we've got. >> plus, a global business big wig charged with attempted rape, a posh new york city hotel the location, he was naked forcing himself on a raid. we're live at the courthouse where he's facing a judge right now. plus this. >> and to the people in arizona, in atlanta, georgia and atlanta, you should be ashamed of yourself. >> musician carlos santana blasting georgia's new immigration law, fanning the flames in the upcoming presidential election. i'll examine with cnn's errol lewis. i'm don lemon and the news starts right now. tonight thousands of people in louisiana are packing up and leaving. there might be nothing left when they return. billions of gallons of water now pouring through the morganza spillway. today two more gates were opened double the amount of water diverted from the swollen mississippi river. over the coming weeks it will flood the area half the size of connecticut. incoming water extremely dangerous, alligators and snabs and other wild animals are being flushed out of their habitats. it was a troubling thought for one evacuated resident i spoke to earlier. >> you're going to have so much sand piled up, you don't know if you're going to go back with the snakes and everything else, the alligators. you don't even know if you'll be able to go back to salvage anything, you know. it's very depressing. >> cnn's ed lavandera was with residents as they quickly loaded up their belongings and fled knowing they might not see their homes again. >> reporter: don, officials here in st. landry's parish here in louisiana issued mandatory evacuation orders late today especially in some of the low-lying areas. this is significant because after the floodgates of the morganza spillway were opened, this is one of the significant areas where we'll see the flooding as that water continues to make its way down the river towards morgan city. this small neighborhood made up of about 20 or so homes got the evacuation orders this morning. national guard soldiers and sheriff's deputies going door to door. we've seen literally some people picking up their trailer homes and having them hauled away to higher ground, and throughout the areas that have been ordered to evacuate, some 250 homes affecting almost 800 people, we've seen those in this specific area literally packing everything they can into trucks, moving advance, trailers, whatever they can to move to higher ground and they say that they are anticipating being away for almost a month because they have been told in this area where we're standing to expect as much as 10 to 15 feet of water. a little while ago i spoke with the parish president here and they said they expect water to flow into some of these neighborhoods and creeping into some of the neighborhoods around midnight tonight, so in the coming days the scene around here will be changing very dramatically. ed lavandera, cnn, cross springs, louisiana. >> all right, ed. this natural disaster involves miles of rivertown and it involves weeks more of watching the mississippi. our meteorologist jacqui jeras tracking it all from the cnn severe weather center. when will it all end? >> june sometimes, weeks ahead and that's keeping the gates open, not to mention how long it will take for the river to recede and get navigation back working again. let's go ahead and show you the area ed is talking about where some of the evacuations took place today in st. landry parish. here's the morganza floodgates that were open and some of the cities are spared. they have these little circle levees and you can see how the spillway was designed and how everything was leading its way down to the gulf of mexico. takes time for this to happen. doesn't all happen at once and by tomorrow we're expecting that water to move in towards the grand lake area over towards baldwin and morgan city which is great concern, 12,000 plus people who live in this area. that water should be arriving here on tuesday and some of to forecast bringing maybe as much as five feet of water in this city. it's all about control at this point. this is pictures from the army corps of engineers showing you the spillway, and there you can see the water, rushing through as the four gates opened up, and there you can see it spilling in. as we zoom in, these are all just a series of gates here and there's about 125 of them. four open right now and in the days and weeks ahead. they will have to open up more of the gates because they are trying to maintain the flow south of these floodgates. now we'll switch over to the river for new orleans and what that means is the river now is at 17 feet, and they are going to try to keep it at 17 feet throughout the entire crest of this wave of water, and so that forecast at 17 feet is being controlled by man basically, and it's going to stay there. they think it's going to take maybe ten days to get through that entire process. let's look at the river as a whole. the natural crest of this river right now taking place up here in arkansas city. vicksberg exceeded the record crest tied, the record height but they will top that because it will still be rising until thursday, and then it's going to move downstream and down towards nachez and cresting here towards new orleans so that's all the control stuff of what's going on here right now. it's operating done exactly as it was designed, to but knock on road, you can see the breach of levees to make these things fall apart in between here and there. >> mississippi has a mind of its own. keep our fingers crossed. more on the morning forecast. >> we'll check about the situation up river from louisiana in just a few minutes. redwood, mississippi, is one town near the mighty mississippi keeping a close eye on the water level. there's a levee there that has folks 30 miles away very concerned, but first new developments. just in tonight and the story of a global business big wig charged with forcing himself on a hotel maid while naked. he's responsible for billions of dollars of the world's money, and his arrest could make a pretty good movie. we'll have a live report for you. >> we know what the lead story flooding. >> flooding is number one on news polls and gabrielle giffords, the shuttle launch and that in the newscast and the imayev stoimf story. >> and people on twitter talking about common and same thing on the blog at cnn.com/don and you'll see it in the newscast. that's coming up. >> in ten minutes. 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>> reporter: not yet. it's been an extraordinary day because, remember, don, he was formally charged by police and formally arrested at 2:15 sunday morning and we expected this arraignment to happen sometime sunday afternoon, but this is like a real life version of that old tv show "night court." we're still waiting and hasn't made an appearance yet. all kinds of delays and rumors. don't know why it's taken so long and all we doe dow know is this is court wraps up at 1:00 in the morning. >> susan, what about this new detail of the police lineup? >> that's right. a law enforcement source tells cnn that police did have a lineup to show this defendant the accused to the alleged victim, the woman making the claims that he was -- he tried to rape her and in fact she was able to identify according to the source that this is the man who attacked her, dominique strauss-kahn, and at this hour we're waiting at any moment for a news conference to happen we believe by the attorneys representing him. >> and we know in cases like this that the victim is not usually identified so we don't know a great deal. we neo-know a great deal about the suspect, but what about the victim in this case, susan? >> official, police say very little about an alleged sexual assault victim. they say she's 32 years ole. that's all they have said. however, we have learned from the general manager from the sophie hotel where she works, as a maid, that she has worked there for three years here in manhattan, and in the words of the general manager, he said he signed both her work and her behavior, in his words, to be very satisfactory. >> susan candiotti after the courthouse where she expected to be arraigned and if it happens in this broadcast, we'll get back to you. this case has a lot of thorny legal angles. strauss-kahn is a french citizen and he's the head of the international organization so i asked cnn's senior legal analyst jeffrey toobin whether he could get immunity. >> that seems very unlikely. in the first place as i understand it, the treaty that covers diplomatic immunity before france and the united states does not cover imf officials so i don't think he is a relevant party as far as diplomatic immunity is concerned. second, when you look at what diplomatic immunity usually covers, a crime of violence like this, generally is not covered, so i really think that diplomatic immunity is unlikely to be an issue in this case. >> well, jeffrey also says if bail is set, it will probably be very high because of the potential flight risk, and he also says if strauss-kahn had even again to a consulate, he doesn't believe he would have gotten diplomatic immunity. he doesn't believe it would apply to this case, but he does say if he had gotten on that plane and he probably would have been home free for many years, for many years, so strauss-kahn's arrest is a total bombshell in his native france, but allegations of sexual indiscretion are nothing new for him. the correspondent joins us now. you've covered dominique strauss-kahn. what does his arrest mean back home for the french? >> it's huge. imagine a few years back, three years back, john mccain and barack obama having been accused of something like that. that's what it is about. dominique strauss-kahn was really ahead in all the polls for next year, 2012, next year's election in french so it's a huge event for the french people and for the french media obviously because it means there's one less candidate in the ration and the candidate that was really ahead in all the poll. >> rumors have swirled for years about strauss-kahn, haven't they? >> i'm sorry, i couldn't hear your question. >> i said rumors have flown around for years about him. what are those rumors? >> yeah, there's been rumors about him for years, but there's been rumors of obviously him being very, how could i say that, him really having a lot of, you know, stories about him and women. there is one at the imf in 2008 which was really a big problem because he was actually accused of having abused his position to have a sexual relationship with a woman, but that was nothing like a rape accusation, like this is the case, and even by french standards i would say that has nothing to do with, you know, a french womanizer or something like that. it was someone that was accused of having attempted rape. >> that 2008 case he had to apologize for, she family man though. >> he had to apologize for that, yeah, and he had all the stories in france, and a lot of rumors about his -- his action with women, and so it's really -- even in france, there is a lot of people who are, you know, in doubt about what happened in new york about -- about that, but -- but i think a lot of people are ready to believe that about strauss-kahn more than about anyone else because of all these rumors from the past. >> new york correspondent for france 24, thank you very much for your time, sir. >> carlos santana is speaking out on immigration, that's right. the carlos santana, and you won't believe where he decided to take his stand. plus, newt gingrich makes his presidential plans official and has to defend himself over comments he made about president obama. this is our advisory board. our field research team. and our product development staff. we know military lives are different. we've been there. that's why our commitment to serve the financial needs of our military, veterans, and their families is without equal. and why, we'll always be there for you... both here... and here. usaa. for insurance, banking, investments, retirement and advice. we know what it means to serve. let us serve you. [ 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. at&t. rethink possible. in an effort to give you the best network possible. thank you for that, and here's what's going to happen tomorrow! well, it's going to start with me wearing a different shirt. it doesn't matter what the weatherman says if you have a symmetrical all-wheel drive subaru breaking news. there you see strauss-kahn's attorney speaking now. let's listen in. they just -- it was a very short statement that they said they are going to postpone the arraignment. you heard susan candiotti saying that they had been there for quite some "time." he had been arrested and so far he had not made an appearance and this is live. coming in raw to cnn. those attorneys speaking, william taylor and benningman broughtman saying they are going to delay his arraignment again. did they give a reason? apparently they did not give a reason. it's going to be delayed and as soon as we get more information on that, we will bring it to you. stand by. i want you to hold on a bit because i want to play what the attorney said if we can get it up in our -- if we can get in the diplomat, global big wig. let's listen in now. >> that's being done in light of the hour. we've agreed to postpone the arraignment until tomorrow morning, and we expect to be in court here tomorrow. >> how is your client doing? >> he's tired but he's fine. >> thank you very much. >> not before 11:00 tomorrow. >> okay. so that's his attorneys again speaking and -- sorry, it's a little shaky here but breaking news. that's how it happens. coming out of break and just finishing up their press conference and i wanted you to hear it. we'll move on. stay tuned to cnn for more information on that. "american morning" begins at 6:00 a.m. eastern time here on cnn, and they will be covering that story. meantime, let's go to politics. president obama is the most successful food stamp president in american history. >> that's new gop presidential contender newt gingrich on nbc's "meet the press" going after the president for failing to create more jobs but now he's having to defend his curious choice of words against charges of racism. >> this kind of automatic reference to racism, this is the president of the united states. president of the united states has to be held accountable. now the idea that -- and what i said is factually true. 47 million americans are on food stamps, one out of every six americans is on food stamps and to hide behind the charge of racism, i have -- i have never said anything about president obama which is racist. >> all right. cnn contributor errol lewis is here. is newt gingrich right about referencing food stamps here, or does this remind you of the candidates who used to talk about the so-called, you remember the welfare queens? >> oh, sure. well, newt gingrich was one of those candidates, i mean. it's part of political history. it's in black and white. in the early '90s his go pac circulated a document called language, a key mechanism of control in, which he recommended to represent republican candidates to use certain words to make their case, including words like cheat, lie and steal so of all the people in the country who don't have a right to complain about their words being taken out of context, this is somebody who built a career on specifically using rough, antagonistic language to achieve power. made no secret of it in the '90s. i don't know if he gets the benefit of the doubt this time. >> will this have an effect on him positively or negatively? >> no, i mean, the initial response seems to be -- seems to have blown up in his face and backfired. you have to be very careful about how you do this stuff. we have a much more sophisticated public in part because we've seen what newt gingrich did in the 1990s and a lot of it was caustic and divisive and a lot of people didn't like to and i think people's ears are maybe a little bit more attuned in the modern internet and cable television age to when somebody is trying to sort slip a fast one past them. >> okay. errol, let's talk about immigration, sure to be a factor for newt gingrich and every other candidate. here ear carlos santana in atlanta where he was receiving an award from major league baseball. >> would i 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 yourself. peace. we love you. god bless >> you all right. errol, what's your reaction to this? is this an unusual time and place to speak out about this issue? >> a bit of a wake-up call. for viewers who don't know what he was talking about. there's a new arizona type arguably crackdown on immigration this, law that just got passed and the reference to atlanta is the capital. a state law now in georgia, and, look, 40 conventions cancelled in arizona after they passed their very tough law. there's a sign that something similar to happen in georgia, among the groups opposed to this new tough crackdown on georgia was the atlanta visitors bureau. they know what could happen, and there's already talk about organize boycotts, and by the way, don, your state, by the way is 8% latino. first councilwoman who is of latino descent was just elected last year, so, you know, the political reality is changing, and if the national republicans don't pick up on this, this was a very big hint that was dropped in their laps today. they should almost thank carlos santana for it, provided they actually take it to heart politically. >> very interesting take, errol. good to hear that. let's take a look at the week ahead for the president who has a big speech planned on the middle east. what can we expect to hear given what's going on in the middle east? >> in a time of great flux, his credibility at an all-time high just because of the killing of osama bin laden. for