The funeral of Whitney Houston will be widely televised on Saturday, and also streamed online.

BET, Centric, CNN, E!, Headline News and MSNBC are among the networks planning to air the funeral live from the New Hope Baptist Church in Newark, N.J.

BET and Centric will have commentary from April Woodard and Lola Oguinake starting at 11:30 a.m.  CNN will have coverage from anchors Piers Morgan, Soledad O'Brien, and Don Lemon beginning at 11. CNN will also provide a digital stream for web and mobile devices from 11:30 to 2 p.m.

MSNBC and Headline News will begin coverage at 11 and E! will cover at 11:30.

Fox News Channel will also stream the funeral live on its website and they'll air updates from the service periodically between noon and 2 p.m. Anchors Uma Pemmaraju and Rick Folbaum will cover.

Also, a press release from TV One says they will air the funeral beginning at noon ET.

Note: As of Friday afternoon -- times and anchors could change.

Wake County school board candidate Heather Losurdo unveiled a new political ad today that implies that re-electing incumbent Kevin Hill will lead to more "forced busing" and children going to school in the darkness.

The ad, which will appear on television starting Thursday, is titled "From Forced Busing to Parental Choice." It opens with a picture of students boarding a bus in the dark above the caption "Raleigh NC 6:50 AM."

Narrator: “For years, Wake County children have been bused many miles from their homes. Now there is a new bi-partisan plan that will stop forced busing and enhance parental choice. But will the new board keep the momentum going or will they lose the opportunity for a bold new beginning?"

UPDATE

If you're having problems viewing the video, click here.

Turns out LL isn't cool with being a guest on Sarah Palin's new Fox News TV show.

"Real American Stories," set to debut tonight (Hey, maybe this is all an elaborate April Fool's joke??) has widely advertised this week that Palin's first guests on the show will be actor/rapper LL Cool J and country singer Toby Keith. But that's stretching things a bit, since neither man agreed to be on the show or even knew they were being featured.

Fox News anchor Bret Baier has only been in the anchor desk at "Special Report with Bret Baier" since early January but the 38-year old newsman is already making headway in the Nielsen ratings at the 6 p.m. hour.

The former WRAL reporter - he spent two years in the Triangle before moving on to FNC in 1998 - recently spoke to The N&O about his journalism career. That story will appear in The N&O on Monday. Baier, born in New Jersey and raised in Atlanta, also opined on a few current issues for our blog audience: