon with a preview of the petraeus hearing. he's a known quantity, barbara, but still senators want to know a lot about the plan forward in afghanistan. >> oh, absolutely. good morning. there will be many tough questions for general petreaus. look for a couple of big topics on the table. the july 2011 withdrawal date, the beginning of the withdrawal of u.s. forces. how many, how soon, how many troops will be coming home. will general petreaus review the rules of combat that general mcchrystal put into place. the troops are very concerned that there's too many restrictions on them with the use of air power, when they can drop bombs on the ground, when they can shoot and attack the enemy because of the concern, of course, about civilian casualties. and look for a lot of tough questions about training of afghan forces. new reports out saying that the training is behind schedule, not enough of the afghan forces able to really operate on their own and that they have corruption and drug use issues in those afghan forces. look for that to be a major topic. john? kiran? >> that's going to be all the more front and center today because it comes as the same day as a major offensive is taking place in afghanistan. there have been some senators who remarked we wanted the afghans to be taking the lead on this, why is the coalition still taking the lead on these offensives. >> well, overnight there has been a major push issue by both afghan and u.s. forces into eastern afghanistan. the region in the crosshairs is osadabad. there had been a lot of concern that maybe the taliban were trying to open up a new second front in the east because the u.s., of course, is so focused on the south overnight attacks against the taliban. the u.s. says they believe that they've killed up to 150 taliban. they are looking for the afghans to get very heavily involved in this region. john? kiran? >> barbara starr for us, thanks so much. also a full day of questioning awaits the president's supreme court nominee elena kagan. yesterday was day one of her senate confirmation hearings and she began by promising to begin independent and fair justice while republicans laid out their plan of attack. dana bash was in the hearing room yesterday, live in washington. dana, yesterday everyone was reading from the scripted statements. today we may get more interesting as the senators begin their questioning of her, huh? >> it should get a lot more interesting because the overriding theme of nearly all of the republicans' scripted statements, and even some of the democrats, was concern they just don't know enough about kagan's judicial philosophy. for a simple reason -- she's never been a judge. senators will try to pry that out of her today as best they can. but beyond that, senators will grill kagan, especially republicans, to better explain some politically incendiary topics. the most explosive, according to the committee's ranking republican, jeff sessions, is kagan's attempt to block military recruiters when she was the dean of harvard law school because of the military's ban on gays in the military. >> during the time as dean at harvard, miss kagan reversed harvard's existing policy and kicked the military out of the recruiting office in violation of federal law. her actions punished the military and demeaned our soldiers as they were courageously fighting for our country in two wars overseas. as someone who feels the burden of sending such young men and women into harm's way, and you spent much time drafting and redrafting legislation to ensure military recruiters were treated fairly on campus, i can't take this issue lightly. >> one of the key questions today is whether kagan will answer the questions that she gets from senators. we talk yesterday about how kagan herself talked about these hearings back in the '90s, that they were vapid and hollow because nominees tend to stone wall. as we expected, gop senator after gop senator, threw her own words back at her saying they hope she lives up to her own standard. we'll see. >> it's been an awfully long time since a nominee in confirmation hearings has not had a judicial paper trail. if she doesn't answer the questions and there is no paper trail, how are the republicans ever going to get the answers they are looking for? >> you know what? it's funny because one of the republicans, john cornyn, was asked that question and more to the point, could you ever be satisfied. and he kind of danced around it. from the perspective of the republicans, i don't think they're ever going to get the real answers that they are looking for. one of the things that i'm going to be looking for is the domestic. because there were some democrats who complained about her lack of a paper trail and they're concerned as well because they think that perhaps she could be nominated by a democratic president but might end up something different from what they bargained for. that could be the most fascin e fascinating exchange today. >> that's happened in the past once or twice. >> yes, it has. calling david souter. also new this morning, lance armstrong has the world abuzz with his latest tweet. the seven-time champion says next month's tour de france is going to be his last. armstrong's twitter page says it's been a great ride and he's looking forward to three great weeks. he finished third in the tour last year after a three-year retirement. rod blagojevich thought about oprah for president obama's former senate seat. the ousted illinois governor's television conversations about the talk show heeost were revead yesterday during his trial. he described oprah as "the kingmaker" who made obama and also appealed to him because there is nothing affirmative action about her. oprah has yet to respond to the news. just about any time vice president joe biden gets near a microphone you know that something's going to happen. well, yesterday the speech at general electric in kentucky, the ceo of ge's appliances and lighting division faded, fell off the stage in front of several hundred workers. doctors believed it was the heat to got to him, not the speech. he was checked out at a local hospital and is expected to be okay. >> poor joe biden, every time he's in front of the camera, something happens. just hanging out almost 500 feet in the air. two window installers got stuck on atlanta's tallest building when their platform shut down. they were 47 floors up on the 55th -- 55-story tower. firefighters were able to pull the men to safety. they seemed actually unfazed. i guess you kind of have to be if you're a window washer. you can't really be afraid of heights and actually waved to the news helicopters and were seen talking on their phones during the rescue. >> that's a heck of a way to get home from work, no question. still to come on the most news in the morning, the feds say they used everything from high-tech computers to low-tech invisible ink. a wide-ranging investigation breaks up a major russian spy ring here in the united states. deb feyerick has the story coming right up. ten minutes after the hour. a little post-cold war chill this morning after the fbi says arrested ten alleged russian spies, some who looked like they were living the american dream. fbi agents raided several east coast spots from boston down to the nation's capital. they are accused of kgb-style plot to ferret out top-secret u.s. intelligence. >> it comes at an interesting time, just days after president obama met with the russian president, dmitry medvedev in washington. deb feyerick joins us now with latest on this case. so they're sharing burgers together at a burger joint in d.c. and meanwhile this spiring is being investigated. >> the president must have probably been partially briefed on this. but these people did it in some cases using the names of dead people, murphy, foley, heatfield, just some of the alleged aliases. 11 people accused of being spies, one still at large, all described as russian intelligence operatives highly trained. their goal was notte espionage,t was recruiting, people with access to policy making. an intercepted message quoted in papers shows the men and women were given bank accounts, cars and houses to accomplish this mission. they were expected to send back intelligence reports. now among the alleged spies, a long-time columnist for spanish language newspaper and her husband, both arrested. their yonkers home seen here in new york. searched on monday. according to the complaint, the spice commu spies communicated with their russian contacts with private ad hoc commuter networks that translated encrypted data at computers at specific designated times. in one case an alleged spy worked from a coffee shop near times square, another time from a book store in greenwich village. each time an official allegedly with ties to the russian mission to the united nations was in that area. that's how their computers were talking to each other, receiving coded information. both chapman's parents are russian. she was here on a work visa working out of her home. another case in washington, d.c., a u.s. undercover agent posing as a russian met with an alleged spy in a local park. the undercover agent gave the accused spy $5,000 to leave at a secret drop point under a bridge in arlington, virginia. he did that. the money was wrapped in a newspaper. his home was also searched on monday. now when the u.s. undercover agent asked whether he had a specific meeting place, the response was, the russian consulate in new york city. a russian embassy spokesman tells cnn right now that they're unaware of reports of this spying arrests. >> this is interesting. we just had this cross right now from the russian foreign ministry saying it is regrettable that spy allegations have come forward after the president's meeting with their president. so it will be interesting to see how it affects u.s.-russia relations. >> yeah, it really will. these people were really here for the long term. 20 years. 25 years. they were supposed to fit in. they were supposed to blend in, become americanized. all of this to recruit people. question is, who did they recruit, how many people are out there, and what kind of information was actually gained because they were able to sort of turn people. >> because this operation is not over yet, is it? >> no. it's still ongoing. we're hearing there are going to be additional search warrants as well. >> fascinating. really is. a tom clancy novel. >> absolutely. absolutely. who knew? >> deb feyerick, thanks. 6:40 eastern, we'll talk with the former cia officer about how common this type of espionage is and how many damages the spies may have done already. next, is college worth the price? you spend years paying off those student loans. our christine romans is next, breaking down whether college is worth your time, your energy and your money. 17 minutes part the hour. 20 minutes past the hour right now. welcome back to the most news in the morning. two new studies are bringing more bad news for the diabetes drug avandia. both link the pill to a greater rick of heart attack or heart failure. the news comes just two weeks before a scheduled fda meeting on the drug's safety. avandia's manufacturer, glaxosmithkline issued a statement denying those findings. two shots may be safer than one. another new study says young children getting a new vaccine that combines three immunizations run twice the usual risk of fever-related seizures. researchers say that's compared with kids who get two separate shots, another containing the chicken pox vaccine. jerry seinfeld may ask what's the deal with airline food, the fda says many meals served to passengers are prepared in unsanitary conditions and that you could get sick. fda cited numerous catering facilities that prepare airline food for suspected health and sanitation violations following inspections of their kitchens over the past two years. one of the scariest findings, i believe they found a bacteria which can be deadly to some people. they tell you if you are a pregnant woman to make sure you don't eat lunch meats and things where you could get listeria. >> airline food. that's something you don't see much of these days. >> you have to be in first class to get sick. >> vacuum-packed, sealed container, cookies, peanuts, pretzels. christine romans is "minding your business" this morning talking about the value of a college education. >> payscale.com did this amazing study that shows you exactly what kind of investment a college education is. think about the safest investment out there, right? the u.s. treasury bond. that investment is about 4.5%. payscale went through a list of 800 colleges and universities to tell you what kind of investment you get back for that college. is your college worth it? the list goes from everything from black hills state university in south dakota, cost, overall cost of $67,000 and 4.6% return. university of kentucky, $84,000 is that four-year cost, a 10% return on that investment. it goes all the way up to m.i.t. where the cost is $189,000 but you get 12.6%. what do you mean by return? i mean when you look over the course of 30 years of working how much more would you make than if you were just a high school graduate and didn't graduate from there. black hills, $6,900. university of kentucky, $361,000. look at m.i.t., $1.6 million in the difference in your earnings over 30 years. this study is so interesting because it shows that state universities and leading technical universities are the best bang for your buck. it also shows in the words of the director of quantitative analysis there, al lee, that it is almost infinite the return on your investment if you have good financial aid and grants and the like from some of these schools. you look at some schools like m.i.t., cal tech, harvard, harvey med, dartmouthdartmouth,. the class of 2010 is still competing with the class of 2009. some people are doubting this investment. but payscale says it is a valuable investment. >> it is eliminated in your "romans' numeral" today. >> it is. 4.7%. you've heard me say this number before. 4.7%. and this is the unemployment rate of someone with a bachelor's degree. now think of that. think of -- that's half almost. >> what's the overall rate? nearly 10%? >> right. 4.7% is basically full employment if you have a college degree. we always talk about make sure it is right now, especially, make sure you get a degree in the right kind of field, the kind of field where you'll get a job. engineers are getting jobs right now. so are economists. people in health care. that's right. i'm going to tweet this study. we'll put it on "a.m. fix." if you have a kid going to school, find your school on here and find out what the return on the investment is. >> christine romans "minding your business" this morning, thanks. still to come on the most news in the morning, he fought a 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decisions were this simple? ♪ ♪ ♪ now when you open and fund an account, you'll get 200 commission-free trades. fidelity investments. turn here. ♪ welcome back to the most news in the morning. 27 minutes past the hour right now. it is a major victory for gun owners and the nra. another serious setback for gun control advocates. the supreme court ending its term with a landmark ruling expanding an individual's right to bear arms. the decision comes in a case involving chicago's strict ban on handguns in the city. cnn's kate bolduan has reaction from the man who challenged the city's decades-old law, and won. >> that's all i wanted, is just a fighting chance. give me the opportunity toed a least make somebody think about something before they come in my house on me. >> reporter: wanting to defend himself from what he calls the drug dealers and gangs in his south side chicago neighborhood, 76-year-old otis mcdonald began a fight that ended monday on the steps of the supreme court. this communi