Magnitude 5.7 Quake Hits Mexico; Storms Drench Already Soggy Florida
T.J. HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR: From the CNN Center, this is CNN SATURDAY MORNING on this Memorial Day weekend. I'm T.J. Who is this we got here?</s>ALINA CHO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning.</s>HOLMES: Good morning.</s>CHO: Good morning, everybody. I'm Alina Cho. Betty has the morning off. Thanks so much for starting your Saturday with us. And we've got a lot going on. We have new information this morning about President Obama's search for the next Supreme Court justice. CNN has the inside track on a possible announcement.</s>HOLMES: Also, of course, many of you will remember ABC News anchor - still an ABC news anchor, Bob Woodruff. He was injured in 2006, a severe brain injury. Well, he's been making a comeback. He's working again and whatnot. And you need to see -- you just have to hear my interview with him and his wife, Lee. Take a quick listen.</s>LEE WOODRUFF, BOB WOODRUFF'S WIFE: Many times a brain injury ultimately leads to divorce or the breakup of a family. We got so lucky with Bob's injury, and it did bring us closer together. And that's why we want...</s>HOLMES: Well, you have to hear these two, the comeback story. Also the campaign they have going on this weekend to raise money for injured American soldiers, again this Memorial Day weekend. That's happening (ph), things going on.</s>CHO: Yes, he's had a remarkable recovery, and he's just asking for a couple of dollars from each American. Some rough weather also could affect today's planned return of the space shuttle Atlantis and its crew. There are just five windows to land today, both in Florida and in California. Will they make it? Reynolds Wolf will have a preview (ph).</s>HOLMES: And we just had to get this story in this morning. They're called cougars; I don't know if that's offensive or not.</s>CHO: No, not so much.</s>HOLMES: But there's a phenomenon called "the cougar." These are older women who prefer or some say prey on younger men.</s>CHO: Hey!</s>HOLMES: Some say. But that's -- some point to that example...</s>CHO: Nothing wrong with that.</s>HOLMES: ...Demi Moore, Ashton Kutcher. But we will be looking at this phenomenon this morning.</s>CHO: And they are incredibly happy.</s>HOLMES: Yes, they look good.</s>CHO: But first, a quick look at some of the top stories we're following for you this morning. After 100 days in a jail in Iran, an American journalist is finally back home. Roxana Saberi was accused of spying for the United States. She was convicted last month and sentenced to eight years in prison. But on appeal, a judge reduced her sentence and then suspended it.</s>HOLMES: Well, we'll take you now south of the border, Mexico. An earthquake rattles Mexico City. Nothing new for them; they're kind of used to this. But these are some familiar scenes we're used to seeing. Thousands of people really just seek cover out in the streets, essentially. U.S. officials say this earthquake measured 5.7 in magnitude. No immediate reports of injuries or damage. Again, just a lot of frightened people. The epicenter was not right there, of course, in Mexico City, as often the case. It was some 85 miles away in the southeast, in Puebla. Also, in Baghdad, a murder mystery there. An American found stabbed to death inside in the heavily guarded Green Zone. Iraqi security forces say the man was blindfolded with his hands tied behind his back. The U.S. military is not releasing his name just yet, until his family is notified. This comes after the U.S. handed Green Zone security over to the Iraqis.</s>CHO: Back to our top story now, President Obama could name his nominee to the Supreme Court as early as next week. CNN has actually obtained an e-mail from an aide to the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.</s>HOLMES: Yes, that e-mail advising fellow Democrats to get ready for the presidential announcer's (ph) pick to replace retiring Justice David Souter. Our senior White House correspondent Ed Henry has our report.</s>ED HENRY, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: T.J., Alina, CNN has learned that a top aide to Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy told fellow Democrats on Friday that they should get ready for the president's Supreme Court pick to come as early as Tuesday. This according to an e-mail obtained by CNN, significant because the Judiciary panel, of course, will handle the Senate confirmation process for whomever the president picks to replace retiring Justice David Souter. Three senior Obama administration officials confirming to CNN that the latest thinking here at the White House is that this pick could come as early as Tuesday. Also likely later in the week, if not Tuesday, if it slips a couple of days, but these senior officials flatly said the president, as of this weekend, has not picked yet -- has not settled on who it will be, instead spending Memorial Day weekend at Camp David, where he's expected to do some reading, try to make up his mind finally. Also, Camp David very conducive to having a final one-on-one meeting with a potential nominee, because the media does not have any access to Camp David. Now, on the short list, there are a half dozen people that we've heard about it: Elena Kagan, who is the solicitor general; Judge Sonia Sotomayor; also Judge Diana Wood of Chicago; Jennifer Granholm, the Michigan governor. Various names bantied (ph) (sic) about, but the senior administration officials cautioned it's still possible that if the president doesn't make up his mind this weekend, it could slip to later, early-to-mid-June that he makes the announcement. The president, however, is under some pressure to get this announcement done before June 3, when he leaves on a foreign trip to Egypt, France and Germany. He wants to get the process going because he's hoping to get these Senate confirmation hearings started in July. The Senate takes off the entire month of August. If there are any delays in this process, it could really jeopardize getting a new justice in place by the first Monday in October. The other concern by this White House is that if these confirmation hearings drag into September, that will distract attention from the rest of the president's agenda, especially his push for health-care reform -- T.J., Alina.</s>CHO: Ed Henry, thank you. If you're one of the millions of Americans drowning in debt, you may be about to get a break from skyrocketing rates and fees. On Friday, President Obama signed into law new credit-card reform legislation. Now under the new law, credit-card companies will be barred from increasing interest rates on existing balances until cardholders are more than 60 days late on a payment. Now the new rules won't take effect until February of 2010. Cardholders can face rate hikes until then. There are more than 700 million credit cards in circulation in the United States. More than $2.5 trillion debt in this country, and that's excluding mortgages. Now, with the drop in gas prices, more of you are hitting the roads this Memorial Day weekend. In fact, 27 million Americans will spend part of the weekend driving. That's according to AAA. And that's 2.5 percent more than last year. Gas prices do have something to do with it. They always do. While prices are up about 30 cents from last month, that is nowhere close to what you paid last month. Remember four bucks a gallon, T.J.?</s>HOLMES: No, that was...</s>CHO: I do.</s>HOLMES: Yes, that's right.</s>CHO: I remember four bucks a gallon. Well, today, regular unleaded will run you about $2.41 on average. I remember 99 cents a gallon.</s>HOLMES: That was awhile back, Alina.</s>CHO: That was a long time ago. But I remember it.</s>HOLMES: But yes, $4. Everybody seeing these prices now, we forget how bad it was for a little while.</s>CHO: And listen, the prices could go up -- you know, in the summer...</s>HOLMES: Of course.</s>CHO: ...they generally do. And maybe we will see four bucks again. But I certainly hope not.</s>HOLMES: Well, they're not driving around too much in Florida right about now, particular places. They are getting a whole lot of nasty weather, and a whole lot of rain, I should say. These are some pictures we're -- show you out of Daytona, Florida. And I see Reynolds standing by here; he's going to chime in on this. Reynolds, we're talking about -- what? -- 16 inches earlier this week, another four inches of rain in Daytona that we're talking about specifically. $52 million worth of damage in one of the worst-hit counties there, a thousand buildings reporting some kind of damage. You have some kind of relief to report for us, Reynolds?</s>REYNOLDS WOLF, CNN METEOROLOGIST: You know, really nothing -- nothing going. You know, it's funny, as we're mentioning this, and you know, people are thinking, 'Hey, you know, it's Florida, a tropical state. They're supposed to get some -- some rain.' That's true, but this much rain is a little bit ridiculous. Take a look at some of the numbers, T.J. You were talking about some places getting, you know, well over a foot. Some places even more than that. Check out Ormond Beach, where they had just this week 24.78 inches of rainfall. Daytona Beach, we showed you video moments ago, of compliments of WKMG in Orlando, Florida -- Orlando itself, right around 13.31. In Melbourne, right around 11. And the thing is, we could see more of that rainfall today. But we're going to also be seeing the possibility of more rain moving into places like Mississippi, Alabama, even in Louisiana. The reason why is because that area of low pressure that brought those scattered showers to Florida and that heavy rainfall is now going to move. It's going to pull its way back over the Gulf of Mexico, where you have very warm water in parts of the Gulf. Something that we really have to be concerned with is the potential of this system that we see right here possibly becoming, strengthening and becoming a tropical depression later on today. So something we're going to watch for you very carefully. Now, at Barksdale Air Force Base, which is right on the Mississippi coat, what we're going to be seeing is they're going to take a specially configured C130 aircraft going right into the heart of this storm. They're going to drop some instrumentation and give us some readings and give us a better idea of what we can anticipate from the system as it chugs its way to the north. One thing we do have in our favor is that this storm is very close to land. It's not going to stay out over this open water for a very long time. If it had, or if it were forming in the central Gulf, we might have a few issues. No issues right now in parts of Atlanta other than a few scattered clouds and possibly some showers. We're going to take a look at your holiday forecast coming up in just a few moments. Let's send it right back to you guys.</s>CHO: I think we're looking at a little rain, aren't we?</s>WOLF: I would say so, yes. Yes. Got to wipe it out of the skies. There you go.</s>CHO: Thanks, Reynolds.</s>HOLMES: All right, Reynolds. We'll talk to you shortly.</s>CHO: The economy, two wars -- President Obama facing a lot in these next 100 days of his presidency. And Josh Levs checking it all out on cnnpolitics.com. Hey, Josh.</s>JOSH LEVS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey there, Alina. Welcome back to the show.</s>CHO: Thank you.</s>LEVS: As always, always good to have you around.</s>CHO: Nice to be here.</s>LEVS: All right. So check this out: Some people a hundred days is an artificial deadline. But I'll tell you something: There is a way in which this next 100 days is critical. And we will tell you what this, coming right up --</s>T.J. HOLMES: All right, Josh. Thank you. Also coming up on this Memorial Day weekend, we'll take you to a place that's called "the saddest acre in America."