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Menacing Red River appears to level off

The Red River appeared to level off Saturday, as forecasters revised their predictions and said the river would remain around 41 feet for several days.

By 10 a.m., the river height was at 40.69 feet, slightly lower than its level earlier Saturday of 40.82 feet.

"The good news, or shall we say the cautiously optimistic news, is that the river is behaving rather nicely for us now," said Greg Gust of the National Weather Service.

"The official terms are that the crest is occurring. We don't believe that the actual, ultimate crest has occurred yet," Gust said, speaking at a news conference in Moorhead, Minnesota -- across the Red River from Fargo.

Gust said forecasters had revised earlier predictions. For the next several days to a week, the river is expected to "stay very near 41 feet with fluctuations of half a foot to a foot, meaning, we could rise well above 41 feet," he said.

Earlier, the agency had said the river could reach as high as 43 feet, the height of the city's dikes.

Meanwhile, North Dakota and Minnesota residents warily waited to see if miles of levees and sandbags would hold.

"Nobody in this valley, no matter how old they are ... has ever seen levels like this," Fargo, North Dakota, Mayor Dennis Walaker told CNN about the river's record-breaking height.

The water level has broken the previous record of 40.1 feet, set in 1897.

Above-freezing temperatures, followed by heavy rains this week, have caused the Red River and its tributaries to swell, but Fargo's mayor vowed to "go down swinging."

"We've been battling this thing for eight days, and we're still ahead of the ball," Walaker said Saturday.

Overnight temperatures below 10 degrees Fahrenheit had slowed the river's rise.

Lights go out across planet for Earth Hour

Lights were going out across the world on Saturday as millions of homes and businesses in major cities went dark for one hour in a symbolic gesture to highlight concerns over climate change.

In Australia, floodlights of the Sydney Opera House were extinguished as the city's iconic harbor kicked off events for Earth Hour, a day-long energy-saving marathon stretching through 88 countries and 24 time zones.

The event's Web site reported that hundreds of people lined the harbour for a glimpse of the dimming skyline at 8:30 pm -- the local time that nearly 4,000 participating cities around the world were expected to switch off non-essential lights.

Sydney became the birthplace of the Earth Hour campaign in 2007 when 2.2 million turned off their lights, igniting a grass roots movement that has become a global phenomenon.

In China, illuminations at major buildings including the "Bird's Nest" Olympic Stadium and the Water Cube were extinguished as 20 cities joined in, according to the official Xinhua news agency.

Other landmarks around the world expected to join the World Wildlife Fund-sponsored event were the Egyptian pyramids, Vatican, Niagara Falls, the Eiffel Tower, the Empire State Building, the Acropolis in Athens and the Las Vegas casino strip.

Earth Hour events got off to an unofficial start in the remote Chatham Islands in the southern Pacific Ocean where locals switched off their diesel generators, organizers said. Shortly afterwards, 44 New Zealand cities and town joined in the event.

Organizers say they hope this year's event will send a message to world leaders meeting Copenhagen in December for a major summit on climate change.

"We are asking one billion people to take part in what is essentially the first global vote for action on climate change by turning off their lights for one hour and casting a vote for earth," said executive director Andy Ridley

Lawyer stabbed 38 times; husband held

Slain attorney Chiquita Tate was such a believer in the legal system that she had a tattoo of Lady Justice on her back, college friend T. J. Crawford recalled.

"She just had an attachment to justice and doing what's right by people. She was always very serious about that," said Crawford, a teacher and community organizer in Chicago, Illinois.

But Tate, described by colleagues as a tenacious defense attorney who fought for her clients, could not save herself.

Family members and friends in Chicago; Atlanta, Georgia, and Tate's adopted home -- tiny Baker, Louisiana -- are reeling from the grisly details of Tate's slaying, and police say it was at the hands of her husband, Greg Harris. They had been married about 14½ months.

Harris, 37, is in custody, accused of stabbing Tate to death. He is charged with second-degree murder and the illegal use of a dangerous weapon. A judge last week set his bond at $500,000.

In a phone interview with CNN, Harris' attorney, Lewis Unglesby, said police have the wrong man.

"Greg Harris by all accounts ... is innocent. I don't know anybody that thinks he did it, except the police," Uglesby said. "There's nothing in his background. He has cooperated completely with the police; he's signed everything they've asked him to sign. He's let them search his house, his car."

Tate, 34, had started her own law firm in downtown Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and was doing well, family and acquaintances said.

"She was up and coming," said Cpl. L'Jean McKneely, a police spokesman in Baton Rouge.

Tate was representing a defendant in a high-profile murder trial when, police say, she became a homicide victim herself. Her body was found inside her law office on February 20. Tate was stabbed 38 times, according to a police warrant for Harris' arrest obtained by CNN.

While questioning Harris about Tate's death, police discovered an outstanding warrant for him in connection with a battery-domestic violence case. It stemmed from a December 22, 2007, incident at the couple's home.

Harris was accused of using "force and violence" against Tate, according to Baker City Court records. The court said Harris entered a not guilty plea on March 6, 2008, but did not appear for a May 8 pretrial conference. A warrant was issued for his arrest for contempt of court.

When Tate met Harris in late 2007, she fell for him, head over heels, said East Baton Rouge Parish Juvenile Court Judge Pam Taylor Johnson, Tate's mentor and former boss.

"She came in my office one day: 'I met the most wonderful guy! I need you to perform our marriage -- tomorrow,'" Johnson recalled Tate gleefully telling her.

"I told her she had to wait three days," as required by Louisiana law, Johnson added.

Tate did wait a bit. The couple's marriage license is dated January 10, 2008, just two and a half weeks after the domestic violence report from Baker police. They married on February 8, their marriage license shows.

Only the couple's immediate family members and two friends attended the ceremony at Green Chapel in Baton Rouge, said Tate's friend Shawn Collins, who was one of those on hand for the wedding.

Neighbors in suburban Baker said the couple seemed to settle into a good life in their home on Charry Drive.

Baker, population 13,000, was one of the cities that absorbed hundreds of families from the FEMA trailer homes after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The last families housed in Baker moved out last spring.

Neighbors recalled seeing Tate frequently driving down the street in her late-model Hummer and Harris steering a Mercedes.

Ethan Koobs, who lives across the street from the couple, said Tate was a "really nice lady, very upper-class, presented herself very well."

Koobs said he didn't see any discontent in the couple's lives.

"They seemed like a pleasant couple, just real nice," said neighbor Don Patton, who lives two houses down. "They kept their house and their lawn very nice."

He recalled the couple's concern for their neighbors after Hurricane Gustav, which raked south Louisiana on September 1, 2008, before petering out in southeast Texas. It knocked out power to 1.5 million homes in southern Louisiana, and thousands of homes were damaged by the wind.

Harris, a carpenter, found his skills useful.

"[Harris] was just generally concerned about everybody's well-being," Patton said. "We'd huddle in the street and he'd ask if anybody needed anything."

The couple helped their neighbors rebuild. But the warrant for Harris' arrest in the murder case revealed a fracture in the marriage. Tate was "planning on divorcing the defendant due to marital problems" and had leased her own apartment, the warrant stated.

As far as their friends were concerned, there was no trouble in the marriage and Tate appeared to be a doting wife.

She also enjoyed battling it out on behalf of her clients in the courtroom.

Tate, who was raised with six siblings, was tenacious even as a youngster, recalled childhood friend Ursula Bryant-Hill.

"She was always strong-willed and she analyzed everything. Everybody told her 'You'd be a good lawyer,'" said Bryant-Hill, of Hueytown, Alabama.

"If you knew Chiquita when she was growing up in Baton Rouge, she was always cautious about who she let in her intimate setting. 'Watch your surroundings,' that's how she was," Bryant-Hill added.

Upon graduation from college, Tate worked briefly as a legislative secretary, recording minutes at Atlanta City Council meetings.

But she longed to return home to Louisiana to attend law school at Southern University.

"When she told me she was in law school, I screamed," Bryant-Hill said.

Her friend, Juvenile Court Judge Johnson, said Tate lived by one creed: Justice for all, especially for those more vulnerable in society.

"I couldn't get her to accept the fact that 'things happen.' I told her some things you can't change [about the system], but it is our duty to see if we can equalize things," Johnson said.

Tate is remembered as someone who fought tirelessly for what she believed in. Now her loved ones hope the legal system will work for her.

The days have been long for Tate's family. Asked how she has been coping, Denita Tate, the victim's sister, said, "I'm not. It's harder every day."

"We want closure with our family and with our sister, and we want justice," Denita Tate said.

Fireman dresses as Spider-Man to rescue boy

A Thai firefighter dressed as Spider-Man to rescue an autistic boy who climbed onto a third-floor balcony and dangled his legs over the side because he was nervous on his first day of school.

Firefighter Somchai Yoosabai was called in after the 11-year-old boy's teachers and mother failed to coax him off the ledge on Monday, he said in a telephone interview Wednesday.

"He was nervous about the first day at school, and he was asking for his mother," Somchai said. "He cried and refused to let any of us get close to him."

Overhearing a conversation between the boy's mother and his teachers about his love for comics and superheroes, Somchai rushed back to the fire station to change into a Spider-Man costume before swinging into action.

"I told him Spider-Man is here to save you. No monster will hurt you now," Somchai said. "Then I told him to walk slowly toward me. I was very nervous that he might have slipped if he got too excited and ran."

Somchai, who keeps costume of Spider-Man and a Japanese superhero Ultraman to liven up fire drills at schools, said the teary-eyed boy broke into a smile and started walking into his arms.

The fictional hero was created by comic-writer Stan Lee in the early 1960s. The character regained its popularity in recent years thanks to the trilogy of Hollywood films starring Tobey McGuire and Kirsten Dunst.

ShamWow Guy In Slap, Chop Bust

Meet Vince Shlomi. He's probably better known to you as the ShamWow Guy, the ubiquitous television pitchman who has been phenomenally successful peddling absorbent towels and food choppers. Shlomi, 44, was arrested last month on a felony battery charge following a violent confrontation with a prostitute in his South Beach hotel room. According to an arrest affidavit, Shlomi met Sasha Harris, 26, at a Miami Beach nightclub on February 7 and subsequently retired with her to his $750 room at the lavish Setai hotel. Shlomi told cops he paid Harris about $1000 in cash after she "propositioned him for straight sex." Shlomi said that when he kissed Harris, she suddenly "bit his tongue and would not let go." Shlomi then punched Harris several times until she released his tongue. The affidavit, a copy of which you'll find here, notes that during the 4 AM fight Harris sustained facial fractures and lacerations all over her face (she is pictured here in mug shots snapped following busts in 2008 and 2005). After freeing his tongue, a bleeding Shlomi ran to the Setai lobby, where security summoned cops. Harris refused to cooperate with officers, who recovered $930 from her purse. "Both parties had a strong odor of an alcoholic beverage emitting from their persons," police reported. In a brief telephone interview, Harris declined to answer TSG questions about her run-in with Shlomi, though she did say she is considering a lawsuit against the pitchman. Asked if she worked as a hooker, Harris declined comment. As seen in the below mug shot, Shlomi was also injured during the fracas and, court records show, was treated at Mount Sinai Medical Center. While Shlomi and Harris were both arrested for felony aggravated battery, prosecutors this month declined to file formal charges against the combatants. Police records list Shlomi's occupation as "Marketing," but make no mention of his affiliation with the ShamWow or the Slap Chop, both of which sell for $19.95 (plus shipping and handling).

New World Trade tower drops "Freedom" moniker

The name "Freedom Tower" has been dropped for the skyscraper under construction in New York to replace the World Trade Center towers destroyed in the September 11 attacks, but some locals are not happy about it.

Designed amid much fanfare to symbolize the city's revival after the attacks in 2001, the tower, which will be New York's tallest building, has been beset by delays and its developer has struggled to attract tenants, due partly to fears it could be targeted for another attack.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which is building the 1,776-foot (541-meter) skyscraper, has admitted even its own workers do not want to return to the site where nearly 3,000 people were killed.

On Thursday, it announced it planned to refer to the building by its address -- One World Trade Center -- because that was easiest for people to identify with.

"As we market the building, we will ensure that the building is presented in the best possible way," Port Authority Chairman Anthony Coscia told reporters on Thursday.

The plan was savaged by local tabloids. "Free Dumb Tower," was the New York Post's reaction, while the Daily News' front-page headline was: "No More Freedom."

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said on Friday he was disappointed.

"I would like to see it stay the Freedom Tower but it's their building and they don't need me dumping on them," Bloomberg said on his radio show.

"If they could rent the whole thing by changing the name, then they should do that," Bloomberg said, adding the most important part of the rebuilding was a planned memorial.

"We're not going to forget what happened down there and in the end the real thing that will tell the story and memorialize and hopefully give us a lesson that this should never happen again is the World Trade Center Memorial," Bloomberg said.

George Pataki, who was New York's governor at the time of the attacks, told the Daily News the name Freedom Tower was "symbolic of our commitment to rise above the attacks of September 11." He added the addresses 1 and 2 World Trade Center should never be used again since they were the names of the twin towers.

The Port Authority announced on Thursday that after on-again off-gain talks, it signed its first commercial tenant, Vantone Industrial Co Ltd, which rented several floors for a new China Center