According to our friends over at ACC Now, the Duke vs. St. Louis basketball game, scheduled to tip off at noon Saturday on WRAL, has been moved to the WRAL Fox affiliate WRAZ (aka Fox 50).

WRAL is moving the Duke game in order to air coverage of the funeral of Elizabeth Edwards.

Coverage of the funeral begins at 12:30 with a special, "Remembering Elizabeth Edwards," and then the funeral will be aired beginning at 1pm. The coverage will also stream on the WRAL.com website.

WRAL occasionally airs funerals of well known local people. They aired the funeral of Senator Jesse Helms in 2008 and the funeral of NCSU basketball coach Kay Yow last year.

UPDATE: The funeral will also air at 1pm on the MSNBC cable station.

Yesterday, the tiny Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas,  announced that it was going to be picketing the funeral of Elizabeth Edwards on Saturday. This prompted expressions of outrage from many people and it looks like there may be some organized efforts to mount a counter-demostration to shield the Edenton Street United Methodist Church from the Westboro picketers.

We ran the story about this on page 3 of our local section today. We had a little  discussion about this at our  news meeting yesterday afternoon, but not a lot.  Page 3 of the local section seemed about right.  I was a little more excited about the story, probably because it doesn't take a whole lot to get me excited about stories about controversies and commotion,  but other editors made a good case for 3B. Which is why we have this meeting every day, so we can talk through things.

Westboro is a  group that looks for opportunities to gain the maximum possible publicity for its view that God is punishing America for  same-sex marriage and the like.  Like picketing at funerals of  soldiers.

For a church with a very small congregation -- mostly consisting of the pastor's family and relatives -- Westboro has gotten a lot of publicity.

We published a story because the Westboro group may -- possibly -- cause a commotion on Saturday at a very high-profile funeral in our downtown. There is also the possibility that the presence of the Westboro picketers may cause no more than a minor ripple. We put it on 3B because this is a very small group with little impact in our society beyond an ability to irritate the heck out of people, provoke the occasional lawsuit, and generate legislation requiring them to keep their distance from funerals.

Rumors started circulating over the weekend that Elizabeth Edwards had taken a turn for the worse, and that family members were on their way to her home outside Chapel Hill.  Our reporters were hearing this Sunday night, but no one would say anything publicly. 

Monday afternoon, the family issued a statement that treatment for her cancer had been halted.  A statement from Mrs. Edwards thanking her friends and well-wishers appeared on Facebook.  Stories began to pop up all over the web, including our own site.

Still, we didn't know much.  That's why we ran our story on the local front of today's paper, instead of 1A.  A story by the Associated Press, quoting an unidentified friend of Mrs. Edwards, said doctors had told her she "may have little time left."  It was impossible to tell from that whether that meant days, weeks or months.

By mid-afternoon today, it began to appear that it wouldn't be weeks, and might be days. And around 5 p.m., we learned that she had passed away.

As is the practice with well-known people such as Elizabeth Edwards, we had an obituary already prepared, the one that is on our web site now, written by staffers Rob Christensen and Mandy Locke. We put it online once we had confirmation.

In the mid-'90s, before her husband was elected to the U.S. Senate, before he was a vice presidential nominee, before he ran for president, before her battle with cancer made her an heroic figure, and before her husband's extramarital affair made him tabloid fodder, Elizabeth Edwards was known primarily by a circle of friends and professional colleagues in Raleigh as a great wife and mother and a skillful lawyer.  By the time of her passing, she was a national figure swept up in her husband's breaktaking rise and fall, and her death was being reported globally.

When a person becomes very, very famous, the first word of their passing is big news and is the subject of a one-sentence wire service bulletin to alert news organizations in the U.S. and worldwide. So it was that at 4:56 p.m., the bulletin went out from Washington AP:  "Family friend says Elizabeth Edwards has died."     

Elizabeth Edwards will appear on tomorrow's edition of "The Nate Berkus Show" to talk about her cancer battle and her hopes for the future.

According to the press release from the show, the estranged wife of John Edwards "speaks candidly with Nate for a daytime exclusive about reclaiming her life, her battle with cancer, and how becoming a recent furniture shop owner is a tie to her past and a bridge to her future."

The interview takes place at Edwards' Chapel Hill home furnishing store, Red Window, and also at her home. There's also a segment filmed in Nate's New York studio in which Nate and Edwards surprise a woman inspired by Edwards' story.

"The Nate Berkus Show" airs each weekday at 2pm on WNCN, NBC-17.

Click below to read excerpts from the interview.

Design star Nate Berkus debuts his new afternoon talk show next week, and some local moms are looking forward to reliving their time in Nate's blue-eyed spotlight. 

For a segment in an upcoming episode of "The Nate Berkus Show," Nate met with Chapel Hill author and educator Dr. Amy Tiemann as part of his nationwide "listening tour" to find out what is on the minds of moms in America. Chapel Hill was the first stop in the tour.

Nate sat down with Dr. Tiemann and four other local moms (Emily Faison, Rhonda Boyke, Trish Krautheimer, and Tatiana Brown) to talk about their struggle to take care of themselves while also taking care of others.

Elizabeth Edwards will appear on "The Nate Berkus Show" during the show's premiere week in September.

According to a press release for the show, the Chicago designer made famous by Oprah Winfrey will interview Edwards at her Red Window furniture store in Chapel Hill and will also visit her Chapel Hill home (which is for sale).

No matter the negative things that have been said about Elizabeth Edwards, what can't be denied is that she's a beautifully articulate woman who has shown grace and class during a very ugly period of her life.

That continued during her interview this morning on NBC's "Today" show. Matt Lauer talked to Edwards about the afterward she's added to the newly released paperback edition of her book "Resilience." It focuses on the demise of her 32-year marriage.

Lauer, I think did a solid interview, starting first by asking about her health. Edwards said she was on a new chemo regime and was in a peak, healthwise, rather than a valley.

The "Today Show" has snagged the first interview with Elizabeth Edwards since her separation from husband John earlier this year. Who's surprised it didn't go to ABC? Not me!

The interview with Matt Lauer will air Wednesday morning and she'll appear on CNN's "Larry King Live" later that same night.

John and Elizabeth's oldest daughter Cate wrote an essay for People magazine about her mother ....

Former John Edwards aide Andrew Young appeared on "Good Morning America" this morning to respond to Rielle Hunter's interview on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" yesterday.

Young appeared with his wife Cheri,and were interviewed by GMA anchor George Stephanopolous. Young told Stephanopolous that what struck him most about the Oprah interview was Hunter's "lack of regret" and her reluctance to accept any responsibility for her actions. "As long as their cosmic needs were satisfied, everything else was subordinated," he said.

Oh yeah, Oprah asked Rielle Hunter about all of it: the home wrecking, the paternity lies, the sex tape, the pantsless GQ photos, and much more.

In case you missed the interview today, here's how it went down.

Rielle started off her interview with Oprah by acknowledging that no one in her life thought the interview was a good idea. But she wanted to do it because she said it "felt more right after Johnny claimed paternity publicly."

That's right. She calls him "Johnny."