Game Night at $60M High School Stadium

The Allen, Texas, High School football team got their new $60 million football stadium off to a good start, shutting out the state champion.

"It was so exciting to play in front of this crowd tonight," running back Jeff Harris told the Star-Telegram. "We were a little nervous coming out, but you settle down and get the butterflies out. We got a lot of extra energy from the fans. They helped a lot."

At the end of the game, the stadium's video score board read: Allen, 24. Southlake Carroll, 0.

The stadium, which was built as part of a voter-approved $119 million bond package that passed in 2009, boasts some major league amenities, including artificial turf, a multi-level press box, a weight room, a wrestling room and seats for 18,000 people.

Including the standing room crowd, there were 21,000 people at the game Friday night.

While students and their parents seem to be thrilled with it, some Texans are less impressed.

"It's lamentable that people want to do this with their own money and the money of their community," said Tom Palaima, a professor at the University of Texas, Austin, and a former representative of the Coalition on Intercollegiate Athletics, a faculty organization that monitors sports expenditures on college campuses.

"Young men and women are now understanding at the age of 8, 9, and 10 that their way to get into a good college or university is by participating in sports and not putting a focus on academics," he said.

Allen High principal Steve Payne disagreed.

"We are an exemplary high school," he told ABC News. "I think our first class facilities tell everybody that we have first class academics and first class kids. Without them, we wouldn't have those first class facilities."

U.S. News and World Report ranked the 5,700-student school 99th out of 1,842 schools in the state of Texas, and 1,219th out of 21,776 schools nationwide. Eighty-five percent of students go on to college, said Payne.

Teen Dies Sticking Head Out Party Bus

A Sweet 16 party aboard a party bus ended in tragedy Friday night when a teen stuck his head out of the emergency roof hatch, struck his head on an overpass and died.

Daniel Fernandez, 16, of Queens, New York, was on a double-decker party bus carrying 65 teens to a birthday party in New Jersey when the accident happened between 6:30 p.m. and 6:45 p.m., Port Authority Police Department spokesman Steve Coleman said. He said he wasn't sure how many adults were on board.

The driver picked up the party-goers from Saint Francis Preparatory School in Queens, where they start class next week, and was headed toward the New Jersey Turnpike. Just after Fernandez opened the hatch and stuck his head out, the bus passed under the Fletcher Avenue overpass, where Fernandez struck his head, Coleman said.

Emergency responders rushed Fernandez to Hackensack Medical Center as his classmates took to twitter with the hashtag #staystrongdan and #prepfam.

"Just hoping for that one tweet or trxt with good news, this isnt fair," wrote Twitter user Bobby Perretti.

"Be strong Dan. Your going to be okay. You can do it kid. We're all praying for you," tweeted Melissa Dericioglu.

Fernandez was pronounced dead at the hospital, and users started tweeting their grief with the hashtag #ripdan. Many said they couldn't sleep or that they woke up crying.

The limousine company, Designer Limousine in Port Washington, N.Y., said the hatch on the "Double Decker Mega Liner" roof was intended for emergency escape only. The party bus boasts two bars, two dance floors, nightclub lighting and 15 flat-screen televisions, according to the Designer Limousine website.

"This is a terrible tragedy," Designer Limousine manager Alicia Pitzer told ABCNews.com. She said the company will conduct an internal investigation.

"What happened, happened," she said. "We can't turn back the hands of time."

The Bergen County Prosecutor's office will handle the police investigation going forward. Police said it was not clear whether any charges will be filed, or whether the teens were drinking.

A 25-year-old woman was killed as she fell from a moving party bus last month in Los Gatos, Calif., on her way home from a concert. In 2010, a 19-year-old died in a car crash after drinking aboard a party bus, prompting his father to speak out for tougher restrictions on so-called "booze cruises." As a result, a San Mateo lawmaker has proposed a California bill that would hold the bus drivers responsible for underage drinking in the vehicle.

Teacher Accused of Bullying Student Put on Leave

A Gig Harbor, Wash., middle school teacher who is accused of bullying a student has been placed on administrative leave after the alleged victim's parents called for the teacher to be fired.

John Rosi, who has been an educator for 18 years, managed to avoid losing his job by accepting a 10-day suspension, according to memos from the Peninsula school district.

The parents of the 13-year-old boy seen on the video, which appears to be a bullying incident, say that's not enough.

The video taken by fellow students on their cell phones of Karla Kinney's 13-year-old son being dragged across the classroom is disturbing. But what really outrages Kinney and her husband is that a teacher was there, too, and they say he joined in.

"When I drop my kids off I'm dropping them off as a parent handing my kids to a school that is going to take care of them," Kinney told ABC News.

The incident happened in a middle school near Tacoma, Wash., in February, but is just now coming to light following a district investigation.

At a time in the video -- which goes on for at least 15 minutes -- it seems as if the boy is playing along. Kinney's son is at one point heard saying, "yeah do that ' do what Eric's doing, not my arm."

But in the video a handful of students are also seen writing on the boy's feet, holding a pillow over his face and covering him with chairs.

In the video, Rossi is seemingly mugging for the phone cameras.

Kinney said her son was very upset following the incident, and that the other students blamed him for the teacher being punished.

"He said he wanted to kill himself," she said. "The kids had blamed him for this popular teacher and the suspension he received."

Rossi, who told ABC News he's not allowed to comment, wrote in a letter to investigators that during the incident he did not see it as bullying.

"I can honestly say that at the time I did not believe that any of the children were at risk of harm during their interactions. Nor did I view the incident as anything more than harmless childhood horseplay," he wrote.

Chuck Cuzzetto, Peninsula school district's superintendent, said that "pretty significant disciplinary action" was taken.

Kinney says that she and her husband feel that the entire matter has been made worse by the fact that Rosi is now back at another school.

"I think that somebody who can allow this to happen and participate has no business being in a classroom," Kinney said.

Photos: Labor Day Highlights Struggles

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Did James Holmes Call Doctor Just Before Shootings?

James Holmes in court, July 23, 2012, with public defender Tamara Brady.  Image: R.J. Sangosti/Denver Post/Pool/AP Photo

A mysterious early-morning phone call is emerging as a potentially significant piece of the puzzle in an ongoing legal showdown involving accused mass murderer James Holmes.

The University of Colorado Hospital today said an operator received a strange phone call at 12:31 a.m. on Friday, July 20.

The timing is notable because it was only about ten minutes later that police began receiving the first 911 calls about a shooting during a screening of 'The Dark Knight Rises' at the Century 16 multiplex in Aurora, Colorado.

When the switchboard operator answered the call, she said there was only silence on the other end, according to University of Colorado Hospital marketing director Brad Fixler.

'There was nothing on the other end,' Fixler told ABC News. 'Nobody asked for Dr. Fenton or anyone else during the call.'

Fixler says the hospital has no way of knowing whether the caller was James Holmes.

Confirmation of the call, however, comes one day after Holmes' public defender, Tamara Brady, suggested in court that Holmes may have tried to reach his psychiatrist just before the shooting started.

During a hearing Thursday in Centennial, Colorado, Brady questioned Dr. Lynne Fenton, the University of Colorado psychiatrist who was treating Holmes for mental illness while he was a neuroscience graduate student.

Brady read a phone number to Dr. Fenton, asking if she recognized it. Fenton said she did: she believed the number was for the University of Colorado Hospital operator.

Brady asked if the number can be used by patients to reach Dr. Fenton after hours. Fenton said yes.

'Do you know whether James Holmes called that number nine minutes before the shooting started?' Brady asked.

'I don't know,' answered Dr. Fenton.

Why is this significant?

If it is proven that Holmes placed that call, it will be a key factor in determining if Holmes still had a confidential, or privileged, doctor-patient relationship with Dr. Fenton when the shooting took place on July 20.

Prosecutors are trying to convince a judge that Fenton's relationship with Holmes ended on June 11, 2012.

Court documents filed by prosecutors indicate Holmes was denied access to university buildings on June 12, 'after he made threats to a professor at the school' and subsequently began the process of withdrawal from his graduate program.

Fenton testified that she believes June 11 is the date that Holmes was no longer her patient.

If Judge William Sylvester agrees, he might rule that prosecutors can have access to any communications between Holmes and Fenton after June 11, including a package containing a mysterious notebook.

Holmes mailed the notebook to Dr. Fenton on July 19, prosecutors said.

Defense attorneys want to prevent anyone ' especially prosecutors ' from getting their hands on the notebook and whatever revelations if might contain about Holmes and his alleged crimes. To do that, his public defenders have to prove that Dr. Fenton and Holmes had an ongoing relationship past June 11, which would make the notebook (and any other communications) privileged and off-limits.

Revealing the July 20 phone call to the hospital, legal observers say, might be one way for Holmes' defense team to establish that he was trying to reach out to Dr. Fenton just before allegedly opening fire inside that crowded movie theater, killing 12 and wounding 58.

Arguments over whether Holmes and Dr. Fenton had a privileged relationship were put on hold until the next hearing on Sept. 20, when the judge hopes to decide the issue.

Many legal observers point out that the issue of privilege may eventually be moot if Holmes pursues an expected insanity defense.

'The only defense that Holmes can mount is 'not guilty by reason of insanity,'' said Denver criminal defense attorney David Lane. 'Once he does that, the notebook ultimately will find its way into the hands of the district attorney anyway.'

In the meantime, on Friday a group of Aurora shooting victims and their families are meeting with officials over a dispute involving more than $5 million in public donations.

At an emotional news conference Tuesday, relatives of some of those killed on July 20 demanded a greater voice in how the money is distributed.

Isaac Finally Leaves Gulf

As Isaac's drenching rains and cooling winds drifted north of the Gulf Coast, heat and humidity moved back in ' along with frustration, exhaustion and uncertainty.

People stuck inside stuffy, powerless homes were comparatively lucky. Thousands of others were displaced by floodwaters and had no idea where they would end up next. Some boarded buses to faraway shelters.

"I'm with my family, and my wife's with her family," said 35-year-old construction worker Jarvis Mackey as the couple and their two children boarded a bus to Shreveport, 5½ hours away from their Port Sulphur home, which lay underwater.

"All we can do is pray ' pray we come back home to something," Mackey said.

LaPlace resident Roshonda Girrad was staying in a state-run shelter in Alexandria, 200 miles from her home. She was waiting for the chest-deep waters in her neighborhood to recede.

The massive, beige, windowless shelter next to Louisiana State University's Alexandria campus is currently home to almost 1,600 evacuees who either drove themselves or were bused in from various parishes inundated by rain from Isaac and the rising water from Lakes Pontchartrain and Maurepas.

"The showers are horrible. The food is horrible," Girrad said. "I'm not from around here. I don't know what's going on. We're in the dark."

As the Labor Day holiday weekend got under way, so did what was certain to be a long, slow recovery for Louisiana.

Motorists ventured out as power came back on and businesses reopened, clogging intersections with no traffic lights and forming long lines at gas stations. The Mississippi River opened to limited traffic, and in New Orleans, the normally lively French Quarter awoke from its nearly weeklong slumber.

Isaac dumped as much as 16 inches of rain in some spots, and about 500 people had to be rescued by boat or high-water vehicles. Thousands remained in shelters late Friday. At least seven people were killed in the storm in Mississippi and Louisiana.

Isaac remained a powerful storm system carrying rain and the threat of flash flooding as it lumbered across Arkansas into Missouri and then up the Ohio River valley over the weekend, the National Weather Service said.

The storm knocked out power to thousands of people in Arkansas, and Ohio hotel operators said their holiday weekend business was already taking a hit as families canceled planned outings to theme parks.

Meanwhile, newly nominated Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney visited flood-ravaged communities, and President Barack Obama said he would arrive Monday ' appearances this part of the country is all too familiar with after Hurricane Katrina in 2007 and the 2010 Gulf oil spill.

In Lafitte, a fishing village south of New Orleans, Romney saw waterlogged homes, roads covered with brown water and debris-strewn neighborhoods. The GOP-friendly community is outside of the federal levee system that spared New Orleans and it lies on an exposed stretch of land near the Gulf.

Romney met along a highway with fellow Republican Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, and they spoke about challenges facing the stricken area, which relies on fishing for its livelihood.

"I'm here to learn and obviously to draw some attention to what's going on here," Romney said. "So that people around the country know that people down here need help."

Billionaire Donors Hide Behind Velvet Curtain at GOP Convention

When oil and chemical baron David Koch took his seat among the throngs of Republican grassroots activists on the convention floor in Tampa this week, he was making a rare appearance on behalf of the small group of wealthy donors who are bankrolling a good portion of Mitt Romney's bid for president.

For the past several days in Tampa, Koch has been the exception. Most of the deep-pocketed donors -- the ones fundraising consultants call "the whales" -- have spent the convention largely out of sight.

Unlike Koch, they have watched the parade of speakers at the convention podium from high above, in a vast luxury skybox on the fourth and fifth levels of the Tampa Times Forum. Their box was cordoned off by ropes and blocked from public view by a velvet curtain.