>> good luck with that. that is it for now. have a great weekend, everybody. thanks for joining us. we will see you back here on monday. "larry king live" starts right now. stomp tonight -- tonight, breaking news. the death of an olympic athlete before opening ceremonies. former president clinton gets a stent put in and he's

recovering today. >> i thought of it as a repair job. >> next on "larry king live." >> larry: tragedy today at the olympic games even before they started. a luge slider from the country of georgia killed when he veered off the track at a very high speed and hit a pole. you'll see video of the incident, but because it involves a death, and out of respect for the victim and his family, we'll not show the moment of impact. first we'll join with mark mckay who is in vancouver with the latest developments. is the luge dangerous? >> it's quite dangerous, larry. these competitors come down at 80, 90 miles an hour, and that's what was happening today. the final luge run, the final training run at the whistler sliding center for 21-year-old nodar kumaritashvili of the republic of georgia. just as he was reaching the finish line, he lost control of his sled, was propelled off the sled into a steel pole, an

unpadded steel pole. cpr was administered immediately. he was taken to a local hospital in whistler where he died of his injuries, larry. >> larry: weren't there complaints about how fast the luge in vancouver is this year? >> there were a number of complaints all week long, larry, leading up to the training runs. a number of competitors from around the world and a number of countries not necessarily complaining, but some have said this is the fastest track in the world. the investigation by the international olympic committee is currently under way. the actual german designer has come out and said perhaps safety modifications will have to be made before the olympic competition begins, but with that investigation under way, we do not know where that will go. the men's luge competition here at the vancouver games, larry, begins tomorrow. >> larry: does the luge have a history of accidents? >> there have been a number of accidents -- not fatal accidents in this sport.

it is completely a dangerous sport just because of the sheer fact of the speed. it is concrete, it is ice. the control that you have is some would say maybe limited, but as you come down, if you lose control like this young man did today, you're really at the mercy of where you're going to land. >> thanks, mark. the georgia team will compete in honor of their teammate. joining us on the phone is david epstein, staff writer with sporlts illustrat sports illustrated. did this shock you, david? >> yeah, it has to. this sport, there is some danger to it, but i think the last death was in 1994. it's safer than driving a car, for example, so i think it shocked everybody, slulabsolute. >> larry: do we know how fast they're going at top speed? >> during the competition, the top athletes are getting up into the mid to high 90s, which makes this far and away the fastest course in the world. this particular rider was going

88 at the time, which is still faster than any other course in the world. >> larry: the key to the sport is what? are there decisions to be made by the luge driver? >> oh, absolutely. luge, actually, of the sliding sports, bobsled, luge and skeleton, they are the most decisions in luge because the steel or the blades they run on are very rounded, so they don't dig in much. if you don't steer, that sled is going straight. so luge athletes typically start younger than any other sliding athletes because it takes a long time to master this kind of steering. >> larry: do you know what countries generally excel in this? >> well, the canadians are good, the germans are really, really great, the u.s. has some good athletes, russia has some good athletes. the germans are really, really great at it. >> larry: do we know anything about the georgians? >> that's a nation with less experience, so we don't know a lot about them, partly because

they are not one of the marking nations in this sport. >> larry: thanks, david. david epstein of sports illustrated. now joining us from vancouver is a former luge athlete, patrick quinn. how surprised were you at this event today, patrick? >> certainly like everyone else, just in complete shock. it's an enormous tragedy and certainly not the way anybody wanted to start the olympic winter games, that's for sure. >> larry: have you ever had a bad accident? >> yeah, sure. i mean, i think pretty much the nature of any of the sports, particularly the speed sports in the winter olympics, that's part of the course. you know, you're going to have accidents. it's part of the game. but i think there probably are very few athletes, be in luge, skeleton, bobsled, skiing, you name it, snowboarding, that haven't had some sort of accident. >> larry: what made you take it up? >> you know, for me it was just -- really, it was the opportunity to fulfill an

olympic dream, and i think that's the case with a lot of the athletes here. again, it's just an enormous tragedy that here's this young man on the eve of fulfilling that lifelong dream. i think for a lot of athletes, you try and get to the olympic games and here's your moment. it's just a shock wave through the whole community. >> larry: so you would term it a dangerous sport? >> i'm sorry? >> larry: you would term it a dangerous sport? >> well, in fact, i really would not despite the fact of what happened today. luge is really a safer sport than many despite the way that it looks. i grew up as a hockey player, and i can tell you there were more injuries i had as a hockey player than i ever did in luge. there is no question that there is inherent danger in it. you certainly are going very fast, but there is a lot of safety precautions that are put in place, and this is an anomaly. certainly there has not been this sort of occurrence in many, many years.

and, again, it's a tragedy. >> thanks, patrick. patrick quinn, former united states luge athlete. bill clinton is talking today about his health scare last night, next.

president bill clinton was released from new york's columbia presbyterian hospital this morning. he walked out in excellent health according to his statement. doctors performed a stent procedure thursday to restore

blood flow in one of his coronary arteries. here he is in his own words just a few hours ago. >> i was quite tired over christmas and afterward, but from the time of the haiti earthquake, which was a month ago today, i've been working a lot without sleeping much. you know, i've been down there a couple times but i've been working all over the country and trying to -- i went to switzerland to get some more business support there and had three overnight flights in a week, which is pretty tough. so i didn't really notice it until about four days ago, and then i felt just a little built of tingling. not pain, no grabbing in my chest, and i thought i ought to check it out. it is a fairly typical thing. as you know, larry king had the same thing done about a month ago and didn't even say anything to anybody. it's miraculous what they do with the stents, you just go in and go out. i didn't take any sedatives or anything, so i was alert. i wanted to watch it. i got to watch it on the

monitor. >> larry: the president and i are in the same club. mr. president, if you're watching, by the way, you are welcome to call in. chief of cardiac surgery. he performed heart surgery on me. dr. dean, who is a consultant to president clinton. dr. sanjay gupta, cnn's medical correspondent and the lovely and talented jane seymour. she just attended the red dress event here in new york. she had a life-threatening condition linked to blood pressure. wayne isen, were you surprised at how well the president looked today and acted? >> no, not at all. that's routine, and you're a good example of that.

i would expect him to go back strong. it sounds like that's his personality. >> larry: do you expect him to be as active as he was. >> i do. i love president clinton, and like all of us, i'm delighted that he's okay. i expect him to be as vigorous as ever. >> larry: dr. gupta, clinton's doctor said he showed no evidence of any heart attack or damage to the heart, the prognosis excellent. would you call this procedure a big deal? >> well, you know, it's funny, surgeons always say there is no such thing as a simple procedure, just simple surgeons, so everything potentially has its risks for sure. compared to the operation he had back in 2004, this is much less in invasive. that obviously involved opening the chest. this is a puncture wound in the leg area, they thread a catheter up through the artery and sometimes you can have problems with that, but much less risky

than what he had done six years ago, larry. >> larry: jane, when i say the word bypass or stents or heart procedure, we think men. that's a misnomer, isn't it, jane? >> you know, i think mostly you think about heart disease being for men, but actual formal women, it is the number one killer of women. you are ten times more likely to die of heart disease as a woman today than all the cancers put together. and it's a silent killer. that's the terrible thing. there are no symptoms at all. you have no idea, and it happened to me so i know it firsthand. >> larry: wayne, dr. isom, what should the president be doing now? i was told after the procedure, don't exercise for a week to ten days. take a little more aspirin. >> that's it, and stay away from barbecue and chicken fried steak and mexican food, things like that. watch your diet.

>> larry: his doctor said it was not due to lifestyle or diet. how do they know? >> well, you know, i have a different perspective, and i can't talk about the president directly, but i can say in general, for them to say that lifestyle, diet, exercise, stress really don't have anything to do with whether a bypass clogs up is just not what the facts show. we have done studies and others have replicated them showing when you change your lifestyle, you can stop the reverse progression of heart deisease. if you put a bypass in, it like filling a sink without turning off the faucet or putting an oil filter in without changing the oil, it's just going to clog up again. i don't say that to blame but to empower. when we change our lifestyle to what most doctors recommend, we can stop and reverse the

progression of disease and we can keep those bypasses open without negative having to have another stent. >> larry: would it be wise to have the president return to port-au-prince, dr. gupta? >> the conditions here are questionable, no doubt about it, but as far as connecting the dots between someplace like haiti and heart disease is probably hard to do. it is a polluted city, the fourth most polluted city in the world. it's hot down here. he was hot down here before, touring around a lot, very active. but i can't imagine i would connect the dots between a trip to haiti and heart disease. i don't think he would take that trip right away, but at some time in the future, i don't think it would be a problem. >> larry: when we come back, we'll ask jane seymour about the emotional effects on the heart. he's held my heart, regis' heart in my hand. still ahead, we'll go inside the

operating room of dr. wayne isom. more in 60 seconds.

jane seymour, it is valentine's day weekend. what do we know about the connection, and i mean this seriously, of broken hearts and heart disease? >> well, they've just had the science on it. i just met with one of the top cardiologists in the country two days ago at your event, larry, and she was telling me there is an actual disease now where people die and the reason they die is the hearts are broken and they've closed off their laerhe literally. i know with the whole open heart thing i do, it might sound close to that, but it's really true, apparently. people die of something that if they were able to open their hearts and let go of the pain in their lives, let go of the emotional pain, they actually recover. it's just astounding, and another thing they discovered was there is real feeling in the heart, actual emotion in the heart. it's astounding, isn't it?

>> larry: i'll ask wayne about that in a moment. president clinton doesn't seem to be taking it easy. here's more of what he said today. >> i worked about three hours this afternoon on haiti. we have a lot of challenges there. we have too many people living in close quarters with water building up and too much risk of water-borne illnesses and stuff like that. but i feel great, and the doctors and hospital crew did a great job, and as i said, i even did a couple miles on the treadmill today, so i feel good. >> larry: politics aside, he is amazing. what do you make of what jane said about emotions in the heart, dr. isom? >> she knows more about it than i do and i'm sure not an expert. i do think i see this after surgery, if somebody comes out of surgery with a positive attitude and is emotionally stable, they're going to do better. i guess you could say the same thing even before the surgery, if they've dpot a positive attitude and they take care of

themselves like dr. ornish says, they probably will. >> larry: dr. ornish, it was said that dr. bernanke, if he has two patients, the one with a positive attitude does better. >> i agree with dr. bernanke, but stress does cause your arteries to con strict, it ka cause the arteries to build up faster, it can cause blood clots to form that causes a heart attack, that's the bad news. but stress is not simply something you do, more importantly it's how you react to what you do. if you practice some simple stress management techniques, you can be in the same job, you can go to haiti, and not have it affect it. you can accomplish even more without getting so stressed and without getting sick in the process. >> larry: sanjay, do you

understand why the president is so passionate about haiti? >> he's had an affinity for this place for a long time, larry. i interviewed him when he was down here and talked about haiti with him a few times in the past. he had his honeymoon here, as i know you've talked about, larry, so he's been thinking about haiti for a long time. i think he has a strong affinity not only to haiti but to the haitian people living in haiti and the united states, and he's talked about the great potential for this country, and i think like many people, they're confused and even sad denned a little bit about how devastated this place was even before the earthquake. 80% poverty rate, very poor infrastructure, very poor quality of life. he said hopes, dreams and ambitions are equally distributed around the world, but working systems justice is sometimes not and haiti is a good example of that, larry. >> larry: jane, both your parents had heart disease.

does this add to your concern? >> yes, i think it is. you know, i think -- everyone is going to have something, and both my parents had heart disease, and, you know, they had really bad eating habits. my mother survived a concentration camp, so she just decided she was going to eat everything she possibly could. she lasted to 92, she did pretty well. my father had a quadruple heart bypass, heart valve replacement and all of that, and i've actually watched a number of open heart surgeries. so i know the miracle of what it's done. i went to dean ornish with my husband james, and we did his program for a week, and it made a huge difference. i really believe in it. i do believe that you have to do everything in your power, especially if you know that your family carries that, you know, that ailment. you've got to do everything in your power if you want to live. if you don't care, that's fine, it's your choice. >> larry: well said, jane. thank you. >> can i just add one thing to what jane said? >> larry: quickly.

>> even if your mother and father and sisters and brothers all died from heart disease, it doesn't mean you need to, you just need to change your lifestyle more. when you change your lifestyle it actually changes your genes and in only three months, hundreds of them turning on the good genes, turning off the bad genes. >> larry: jane, thanks for joining us. we're going to see dr. isom perform open heart surgery. the larry king cardiac foundation saves a heart a day. that's the red band i wear. for information on how you can help or if you need surgery, check out lkcf.org. we'll be right back with a look inside the operating room. ♪

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broadview security for your home or business - the next generation of brink's home security. call now. >> larry: we're back. dwayne isom's cardiac team has performed 40,000 open heart surgeries. he's literally held my heart in his hand. we followed his patient, 73-year-old gerald munshine, as he underwent triple bypass surgery. take a look at this story. sdp >> this all happened because i took a stress test, which i take yearly. and it showed that i had some what they call ischemia, which the heart muscle wasn't getting

enough oxygen. >> he could die. the reason we're doing this is even though he doesn't have any symptoms, he's got a good chance of dropping dead over the next year. he's got some blockage right in this vessel, and that's actually what larry had. larry had a left main stem. so you've got about 10 or 12% chance a year of dying. scissors. just regular scissors. i know where the blockages are, so it gives me an idea of where i need to go. i make a mental note of it back when i first saw the patient last week, and i always look at things right before i go in. this is my road map. >> the fact that he had had a stent in the past makes it a little more difficult. we're 95% certain of what we need to do and what the plans are. 5% you might need to call some

a audibles at the line. most of the time when you operate on somebody like this, you develop a real bond between the patient and the patient with you. >> how are you? >> fine, thank you. >> sounds perfect. >> that's what i was waiting to hear. >> stick your tongue out and go awwww. >> i was hoping to get back to my old ways, and the fact i'm already back to work is a big plus. if it didn't save my life immediately, it certainly saved my lifestyle for the future. >> larry: gerald is a devoted pediatrician. your patient said he felt no pain or discomfort, didn't even know his life was in danger. >> that's one of the problems, and we always thought patients

who had really bad chest pain, you had to do something, but over the years, we found out about 10 or 15% don't have any pain at all. we call it silent myocardial ischemia, and it's even worse with women because they have atypical angia, which might sound completely different, so it more difficult to diagnose than most. >> any similarities between gerald and bill clinton? >> i can't talk about the president's because i work with him, but it's important to know that if you need a bypass, dr. isom is the guy to see. he's a master at it. unless your unstable, and what i know about the president's condition, he needed one, but 90 to 95% of patient are stable and they're getting it because they're concerned they're not getting enough blood. but the random trials in the

noerk nonew york journal of medicine says stents don't prevent loss of life. if you change your lifestyle significantly, you can reduce angina simply by changing diet and lifestyle and the only side effects are good ones. >> i don't know, he may be a little smarter than i am, i try not to be too smart. certainly if a patient has got really bad angina and they've got critical blockage, you need to do something for the symptoms. if they don't have it and they've got critical blockage, the big question is, do you have time for the medical therapy? >> larry: i can't let sanjay go without asking about the one-month anniversary of the earthquake in haiti. how are they doing? >> there is no question things are better here than they were a week ago, which was better than a couple weeks before that. the way i would describe it, and

i thought about this quite a bit over the past couple days, there is sort of an immediate phase when it comes to medical. a lot of things that had to be done to save lives, a lot of those have been performed. there were a lot of critical patients, as you know, larry. what's really striking me is now the recovery phase of these patients. they have to recover from their operations, their wounds, and unfortunately, there are a lot of people recovering in the setting behind me, in tent cities. people literally living nose to nose at high risk of infection, hard to get the medications they need, they can't get the dressing changes. it's one of those things. obviously you want to do the life-saving operation, but unless the follow-up is there, the rehab and all that is done, it makes the immediate care a little less reasonable. >> thank you all.

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it's political time. by the way, we had some big name guests all over the east. the panel is catariva van der

hoefen, stephanie miller, a radio talk show host who moved east from l.a., and andrea tentaras, strategist and columnist. michelle obama was our guest on tuesday. here's what she had to say on health care, and we'll get your comments. >> larry: do you think they'll get a health bill? >> i don't think we have a choice. when we look at these statistics, we're spending billions of dollars on preventable diseases and new health care legislation could go a long way to preventing administration, first and foremost. people have to be able to take their children to pediatricians

to be able to get this tracked. we have to have this done. i'm hoping the american people come together, that people will recognize that doing nothing is absolutely not an option. >> ms. katrina, what do you make of what she said? >> this is a crisis, larry, one-third of childhood obesity, one half of minority children. i think michelle obama has taken on the right crusade. she's doing it with, i think, humanity and dignity and trying to bring people together. but there is a measure of how we organize our life, the way food is subsidized. junk food is less expensive than healthy food. >> it is a blight on our country to see that we don't have a better story in medicine? >> i think she's right in that we need to get a better health care system. where she's wrong is putting up this strong arm argument that

people on the right don't want to have that happen. that's just not the case. i was listening to jonathan kron, 14-year-old wonder kid today, and he said we need to scrap the bills and start over. i think if a 14-year-old realizes we need to start from scratch, i think we should all lirch u listen up. this is a pragmatic approach. >> which 14-year-old is this? >> jonathan kron. >> they sent all these things before they would even have this televised debate with him. i think they were afraid to show up for this debate because they were afraid the president would make them look like half-ass

jerks. larry le>> larry: do you see a there? >> absolutely. he outsourced this bill to pelosi and reid, and now he has this strain around his neck. they could have passed this bill. they didn't have the votes because of these deep divisions. and so just blaming this on the republicans and obstruction is an empty argument. >> larry: do republicans want every american to be insured? do they? yes or no. >> yes, but there's other ways to get people who are eligible for medicaid on the roles now without cutting $500 billion from medicare. there are other things we can do. i don't think republicans need to work with the president just because he's the president. if it's a bad bill and barack obama is inviting them to the table, he's essentially saying, this thing is a stinker. the american people don't want it. come help me take ownership of this stinker. >> ic think he did need to draw lines in the sand, president

obama, earlier than he did. we shouldn't have had a summer where matt bacas was playing footsie. >> i agree with both of them. the president needs to be a little less erckel and a little more shaft. >> larry: we'll see what vice president biden said to me earlier this week right after this. i have asthma. and when my symptoms-the coughing, wheezing, tightness in my chest came back- i knew i had to see my doctor. he told me i had choices in controller medicines. we chose symbicort. symbicort starts to improve my lung function within 15 minutes. that's important to me because i know the two medicines in symbicort are beginning to treat my symptoms and helping me take control of my asthma. and that makes symbicort a good choice for me. symbicort will not replace a rescue inhaler for sudden symptoms.

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>> larry: we've got some breaking news for you, an update on the nato offensive that gn a short time ago in afghanistan, a big offensive of the war targeting the taliban. fred with the latest from kabul. fred? >> hi, larry. for the first time now, nato and u.s. forces here in afghanistan have actually confirmed that this operation is now under way. i was on the phone with them just a couple of minutes ago, asking them for an operational update. they said so far they have no information as to any casualties on the u.s. side. however, larry, what we do know is that a couple hours ago under the cover of darkness, u.s. marines, british forces and afghan forces began an air assault on the town of marja in heroics, helman province. it's the most volatile province in all of afghanistan.

what they're trying to do is take this place back from the taliban. it's been under taliban control for a very long time. what happened before this offense, larry, it was televised by the taliban. they told the u.s. forces they were coming and one of the things that led to is that the taliban has dug in. they dug in a lot of improvised weapons in that area. they told us they believe the improvised explosive devices on the ground there are going to be their biggest threat. so what you have right now in the town of marja in helman province is an air assault going on and marines and afghan forces advancing on the ground in what is very, very dangerous terrain, and the last taliban stronghold in helman. larry? >> fred in kabul. is it going to work? >> gosh, i hope so. i'll certainly be thinking about these guys.

it's great to have nato on board. i think it was touch and go for a while, whether or not we would get their support. i think it's really interesting that joe biden said recently that finally, now that biden is there, we have a policy that the world can respect again. i feel like he's kind of like barn um and bailey. this is the greatest show on earth. if he says it and sells it with a smile, then we're going to believe it, but nothing has chang schang changed. >> wait a minute, let's get serious. larry, as we sit here, $190,000 is spent every minute on our good forces in afghanistan. think of what we could do with that money to provide security for the men and women in afghanistan, not military, and what we could do to rebuild this country. and it is not -- >> we just spent more troops to afghanistan, so obama is doing nothing different than bush has done.

what is the change? >> i am not a partisan, i am an analyst, and i am just saying you don't beat the taliban by military destruction. >> larry: i asked him about the chances of another terrorist attack and he said this. watch. >> the idea of there being a mass attack in the united states like 9/11 is unlikely, in my view. but if you see what's happening, particularly with al-qaeda and the arabian peninsula, they have decided to move in the direction of more small bore but devastatingly small attacks. but i think what you're seeing and that's a concern to us, the concern relates to somebody like the shoe bomber or the underwear bomber, the christmas attack, or somebody just strapping a backpack on them with explosives

that are indigenous and blowing up --. >> larry: more like an attempt? >> yeah, i think there will be attempts. >> how is this shoe bomber any different than the underwear bomber? suddenly -- and he prosecuted him and 209 other terrorists in criminal courts. so the obama administration -- and first of all, you got a lot of information out of this guy without torturing him, out of this underwear bomber, so how do you -- >> how do you know? >> people on the right like newt gingrich are just out and outlying, larry. richard reed was an american citizen. no, he wasn't. >> but he pled guilty. we didn't have a system in place to --

>> that's the bottom line principles in which we built our country. do we believe in the federal justice system? >> i don't think the terrorist deserved our benefits of a justice system. this is a fundamental argument over how you enter gate terrorists, and i'm sorry you don't know if we got information from the underwear bomber, nobody knows because he was given a lawyer fairly quickly. >> not unlike the shoe bomber. >> he got his miranda rights less than five minutes after his capture. >> and in this case, why would we give this guy a lawyer? the minute we gave him a lawyer, he stopped talking. so when joe biden says we might have another attack, we don't know. >> larry: let me get a break and we'll talk about sarah palin and others as well. don't go away. from the sinus triple threat.f new sudafed pe® triple action™. more complete relief.

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it feels like a liner, but protects like a pad. because it absorbs 10 times more. there's nothing quite like it. carefree® ultra protection™. feels like a liner, protects like a pad™. we're back with this bright and lively panel. beau the vice president and john kerry had some surprising things to say about sarah palin. watch. sarah palin. >> i like sarah palin. i do, i like her. she's an engaging person, she has a great personality. i don't agree with what she says, and i think some of the things she says are not -- well -- lar. >> larry: what were you going to

say? >> some of the comments made were so far out there. i just don't know where they come from, but she -- if you met her, she's an engaging person. i understand why people like her. >> larry: are you concerned aboutpalin? >> concerned? no. why would i be concerned? i mean, she's interesting. she represents some of the transformation of american politics and to entertainment. and i think, you know, if you come up with a phrase like how do you like that hopey changey stuff, that's a pretty good phrase. >> larry: what does sarah mean to the republicans? we'll start, katrina. >> i liked what john kerry said about entertainment. i do think she's entertainment first and foremost. where the tea partyers mean to the republican party is the question at the moment. they could be a threat to the republican party. they could become a third party. you have to wonder, larry, about people who are so

anti-government. if they're anti-government, give up your social security, give up -- >> larry: what does sarah palin mean to your party? >> i don't think they're anti-government. they're anti-big government and expressing a frustration that's happening all over the country. look, conservatives don't agree on sarah palin. i know andrea and i, for example, don't agree on sarah palin. i think she has a bright future. really smart, galvanizing. i stand behind her. i like what she's doing. she's not one thing to all people. >> larry: stephanie, are you -- as a democratic liberal are you concerned about her? >> i get a lot of hate mail on my radio show saying you're a bitter, childless loser jealous of sarah palin. let me go on record -- i saw the return address. let me say, larry, i am a bitter childless loser but i'm a bitter childle childless loser that agrees with 71% of the country she's not qualified to be president of the

united states. that's the main thing. i think that's the thing everybody personalizes. >> larry: andrea in. >> i was laughing listening to john kerry talking about how she was interesting. he ran against a bumbling idiot that connected with americans and ask him how well that worked out for him. >> you think george w. bush is a bumbling idiot? >> you can argue -- you can't argue she's captured the imagination of the good portion of the electorate. what she does next, it's anybody's guess but she is on the side of i think -- of a majority of americans, independents, swing voters now who say government even a republican approach to employing government solutions is the wrong way. >> larry: let me check in -- >> i think that statistic is worth a fact check. >> larry: hold it. got to check in. let me check in with anderson cooper. what's up tonight, anderson, on "a.c. 360"? >> larry we are in port-au-prince tonight. the one-month anniversary of the

earthquake here that decimated this city. today was the day of national mourning. thousands, tens of thousands poured into the streets raising hands to heaven. celebrating their life that they were alive and also mourning the passing of so many here, death toll over more than 200,000 now. that number continues to grow. we'll have that story tonight. also we're going to bring you up to date on all the children we met over the last month. we'll update you on their condition. monley, the little boy pulled from the wreckage. we saw him today. how he is doing now. the dramatic developments. breaking news in the case of the ten american missionaries in custody. now a bizarre development. they're adviser in the dominican republic, himself, accused of being a trafficker of women in el salvador. he says it's a case of mistaken identity. we'll give you the facts, larry. >> larry: that's anderson cooper, 10:00 eastern, 7:00 pacific.

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>> larry: last night i talked with governor david paterson of new york and gave him every chance to rebut the sex allegations swirling around him. watch. the "new york post," they said that about ten weeks ago a state

trooper caught you snuggling with a woman in a closet at the governor's mansion. they quoted a police source saying the trooper opened the door, first thing he saw was a governor and woman inside, two of them snuggling together embracing. nothing more than that. snuggling and had their clothes on. is that a false story? >> it's not only a false story, larry, but there is no such closet as they described in the executive mansion and no troopers in the executive mansion. the troopers do not patrol or check inside the mansion at any time. >> larry: no closets in the mansion. where do they hang their coats? >> snuggling? that's what we're talking about? >> this is frenzied media speculation about a story that hasn't been published. you just came out of thanking anderson cooper who's been in haiti more than any other news journalist. that's the kind of journalism this country needs, not this kind of stuff about sex, allegations and -- >> welcome to new york. >> it's this country and the deterioration of the media. >> larry: what do you make of

it? a story that has not appeared. >> i've been listening to the rumors a few weeks now and trying to get the inside scoop. i have a number of insiders who tell me there is a story and it's sexual, not ethics or fraud related. i don't know if that's true. i mean, i don't know. i have been on the edge of my seat. as a politico i want to know the story. when he described last night this was almost cough kaesque, he's right. either he's done nothing wrong and this is a witch hunt or he's going to be embarrassed soon. >> we had someone in the closet in the larry craig scandal and he's still around. there's no hookers, what's the story here? >> david paterson has already cheated on his wife. he came out before he took office. >> larry: admitted that. >> exactly. we have to put this in context. this is new york. i worked on the last governor's race against eliot spitzer. it's tough. new yorkers are pretty -- look, we have the tabloids here. we have other papers. everything is sensationalized. new yorkers are used to it. they're actually quite forgiving

surprisingly. >> why is the governor's private life news? why are there state journalists in albany reporting on ethics and integrity and a state senate which has been deformed by corruption? where's the journalism about real stories in this country? >> it could not be his private life. >> there's a deeper issue. >> i love governor spitzer, but he did sign the giant golf check. should i just sign it governor of new york and just put four hookers at the bottom here? i mean, that's -- >> governor spitzer made big mistake but he knows where the bodies are buried in this financial crisis which is a larger public issue, in my mind, than sex scandals. >> larry: spitzer might be back, right, with the new yorkers forgiving, is it not? >> i don't know that we're that forgiving. >> he's a professor at a city college now. that's forgiving. >> that's true. >> larry: do you think the "times" story is going to break soon? >> i