While Ali stars in the Sunday Picks, Nicki grabs spotlight on TV news

It was the same old story along with a huge new story at Picks Central headquarters this week as spotlights shined on the newsmaking twins. It was Alicia once again flexing her muscle and extending her lead in the Sunday Football Picks, and then Nicole appearing on Chicago's ABC7 News to talk about a shocking fatal accident she witnessed in Lombard.

We'll start with the latter, which began Wednesday afternoon during Nicki's bus ride home from high school. Her northbound bus was stopped at the railroad gates on Elizabeth Street when the bus driver started honking and shouting warnings to another driver. A 90-year-old Lombard woman -- the mother of astronaut Dan Tani who is aboard the International Space Station -- had made a terrible driving mistake.

"The woman behind us tried to go around just as the gates were coming down, and then she got caught on the tracks," Nicki said on ABC7's 10 p.m. newscast. "I looked to the right and the front of the train was coming, and there was a loud bang."

A Union Pacific freight train smashed into the stopped car, and students on the bus started freaking out and screaming, according to Nicki. Some boys on the bus wanted to help. "One of the boys told the driver to let him off the bus because he needed to help the woman," Nicki told ABC7 that night in the living room. "The driver opened the door and the boy ran out, and two others followed him." The students discovered that the woman had sustained a serious head injury, and was trapped in her car. The boys could do nothing to assist.

Police officers and paramedics arrived quickly, but the woman could not be saved. Rose Tani was pronounced dead at Advocate Good Samaritan Hospital in Downers Grove. Only two months ago she traveled to Florida to watch her son launch on the Space Shuttle Discovery. Dan Tani is a 1979 graduate of Glenbard East High School and considered a hometown hero. He was notified of his mother's death by e-mail in space.

"I didn't believe it was his mom when someone first told me that," Nicki said. "It was the scariest thing I've ever seen. You hear about things like that and see things on the news, but it happened right in front of us."