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New Jersey Governor Heading Home; Pennsylvania Community College Receives E-mails Threatening Violence; Freeway Collapse

Aired April 30, 2007 - 14:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: Hello. I'm Don Lemon, live at the CNN world headquarters in Atlanta.
SUSAN ROESGEN, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Susan Roesgen, filling in this week for Kyra Phillips.

From erotic fantasy to economic reality, the so-called D.C. madam says she can't afford a high-priced lawyer. So she says she will release her clients' names until she can come up with some defense witnesses.

LEMON: And is Prince Harry really headed for combat duty in Iraq? The head of the British army says yes.

Ten-hut. You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

And first this hour, New Jersey governor Jon Corzine is out of the hospital. And it was a very emotional release. The governor just a couple of minutes ago was released from the hospital and talked about his plight and also a mistake that he owes to make up -- he plans to make up to the people of New Jersey.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. JON CORZINE (D), NEW JERSEY: As I said last week, I'm a blessed human being. I could not be more grateful for the support I've had from all the people of the state, my family, the medical people, the people that rescued me. I don't think people understand how much people care about others and reach out and support them, and I just want to make sure that I say thank you.

I also understand that I set a very poor example for a lot of young people, a lot of people in general. And I certainly hope the state will forgive me, and I'll work very hard to try to set the right kind of example to make a difference in people's lives as we go forward.

And I think the last thing I want to say is, behind me is -- behind me are my family and some of the people closest to me. Some can't be here today. And nothing counts more in life than those people who care about you all the time and at the moments of joy and at the moments of pain.

So thank you very much. We will see you. Thank you all for coming out.

(APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: And just to tell you a little bit about why the governor was in the hospital for 18 days, in that crash he suffered -- he broke his left thigh bone, 11 ribs, some in multiple places. His breastbone and collarbone, and he also fractured a vertebra in his lower back and cut open his head. Now we just learned this. He says he's planning to head to the governor's mansion in Princeton to continue his rehabilitation of his broken left leg. He's expected to resume his duties, but not immediately.

ROESGEN: And we'll still have to see if he'll be charged for not wearing that seat belt.

LEMON: Yes, absolutely. Yes.

ROESGEN: Now to Pennsylvania, where threatening e-mails have shut down five campuses at one community college.

For the latest on that, we'll go live to our senior correspondent, Allan Chernoff, who is in Media, Pennsylvania -- Allan.

ALLAN CHERNOFF, CNN SR. CORRESPONDENT: Good afternoon, Susan.

And you can see behind me a totally empty campus here at Delaware County Community College. Normally, it would be bustling with students about now, but it's been closed since Thursday, and that's when several faculty members here received e-mails believed to be from a student threatening violence either today or tomorrow.

The writer of the e-mail wrote that he was "stressed out," that he was "sick of my life" -- that's a quote -- would be "getting some guns from a friend," and then going to one of the two campuses -- rather, two campuses of this school. There are five major campuses, as we mentioned earlier. And that led the school to immediately shut down.

It contacted local police authorities, and they have already interviewed 160 faculty members, asking those faculty members, does the writing in the e-mail look familiar to you? Perhaps, did you know of any problems with some of the students in your school, in your classes?

And so they've been interviewing the faculty members. Police say they have plenty of leads, but it's not all that easy, police say, to track down some of the students, particularly since this is a commuter school. In fact, there are 27,000 students attending here, either during the day, the evening or the weekends. So the police now are still investigating, still trying to talk to all their potential suspects in this case -- Susan.

ROESGEN: But you know, Allan, with computer technology these days, it's been about four days, you know, since Thursday. They haven't been able to trace that e-mail, that e-mail account from what -- you know, this person they believe is a student? CHERNOFF: That is a very good question. Now, we're wondering that ourselves.

Apparently, it was from a hotmail account that the e-mail was sent, but in terms of an actual suspect, an actual person, again, the police say saying to us they still have plenty of people that they do want to speak with, they say they do have many leads. And, of course, everybody anxious to have this entirely wrapped up.

I should also mention, the school here has a very close connection with local police since they have a police academy here. So the vast majority of local police are actually graduates of this school.

ROESGEN: Wow, that's interesting. Thanks, Allan, for the update. We'll hear more from you as it develops.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Wow, what the (EXPLETIVE DELETED) happened? Did the cars all crash?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: You're listening to and seeing pictures of -- that is the stunned reaction of a CNN I-Reporter, just moments after a gasoline tanker crashed near the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge early Sunday. The inferno caused a critical ramp to collapse, beginning what's likely to be a months-long traffic nightmare.

Here's CNN's Chris Lawrence on the scene.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You couldn't find a worse place for this tanker to have crashed, right were three major highways converge and all feed into the Bay Bridge, which connects Oakland with the city of San Francisco. More than a quarter million commuters drive this route every day, and Monday is shaping up to be a traffic nightmare. Crews have already been out here on the scene removing some of the debris, but this is a problem that could extend well into October.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has already declared a state of emergency, and the state of California is picking up the tab to provide free public transcription throughout the entire Bay Area on Monday.

This is what it looked like when that tanker lost control and crashed, and 8,000 gallons of gasoline just exploded. Flames shot up 200 feet in the air, and the air heated up to about 3,000 degrees. It literally melted the steel beams that were supporting the overpass above it.

Thankfully, no one was killed in this collapse. But the commuters here in the Bay Area will be dealing with this problem probably through the end of the summer.

Chris Lawrence, CNN, Oakland, California.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROESGEN: And now to the White House.

You know that President Bush's approval ratings are not very good here at home, but overseas they are even worse, thanks largely to the Iraq war. And it was against that backdrop that the president hosted an annual meeting with European Union leaders today. At the news conference afterward, a number of hot topics came up.

So joining us live with more is White House Correspondent Suzanne Malveaux -- Suzanne.

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Hi Susan.

A lot of hot topics, of course, but not a lot of movement forward here. The president just moments ago meeting with EU president, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, as well as president of the EU Commission, Jose Barroso.

Now, one of the issues that came up was about climate change. This is something that all of them say they have similarities, they have agreements. But they really did kind of punt forward some of their differences. They say they're going to deal with that at the G- 8 summit.

They talked about a free trade initiative, something that is critical for these two blocs, the United States and the European Union, considering the fact that Europe has been weakened over the last couple of years. A lot of change in the leadership, and we've seen kind of the strengthening of Asia, China and India in particular. So that is somewhat of a breakthrough, a move forward.

And then finally, there was talk about whether or not the president, specifically Secretary Rice, was willing to talk, one-on- one talks, with her Iranian counterpart. She's going to a conference on Thursday in Egypt to talk about a number of things about Iraq, about stability in the region.

The president once again saying, well, if she bumps into the foreign minister there, she's not going to be rude, she is going to say hello. But he also reiterated the point that he has made time and time again, and that is that the United States is not going to have these one-on-one talks with the Iranian regime regarding their nuclear ambitions until the Iranian regime proves that it's willing to give up what they believe are the development of nuclear weapons -- Susan.

ROESGEN: Suzanne, there's also been a lot of controversy around the World Bank, surrounding the president's support of the president of the World Bank, Paul Wolfowitz, but he's in big trouble.

How does the president justify his support? MALVEAUX: Well, you know, it's very interesting, because the president standing there with those two leaders. The European parliament came out on Wednesday calling for the resignation of Paul Wolfowitz, saying it really undermines the whole credibility of the program to bring forward, as Wolfowitz has, calling for anti- corruption measures dealing with other countries, when he seems to be in hot water himself. But the president said once again -- this didn't come up in the meeting, by the way, but once again he has confidence that he believes the job will get done.

I have to tell you, Susan, Wolfowitz came before the committee of the World Bank and just came out fighting. Just a few words from his testimony.

He said, "The goal of this is a smear campaign," and it would create a self-fulfilling prophecy that he was an ineffective leader and has to step down for that reason alone. He also went to call it a "circus-like process," and he says he is not going to give in to these tactics.

So, obviously, the president standing by Wolfowitz, Wolfowitz standing strong in this. It's going to be very interesting to see what the vote of that World Bank vote -- World Bank board is going to be in the long run -- Susan.

ROESGEN: Yes. I wonder whether defiance is the right strategy.

Thanks.

Suzanne Malveaux reporting live for us at the White House -- Don.

LEMON: They were in mourning. Now they'll be mourned. At least 22 Iraqis killed in a suicide bombing at a Shiite funeral in Diyala province, northeast of Baghdad.

Now, back in the capital, a fresh string of bombings and other attacks have killed at least 13 and wounded more than 50. This southwestern Baghdad neighborhood suffered especially heavy damage.

A frequent target of Iraqi insurgents attacked again. The bodies of 10 fuel truck drivers were found today dumped near Baiji, site of Iraq's largest refinery. The men were kidnapped yesterday, along with six other drivers, by gunmen who set their trucks on fire. The fate of the remaining drivers are unknown.

This weekend capped a brutal month for U.S. forces in Iraq. Fourteen American troops killed in the past three days, bringing the number of U.S. troops killed this month to 104. And that makes April the sixth deadliest month of the war. 3,351 American service members have been killed in Iraq since the war began back in 2003.

Years of effort, billions of dollars, hundreds of American lives, all aimed at rebuilding Iraq. Now a new report says much of it has gone to waste.

Let's go straight to Baghdad and CNN's Arwa Damon. Arwa, some of the numbers in this report are staggering. What should we make of it?

ARWA DAMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: They really are staggering, Don, especially if what the report concluded is really anything to go by for a standard across the entire nation. Bottom line, if we take this report at face value, it is pretty much saying that it could be the $37 billion, much of which has already been spent, appropriated by Congress for reconstruction in Iraq, has quite simply gone to waste.

Now, the report was put out by the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction. They went out and surveyed eight sites. And they found that seven of those sites were, quite simply, failures, blaming that on shoddy construction, materials that were of low quality, improper design, as well as poor maintenance.

Basically, once the projects were handed over to the Iraqis, the maintenance on them simply was not upkept. But the report highlights the fact that if this has been a standard across the nation, that it is in fact quite tragic when one really thinks about the money that has been poured into all these projects, as well as the hundreds of lives that have been lost, really painting quite a grim picture -- Don.

LEMON: CNN's Arwa Damon in Baghdad.

Thank you so much for that, Arwa.

ROESGEN: Tony Snow goes back to work, despite the return of his cancer.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TONY SNOW, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: What we're trying to do is to knock it into remission, turned what used to be a failed disease into a chronic disease, which we will treat with regular chemo for, you know, however long we need to.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROESGEN: Ahead in the NEWSROOM, the realities of living with cancer.

LEMON: A raging wildfire still on Georgia's mind. The battle to contain the flames, ahead in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: It is 16, almost 17 past the hour. Here are three of the stories we're working on for you right here in the CNN NEWSROOM.

A lot of people in California's Bay Area, well, they took the train or stayed home a day after this overpass collapsed near the Bay Bridge. Now, the morning rush hour has been mostly normal, but officials warn this afternoon could be much worse. Britain's longest terror trial comes to a close. Five men are sentenced to life in prison for plotting to bomb targets across the nation. Prosecutors linked the defendants to suicide bombers who attacked London's transit system back in 2005.

A community college's five campuses are still shut down in southeast Pennsylvania four days after staffers got an e-mail threatening a shooting. The college is taking no chances in light of the Virginia Tech massacre.

ROESGEN: And two weeks and counting. The largest wildfire in Georgia history keeping on burning. Weary firefighters say they're gaining ground. They estimate that the fire is about 70 percent contained, but with strong winds and dry air, the fire crews say they're looking at at least another week of fighting this fire.

It's near Waycross, and it has burned 82,000 acres, mostly forest and swampland, not homes. But about 20 smaller fires are burning to the south of this big one.

(WEATHER REPORT)

LEMON: Above the clouds of financial failure. Delta Air Lines flies right out of bankruptcy, but not without cost.

We'll have the details straight ahead for you right here in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROESGEN: Well, Delta Air lines has flown out of bankruptcy. Felicia Taylor is at the New York Stock Exchange to tell us what Delta's good fortune means for fliers.

(BUSINESS REPORT)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: Hello, everyone, I'm Don Lemon, live at the CNN world headquarters in Atlanta.

ROESGEN: And I'm Susan Roesgen filling in for Kyra Phillips.

You know the C-word, cancer, still a very scary word. But how can people like Tony Snow talk about living with cancer confidently? Dr. Otis Brawley has encouraging news for us. You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

LEMON: First we start with this, the most feared figure in Washington isn't Karl Rove these days, but businesswoman Deborah Jean Palfrey, who's telephone records could ruin reputations and expose some of the city's best-kept secrets. Here's CNN's Jim Acosta.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JIM ACOSTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Washington was all ears this morning as alleged D.C. madam Deborah Palfrey was back in court. She appeared in court to try to set aside funds for her case. She needs a defense lawyer to defend against charges that she ran a prostitution ring here in the Washington, D.C. area for 13 years. After that court appearance, she appeared in front of the media. During that statement, she apologized to former Secretary of State Randall Tobias, who resigned Friday after disclosing to ABC News that he was one of Palfrey's clients. He says that while he was one of Palfrey's clients, he had only received massages from her service. Palfrey said to the media this morning that she wishes that revelation had surfaced earlier, because she says it would help her defense.

DEBORAH JEAN PALFREY, FMR. ESCORT SERVICE OWNER: I'm very dismayed, however, by Mr. Tobias' refusal to come forward until now with this extremely valuable exculpatory evidence. Had he done so earlier, along with the many, many others who have used my company's services throughout the years, I most likely would not be in my current predicament.

ACOSTA: And as federal prosecutors continue with this case, Palfrey is threatening to release reams of phone records that she says could disclose the names of some high-level Washington officials. But so far only two of those names have been released, and there's no word at this point to when she'll be back in court.

Jim Acosta, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEMON: And some new marching orders for Prince Harry. The head of the British army says he has personally decided that the prince will be deployed to Iraq, but General Sir Richard Dannatt emphasizes that decision will be under constant review up until the time Harry is scheduled to actually head out.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEN. SIR RICHARD DANNATT, BRITISH ARMY: He will deploy. Third, I will, of course, keep that decision continually under review, and if the circumstances are such that I change that decision, I will make a further statement. And fourth, I would urge that the somewhat frenzied media speculation around this issue ends in the interest of the overall security of all our people deployed in Iraq at this time. Thank you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: And all this comes amid new reports of threats to Harry if and when he goes to Iraq. A British newspaper cited Iraqi militants as warning they will target the prince for kidnapping.

ROESGER: White House Press Secretary Tony Snow is back on the job today after five weeks after announcing his cancer had returned and spread to his liver. Snow says he'll start chemotherapy on Friday to make sure that all the cancer is, in his words, knocked out, and he was optimistic about his treatment on CNN's "American Morning."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TONY SNOW, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: It is unbelievable what medical researchers have been able to come up with in recent years, and conditions that used to be incurable are curable now. Conditions that didn't used to be treatable are treatable today, and lots of people with worse conditions than mine that have been living for 20, 30 years by simply dealing with it. They've been leading full and happy lives. And certainly that's what I hope to be doing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROESGER: Well, Dr. Otis Brawley an oncologist at Emory University, is here to talk to us a bit about this. Tony Snow looks good, his color is good, he's 51 years old, is he really accurate when he says people can live 20 to 30 years on chemotherapy?

DR. OTIS BRAWLEY, WINSHIP CANCER INST., EMORY UNIV: Yes, he is accurate and that is true. Many don't, but many do. It's important that a cancer patient have hope. What you're seeing is a great deal of courage and dignity and personal strength on the part of Mr. Snow. That will be helpful to a lot of other patients as well. It's also helpful to the doctors who take care of those patients.

ROESGER: He talked about the prayers, the support, he said if you don't believe in a higher power, I'm here to tell you that prayers work. I know that studies have been done that show that faith does help heal people.

BRAWLEY: That's right, that's absolutely correct. People who maintain some type of hope, some type of faith, do tend to do much better. People who can talk about their disease with other people, focus groups, people who participate in focus groups in breast cancer, for example, talking about the disease do better than people who close themselves away from society and try to become recluses.

ROESGER: Tony Snow had more comments about the chemotherapy treatment. So I want to listen in to a bit more from his statement.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SNOW: In an age like ours, things are happening very rapidly in the medical realm. I'm taking a cancer cocktail this time around, a chemo cocktail, that will contain two agents that were not in broad use two years ago. Things are moving very rapidly, and there's always hope.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROESGER: Dr. Brawley, he mentions two agents in a chemo cocktail. We've all heard AIDs cocktail, but I hadn't heard of chemo cocktails.

BRAWLEY: In oncology, it started in the 1960s, the idea of mixing several different agencies with different mechanisms of actions, different side effects, trying to get increased bang for the buck or increased activity. We do that now. We have things called fall five-phlox, that's used in colon cancer, and he's undoubtedly talking about those that really weren't available three years ago.

ROESGER: Is this something he's just getting, or can other people get these?

BRAWLEY: These drugs are available virtually throughout the United States. Any major cancer center has them available. This is not within the experimental realm. Back in the late 1990s, the only way one could get them would be in one of the clinical trial at one of the elite cancer centers, but now they've been proven to be useful and are widely available.

ROESGER: He says I plan to start weekly chemotherapy. We assume he will continue to work. How exhausting are the treatments these days? Or is that something we recall about chemotherapy?

BRAWLEY: Well, it will depend on the drugs that people get. When we talk about colon cancer regimens, there are several out there, not just the one he's getting. Generally it is tiring. Some people are able to work through it, and I'll tell you, I really believe that someone who tries to go to work and tries to do their routine activities is actually going to end up doing better than someone who does not. So I applaud what he's doing.

ROESGER: We know it started with colon cancer, but now there's some suggestion it has spread to his liver. Yet Tony Snow, we'll hear another piece of sound, he said it wasn't the liver but attached to the liver.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SNOW: I think a lot of people got overly concerned. It is attached to the liver, it is not a liver cancer per se. It is treatable, it is, the way they've described this is not curable, at least by standards, but you never know, given what happens. Some people in fact do have complete remission on this. What we're trying to do is to knock it into remission, turn what used to be a failed disease into a chronic disease, which we will treat with regular chemo for however long we need to.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROESGER: So, Dr. Brawley, what do you think he meant by attached to the liver?

BRAWLEY: My suspicion is that he had a metastasis (ph). Some of his colon cancer which had spread from the colon had moved up to and was sitting up on the liver versus being inside the liver. To an oncologist it doesn't matter, it's a colon cancer metastasis area near the liver versus in the liver. The prognosis is the same, the treatment in many respects are exactly the same. He's right, many people do misidentify colon cancer which has spread to the liver as now liver cancer. Liver cancer is a separate and totally different disease. Similarly people will talk about prostate cancer which is spread to the bone as bone cancer. That again is a mislabeling, it's prostate cancer which has spread to the bone, not bone cancer.

ROESGER: He says his prognosis is what he hopes to be total remission. Is that possible?

BRAWLEY: I don't know enough, and if I did, it wouldn't be appropriate for me to actually state. But I can tell you that people who have colon cancer, who have one relapse as he has, some of them do do very very well. Some of them get into a situation where the analogy would be a smoldering fire where every once in a while one needs to get a bit of chemotherapy to put down the disease and then they can go for several years and need to get chemotherapy again. There are people who do very very well once they have relapsed from colon cancer.

ROESGER: And hope for a lot of people all across the country.

BRAWLEY: That's right.

ROESGER: Thanks, Dr. Brawley.

Don?

LEMON: The dropping dollar bringing a flood of bargain hunting tourists to American shores.

Also, this one, from American Idol to under arrest. The charges that landed this former idol finalist in trouble with the law. We'll have that for you straight ahead in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: The stock market, well, judging by the DOW anyway, is at an all-time high, but not so the lowly greenback. The U.S. dollar is taking a pounding against other world currencies, but that's not all bad. Holders of those currencies are itching to spend them, and guess what? They're spending them right here. CNN's Richard Roth takes a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Welcome to our gray line tour. Welcome to New York.

RICHARD ROTH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): The slogan used to be "I love New York," but now tourists from overseas are singing I love the low dollar.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's wonderful.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Very good exchange rate, at the moment.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Fantastic, great time to come. We would have come anyway, but the fact that it was $2 per pound was fantastic.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The ball drops right here in Times Square.

ROTH: Dropping faster than the ball is the dollar plunging to near-record lows against the Euro and British pound. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We've come all the way from London especially with the currency at the moment and made quite a few purchases.

ROTH: The Italians savor the euro's moment. The Dutch got instructions.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Don't take anything with you, buy everything here.

ROTH: And Canadians are enjoying currency revenge.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We've been through that, but it's our turn.

CATHY LIEN, FOREX CAPITAL MARKETS: Exactly unauthorized access, so no one has filmed in here before.

ROTH: This is where the dollars' fall when down. The dealers' room at Forex Capital Markets, on Wall Street, trading currencies online. The DOW Jones hit an all-time high, yet the greenback is slumping.

LIEN: Confidence is not necessarily a problem, it's just that people are not necessarily as interested in buying the U.S. dollar as many other currencies, because they have better prospects than we do.

ROTH: Talk about shop until the dollar doesn't drop.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I bought, shoes, clothing, lots of food.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're always shopping constantly, just shopping, shopping, shopping.

ROTH: Handbags and jewelry are prime targets.

JESSICA HODGES, BLAIR DELMONICO STORE: We have a lot of European customers that come to shop here for the same merchandise at a lesser cost. They go crazy! It's great! It's like Christmas for them half the time.

ROTH: Americans like the Times Square "naked cowboy" are left feeling stripped bare by the tourist invasion.

(on camera) It's another summer of tourism with record numbers, perhaps as many as 50 million people.

(voice over) Americans, though, can't return the favor, because it's so expensive in Europe.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're not happy to hear it at all. We're very, very unhappy. We'll go, though. We'll economize somewhere else.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Coming up here on your right. Look up, up, up, the Empire State Building.

ROTH: You don't look up these days to find the U.S. dollar. Richard Roth, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEMON: Good that they're spending it here.

We have some amazing video to tell you about. A lot of videos from our I-Reporters, in fact very valuable information and pictures come from them. One is in Richmond, a train versus an 18-wheeler. This couple was right there as it happened. They took this I-Report for us.

You see that? That train, wow, going right into the side of that 18-wheeler. That's our I-Reporter, Laura Kennedy. She lives on the other side of the track. She and her husband were trying to go home. The driver got out of the cabin of the truck, waved his hands, got back in the cabin, and was in the cabin when the train actually hit. And Laura Kennedy, rather, is on the phone with us. She's on the phone right now and she's going to tell us her experience. You were waiting in that backup, that line right there when this all happened, correct?

VOICE OF LAURA KENNEDY, I-REPORTER: That's correct. We were at the red light when we noticed the truck high centered on the tracks. My husband said there was a train coming, and we had our camera, and I said, I do, and that's when I began taping the footage.

LEMON: You see it hits, Laura, right into the side of that 18- wheeler there, but then the driver you said, was in the cab, and it looks like the cabin pretty much held up?

KENNEDY: Yes, that's correct. Fortunately no one was injured.

LEMON: Tell us when you were sitting there, how long were you there? You saw the driver actually get out for a while? Tell us about that.

KENNDEY: Yes, he got out of the cab, and his was okay and probably a bit shocked. And well, he got out of the cab, and then he got back in, the train hit, and after a few -- about 30 seconds, he came back out of the cab as we were driving by, and he was fine.

LEMON: Do you know if he got out of the cab, was his truck stalled in was it traffic that he was right in the middle of the intersection and couldn't move?

KENNEDY: From our perspective, the grade on the track right there, is pretty high, basically his trailer got stuck on the tracks from our perspective. And he -- I guess he -- he got back into the cab trying to move forward, but he was unable to.

LEMON: Again, you were driving along highway 90 in Richmond right next to the train tracks, and you saw that all unfold. That's our I-Reporter Laura Kennedy. Thank you so much for the I-Report.

KENNEDY: Thank you. LEMON: You too can be an I-Reporter, just go to CNN.com/ireports, and file your pictures and video. And we want you to stay out of harm's way, but those pictures are certainly good. Many times they're the first people on the scene.

ROESGER: You notice that train never stopped.

LEMON: At least in the video it didn't.

ROESGER: Well, coming up, a little more excitement, but this one on the big screen. We'll check the latest entertainment news after the break, and here with a preview is Sibila Vargas in Los Angeles.

SIBILA VARGAS, CNN ENTERTAINMENT REPORTER: That's a tough act to follow, but it is one of the most anticipated movies of the summer, Spiderman 3. I'll go one on one with Tobey Maguire, straight ahead, in the NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROESGER: Her own web site calls her a spitfire, but former American Idol finalist Jessica Sierra may want to tone it down a little. She was arrested over the weekend for allegedly throwing a heavy glass at a man in a Tampa cafe. She's 21 years old and she was booked on charges of aggravated battery, cocaine possession and bringing contraband into a jail. She's free now on bond. She was a top ten finisher on American Idol back in 2005.

LEMON: Well, since the first two Spiderman flicks had record openings, you better believe lots, expect it from Spiderman 3. This report from Sibila Vargas, who got to sit down with spiedy himself.

VARGAS: Sure did.

LEMON: It looks like you are wearing your spiedy top, there.

VARGAS: You noticed! The webbing here. Yes.

LEMON: It's all coordinated.

VARGAS: Even before I started my interview, he warned me he wasn't the best of interviews. He's kind of quiet. This is a guy that dealt with his parents divorce at a very young age, he dropped out of high school and was even in rehab before he was 21-years-old. Last November he became a first-time dad and gave me some more insight into his troubled past.

The thing about super heroes, they show us they go through insurmountable odds at times and we do as people. That's what your character is going through right now. Have you ever felt that way?

TOBY MAGUIRE, ACTOR: Well, not quite like that. I've definitely made my share of mistakes, but never with the types of consequences or stakes that Peter Parker faces.

VARGAS: We've all experienced, you know, tragedy or someone trying to put us down. We look at Tobey Maguire as this super hero and this guy that has it all. Have you yourself gone through things that you've had to get through? And how did you get through it?

MAGUIRE: I've definitely been through, you know, challenging times. I think it's okay to be hurt or to experience emotional things, but you can't allow that to, like, sedate you or keep you down. You have to walk through things.

VARGAS: Well, it certainly seemed like there's a bit of a parallel with your character and almost in your life. This is a new beginning for you in your way. You've got your child and --

MAGUIRE: Right.

VARGAS: How are you feeling? How is life right now?

MAGUIRE: For me, life is great. I'm excited about this movie coming out, so it's a lot of fun, promoting the film and, you know, life with my fiancee and my baby girl is just great, you know. I just can't, it's what everybody says. It's that indescribable amazing experience that everybody talks about.

VARGAS: Someday she'll know you're playing Spiderman. Do you think about that?

MAGUIRE: I know. But it's like I have two little brothers who have been there for all three films and, you know, they're sweet. They're the greatest kids, but they're kind of blase about the film. I'm like, what did you think? Thinking they'll get all jazzed, and they're like, yes, yes, it's cool, whatever.

VARGAS: And Spiderman 3 makes its debut tonight. I've already seen the movie and fans will not be disappointed. We'll have more on SHOWBIZ TONIGHT.

And tonight, an emotional interview with Miss America, she tells us about her daring undercover mission to catch child sex predators. And it's only on SHOWBIZ TONIGHT, 11:00 p.m. eastern and pacific on Headline Prime. Back to you, Don.

LEMON: Sibila, the spiedy top is a big hit in the control room.

VARGAS: All right.

LEMON: Listen, we'll be watching. Have a great show tonight.

VARGAS: All right.

ROESGER: Well, first the big apple, now Boston, another major city is squirming with vermin. Well go on the rat control in the CNN NEWSROOM.

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